by E. J. Noyes
My one-month follow-up check-in is done in a motel just outside of Kansas City. I have to hang around longer than I’d intended, because I am still technically homeless. The scientist introduces himself as Edward, then tells me that he is in fact Controller E. He’s an older guy with close-cropped graying hair and a strange lilting cadence to his speech. He’s calm and polite but sitting in front of him without the barrier of the messaging system has my discomfort levels reaching for the moon.
Controller E-for-Edward asks if he can record the interview, but it’s not really a question because this part of my life is still technically under their control. I stare at the blinking red light on the small recorder between us, and all I can think is that Olivia will probably listen to whatever I say and there’s nothing I can do about it. Edward tells me that I seem to be acclimating well. I smile politely and answer every one of The Organization’s invasive questions.
After he leaves, I climb under the motel’s thin blankets and cry. And the temptation to drive to Seattle to see Olivia is so overwhelming that even though it’s 2:26 a.m. I almost pack my things and leave to do just that.
I’m sick of fighting with what I want and wondering if she wants the same. Tired of feeling this way. Tired of pretending I don’t miss her and that I don’t want some sort of closure. Then I remind myself that I’ve had my closure—the money is in the bank, and she’s made no attempt to get in contact with me. Close of business. Most importantly of all, my one-month self-imposed deadline is up and it’s time to move on.
I’m done.
Goodbye, Olivia Soldano.
I miss you so much.
Colorado. Utah. Wyoming. Montana. All fast time. A little way outside of Butte, a For Sale sign on a beautiful twenty-acre piece of land with a small three-bedroom farmhouse catches my eye. I turn around and drive straight to the realtor’s office in the small town a few miles back. The property is a deceased estate, well-priced, and just begging for someone to move in. I have no other house to sell or things to organize, so after an inspection I pay cash and settle in after three weeks living in the motel and getting to know the locals.
It’s a small town with a cute touristy vibe. I’m certain that my romantic prospects will be limited here, but I’m strangely okay with that. If I want sex, I can drive into one of the big cities and pick up a woman in a bar. We can fuck all night, then I can leave her in the morning and pretend that it’s filled the hole Olivia left.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about her. You’re moving on.
But I miss her so much.
With my truck, I sort of blend in with the rest of the community. I still can’t get into the habit of hanging my elbow out the window without feeling like an imposter, but I’m trying. I wave at people, make small talk at the supermarket and a few nights a week eat a meal at the diner. Enlisting locals to fix things around the property helps to cement my place in the town. I manage minor repairs, paint walls with swatches of color as I try to decide which one suits, and move furniture around until I’m happy with how the space looks.
I own a house bought with money I earned fair and square. I’m a grownup, a success. I so wish I could show Riley and Joanne my farmhouse, which is light and airy with an open plan layout. It’s small and comfortable, quiet and peaceful and totally not what I thought I wanted. I even have a small balcony off my upstairs bedroom.
All those years alone in the habitat, I thought what I wanted was to be surrounded by people and noise, and never be alone again. But after traveling around, looking for whatever it was I was trying to find, I’ve made peace with my aloneness. Now I can recognize the way it lets me just be. How if I sit still for long enough, and stop thinking, then I can breathe again. My solitude has become my safe place.
* * *
Three or four weeks after I move into my farmhouse, I spot a Help Wanted sign taped up in the lawyer’s window on the main street. The door has an old-fashioned bell over it, which rings loudly when I push inside. I smile, faking enthusiasm, while my stomach twists at having to converse with someone at length instead of just small talk in the store or ordering a meal.
Glenna the receptionist’s smile is large and genuine. “Ms. Thorne! Nice to see you again, honey. How’s the new place working out?” Her boss, Archie had handled the conveyancing for my property, and Glenna had made me cup after cup of weak coffee while I sat in this very office going through paperwork.
“Oh, it’s great.” I jerk my thumb toward the door as though I’m indicating my house is right outside, and immediately feel awkward about the gesture. Still not quite back into the swing of normal interaction. “I saw the sign out the front. I’m looking for a job.”
