him nervous to have something as vital as a brake pedal
operated by a part of his shoe that doesn’t even have a
foot in it. That he can’t even feel.
The only reason I drove him to the funeral is because
his truck wouldn’t start.
“We’re seriously going out there in the dark?” he asks
as I park on the shoulder of the road.
“Sure, why not?”
“But why are we doing this again?”
“Because you didn’t even know if it was still standing.
And because it is. And because it brings back so many
memories, you won’t be able to believe it. It just brings
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her back so crystal clear in your mind, you feel like she
might be standing right behind you. Like you might turn
around and slam right into her.”
He nods a couple of times. I can see it in the dash
lights as I turn off the ignition.
“Okay,” he says. “I’d say I’m up for that.”
* * *
“What happened to the floor?” Roy asks me.
“Drifters,” I say. “It’s been broken into a couple of
times.”
We’re sitting with our backs up against the wall where
the head of Zoe’s bed used to be. Roy started a fire in
the old potbellied stove with some ancient kindling that
got left behind on the hearth. It’s very dry, that kindling.
It’s possibly had as much as twenty-five years’ worth of
drying time. It’s burning hot, but it won’t burn long,
and that’s just as well. We don’t plan to sit here all night.
“What did they want to go and mess up the floor
for, though?” he asks. He sounds like a kid who thinks
something isn’t fair.
“I have no idea.”
He’s pulling off his right shoe, which is not a surprise.
Like I said, he always does when the opportunity presents
itself. His sock has been shortened, a process he performs
himself with scissors, a darning egg, and yarn, so all that
extra sock doesn’t bunch up and irritate him.
“Who owns this now?”
“Grandkids,” I say.
“They’re not doing anything with it, though.”
“Not at the moment, no. But I figure one of these
days one of them’ll need the money they could get for
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the land. That’s another reason I figured we should come
out here sooner rather than later.”
“Here’s a question,” Roy says. “How come so many
people we know are dying?”
I laugh out loud. I can’t help it.
“What’s funny?” he asks.
“You are. It’s because we’re old, Roy.”
“Speak for yourself,” he says. “I’m not that old.”
“You’re going to turn seventy next year.”
“Oh,” he says. “Yeah. Wow. I guess that is pretty old.
When did we get to be so old?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s crazy. We always used to
be so young.”
* * *
For a while we talk about Mom, and I’m not sure why.
“I told you about the last time I got to see her,” he
says. “The last time I got to talk to her. You never did.
You kept those cards close to your vest.”
Our mom died in 1998. She was living in a nursing
home by then, and her mind had mostly gone. Every now
and then it would come back in a flash, and she’d know
who I was. But before I could mount a response to that
momentous occasion, she’d be gone again.
When the nursing home called to say a last visit had
better happen soon if we wanted one, Roy and I had to
go see her separately because of our work schedules.
Honestly, I wasn’t trying to play those cards close to
my vest. I figured I’d told him.
“Well…,” I begin. Trying to bring back details as I
go. “I sat beside her bed and watched her fade in and out,
and at first I didn’t say anything, because I thought she
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was too far gone to hear me. Then I figured at least her
spirit was still there.
“So I said, ‘Hey, Mom. It’s me, Lucas. I came to say
goodbye.’
“She turned her head toward me and looked me dead
in the eye, and she said, clear as a bell, ‘I know I wasn’t
a good mother and I’m sorry.’”
“Holy crap,” he says. “How do you answer a state-
ment like that?”
“I know, right?”
Now, I had a lot of anger toward my mom. I won’t lie
about that. She was not a good mother, and in most other moments of my life I would have agreed with her. Just
straight out. But I think a parent needs something different on her deathbed. In the absence of actual abuse, I think
in that final moment if you can’t see it’s not about you,
then you’re just not living the right kind of life. I could
get into therapy and tell my counselor how unhelpful she
was for the rest of my days, but this was my last chance
ever to say something to my mom.
I tell Roy “I fell back on something Zoe Dinsmore
said to me, and in defense of you, by the way. I quoted it word for word, as best my memory allowed. Except I only
repeated the first half of the thing. ‘We’re all just doing
our best.’ I left out the second part. ‘Even if it doesn’t look so good from the outside.’ Because why plant the negative part of the thought in her head at a time like that?”
