Season of Change

by Lisa Williams Kline

  Was it me that was causing the problem for Mom and Norm? Stephanie said she thought that Norm not going to Florida to see her cheerleading competition was what did it. But I bet that wasn’t really it. I bet it was me. I was a pain. I was high-maintenance. I was hard to get along with. I was making Mom have to make choices between me and Norm.

  Well, she should choose me, shouldn’t she? I was her daughter. I should come first. A mother should choose her child before her husband. Shouldn’t she?

  Did I want Mom to have to pick Norm or me?

  The road led uphill, and the muscles on the backs of my legs strained. I tried to breathe with the rhythm of my strides. Three steps breathing in, two steps breathing out.

  I followed the road to the right, circling back toward the house. Through the yards of the houses on my right, I could see the bright flashes of the lake just beyond.

  Stephanie and I were going to have to do something. Something to keep Mom and Norm together. Convince them that they didn’t have to choose. But what would that be?

  My jumbled thoughts began to smooth out. It always happened when I went for a run. Problems that seemed insurmountable somehow became solvable. Just making it to the end of the run became my main goal, and when I managed that, everything else seemed a little easier, too.

  I was coming to the last stretch of lakefront homes on my left and piney woods on my right. Right near where I had hit the deer. I glanced at a sunlit patch in the woods and saw a flash.

  What was that? Something had moved! I ran a few more steps then stopped and went back. I peered down toward a patch of dappled underbrush right beside a cone of sunlight. I couldn’t really see.

  Had I imagined it? It seemed like something small was moving in there. I left the road and headed through the pine needles, my footsteps quiet and silky-sounding. The green pine boughs brushed my arms as I wound my way through, and the air became cooler in the shadows.

  A low-hanging bush trembled. And before I knew it, right there in front of me, a spindly little thing was rising unsteadily to its feet and bleating.

  It came right up to me! Reaching out with its round black nose. It sounded like it was saying, “Maa! Maa!” The most beautiful little white-spotted fawn that you’ve ever seen — long slim legs, a long narrow muzzle, creamy white throat, big pear-shaped ears, and the biggest brown eyes, with long straight lashes.

  “Maa! Maa!” It was coming towards me! Trying to talk to me, stomping its little hooves, asking me for something.

  I could reach out and touch it! This was so amazing, my hands were shaking!

  With slow, trembling fingers, I touched the fawn’s head. It didn’t try to run away. Then I ran my palm over its narrow little head and down its neck. The fur was soft, like a short-haired dog’s. It kept bleating, touching its cold wet nose to me. It was smaller than I had imagined a fawn to be. No taller than a cat. It must be really young.

  It had the most beautiful row of white markings that started right along its backbone and speckled its sides like stars. I decided it was a girl and that I’d name her Star.

  What did she want? She acted hungry. Where was her mother? Surely she would be nearby. Surely she hadn’t abandoned her baby.

  I looked around trying to see through surrounding tree trunks in all directions.

  The fawn bleated again. I took a step away, and she followed me.

  I knelt beside her and petted her small, delicate head. “Hey, what’s going on?” I said in a soft voice. “Are you hungry? Where’s your mom? Did she leave you here?”

  Her ears were so sensitive, twitching this way and that.

  Reaching gently around her little body, I picked her up, letting her legs hang down. She was so small, so light. I could feel her little heart beating frantically, and she struggled to escape, her hooves jamming into my arms, but I had a tight hold on her.

  I ran home, carrying her in my arms, feeling her soft fur and musky smell next to my T-shirt. She was bleating and trying to kick me with her tiny little hooves, but I tore down the driveway and up the porch steps.

  I kicked at the screened door. “Grandma! Grandpa! I found a fawn!”

  Grandma came to the door, and her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, my goodness!”

  Grandpa was standing right behind her. “Good night, Miss Agnes!”

  “I found her in the woods,” I said. “I didn’t see her mother anywhere. She’s hungry. Do you know what to feed a fawn?”

