Higgins tugged at the hem of my jeans.
“No, Higgy.” But I moved down to the floor so he could sit in my lap. I took the scrapbook off my bedside table.
Don’t fail me now, Pips.
WHY PIPPA REYNOLDS AND SADIE DOUGLAS WILL ALWAYS BE BEST FRIENDS —
REASON 3: YOU ALWAYS TELL ME WHEN I HAVE LETTUCE IN MY TEETH, OR MUD ON MY FACE, OR TP ON MY SHOE.
Pictures of us with lettuce in our teeth, mud on our faces, and TP on our shoes. Pippa could always make me laugh.
“Let’s draw, Hig.” I brought my pencils and sketchbook to the window seat and shaded my page, laying a foundation for my drawing.
Higgins tried to bite my pencil. Despite his help, I sketched the smooth lines of my window and the wispy snowflakes outside. At first the images laid flat on my page. An extra layer of shading gave them depth and dimension, but I couldn’t make my drawing look smooth, the way the windowpanes and snowflakes actually looked. No matter how much I scrubbed and blended, my strokes wouldn’t disappear.
A knock on my door brought me back to my bedroom. “Sadie, can I come in?”
No. “Sure.”
Mom came in and sat on the bed. “What are you drawing?”
Higgins licked her hands and sniffed her tea, which must be cold by now.
When I didn’t answer, Mom reached for my sketchbook. “You’re becoming quite an artist.”
“Not really. I can’t get my shading right.”
Mom shook her head. “You’re so hard on yourself, Sadie.”
“I wish it had worked out better. Us moving here,” I said. “You …”
She looked me straight in the eyes, her expression free of the usual mask. She let go of our game of pretend and really looked at me, her face full of everything she never said: I’m sick, Sadie. I’m worried I won’t get better. I love you. And for the tiniest moment, I felt a tug, maybe that tug that Lindsay had talked about. Notice this. Pay attention to this. Mom and I were two people, seeing each other. And then it was gone.
She leaned back and her face tightened, “I’m okay, Sadie. Really.”
A gaping hole opened inside me, wanting what I’d almost had, wanting not to be shut out, wanting her to tell me she’d get better. Wanting to believe it was true.
“I guess I’ll go heat up my tea,” she said and drifted out of the room.
I curled up on top of my comforter. I’d wake up when Dad got home.
“Sadie?” Someone called my name and knocked on my door. “Sadie, can’t you hear Higgins whining? Come on, Hig, I’ll take you outside.”
I heard the door open and Higgins’ nails click quietly out into the hall.
I cracked open one eye and shut it quickly again against the bright sunrise. My feet felt impossibly heavy and my legs itched. As my mind-fog lifted, I realized I’d fallen asleep in my clothes. I hadn’t even taken off my shoes. I sat up, rubbing my face where my cable-knit sweater had pressed into my skin and checked my clock. Seven fifteen, Thursday morning. I went to my calendar and counted days. Nineteen days left of hunting season. Yesterday rushed back — Peter and my argument with Vivian. I threw myself back into bed and covered my head with my pillow.
Dad knocked again. “Sades?”
“Come in,” I said.
He took one look at me and burst out laughing. “You look terrible!”
Higgins put his front paws up on the bed, and Dad lifted him the rest of the way up. Immediately, Higgins climbed onto my lap and began licking my face.
“I was going to offer to take you to the research cabin after school today,” Dad said. “But maybe you should come home instead and take a nap.”
I pushed Higgins off my lap. “No, I want to go.”
“Bring your boots then,” Dad said. “We might head out into the woods today.”
Last night’s frozen dew glistened from branches of evergreen trees as we roared into the morning quiet. Dad’s country music blasted from the radio. Suddenly, he turned it down.
“Sadie, Vivian called me last night. She’s worried about you too.”
I froze. I hadn’t expected Vivian to call. I wasn’t ready to talk about Peter and Big Murphy yet. I tried to change the subject.
“Dad, is Patch okay?”
“I haven’t heard a peep from Jim, so he must not have found her.”
