“You know why they’re so cheap? The bank foreclosed on the farm and kicked all the farmers and workers out,” Sal said. “People like you are the reason the farms are failing.”
“No. The drought is the reason farms are failing,” Daniela said.
“Actually, it is climate change’s fault,” Sal said. “The oil companies’ fault. And it’s our fault too, I mean, it’s like, everybody’s fault. But if no one buys the cheap real estate from the bank, maybe they wouldn’t take the land next time. Maybe they’d try to help the farmers keep their farms.”
“I didn’t know you were thinking of moving out,” Dolores said.
“Let her look if she wants to,” Raúl said. “In the meantime, Sal, maybe you should run for mayor.”
“Did you know that because it keeps getting warmer, the growing season in New Hampshire is twenty-two days longer now than a century ago? Twenty-two days. It affects water resources and what crops can grow here. But let’s all keep pretending it’s not a problem,” Sal said. “If you buy that lot, you are taking advantage of a global disaster that hurts vulnerable people so you can build a cheap house.”
Daniela rolled her eyes.
“Hey, Cadie Braidy, will you take me blueberry picking tomorrow? Mom keeps saying she will, but she’s never home.”
“Cadie doesn’t want to take you blueberry picking,” Daniela said.
“I want to see her magic powers.” Sal turned to Cadie and batted her thick lashes in an exaggerated plea.
“I’d love to,” Cadie said, although the idea of being alone with Sal terrified her. She hadn’t been comfortable with thirteen-year-old girls when she had been one herself. “I can come by in the morning.”
Sal turned to her mother with an I-told-you-so smile.
Cadie forced a smile when Dolores brought out a warm blueberry pie. The first tart bite stung her saliva glands. She looked up at Garrett. But she saw the Summer Kid. Her throat constricted before she could swallow the berries. Her fingers tightened around her fork at the memory of sucking on the plastic bag full of blueberries while she clung to the tree root listening to Juan and Clyde arguing.
She tried to swallow, but gagged on the fruit. Behind her, Sal dropped a serving spoon on the hardwood floor with a crash. But Cadie heard a gunshot.
She choked on the pie and gulped down her water.
“Are you okay?” Dolores asked.
Cadie glared at her. The memory dislodged a rage she had long tried to ignore. Dolores should have helped Cadie. She should have checked on her, reached out to her. Cadie swished the water around her mouth, between her teeth, but the acid lingered and burned.
After dessert, Raúl and Garrett went outside on the deck. Sal watched them through the glass, then disappeared into her room, leaving Cadie, Daniela, and Dolores in the kitchen.
“You girls go catch up. I’ll do the dishes,” Dolores said, holding Cadie’s eye for a second.
Daniela grabbed two beers from the fridge. Cadie followed her into the family room.
“Are you really buying a house?”
“Probably not. But God, I’d like something of my own for once. Not my parents’ house. Not the house that belonged to my husband’s parents. My house.” She put her feet on the coffee table and yawned. “That’s why I’m working so many shifts. They’re short-staffed, and I’m taking advantage of it. In a few months I’ll have enough for a down payment.”
“You don’t sound too enthused about it.”
“Would you be excited about building a house in Maple Crest?”
“Probably not.”
“Just once, I’d like to feel in control of my life, decide where I’m going instead of always being on the defense,” Daniela said. “When we were kids, I thought about challenging you so I could sit in the front of that stupid boat. I wanted to control where we went, just once. But I couldn’t do it. It felt safer to let you steer. I’ve done that my whole life.”
“You do know that the person in the back of the boat is the captain, right? You steer from the back.” Cadie laughed. Daniela, the strong one, the popular one. Daniela, who had made Cadie feel brave, had been as insecure as Cadie. “You were steering the whole time.”
“Great. My one shot. And I didn’t even recognize it.” Daniela pressed her temples as if trying to fend off a headache. She squeezed her eyes shut and Cadie thought she might be about to cry.