  “Shouldn’t you have just left her there? Maybe her mother is coming back to get her,” Grandma said.

  In The Yearling, the mother deer had been shot. The mother didn’t ever come back for that fawn.

  “Maybe the mother isn’t coming back. We need to feed her.” I held her tight to my chest. “Can I bring her inside?”

  “A wild animal in this house? I should say not!” said Grandma.

  “Please?”

  “Maybe on the sun porch,” Grandpa suggested.

  “Well, don’t bring it through the house!” said Grandma.

  I carried the fawn around back and Grandpa opened the door to the sun porch. I brought her in and put her down. She stood uncertainly, in amongst our ski vests and boating equipment, bleating again. She was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen in my life. Everything about her was tiny, from her rounded hooves to the white star-like spots on her sides. She hardly seemed real.

  “I named her Star,” I told Grandpa.

  “Maybe you should have put her back for her mother to find.” Grandpa ran his hand over her back, and she bleated again. “I guess we better go online and find out what to feed her,” he said.

  I knelt beside Star and ran my hand over her bony little backbone. Oh, she was so cute and helpless. She needed me. She stood uncertainly for a moment, staring at me, and then she tottered over to the window and touched her nose to the glass.

  Meanwhile Grandpa brought his laptop out onto the sun porch. I made Star a bed out of old towels Grandma said I could use. I placed her on top of the towels and eventually she folded her long legs under her and sat staring at me, saying “Maa!” every now and then.

  It didn’t take long before Grandpa looked up from his computer and said, “It says here mother deer almost never abandon their babies. It says that unless you see the mother dead nearby, to leave the fawn where you found it and wait for the mother to come back.”

  I leaned over Grandpa’s shoulder so I could see those words for myself. And I did. Unless you see the mother dead. And I allowed myself to think the thought that had been pushing its way up since I’d found her: What if her mother was the deer I had hit?

  “I don’t want to take her back,” I said.

  “We can’t keep a wild animal in our house,” said Grandma, poking her head through the open doorway.

  “Can we just keep her for a couple of hours?”

  “Her mother might be looking for her,” said Grandma. “You should take her back now.”

  Blood pumped through my temples. I could feel myself on the verge of shouting at Grandma. I tried to remember what Dr. Shrink had taught me. Take deep breaths. Count to ten.

  The article online had definitely said to leave the fawn alone. There was no point in trying to argue with Grandpa about that.

  But what if Star’s mother didn’t come back?

  I took a deep breath, and tried to keep my tone of voice level. “How about if I take her back now and then go back and check on her in a few hours, and if her mother hasn’t come back, then bring her in?”

  Grandpa and Grandma looked at each other.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Grandpa said. “Do you remember where you found her?”

  I nodded. Glumly, I gathered Star back into my arms. Her little heart beat rapidly against my chest. “Maa! Maa!” she said, kicking her spindly legs.

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Grandpa said.

  “No, that’s okay.” I trudged up the driveway and back out onto the road. Every few step
s Star said “Maa!” At one point she struggled so much I was afraid I was going to drop her. I walked back to the spot in the woods where I’d found her. There was a big pine with bark missing on its trunk that I remembered.

  I looked around, as far as I could see through the tree trunks, to see if there was any sign of her mother. Nothing.

  I found the patch of underbrush where I’d found her, and, taking a deep breath, I put her down. She wobbled on her skinny legs. “Maa!” she said.

  How could I leave her?

  I stood looking at her. She seemed so forlorn, just standing there. I felt like crying. But I had learned about wildlife, from the time the volunteer had warned me not to feed the wild horses at the Outer Banks. She should be left to wait for her mother.

  If her mother came back.

  With one last longing look at her, I turned and walked away. After a few steps, I heard movement behind me and turned back to look. She had started to follow me.

  What should I do?

  I ran a short distance away and then turned around again. She had stopped.

  “Maa!” she said.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat, turned away and headed toward the road, practically stumbling. When I reached the road, I turned back to look again. She was gone.

