by Cari Noga
“Aunt Jane!” I screech. The rain is blowing inside. Please, don’t let the mirror be broken. I lean over the edge of the bed, trying to lift the corner. It’s so heavy. My room isn’t just cool now; it’s freezing. As I lift the mirror, there’s another tinkling crash as the glass falls out. No!
“Watch the glass!” Aunt Jane is back. “Shit. Come downstairs. Do you have slippers?”
I shake my head. I want to pick up some of the mirror glass, just one piece, but she grabs my hand and my quilt, too, and pulls me downstairs.
“You can sleep in here,” she says, opening Matt’s door. “We’ll deal with the window in the morning.”
I haven’t been in here except to get encyclopedias since the first week. The blinds are still open a little, and the desk cover is cracked just where I left it. I lie down, pulling my own quilt tighter around me. Mom’s mirror is broken. I’ll never be able to picture us together again. Beyond the blinds there’s a flash of light. Aunt Jane goes to the window and gasps.
“What? What’s going on?” I jump off the bed.
“The downed power line. It’s still live. See it sparking out there?”
I can see something arching and arcing into the air, throwing off sparks, between us inside and her parked truck. It looks like a possessed Fourth of July sparkler.
“We can’t stay inside,” Aunt Jane says, grabbing my hand, pulling me away from the window. “I just filled up yesterday. If that line hits the gas tank . . .”
I remember the fire in the pictures of the car crash I saw online, and scream.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Aunt Jane crouches down to look me in the eye. “Stay calm. We’re going to be OK.”
I nod, still seeing that picture.
“The side door’s too close to the truck. We’ll have to go out the front door, then go around to the barn. I’ll call the power company from there.”
“Can you carry me that far?” In the dark? In the rain? I silently ask.
“I will. It’s the only way. It’s far enough and there’s no power there to worry about.” She goes to the living room and tugs open the front door. I’ve never seen it open. It’s still pouring.
“Got a jacket?” Aunt Jane is putting on her own.
“It’s upstairs.” Mom’s hoodie is still under my pillow. Suddenly a pair of headlights swings down the driveway.
“Who on earth—” Aunt Jane stares as the truck approaches the house.
“It’s Miguel!” I say.
“Must be on his newspaper route. He can’t go near that power line!” She pulls up the hood of her jacket and runs outside. She points toward the house, and Miguel follows her.
“Venga, Lucy. Jump up here.” He leans against the arm of the couch. I climb up on the cushions and perch on his rain-spattered back, just like the first day.
“Ready?” Aunt Jane’s standing holding the door open.
“Sí. You lead with the flashlight. ¡Vámanos!”
He jogs out into the blackness. Now it actually feels chilly. The rain is slowing down, and the clouds are starting to part, showing the moon, more than half but less than full, and the stars! So many more than outside my New York bedroom.
“This way. Watch your step.” Aunt Jane is ahead. “Hurry. Let’s get her where it’s dry.”
“Espera, Jane. Shine the flashlight over there,” Miguel says, shifting me up, pointing with his head toward the house.
Aunt Jane points the flashlight at the ground, then follows it up. The line is dropping off a post on the roof.
“Look, part of the line is on your roof. We’ll have to call someone pronto. It could start a fire.”
“At least it’s soaked through.” She shakes her head. My teeth are starting to chatter.
“Come on, let’s get her to the barn. Are you OK, Lucy?”
I’m exhausted. My room has a hole in it. Mom’s mirror is shattered. It’s July yet my teeth are chattering, so hard I can’t even say no.
Aunt Jane pushes open the old barn door. I haven’t been in here since the first day, to unpack the crate.
Miguel crouches down, and I slide off cautiously. My feet hit the hard concrete floor. Ahhh. It’s stuffy and warm and safe here.
“Go on, now, Miguel. Finish your deliveries,” Aunt Jane says, taking off her jacket and draping it over my shoulders. “We’ll be fine.”
“Call in that line. Where’s the other end?”
“It connects to the line that runs along the back of the property. The main one that runs up and down the peninsula.” She nods vaguely. “Probably where the outage occurred.”
