by Meg Donohue
“I’m not worried about the rug,” he said. He strode through the entry, and then we were in a big room that was a kitchen and living room in one. There was a stone fireplace with a couch and two gray armchairs surrounding it. Rosalie appeared with a towel that she spread across one of the armchairs. She gestured for Will to set me down and he did, gently. She rolled up my pants and wrapped another towel around my leg. With a third towel, she wiped the blood from my hands. I stared at her, unable to look away. Her white-blond hair was pulled into a high ponytail, revealing twin swirls of bright green stones that hung from her small earlobes.
Amir sat on the arm of my chair. “Are you okay?”
“Not really.” The truth was that I wavered between regret at having gotten us into this situation, and a sneaky delight that I had managed to get us inside the house after all.
Amir put his hand on my shoulder and didn’t move it when Will returned with a bucket of soapy water and a first aid kit. Rosalie unwound the towel, now stained with my blood, from my leg. The bleeding seemed to have slowed. Her dog was stationed beside her, his eyes pinned on me. When Rosalie pressed the soapy towel to the wound, I sucked in my breath.
“I’ll try to find some pain medicine,” Will said.
Rosalie put the towel back in the soapy water and then pressed it to the wound again. Her face was still, but her eyes flickered with thought.
I supposed that someone must have taken care of me like this in my life—my father or my mother—but I had no memories of a moment like this one. I watched Rosalie, wanting to remember the experience. She wasn’t particularly gentle in her movements, but still, something that felt worrisomely close to weepiness trembled within me. I refused to let the feeling grow.
After a couple of minutes, she sat back and looked up at me. “I don’t really have any idea how to deal with a dog bite,” she said. The water turned pink when she returned the towel to it.
“If I had the choice,” I said, “I’d start by dealing with the dog that did the biting.”
Rosalie had blue eyes like her son, but hers were a steely version. “Is that so?” She tore open a bandage wrapper and pressed the bandage to my leg. I winced but was determined not to cry. Amir gave my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. “And what punishment would you deal my Tiger?”
I closed my eyes, but it only seemed to make the pain sharpen. When I opened them, I saw that Rosalie had begun to stroke the dog’s head.
“In The Accidental Tourist,” I said, “the biting dog is put into obedience classes. It’s not exactly punishment, but at least the behavior is addressed and not encouraged.” I glared pointedly at Rosalie’s elegant hand and when I did, she stopped petting her dog.
“You’ve read Anne Tyler?” She did not bother to hide her surprise. She stood and resituated herself in the other armchair. The dog moved with her, curling himself at her feet. At long last, he seemed to lose interest in me.
“That’s one of my mother’s favorite books,” Will said. I had not heard him return to the room.
I looked at Rosalie anew. How strange to have something as important as literary taste in common with this woman who outwardly could not have been more unlike me. As different as we were, we had read and gathered insight from the same thoughts, the same passages. I wondered if Rosalie had adored the romance between Macon and Muriel, how it seemed to rise from their grief like a wildflower from dirt, if she’d underlined the same passages that I—
“How old are you?” she asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“Sixteen.”
“Is that all?” She looked at Amir. “And you?”
“Sixteen.”
“You haven’t told us your name.”
“Amir.”
“Do you attend that little school down in Osha?”
“No. We’re homeschooled.”
Rosalie glanced back and forth between us, confused. “Both of you? Together?”
“Yes,” I said. “My father was Amir’s guardian. We’ve lived together since we were eight years old.”
“So Amir is your brother,” Will said.
“No,” Amir said.
He was not my brother. That was a role that belonged entirely to Bear in the way that a hive belonged to the bees that made it buzz with warning. Amir’s place in my life was so much greater than that of a brother. I’d never settled on the right word for him. He was like a piece of myself that lived outside of myself. We were attached in a way that, even if I had wanted to, I could not easily explain.
