by Andrew Hart
“You have witchy shoes,” she said.
Oaklynn considered her battered black boots with the silver buckles.
“You think so?”
“I have a book with a witch called Griselda, and she has shoes exactly like yours.”
“Guess I’m a witch, then.”
“You have a broomstick?” asked Veronica, grinning slyly, playing but knowing she was being rude.
“Of course,” said Oaklynn. “How do you think I got here from Utah?”
Veronica smiled uncertainly.
“Are you really a witch?” she asked.
“A good witch. I use my magic to protect you.”
“That’s OK, then. And you keep the bad witches away?”
“That’s my job.”
“Doggy!” shouted Grace, joyously pointing across the road to where a twentysomething girl was walking a yellow Lab on a long red leash, one of those retractable things with the big handle that spooled out like a tape measure.
This was as far from the house as they would get, the only area where they left behind the quiet neighborhood streets and saw anything like real traffic: two lanes in each direction. It was almost lunchtime, and the cars were moving quickly and steadily. The woman on the other side of the road saw them looking and waved at them. Oaklynn took one hand off the buggy and splayed her fingers in greeting, smiling as the girl—she might have been college age—called out, “He’s so strong!”
The dog was pulling her along, stopping to sniff, then bounding a little farther.
Not full grown, thought Oaklynn. Still at least part puppy.
“Hi, doggy!” called Veronica.
The dog turned to face them, pulling again, and the girl laughed.
And then he was in the road, running toward them.
The impact was staggeringly sudden and loud. There was a squeal of tires and a blown horn as a second car narrowly avoided the first. And then the woman was just standing there and screaming.
The cars stopped, and people spilled out. Oaklynn hesitated, caught between wanting to flee and feeling the tug of responsibility that needed to be answered. The dog had been trying to reach them, after all.
“What happened?” cried Veronica, her tone wild, desperate. “Where’s the doggy?”
Oaklynn dithered for a second, staring across the road. The girl was still screaming incoherently, standing several yards from where the dog lay bleeding.
The road was still, and it was easy to steer the buggy through the halted traffic and up the curb on the other side. Oaklynn pushed it up onto someone’s lawn and locked the wheels a safe distance from the site of the accident. She told Veronica to wait and crossed hurriedly to the hysterical dog walker.
Two people were already with her, and a third was kneeling over the Labrador, which was alive and panting but otherwise still. The blood around its head was as red as paint. Another woman had pulled her car over and was clambering out, looking dazed and horrified. A portion of the fender had been knocked clean away.
A solid hit, then. Not good.
“I’m so sorry,” said Oaklynn, meaning it, stunned and horrified by how quickly it had happened.
“She’s not my dog,” said the woman, her desolation increasing. “I was walking her for a friend.”
It was the first coherent thing she’d said since the accident, and it added new layers of trauma to the moment. Her grief and shock were at least partly an anticipation of her friend’s feelings. One of the women put an arm around her shoulders, and she turned into the embrace, sobbing. The other woman was already working with a man to get the injured dog onto a blanket and into her car, while yet another was comforting the driver, who was crying as she tried to call the police.
“It’s not your fault,” she heard someone say to her, just as someone else said the same thing to the dog walker.
Actually, Oaklynn thought, it was both of their faults. The dog walker had not had the animal under control, letting out the retractable leash and allowing it to get way out into the street. A long way. The car that had hit the dog had been in the middle lane, which meant the animal was almost twenty feet from the dog walker at the point of impact. That also meant that the driver had ample time to see it run out but had not reacted. There was no rubber on the road near the crash site, so the car hadn’t braked till after the collision, though there was no curve in the road that might have hidden the dog up to the last second. Oaklynn considered the phone in the driver’s trembling hand and wondered where it had been the moment before she had hit the Labrador.
Oaklynn felt no outrage. She even felt a sort of sympathy for them. It was an awful thing to be responsible for that garish red wetness on the road, the lolling tongue, the stillness of the dog as it became incapable of its own distress. Instead, she felt like she was playing Tetris, rotating the puzzle pieces to see where they would fit so that the full picture of what happened came into coherent focus. She watched the two women as the bystanders consoled them, embracing them, speaking in low, soothing terms, as if it had all been an utterly random act like a lightning strike, what the real Oaklynn might have called an act of God.
She turned to focus on the dog, and she felt her eyes swim with tears of genuine grief and horror. When she looked back at the driver and the dog walker, now the center of a tight huddle of benevolent empathy, she felt a rush of outrage, sharp and bitter as iron in her mouth.
Not your fault? Nonsense. This was human error: one person who didn’t have control of the animal she was supposed to be looking after, and another who, even if not actually texting at the time of the collision, was clearly not fully alert and focused on her driving. But instead of being called out for their negligence, they were being hugged, calmed, their errors ignored and erased in the hurry to make them feel better.
It wasn’t right.