“I’ll let you know what I find out.” Miguel gives me a hug. I watch him climb into the truck, his lights disappearing down the road. Something bumps my leg, and I look down. Sarge. I don’t know how he got out here. Was he even inside when the tree crashed into the window? Wait.
“Lexie! She’s still inside!”
Aunt Jane’s face falls.
“She must still be in my room! Go back, please!”
“She’ll be OK, Lucy. We closed the doors, remember? She can’t run out and get hurt.” Aunt Jane squeezes my hand. “When it’s daylight I’ll go back and get her.”
“But Miguel said the house could catch on fire! The truck could explode! And there’s all the broken glass in my room. Please, don’t leave her in there!” I’m crying.
“OK. OK. Easy.” Aunt Jane squats down next to me. “I’ll go get her.”
“Really?” I stare.
“Be right back.” She runs back over, up the porch, and in the front door.
I stare at the house, trembling even huddled inside Aunt Jane’s jacket. Lexie, Lexie, Lexie. It seems like Sarge understands something is wrong. He stays with me, rubbing against my leg.
Hours pass. At least it feels that long. I wish Miguel hadn’t left. It’s starting to get a little bit light now. The blackness has faded to deep blue. The rain has stopped. The power line isn’t swishing and sparking in the air anymore. Nothing is moving. Where are they? How could I have forgotten Lexie?
Then the door opens, and Aunt Jane is jogging back to the barn, one arm folded against her chest. She’s smiling. The next moment Lexie is in my arms, purring and nuzzling and safe.
“You found her!” I burrow my face in her fur. “Thank you, Aunt Jane. Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.” Aunt Jane picks up Sarge. “What a night.”
I look up at the lightening sky. The stars that say I love you are fading. But everything I love is safe and sound, in the barn.
Chapter 30
JANE
Midmorning, a power-company truck comes to assist with the live line. I go out to meet him, leaving Lucy dozing in the barn. I folded a stack of those padded blankets from her furniture crate into a modified mattress, and she conked out under my jacket. My first daylight look at the damage leaves my heart pounding. The tree branch, a hefty primary limb, pokes through Lucy’s window, aimed right where her bed sits.
“Storm was pretty bad. Knocked a lot of main lines down,” the guy confirms. “Monday, probably, before we can get back out here to hook you up.”
They’re barely out the driveway when another truck bumps up. “Mel’s Tree Service,” the car door reads. “On call 24-7, reasonable rates, insured.”
“Got a call about a tree?” asks the bald driver, Mel, presumably.
I raise my eyebrows and point to the house.
“All right. We’ll take care of it. You want us to clean it up while we’re at it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Make a clean cut, then seal it.”
“Seal it?”
“Latex sealant. Keeps the bugs and disease out.”
I wince. I’m not officially organic, but I try to keep as green as I can.
“This time of year, might help save the tree.”
I shake my head. “I’ll take the risk.”
“Suit yourself.”
It takes almos
t an hour to get it off the roof. “Where you want it?” Mel hollers.
“Out of here.”
“Haul-away’s extra.”
“How much?”
“This size . . . all the way back to town . . .” He pauses, sizing it up. “A hundred bucks.”
I wince again. Reasonable rates, my foot.
“Can’t use it for firewood?”
“No fireplace.” I rub my temples, thinking. Well, I could put firewood bundles in next week’s CSA. The shares are for whatever the farm produces, right? This week, Plain Jane’s has produced a bumper crop of firewood.
“Maybe I can, after all. How much to cut it up?”
He looks at the tree again. “Fifty.”
Miguel could find me someone for twenty-five. “Just leave it.”
He shrugs and climbs back in the truck.
“Might want to get someone out to take a look at your roof,” Mel says as he turns the ignition. “That branch pulled off a couple layers of shingles. It’s down to the weather wrap by that window.”
He guns the engine and is gone.
On call, reasonable rates, insured, and bearer of bad tidings. I look up at the window, at the jagged glass sticking out of the frame, then think of Lucy in the barn. It could have been worse. Reaching for the phone in my pocket, I dial Miguel.