“My father was his guardian,” I repeated. “And now my father is dead, and my brother is our guardian. Amir is . . . We’re best friends.” It did not feel right to describe our connection this way; the phrase “best friends” was too common, too frivolous a phrase to encapsulate what we meant to each other. I regretted my choice of words the moment I spoke, though I told myself it was silly to feel so strongly. They were only words; they could not diminish us.
The room was quiet. I sensed Amir’s unhappiness. When Rosalie spoke, the edge in her voice had softened. “So the two of you live with your older brother . . .” She trailed off, waiting for me to continue.
“Bear.”
Her white-blond eyebrows shot up. “Bear! Bear and Merrow. And Amir. What remarkable names.”
“Mom . . .” Will said. He seemed embarrassed by her.
She ignored him. “When was your last tetanus shot?”
“I . . . I’m not sure.”
“I couldn’t find any pain medicine,” Will said. “I’m sorry. This isn’t our house. Friends of ours let us borrow it for the week.”
Rosalie studied me. The pain I was in must have showed in my face, because she walked over to a cabinet in the kitchen and returned with a bottle of whiskey and a glass. She poured out a splash and handed the glass to me.
“In a pinch,” she said, “this counts as medicine.”
I took the glass from her. The whiskey burned my throat, but it did, almost instantly, dull the pain I was feeling.
In my relief I felt a rush of goodwill. “You know,” I said, “we were only curious to see what the house looked like. That’s why we hopped over the wall.”
“We’re not thieves,” Amir added. We both knew that it was surely what Rosalie had been thinking since the moment she’d set eyes on us.
“I never thought you were,” Will said.
Rosalie studied us, her lips pressed together in a thin line. If she believed us, I could not tell. “What is your doctor’s name?”
“Doctor Clark.”
“I’ll look him up. He needs to see that wound.” When she left the room, I was relieved that Tiger followed her.
I suddenly longed to curl into the armchair and take a nap. I gave an involuntary shiver.
“You’re cold,” said Will. He flicked a switch on the side of the fireplace and blue-gold flames burst from the logs.
“We should go,” Amir whispered. Seated on the arm of my chair, he looked uneasy. The stains on his blue jeans and ring of brown at the neck of his T-shirt seemed to stand out against the backdrop of the white kitchen. I knew that my own clothes had the same marks, that my hair surely had the same dull sheen as his. We did not belong in that beautiful house. Amir—both of us—had every reason to be nervous. We’d been caught trespassing. The longer we stayed, the closer we were to finding out the consequences of our actions. Will seemed forgiving, but it was impossible to guess what Rosalie was thinking. What if she hadn’t left the room to call Doctor Clark, but the police?
I nodded my agreement to Amir, but when I tried to stand, it felt as though shards of glass were sinking into the meat of my calf. I sank back into the chair. Amir’s expression grew more anxious.
“Merrow.”
“I’m trying.”
Rosalie returned holding a small phone. “Good news. Doctor Clark is on the way. He tried very hard not to reveal the details of your file to me, but I’ve cracked tougher nuts on Christmas Eve.” She pointed the phone at me. �
�You are in need of a tetanus shot.” She looked at Amir and then me again. Her head tilted to the side, her expression relaxing. “In the meantime, how about a little something to eat?”
At the mere mention of eating, my stomach, as it was prone to do, growled. I hoped the noise of the fire’s flames was enough to cover it, but when I heard Amir’s stomach make an echoing call, I knew that neither of us was fooling anyone. As Rosalie busied herself in the kitchen, I wondered what other details of our life Doctor Clark had revealed to her. Amir and I exchanged a look. I was relieved to see that his excitement mirrored my own. The promise of food always had a way of preempting our other feelings.
A GIRL WHO did not look older than ten appeared just as Amir was helping me to the table. She stared at us with open curiosity.
“Hello,” she called, stopping in the doorway. Her hair was as pale as Will’s, and she wore it in two long, neat braids that fell in front of her shoulders. I felt a twinge of shame thrum within me. Bear’s voice was in my head, telling me that my hair looked like seaweed. I trimmed the ends myself with our house scissors, but I knew my efforts did not improve the situation by much. When I touched my hair, it felt unclean below my fingers. This little girl’s hair shone like silk. In the light of the room, it glowed, just as Will’s had seemed to when he’d knelt before me in the driveway.
