On the floor of the porch, I fluffed my pillow and settled back against the cool firmness of the boards. I stared at the porch ceiling, trying not to think. My mind worked against my will, though, and in time I knew with absolute certainty that if I truly hated anyone in the world, although I’d even never seen the man, I hated her father.
“I’m sorry,” I heard her say sometime later, in that terrible rasp.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “Try to relax.”
“I’m sorry. You think I’m crazy.”
“You’re all right, Sara. I’ll be right here, okay?” I waited for a response. None came. I looked over at her again. She was nothing like the girl from an hour ago, let alone the girl from earlier in the day. In the low light her large eyes reflected dull and steady, not bright and shiny. The expression of her eyes seemed to change everything about her.
I breathed in deeply of the night air, warm in the sleeping bag, my face cool, yet it was nothing like the times when I’d slept on the porch by choice as a kid. Now there was no comfort, no sense of free adventure, the crickets were no lullaby. From the corner of my eye I could see Sara motionless under the sleeping bag, her eyes still refusing to close. I could not sleep. I kept trying not to think of anything and, of course, managed to do nothing but think.
Her eyes were like the eyes of an abandoned fawn we once found lying in the woods one day, frightened and defenseless, unable to walk and so left to die. As a child I’d looked into its sad-seeming unblinking glossed-button eyes as it cowered among the ferns at the woodlot. I remember the excitement upon first noticing it there, yelling to my father, the thrill of being able to approach it, and then the sinking sadness when he explained calmly that its leg was deformed and probably lamed further by struggle. The fawn made many frantic attempts to rise, but each time it had fallen awkwardly, its white-spotted sides heaving from effort. On our second trip back to the lot, after lunch, I’d brought along an opened can of sweet corn and spread the corn on the ground before the fawn. It would not eat while I sat hopefully staring, but later when I checked back, the corn was all gone and the surrounding area was licked smooth. In that younger mindset I’d felt very proud and very satisfied for having helped. But later on, my old man ended up having to shoot that fawn. He said he couldn’t stand the thought of the coyote pack tearing it apart that night, still alive and fully conscious. So when we were finished for the day I put on a brave show, said goodbye to the fawn, and got into the truck and stared forward, waiting to hear the shot. The shot startled me, but I kept on staring forward while my old man put the rifle behind the truck seat, climbed in, and started driving slowly on the rough road. Then I stared out the side window to keep him from seeing the tears on my cheeks.
I had not thought of the fawn in years. The memory had been pushed very far back. But I’ve not forgotten it since—her eyes were too similarly disturbing.
I blinked hard to escape that memory and stared up at the porch ceiling. I counted boards and counted screws in the ceiling. Then I tried to pray. Please, God, help her, I prayed in my head. I repeated it many times over to keep away the other thoughts, until at last my eyes began closing, on fire from exhaustion.
13
Sometime in the night I woke to her crying. She had moved down beside me with her pillow by my pillow and her face just across from my face. My vision was blurry, but I could see her shadowy face very close and the whites of her eyes standing out in the dark, and I remember saying “You’re okay” very tiredly.
“I’m sorry,” her voice came weakly.
“Did you dream?”
“I couldn’t stay awake.”
“Don’t cry.”
“It was better when I woke up and saw you there. I knew it couldn’t happen.”
“Good.”
“I’m not afraid anymore,” she sniffed.
“Good. Then don’t cry.”
“I think I’m all better now.”
“Good.” My eyes were closing again. I could not resist sleep’s pull.
At first light I was awake again. I heard the chatter of morning around me, and through the floorboards I could feel my old man moving in the house. I held still for a while, breathing shallow and listening carefully, wondering how to handle it, what I should say. Eventually he came to the door, glanced down through the window a moment, and then stepped heavily away again. I looked over to Sara. She was sleeping on her side, still facing me. I moved carefully so as not to wake her. I was stiff and tried to stretch it out as I went inside.
“Does Kate know?”
I shook my head. I had no idea.
“She’ll be frantic,” my old man grumbled.
I dared say nothing.
“Wake her up so she can get home.”
“I don’t know what she’ll be like, Dad. She—”
“Do it. Now. Kate hasn’t noticed her missing yet, or we sure as hell would have heard about it. Move.”
I went out again and leaned down and nudged her softly, whispering her name, and at first she was startled. She looked around with her face wrinkled up, but after a moment she settled and her face softened again. Then she smiled. It was a weak smile, but I could see the difference in her again. She was a whole different creature in the light of day.
“Hey,” she said tiredly.
“Hey,” I said a little less tiredly.
“It’s morning already?”
“Yes.”
“Gosh,” she yawned.
“I’m sorry, but you need to get home now, before your mom notices you’re gone.”
“Okay.”
I took her hand to help her up. In the growing daylight with her hand extended, I could just see the scar on her wrist, visible as the sweatshirt cuff slid up, pulling back on the bracelet worn always on her right wrist. I looked away quick after noticing it, and once to her feet, Sara crossed her arms tightly. It was a chilly morning out of the sleeping bags.
