by Cari Noga
“Very considerate, Jared,” his mom says, shepherding him to the door. “Bye now, Lucy.”
“Hey, Mom? How come she’s not outside helping?”
The door closes on Jared’s question.
I fool around with the game for a half hour or so before Jared knocks on the door.
“We’re leaving now.”
I hand it back.
“We’ll be back next week. Maybe you can borrow it again,” he says.
“OK. Whatever.” I shrug.
He steps off the little concrete threshold, backing toward his car. “See you later,” he says before he gets in.
Their car is really small and quiet. It turns onto the road like the bus did, toward Traverse City. Aunt Jane isn’t around anywhere. I size up the little square of gray concrete where Jared was standing. It’s just like the sidewalks in New York. Through the open door the warm sun bakes my face. It’s nice. Tentatively I step onto the concrete.
The heat feels even better now. A little sticky, too, like summers in New York. I hold the screen door open because I’d have to step off the square for it to swing closed. To see the bay I look back through the screen. It is pretty, with a few sailboats and the green hills rising around it.
I feel a movement behind my legs. It’s not the breeze; there’s no wind at all. Just a quick, soft brush, gone the next instant. Then another. I look down. Sarge, going outside as usual. And Lexie behind him. Lexie!
I stoop to catch her, but she’s too fast, my fingers barely brushing her tail before she’s off the concrete square, darting after Sarge toward the garden. “Lexie! Come back!”
Involuntarily I take a step toward her, before I yank my foot back onto the concrete. I can see Aunt Jane now, carrying a basket in each hand.
“Aunt Jane! Lexie’s running away! She ran out with Sarge!”
She plunks down the baskets, full of red berries but not strawberries, next to the door, her hands in her dirty garden gloves. She’s got that weird hat on too—with the strips hanging down in the back that she says keeps her neck from getting sunburned.
“Go get her! Please, go find her for me.”
“Chase a cat? Oh, Lucy. Not now. Deliveries tomorrow. If she’s with Sarge, she’ll be fine.”
“No, please! Please go find her. Lexie’s never been outside before!” I’m crying.
“She’ll be fine. She’s still got her claws, right? Put her food and water right here at the door. She’ll come back when she’s hungry, I promise you.” Aunt Jane reaches out to squeeze my elbow.
“No, no, please, you have to find her now!” I can barely gasp the words out. My heart feels like it’s going to burn through my chest, but I’m cold all over, too. On tiptoe at the edge of the concrete square, holding on to the door, I lean out, pleading to the grass and the sky and the world. “Lexie! Lexie! Come back! Please, please come back!”
“All right.” I hear a deep sigh. “All right. I’ll go look.”
“Oh, thank you.” I gulp down a sob. “Thank you.”
“Maybe while I’m at it, I’ll find a weed—or two or three or ten—that Jared missed.” She pats my shoulder with her garden-gloved hand, then squeezes my elbow again. “Try not to worry. I’m sure she’ll be back.”
She strides across the gravel strips of the driveway, then the grassy section between it and the garden. She steps into a row between what I know now are the tomatoes and the beans. Faintly, I can hear her calling. “Lexie, Lexie. Here, kitty. Here, kitty, kitty.”
Snuffling, I wipe my nose with my sleeve. Put her food at the door. I bring the dishes down from my room and fill both the food and the water bowls. Opening the door again, I set it outside on the gravel, right at the edge of the concrete. Actually, it would probably be better to set it right inside. So Lexie can see it but would have to come in to eat. I look for something to prop open the door.
Aunt Jane’s basket. I stretch to reach the wire handle. Too far. In the kitchen I find the broom, then lean back outside to jab the broomstick under the basket handle. I drag it across the gravel and wedge it against the open screen door. It’s heavier than I thought, and a couple of raspberries roll out, and the dust my dragging raises coats them with a light-brown powder.
Then I wait. And wait. And wait. I try to braid my hair but give up after I mess up crossing the sections, like always. Finally, for something to do, I pick up the fallen raspberries and take them to the sink. I’ve seen Aunt Jane just eat them whole. Cautiously I rinse them off and pop one into my mouth.