“No hay problema. I’ll call Juan. He needs work. Cherry season is over.”
“Aunt Jane!” I turn to the barn. Lucy’s awake and waving from the door.
“What?” I holler back.
“I have to go to the bathroom!”
Another piggyback ride, which comes with the bonus of scratches on my neck and face from Lexie. Lucy refuses to leave her in the barn in case she runs away again. She’s probably right to worry. After her two tastes of freedom, Lexie is no longer a docile house kitten. She fights Lucy the whole way, and my face is collateral damage.
“Sorry, Aunt Jane,” Lucy says when I deposit both of them on the concrete square.
Last night she was scared. Now she looks contrite, and only about eight years old. A memory suddenly whooshes up, of a tearful Matt confessing to losing a new baseball glove. I swallow hard and clear my throat.
“Don’t go in your room. The window’s full of broken glass. Miguel’s bringing someone to fix it.” I swipe hair out of my eyes. Lexie’s scratches sting as the sweat from my forehead seeps into them.
“I won’t.” She hesitates. “Are you going back outside?”
“I—well.” I am hungry. Coffee would be a godsend, but there’s no power. “Let’s see what we can find to eat.”
“OK.” She smiles a little. “I’m hungry.”
Miguel’s truck pulls in while we’re eating, Juan in the passenger seat.
“So, firewood today, ¿sí?” Behind Miguel at the door, Juan heads to the tree with a chainsaw and an ax. “And I’ll measure the window—” His words stop as he looks me up and down. “Your face. ¿Qué pasa?”
“What?” I look at myself in the side-view mirror. The scratches are across my forehead and down my cheeks. My T-shirt is ripped, too, and another scratch follows the tear along my collarbone. I didn’t even notice that, underneath the sweat and dirt.
“Lexie.” I shrug.
He nods.
“I don’t know what to do. I thought by now that she’d be over this, this grass phobia, or whatever it is.” I swing my arm, taking in the scene.
“Time. She needs more time. Be patient.”
She’s got about five weeks. That’s when she’ll have to leave the house for school. Maybe Sarah Fischer will get a cancellation. I open the side door. “It’s the only room upstairs,” I say, waving him inside with his tape measure.
Miguel bounds up the steps with his usual energy. Outside, the chainsaw revs as I wash up in the bathroom. Steps. Time. Patience. Gradual exposure. I wrench off the faucet and run back outside.
“Stop, Juan!” What’s the word in Spanish? I can’t remember, but as I run over I slash my finger across my neck. “Stop!”
The noise stills. I reach for the saw.
“I have an idea!”
Juan was cutting it into logs, each about two feet long. I slice what amounts to a disc off the tree limb, only a couple of inches thick. Then another, and a third. Juan looks at me, puzzled. Miguel comes back outside.
“¿Qué pasa?” he says, looking between Juan and me.
“Look.” I slice off two more, then lay out all five in a row. I step onto the first, then the second, then the third, fourth, fifth.
“Stepping stones,” Miguel says, grinning. Stepping stumps, really.
“Exactly! We can make a path of these for Lucy, from the house across the grass.”
To the driveway. To the barn. To the road, even, where the school bus will stop! But will Lucy be willing? I hand the saw back to Juan. “Cut enough to get to the driveway, and we’ll give it a try.”
The three of us line up ten of the wood discs from the concrete threshold at the side door to the matted rectangle of dead grass that marks where I park.
“Bueno. Now let’s see if it works,” Miguel says.
Please, please, let it work. I call for Lucy, who steps onto her three-by-three concrete square. Is her nine square feet of the world about to exponentially increase? What if she rejects them, just because it’s my idea? “Show her, Miguel.”
He looks surprised, but obliges, stepping onto the first circle. “Mira, Lucy.” Then the next. He looks over his shoulder. Lucy’s face reveals nothing. He goes the rest of the way, opens the door to the truck, and climbs in.
“Your turn,” he calls back. Lucy hasn’t moved a muscle. “¿Conmigo?” He goes back to the concrete square and holds out his hand. “Está bien, Lucy. You’re safe.”