“Oh! Well, it’s just a general office clerk position.” The way she stares at the sign is like she’d forgotten it was there. “The girl just up and left the day before yesterday. Quit town too.”
“That’s a shame,” I say politely. “I studied law for almost three years before…well, life got in the way. I’m good with computers and filing, and I’m hardworking and punctual. Could I drop off my résumé for you?”
“I’m sure you’ll do just fine.” Glenna gives me a knowing smile. “Why don’t you come in first thing tomorrow and we’ll see how you do. Anything you don’t know, you can learn.” In this small town, it’s as easy as that.
Monday to Thursday I work from nine to four, then on Friday we finish at one p.m. so Archie can play golf and Glenna can have her weekly salon gossip session. Each day after work, I go home, work on the house and then slump on the couch. Sometimes with water, sometimes with a glass of wine. I wonder if I should get a rescue dog. Someone to keep me company. One weekend, I drive two hours to the shelter, and last less than ten minutes looking at caged animals before I can’t breathe and have to leave.
It’s the little moments like this that catch me out, remind me of my time in the habitat. I can truthfully say I no longer mourn my loss, if Olivia can even be called that, and I’m not bitter anymore but I do think about her every now and then. Mostly in the still, quiet darkness when it feels like the nights back there with her. Eventually, if I try really hard, I might be able to convince myself that I don’t care at all about Olivia Soldano.
One Friday after work, my glass of wine somehow turns to three before it’s even four p.m. As usual when I’m home, a random Spotify list is playing in the background. When I come back from the bathroom, I hear the start of a Fleetwood Mac song I haven’t heard in years. Olivia loves Fleetwood Mac. I’m left standing completely dumb as the lyrics of “Gold Dust Woman” sink in.
It’s not a sign, it’s not an omen, it’s just a random coincidence. An algorithm picking music for me. When the song asks me if she shattered my illusions of love, I snatch my phone from the speaker dock and close the app. My thumb goes unconsciously to my contacts, makes a selection and calls. It’s answered after only two rings. Nothing to say who I’ve called.
“Hi, this is Celeste Thorne.” I almost give my ID number of SE9311. “Is Olivia…Doctor Soldano there?”
The kind woman tells me, “I’m afraid not, Ms. Thorne. She left this department two months ago. Would you like me to pass along a message? Or if you’d like to hold, I can make some calls and inquire if she’s onsite?”
The sharp pang in my chest is like I’ve fallen out of a tree and landed on my back to be left winded and helpless. I lose my nerve. “No, it’s fine. Thank you very much.” I hang up the phone, and gulp down the rest of my glass of wine. I don’t pour another.
Chapter Twenty
Two months into my Montana life, I buy seven goats—four girls and three neutered boys. After carefully considering my new pets, I name the goats after the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White, gender be damned. Someone has cattle they want to board so their pasture can rest, so thirty friendly steers move into the acres beyond my yard fence. I acquire four chickens that lay too many eggs for just me, so I end up baking every weekend and still have to give Archie and Glenna leftover
eggs.
I visit with the animals every day, taking treats for them and leaning on the fence patting goats and cattle until it gets dark. I think about the zen retreat Heather said I should open, but the thought of people invading my zen to find their zen makes me lose a little of my zen.
My three-month check-in is set for Sunday afternoon, and I’d already decided it will be on my back porch because I don’t want to let the scientist into my house. She arrives right on time, smiling widely and extending her hand as she walks toward me along my newly laid sandstone pavers. Right away, she tells me her name is Siobhan and that she’s Controller C. She’s younger than me, with flaming red hair and skin so pale I’m surprised she’s not combusting right now in the sun.
Unlike Controller E, she doesn’t ask if she can record our conversation, just starts the device and begins chattering. The interview doesn’t take long and she seems almost excited to see that I’m acclimating better now, settling into a location with a firm address, and interacting with the locals. She asks me if I think the study has had any lasting negative effects. I lie when I tell her no, it has not.