“Hello,” I said.
Amir looked at the girl and nodded.
“This is Emma,” said Will. “My sister. Emma, these are our guests. Merrow and Amir.”
“Come sit by me, Emma,” said Rosalie. I could not help but notice that she gestured to the seat that was the farthest from the end of the table where Amir and I sat.
Emma sat obediently beside her mother but stared in our direction with wide blue eyes. “Mommy told me that Tiger bit you,” she said in a small voice.
“Yes.”
The girl’s eyes grew round and threatened tears.
Rosalie touched her daughter’s shoulder. “Tiger was only doing what he’s been taught to do,” she said. “He would never hurt you, Emma. He knows you. You’re family.”
I had no right to be stung by this comment, so why did it bother me so? I took a bite of the sandwich that had been set before me and in an instant, my emotions swung from resentment to elation. The bread was thick but deliciously fluffy. As my stomach filled, I felt sleepy and energized all at once. Amir caught my gaze and the look on his face was so delighted that I laughed.
“What did I miss?” Will asked. He had a face that took to a happy expression easily, as though it were returning to a natural state.
I paused from eating long enough to tell him that the bread was delicious.
“We brought it with us from San Francisco,” said Rosalie.
“It’s my favorite,” said Emma. “It’s called Dutch Crunch.”
Amir groaned with pleasure. His cheeks darkened when he realized we were all looking at him. Everyone laughed then, even Rosalie.
“That’s where we live,” Will explained. “In San Francisco. I’m in the Marina, and Mom and Dad and Emma are in Presidio Heights.”
I nodded, though the neighborhood names meant nothing to me.
“We’re here on vacation,” Emma said.
“Why did you pick Osha?” Amir asked.
Did the others hear the hostility that I heard in his voice? He’d finished his sandwich. His plate gleamed in front of him. I hoped we would be given seconds.
“My husband considers himself a fisherman,” Rosalie said. “When our friends offered us their house for the week, we took them up on it. It’s nice to stretch out in a bit of countryside. Everyone needs a break from the city now and then.”
“Believe it or not,” Will said, “Mom was once a Girl Scout.”
“We’ve been camping all over California!” Emma said.
“I do adore Osha,” Rosalie said. She sounded surprisingly wistful. “This whole area is stuck in time, isn’t it? The back-to-the-land hippie movement lives on up here. All of these artists and farmers and tree-hugger types. It seems like a simpler sort of life.”
“I love swimming in the ocean,” Emma added.
“That’s true.” The way that Rosalie smiled at her daughter made my throat tighten. “Emma is wild about the sea. I can’t even get her to put on a wet suit—she just runs right into the freezing water. We think she might be a mermaid.”
“That’s what my name means,” I said. “In Irish folklore, mermaids are called merrows.”
Emma looked so excited that I wondered if she had misunderstood and believed that I was an actual mermaid. “Do you love the ocean, too?”
I nodded. “I swim every day. Our house is on top of a bluff that drops right down to the sea, so we have our own little beach. You can visit us if you’d like.”
Before Emma could answer, Rosalie said, “So Merrow means mermaid. And Amir, what does that mean?”
We knew the answer to this because Rei had shown us a book of Hindi names and their meanings. “In Hindi,” Amir said, “Amir means rich.”
We had often wondered if his parents had settled on the name because they were rich, or if it was because they longed to become rich. We decided it must have been the latter; if they’d been rich, it didn’t seem likely that Amir would have ended up in an orphanage. Surely if his parents had been wealthy and died, the money eventually would have been given to Amir. Of course there was always the possibility, Amir said once, that his parents hadn’t named him at all. Maybe someone who worked at the orphanage, someone with an inclination toward irony or even cruelty, had selected his name. I tried to talk him out of believing in this version of events; it bothered me that I was given the memory of my parents choosing my name while Amir did not have even that small certainty.
