Random Acts of Kindness

by Lisa Verge Higgins

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  To my mother, Ann Verge

  A survivor and an inspiration

  Chapter One

  Throwing her past away was easier than Jenna expected.

  She turned off Interstate 5 halfway through Oregon and took the exit to the Umpqua Highway. It had been more than seven hours since she’d glanced in the rearview mirror and watched the skyline of Seattle recede. A rattling came from the backseat as her suitcase slid up against a plastic crate. That crate overflowed with the only things worth keeping. Black-and-white photos she’d pulled right off the walls, a Parisian coffee press that Nate had bought her in better times, and the tattered remains of Pinky Bear, a stuffed animal loved to baldness that she’d discovered swallowed in dust under her thirteen-year-old daughter’s bed.

  She flexed her fingers over the steering wheel. A soft jangle of metal brought her attention to the passenger seat. Her Chihuahua mix lifted his head from his puppy bed, rattling his license tags as he pleaded with her with bulging brown eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Lucky. We’ll be stopping soon.” She slid her fingers along his nicked ears. “Claire’s house isn’t far from here.”

  The GPS urged her on, guiding her through the twists and turns of the rural road. Her foot lay heavy on the gas. In her mind, she was fleeing an apocalypse. In her mind, the glowing trail of a meteor still streaked the sky behind her, ending in a mushroom cloud that billowed as it belched smoke from the crack it had made in the street in front of her home. Any sensible woman would run from that scenario. It didn’t matter that her particular meteor had been a sheaf of papers sliding across a kitchen table, the sound of the impact the click of a door closing.

  Her sight went so blurry that she nearly missed the rusted sign that tilted off its pole. She jerked the steering wheel to make the turn onto Single Tree Lane. Her old Chevy Lumina kicked up a spray of rocks as the sedan swayed onto the road. Jenna drove under a canopy of pines until there was no more gravel to drive upon. She pulled the car to a stop in front of the lone house buried in ivy. The leaning mailbox sported a number. It matched the scribbled address she’d spent an hour digging out of her e-mail archives.

  She sat with her hand frozen on the door handle, disturbed by the sudden loss of forward momentum. An impulse had propelled her here. But now, parked in front of Claire Petrenko’s house with its front yard tangled with grass and wildflowers, her impulsiveness ebbed. Normal people called ahead to say they were dropping by. Normal people sent e-mails or texts to reestablish a relationship with someone they hadn’t seen in a decade. Normal people didn’t just follow plans hatched in desperation while sobbing over the contacts list on their cell phone.

  I must do this.

  The small muscles at the nape of her neck tightened. She blinked at the house with its moss-streaked roof and sagging porch. A bike leaned against the corner of the porch, a metal basket hooked on the handlebars. Jenna could just imagine her old friend pedaling on the rural roads, skirts flying, bringing home organic groceries.

  Then Jenna tumbled right back to her high school self, where she spent all her time clutching her binder against her chest, keeping her gaze on the laminated floor, recognizing people by their footwear, hoping and dreading in equal measure that someone would stop and engage her in the kind of superficial conversations that girls were expected to enjoy—Did you see that new boy in English class? Did you hear what happened at last Saturday’s hockey game?—the kind of small talk that would finally seal her place as part of a group if she didn’t freeze, stutter, or shrink back into her whorled shell like a startled whelk.

  Lucky dug his paws into her thighs. She tucked him close. She made herself envision her daughter, Zoe. Zoe, with her water-blue eyes and Nate’s dimples. Zoe, who was three thousand miles away sleeping in an Adirondack camp that banned all cell phones and any communication with parents that didn’t arrive through the U.S. Postal Service. Zoe, who was too far away to scream at her mother that she hated her and thus didn’t care about what had just happened.