I twisted the edge of my sweater between my fingers, knowing now was the time. Now. I should tell Dad now about Peter and Big Murphy.
“Sadie, you know I’d love to give Patch a fighting chance to make it through the winter with her cubs. I just can’t report Jim if I’m not sure.”
I should stop him, tell him. But I couldn’t.
God, please help. I’m turning into a very bad person. What am I supposed to do?
Dad filled the silence. “I’m supposed to be standing outside the mess, helping fix it. I can’t jump into the middle of it all. Don’t you see?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak. Dad wasn’t making sense. His fading black eye still tinged blue and green proved just how in the middle of it all he was.
“Someday you’ll understand,” Dad said, as we pulled up to school.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled his rough cheek close. I wanted to tell him I loved him, but I couldn’t find words, not even to chase the deep sadness out of his eyes. I let him go and walked to the school steps where Ruth waited.
As soon as she saw me, she burst into nervous chatter about her presentation. One of the first days of school, I remembered feeling like two people, one standing outside myself, calmly observing, and the other very much inside myself, feeling every little stab of pain. Again now, listening to Ruth, I watched from the outside. Anyone watching would believe we were close friends, but I still felt miles away from her on the inside. Why couldn’t I just forgive Ruth? Why did the space between us spread wider every day?
“Sadie, are you listening?” Ruth shook my arm.
I forced myself back to the school hallway, away from my thoughts. “I’m sorry, what was the question?”
“Should I say the part about families being like oranges, and everyone being a separate slice?” Her eyebrows scrunched together with worry.
I faked yet another smile. Now was not the time for her to doubt herself. “Ruth, your presentation will be perfect. Don’t worry. Do it just the way you practiced.”
Chapter 24
Invisible
After school, Dad screeched to a stop at the research station, trying his old tricks to cheer me up.
Andrew threw open the front door. “Where’s the fire? Everything okay?”
If only he knew how not okay everything was. I followed Dad and Andrew to the porch, thinking about how merciless Frankie, Nicole, and Tess had been today during Ruth’s presentation, and how terrible they were likely to be for mine. I carefully avoided thoughts of Vivian and Peter and what I would say to Andrew about Big Murphy.
As Helen joined us, a gunshot cracked.
Helen winced. “Even though we can’t stop the hunters, seeing us out in the forest reminds them of the rules. I still hate it. I hate every second of it.”
“I do too,” I said.
“You two stick close to the cabin,” Helen said to Andrew and me. “Keep the feeders full and don’t leave unless you see Patch. If you see her, follow her. Use the transponder if you have to. I don’t want her denning somewhere she shouldn’t. I know we shouldn’t interfere, but …”
She pulled her hat over her ears and turned to Dad. “Meredith is joining us today, which will be a big help.”
As they headed off into the woods, Andrew handed me a ten-gallon container of nuts and took one for himself. “You ready to fill the feeders?”
As I poured nuts into the first feeder, they tumbled out too quickly and some spilled on the ground.
“Don’t worry about picking them up. The bears will eat them off the ground. They’re not picky.” Andrew filled the next feeder.
I scanned the bushes, th
e empty yard. “All the bears are gone.”
“Most have chosen dens. Very few are still out, that’s all. We’re lucky to have only lost Humphrey.”
No one had talked about Humphrey since the day after he died. Hearing his name now, added to the weight of what I knew, what I couldn’t say, rested on my shoulders and pushed down, down. Maybe if I started by telling Andrew about Ruth, I could figure out a way to tell him about Peter too. Maybe all I needed was to start.
I poured seed into the last feeder and then set my empty container on the deck, sitting beside it. “Ruth and I had a fight.”
“Really?” Andrew squatted next to me. “After the meeting? What happened?”
“Actually before the meeting.” I looked up at the dark clouds that crowded the sky. “I’ve been trying to act like everything is okay, but Ruth lied to me, or at least she didn’t tell me the truth, and she let me take the blame at school for telling on Ty’s friends who got suspended —”
“Woah!” Andrew sat down. “Sounds like a long story.”
“She asked me to forgive her, and I’m trying, but …” I bit my lip. “I don’t trust her. How can I be friends with someone I don’t trust?”
