“Try to contain the drama. We can’t get apocalyptic if we want them to take us seriously,” Thea said.
“Drama? Do we need a wildfire to drive people from their homes before anyone believes me how serious this is?”
“I believe you. But I’m just advising to keep your shit together during the presentation.”
“What presentation?” Cadie said.
Garrett walked out onto the back porch.
“The ethics committee wants you to defend your position tomorrow and explain why you were on federal land. Maybe if they understand the stakes.”
Garrett stood on the deck, framed by an orange glow settling behind the mountains. He took an imaginary bat in his hands, choked up, and took a few practice swings. He planted his feet shoulder width apart, bent his knees, and took the bat to his shoulder.
“Tomorrow?” Cadie said loudly. Garrett looked in through the screened window and raised his eyebrows. She nodded that everything was fine. “I don’t have a presentation prepared. And I’m two hours away.”
Leaning forward and wagging his hips, Garrett waited for an imaginary pitch. He smacked an invisible ball with the full force of his broad, angular shoulders. Cadie found herself following its trajectory as it arched gracefully over the dusky lake.
“We can do this.” Thea sounded uncharacteristically excited. “And, for God’s sake, please check your messages. I’ve been cleaning up your mess all day because no one can get in touch with you.”
“I’ll try. The woods up here are a cell signal dead zone.” She looked out the window, but Garrett was gone. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
She tucked her phone into her pocket and went outside. Maybe Garrett got tired of waiting for her and left. She found him behind the door, standing on an upside-down paint bucket, detaching the spring on top of the screen door.
“It’s pretty rusty. Do you mind if I take it with me so I can measure it up when I’m in town? I can grab a new one at the hardware store for a few bucks.” He reached up over his head to release the spring, exposing a few inches of tan skin between his board shorts and shirt.
Cadie tried not to stare at his obliques.
“Thanks. It’s creaked for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I don’t even hear it anymore.”
“What happened? That sounded serious.”
“Nothing much. Except I knowingly collected samples on restricted federal land. My research has the potential to head off forest fires, but instead of backing my work, the university might fire me for violating these asinine regulations.”
Garrett jumped down from the paint bucket and released the screen door, which hung open without the spring to pull it closed.
“This is such bullshit.” Cadie slammed the door shut with so much force the windows rattled. “And to top it off, a bunch of do-gooder grad students turned me into a hashtag, and now I need to prepare a presentation for the ethics committee for tomorrow afternoon.”
“Why would they restrict the research? I mean, they must have a reason.”
“Because they don’t want to believe climate change is real. They don’t want more data proving temperature increases are killing their darling maples. Their donors want to keep on drilling and fracking. If we don’t do the research, we can’t prove species are disappearing or that invasive ones are moving in. They just stick their heads in their fucking sand and cash checks from Big Oil.” She kicked the paint bucket Garrett had been standing on and walked over to the porch rail. “They don’t want to believe my research because it’s inconvenient.”
Garrett stepped up behind her and put one hand on each of her shoulders.
“I believe you,” he whispered. She could feel his breath through her hair.
Goosebumps rushed down her shoulder until the hairs on her arm stood straight up. Cadie’s body betrayed her emotions too often. Her eyes always darted where they shouldn’t. Like her merciless blush, her skin divulged her intimate desires. But, for once, Cadie didn’t feel like she had anything to hide. Garrett already knew her secrets, her shame, her rage. She could never extricate herself from him now, as if they had been tangled up together all along. Sharing guilt eased her burden a degree.
She turned around to face him. The eyes that terrified and intrigued her as a child now evoked a raw, disarming hunger.
“Can you be ready by tomorrow afternoon?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’ll terrify them with the truth.”
“I’m going to go so you can work,” Garrett said, but he didn’t move.
Cadie felt emboldened by a long-dormant, yet familiar recklessness. The events of the last twenty-four hours had yanked her out of her carefully constructed sanctuary. She had so much to fear—losing her job, getting arrested, facing her past—that she felt numb to the panic.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” he whispered, the hush of lake water on his breath. His skin smelled like the wind over the shallows, wet granite, and honeysuckle.
“Stay a little longer.” She pressed up on her toes and kissed him. She almost laughed, remembering her reaction to Garrett’s unexpected first kiss all those years ago.
“You have work to do.” His fingers touched the skin on her back between her shirt and her waistband as he pulled her closer. Heat moved up her back, and she lost her breath for a second.
“I don’t want to be responsible for a forest fire because you couldn’t get your presentation finished. Can you come over after the presentation tomorrow? We can eat dinner on my boat.”
Cadie nodded. “If I convince them to support me, this could change everything. It could be my chance. There’s also an outside chance I could get arrested.”
“I believe in you,” Garret said.
The idea of going out on the boat with Garrett suddenly felt more important than stopping the fires.
“I’m really leaving now.” He pulled away. “If there’s anything I can do, call me. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow night. Does six thirty work?”
“I’ll be there.”
He kissed her lightly on the lips and backed toward the door.
