“How can there be a pond on a mountain?” Caroline said.
“Are ponds not allowed on mountains?” Teagan said.
“I thought you said it’s a man-made pond,” Grace said.
“It is,” Teagan conceded.
“That’s different,” Caroline said.
“A pond can still be on a mountain,” Teagan said.
“I think we usually think of ponds at low points in a terrain,” Grace said.
“Yes, but, gravity,” Teagan said.
“Gravity is real,” Caroline said.
“I’m not arguing against gravity,” Grace said.
“Good, because gravity would be mad at you,” Caroline said.
They were walking across a neighboring farm. Teagan wasn’t even sure who owned it, but she knew that the pond was there because she’d seen it when she had been riding on the trails. Susanna had permission to ride on the land, and Teagan knew that walking to the pond and swimming in it were not necessarily permitted by whatever agreement Susanna had with the owners, but she didn’t worry about it. She’d never seen anyone the other times she’d walked to the pond.
Teagan had suggested the swim, and Grace and Caroline had agreed because it was so hot and the pond was in the woods, which would feel cooler. Plus, hiking to the pond just sounded like a nice idea. As they were walking, Teagan was trying to remember what Susanna had told her. There was something Susanna had said about the farm. Teagan couldn’t remember if it had something to do with maybe leaving a gate closed, or open, or if one of the fields had been planted and they should trace the edge of it instead of walking across the middle. She figured it would be obvious to her if they came across something that was different from before.
They came to a gate that was secured with a chain wrapped three times around the post. It had a metal clip to secure it but no lock. Teagan unwrapped the chain, paying attention to the way it was fastened, and after they were through the gate she carefully repeated the wrap around the post and pulled the excess chain tight and clipped it to itself again. She thought it was unnecessary. No farm animal could open even a loosely wrapped chain, especially one clipped to itself.
They started across the field, which did not look recently planted. It didn’t even look mowed, and Teagan didn’t see any animals at all in the field.
“Do you know who owns this?” Grace asked.
“No. My mom does.”
“Should I ask if we have permission to be here?” Caroline asked.
“I don’t think we’re not allowed to be here,” Grace said.
“Not the same thing,” Caroline said.
“Where’s the pond?” Grace asked.
Teagan pointed straight ahead into the woods. “That way.”
“How far is it?” Caroline asked.
“Not far,” Teagan said.
She didn’t know exactly where the pond was, or how far into the woods it was. She couldn’t have described the way. She just knew that if she went through the gate they had just gone through and walked more or less straight across the field from the gate, there would be a wooden-plank footbridge over a muddy stream, and across that a path into the woods, and then if she followed the path, the pond showed up to her right, eventually. That was the way to the pond. It was always the same.
“Is this a gross, slimy pond?” Caroline said.
“No. Would I walk us all this way for a slimy pond? It’s good swimming,” Teagan said.
“You’ve been in it before?” Grace said.
“A few times,” Teagan said. “I mean, there are frogs, but I haven’t seen any snapping turtles.”
“Snapping turtles?” Caroline said.
“I haven’t seen any,” Teagan said.
“And should I ask why they are called snapping turtles?” Caroline said.
“They snap,” Teagan said, clapping her hands at Caroline.
“And they can take off a toe,” Grace said.
“What?” Caroline said.
“I have all of my toes,” Teagan said.
“I have ten toes,” Grace said.
“Right now you have all of your toes, but wait until an evil turtle eats one,” Caroline said.
Teagan stopped walking. The triple chain on the gate suddenly meant something to her. Susanna had told her not to cut across the field. Teagan didn’t even know how Susanna knew that she sometimes did walk across the field, so she hadn’t paid much attention to her mother. Grace and Caroline didn’t notice that Teagan had stopped. Teagan looked all around the field. She didn’t see anything, but the land dropped down on the far side.
“I forgot something,” Teagan called out to Grace and Caroline.
They turned around to look at her.
“You want to go back?” Grace said.
“No. I forgot to tell you something. I just remembered.”
“Is it bad?” Caroline asked.
“It’s not good. I just remembered that Mom said there’s a bull in this field.”
“Now you tell us?” Caroline said.
Grace was scanning the field as Teagan had done.
“Is it true that a bull will chase you if you’re on your period?” Grace said.
“I’ve heard that,” Caroline said. “I’ve heard that they can smell you.”
“Because I’m on my period,” Grace said.
They stood for a moment, tense, looking around.
Teagan said, “Let’s run for it.”
The opposite side of the field and the fence were visible. They ran. As she was running Teagan started to feel scared, as if the bull was going to charge over the rise in the field at any moment and catch up to them. The only thing they could do was outrun it. Teagan had been behind Grace and Caroline, but she caught up to them and passed them, shouting as she went, because she had just remembered, too, that there was an electrified wire running along the top fence board. She shouted out not to touch the wire, and she slowed just a moment to plant her palms flat on top of the board so she wouldn’t touch it, and she pushed off the lower boards and leapt over, not touching the wire with her leg either.