“Everyone makes mistakes, Sadie. I tried to push you to report Jim, and that was wrong. You forgave me.” He leaned down so I couldn’t avoid his eyes. “Right?”
Now. Here was the moment again, the perfect moment to tell about Peter and Big Murphy, but when I opened my mouth, I couldn’t form the words. Was it because Peter was my friend? Because Vivian was my art teacher? Or simply because all this time I’d been wrong, blaming the wrong person? Was I just too embarrassed now to tell the truth?
Leaves rustled and Andrew squinted into the bushes.
“Sadie, that’s Patch and her cubs. We’ve got to go.”
He pulled me to my feet, and we followed the sound into the bushes. We tried to walk quietly, but hiding from Patch was impossible. Either she’d let us follow her or she wouldn’t.
“Here, bear,” Andrew called quietly into the forest. “Here, Patch. It’s just me. Me and Sadie.” He continued to call, in the singsong way I’d heard Helen call.
We entered a clearing, and there she was, silent, still, with her three cubs tucked close. She huffed and headed back into the brush. We crept after her.
The cubs bounded around Patch, rushing ahead and then circling back, slipping on wet logs and tumbling into the mud. Whenever they stumbled they stood, shook, and bounded after Patch again.
Finally, when we had come about two miles out from the cabin, and I thought my fingers might actually fall off from the cold, Patch stopped. She stood in front of an embankment held in place with a fallen log. A dinner-plate sized hole had been dug beneath the log and inside the hole a large space had been cleared. A mound of twigs and leaves and dirt stood just outside the opening.
“Her den,” Andrew said, his voice barely a whisper. “She’s showing us her den.”
The three cubs climbed inside, and finally, after giving us a long, long look, Patch squeezed inside as well. Little claws and big claws reached out to pull twigs and dirt back to cover the opening. In just minutes, the den was nearly invisible.
Rain began to fall.
“She’s going to be safe.” Andrew looked like he could hardly believe his own words. “This part of the forest is an empty lot that has been for sale for years. Out here, no one will disturb her.”
“She’s going to live,” I said.
“She is.” Andrew took my icy fingers and rubbed them between his palms. “Let’s go back before you freeze to death.”
He dropped one hand and texted his mom as we started walking: Patch and cubs in den. Safe.
After the triumphant message we raced back through the forest, leaping over logs and charging through puddles. By the time we reached the cabin, rain had soaked through my jeans and boots. Even my socks were wet.
“Where’s the den?” Helen called from the porch. From the flush on her face, she must have rushed back as soon as she got the text.
“It’s on the open land, Mom,” Andrew gasped, trying to catch his breath. “That lot out by Old Man Mueller’s cabin that’s been for sale for years. She’s safe.”
I turned circles in the driveway, and Andrew caught my hands and spun me around. Dad grinned ear to ear.
“You’d better take Sadie home,” Helen said to Dad. “She’s soaked to the skin.”
Andrew hugged me tight and then helped me up into the Jeep.
Helen tossed me a towel. “Don’t catch cold, kiddo. You and Andrew can show me the den soon.”
On the ride home, thunder rumbled in the distance. My happiness started to fade as I wrestled with my growing list of problems — not telling Dad about Peter, not telling Andrew about Peter, what to do about Peter, Vivian, Ruth.
“Looks like a big storm,” Dad said, as the wind whipped tree branches into a frenzy. “We should stay in tonight. Hope you didn’t want to go to youth group.”
The clock read seven thirty. “No, it’s too late anyway.” I didn’t say that I couldn’t face Ruth right now, with the worries piling one on top of the other in my mind. What I needed now was a friend I didn’t have to be careful with, a friend I could tell anything and who would help me sort out what to do.
One of Dad’s favorite songs started playing, and he turned it up. Now that Patch was in her den, I should be happy. So I sang along with Dad, but every word felt like another stone piling on top of the very heavy pile that threatened to bury me alive.