Biting into it, I taste a burst of sweet. It’s bright and warm, like the sun is trapped in the skin. If Daddy were eating them with me, he would have done that thing he did when he really liked something, pinch his fingers together and kiss them.
Back at the door, I watch Aunt Jane’s hat moving around in the garden. She’s not saying “here, kitty, kitty” anymore.
“Did you find her?” I yell.
I guess she can’t hear me. She doesn’t answer, anyway. I sit on the floor, next to the bowl of cat food, and pull up my knees and cross my arms around them, holding myself together. When did Lexie eat last? She must be hungry by now! She’s never been outside except in her cage. Will she try and eat the raspberries and all the stuff growing out there? Is that OK, or will it make her sick? Lexie, Lexie, Lexie. I remember how you climbed up on my shoulder, crying the day I took you home from the Humane Society. I know how you felt losing your family, Lexie. But you love me now, and you won’t leave me alone here, will you? Will you, Lexie? I pick at the scab from an old scratch on my arm, drawing fresh blood. If you just come back, I’ll never complain about you scratching me again.
“Lucy?” Aunt Jane’s in the doorway, her foot almost on top of Lexie’s dish.
“Don’t step on it!” I jerk the dish out of the way.
Aunt Jane screams. “You scared me to death. What are you doing, sitting on the floor?” Her hand, still in the garden glove, is over her heart. Her T-shirt is wet.
“Watching for Lexie. Is it raining?”
Aunt Jane nods. “She’ll come in soon.”
“What if she doesn’t?” I lean out the door. There’s so much sky here, and it darkens so fast when thunderstorms come up. I kind of like them at night, when it’s already dark. They cool down the weather so it’s comfortable to wrap up in a blanket with Lexie and sit at the window, watching the lightning over the water, listening to the thunder. During the day I don’t like them so much. Especially when Lexie’s out in it.
Aunt Jane hesitates. Then, “She will,” she says, not looking at me. “I’m going to change. Then we’ll have lunch.”
Lunch is one of Aunt Jane’s weird ones, of whatever’s ready in the garden. Today it’s a big salad with some turkey and cheese and raspberries on top. I never ate fruit on salad before. Lexie doesn’t come back. Sarge approaches her dish a few times. I shoo him away. So Lexie got away from him, too! Now she’s completely alone out there. The rain stops at two o’clock. She’s still gone. Aunt Jane puts on her hat to go back outside.
“Why don’t you look with me? She’s more likely to come to you.”
“I’m going to make a lost poster,” I say, ignoring her question. I know she’s right, and I want to—I want to be able to run outside and scoop up Lexie and keep her safe forever and ever. But I can’t take the risk.
Aunt Jane sighs and leaves, stepping carefully around the dish this time. I find my phone and start scrolling through the photos of Lexie, all the way back from when I got her at the Humane Society. She was so small! There’s Phoebe holding her, and there she is curled up on my old bed. I need something more recent. There she is, stretched out on the windowsill in the hall. That’s the best, since it shows all her markings. I’ll give the poster to Martha and ask her to put copies in the neighbors’ mailboxes. I’ll—
“Meow.”
“Lexie!” I drop the phone and rush to the door. She sits right down at her dish and plops her face in it. I crouch down and stroke her
head to tail. She’s not wet, so she must have found some place to hide. I start crying again. The door is still propped open, and I see something on the concrete square. A mouse. Dead.
I stifle my shriek. She might get scared and run away again. Instead of trying to shut the screen door, I leave the raspberries where they are and push Lexie farther into the kitchen so I can shut the regular door. She meows again, but she’s too hungry to be indignant. When she’s done eating she crawls up on my lap and falls asleep.
“Reunited?” Aunt Jane comes in with the raspberries.
“How did you know?” I’ve moved us to the blue velvet couch. The house is stifling now that the door’s shut, and Lexie’s hot on top of my thigh, but I’m not going to budge her.
“The mouse.” Aunt Jane scratches behind Lexie’s ears. I feel her body burrow toward the touch.
“Why would she bring it here?”
“To show it off. It’s like a trophy.”