  Back at Grandma and Grandpa’s, I was near tears.

  “What’s going to happen to Star?” I said, lying face down on the couch. “What if she wanders out into the road?”

  “You did the right thing, honey,” Grandma said.

  “Promise if I go back late this afternoon and she’s still there, I can bring her back?”

  Grandpa and Grandma exchanged glances. After a minute, Grandpa said, “Sure. If she’s still there this afternoon, I guess that would mean her mother isn’t coming back.”

  Suddenly there was an energetic knock at the door.

  “Who could that be?” Grandma Roberts said.

  Noah! “I’ll get it!” I swiped the tears from my cheeks and raced over. When I opened the door, Noah was standing on the porch, leaning on a black Liquid Force wakeboard.

  “Caramba!” he said. His thin face broke wide in a grin. His longish wavy blonde hair was pushed behind his ears, and the sun from the lake’s surface glinted off the small silver hoop in his earlobe. His nose was peeling. He was wearing a pair of blue striped boardshorts and a Nike t-shirt. “Told you I’d show up,” he said. “I’m always up for wakeboarding.”

  “Hey!” My heart kind of beat faster, but I acted very cool as I held the door open. “Come on in.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sure, sure.”

  Picking up his board, Noah awkwardly stepped inside, looking around at my grandparents’ small old-fashioned kitchen and the long oak dining table that Grandma Roberts liked to load with food and surround with family.

  Grandma and Grandpa came into the kitchen.

  “Hello, there,” Grandpa said to Noah.

  Noah leaned his board against the wall and quickly stepped forward to shake Grandpa’s hand politely. “Hello, sir, I’m Noah Edwards.”

  “Good to meet you.” Grandpa looked at me quizzically.

  “Hello,” said Grandma Roberts, and Noah took her hand as though he was going to kiss it, but just bent over it slightly. Then released it.

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  “You, too,” she said, squinting at me thoughtfully. “Did Diana know you were coming, Noah?”

  Noah laughed and scratched his head, mussing his hair. Then he pushed his hair behind his ear. “Uh … I’m not sure.” He raised his eyebrows and grinned at me. He was trying not to get me in trouble, so he was being as vague as possible.

  “I invited him!” I said. “Sorry I didn’t mention it. I figured it would be okay if we had another skier.”

  “Sure!” Grandpa spread his arms wide. “The more the merrier!”

  “So, where’s Stephanie?” Noah asked. “I thought she was staying here this weekend too.”

  “She was, but her mom came and got her last night. She changed her plans.”

  Noah nodded thoughtfully. “Oh. Bummer.”

  “Want to go down on the dock?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let me just go put on my bathing suit.” I ran upstairs and, rushing to find my bathing suit, dumped my suitcase out on the bed. I wished Stephanie hadn’t left. I could’ve asked her which bathing suit to wear or maybe even borrowed one of hers. I put on a black two-piece that she and Mom had talked me into getting. But then I was embarrassed and put a t-shirt over it. I skimmed back downstairs.

  “I’ll be down to drive the boat in a little while,” Grandpa was saying. “Meanwhile, do you kids want to take the kayak out? There’s an osprey nest out there by the island and babies may be in it.”

  “Want to?” I said to Noah.

  “Sure!”

  “The lifejackets and paddles are on the sun porch,” Grandpa said. He loaded us down with them, and once Noah grabbed his wakeboard, we headed down the wooden walkway through the yard toward the dock.

  “Guess what just happened?” I said. “I just found a baby fawn in the woods.” I told Noah about finding Star, and Grandpa and Grandma making me take her back.

  “I wish I could’ve seen it,” Noah said. “My uncle hunts deer.”

  I cringed. “Ugh, don’t even talk about it. How can it be fair? A guy with a gun against a beautiful living creature running for its life.”

  “He brings us venison sometimes.”

  “Ugh, stop!” I thought I was going to gag. Why was Noah saying this stuff? We were down by the water now, standing beside the bright orange two-seater kayak.