Beside her Grace was doing a similar climb, avoiding the wire. As she landed on the sloped ground, Teagan fell and rolled over and heard Caroline scream. Teagan looked up, expecting to see the bull, and expecting to see Caroline on the ground with them, having just escaped the bull, but Caroline was on the ground on the other side of the fence. Caroline screamed again.
Teagan looked around, but there was still no bull. Caroline screamed again and Teagan paid attention to her words.
“You didn’t say it was an electric fence!”
“I said it while we were running,” Teagan said.
“Are you okay?” Grace asked Caroline.
“No, I’m not okay. I just got electrocuted,” Caroline yelled.
“Get out of the field,” Teagan said to her.
“I was trying to,” Caroline said.
“I’ll help you,” Grace said, carefully climbing over again.
“I am not touching that fence again. Where’s the gate?”
“It’s back across the field,” Teagan said.
Caroline was on her feet. “No, where is the other gate. The one to let me out.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think there is one,” Teagan said.
“This is stupid,” Caroline said.
“Like this,” Grace said, and she demonstrated to Caroline how to plant her palms and press on them so that she didn’t have to grab the wire, and then she showed how to get good leverage off the bottom planks to jump over.
“I think that Teagan has to get shocked, since she didn’t warn me about the fence,” Caroline said.
“What?” Teagan said.
“It’s only fair,” Caroline said.
“I told you about it,” Teagan yelled.
“I couldn’t hear you while I was running from a bull,” Caroline said.
“That’s not my fault. How about the fact that I didn’t want you to get gored by a bull?”
“How about the fact that you didn’t remember the bull until we were already in the field?” Caroline said.
“Is that the bull?” Grace asked.
A square, ruddy brown cow with horns had appeared on the ridge of the hill.
“That’s the bull,” Teagan said.
“Touch the fence,” Caroline said.
“Caroline, come on,” Teagan said.
“Come on,” Grace said, too.
“Touch the fence, Teagan,” Caroline said. She and Grace were still in the field.
“What, you’re going to sacrifice Grace if I don’t shock myself?” Teagan yelled.
Grace pulled Caroline’s arm. “Come on.”
Caroline yanked her arm out of Grace’s hand. “I’m not moving until Teagan touches the fence.”
Teagan looked at the bull. She couldn’t tell if it had come closer. “Okay, fine. If you get out of the field first,” she said.
Caroline stood still and glared at Teagan.
Teagan said, “Grace, get out of the field.”
“Caroline, come on!” Grace said, putting a foot on the fence and motioning Caroline to her.
“Touch the fence!” Caroline yelled.
The bull was wandering in their direction.
Teagan slammed her palm against the wire and there was an audible sound like a clunk and Teagan screamed and fell down. Grace and Caroline climbed over the fence. Teagan rolled over and then pushed herself to her feet. They all looked back at the bull. It was still moving toward them, trotting a little, then stopping to stare at them. Grace took off running across the footbridge and without a word Caroline and Teagan ran after her. On the narrow trail in the woods they all kept running. Grace was first, then Caroline and then Teagan. Caroline turned her head and smiled a conqueror’s smile at Teagan. Teagan grimaced back and hopped over some rocks to the side of Caroline and sprinted up to Grace and then passed her. When Teagan saw the water, she didn’t stop but ran straight into it. Grace’s splash followed. Caroline stopped to take off her shoes.
Jonquil (Narcissus)
Teagan saw that Susanna was digging. Green rubber clogs, brown socks pulled up, shorts, a pink sleeveless shirt, gardening gloves, and a straw sunhat.
“What are those?” Teagan asked, looking at a bag of brown spheres.
“Daffodils.”
“Isn’t it late in the season, or something?” Teagan asked.
“You can put bulbs in the ground anytime,” Susanna said.
Teagan stood and watched her. With a serrated trowel she stabbed the ground, lifted and set aside a clump of earth. She pushed a papery orb into the hole and blessed it with a handful of black compost, then fit the clump of earth back on, like a lid. She marked the spot with more compost, patting it. She moved in a rhythm, stab and lift, a ritual of dirt. Teagan looked to where she had started. A dotted line of compost mounds ran along the edge of the yard, the last just beside Susanna’s left hand. Stab, lift, inter, mark.
Teagan asked, “How many are you planting?”
Susanna answered by pointing with the trowel along the smooth unturned edge of the yard. There would be a fence of flowers. The bulbs would wait beneath the ground.
“Won’t it be pretty?” Susanna said.
“It will be a lot of the same thing, over and over,” Teagan said, suddenly feeling inexplicably angry. She walked to the house, then looked back her mother, who kept on kneeling and digging.
Robert’s Visit
Teagan was home alone when she heard her father’s voice in the hallway downstairs. She’d been reading on her bed. She stopped reading to listen. She heard her father’s voice call for her and Charlie.
“Dad?” she yelled.
“Teagan,” Robert yelled up the stairs.