“Or, maybe you’ve always been in control, you know, school, job, family stuff. You were always steering. From the back of your boat,” Cadie said. “Look at Sal. She’s amazing. I mean, maybe a little too smart for her own good. But generally you raised a spectacular kid.”
Daniela smiled weakly.
Cadie picked up a photo in a birch-bark frame from the end table. Daniela and Sal, who looked about five years old, sang into wooden spoons. In a hula skirt and a bikini top, Sal cocked one hip out and sang with her mouth wide open.
“What are you grinning at?” Daniela asked.
Cadie held up the picture. “Reminds me of us singing in your kitchen when we were kids.”
Daniela took the picture from Cadie and put it back on the table. “What’s going on with you and the Summer Kid?”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s always been like that. He’s not some Prince Charming from one of your books. He’s just a guy.” Daniela took a swallow of beer. “Who’s investigating my father for a murder he knows he didn’t commit.”
“And it’s all my fault. Go ahead, say it.”
Daniela refused to give Cadie the satisfaction.
“Garrett and I will come forward. We’ll leave your family out of it.” Cadie doubted Garrett would agree to this plan, but she would push him.
“Jesus, Cadie, you don’t get to swoop in and play hero now. It will all come back on my family no matter what. Just stay out of it.” Daniela pressed her palms against her temples and closed her eyes again. “I don’t want to be your project. Saving that Summer Kid from kidnappers, his murderous uncle, or eternal boredom, or whatever we pretended we were doing. It was always a game for you.” Daniela’s voice strained to maintain a whisper. “You wrote us all into a book. And I let you. I wanted to be in your stories.”
“You were never a project.” Cadie’s skin felt tight, as if it was shrinking around her, compressing her. “You were my best friend.”
“You thought you were so tough and rebellious because we stole a boat and didn’t tell our parents. We were playing two entirely different games.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That’s what made me feel safe. Nothing bad ever happens to girls like you.” Daniela’s eyes were angry, but the fierceness in her voice did not seem directed at Cadie. “Just sleep with him. Get it out of your system and go back to Concord. At least when you were a kid, you believed all your save-the-world-by-never-killing-a-bug bullshit. Now, you’re just pretending, and you don’t even recognize the difference.”
If Daniela hadn’t promised Angie to double the blueberry order, they would have already been home when Clyde and Juan argued that day. But they had stayed late to fill an extra order Cadie never wanted to fill in the first place. Daniela bore at least some of the blame, but Cadie felt petty to point out the grudge she still carried.
Raúl’s laugh drifted in through the screen. Garrett stood next to him; their backs were to the window. Cadie searched his posture, his profile, for hints of the boy who had haunted her for so long. Their laughter felt irreverent, disrespectful to the threats and questions hanging over all of them.
“Your dad doesn’t know anything, does he?” Cadie said.
“Neither of them do.”
Dolores’s stir fry churned in Cadie’s stomach.
More laughter came from the deck. Dolores slammed a cabinet door in the kitchen.
“I shouldn’t have gotten so mad at you back then. You were scared. We both were.” Daniela tilted her head back and stared up at the ceiling.
“Maybe, but
I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have kept our pact.”
“God, that oath.” Daniela laughed and bumped her shoulder against Cadie’s. “The Poachers’ Code. We were such fucking idiots.”
Daniela let her head rest against Cadie’s, their shoulders pressing together. The tightness in Cadie’s chest loosened. She allowed herself to inhale a deep breath that stretched her lungs until they hurt, and oxygen rushed into the hidden spaces she had closed off for decades.
19
PRESENT DAY
“Is everything okay between you and Daniela?” Garrett said as he drove Cadie home after dinner at the Garcias’. Waning light of an unsettled sunset caught on his stubble. “Things seemed kind of tense at dinner.”
“We’re fine. She’s just worried.” Cadie forced a smile. She had no idea if things were okay between her and Daniela. How could they be? They didn’t even know each other anymore.
You’ve never had one damn thing to lose. Daniela’s words from earlier that afternoon stung, partly because Daniela had no idea what Cadie had sacrificed for her. But mostly because Daniela was right.