  Jenna shoved the door open and stumbled out of the car. She lurched on her bad leg as she tightened her grip on Lucky. If she moved fast enough, she could outrun the fear. So she crossed toward the porch, ignoring the goat tethered in the yard and the flash of sunlight off wind chimes swaying from the porch eaves. The second stair bowed under her weight. A big black bird on a perch by the door rustled his wings. The creature cocked its head, skewering her with one shiny black eye.

  Lucky whimpered. She dropped him to the floorboards just as he loosed a stream of urine.

  Yes, throwing her old life away was easier than she expected.

  Starting a new one was not.

  *

  Please, Claire thought as she heard the knock on the door. Don’t let it be another rotisserie chicken.

  Claire stood in the kitchen with the heels of her hands braced on the counter, hoping beyond desperate hope that if she just kept still, the visitor would leave on the porch whatever she was offering—another pan of lasagna, perhaps, or a head of kale to add to the ones wilting in her refrigerator—and then drive away. She knew it wasn’t one of her sisters. Her sisters didn’t bother to knock. And they’d just left a half hour ago, a flock of starlings that descended twice a day to see that she’d eaten, peck-peck-pecking at her about keeping her arms elevated, taking her meds, working less in the garden.

  Her broken-winged raven cried caw-caw-caw.

  A stranger, then.

  “The eggs are out back,” she called over her shoulder. “Just leave the money in the tin box.”

  She paused, listening for footsteps. Every morning she gathered warm, freshly laid eggs and then put them in a labeled box in front of the house. Buyers took how many they wanted and deposited the cost in cash. It was a lot like a drug drop.

  “Claire?”

  The voice was faint, unfamiliar, and female. Claire pushed away from the counter in surrender. She weighed the cow-spotted teapot, found it full of water, and lit the burner underneath. Such “quick” visits to check how she was doing usually stretched to at least two cups of green tea. She wished her sisters had never set up that blog after her diagnosis. Now every person she’d ever met in thirty-eight years knew where she lived.

  And that she no longer had boobs.

  Claire crossed the den and swung open the front door. The woman made an awkward little jump that loosed a lock of blonde hair from whatever kept it off her neck. Pale, thin, and somewhat rumpled, the woman had the tense look of a dancer afraid she’d just missed her cue. Her fingers dug into the sleeves of her lightweight sweater. A ragged-looking dog quivered by her feet.

  Then the woman glanced at the dog and shifted her weight, a subtle tripping rhythm of knee and shoulder that triggered a memory of a girl Claire once knew in high school, a shy little creature with a bad leg.

  Oh my God.

  “I’m sorry about that,” the woman said, eyeing the wet trail weaving toward the stairs. “If I could get a bucket of water—”

  “I’m hallucinating,” Claire interrupted. “This is what happens when they change my meds.”

  “No, no, Lucky do
es this whenever he’s nervous—”

  “I can’t be seeing Jenna Hogan standing on my porch right now.” Claire pressed a hand against the doorjamb as the woman drew in a sharp, little breath and nodded. On the bureau of Claire’s bedroom stood a dusty picture of her high school graduation day. It was a photo of twelve grinning girls with hot pink hair proudly fluffing the evidence of their last high school prank.

  Jenna was the one peeking just over Claire’s shoulder.

  Speechless, Claire drew Jenna into a hug and held her until her skinny friend loosened up enough to hug her back. Claire’s mind raced, seeking a reason for this woman’s unexpected presence, until she realized there was really only one reason why an old high school friend would suddenly turn up at the house of a buddy with cancer.

  Claire pulled back so she could look into those nervous blue eyes. “How long has it been?”

  “Sixteen years.” Jenna slipped her hands into the pockets of her khaki shorts. “I haven’t seen you since the five-year high school reunion. Everyone was there for that. You were there. I was there.” Jenna did that bi-level shift again. “Everyone was there.”

  “You’re a little early for the funeral.”

  Jenna started. “What funeral?”

  “Mine, of course.” Claire gave her a wink. “On that silly blog, my sisters make sure my woes sound worse than they really are. They would have you all think I was on my last breath. I assume that’s why you’re here.”