Teagan rolled off her bed and went to the head of the stairs, where she saw her father standing on the bottom step, looking up at her.
“Teagan, come down and give your dad a hug,” Robert said.
Teagan walked down the stairs and awkwardly hugged her father. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood and I wanted to see what my kids were up to,” Robert said.
“Charlie isn’t here.”
“Is your mom here?”
“No. I think she’s at the store. I think she’s running errands.” Teagan couldn’t remember where her mother had gone.
“Just the two of us,” Robert said.
Teagan didn’t know what to say. She felt that her father shouldn’t be in the house without her mother, but she also didn’t feel she could ask him to leave. “Do you want to go get lunch? I mean, together,” Teagan said. She thought that maybe she could get him to go somewhere with her, and then when Susanna got home, she could say that her dad had stopped by to take her to lunch. That seemed easy enough. But she was surprised when Robert suggested they make lunch instead.
“Your mom keeps a well-stocked fridge. I’m sure there’s plenty of things to make lunch.” Robert walked through the house to the kitchen.
Teagan followed him. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked,” she said. She opened the refrigerator and stared into it. Nothing in it registered as food to her. She picked up a bottle of mustard and turned around to see her father looking in the pantry.
“Here we go,” he said, bringing out a bag of potato chips and a plastic bag of sliced bread. He held them out to Teagan.
She took them and he squeezed her shoulder as he brushed past her and looked into the refrigerator. He brought out a beer and helped himself to a glass from the cupboard. “Want one?”
“No, thanks,” Teagan said, surprised that he really seemed to be offering and not joking.
“Your mom leaves you home and trusts you not to drink all the beer?” He laughed.
“I guess so,” Teagan laughed, too, but she didn’t see what was funny.
“You make us some sandwiches. Cheese and mustard. I’ll take whatever else you find.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Your mom left me a folder. Did she tell you?”
“No,” Teagan said.
“Well, she probably left it in a drawer in the living room or maybe on her dresser. I’m going to look for it. You make us those sandwiches, okay? Then we’ll eat together.”
“Okay,” Teagan said.
She watched her father walk through the house and she called out, “Mom might be home soon, and then you can ask her where it is.”
“That’s okay. I’ll find it,” Robert called back.
Teagan realized she had the bag of potato chips in her hand. She thrust it onto the kitchen counter and hauled open the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic drawer. She wanted to get the food made quickly and call her father back. She found cheese and something wrapped in butcher paper that turned out to be turkey. She gave it a quick sniff and it seemed fine. She tossed slices of bread onto the counter and squeezed mustard onto them. “Dad!” she called out. She globbed a hunk of turkey onto each sandwich and pressed the second slice of bread down. “Food’s ready!” Teagan yelled. There was no answer. She walked into the middle of the house and called out, “Dad?”
“In a minute,” she heard Robert call back.
“Dad, the sandwiches are ready. Can you come eat?” Teagan yelled.
“Just a minute, Teagan,” her father yelled back, in a tone she had not heard in a while.
Teagan stood in the hallway. The authority in her father’s voice caught her off guard. He hadn’t spoken to her that way in many months. It occurred to her that he hadn’t spoken to her very much at all. She fe
lt annoyed. She walked to the hallway door and pushed it farther open. “Dad,” she said. There was no response, and Teagan suddenly felt that she didn’t care what he was doing. It wasn’t any of her business. She walked back to the kitchen and put the unappetizing sandwiches on plates.
When she turned around, her father had a small cardboard box in his hands. “Just going to put this in my car. Right back,” he said.
Teagan stood still in the kitchen and listened to the front door open and close. Then she listened to it open again. Teagan carried the plates to the table. She got glasses out of the cupboard and filled them with water. She knew her dad would want ice in his but she didn’t put any in. She put a stack of paper napkins in the middle of the table.
“That looks great,” Robert said with enthusiasm.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Teagan asked.
“I did.”
Robert and Teagan looked at each other. Teagan knew that neither of them wanted to eat the sandwiches. She didn’t know why her father was standing in front of her in her mother’s house. She realized, too late, that she should not have let him in, and she realized he had let himself in.
“I miss you, baby girl,” Robert said.
Teagan said, “Thanks.”
“Come here,” Robert said.
Teagan felt like the wind was knocked out of her when her father pulled her tight against his chest. One arm was wrapped tightly around her shoulders, almost around her neck, and Robert was pressing his other hand hard against her, rubbing her back in wide circles.
“Dad,” Teagan said, turning her head and trying to push away with her hands, but he was too big and he held her too tightly. Out of one square of the windowpane she saw Susanna standing in the driveway, her purse on her shoulder, looking at Robert’s car.
“Mom’s home,” Teagan managed to say.
Robert released her, smiling wide and holding her by the shoulders. He pulled her to him again and kissed her on the side of her mouth. “I love you, Teagan girl.” He walked to the front door.
Teagan heard a few words exchanged between Susanna and Robert. She wiped her mouth with her forearm and pulled her shirt straight and took a few steps backward.
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