“You believe me that I’ll protect Raúl, don’t you?” Garrett said.
“I hope you will.” She wanted to believe him, to trust him. She also wished she had bothered to put mascara on her translucent red eyelashes.
“Do you want to come in?” Cadie said as they pulled in her driveway. The roof shingles, covered in slick moss, looked like scales in the silvery light.
He followed her up the porch steps and into the kitchen.
“Sorry it’s so dusty.” Cadie avoided the creaky boards as she stepped into the kitchen. “No one lives here right now. It’s kind of a mess.”
Cadie opened a window and looked out over the weed-covered beach.
“What do you think would have happened if we had become friends, real friends, back then?” Garrett stepped beside her at the window.
“I don’t know.” Cadie had played out all the scenarios in her head.
“We wouldn’t be standing here right now.” He picked up The Outsiders from the bookshelf and thumbed through the pages until he found the letters he had underlined decades earlier.
You are prettier than Cherry Valance, he had written in code all those years ago. Cadie knew the message in each book by heart. Her face burned as she watched him read his own words.
“You were my first kiss, you know,” he said. The silence at the end of his sentence filled the room, like an explosion about to go off.
The Summer Kid had always had shape and color in her mind, but now he had dimension and heat too. His footsteps rattled ceramic plates hanging on the wall. He paused in front of the plates until they quieted.
“My mom made them. She only keeps the imperfect pieces.” Cadie ran her fingers over weepy pockmarks in the glaze, the same broken bubbles she rubbed against her lip as she sipped tea from her mother’s imperfect mugs.
“And my father painted these.” She turned to the oil paintings. Her father’s rough brush strokes pulled in the possibilities of a fall afternoon, all the things that could happen, but might not. An image of the woodpile, a stack of kinetic energy that could either burn or rot, made her sad and hopeful at the same time.
“Why did you stay here?” Cadie said.
“I don’t know. I guess I felt like I should do something meaningful with my life. I had a lot to atone for. And to look after Clyde.”
Cadie wanted to argue with him that Clyde was a monster who did not deserve his loyalty, but the tenderness in Garrett’s voice and his dedication to his uncle stirred an unwanted pang of admiration.
“Don’t you think, at some point, a person can earn forgiveness?” he said. “I mean if they try to live a good life, to make up for their past?”
Cadie had spent long nights lying awake, alone, trying to convince herself that she was living a better life, a more intentional life, because she had something to prove to the Universe. She had been a scared child who made a bad decision. Her adult conscience always interrupted to remind her she could have come forward any time since. But she never did. She could forgive the child. But could she ever forgive her adult self for never being brave enough to take responsibility for what her younger self had done?
“It’ll be okay.” He stood so close beside her she could feel the heat of his arm millimeters from her bare shoulder.
“How does any possible outcome seem okay?” She wanted to touch him, to confirm he was real. She let her cheek rest against his shoulder and listened to the thump of his heart. His fingertips glanced her lower back, barely skimming her skin through the thin cotton of her shirt. His touch felt dangerous, as if it invited the past and present to collide and undo everything she wanted to hold together.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, hoping to see a message from Daniela. Instead, a message from Thea popped up. Call me ASAP.
“It’s my boss. This’ll just take a minute.”
“That was a crappy field report. It looked like a kindergartener did it,” Thea said, although her tone did not sound angry. “But it doesn’t matter.”
Thea let the loaded sentence hang in the air.
“Why doesn’t it matter?” Cadie braced for Thea to fire her.
“I showed your work—well, I neatened it up first—to the administration. Shit, Cadie, after I read it, how could I not tell someone? You’re right. You’re fucking right about the beetle and fire risk.” Thea said words that should have made Cadie feel better, but her tone told Cadie something wasn’t right.
“But the dean went ballistic when he saw where you collected data. You collected samples on land specifically declared off-limits months ago. He knows you understand the new laws. And he knows I do. He flipped out on me for supporting your work, said it threatened our program, the whole university.” Thea paused for a second. “And said he wanted to terminate your fellowship. Immediately.”