“You think she heard you?”
“I have no idea if she heard it. I have no idea if she
took any of it in. But I know they were the right words
at the right time. And besides, I heard it.”
* * *
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“Remember that thing with Zoe at your track meet?”
he asks me.
The fire is beginning to die down, but we’re making
no move toward leaving.
“Which one? She was at practically every meet.”
So was Roy, but I don’t say that out loud, because he
was there, so he knows.
“The one where that kid’s father said something …
unpleasant to me?”
Roy didn’t get to keep his war hero status. Word got
around. But it was okay, he told me years later. Much the
same as jail and that dressing-down from Dad was okay
for me. It’s the price we paid. It’s the price we chose.
“Remember what Zoe did?” he asks when I don’t
answer.
“I was out on the track, but I remember hearing
about it. But I don’t remember what she was supposed
to have said.”
“She didn’t say anything. That was the beauty of
the whole deal. She got between him and me and just
stood there facing him with her arms crossed over her
chest. And she never said a word. And he said every
word under the sun. He tried reasoning with her. Then
he made fun of her. Then he tried getting mad, or at
least pretending he was mad. Then he started telling
her she was crazy, because she never said a word. She
barely even blinked. Then finally he got
freaked out by
the whole thing and just … you know … retreated. It
was amazing.”
“She was a scary woman,” I say.
And it’s funny the way I say it, because it’s in this
wistful voice, like I miss her and that was the best com-
pliment I’ve got in the box. Well, I do miss her. Every
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day. But I’m sure I could think of better ways to express
it than that.
“Boy, you can say that twice,” Roy says. “That lady
was a force of nature. Why do you think I stayed clean
all those years? I would’ve been too scared to go and tell
her I messed up.”
“But she’s been gone fifteen years, and you’re still clean.”
“Knowing Zoe, she’d haunt me.”
“I get it,” I say. Then I add something that’s sort of
tickling at the edges of my thoughts. “If she was so ter-
rifying, which she totally was, and we were such cowards,
which we totally were, how did we manage to love her
so much?”
“Oh, that’s easy. She was on our side.” While I’m
pondering the truth of that, he says, “You won’t have a
best friend anymore.”
I notice that the last of the embers are winking out.
It’s dark in here now. My flashlight is turned off. And
I’m not answering.
“You’ve had a best friend since you were three,” he
adds. “Now what?”
“I have the dogs,” I say. “And you.”
“I’m not sure if I’m best friend material.”
“You’ll do,” I say, a little sarcastically.
Then I bump his knee in a signal that it’s probably
time to get up and go home.
He puts his right shoe back on and struggles to his
feet. I reach out a hand to help him, but he doesn’t seem
to notice it in the dark. Just as well. He doesn’t need it.
He’s been getting to his feet on his own since before I was
born. I’m not sure what I thought I was doing with that.
He says, “Ask around town, and most people’ll tell
you I’m not best friend material.”
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“Yeah, but some of them told me the same thing
about Connor.”
“Oh,” he says. And in that moment he pauses in his
movement toward the door. “That’s right, isn’t it? And
they sure were wrong about him.”
“It’s really important,” I say, “when you’re thinking
bad thoughts about yourself, to remember that they might
turn out to be wrong.”
* * *
We’re standing outside, taking one last look. The stars are
just wild. There are millions of them, really sharp and
clear between the trees. I’ve never stood beside the cabin
at night before. Not once in all these years.
I think, No wonder she loved it out here so much.
And then after the fact, I realize I said it out loud.
“Yeah,” he says. He’s looking up, too. “People think
she did it to punish herself, but I know she really loved
it out here. It may have started as penance, but this be-
came her place. You were right when you said you feel
like you’ll bump into her when you turn around. It feels
almost like she’s still here.”
I’m looking half at the stars and half at the chimney,
imagining smoke coming out of it the way it used to in
the winter. Or even on a few cool summer evenings.
And, yes, I’m positive I’m imagining it. We made sure
our fire was out so we didn’t burn down the cabin and
the whole forest with it.
