Stay Page 21

Then I remembered to use the sun.

  It was well up now, shining into my eyes. Which meant I was facing the same direction I’d be facing if I were sitting on Zoe Dinsmore’s porch. Which meant I wasn’t running the long way through the woods, and I wasn’t facing town. Which meant if I just kept going, I would hit the River Road.

  Problem was, there was no real path in that direction. But I pushed on anyway.

  It was slow going because I had to pick my way through tree roots and underbrush. My legs were getting scratched up. I’d have to wear long pants for weeks to hide the damage. In the middle of a hot summer. But I just kept going.

  Sweat poured down my legs and down my neck into my collar, and it tickled. But I just kept going.

  And then I burst out onto the road. Suddenly. Somehow the brush had hidden it until the last minute, and I hadn’t seen it coming.

  I crossed the road and looked down into the muddy, fast-flowing river. And I cursed it. Actually cursed it out loud.

  “You son of a bitch,” I yelled at the river, which couldn’t have bothered to be insulted by my words. “You swallowed up everybody’s peace of mind in this town. Least you can do is take a problem off our hands for a change.”

  I dropped the backpack onto the ground. Looked around me 360 degrees. There was not a soul to be seen. Well, a soul. But not a person. A buck stared at me from the shoulder of the River Road, as if trying to figure out what I was so upset about. Then he trotted away, his hooves clattering over the tarmac.

  I took out the knotted pillowcase. Swung it around like winding up for a pitch. But just before I let it go, I had a bad thought. Imagine if I threw it too far and it landed on the bank on the other side. Exposed.

  The nearest bridge was probably three and a half miles away. And what if I got to the other side and couldn’t find the spot where it had landed?

  I did a light underhand swing, but before I could let go, I was struck with another bad thought.

  Imagine if I threw it not far enough, and it landed on this near bank. This muddy, slippery, very steep bank. I’d have to scramble down there and try to get it. But one false move and that river might take me away.

  I put it back in Connor’s pack and ran three and a half miles down the road shoulder to the bridge.

  It was a one-lane bridge with a high iron structure to support it, built for cars but also built back when cars were a lot smaller. There was a car coming; I could hear it. I ducked into the woods and leaned on a tree until it had crossed the river and gone on its way.

  Then I walked out of the woods and onto the bridge with the terrifying bundle under my shirt. On every step it poked at the place where the kitten had scratched me.

  I stood a minute, just looking down and watching the water flow. But there was a method to my madness. I was straining my ears to be sure there was no one coming. When I was sure I heard nothing but silence, I looked around. All around. But if there was ever a deserted part of the developed world, I was standing in it on that crazy morning.

  I slipped the pillowcase out of my shirt and let it fall straight down into the river.

  “You owe me one,” I told the river. Quietly this time. “You owe us all one. You hide that for me. You make this one thing right, at least.”

  I looked around again, but thankfully I had not been seen. There was simply no one there to see me.

  I ran back down the road toward my familiar entrance to the woods on the river side. The one that would take me in a fairly straight line to Zoe’s cabin.

  When I passed the cemetery, I could see fresh flowers on the two graves. Matching red flowers on long stalks. But I was too upset to think much about it, and I didn’t go closer. I slowed my feet for just one beat, staring at them.

  Then I ran as fast as I had ever run in my life. Or maybe faster.

  She was on her way back from the outhouse when I burst over the rise, still sprinting like a maniac.

  “What the hell got into you?” she asked when I was close enough to hear her.

  I stopped in front of her. I could barely speak I was panting so hard.

  “He was really going to do it.”

  “Who was really going to do what?”

  “Connor.”

  I stood a minute. Panting. Watching the news settle on the inside of her. Of course I was only watching the outside of her, but I could still see. It was on her face. I didn’t know where the dogs were, so they must have been inside the cabin. Nothing else would stop them from greeting me.

  “He did have his father’s gun,” I said. “He lied about that.”

  “Does he still?”

  “No. I threw it in the river. He said he doesn’t want it anymore. He said he changed his mind.”

  “Good.”

  For a minute we just stood there. Looking at each other. Really looking at each other. None of that “near miss” business.

  “You know what this means,” I said. “Don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure what you think it means.”

  “You saved him.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “You did. You kept a person here in the world. You saved a life. So that’s like . . . I don’t know how to say it. It’s like a repayment. It’s like . . . one down and one to go.”

  She didn’t hear it the way I’d hoped she would at all. I watched her face harden. I watched her recoil from the idea.

  “That’s not the way the world works, my friend.”

  Her voice was all armored. But at least I liked the way she’d called me her friend.

  “Why isn’t it?”

  “You want to go tell Freddie’s or Wanda Jean’s parents that this makes up for their loss?”

  “I didn’t mean it did. That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Well, what did you mean, then?”

  She had her arms folded across her broad chest now. Just below the top of the bib of her overalls.

  I felt like she’d just thrown me a hard essay test, and I didn’t have any answers. But then one came to me. And I thought it was good. I thought I’d get an A on this test.