  Jenna’s gaze dropped to Claire’s shirt, as Claire knew it would. Claire hadn’t bothered with reconstructive surgery. She hadn’t even bothered with a padded bra. She was what she was, and that was that.

  Jenna said, “You look good for a woman on your last breath.”

  “I’ve disappointed my sisters thoroughly.” Claire grinned and took a step out of the doorway. “Why don’t you come on in? Then you can tell me what prompted you to make the long trip. Preferably over a glass of wine.”

  “Can you have wine?”

  “I’ve had cancer. I can have anything I damn well want. And frankly, you look like you could use the courage.”

  Claire led her into the cool interior of the house. A window was open in the kitchen, but even the breeze couldn’t completely eradicate the medicine smell of the place or the sight of a well-pillowed chair pulled up in front of a television, a pile of amber-colored plastic medicine bottles collected on the side table.

  Claire fled straight for the kitchen, where there were fewer reminders. She shut off the flame under the teapot and instead reached into the refrigerator for a half-filled bottle of what was left of the Oregon vintage she’d traded for some heirloom peppers from the garden. She turned to find Jenna slipping into a kitchen chair, the dog tucked on her lap. Back in high school, Jenna was the quiet mouse who hid in corners and chewed on the end of her ponytail. She’d gotten more artful about her blonde hair—caught up in tousled imperfection in a claw clip at the back of her head—but she still looked as if one sudden move would make her diminish to the point of invisibility.

  Jenna Hogan…Claire’s mind filled with memories. Jenna had been one of the group that Claire could always count on to help at a fund-raising drive for the Key Club, or a coat drive for the Baptist Church, or to join her on a weekend cleaning up the wilderness trails near Pine Lake, the little Adirondack town they’d all grown up in. That was a long time ago, when Claire believed that she could change the world.

  “I’ve come for two reasons.” Jenna reached for one of the two jelly jars Claire clattered onto the table. “The first is to apologize. I should have gone to your sister’s funeral all those years ago.”

  Claire used the excuse of struggling to pull the cork out of the bottle in order to avoid responding.

  “There’s this thing about weddings and funerals,” Jenna continued. “I was never very good at them.”

  Claire didn’t like to think about that day. Most of Claire’s high school friends had sent something—an e-mail, texted condolences, flowers, a wreath. Her good buddy Nicole had even flown in from California, abandoning her young family for an extra three days so she could stay with Claire during the painful task of sorting through Melana’s clothes. But Jenna, who lived closer than all of them, didn’t even text.

  Claire could have used a few friends around her then. In the weeks after she’d buried her sister, she’d been gripped by a strange euphoria, an almost trippy intensity of existence that made the world seem brighter, full of odd possibilities. She’d wanted to shake the dust off her boots and flee the world. Without friends to temper her impulses, it had made perfect sense to run away to Thailand, shave her head, and become a Buddhist nun.

  The cork came out with a hollow thunk. Claire reached over to fill Jenna’s glass. The look her friend gave her was tremulous.

  Claire sighed. It really wasn’t kind to kick kittens.

  “That was ten years ago,” Claire said. “Water under the bridge. So, what’s the second reason why you’re here?”

  “To help.”

  Ah, there we are. “You know, there is this amazing invention that can pass messages over long distances. It’s called a phone.”

  “Yes, I know I should have called—”

  “If you had, I’d have told you that it’s been six weeks since the operation. I’m recovered.”

  “But I read on a blog somewhere that it’s harder for someone to say no if you make an offer in person.”

  Claire tried to keep her smile, her spirits sinking as she sank into her chair. Jenna reading was a dangerous thing. For a stretch in high school, Jenna had become obsessed with personal self-help books, which tasked her to do things like say “hello” to one new person every day, or strike up conversations with strangers, which only enhanced Jenna’s reputation as a quirky little oddball and also led to the young girl’s great familiarity with the shopkeepers of Pine Lake’s main drag.