“This is bullshit. Does he understand how much environmental research is at risk if they restrict scientists’ access to federal land? I pay taxes. It’s my land. There are projects that have been going on for decades. This data can never be replaced.”
“He knows that. But what’s he supposed to do? It’s the law.”
Cadie paced in front of the window, her feet leaving prints in the long-settled dust. Her fellowship took funding from the state Forestry Service, and Cadie knew they would side with the federal government if it came down to it. Hadn’t she known the risk when she climbed Mount Steady? But she had trusted that the university would stand with her. Truth. Knowledge. Justice. Bullshit.
“So that’s it? You’re just letting them push me out the door?” Musty air burned hot in her lungs. “Did they even read my findings?”
“I fought for you. Maybe too much.” Thea took a deep breath and waited a few seconds before continuing. “He threatened to fire me too.”
“You aren’t responsible for my actions. You told me not to do it. I did it anyway.” Rage simmered in her chest. Now she not only lost her job, but she bore the burden of possibly getting her mentor fired as well.
“I thought you were acting like a spoiled brat. All the projections say the beetles shouldn’t be here yet. But I read your report. And, shit. I’m in this too now. I’m not going to ignore evidence because a bunch of close-minded bureaucrats don’t believe in science.”
“We can fight this, right?”
Garrett furrowed his brow and mouthed, “Everything okay?”
Cadie shook her head.
“We can try. But, FYI. Everyone knows,” Thea said.
“What do you mean everyone? I’m the last one to find out I got fired?”
Garrett raised his eyebrows and put a hand on her wrist. Cadie pulled away.
“Maybe if you checked your messages. I’ve being texting you for hours. Remember that Piper person? Ornithology, I think? I don’t even know how she found out about it, but she organized a bunch of grad students and within an hour
, they occupied the dean’s office, demanding he reinstate us.”
“Why does ornithology care about my beetles?”
“It’s not about your research. It’s the underlying principle that politicians shouldn’t be restricting scientific research on federal lands. Eventually, it will affect them too. Brace yourself before you look it up online. I think they turned you into a hashtag.”
Over the years, Cadie had grown comfortable with her ability to become invisible. To disappear into the background, into the woods. The idea of purple-haired grad students turning her into a cause made her feel vulnerable and exposed at a time when she didn’t need anyone looking at her.
“It’s not all bad news. After six hours of grad students chanting outside his office, the dean caved and agreed to read your report. I think he agrees with you, but he feels backed into a corner. There’s going to be an ethics committee review. You have a chance to make your case. Everyone’s watching us. Other schools and foundations are already calling because they’re up against the same regulatory crap.”
“I don’t want to be anyone’s poster child. I just want to get ahead of the fires. I found the beetle here in Maple Crest. I don’t even need the samples I sent you. I can stick with my original thesis, but gather new data on land that’s not off-limits.” She felt a flicker of hope that she could hang on to her job and still prove the beetles had arrived.
“This thing’s taken on a life of its own. It’s not about the beetles anymore. It’s about government interference in science. Your hearing’s scheduled for tomorrow at three. It’s going to come down to how bold the committee members are. Will they choose the safe path and throw you under the bus to protect their own jobs, or will they side with science?”
Cadie felt a flush of shame at her own instinct to take the easy path.
“I hear you.”
“Even I thought you were exaggerating at first. But, the beetles. They’re real. Your projections are shocking. Maybe a bit of a stretch, but it will get their attention.”
“It’s not a stretch. I drove by Morningside and Hobson. I haven’t collected samples there, but I’m positive the forest in between them is already affected. Seriously. It’s so dry. If there’s as much dead wood in there as I think, it’s just going to take one match and that forest is going to burn. It’s probably the most vulnerable place in the state right now. A swath of dead trees abutting a campground and a populated area in the middle of a drought. One stray match and it will be out of control.”
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