“I’ll walk with you,” I offered.
“You don’t have to.”
“You’re sure?”
“It’s fine.” She hugged me quick and turned and went out the screen door. “Thank you, Jake,” she said through the screen.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” She turned. “Bye.”
“Bye.” I watched her hurrying away in a clumsier, half-awake morning bounce.
Back inside, my old man was working on his coffee. I sat down with my own, stirring it as the steam rose, watching the steam and not looking at him. Before I could think of a way to begin, he set me back with a regretful apology, explaining that he hadn’t realized what he’d gotten us into. Buck had told him some. He’d met with Kate and she’d told him some more. The story had gotten to him and he’d wanted to help in some way. How could he hear that, and believe it, and do nothing? Then he’d met Sara and had been charmed by her instantly. He thought with a little break they could do well; the old camp was just sitting there. He thought with a fresh start Sara would be all right. “But it’s much worse than I thought,” he muttered over the coffee.
“She was hysterical last night,” I told him. “She wouldn’t let me out of her sight. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You did right, I guess.”
“She has awful nightmares. It’s crazy. And she cries all night.”
“This was last night?”
“Yeah, but I’m saying I think it’s an every-night thing with her. Nightmares and fits. I think she forces herself to stay awake.”
“Kate never mentioned this part. Probably afraid I’d turn them away. I met shy Sara, and then smiley cheerleader Sara.”
“What are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, Jake.”
I took a sip of my coffee. “And we have to work, don’t we?”
“I do, yeah.”
“I’m going if you go.”
“No, you don’t have to. Probably didn�
��t get much sleep.”
“I’m going,” I said.
“All right, then. Let’s get to it.”
I did not go out to row that morning.
At the job we went on mechanically. Work was getting done, but we were not all there. I know I sure wasn’t. There was no energy in my body, everything felt heavy, each new effort seemed compounding in difficulty, and as the day dragged on I made small mistakes, which Dad sharply warned could easily turn into a costly mistake or a dangerous injury.
“I still don’t know what to make of it,” I said at break. I was sitting on the truck tailgate trying to force down a sandwich.
“What?” Dad said absently. He wasn’t quite himself either.
“With Sara.”
“Oh, I don’t understand everything either,” he said. “Kate’s even tried a counselor. Sara refused to talk to them.”
“She seems to trust us.”
“Looks that way.”
“She said she wasn’t supposed to talk about it.”
My old man huffed.
“And she told me Kate can’t help her anymore at night.”
“She said it like that?”
“Last night, yeah.”
“Well, a man caused this in her. She must have it in her head that a man can fix it too.”
“But she loves her mother. I know it.”
“Yes. But they’ve both been treated as doormats and Sara knows it. Also, I believe Kate is medicated to deal with her own problems. In fact, I know she is; I saw the bottles in a box. That might be what Sara’s talking about.”
“It’s really bad, how she gets at night.”
“Trauma does rotten things to people. I’ve seen grown men break right down in my day. Lose their minds. Sara’s just a kid.”
I picked at my turkey sandwich. I was hollow inside but could barely force myself to eat. “And there’s something else …”
“What’s that?”
“It’ll sound weird, but I think you need to know.”
“Go on.”
“Sara might have an idea about you and her mother.”
“What idea?”
“She asked me if you’d ever get married again.”
“Oh” was all he said.
“I figured I had to tell you.”
“You didn’t go along with it, did you?”
“No.”
“You know Kate’s barely into her thirties.”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head. “I’ve only known one woman well in my life, Jake. Even her I didn’t fully understand.” He hesitated. We didn’t talk much about Mom. I sat quietly awkward with my sandwich. “I’ll speak with Kate tonight,” he said last.
That’s how we left it. We were already too heavy, and there was still a lot of day ahead of us.
14
In my shorts I waded into the lake. Thigh deep, I dropped and went under heavy as a stone and then felt myself floating, eyes closed in the cool comfort, holding my breath for as long as I could. I surfaced and breathed, half opening my eyes to the blinding glare, and swam out until the big rock was beneath me.
The air came coolly against me sitting on the rock. With the sinking sun on my back and the cooler air, I could feel the tension slowly leaving my muscles. But I could not refresh my thoughts as I could my body. Nothing would leave.
Right then my old man emerged from the house. I watched him walk over by the shop toward the old camp without looking out to me. I wished he had taken a swim first. He’d put in a long day with a lot on his mind.
A minute later Sara came springing out in her bathing suit. She was bright again and there was a leap somewhere down inside of me just to see her that way—all her small features and her light movements as she kicked off her sandals and the way her hair was shiny gold-white in the sun.
“I’ll come in,” I called.
“No,” she waved me off.
I watched as she waded and jumped forward. She swam steadily and soon she was at the rock and sat low in the water beside me, her hair slicked back behind her.
“Take that,” she said.
