Maya pushes a blank piece of paper my way. Interests we have now… for me, there’s only one. And it doesn’t have to do with history.
“You stuck?” Maya asks.
“Kind of.” I pick up a pencil, doodle loops and squiggles on my paper.
Maya sighs. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. You just need one idea.”
She’s trying to help me get started, but my eyes burn. “It’s hard thinking about school when all that really matters to me is whether or not I can figure out a way to keep the horses.”
Maya’s lips twist in a frown. “Your parents are still talking about selling?”
I nod, tears blurring my eyes. “It’s a sure thing now. By the time Andy gets home, Sunny and Sam might already be gone. It’ll be so weird for him.”
Maya looks down at her paper. “That stinks, Claire.”
I shake my head. I want to tell her she doesn’t need to be sorry, it’s not her fault, but my throat feels thick and strange.
“How’s it going over here, ladies?” Ms. Larkin kneels at our table. Not the greatest timing. She twirls a pencil in her hand.
Maya clears her throat. She can always tell when I don’t want to have to keep talking. “So, I’m researching Edna Beard,” she says, and starts telling Ms. Larkin all about what she already knows (which is a lot), and what she wants to learn (also, interestingly, a lot). That gives me time to think, though the only thoughts I have are images of the barn, of trees, of Sunny and Sam.
Part of the problem is that all we do with Sunny and Sam is ride. I know when Mom was younger, her dad kept horses who helped him log the forest, hauling wood that kept his house warm all winter. According to Mom, when she first got Sunny and Sam, Grandpa joked about making them useful somehow. “Put those horses to work!” he’d say. “I bet they’re good for more than just trail riding.”
“What’s better than trail riding?” Mom had shot back. “Besides, Dad, most people don’t use horses for logging. You were one of the last, back when I was growing up. And I was so little I don’t even remember it.”
“But those old ways might come back,” Grandpa had said. After he died last winter, Mom’s eyes looked sunset red and raw for months.
I wonder: If Mom and Dad started using Sunny and Sam in a practical way, like people used to, would we still need to sell them? Maybe that’s how history could affect the present.
“And how about you, Claire?” Ms. Larkin asks.
Sparrows stir, and heat from their tiny wakening bodies rushes into my cheeks. I start to swallow but my tongue lodges against my teeth and I cough instead.
Maya slowly pushes her water bottle across the desk, her eyes never leaving my face. “She’s been thinking about maybe researching how…,” she says slowly, her voice turning up a little at the end, giving me time.
I tip the bottle back and let water run down my throat. The sparrows shake droplets off their heads, yet remain. Nobody else can sense them anyway, except Maya. And she always swoops in at exactly the right time.
“How people used to use horses,” I blurt out. “A long time ago.” I’m surprised by the sound of my voice, the loudness of it. And by the idea. But Maya’s words helped me find mine, and this is a topic I could definitely get excited about.
Ms. Larkin nods and her eyebrows crinkle together. I can tell she’s interested. “Isn’t that something your family does? I remember you telling us that your grandfather used horses to harvest wood.”
“Yeah, but he stopped a long time ago,” I say. “I think it would be cool to learn about a time when everybody needed horses. Not just for logging, but for everything.”
“I see potential there,” Ms. Larkin says. “Remember the importance of looking into the future too. You could compare and contrast traditional farming methods that relied on horses with more modern approaches.”
“You mean like machines,” I say. Because that’s exactly it. People don’t need horses in the same way anymore. Everything’s changed.
Maybe I can find a way for our family to change too, so we can keep Sunny and Sam. That way, once Andy’s done at the Starshine Center, everything will be the way it’s supposed to be.
“Nailed it,” Maya whispers as Ms. Larkin moves to the next table. “Where’d that come from?”
But I can’t explain it. The idea appeared suddenly, a horse moving quick and quiet through trees.
CHAPTER 5
When the school bus drops me off, I check the mailbox even though I know it’s too early for Andy to have written. It took us a few tries, but we figured out that letters need exactly two days to go each way. Since I mailed mine on Saturday, and Sunday doesn’t count because it’s Mr. Meyer’s day off from driving the mail truck, Andy probably won’t even read what I wrote until tomorrow, let alone have time to write back.