Slowly, Lucy takes his hand. She lifts one foot—in the same Hello Kitty glitter flip-flops she wore when she arrived—and places it on the first circle.
One foot left behind on pavement, one striding forward. She glances at Miguel, who nods. Carefully, she brings the other flip-flop to stand beside its mate.
My breath rushes out in a gust. Miguel grins at her. Lucy smiles back, then takes another step. And another. Then she’s swinging each foot in front of the other, not needing to pause together. Miguel is opening the truck door, and she’s up in the cab, all by herself! She did it!
Even Juan, who has no idea what’s going on, smiles. Miguel whoops, holding up his hand. Lucy smacks her palm against his in a high five. “Fantástico, eh, Jane?”
I don’t say anything at first. Instead, I go over to the concrete square and wait.
Miguel offers his hand again, but she doesn’t take it. Lightly, her eyes holding mine, she jumps onto the first circle. Then she’s crossing back over them, one, two, three, and standing next to me on the concrete square, a little smile lighting her face. Following Miguel’s lead, I hold up my hands, and she slaps them, a double high five. High ten.
Chapter 31
LUCY
It’s Tuesday, the day Jared and his family come. I’m watching for them from the barn, with my iPad.
A line of tree trunk dots connects the house to the barn. There weren’t enough from the branch that fell on the house, but Aunt Jane told Juan to go around and cut up some of the dead trees. Then she laid them out to the mailbox, to the shed with all her tools, and to here, where I can log on to someone else’s wireless connection, some neighbor who doesn’t know how to make their network private. Since we don’t have power back yet, it’s doubly good. The window’s not fixed yet, either, so I’m still sleeping in Matt’s room.
I go to Facebook. I haven’t contacted Graciela since I tried at the farmers’ market right after I got here, more than a month ago. She’ll be done with boarding school and home with regular Internet. Her latest post shows a picture of her with Aunt Bonita, their arms around each other. “¡Vacaciones de verano al fin!” it says. It looks like summer vacation; she’s wearing a bathing suit, and she’s definitely got boobs. But s
he’s thirteen. Will I look like that when I’m thirteen?
Aunt Bonita looks like Daddy. She’s wearing sunglasses on top of her head and the same kind of smile that crinkles up her cheeks. She seems older, though, and I thought she was younger. Under the sunglasses her hair shows gray. Is that from worrying about the boys at school? In that letter I found in Daddy’s box, she was worried about someone. If I were there, Graciela and I would watch out for—
“Hey, you’ve got an iPad. Cool.”
I jump. Jared’s standing in front of me.
“You scared me!”
“Sorry.”
“I didn’t hear your car.” I look out the barn door.
“It’s a Prius. They’re really quiet.”
He’s looking at the Facebook page. “You know Spanish?”
“Yeah.”
“Jared!” His mom is standing in the driveway, her hands on her hips. “Jane’s ready for us now.”
He rolls his eyes. “Wanna come?”
“Uh-uh.” I shake my head.
“How come?”
“I, uh, sunburn really easily.”
He looks skeptical.
“We tried it once. I got really sick, and Aunt Jane said I didn’t have to anymore.” He can’t prove I’m lying, anyway.
“Oh.”
“Jared! Now!”
“See you later.” He pauses a moment. “Adiós.”
“Adiós.”
He goes out, kind of kicking at the grass with each step. I feel sorry for him.
I check Facebook again. Graciela’s still not online. I switch over to the camera. My phone is almost full with all the videos I’ve made, but there’s lots of room on the iPad.
I aim it out the barn door, at Jared and his family in the garden, and zoom in on them. Jared’s brother and his dad are kneeling side by side in front of a row of dark-green leaves. His dad laughs, loud. Like Daddy did. I can’t imagine Daddy dirty in a garden, wearing shorts and a baseball cap like Mr. Livingston, though. He always wore suits and black or brown shiny shoes, never tennis shoes. On the weekends he would wear khaki pants. Maybe a short-sleeve shirt in summer, like now. When he cooked, he always wore the long white el cocinero apron, to cover his clothes.