Chapter 25
Distortion
When we arrived home, the house was dark. Mom must be upstairs, sleeping again. I opened the door and Higgins, who had been just inside, spinning circles, looked up at us. A pool formed under his feet and his ears drooped.
“Oh, Hig,” I said. “You’ve been waiting forever, I’m sure.”
The phone rang and Dad went to answer, so I clipped on Higgins’ leash and took him outside. After we came back, I cleaned up Higgins’ mess. Dad came out of the kitchen.
Something had happened, because Dad, the country rock star, had turned into Dad, the very worried man. Deep lines furrowed between his eyebrows.
“Can you check in on Mom?” he asked, already halfway out the front door. “I have to go back over to the DNR to talk to Meredith.”
“What about the storm?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he said, “Eat without me,” and shut the door behind him.
I peeked in on Mom, but she was fast asleep, so I made myself a peanut butter and Doritos sandwich and went up to my room. I’m trying Pips, I really am.
But even though I was running out of reasons, and even though the reasons were helping less and less, I still needed to look at the scrapbook.
WHY PIPPA REYNOLDS AND SADIE DOUGLAS WILL ALWAYS BE BEST FRIENDS —
REASON 2: BECAUSE WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME, THEN IT HAPPENS TO YOU. OR THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
A picture of us smiling, both missing a front tooth. Us, miserable, covered in chicken pox, on side-by-side couches. Us, with tear-stained faces and terrible too-short haircuts.
“But not anymore, Pips,” I whispered as I closed the book. “You don’t have a huge secret you’re keeping from everyone you know. You don’t have all these questions with no answers.”
Pippa’s emailed answers seemed just as easy as they’d ever been, while my questions loomed larger and more difficult than ever. She was so far away — not because she was in California, but because she knew a me that didn’t exist anymore. The me who knew what was right and what was wrong. The me who knew what I believed.
My sketchbook was almost full now. I’d drawn as many examples of the word alive as I could. Andrew laughing as he held Higgins up to the telescope. Ruth watching stars with Cameron. Vivan lifting out of her seat at Compline. Dad scambling eggs. Mom in an organizing frenzy. Higgins chasing his tail. Helen slipping the collar over April’s neck. Peter presenting me Double Decker Chocolate
on a Cloud. How many of these moments were real, though? Which of them could I trust? All around the edges of the pages, sketches of eyes filled the blank space. Ruth’s eyes, Frankie’s eyes, Vivian’s eyes, Peter’s eyes, Helen’s eyes, Andrew’s eyes. Only the last page was empty.
I took out my pencils. Rain pounded on the roof, and I tried not to think about Dad driving through the storm.
I shaded my page with graphite, and then let a shape take form on the page. I was almost finished with both eyes before I realized I was drawing Peter. Not the Peter who shot Big Murphy — the Peter who had lied to me — but the Peter before that, my friend who I trusted. As I shaped and shaded, I realized the two sides of his face weren’t symmetrical. One eye stared up at me, hard, cold, from behind a deep shadow, and the other was lighter, warmer.
Finally, Dad’s Jeep pulled in. I closed my book and crept toward bed, hoping he’d think I was asleep.
He knocked on my door. “Sadie, you awake?”
I rolled over, turning my back to the door, willing him to go away even as he tiptoed into my room and sat down beside me on the bed.
“Sadie, we need to talk.” Dad rubbed my shoulder, as though to wake me, until I turned to face him. “Somehow Jim Paulson heard that I planned to accuse him of shooting Big Murphy. Maybe you said something at school, or I don’t know, Sadie. The point is, Jim stormed into Meredith’s office and accused me of spreading lies about him, and then made everything worse by claiming I’ve been sneaking up behind him when he’s closing in for a kill, and shooting into the air to startle his bear. He filed an official report against me for interfering with his hunting.”
Even though I wasn’t really asleep, I still wasn’t following this story. “But you haven’t interfered with his hunting.”
“No, but I was still called to a hearing tomorrow. It’s his word against mine. Sadie,” Dad shook his head, “you finally get your chance to share the evidence against Jim. If we prove he did break the law, hopefully the DNR will drop the case against me.”
Shades of Truth Page 11