But stuck in the middle of a rubber-banded stack of bills, coupons, and catalogs is a regular envelope with handwriting in the corner and a return address I know by now:
A. B.
STARSHINE CENTER
802 WHEELER ROAD
DOWNING, NH 05497
My breath catches. Andy wrote me just because he wanted to.
I open the envelope with shaking fingers.
WHAT DID ONE WALL SAY TO THE OTHER WALL?
I shake my head and smile, forcing myself not to look down at the answer.
YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING WHY YOU’RE GETTING AN EXTRA LETTER. WELL, WHAT CAN I SAY, LITTLE C.? SOMETIMES A BROTHER’S JUST GOTTA WRITE HIS SISTER.
I WAS THINKING ABOUT YOU ANYWAY, BECAUSE WE HAD OATMEAL WITH BROWN SUGAR AT BREAKFAST. REMEMBER HOW MOM ONLY EVER LET US TAKE ONE SPOONFUL OF SUGAR BUT I HID THE CONTAINER UNDER THE TABLE AND DUMPED EXTRA ON WHEN SHE WASN’T LOOKING?
I laugh. Andy and I pinkie-swore never to tell Mom about that. But he was the one with the guts to snatch the brown sugar in the first place. I’ve been eating single-scoop-of-sugar oatmeal ever since he left, and I don’t even like it.
I’M GLAD THE COFFEE’S GOOD HERE. I HAVE TO GET UP SO EARLY.
I used to be the one shaking him awake before school. “It’s still dark!” he’d mutter when morning light started fading in fall and winter finally snuffed it out. “Who gets up in the dark? I’m telling you, it’s unnatural.”
I can picture the outline of Andy’s days now like the frame of a house or bones under skin: just a structure, the rest empty. I know he has individual therapy in the morning and group therapy in the afternoon, some chores in between on the farm Starshine Center runs. Letters fill in the gaps.
BUT NOW I HAVE AN HOUR BEFORE GROUP, AND IT’S BASICALLY SPACE-OUT TIME.
Space-out time for Andy means thinking time, when he gets the silence that makes his brain move and spin.
REMEMBER WHEN WE USED TO DO SPACE-OUT TIME UP AT PEBBLE MOUNTAIN? I WAS TELLING MY FRIENDS MARIE AND DAMIAN ABOUT THAT. THIS IS JUST ABOUT THE RIGHT TIME OF YEAR TO HAUL SLEEPING BAGS UP FOR A LAST CHANCE TO WATCH STARS BEFORE THE SNOW COMES.
Of course I remember. We’d lie on cold ground and in all that quiet with nothing to do, nowhere else we had to be, Andy would stare, his eyes wide open, reflecting the light from the sky. But who are Marie and Damian?
YOU CAN STILL FIND YOUR CONSTELLATIONS, RIGHT? GREAT BEAR, LITTLE BEAR, ORION’S BELT—YOU’D BETTER NOT FORGET THOSE WHILE I’M GONE.
Andy used to tell stories too, like about Aquila, the eagle who carried Zeus’s messages to humans far below the stars. “You know what, Little C.?” he told me once. “Sometimes I think Aquila might still be up there. I keep thinking if I look close enough I’ll find her.”
We’d stay awake so long up there, our eyes crawling over the dark night sky. I remember how it felt to slip onto the edge of sleep and find that same peace I got in the barn, the simple wholeness that told me everything was okay.
We haven’t gone to Pebble Mountain for a long time.
I want Andy to write, Wish I could be there right now! But he doesn’t.
I fold the lett
er back up without finishing. If I keep reading, it will be over too soon. This way I can save it for as long as I want. I’ll wait until after my support group meeting.
On Monday afternoons, Dad always drives me to the community center over on Lincoln Street in Belding, which is more like a city than where we live, but still pretty small. It has a few stores and a bank, and Cedar Lake, but not much else. And that’s okay with me. I don’t need a lot of people around, wanting to ask questions about Andy. It’s hard enough having to sit on folding chairs set up in a circle, listening to kids I don’t know very well talking about their relatives as though their stories have anything to do with our family’s.