  “I’m just sayin’!” Noah said, laughing. “Some people call deer rats with legs. They come in your yard and eat everything. They gobble up tulips and entire tomato plants.”

  I gave Noah a smack on the arm. “Quit it, right now! I love that little fawn I found.”

  “I’m just giving you a hard time,” Noah teased, laughing. “I like to see you get mad.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I could feel myself blushing. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Because you get so worked up about things, that’s why.”

  I suddenly felt self-conscious and didn’t know what else to say. I turned away and started putting on my life jacket.

  “Hey, I’m kidding!” he said.

  “Okay.” Grabbing the handles on either end of the kayak, we carried it out onto the dock, and dropped it in the water.

  “Do you want front or back?” I said.

  “I’ll take the back,” he said. “I’d rather steer and let you do all the paddling work, ha ha.”

  “Very funny!” I said, but I grabbed one of the double-bladed paddles and lowered myself into the front seat.

  Noah threw his t-shirt onto the dock, yelled “Cannonball!” and jumped over the kayak into the water, setting the kayak rocking and sending up a huge spray of water.

  “Noah!” I yelled, grabbing the dock to steady the kayak.

  He surfaced, laughing, and tossed the water from his hair with a jerk of his head. “Water feels great!” Then he pulled himself onto the kayak, streaming with water. He put on the other life vest, clicking the clasps shut, then pulled the paddle across his lap. “This is awesome,” he said. “Perfect day.”

  “Okay, now, you have to stroke when I do otherwise our paddles will smack into each other.” I took a stroke.

  Noah took one a second later and smacked right into mine. “You mean like that?”

  “Noah!”

  We tried again, and our paddles clashed once more. We both started laughing. Then Noah paddled all on one side, and we started going in a circle.

  “Noah!” I was laughing so hard. Then, with the end of his paddle, he pushed against my shoulder and I fell right in the lake, screaming.

  “Oops!”

  “I can’t believe you did that!” I scrambled back up onto the kayak, while Noah laughed. My t-shirt was sticking
to me and I was relieved I had on the lifejacket to cover it up. Finally I pointed to the small uninhabited island several hundred yards out of our cove into the main channel of the lake. We started paddling out there.

  The sun beat down on us, flashing reflections from the water’s smooth surface, and the prow of the kayak cut smoothly through the water. Since Noah was behind me, I couldn’t see him. I tried to crane my neck around to see if he was stroking in the right coordination with me. In the cove, the water was calm, but as soon as we got into the main channel, the water became choppier. Small wavelets slapped the side of the kayak and rowing became harder.

  “So, what made Stephanie decide to leave?” Noah asked.

  “She wanted to be with her mom, I guess.”

  “Is she coming back?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “So, it’s just you and me, then.”

  Did I imagine it, or did he sound happy about that?

  12

  STEPHANIE

  I know Mama was trying to make up for saying she was going to leave, because right after the first store we shopped in, she took me to another pricier one and didn’t even make me go to the sales racks.

  “These are cute shorts.” She held up a pair of light colored distressed jeans shorts. “Why don’t you try these?”

  I took a white sleeveless dress with a wide black ribbon around the waist from the rack, and Mama nodded approvingly. “That would be really cute on you, sugar.”

  Normally, I loved shopping. I loved touching the fabrics, looking at their bright colors, and standing in the fitting room and seeing how I looked in an outfit. Having the perfect outfit helped me feel confident in school. Anywhere. I loved the pretty shopping bags, the way the sales people neatly folded and stacked your purchases and wrapped tissue paper around them. I loved it when you could spray yourself with the sample colognes in places like Nordstrom. Mama called it “retail therapy.”

  Mama had come in the fitting room with me so she could see the outfits, and stood back against the wall, so when I looked at myself I could see her face just behind mine. We looked so much alike, with our dark hair and olive skin and ski jump noses. If I wanted to know what I was going to look like in thirty years all I had to do was look at Mama.