“Ewww.”
She shrugs. “Just the way it is.”
My leg is starting to fall asleep. Maybe I will move Lexie for a minute. I slide her to the couch. She stirs but doesn’t wake up.
Aunt Jane’s washing her hands at the kitchen sink. “So Lexie’s safe and sound. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.” Tomorrow’s CSA delivery day. “Are you going to use the little baskets?”
“What?”
“The little baskets, you know, that you put them into. The square ones.” I point at the cupboard where I’ve see them.
“Oh. You mean the quart containers. Actually, these go in pints. They’re over here.”
She opens another cupboard and takes out a stack of containers. I start scooping the washed raspberries into them. “You need forty-seven, right?”
“Um, right. Thanks.” I feel her watching me. “How did you know I had forty-seven customers?”
“I heard you once.” I shrug. “I never ate berries like these.”
“No?”
“Uh-uh.”
“That’s a travesty.” She pops one into her mouth.
I shrug again. “Just the way it is.”
She laughs. “What did you think?”
“Better than the rhubarb.”
“Maybe I’ll make a farm girl out of you yet.”
I stiffen, a handful of raspberries frozen in transition.
“Moving on is hard, I know,” she says. “But this fear of grass, of being outside, it really is time to try to overcome that. I know you felt helpless today, and it doesn’t—”
“Come on, Lexie,” I say loudly, cutting her off. I drop the raspberries in the container. “I’m going up to my room now.”
“Lucy—” she says, but I’m already up the stairs with Lexie in my arms.
Chapter 28
JANE
In July, the days are races against clock and heat. I set my alarm to beat the sunrise and head straight outside, savoring the solace, sights, and sensations of the farm: the pink horizon, the precise angles and lines of my vegetable beds, the dewy morning grass that reveals my footprints. Lucy still hasn’t touched it. Today I’ll start looking for a therapist. I’m no closer to an answer than the day she arrived, whether she’s always been afraid, or if there was a trigger like the car accident. The other day she shut me down cold again, even after Lexie came back. And she wouldn’t come out to help look. Right there, that tells me this goes pretty deep. She loves that cat more than anything but couldn’t take a single step to help her.
I work steadily for two hours before my growling stomach sends me back inside for breakfast. Shedding my garden gloves on the counter to brew the coffee, I use the brew time to sort a stack of accumulated mail. Extension newsletter, full of articles on how to maximize my nonexistent marketing program. Recycle. Junk mail, postcards for carpet cleaning when the carpet’s been gone for five years. Recycle. A postcard with the latest Internet and cable promotion. Recycle. Glossy restaurant coupons. Recycle.
Wait. I pull the postcard back out. Introductory offer, high-speed Internet for $39.99 per month for one year, plus free installation. Forty dollars a month would be doable, I think. Once the estate money comes in, definitely. Lucy’s birthday is next month. I checked the files in the desk after Rebecca’s question. This could be her present. Normally I’m as anti-screen as Rebecca, but Lucy needs something to watch besides that funeral slide show. Plus when she starts school, they’ll probably have to do research, for reports and things. I dial the 800 number for installation.
Birthday gift, check. Spurred on by the accomplishment and my first cup of coffee, I decide to tackle the therapy. From the drop-down list of specialties on the Blue Cross website, I check both “Social Worker, Pediatric” and “Psychological Counseling, Pediatric” and then type in the zip code. Filtering by in-network takes it down to four in alphabetical order. The first has an office in the Grand Traverse Commons, the former state psychiatric hospital that’s being redeveloped into a residential-retail-office complex. Hmm. Irony or omen? Back in the nineteenth century, that whole place was a working farm, complete with fields, barns, and cows in the stalls. Patients worked as part of their treatment. I dial the number.
“Good morning, Sarah Fischer.”
“Good morning.” I glance at the clock: 8:05 a.m. and no secretary. With two words, Sarah Fischer’s earned two points. “I’m interested in arranging therapy for my eleven-year-old niece.”
“I’d love to help,” she says after listening to my summary. “My recommendation would be exposure therapy.”