But Mom and Dad say going to the support group is a good idea for now. “Just until Andy gets home,” Mom said.
“Or maybe longer than that,” Dad said. “You and the other kids have something in common, hon.”
Why would Dad think I needed to keep going? The people kids talk about at those meetings—moms, dads, cousins, brothers, and sisters—they’re not like Andy. They can’t be.
Andy taught me how to build fires in the snow so we didn’t have to wait until summer for s’mores. Andy welded sheets of metal into a rack for storing firewood and gave it to Mom for her birthday last year. Andy ended up at Starshine Center because he got in a bad snowmobile accident and hurt his back and pills kept the pain away for so long that eventually he didn’t know how to not take them. The problem was, when he kept taking pills, they started causing pain instead of relieving it. And they tricked him too, made him think he needed them more and more even though he had already stopped feeling better, even though we all could tell he felt worse—more sad, more tired, more hurt.
He has to stop taking them now. I know he will.
“These meetings don’t really help,” I tell Dad. I look out the window instead of at him. The mountains seem like they’re on fire, warm colors all mashed together in the trees.
Dad sighs. “We’ve talked about this, Claire. It’s important to share your feelings and your experience with other people.”
I shake my head. “Nobody makes us talk if we don’t want to.”
Dad lets the steering wheel slide through his fingers and presses his lips together. “Give it time. It’s only been a month.”
He pulls up next to the front entrance and puts the truck in park. Silence fills the space between us, but it’s not the comfortable space-out kind. It feels breakable and sharp, like glass. At least Dad’s eyes don’t have those little spears of hope Mom’s do, like me walking into that community center will bring Andy back any faster. It won’t. Which is why it’s so confusing that he brings me in the first place.
“It’s not like you and Mom go to any meetings for grown-ups,” I say. “I don’t know why I should have to go to these.”
Dad shifts his eyes away from me, back to the steering wheel. He knows I’m right about that. He and Mom said they’d try, back when Andy first went to the Starshine Center and the staff member who showed us around stuffed pamphlets into their hands and told them the groups would be helpful, but they haven’t yet.
I close the door a little harder than I need to, and Dad rolls the passenger window down. “Pick you up in an hour?” he asks, leaning across the seat to be sure I’ll hear.
I can’t bring myself to just walk away, so I nod, but I’m not going to pretend like this is a good idea.
As soon as I’m inside, our group facilitator, Sharon, walks over. “It’s good to see you again, Claire.”
I let her shake my hand. “You too.” Sharon’s nice, but I can already feel sparrows hovering at my shoulder, wanting in.
The meeting room’s pretty full, so I’ll have to sit next to someone this time. Even though I saw a kid from my school attend once, I don’t know most of the others. We’ll end up at the same high school—some of the older kids are already there—but I’ll keep my distance as long as I can. I don’t want to be so close I could accidentally brush another person’s elbow or see what color earrings they’re wearing or hear them sniffle when they get sad.
I slip into the seat next to Nari, who’s pretty quiet too. She smiles, and I manage to smile back, because it’s more comfortable being around someone who doesn’t make me feel like I need to talk. Not like Caleb and Anna, who share during every meeting. As soon as I hear their voices, my own seems even harder to find. They’ve been coming for a while, though, longer than I’ll need to.
“Hi, everyone,” Sharon says. “Welcome back. Let’s get started.”
At the beginning, we’re all supposed to close our eyes and breathe for a moment. Sharon says it will help “center our thoughts,” but mostly it makes me want to run away.
I peek my eyes open just long enough to glance at Nari. She looks so much more peaceful than I feel.
“Who would like to share?” Sharon has beautiful brown eyes, cedar-bark skin, and black hair clustered in waterfalls of curls. Even though I don’t like talking at meetings, I like listening to her voice. It calms me, like the sound of tiny Pine Lake waves touching sand on a mostly still day.
The air hums, like it can hear all the words gathering.
Anna starts. “Mom hasn’t drank yet. It’s been—” She looks up at the ceiling and taps her fingers. “Forty-two days. I’m proud of her. I mean, obviously. But also…” She pauses then, gathers strings of sandy hair in her snow-pale hands, brings it around her shoulder and tugs.