After my checkup, we talk a little about Scrabble and an app that lets you play with friends. I would have to make friends for it to be useful. I send Controller C away with some of the triple chocolate brownies I made this morning, and directions to the place in the next town over that has the best chili dogs.
Two down, one more to go. Then I’m completely free of that life. Free of her.
* * *
A small girl sits on the side of the road under a beach umbrella, next to a handwritten sign proclaiming KITTENS 10$. The cardboard waves in the light breeze. I pull over and walk back to her. I know this girl—her mom works in the diner and I’ve seen her there a few times doing homework at a booth in the corner while she waits for her mom to finish a shift.
I don’t know if she’ll remember me, but I offer a friendly, “Heya, Billie.”
She lifts a hand to shield her eyes. Her squinting smile is missing two teeth. “Hello, Miss Celeste. How’re you?”
I stuff my hands into the front pockets of my cargo shorts and rock back on my heels. “Good thanks.” Kids always make me feel weird because I feel like I should be an adult, but most of the time I just want to get down on the ground and hang out with them. A therapist once told me it was part of my strange childhood. Because I wasn’t allowed to be a child when I was a child, I found my childishness when I became an adult and it was safe to let myself go.
“Do you have children?” I ask Olivia as she tucks the bed cover around my waist. “You’re very…nurturing.”
She laughs softly and passes me a glass of water and some more decongestant pills. “No. But I’ve always thought someday I might. I love kids. You?”
“I like kids, and sometimes I think about it. Maybe I would if I thought I could offer a child something.” I shrug. “Plus…uncertain genetics.”
“It’s not all about what’s in your cells, Celeste.” Her hand rests gently above my left breast. “It’s what is in here. And you’ve got so much heart.”
As I stare down at this child with her missing teeth and neat high ponytail, I wonder if Olivia really wanted kids. She said she didn’t lie, not about the important stuff. So, after everything else, it stands to reason that her statements in this case were true. My fingers curl as if they want to make a fist, and I pull my hands out of my pockets to tap fingers against my thigh instead.
I ask Billie the world’s most obvious question. “You’re selling kittens?”
Billie nods solemnly, ponytail bouncing. “Yup. Got two boys left.” She gestures to the box beside her.
“How old are they?”
“’Bout ten weeks. It’s a real good mousing family, their momma catches everything.” She sighs, tugging at a loose thread on her sleeve. “But nobody wants the boys for mousing.”
I crouch down to peek inside the box. Two black and white kittens are playing, tumbling over one another, rabbit kicking and pouncing on imaginary things. I dip my hand inside and scoop them up. One bites my finger with his tiny needle teeth. The other climbs up my arm to my shoulder, and I grab him before he can jump down onto the grass and run away. “I’ll take both.”
Billie brightens considerably. “Yeah?”
I wonder if she’s been told she has to stay out here until all the kittens are gone. “Yeah.” I carefully deposit the balls of fluff back into their cardboard pen, and fold the flaps of the box over to close them in. A small shudder runs down my spine, and I tug the flaps apart a little to create a gap where the four corners intersect. Air. Light.
I fish into my pocket for some cash, which she stuffs into a pencil case. On a whim I pass her another five dollars. “Here you go. Why not buy yourself an ice cream?” Or a toy, or a candy bar, or save it up, or whatever kids do.
She turns the note over in her hand. “You sure?”
I pick up the cardboard box. “Yes I am. Have a great day.”
“I will.” This grin is lopsided and adorable. “Thank you, Miss Celeste.”
“You’re welcome.”
Now I have two kittens, nothing to feed them and no idea what kittens need. Real smart of me. I pull over on the main road and carry the box into the shop with the freshly painted Veterinary Surgery sign hanging above it. In the waiting area there’s a flannel-clad guy with a large, dopey-looking mongrel sleeping between his feet and an older woman, with a cat in a cage, sitting as far away from the dog as she can. I head straight for the receptionist. “Hi, just wondering if you have any appointments available this afternoon?”
