True Blue (Hubbard's Point)

by Luanne Rice

  Together they climbed out of his car. The smell of pine tar and freshly cut wood filled the air. It wasn't what was there, but what was not: Something enormous was missing. Looking south toward the point, there was too much sky. Although night was falling, Rumer's yard was too bright. At first she thought it was one tree—one big tree.

  “I can't believe it,” she whispered, beginning to realize.

  “He clear-cut the yard,” Zeb said, and then she knew.

  “They're gone,” she gasped. “They're all gone.”

  Running ahead of Zeb, she burst into his old yard. While she, Zeb, and the children had been gone, someone had cut every single tree down to the ground. They lay in logs—not yet split, six feet long—like the spoils of a lumberyard, waiting for the saw. The sky yawned overhead, a gash filling with stars. Rumer ran from spot to spot, where the trees had stood: the big cedar, a white pine, the huge oaks, the sassafras, the catalpa, the oak and pine saplings. White disks remained on the ground—markers of where the trees had been cut—oozing with sap.

  “How could they have done this?” she cried. “All the trees!”

  “It's unbelievable,” Zeb said, sounding shocked.

  “They didn't save even one. They're all gone!”

  “I didn't think they'd move so soon,” Zeb said. “I thought we'd have time.”

  “Move so soon…” Rumer listened to his words. Had he known this was going to happen? “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw the plans.”

  “You knew? And you didn't tell me?”

  She threw herself at him, shoving his chest with all her might and gasping for breath. Catching her wrists in his hands, he shook her. “Rumer, stop! Listen to me—I had no idea. To go this far? I never believed he'd do it—a few trees, maybe. Some bushes blocking his view. But not this!”

  “Oh, Zeb,” Rumer said, leaning into his body. “He just went through with a chain saw—he didn't pick and choose—he didn't take any time to decide.”

  “No, he didn't. He didn't care at all. They were just in his way, and he got rid of them.”

  Rumer felt a sob rise in her chest, and Zeb held her tighter. She was in shock, as if she'd just witnessed a terrible accident. She cried her heart out, letting Zeb soothe her, feeling his hand on the back of her head.

  Night was falling quickly; the Mayhews’ old yard had been so overgrown with brambles, trees, and vines that they were part of the landscape and she was used to seeing vague shapes everywhere. Growing along the curved stone steps were—or had been—old roses and hydrangeas.

  Suddenly, something inside her shifted. Rumer's years of treating the Point as one big family property were over. This land no longer belonged to Zeb; it no longer, in any sense, belonged to her either. The realization stabbed her heart, and she hunched slightly, drawing inward to protect herself.

  Rumer knew that this was the last time she would set foot in this yard. The split-trunk oak was gone, and so was the azalea bush. Zeb's mother's rare lilies bloomed along the rock outcropping—the only green left in sight. Rumer looked around for the rabbits and wondered where they could be—there was no longer anywhere for them to hide.

  “We could relocate them,” Zeb said, reading her mind.

  “I don't know,” Rumer said, staring at the flat rock that marked the opening in the ledge, the hole leading to their warren. “This is their home.”

  “Rumer…” he began.

  She hadn't thought the pit in her stomach could get any bigger, but it did. He was watching her so vigilantly, his blue eyes taking in her reaction, and she felt her heart clutch.

  “What?”

  “I didn't want to tell you right away—I hoped I could do something to stop him… but Franklin has filed plans with the town.”

  “What's the difference?” Rumer asked, her voice catching. “He's not going to wait for the hearing. The trees are gone—nothing will bring them back!”

  “The ledge, Rue,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, not understanding.

  “He's filed for a permit to dynamite the rock ledge. He wants to put in a hot tub, and he needs a huge septic tank for that. Because there's so much ledge, he has to go down pretty deep. You see, Rumer?”

  “It's bedrock,” she said, leaning down to touch the earth, to feel the craggy rocks under her fingertips. They were warm, heated by the day's sunlight. Zeb was joking; he had to be. No person—not even someone like Franklin—could just come in and destroy the backbone of Hubbard's Point.

  “He's going to blast it.”