Watching the screen open and close without the squeak of the rusty spring disoriented Cadie, like watching a TV show with sound that did not sync to the video. She startled when the door slammed shut and Garrett was gone.
She hopped across the kitchen floorboards in her old familiar patterns, trying to extract out-of-tune childhood melodies, and poured a glass of her father’s bourbon over a few ice cubes.
She highlighted the vulnerable areas with flames superimposed over the map of New Hampshire as the first slide, which she knew Thea would think was too dramatic. But Cadie was feeling dramatic. By 2 A.M., she had finished putting the slides and maps into her presentation software, which she e-mailed to Thea to review.
She needed sleep, but this silent hour of the night felt like a gift. The rest of the world had stopped moving. She rummaged through her bookshelf until she found the water-warped copy of The Call of the Wild, the book she had never delivered to Garrett.
How had that wispy boy summoned the courage to send her those notes? Did he act out of desperation, boredom, or sincere admiration? Had she ever been that bold in her life? Could she ever be that brave?
She pressed open the paperback and underlined letters, spelling out a note for Garrett. I think I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. She hugged the book to her chest and tucked it and Kidnapped, the first book she had shared with Garrett, into her backpack.
20
PRESENT DAY
The morning chill had dissipated by the time Cadie stepped into the woods and headed to the Garcias’ house the following morning. Why had she agreed to take Sal blueberry picking? She had six hours before delivering the presentation that could possibly change the trajectory of her career. Or get her arrested. She should be rehearsing. But something about the way Sal looked at her, imagining fairy wings, made Cadie want to be that person Sal imagined her to be.
Cadie
picked up her pace as she made her way down the overgrown path, leaping up onto the granite stones and launching off to the next one. She moved faster, skipping, running, careful to avoid twisting her ankle in hidden crevices.
Cadie misjudged the traction of dried moss, parched from the drought. Instead of finding a spongey landing pad, her boot slipped over the slick moss and she fell, banging her shin on a rock. The cut was small, the bruise inconsequential, but the tiny burst of adrenaline made her fingers and toes buzz.
By the time she reached the clearing, sweat dripped down her back. She put her hands on her knees and leaned forward to catch her breath.
The outline of that boat stood out against the forest floor. The ghost of a ship formed from rocks Cadie had arranged to elevate the boat where she had stored it in the winter. Time had tried to pull the rock outline down under the forest floor. Curling vines and tufts of moss covered some stones, but the resilient skeleton of the boat held fast.
The forest breathed around her. She closed her eyes and inhaled the succulent exhale of the woods.
Instead of heading straight to the Garcias’, Cadie stepped off the trail and walked toward the beech tree where she had hidden the gun. Maybe she and Daniela had missed something. It had been dark. They’d been drinking.
She climbed the boulder next to the tree and sank her arm inside the eyehole. She moved her fingers more carefully this time, avoiding another splinter. Amid the dried leaves and acorns, her finger touched the edge of what felt like a plastic bag. She recoiled, afraid of what might be inside. She put her hand back in and pulled out a small Ziploc bag with a folded piece of paper sealed inside.
Go Home. Or someone will get hurt.
She dropped the note and jumped off the rock. A rustling in the woods behind her, the swoosh of a blackbird overhead. Cadie picked up the note, which appeared to have been written recently, shoved it into her shorts pocket, and ran back toward the path.
Had the note been there the night she and Daniela went looking for the gun? Had Cadie missed it because of the splinter? Garrett believed the gun sank to the bottom of the lake. And if Garrett wanted her to leave, why would he have kissed her? Daniela had called Cadie back to the cottage in the first place, so it couldn’t be her. Could it? Dolores never even knew Garrett gave the gun to Cadie.
That left Clyde.
Go Home. The message burned in her pocket. Threatening the Garcias was still Clyde’s only weapon. Would he really expose them after all this time?
* * *
Raúl met Cadie at the door, his hair neatly combed. Instead of his Garcia’s Hardware logo shirt, he wore a freshly pressed button-down and a tie. Sal hung back in the darkened hallway behind her grandmother.
“I want to take the canoe out instead of going into the woods.” Sal fidgeted and picked at her cuticles as she spoke from the shadow.
“Sure,” Cadie said.
Sal pointed to the blood on Cadie’s shin and wrinkled her brow.
Cadie stepped behind a chair so Raúl and Dolores wouldn’t notice and touched her finger to her lips so Sal wouldn’t say anything.
“I’m going now.” Raúl kissed Dolores on the cheek.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” Dolores’s knuckles whitened as she squeezed the handle on her coffee mug.
Sal’s eyes moved back and forth from her grandmother to her grandfather.
“Bring some berries back for me?” Raúl’s hard face broke into a smile so unnatural that Cadie couldn’t look at him.
Sal nodded and walked outside, her hair sticking up in messy spikes around her crown. Cadie followed her outside.
“Were you rock jumping?” Sal pointed at Cadie’s cut. “Mom said you always bounced from rock to rock instead of staying on the path.”