“Is it an emergency?”
“No.” Unless a lack of knowledge counts as an emergency.
She taps a few keys. “Doctor Chapman has an opening in forty minutes.”
“Great, thanks. I’ll take that one.” I give her my name, then settle in a corner with the box on my lap, peeking through the gap at my new pets. One is sleeping, the other scrabbling at the cardboard. They are so different. Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll has a white top lip like he fell into a bowl of milk. Hyde has two long white socks on his back legs. Jekyll stretches to grab some of my hair that’s brushing the box around the peephole.
“Celeste Thorne?”
I look up and spot a tall woman with dirty-blond hair lingering at the entrance to the waiting room. I stand and throw a quick glance at the wall clock. Forty-five minutes gone without me noticing, just watching kittens play. “Yes, that’s me.”
She smiles and gestures for me to follow her. The door of the small exam room closes behind us. My armpits sweat despite the fact the veterinarian has a sweet smile and a soothing voice when she introduces herself. “I’m Doctor Samantha Chapman.”
Wrong kind of doctor. Veterinarian, not like Doctor-Doctor Soldano, psychiatrist and PhD.
“Hi, nice to meet you.” I juggle the box to offer my hand but the kittens are moving around, making the box wobble. I have to grab the box again with both hands before it tips out of my arms. One of the kittens squeaks.
She grins but says nothing about my slapstick antics. Her eyes are light brown and when she smiles like that, they seem to sparkle. “Great to meet you too. What have we got here?”
“Kittens. An impulse purchase.”
Dr. Chapman laughs. It’s an infectious, appealing laugh, one I imagine her friends joining in with after she’s told a funny anecdote. “Baby animals often are. May I?”
“Of course.” I set the box down on the examination table. My stomach hums with strange anxiety about letting go of the kittens I’ve owned for exactly seventy-eight minutes.
She peels back the cardboard flaps. “So, what can I help you with, Celeste?” Her voice is soft and cultured. Nothing like the slow drawl of the people here. She’s an outsider like me and I wonder why she’s here. Maybe she’s hiding too.
“Well, I just wanted to have them checked out and start vaccinations. Find out what I need to do. And I need to get some food and stuff f
or them. And uh, I’d like to have them neutered.”
“How old are they?” She scoops up both kittens, one in each hand.
“I was told ten weeks.”
She gently bounces the boys up and down as though weighing them. They squirm and shadow box. “Usually we’d do that around four months, so why don’t we make an appointment after they’ve had their final vaccinations.”
“It’s safe? I mean, they’ll be okay? It won’t hurt, will it?”
Her smile is indulgent, as though she’s asked this every day. “The risk is very low. It’s a routine procedure, short anesthesia and we give them pain relief to ensure that discomfort afterward is minimal.”
“Sure, okay.” I watch her checking my kittens out, her touch gentle and sure, like she really likes animals. Probably why she’s a veterinarian then. I hold Jekyll and Hyde for their injections, my thumb caressing soft kitten fur as they squeak and mewl. The vet smiles at me when I murmur what good, brave kitties they are.
“All done. Clean bill of health.” Dr. Chapman holds out her hands for my kittens and I pass them to her, thinking she needs to do one final test or check. Instead, she brings them both up to her face and kisses each one right between their ears, rubbing her nose in their soft fur. “They are very good boys.” She looks at me, her face partially hidden by kittens. “You’re new around here, aren’t you?”
“Mhmm, yes I am. Well, newish.”
“Me too. How’d you like to grab a drink or coffee sometime?” She passes me Hyde.
I deposit him back in the box. Why is she asking me, a person she just met, out for a social thing? I’m trying to think of all the reasons when she speaks again. “I just thought, you know, if you don’t know many people. I’ve only been here six months and I know what it’s like to be new in town.”
I hold my hand out for Jekyll and before I can stop myself, I agree, “I’d like that.”