  “I guess . . . ,” I said. “I guess I mean if you can save somebody . . . I mean, isn’t that a good enough thing? Isn’t that enough reason to stay?”

  I thought it was a better answer than she did, apparently.

  She shook her head. Let out a little low chuckle that seemed to be at my expense.

  “Ah, youth,” she said. It reminded me of something my mother had said to me. “When everything in life is so damned simple.”

  Then she walked up onto her porch and opened the door to her cabin. As she walked in, the dogs came spilling out and ran to me.

  And jumped on me. And whimpered at me. And kissed me.

  So at least I had that.

  I fell to my scratched-up knees and held the dogs around their necks and spoke hurt words into their ears.

  “Well, she did save him,” I said to them. “And that is a good reason to stay.”

  They gave me sympathetic looks. They couldn’t possibly have known what I was so upset about. But to me their looks seemed almost to say, “Well, we all know how she is, don’t we? We know how she can be, but we love her all the same.”

  Or at least that’s how I interpreted their gazes, and I have some solid truth to back it up, because that’s what you really do get from dogs. And it’s no small thing to be loved all the same, let me tell you.

  When I got home, and stepped into my kitchen, my mom was holding the receiver of the phone. Waiting to see if it was me coming in.

  Really, who else could it have been?

  I knew I had a phone call, and I knew it was Connor.

  She covered the mouthpiece with the heel of her hand.

  “It’s Connor,” she said. “It’s the third time he’s called for you. I hope nothing’s wrong.”

  “No. It’s fine. Nothing’s wrong. He’s just really excited about his new kitten.”

  It bothered me to lie so smoothl
y and so easily. But I did it for my friend. I couldn’t look her in the eye, though, which might have made her suspicious. Then again, I didn’t look her in the eye very often.

  I took the phone from her. I was hoping she would leave the kitchen. She did not leave the kitchen.

  “Hey,” I said to Connor.

  “Everything go okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “Oh, thank goodness. Wow. Whew. I’ve been jumping out of my skin here. Nobody saw you?”

  “No. It’s fine.”

  “Where did you put it?”

  I could feel my mom standing close. Feel her listening. But I didn’t look up at her, because I didn’t want her to know it was a problem.

  “It’s fine,” I said again.

  “Oh. Is your mom right there?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “Okay. Good. Because I’m going to tell you something, and this way you just have to listen and you can’t argue with me. So just stand there and don’t say anything, okay?”

  There was a pause on the line, and I thought he might really be waiting for my permission. So I said okay, even though it made me nervous. It sounded like he was about to read me the riot act for everything I had ever done wrong to him in our lives. Every time I hadn’t been what he needed.

  I could not have been more wrong if I’d been trying.

  “You’ve been a really good friend,” he said. “And I haven’t.”

  “No, you are.”

  “Just listen,” he said. “Don’t talk.”

  “Okay.”

  My mom moved across the kitchen to the fridge and started rummaging around in there. But I had to assume she was still listening.

  “Not lately I haven’t been,” Connor said. “Lately you’ve been bending over backwards to try to help me, and I haven’t been much good at all. And I’m not saying it like I did last time—like you shouldn’t even be friends with me. I’m not saying that. I want you to be. I just want you to know that I’m going to do better now.”

  A pause while I waited to see if he was done.

  “It’s a deal,” I said.

  “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “Well I am. Thanks for what you did for me today.”

  “Anytime,” I said.

  Then, strangely, we both burst out laughing.

  “Well, not anytime,” I added.

  We said our goodbyes, and the incredibly stressful part of that incredibly stressful day got to be over.

  I looked up at my mom, and she looked back at me. Probably to see if I would tell her what all that had been about.

  “He just really loves that new kitten,” I said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tell Them Your Story

  Come Monday, my brother and I were halfway to the bus stop together after dinner. On our way to the meeting. I walked. He limped along on his crutches.

  At first we didn’t talk.

  The sun was on a long slant, but it was still hot. Now and then a neighbor had driven by and honked a hello to us. One, old Mr. Harrigan, had rolled down his window and given Roy a big thumbs-up. Probably for serving in the war and then getting home. I could tell that one made my brother uncomfortable.

  When Roy finally opened his mouth, I thought he was going to talk about that. But he took us in an entirely different direction.

  “Why don’t you want to be on the track team?” he asked me. Like he was seriously interested in my answer.

  He hadn’t seemed seriously interested in anything since before he left for the war. Except for his meds.

  “I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to explain. I just . . . when I run in the woods, with those dogs, I just feel . . . like . . . completely free. And when I run on the track at school, I’m with these other guys who don’t really like me. And the coach is watching. And everybody would be judging me. Or at least I’d feel like they were. And it’s just the complete opposite. It’s like being in a cage or something.”

  “But you could do both,” he said.

  By then we’d arrived at the bus stop. There was no one else around. I sat. He just stood there, leaning on his crutches. I think getting up and down was hard for him. Once he got up, he didn’t tend to sit unless he figured he could stay a while.

