Common Ground (The Common Ground Trilogy Book 1) by Barry Chaison

peaceful moment of silence. As she sat there with eyes tightly closed, my mother snuck away from the table and walked directly past me through the door-less walkway that separated the kitchen from the main living room. Her steps along the hardwood floors, which covered the entire house, finally broke the lasting silence. I watched her stride through the living room and up the staircase on the left, as my eyes shifted back towards the familiar living room.
    Nostalgia filled my heart as the familiar surroundings began to sink in. We lived in an old-fashioned, two-story log cabin, which was completely isolated from the rest of the Bainbridge Island community. The wall opposite the kitchen had a large arc fireplace mantel built in, where a peaceful fire slowly burned. Pictures of my family were scattered along the mantel, which blended perfectly into the many bookshelves that encased the walls surrounding the rest of the room. Hundreds of my father’s school textbooks, as well as numerous volumes of my mother’s art literature collections filled each bookshelf to the brim. Along the open spots of the walls rested my mother’s artwork, which depicted anything from gorgeous Puget Sound sunsets to random paintings of unfamiliar, but important looking people. A cozy lounge area sat in the middle of the room, complete with a U-shaped formation of leather couches and an enormous redwood coffee table. But it was the hand-woven, cream color Persian wool rug that sat beneath the coffee table, which was the epitome of the room’s beauty. Two end tables stood at the sides of the loveseat, where rustic lamps added extra light to the grayness outside.
    As my gaze lingered on the living room, my mother’s legs slowly came walking back down the stairs. I turned my head back into the kitchen, where my father still stood, smiling widely at his young daughter, whose eyes were slowly starting to open.
    “Go ahead and open your eyes honey,” he laughed. “Your mom will be back in just a second.”
    An expectant, but eager look emanated from her young face as my mother finally came hustling back into the room.
    “Okay Zoe, did you make your wish?” she asked. My father glanced over at her with his eyebrows raised, which made my mother nod once in return.
    “Yeah!” 
    “Alright, go ahead and blow out your candle,” my father exclaimed cheerfully.
    The candle was extinguished in a single, effortless breath.
    “Nice work sweetie,” my parents cheered, applauding her efforts.
    She glanced around the kitchen hopefully, looking for any trace of a gift. The corners of her mouth twitched downward slightly as the reality of a gift-less room began to sink in. My parents stood there, smiling more widely, waiting for some unknown cue to speak again.
    “Now, stand up and close your eyes again, ” my father said, as he slowly crept out of the room.
    Excitement came flushing back into her innocent face as my mother bent down slightly and grabbed her hand. Slowly, they walked into the living room, where my father stood eagerly, his hand resting on a familiar piece of my past.
    “Now open them!” my mother said, as she crouched down and placed both hands on young Zoe’s shoulders.
    She stood there in stunned silence. Her jaw almost dropped to the floor in surprise as a beautiful pink bicycle leaned against my father’s bony leg. 
    “Is that for me?” she gasped.
    My father nodded feverishly with a smile.
    “Wow! Thank you so much! I love it!” the younger me cried, running towards my father and giving him a hug.
    “Now, we understand you don’t know how to ride a bike yet,” my mother chuckled, as she was the next recipient of a loving thank you. “But, there’s another part to this gift.”
    She looked up at my mother, perplexed.
    “What is it?”
    “Well honey,” my father chimed in. “All we can tell you is that you’ll need to go upstairs quickly and get your coat; we have a ferry to catch!”
    “A ferry?”
    “Yes, we’re