  “Why would he even want to? Why would he buy a place here if he wanted to obliterate what makes it beautiful in the first place? This isn't a development; it isn't a suburb… it's different than any other spot in Connecticut. It's like Maine, or Nova Scotia—it's glacial moraine….”

  “I know,” Zeb said softly. “From space, you can see the cut. I mean, you can see the contours where the rocks of Hubbard's Point would merge with the coast of Africa. It's incredible.”

  “He can't wreck that,” Rumer said. Zeb's calmness was making her feel desperate—because she knew that he meant what he was saying. “He can't just change what's been here forever—move it to suit him!”

  “But he already did,” Zeb said.

  “The trees,” she whispered, looking at the blank, dark sky where branches should have been.

  “The rabbits, Rumer,” Zeb said, holding her shoulders.

  “What?”

  “We might not have another chance before he blasts. Do you want to try to move them?”

  She cried, not wanting to accept the truth of what Zeb was telling her. It can't happen, she wanted to scream, he can't just destroy tons and tons of pre-Cambrian rock ledge, but she knew he could: This morning there had been two-hundred-year-old fifty-feet-tall trees standing there, and now there were none.

  “The rabbits won't want to leave their warren.”

  “I know. But if anyone can help them relocate, it's you.”

  Rumer swallowed. She thought of the hutches in the mudroom; they were all empty right now. “We can keep them inside till we figure something out.”

  “Exactly. Come on, Dr. Larkin.”

  Crouching down beside the hole, Rumer rested her hand on the flat rock. Zeb saw and reached underneath: The hidden key was still there. He pocketed it—it belonged to him after all.

  “I'll get something to hold the rabbits in,” Zeb said, hurrying next door to her house.

  While he was gone, Rumer put her face close to the hole. She tried to peer inside but saw only blackness. As a child, holes in the ground had scared her. She had thought of scary things hiding inside: gnomes, trolls, poisonous snakes. Right now she felt more like that little girl than the veterinarian she had become. Closing her eyes and summoning up the grace of her mother, grandmother, Mrs. Mayhew, Clarissa Randall, and all Quinn's mermaids and unicorns, Rumer worked her arm into the hole.

  Her fingers touched soft fur.

  “It's okay, don't be scared,” she whispered.

  Perhaps the rabbits had been so terrified by the cutting that they were frozen with fear. Zeb had returned with an empty pillowcase, and Rumer pulled the rabbits out one by one and put them inside: seven altogether, including five infants.

  Overhead, without leaves to rustle, the breeze sounded empty. It whistled through the sky, beneath the stars. Holding the pillowcase, they started toward Rumer's house. Suddenly an engine rumbled down the road; headlights pierced the night.

  The lights swept the land, revealing a barren moonscape: a treeless hillside of craggy gray rock. As the truck drove past, and the motor's rumble dissolved in the distance, the tall oaks and pine trees shimmered in a ghostly apparition. Had they ever been there at all?

  Rumer closed her eyes, to preserve the memory of all those trees she had loved to climb, of the graceful limbs that had sheltered generations. Then, taking a breath, she opened them, and followed Zeb and the rabbits into the house.r />
  Looking out the window the next morning, Michael couldn't believe his eyes. Across the street, the hill around his father's old house was as bare as a rock. In fact, it was a rock: a huge pile of granite topped by his family's dark green cottage. His father had gotten up early; lying awake, thinking of Quinn, Michael had heard him make the coffee, lay out his papers and photos for the work he was doing.

  Pausing in the hall between his room and his father's desk, Michael tucked in his shirt. He saw his father sitting there, head bent as he looked over some pictures.

  “Dad?” Michael asked.

  “Good morning, Michael. Sleep well?”

  “Yeah. What happened outside?”

  “You mean up on the hill?”

  “The trees are gone.”

  “The new owner decided to cut them down,” his father said, and from his clipped tone, Michael could tell he was upset.

  “It looks weird,” Michael said. “Not like it's supposed to.”

  “I know. But it's his right.”