I turn on the flashlight and shine it all around again
for one last look. Because, even though I guess I could
be wrong, I get the feeling that it’s my last look.
The sweep of the light touches on something. A flash
of color. I keep the light trained in that direction. On
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either side of Zoe’s outhouse there’s a riot of untended
flowers growing. Colored blooms on long stalks. Some
are yellow. Others are purple or red.
Roy comes up behind me. I can hear his footsteps in
the dry leaves.
“Whoa,” he says. “I thought those would die with-
out her, but they’ve really taken off since she was gone.
There used to be just a little tended patch of them hidden
behind the outhouse.”
“Which explains why I never saw them.”
“But you knew, right? You knew she grew flowers
and left them on the two graves. Right?”
“I did and I didn’t,” I say.
And he knows me too well to ask for a clarification
of that.
I turn off the flashlight. We hang in this place for a
time, our eyes adjusting to the darkness again. I can feel
how neither one of us really wants to leave.
“You know,” Roy says. And then pauses. “That wasn’t
true what you said to Dotty today.”
“What did I say to Dotty that wasn’t true?”
“You did more than just introduce Connor to Zoe.
You saved Zoe’s life. It’s only because of you that she even survived long enough for you to introduce him.”
“Oh,” I say. “Right. I guess I wasn’t considering that
part of the thing.”
“If you hadn’t developed that weird habit of running
with somebody else’s dogs, she would have died in her
cabin that day, and there would have been nobody to
pull our butts out of the fire. We probably would’ve lost
Connor. And I’m not sure if I would’ve gotten clean. Or
how I would’ve turned out if I hadn’t.”
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I look away from the stars and the chimney. The wild
stalks of flowers. Then, with no real outward signal to
each other that we’re about to do it, we make our way
back toward the road together.
I don’t turn on the flashlight again. Our eyes are ad-
justed to the lack of light, and besides, if there’s anybody who knows how to navigate a dark night, it’s me and
my brother.
“I wouldn’t have been running with somebody else’s
dogs if Mom would’ve gotten me one of my own,” I say
as we reach the River Road together.
“Then it’s damn good thing she wouldn’t get you one
of your own.”
And in this one perfect but probably fleeting mo-
ment … nothing in my life has ever been a mistake.
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STAY BOOK CLUB
QUESTIONS
1. In this book the author highlights how a single choice
can alter the path of one’s life. How might Lucas’s life
have been different had he not chosen to take a short-
cut through the woods and encountered two strange
dogs?
2. In the face of life-threatening circumstances in Viet-
nam, Roy makes a choice that ensures he will be sent
home. How does this action, coupled with keeping the
truth a secret, affect his life going forward?
3. As a boy growing up, starting at a young age, Lucas felt responsible for everyone and everything. In what ways
4. In contrast, his best friend, Connor, chose a completely different way to cope, leading nearly to a tragic end.
What was missing in both boys’ homelife? How did
meeting Zoe help fill that void for both of them?
5. For many years, Zoe has carried the guilt of being
responsible for the death of two young children. Do
you think one can ever make amends for something so
heartbreaking? Ultimately, how did this tragedy shape
her to become the person Lucas and Connor come to
rely on?
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Catherine Ryan Hyde
6. Lucas interprets the dogs’ expressions about Zoe to
mean: “Well, we all know how she is, don’t we? We
know how she can be, but we love her all the same.”
He goes on to observe “that’s what you really do get
from dogs.” What do you think the author was trying
to convey in this passage?
7. During the second part of the book, it is revealed that
Lucas felt so strongly about his conviction not to fight
in the Vietnam War, he chose instead to go to prison.
This was a brave choice during those turbulent times.
Was his decision worth the consequences?
8. At the end of Lucas’s retelling of his life, Harris says,
“everyone dies in your story.” Lucas replies, “But I still
have to say it’s not devastating that people and animals
live and then die … It’s hard, but those are the rules
of the game.” And then he thinks, “If you think having
and losing is so bad, try never having. Now that’s devastating.” Do you agree or disagree with Lucas’s philoso-
phy on life?
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