A tall woman in business slacks who had been tending to the Labrador and whose perfectly white blouse was spotted with red on one cuff leaned into the dog walker, holding her with such tenderness that it was hard to believe that they had not laid eyes on each other till only a minute earlier. For her part, the dog walker—in spite of her anguish—seemed to glow with gratitude, as if her body were leeching something out of the businesswoman’s body. Something reviving, nurturing. Something like love.
Oaklynn marveled, though it would be truer to say that the person who was watching with such fascinated hunger, such strange and unknowable yearning verging on jealousy, was actually Nadine. She turned slowly to the buggy, and her eyes fell on Veronica. It made no sense, but for just a moment, Nadine saw not Veronica, her new nearly four-year-old charge, but a different girl entirely.
Maddie.
The ages weren’t even close to right, so it had to be something of the desperation in Veronica’s face that had triggered the bittersweet memory, the need for comfort, for hope. Veronica was pretending not to know what had happened, wanted Nadine—Oaklynn—to tell her all was or would be well, just as Maddie once had. It wouldn’t be, of course, not now. It certainly had not been then.
Because of you, said the voice in her head. Because of what you are and what you aren’t.
Seeming to sense some conflicted emotion in her, Veronica’s eyes tightened, wary and suddenly close to tears. For a moment, Nadine just looked back at her, eyes shielded against the sun. Then she smiled abruptly with just her mouth.
“Time to go home,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
ANNA
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed, folding Oaklynn into my arms in a sudden, desperate impulse. “It must have been awful for you.”
Even as I did so, my eyes slid over her shoulder to where Veronica was watching us, puzzled but not distraught. I pulled back to look into Oaklynn’s teary eyes, but she read the question on my lips before I could ask it.
“They didn’t see,” she said, her voice low. “Veronica knows something happened, but I made sure she didn’t see. It was very upsetting.”
“I’m sur
e it was,” I said, pulling her to me again and squeezing her with greater warmth. “Did the dog . . . ?”
I couldn’t finish the sentence, and Oaklynn could only shrug, her face contorted with renewed anguish inches from mine. She was clinging to me, her breasts heaving against me with each ragged breath.
“I don’t know,” she said. “A lady in an SUV said she would take her to the closest vet, but I couldn’t stay to help, what with the girls and all.”
How she had kept the girls from the worst of the accident I wasn’t sure, but I felt a rush of gratitude that was so fierce, it was almost overwhelming. “Thank you,” I said.
“I wish I knew if she was OK, but I don’t know how to find out. I didn’t know what to do. It was just horrible.”
I squeezed her tighter still, then felt her resolve stiffen and released her.
Oaklynn swallowed down a sob, then pulled away, wiped her eyes, and composed herself, her face in her hands. When her fingers parted, her countenance was almost clear, and a version of her signature smile was in place again as she turned to the girls. Veronica was watching her shrewdly, but something of the wary uncertainty in her face dissolved as Oaklynn started chivvying her out of her shoes and up to the playroom. It was impossible not to be impressed by her dedication, her refusal to let the trauma of what had happened get to the kids.
“Head on up,” she said. “I need to change Grace. Then I’ll be right there.”
“Miss Oaklynn, can we do the Leapfrog? I’m getting really good at it.”
“You are at that, Veronica,” she said, still managing to smile. “I’ll tell you what: why don’t you practice for a few minutes, and then you can show me what you can do?”
Satisfied, Veronica beamed and headed up the stairs, Oaklynn watching her carefully all the way. Even so, I had to fight an impulse to go up after her. Josh and I usually held her hand as she went up and down the stairs, and we kept the gate at the top closed. Veronica knew as much, and there was a furtive glee in the way she avoided my eyes as she made her way up and then turned in triumph once she reached the top.
“Made it!” she announced. “See, Mommy? I told you I could do it by myself.”
Oaklynn turned to me, suddenly anxious.
“You don’t normally let her go by herself?” she asked.
“Not usually,” I said, soft-pedaling it because of what Oaklynn had been through.
“Oh cripes!” said Oaklynn, something of her former distress flickering back into her eyes. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “So long as she’s careful and you keep an eye on her.”
“Of course,” said Oaklynn. “And she is almost four. It’s good for her to have a little independence.”
I felt a prickle of defensiveness.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s just a long way to fall is all.”
Oaklynn opened her mouth to say something, and for a split second, her eyes were blank, appraising and quite unfamiliar. Then the smile was back, and she was nodding.
“Absolutely,” she said, tapping the side of her head playfully. “I’ll make a note.”
I hesitated, feeling awkward at overruling her, knowing that Josh said I worried too much, that I was overprotective. It was important that we didn’t get off on the wrong foot so early in our relationship, and the woman had already had a lousy morning.
“You know,” I said, “I’m sure you’re right. Just . . . you know.”
“I do,” said Oaklynn. “I know how strange this must be for you. How hard. But don’t worry. I’ll watch the girls as if they were my own.”
I nodded fervently, feeling something like pity for her now as I looked at her, her eyes red from weeping, the ridiculous hat and baggy dress adding ten years and fifty pounds.