“You’re an old pro now.”
“You think so?”
“All you needed was a little practice.”
“Old-pro Sara,” she giggled, and she slid forward, going under just off the edge of the rock with only her polished toes poking out of from the water. She came up still smiling as she pushed back her hair. “My hair’s softer now from this water.”
“That’s from the springs,” I said. “A bunch of them feed this end of the lake.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of that.”
“If you wash it with pure spring water, it’ll be even softer.”
“So you’ve had soft hair all your life, haven’t you?”
“Soft stubble half of the time.” I ran my hand over my crew cut. “But we have a good well too.”
“City water is awful.”
“I’ve heard.”
“Have I mentioned that I just love it here, Jake?”
“I think so.” I smiled. She was so much better now. I was feeling better too, and the air on me was almost chilly now. I slid down lower into the water, comfortably cool, and looked up at the sky. The clouds were thin and slow-moving, taking on that fish-scale pattern and showing the first traces of color in the distance against the sinking sun. My appetite was kicking in. I was aware of Sara chattering happily in the background but could not understand it. I was awfully hungry and feeling very relaxed.
“Jake!”
“Yeah?”
“Are you listening?”
“No, I was gone.”
“I’ve been talking and talking. What were you thinking about?”
“Food. Have you eaten?”
“Not dinner, no.”
“I need to eat. Let’s go find something.”
“At your house or mine?”
“Mine.”
“Let’s race!”
“To the dock,” I said, standing. Sara stood up beside me, both of us dripping. She smirked and then dove ahead. I waited a second, seeing her slide under the surface after the splash, then followed, coming up beside her underwater so that we glided up together. She swam hard, and I swam easily beside her until she touched the dock just before me.
“Did you try?” she gasped.
“Sure.”
“No, you didn’t.” She splashed me.
“You had a head start,” I said.
Inside, dry with our towels wrapped around us, we went through the cupboards and the fridge trying to decide what to make. By then I was almost nauseous with hunger.
“Here we go,” I said, taking a can of spaghetti from the cupboard. “I have an idea.”
“Ew,” Sara frowned.
“We’ll fix it up.”
“How do you fix gross?”
“You’ll see. It’ll be good. Trust me.”
She gave in and helped find four more cans of the spaghetti and got to opening them while I went to the stove to warm the big cast-iron skillet.
“What next?”
“See if you can find some mushrooms,” I said by the fridge. I was getting the ground hamburger and a green pepper.
“Here’s your grossness,” she said once she’d opened the last of the cans and placed them on the counter by the skillet. The hamburger was browning now, and I broke it up small with the spatula. The smell filled the kitchen. Sara watched, still unsure, as I stirred the sputtering hamburger, taking it off the heat once it was cooked through.
“You can add the cans now,” I said, and started chopping the green pepper small.
“Just pour it all in?”
“Yup. There’s hardly any grease from that kind so we shouldn’t have to drain it.”
“It’s a mess,” she said, carefully stirring in one can at a time, adding the single can of mushrooms last. I added the pepper once I was finished chopping, and reaching overhead to the spices, I got the mint, the Italian seasoning, the bas
il, and the minced onions, adding lightly from each while Sara stirred everything together.
“Mint?”
“It makes it sweeter.”
“It smells better than it looks at least.”
“We call it Camp Sketty.”
“Camp Sketty,” she laughed. “I wonder where that came from.”
“Good and easy. Gramps used to make it.”
“It feels like I’m being let into a boys’ club.”
“We’re very exclusive. We might even use real plates tonight instead of paper.”
“I can set the table,” Sara offered.
“Sure,” I said. “Set four.”
Sara went about finding everything and making it all look neat together on the table, something Dad and I never bothered with, and I stood leaning over the stove watching the spaghetti as it warmed. Smelling it nearly put me over the edge. Finally I got a fork and took a big scoop and had to huff-huff-huff to keep from burning my mouth while I chewed. Sara watched me like I was deranged.
“Will you see if they want dinner?” I said after a while.
“Sure.”
She was out of the kitchen in an instant. I gave the spaghetti creation one last stir and went to the table to wait.
When the three of them came in together, Dad and Kate looked serious, while leading the parade, Sara, who’d put on a sweatshirt and shorts, was glowing, oblivious. Everyone sat and we ate without discussing anything but the food.
“I actually like it,” Sara admitted. “I can’t believe I do.”
I looked up from my pile of spaghetti and buttered bread slices. “Told you,” I said between bites.
Later, after the kitchen was cleaned up, I went upstairs and changed. When I came back down, Sara had gone out to the dock to watch the sunset, Dad was in his rocker, and Kate was leaning in the kitchen doorway. She got ahold of my arm before I could get by.
“I’m sorry about last night,” she said quietly. “It won’t happen again.”
“It’s no big deal,” I told her.
“You shouldn’t have to deal with that. I guess I relaxed a bit when we got here. But I’ll pay closer attention now that I know what she’s up to.”
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