Stay (ARC) Page 6

  or purposely, and, if purposely, why the dogs hadn’t held

  her here. And also I was wondering why she didn’t have

  more reasons to stay than just that.

  “I just think it’s too bad,” I said.

  “Damn straight. Nearly everything is.”

  She was slurring badly now. But she still poured herself

  a third full glass. She poured a little more in my glass, but I pretended not to notice.

  “Wait,” she said, staring at the side of my face. I could

  see it in my peripheral vision. “Which part?”

  “The part about how the dogs are her only reason.”

  She didn’t answer straight away. Just sighed noisily.

  We sat quietly for a minute or two. I was wanting to

  make a break for it and go home. But for the moment I

  was rooted to the spot.

  “I don’t know why she stayed in this damn town,”

  she said. Wistfully, as though staring at a pitiful situation I couldn’t see. “Nobody knows why. Everybody thought

  it made sense to go far away. Well … everybody except

  her, I guess. She could have started over where nobody

  knew her. What was keeping her in this town, I don’t

  know. Instead she had to live like this.”

  She swung one wild arm back toward the cabin.

  “What’s wrong with this town?” I asked. A bit de-

  fensively. After all, this was my town.

  “People are crap, that’s what’s wrong with it. They

  don’t let her forget. They say exactly the wrong thing.

  They ask these rude, stupid, intrusive questions without

  stopping to consider how they make her feel, how they

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  bring it all crashing back. And that she’s heard them a

  thousand times before. They whisper behind her back,

  and I mean to this very day.”

  I allowed a silence to fall. In case there was more.

  There didn’t seem to be more.

  “I feel like I’m missing something,” I said.

  She stared at the side of my face again. I didn’t dare

  look over, but I could tell.

  “Oh,” she said, drawing the word out long. “You

  don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “That’s right. Of course you don’t. You’re fourteen.

  You weren’t even born yet. Well, that’ll be nice. You can

  come see her when she gets home, and you’ll be the only

  person in her life who doesn’t know who she is. She’ll

  like that.”

  I took that to mean she wasn’t going to tell me.

  “I should go,” I said.

  I moved the boy dog’s head off my leg and stood.

  Stared down at the daughter for a moment. The drunken

  daughter.

  “You’re not going to try to drive back to the hospital,

  are you?” I asked.

  No reply.

  I looked around for a car—which was silly, because

  if there had been one, I would have seen it long be-

  fore that—but I saw only the pickup truck that was al-

  ways there. That had been there since I’d stumbled on

  the place.

  “Are you even driving?” I asked at last. Because so

  far she wasn’t answering.

  “Yeah,” she said, the word muddy with effects of te-

  quila. “I got a rental car parked out on the River Road.

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  But don’t worry. I’ll sleep it off in the cabin before I go

  anywhere.”

  And with that, she disappeared inside.

  I didn’t run home, because that little bit of alcohol had

  made me feel shaky. But I definitely got myself home.

  I think I can honestly say that a big part of me was still

  unable to process what had just happened.

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  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Lady

  When I got out to the cabin the following morning,

  everything had changed. And I knew it immediately.

  The dogs were no longer moping on the porch. They

  had been in their doghouse, but they heard me coming

  as I trotted down the hill, and they came spilling out.

  Pouring out, I guess I should say. Just like the old days.

  I put on the gas and they ran with me.

  Somewhere in the back of my head I knew that must

  mean the lady was home. But I put it out of my mind

  again because I had missed this so much. I had needed this

  so much. I think the dogs had missed it, too. They ran

  with their mouths open and their tongues lolling out. It

  looked for all the world like they were grinning widely.

  Then I started to worry about what the daughter had

  said: that her mother had seen me running off with the

  dogs. I wondered if she had seen me that morning. Probably

  not, I figured, because she was likely still confined to bed.

  But the thought continued to nag at me. And, as I think

  I’ve said before, I couldn’t run through those woods and

  think any real thoughts at the same time. That was the

  whole point of doing the thing.

  I slowed to a jog and then stopped.

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  Catherine Ryan Hyde

  When the dogs noticed, they came back and bounded

  around me in circles, hoping I’d go on.

  “We better go back,” I said.

  They were clearly disappointed. But they did as I asked.

  * * *

  I could feel their tails hitting the backs of my thighs as I

  knocked on the door.

  “Mrs. Dinsmore?” I called.

  I pressed my face close to the edge of the door. The

  edge that would have opened in if she could have gotten

  up and opened it. As if it would increase my chances of

  being heard through solid oak. Then I raised my volume

  a few notches, realizing that would be more helpful.