“Listen,” I said, “Veronica will be fine by herself for a few minutes. I’ll check on her while you change Grace. Then we’ll call around to the local vets and see what we can find out about the dog.”
“Really?” said Oaklynn, her face buckling into something that oscillated between pleasure and sorrow. “You don’t mind?”
“Of course not,” I replied. “While you’re living with us, you’re family.”
Chapter Twelve
Anna had been busy in her office for most of the afternoon, and by the time she started calling the local vets, they were already closed. She listened while Anna left voice mails with requests for any information on vehicular accidents involving dogs in the Wendover Road area, and she smiled bravely when Anna promised they would check in again tomorrow. It wasn’t the closure Oaklynn wanted, but the sense of them working together, the look Anna kept giving her—earnest and pitying and desperate to help—was almost as good.
Alone in the basement after everyone had gone to bed, Oaklynn replayed the day as she sat in her rocker, Mr. Quietly purring loudly in her lap. She stroked him absently, feeling his warmth through her dress. The bedroom was dark, the blinds on the windows down and the lights—including the reading lamp by her armchair—off, so that the gloom was thick. The only thing she could see was the thin pallor of the white molding where the ceiling met the wall. But Oaklyn wasn’t seeing with her real eyes. She was replaying the day in her head: the dog, the conversation with Anna afterward, and the tender warmth of her embrace, nurturing and calming as warm milk. Alone in the darkness, she could almost feel it again.
Almost.
“While you’re living with us,” Anna had said, “you’re family.”
Oaklynn drew a breath at the thought, an almost gasp of longing, of satisfaction, of hunger for more.
Chapter Thirteen
Josh turned his key in the front door, but it didn’t open when he twisted the handle. He blundered into it and stepped back, irritated.
“Oh cripes!” Oaklynn called from inside. “Sorry. One second.”
He waited for a few seconds, listening to the fumbling, then tried the door again. This time it opened, but only a few inches before it stuck against something soft but immovable.
“Jiminy Christmas,” said Oaklynn again. “Nearly there.”
More movement, and then the door opened fully. It was immediately clear what had caused the blockage. The hall was full of mismatched bags and cardboard cartons spewing canned food, boxes of pasta, bulk-bound stacks of underarm deodorant, and three massive shrink-wrapped packages of toilet paper, some of which had gotten wedged up against the foot of the stairs. Each package contained thirty-six rolls. Josh slid sideways, toeing some of the boxes out of the way and casting an inquiring look around as he did so.
“Hi,” said Oaklynn brightly. Anna was behind her, looking simultaneously amused and baffled. Her eyes met Josh’s, and she suppressed a smirk.
“Oaklynn went to BJ’s,” said Anna, daring him to laugh.
“I see that,” he replied. “And are we expecting visitors? A major sports franchise, perhaps? And, you know, a dysentery outbreak?”
Oaklynn gave him a blank look, her smile unwavering.
“You have to buy in bulk to get the best deals,” she said cheerfully.
“Right,” said Josh. “Great. And now we’re covered until . . . I don’t know. What year is it?”
“Thanks so much, Oaklynn,” said Anna pointedly. “This is great. I’m always running out of aluminum foil.”
She had just picked up a box containing what looked to be a dozen rolls.
“You won’t now,” said Josh.
Anna gave him a murderous look, but she was also clearly struggling not to laugh.
“I’ll start stocking the pantry,” said Oaklynn, bustling out, loaded down but apparently oblivious.
“Let me know if we need, you know, another house . . . ,” said Josh.
Anna slapped his arm. He winced, then turned on her and pantomimed, “What the hell?”
“Shh,” said Anna. “She was taking initiative.”
“Are you sure she’s not on commission at BJ’s?”
Anna gave him another look but couldn’t hi
de her own grin.
“I’ll just get the next load from the car,” said Oaklynn.
“There’s more?” said Josh.
“Oh yes,” said Oaklynn cheerfully. “This is just the first load.”
“Right,” said Josh. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“No, no,” she said, waving him off. “You’ve had a hard day at work. I know a man needs to relax when he gets home.”
Anna’s grin developed an eye roll.
“It’s fine,” said Josh. “I’m happy to help out.”
Oaklynn turned abruptly to face him, and her smile now was fixed. Though it was wide, it did not reach her eyes.
“No,” she said firmly. “This is my job. Kindly let me perform it unaided.”
Thrown as much by the peculiar wording as he was by her manner, Josh hesitated, then mumbled his “If you’re sure” agreements. As she bustled officiously out, he gave Anna a searching look.
“Are we expecting a hard winter?” he said. “Or some kind of thermonuclear holocaust?”
“She’s just trying to help.”
“On our nickel!” he said, watching Oaklynn humping boxes out of the back of the car.
“It will all get used.”
“Just in time for Gracie’s sweet sixteenth.”
She shushed him again, and he gave her a sidelong look.
“It doesn’t bother you?” he said. “You don’t think she’s overstepping?”
Anna shrugged and smiled that thoughtful, sympathetic smile he knew so well.
“I think she wants to do her bit,” she said.