  I looked up at him, but he was staring off into the distance, and I don’t think he noticed. I got this feeling, like that moment perfectly summed up everything between me and my brother since he got home. Me staring at him, hoping to see something. Find something. Him a million miles away in his head.

  “I guess I could do both,” I said. “But why do the school part at all? I mean, if I don’t like it much.”

  For a time, he didn’t answer. Then he looked down into my face, which felt surprising. Jolting, actually.

  “I don’t usually say things like this to you,” he said, “but here goes. I would appreciate it very much if you could see your way clear to take that spot on the team as a favor to me.”

  He looked away again. We both looked up to see the bus coming, but it was many blocks down the street, and it had just missed one of the only two stoplights in town.

  “Why would that be a favor to you if I did?”

  We just kept staring at that bus, stopped at the red light, like we’d never seen anything so fascinating in our lives.

  “I tried out for track,” he said.

  “You never told me that.”

  “I didn’t make it. I wasn’t fast enough. You don’t just come home from school and tell your kid brother, ‘Hey, today I tried to go after something I really wanted and fell flat on my ass.’ And now I can’t even run badly. I’ll probably never run again. So if I could go to a track meet and see you doing it . . . taking that spot on the team I could never snag, well . . . I would like that.”

  The light turned green, and the bus made its noisy way to us.

  “Okay,” I said. “Then I will.”

  “How long do we have to keep going to these meetings?” he asked me.

  We were on the bus. Counting the stops until it was time to get off. Or I was, anyway. That might have been the last thing on his mind. He might have been leaving all such logistics to me.

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure. Maybe till it’s not so uncomfortable for you to go?”

  “That’s bizarre,” he said, his eyes still off in the distance.

  After our brief track team moment I had lost him again.

  “Why is it bizarre?”

  “So long as I hate going, I have to go. Then, just as I figure I don’t mind it much anymore, I’m off the hook.”

  “You can still go if you want. I think some of those people have been going for years and years. Sounds like it, anyway, when they share. And you can get a sponsor like people do, so you’ll have somebody to talk to outside the meetings.”

  The word “sponsor” sounded weirdly commercial, but it was, in program terms, more like a personal mentor.

  “Why do you hate it so much?” I asked, when he didn’t answer.

  “I don’t hate it. I just figure they’re waiting for me to tell them my story.”

  And that was the end of that conversation. Because I couldn’t tell him he was wrong. I couldn’t say no they weren’t. Of course they were waiting for him to tell his story. And so was I.

  And I, for one, was getting stretched pretty thin waiting to hear what had happened.

  We rode and walked the rest of the way to the meeting in silence.

  We were in the part of the meeting when it was almost time for the sharing to start. That’s when it happened. That final tilt of the teeter-totter that puts you fully on the other side. The final huge tipping point of the summer of 1969.

  We had done all the readings. The leader had asked if there were any newcomers in their first thirty days. Roy hadn’t raised his hand. Roy never raised his hand. I don’t think he was trying to pretend he had been clean longer. At least I chose
not to believe that. I think he wasn’t going to call himself a newcomer in his first thirty days until he was off the pain meds. I think he was claiming no clean time at all.

  The leader had run through the process where they give out these little key tags they called “chips” for anyone who had thirty, or sixty, or ninety days. Or six months, or nine months, or anybody who was celebrating an anniversary of a year or multiples of years.

  Only nobody was. But they went through the list every time, calling off all those milestones to see if anybody wanted to raise their hand and take a chip.

  I saw a few sets of eyes flicker over to the door, so of course I looked where they looked.

  Zoe Dinsmore was just stepping into the room, closing the door behind her.

  She either hadn’t seen me yet, or had seen me and her eyes had moved on. She was looking at Roy, and Roy was looking back at her.

  And, now, this part was weird. At the time.

  She nodded to him. And he nodded back.

  I couldn’t have told you exactly what the nod meant, but it was an acknowledgment of something. Something they shared between them. Which was absolutely stunning to me, because I had no idea they’d ever shared anything between them. But I could see it was not the kind of nod you exchange with a stranger. It was a nod to some level of mutual history. It was an understanding. Some things don’t need explaining. Some things are just plain on their surface.

  They broke off their gazes, and Zoe found herself a seat.

  She sat across from us, and her eyes came up to mine. Just very briefly. She offered me one weak, sad little smile, then looked down at the table.

  The leader, this guy named Jeff, spoke directly to her.

  He said, “We just finished giving out chips, but I’ll ask again. Anybody here in their first thirty days of recovery?”

  Zoe raised her hand, still staring down at the table.

  “My name is Zoe, and I’m an addict,” she said.

  And instead of the usual group response, which would have been “Hi, Zoe,” just about everybody in the room said, “Hi, Zoe. Welcome back.”

  “I’m thinking there’s not a single person in this room who doesn’t know my story well enough to tell it themselves,” Zoe said when she was called on to share. “Am I right about that?”