Nobody says anything. We’re not really supposed to.
Anna looks down at her shoes, letting her hair fall around her face, and her cheeks puff out like she’s not sure she wants to keep talking. In a way, it feels like I should cross the room, go up to her, and tell her something, anything to make her feel better, but Sharon says it’s really important that we give each other time instead. Outside the community center, people don’t always have the chance to say everything they want to say. “In here,” Sharon told us, “we get all the time we need.”
When Anna takes a deep breath, I can see how maybe even trying to comfort her might not really have worked. She does have more to share; she just needed time to get the words in order. I know how that goes.
“But I’m also scared. When I go to visit at her apartment, I look in the cabinet where I know she kept those bottles, to make sure there aren’t any left.” Anna rubs her forehead. “I know I shouldn’t do that, though. It’s not like I can stop her, right? What am I going to do if I find something? Pour it out?” She pauses, shakes her head. “She’ll just get more. I mean, if she wants to.”
My throat catches. I remember Andy’s pills. Part of me thought if I’d found them early enough, if I’d hidden them deep in the barn, he wouldn’t have ended up at Starshine Center. But could I have really stopped him from doing what he wanted to do?
Then Anna looks back up at us. “I don’t mean she really wants to,” she says quietly. “She doesn’t actually want to drink. It’s just…” Her voice trails off.
Sharon nods gently. Silence grows.
“Addiction makes her do things she might not really want to do. I… wish it didn’t.” Anna takes a deep breath. “That’s all for now.”
“Thanks, Anna,” we all say.
That part’s important too. We listen, and then we thank whoever shared. Because it takes courage to share.
But Sharon always reminds us it takes courage just to be, too. She says even if all we do is come and sit, we’re doing enough because we’re doing what we can do.
I’m not sure I believe that. It seems like there’s a lot more I could be doing, especially to make sure Andy goes back to being his regular self when he gets home.
Still, something Anna said about her mom tumbles in my mind: Addiction makes her do things she might not really want to do.
What does Andy want to do?
Five minutes before the meeting ends, Sharon looks up at the clock. “Thanks, all of you,” she says. “Those who shared, and those who listened. I’m glad you’re here, and I hope you
come again.”
I look around the room, at Anna’s hands, resting on her knees; at Caleb’s face, his forehead wrinkling but his eyes calm. I think about them looking at me. What do they see?
“As you know, this group isn’t about giving advice,” Sharon says. “But before we close, I want to share an idea for everyone to think over.”
This is different. Sharon’s calmness, the way she smiles with her eyes and not only with her mouth, always makes me feel comforted somehow, but she usually doesn’t say much. And she never tells us what to do.
“This week,” she says, “I want you to think of something that’s just yours. Something that makes you feel like your worries are slipping away and you’re exactly who and where you need to be.” She leans forward, her hands clasped over her knees. “Something you can get lost in. And then—” She takes time to let her eyes swoop around the room, locking in on each of us. “Then, I want you to do that thing.”
Everyone looks at her, even Anna, who’s been staring at the floor ever since she shared.
“Want to know what my thing is?” Sharon asks, her voice low, eyebrows raised, a smile glimmering like she’s sharing a secret. “Swimming. I get in the pool, start churning out laps, and all those thoughts weighing me down, they just leave.”
“You swim every day?” Caleb’s shocked voice breaks the stillness in the room. “Like, all year?”
Sharon laughs. “You bet! And early too. My friends can’t believe when I set my alarm.” She cups her mouth with both hands and whispers: “Four forty-five a.m. One hundred percent worth it.”
I’ve been to the Belding pool before: cold chlorine, echoes splashing off tile walls. I would usually rather go to Pine Lake and wade in the shallows, over stones, but I can picture Sharon slicing through cool blue, her arms pulling a path to follow, and I can see how it works.
“The more time you can find for your ‘thing,’” Sharon says, “the more you’ll feel like yourself. And the more you can do that, the more you’ll know that your self is a pretty great thing to be.”
The Wild Path Page 3