  “You don’t have to get up, Mrs. Dinsmore. Don’t get

  up for me, okay? Because I know you’re still probably

  feeling pretty bad. It’s just me, Lucas Painter. You know,

  the guy who was coming to see the dogs? I just wanted

  you to know I was feeding them while you were gone.

  They weren’t eating, actually, but I made sure they had it

  there if they wanted it. And I made sure they had water.

  They did drink a little water. And I came back at sun-

  down and locked the food up in the shed so it wouldn’t

  draw raccoons or coyotes or whatever. I didn’t want the

  dogs getting into it with the wildlife. Anyway … I just

  wanted to say I’m glad you’re—”

  I got no further than that.

  The door swung open.

  In front of me stood the lady whose life I had saved.

  Zoe Dinsmore. She was not tall, but built big and solid—

  a little overweight but not huge. Just built like a tank.

  Her face was creased and set hard. Maybe against me, or

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  maybe it had been that way before I was even born. Her

  expression made her daughter look like a happy, friendly

  elf in comparison.

  I took a step back.

  She just stood there in the open doorway, taking me

  in. Sizing me up, from the look of it. She was wearing

  a blue checkered nightgown that came up high around

  her neck in a ruffle. It didn’t
seem to suit her at all. She was not a frilly woman, to put it mildly.

  After a second or two of staring at me in silence she

  nodded a couple of times. Not approvingly. More as

  though she had resigned herself to taking me as I came,

  disappointing though she seemed to find me.

  Or maybe I was reading too much in. Maybe it was

  life in general that kept falling short of her expectations, and maybe I was only getting the brunt of her disapproval

  because I happened to be standing in her line of vision.

  She opened her mouth and spoke, and I heard her

  voice for the first time. It was gravelly and deep, as though something had happened to her throat. Or maybe it was

  the voice of a woman who’d been drinking hard for years.

  It was impossible for me to know.

  “Would you take the dogs if anything happened

  to me?”

  My head spun with her words, and I remembered the

  promise I’d made to her daughter. How could I forget it?

  “I can’t,” I said. “I couldn’t if I wanted to. My parents

  would never let me have even one small dog.”

  “Maybe you could come here and take care of them.”

  “No,” I said. And I was surprised by the firmness I

  heard in my own voice. “No, they would hate that. It

  would kill them to have to live out here all alone. You

  should’ve seen them while you were in the hospital. It

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  would’ve broken your heart. They were miserable. They

  wouldn’t eat. They would hardly even pick up their own

  heads. You can’t do that to them. They need you.”

  I paused, and braved a look at her face to see how my

  very direct words were settling in.

  For what seemed like a long time she said nothing.

  Then she croaked a simple statement into my face.

  “You’re not as helpful as I’d hoped you’d be.”

  She opened the door wider and invited the dogs inside

  with a sweep of her arm, and they happily accepted the

  invitation.

  She started to swing the door closed, but I stopped it.

  And her. Stepped forward and stopped the door with my

  hand, and stopped her from slamming it with my words.

  It was unlike me. But she had dug down and found what

  anger I had.

  “Wait a minute!” I said. “I don’t understand how you

  can say a thing like that to me. I saved your life.”

  She leaned in closer, through the half-open doorway.

  Leaned in until her nose was only three or four inches

  from mine. I thought I smelled tequila on her breath.

  “I didn’t. Want it. Saved.” Her deep voice came out

  eerily calm, with tiny groups of words forming their own

  weighted sentences.

  Then she slammed the door and set the poorly-aligned

  deadbolt.

  I walked home. What else could I do?

  That was my first meeting with the infamous

  Zoe Dinsmore. It was also the day my curiosity tipped,

  and I couldn’t stop wondering how she had gotten so

  infamous.

  * * *

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  I broke Connor loose from his house the best way I knew

  how. Really the only way I knew how by then. I offered to buy him an ice cream.

  There was this place on Main Street. That’s actually what

  it was called—the Place. It was about seven blocks from his

  house. They made a treat he couldn’t resist. It was a sugar

  cone with that swirly soft-serve vanilla, spiraled up all pretty and then dipped in a vat of melted chocolate that hardened

  immediately into a candy shell. And you had to start eating

  it right away to keep it from melting, so he couldn’t even

  ask to sit in his room while I brought it to him.

  We stepped out of his house, and I saw him squint up

  into the sun. Maybe I was exaggerating the situation in

  my head, but he reminded me of a vampire. I wondered

  when he’d last gone outdoors. I think school had been

  out for four days.