  Michael's chest squeezed. Why did his father have to talk to him like this, like a kid? Of course Michael knew it was the man's right—but wasn't that beside the point? Michael could see his father felt bad—he could only imagine how Aunt Rumer was feeling, and what Quinn would do, and he wanted to say something, to help somehow.

  “Still, he shouldn't have done it,” Michael said.

  “The laws of man and the laws of nature don't always go hand in hand,” his father said.

  “Huh,” Michael said, mulling it over yet wondering why his father always had to talk as if he were narrating a National Geographic special. He took a few steps closer to look over his father's shoulder. The black-and-white photos were grainy, hard to interpret. Michael saw large areas of muddy black, washed-out gray, dots of white, and he felt upset, uneasy: Seeing his father work reminded him that they'd be leaving Connecticut soon.

  “What are those?” he asked.

  “They were taken from space,” his father said. “Last winter.”

  “What do they show?”

  “Aunt Rumer's house.”

  “Really?” Michael asked, leaning over.

  His father traced the picture with his finger. “This is the Atlantic Ocean.”

  Michael nodded at the huge black area to the right, realizing that the white dots were wave tops—white-caps. The ocean flowed into Long Island Sound, narrowing into Winnie's cove.

  “There's the Wickland Rock Light,” Zeb said, pointing. “With better resolution, you can see where the Cambria sank, where your mother's ancestor died. But this particular shot is a little murky. There's the Point, that's Winnie's house… there, across the street, is our old place, and that's Aunt Rumer's—”

  “There's Quinn's,” Michael said, and his father gave him a funny look.

  “Yeah,” his father said. “There's Quinn's.”

  “What's it for?” Michael asked.

  His father was silent for a moment, staring at the hills and hollows, the many trees and few houses that made up Hubbard's Point. His concentration was intense, as if he were overseeing the entire planet, the whole universe. Shoved under the local photos were others that Michael had seen lying around, satellite photos of forest fires in Montana taken last summer, thick smoke following the west wind.

  “I'm looking at the land,” his father said finally. He traced the Point itself, the outcropping of glacial rock that jutted directly out into Long Island Sound, like a finger of God pointing straight out to sea.

  “Why?” Michael asked.

  “Because I'm in awe,” his father said softly, “of what man thinks he can do.”

  “What good does it do to look?” Michael asked.

  His father seemed not to hear him. Tapping the table with his fingers, he wouldn't respond. Michael exhaled—it was seven-thirty, time to meet Quinn and go to school.

  “I'm not sure, Michael,” his father said, suddenly turning his head to look Michael in the eye. “I really don't know what good it can do.”

  “Why look, then?”

  “Because I'm trying to learn something,” his father said.

  “Learn what?”

  “How to be a better—”

  A better what? Michael wondered. Everything about space reminded him of how his father liked to fly off, disappear, and watch the world from far away. Here he was, still doing it: Sitting on the Point, the rocky land right at his feet, his father would rather look at pictures of it taken from above. Michael shrugged, backing away—he had to see Quinn right now, as soon as possible, to warn her, before she saw what had happened.

  “Have a good day at school, okay?” his father said, stopping him in his tracks.

  “I'll try,” Michael said, struck by the father-and-son-ness of the moment.

  “I'm proud of you, Michael,” his father said, turning to look at him. “That progress report was really something. Keep it up.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I will,” Michael said, grabbing his books and walking out the door.

  THE NEXT DAY, rabbits filled the mudroom. Mathilda had come over to help Rumer line the hutches with straw and leaves, cantilevered rocks against the sides to approximate the warren they had left, and left the bright fabric covering the cages themselves.

  “Not as quiet as most summers,” Mathilda said.

  “No,” Rumer replied, “I guess the neighbor figured chain saws don't fall under the scope of the hammer law.”

  Next door, the workmen were busy. With Labor Day just a week off, they were preparing to begin working full force. A demolition team was taking measurements with a yellow tape. Builders had removed the house's white shutters and stacked them by the road like garbage, to be picked up in Monday's collection.

  Rumer had immediately moved the pile of shutters from the bottom of the hill into her house. She couldn't bear to see them thrown away—the white panels, solid wood, pine trees cut out for decoration, had framed so much of her heart. She knew she'd think of something to do with them.

