Pistol cocked and aimed, safety off, Fern stares in the dark at the red door, listening for clues as to what's happening out there.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"Hi, yes, I'm at Freeman Market, 2103 County Route 23. There are burglars in the front of my store. They might know I'm here, my car's parked outside. I've got a pistol and I know how to use it if they come back here," Fern whispers to the dispatcher.
The dispatcher puts a call out to nearby patrols, and one of them picks it up.
"OK hon, there's two officers patrolling about 20 minutes away, they'll be there soon. What's your name?"
"Fern Freeman."
"OK, stay on the line with me until the officers arrive. Tell me if anything happens."
"OK thank you."
Fern goes quiet after that, and listens. Soon she hears metal scraping and scuffling sounds. It takes a moment for the realization to hit her: they're taking the safe. The blood drains from her face, and she whispers, "Oh, no... no, no, no, no."
The dispatcher hears her and is immediately concerned.
"Miss Freeman, did something happen? Are you alright?"
"No. They're taking my safe. They're taking my safe. It has all my savings. Everything. I-"
"Miss Freeman, the officers are almost there. Please remain calm, they're only 5 minutes away."
But then Fern hears the bell on the door ring and be stifled again, and she knows. She knows it's all over. They're going to get away. They're going to steal her dreams.
What feels like an eternity later, she hears the bell ring again.
"Miss Freeman, are you in there? It's the police, please come out now," a woman calls.
Fern turns on the safety on the pistol, places it on the floor in front of her, and opens the red door with her hands up. Once she knows they've seen her and know who she is, she drops her hands.
"You're too late," she states hoarsely. "They already got away."
The two officers, a woman and a man, take her statement, offer condolences, and promise to do what they can to catch the burglars. Luckily Fern had just restocked earlier that day, so she could tell exactly which products they had stolen, but it wasn't much, a few beers and bags of chips. Snacks for the road.
But the pièce de résistance is the small safe. The empty lot is worth about 15,000 dollars, and she had saved up 10,000 of it. She was going to go put it all in the bank the very next morning. Who would do this to her? Why?
Fern ponders these questions after uprighting the stool behind the counter that the burglars had knocked over and sitting on it.
Suddenly, she stands up off the stool, and strides quickly around the counter, speeds up to a jog and busts through the front door, and works up to full speed running down 23. She skids in the gravel to turn onto the road to her camp. No thoughts. Just wind and breathing and pain as her bare feet smack the gravel again and again. She comes up to her camp.
When Fern steps onto the grass, she realizes how sharp the gravel was. She pads down the yard in the moonlight. She looks up at the stars. She plods down the dock and sits, dipping her sore feet in the cool water. It laps at her feet, as if stroking them and comforting her. The water is so still in the dead of night that the moon and stars reflect smoothly on its surface.
Fern closes her eyes. Breathes the warm night air, feels the breeze brush her face and shoulders.
She suddenly feels heat on her cheeks and brings up her hands, to find tears. And then she's sobbing, hugging herself. The moon, stars, breeze, and water are all old friends she's visited often, but they can only comfort so much.
Fern has a tendency to bottle up her emotions. She pushes them down, determined to make the best of any situation and not get upset. But every once in a while something bad happens, and all the tears let loose. Sometimes it's a really small thing, like not having any ice cream to eat for dessert, or sometimes it's big, like being robbed.
So Fern cries. She cries tears of relief that she didn't get harmed. She cries tears for all her hard work that went down the drain. She cries because her bathroom sink is broken and she didn't have any money to fix it even before she got robbed. She cries because her favorite show was cancelled. She cries out of fear for the future of Freeman Market. The soft breeze sings a lullaby between the trees, and she falls sound asleep under the protection of the moon and stars.