“Apparently, I’m out of practice.” Cadie touched the tender bruise forming around the scrape.
Cadie took a seat in the front of the Garcias’ canoe. With a running start, Sal pushed the boat into the shallow water and leapt into the rear seat.
“Where do you want to go?” Cadie said.
“Blueberry Cove.” Sal’s words sounded like a challenge.
Cadie wanted to ask Sal how she liked her new school, if she had made any new friends, but the questions sounded trite and cliché as she tossed them around in her head. She strangled the heel of her paddle, smiling too much whenever Sal looked at her.
“Why were you and Mom fighting last night?”
“We weren’t fighting.” Cadie looked over her shoulder at Sal.
“Right,” Sal said.
“Look, there’s a loon family.” Cadie pointed toward a pair and a chick.
“She can be a real bitch sometimes.”
“Your mom’s not a bitch. We disagreed about something. It’s not a big deal,” Cadie said. “How do you like the new school?”
“It sucks. It’s a bunch of hicks.”
“That’s not true. Your mom and I grew up here.”
“And you both couldn’t wait to move away. The only reason we came back is because Mom needed a job.”
“People here are nice. You should give them a chance.”
“Like the kids who spray-painted ‘Build the Wall’ on the back of the gym? You want me to give them a chance?”
“Someone did that?”
“Yeah. Someone did that.” Sal paddled harder on her side of the boat, forcing Cadie to compensate on the other side in order to keep the boat moving straight.
Cadie tried to think of something else to talk about, but she had nothing in common with this girl.
“Why’d you bring that cop over last night?” Sal said.
“Garrett wasn’t being a cop last night. He’s a friend.”
“Ummm-hmmm.” Sal laughed. “A friend.”
Heat rushed to Cadie’s cheeks. She squeezed the paddle tighter to calm the rush that burst forward when she thought about Garrett.
Sal threw her head back and laughed out loud. “Oh, my God. Mom’s so right. She said you blushed redder than anyone she’d ever met.”
Although the joke came at her expense, Cadie laughed. The storm in Sal’s eyes lightened.
“Thanks. Pointing out that I’m blushing really helps.” Cadie splashed water at Sal.
“Mom says you’re into trees and forestry.”
“I’m a professional tree hugger.”
“Did you know that only two percent of El Salvador’s forests remain standing because of all the logging and irresponsible agriculture? A lot of it’s local farmers clearing land, but US companies bought up a ton of land and clear-cut it to grow bananas and stuff.”
“Really?” Cadie already knew about the deforestation in Central America but she wanted to keep Sal talking about climate disasters instead of Cadie’s love life.
“And the drought there is way worse than the one everyone’s freaking out about in New Hampshire.”
“Conditions here are pretty bad, too.”
“But not like there.” Sal’s playful demeanor when she had teased Cadie about Garrett morphed into a serious, weighty stare.
“True. How do you know all this?”
“The Internet.” Sal paddled with slow, even strokes. “I had to do a summer research project. I did it on the effects of climate change in El Salvador.”
“That seems kind of cruel. We never had summer work.”
“It’s our fault, you know.”
“Summer work?” Cadie tried to swallow a yawn. She hadn’t slept much the previous night.
“No, geez. The drought in El Salvador. Countries like the US pump so much CO2 into the air with all our air-conditioning and giant SUVs. We’re doing most of the damage, but poor countries—it’s always the poor countries—are feeling climate change first and worst. And then when their crops fail and no one has any money, crime goes up, and the gang stuff gets worse.”
Cadie stopped paddling, took a swallow of water from her water bottle, and offered it to Sal. Sal drank down a few gulps and wiped he
r mouth with the back of her hand.
“And then when people want to save their families from, like, starvation or violence, they cross into the US, but Americans get all like ‘Build the Wall.’ ‘Latinos are all rapists.’ It’s bullshit.” Sal knitted her thick eyebrows as she spoke.
“Maybe you should skip running for mayor and head straight to Congress.”
“I’m being serious. It’s wrong. We can’t go around screwing up the whole world, then turn our backs on the people who get hurt by it.”
“There are efforts to replant forests in Central America, and they’re trying to work with farmers to stop them from clear-cutting and burning land,” Cadie said.
“Tell that to the people starving right now.” Sal looked across the mountains flanking the lake.
“You’re right. It’s not helping them, is it?”
“There’re kids in my school who came here alone. Not even with their parents. Completely alone. Can you even imagine? I know one kid who held on underneath a moving train to get here. Underneath. Is that even possible? But I know he’s telling the truth because he has all these scars on his back and legs from stones kicking up and hitting him. But he didn’t let go. He still has pebbles embedded in his scalp. I felt them.”
“Geez. That’s awful. Is he okay now?”
“I guess. He lives with his brother, Tino, who has been here like eight years, I think.”
“Wait. You mean Fernando?”
“You know Fernando?” Sal stopped paddling and she bit down on her lower lip. Her eyes widened with panic. “I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, I don’t even know if it’s true. He probably made it all up. Besides, I think he probably has papers now.”
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