  While we walked to the Place I told him about my

  experiences of the past twenty-four hours. Both with the

  lady and her daughter.

  He didn’t say much. Once he made a little noise in

  his throat and then said, “That’s weird.”

  We turned the corner onto Main Street, and I saw the

  ice cream place at the end of the block. I was surprised

  we’d gotten there so fast. I guess I’d told the story in more detail than I’d realized.

  “So…,” I said, “…you don’t know anything about

  what happened. Do you?”

  “Tell me the lady’s name again?”

  “Zoe Dinsmore.”

  “No. Can’t say that rings a bell.”

  That was honestly the way Connor talked. At age

  fourteen. I guess that helps explain why we had no real

  friends except each other.

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  “But her daughter said people bring it up to her to

  this day. Like everybody knows about it, whatever it is.

  So if everybody knows about it … why don’t we know

  about it?”

  He answered with no hesitation at all. As though the

  answer had been fully formed in him all along and just

  waiting to burst out.

  “We’re kids. People keep stuff from kids. They think

  we’re supposed to stay all pure or something until we

  grow up, and nothing should upset us. So they whisper

  about bad stuff behind our backs so we don’t get upset.

  But it’s so totally useless, because then at the same time

  they’re always doing stuff that’s really upsetting.”

  “Wow,” I said. Surprised by how much he knew

  and how well he could put it into words. “That’s so …

  true.”

  We stepped into the shop together.

  “What’re you getting?” he asked. He seemed happy

  enough to change the subject. He was staring up at the

  menu board behind the counter, but I had no idea why,

  because he always got the same thing. “I know you know

  what I’m getting.”

  “I’m getting the chocolate ice cream with the choco-

  late coating.”

  “That’s a lot of chocolate,” he said.

  “You don’t say that like it’s a good thing.”

  We waited in a short line.

  When we had been handed our cones and I’d paid for

  them, he did something that disappointed me.

  He headed for the door.

  “I thought we were going to sit here and eat them,”

  I said.

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  He shook his head and looked down at the black and

  white squares of linoleum. The way his mother would

  have, if she’d been there.

  “I should get back.”

  So I resigned myself to our eating them on the way

  home. I knew I’d have to spit out what I wanted to say

  fast, because I only had seven blocks to get it all covered.

  “So, how do you find out a thing like that?” I asked

  as we walked away from the shop.

  “I’m not sure.” He took a bite of his ice cream as if it

  helped him think. Then he added, “You could ask your

  parents.”
/>
  “Nah.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was three when we moved here, remember? And

  this happened before I was born.”

  “They still might’ve heard about it.”

  “Maybe. But there’s another thing. I don’t want my

  mom to know I’ve been out in those woods. She’d be

  really mad.”

  “What does she have against the woods?”

  “She thinks I’ll get lost in there.”

  “Oh. Did you ever?”

  “Once. For a little bit. But then I came out on the

  River Road, and then I knew where I was again.”

  We walked in silence for half a block. I ate my

  chocolate ice cream, wondering why anyone would get

  vanilla when they could get chocolate. I thought he was

  out of suggestions, which was disappointing. I wasn’t

  sure which way to go with this thing. I needed some-

  body’s help, and Connor was pretty much my whole set

  of options.

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  Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “I could ask my mom,” he said. “She’s lived here all

  her life.”

  “Yeah. That would be good. Would you?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Why not? And if she doesn’t know, well

  … if I were you, I’d go talk to Mrs. Flint.”

  “How could she help?”

  “She’s a reference librarian.”

  “Well, I know, but…”

  “They know everything.”

  “But whatever happened, it’s not like somebody wrote

  a book about it or something. Or even if they did, I

  wouldn’t know the title or the author.”

  “She knows about more than just books. They keep

  the newspapers there. And when they get too old and

  there are too many of them, they put them on microfilm.

  So if something happened around here, and it was in the

  paper, she could probably find it for you.”

  “Oh. That’s actually a pretty good idea. Thanks.”

  “But let me ask my mom first. Save you the walk

  down to the library if she knows.”

  * * *

  He handed me what was left of his ice cream cone in that

  long, dark front hallway of his house.

  “Don’t let it drip on the rug,” he said.

  There was a runner of Persian carpet nearly the full

  length of the hall. I happened to know it was passed down

  through Connor’s family on his mother’s side. Might’ve

  cost more than everything in my house put together. It

  made me nervous to be charged with protecting it.

  “Tell me the lady’s name one more time,” he said.

  “Zoe Dinsmore.”