  Now Claire noticed the twitchy way her friend ran her hands over the dog’s head, saw Jenna’s good knee vibrating. The universe sent creatures like this to Claire all the time. A three-legged goat, saved from the side of the road, now mowing the lawn in front of the house. A blind possum snoozing in the shade under her porch. A crow, saved after flying into the front window.

  Jenna was another broken-winged bird.

  Claire gripped her wine. For the past six years, she’d cobbled out a living by caring for her uncle’s land, growing her own food, bartering eggs, and working during the school year as a teacher’s aide at the elementary school two miles away. Since the diagnosis, she was barely capable of keeping her own skin together. She wasn’t sure she could handle another wounded creature right now. She needed to take the advice given on airplanes and put on her own oxygen mask first.

  Jenna stuttered, “I didn’t mean ‘help’ in the medical way. I know you have three sisters helping you—”

  “Smothering, you mean. Hovering around me day and night, telling me what to do and how to do it. And frankly, Jen, I can’t envision you changing my diaper if I ended up in hospice.”

  “I wouldn’t be much good at that anyway.” Pink blotches began to bud on Jenna’s fair skin. “Nate did most of that in our house. Diaper changing, I mean.”

  Claire had changed Melana’s diapers in hospice. Claire had squirted the morphine under Melana’s tongue. She’d bathed the bruises in the crook of her elbow, reminders of the young resident’s faulty attempts to find a vein before Melana finally got a chemo port.

  “I’m here,” Jenna explained, “because Nate’s under deadline doing a sculpture installation in the waterfront district of Seattle.” She picked at the rim of the glass with her fingernail. “He’ll be at it for weeks in the garage. He’s only half human when he’s working, so it’s best that I’m not there. Since Zoe’s at sleepaway camp for the next three weeks, and I’ve got some time off from work, I’m free to do anything. Anything I want.”

  Waves of hurt and desperation and maybe a little bit of crazy emanated across th
e table, but Claire couldn’t help herself. “Spit it out, Jenna. What, exactly, are you offering?”

  The little blotches on Jenna’s chest bloomed into the size of cabbage roses. “Do you remember in eighth grade when we watched the middle-school musical Cinderella?”

  Claire held tight to her patience. “Of course. Riley and Sydney played the wicked stepsisters. Riley sweated right through the polyester costume, and we spent the whole night teasing her about it—”

  “And after, over pizza, you and I joked about how if we had a wish, we wouldn’t waste it on a pretty dress and a date?”

  Claire nodded. It had been one of many long conversations she and Jenna had shared in the attic of her house, or while lolling on the green in front of the Pine Lake library, or basking on the sun-warmed boards of the dock at Bay Roberts. Jenna confessed that her wish would have been to lose all her painful shyness. Claire couldn’t quite remember what she’d wished for. Probably something foolishly idealistic, like an end to poverty in the world.

  “Well?” Jenna rolled the wineglass between her hands. “What are you wishing for now, Claire?”

  Claire went very, very still, half-expecting to hear the rumbling of the floorboards under her feet along with the tinkling of glasses in the drain and the rattling of silverware in the drawer as the earth shifted beneath her feet. She’d experienced an earthquake once before. She’d rushed outside only to witness a flock of birds rustling out of the trees in noisy confusion, much like the possibilities that now swirled in her mind.

  One of those possibilities gripped her with a strange euphoria, an almost trippy intensity. She felt her pulse race, a sheen of sweat break out on her forehead. How wonderful it would feel to get away from all this, to shuck off the shackles of the label cancer patient and just be Claire Petrenko in the great wide world.

  Then she took a good, long look at her old friend, sweet, trusting, shy Jenna, and realized they would need a very special kind of help to make this work.

  She knew exactly where to find it.

  *

  Please. Nicole squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of the doorbell. Please don’t be the police.