  “Hey, anyone home?” Zeb asked, knocking on the door.

  Glancing up from the hutch, Rumer smiled. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt, his arms tan and strong from all his rowing around. He started toward her quickly, his eyes bright and intense, before catching sight of Mattie there beside her.

  “Oh!” he said, stopping short.

  “Zeb, this is Mathilda Chadwick,” Rumer said. “Mattie…”

  “Hello, Zeb,” she said, smiling. “I'm just helping Rumer make the rabbits a nice little home.”

  Zeb laughed. “Well, I think I've found a spot to relocate them. Up here on your hill, Rumer—the other side of the house from mine—I mean, the Franklins'—between the rocks and the herb garden…”

  “By the roses?” Rumer asked, trying to picture the spot. Her mother had loved beach roses, and she had planted a huge garden of them in the middle of the upper yard.

  “Yes,” Zeb said. “There's a tunnel into your ledge; it's not as hidden as the spot under the azaleas, but it's similar. There's a lot of honeysuckle and wisteria growing up around the cedar trees there; maybe we could pull some of the vines down and use them to cover the opening.”

  Rumer nodded, smiling. Zeb inched toward her as he spoke, as if he wanted to close the distance between them. He was so close; if Mattie weren't there, Rumer was sure he'd kiss her.

  But when a truck from New Glendale Pest Control pulled up next door, her reverie slammed to a halt. She, Zeb, and Mattie filed outside. Quinn and Michael stood there, interrogating the driver, who told her that Mr. Franklin had hired him to spray poison down the rodent holes and eradicate “the whole problem.”

  “That seems like a shortsighted solution,” Mathilda began. Rumer and Zeb stepped forward to intervene, but Quinn beat them to it.

  “The whole problem?” Quinn screamed. “The whole problem is that assholes like him think rabbits and squirrels are rodents! Maybe to someone else they are, but to us they're like family! Like pets! Didn't you ever hav
e a dog, buddy? Or a cat, or a hamster?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Don't you dare call me crazy,” Quinn said.

  “Back off,” the man said, pointing the nozzle of his silver can at her.

  Mathilda shrieked.

  “And don't you dare,” Quinn said evenly, “aim that thing at me.”

  Before Rumer could stop her, Quinn had disabled the man with a karate move and taken his spray can. She ran down the right-of-way to the beach and her boat and let Michael block the man's way, leaving him swearing into his cell phone.

  “What was that?” Zeb asked, his eyes wide with surprise.

  “You've never seen her in action before?” Rumer asked as he took her hand. His touch weakened her knees, and she had to hide her smile from the exterminator.

  “Who says girls don't have the power?” Mathilda asked.

  “She's awesome,” Michael said.

  “How the hell did a girl from coastal Connecticut learn moves like that?” Zeb asked as if shocked, but Rumer heard quite a bit of respect and admiration in his tone. The exterminator, shaking his head, continued to yell into the cell phone.

  “Girls from coastal Connecticut are vastly underrated,” Mathilda said.

  “My boss is calling the cops,” he said as he disconnected and walked over to them. “She's in big trouble—big fucking trouble.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Zeb said.

  “That psycho goes ninja on me, steals my can of poison, and you tell me to watch my mouth?” the man spat out.

  “I think we're clear on that,” Zeb said.

  “Fuck you,” the man said. “Fuck you all! My boss says you've been nothing but trouble since he bought this place. Well, hang on to your seats. He's a great guy, the nicest guy you could want to meet, but cross him, and—”

  “We have a ninja to protect us,” Rumer said, smiling.

  “Yeah, rabbit-killer,” Michael said, standing right in the man's face, his red bandanna blazing like a battle flag.

  “You were too late anyway,” Mathilda said. “We have the rabbits under protective custody. Your trip here was in vain.”

  “She'll pay,” the man said. “And pay big. That stuff is hazardous waste—whatever she's planning to do with it, she'll be in huge trouble. She could go to jail for it, and don't think my boss won't send her. Little bitch.”