“Rich,” Rosalie said. “Isn’t that interesting.”
“His parents must have seen what was in his heart,” I said.
“Rich of heart,” said Will with a level of warmth that made me like him more than I already did (which I was afraid was quite a lot).
“I’d like someone to tell me the name that’s written in my heart someday,” declared Emma.
This made us all smile. As silence fell over the table, a bell rang.
“The gate!” cried Emma.
“That must be Merrow’s doctor.” Rosalie stood and folded her napkin. “I’ll get him.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. It was difficult to see Doctor Clark and not be brought back in time to my father’s death. Amir offered my foot a gentle nudge under the table. I gave him a grateful look. It wasn’t easy for either of us.
“Children,” the doctor said as he walked into the room at Rosalie’s side. It had been years since he’d last seen us, and I suspected he had no recollection of our names. “What trouble have you gotten yourselves into?”
“I’m afraid it’s our dog that has caused the trouble,” Will said, standing to introduce himself. “Tiger didn’t offer our guests the finest of greetings.”
“Your guests, eh?” Doctor Clark cast a doubtful glance in our direction. Then he shrugged. “I won’t ask. Let me see that leg.”
I turned in my seat and tried to keep my expression neutral as the doctor peeled off the bandage around my calf. He prodded at the wound and didn’t stop until I released an agonized gasp. That seemed to satisfy him enough to turn toward Rosalie.
“Is your dog up to date on his rabies vaccine?”
“Of course.”
Doctor Clark turned back to me. “You don’t need stitches, but there’s a high chance of infection with dog bites so I’m going to clean the wound and redress it. But first, your tetanus shot.”
Emma and Will and Rosalie looked away in unison as Doctor Clark readied the needle, but neither Amir nor I could tear our eyes from the sight. We were as impressed as we were curious. I yelped in surprise when the needle sunk into my arm. Emma was at my side in an instant, grasping my hand.
“Poor Merrow!” she cried.
“Emma,” said Rosalie sharply. I thought I heard revulsion in Rosalie’s voice when she saw Emma’s hand in mine. I shook my hand loose from the girl’s, my cheeks warm.
“I’m fine,” I told her, though I felt mortified. I managed to smile.
After the doctor spent a few minutes cleaning and redressing my leg, he straightened. “That’s that,” he said. “It’s fine to wash it, just remember to reapply the ointment and a fresh bandage after you bathe.” He looked me up and down and seemed to be on the cusp of saying something more. Instead, he asked Rosalie if he could have a word with her in the hall.
“Let’s see if Doctor Clark can give us a ride home,” Amir whispered once they’d left the room. I thought I sensed Will, on my other side, listening. I murmured agreement.
When the doctor and Rosalie returned, it became clear they had other plans.
“It’s critical that you keep that wound clean,” Doctor Clark said. “Dog bite infections are nasty business, and I’d like to see you avoid one. I’ve spoken with Mrs. Langford and we both agree . . .” He trailed off for a moment. “Well, I feel—quite strongly—that Horseshoe Cliff isn’t the ideal spot to heal from an injury like this one. The risk of infection is simply too great.”
“We’d like you to stay here, Merrow,” Rosalie said. I stared at her. “At least for the night. It’s already dark out and you must be exhausted. Give the wound a day to mend. Doctor Clark can swing by again tomorrow to check on you and drive you home. We’ll take good care of you. It’s . . . well, it’s the least we can do, isn’t it?”
I could not believe our luck. To stay in a place like this for a whole night? I wondered if we would be offered more to eat. Surely there would be breakfast!
“Thank you. We really appreciate it.” I looked over at Amir, expecting to find him as excited as I was, but his expression was dark. “Amir,” I said. “We really appreciate it, don’t we?”
When Rosalie leveled her eyes on Amir, something cool flickered within them. She cleared her throat. “Doctor Clark thought that he could give Amir a ride home so that Amir could let your brother know you’re okay. Bear, wasn’t it? Bear must be worried.”