She explains that she would try to desensitize Lucy’s fear gradually, first by looking at grass with her, then touching, then walking on it. If the real thing is too overwhelming, they start a step backward, with pictures.
“It sounds time consuming,” I say. School starts in about six weeks, and she needs to be able to walk to the road to catch the bus. They’re not going to pull into the driveway.
“It can be. However, it’s also a very effective tool for overcoming fears and anxiety that can manifest from a variety of causes—whether it’s grief, upheaval from the move, a true phobia, or some combination.”
“I see.”
“Your niece has been dealt a pretty tough hand, Ms. McArdle. Long-term, that cause has to be isolated and treated, but in the meantime exposure helps overcome what’s interfering with her daily life.”
“All right. When’s your first available appointment?”
More than two weeks away, as it turns out. Still, I take it. Besides being an early bird and a sole proprietor, Sarah Fischer conveyed an inspiring confidence. After we hang up, I swallow the last of my coffee and pull my garden gloves back on over my calloused palms. A pretty tough hand. Stepping outside, into the July humidity, I dredge up the memory of a Houston scene. The first, worst, anniversary. At breakfast, I’d told Jim what day it was, and he barely blinked. “It’s best to move on, Jane,” he’d said as Matt ran into the kitchen. “Get your tricycle, buddy,” he’d told him. “Your mom needs to get outside.”
I’d gone, following as Matt pedaled. If I understood Sarah correctly, that was exposure. To my child, to the duties of mothering. And I kept it up, for years after. Cub Scouts, Little League, school sports, birthday parties, I ticked off the boxes. Exposure after exposure. And what I also knew is a fact drilled into everyone who sets foot on the US Coast Guard Air Station in Kodiak, Alaska, in base orientation: you can die of exposure.
Chapter 29
LUCY
It thunderstorms off and on all week. Aunt Jane’s in and out all the time, trying to fit in her work. I’m afraid Lexie’s going to escape again, so I keep the doors shut and locked, too. This makes Aunt Jane mad.
“I come up to the house with my arms full, and you’ve locked the door!”
“Maybe you should use a wagon or something.”
“That’s not the point.”
I turn away.
“This fear of grass is making you irrational. We need to figu
re out a way that you can overcome it. I’ve made an appointment with a counselor.”
I think back to the field trip. Chasing Joel and Eli and falling on the grass. Mom’s text. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. Step on the grass, make her car crash. What could happen to Lexie? She’s all I have left. A counselor can’t make me do anything.
“The sun’s out again,” I tell Aunt Jane. “You’d better get out there. Two more days till delivery, right?”
But the rain is back before dinner and goes on all evening. Aunt Jane sits in front of the computer, working on her records, she says, since she can’t go back outside to work. By the time I go to bed, it’s pounding the windows. Thunder is rumbling, lightning crackling, wind roaring. I film some of it, then fall asleep with Lexie at my feet. A huge boom of thunder jerks me awake at 3:19 a.m. The rain is louder than ever. I scoop Lexie up and clutch her to my chest, waiting for my heart to slow down. There’s another crash of thunder, and the green 3:19 blinks off to black.
Not just the clock. My whole room. Totally black, scary black. All I can see are Lexie’s yellow eyes. I pull the quilt around my shoulders.
“Lucy!” Aunt Jane is calling from downstairs. “Lucy, are you OK?” A flashlight beam bobs into my room. Along the walls the shadows of the trees whip back and forth.
I’m finally happy to see her, especially when she hands me another flashlight. Lexie immediately goes nuts, trying to bat away the beam of light, meowing as her paws keep missing.
“The power went out.”
“I know.”
“What a storm.” She looks out the window. “Thank goodness I got all the raspberries picked. They’d be beaten into the ground tomorrow.” She yawns. “Well, if you’re OK, then I’ll head back to bed.”
I never said I was OK. I’m scared. But she’s halfway down the stairs already when it thunders again, the loudest yet. Except it’s not thunder. It’s a tree branch! The old maple in the front yard punches a hole in the window glass, and the smashing seems to go on forever. I aim my flashlight at the end of the bed. The branch knocked over my mirror, too! It’s facedown on the floor. Did it break?