Where the Forest Meets the Stars

by Vanderah, Glendy

His body tensed against her. “Could it?”

  “It’s always a possibility, but the prognosis is good. They caught it early.”

  He held her so tight it hurt. But it was an excellent kind of ache.

  “Yo, barnacles!” Tabby called from the deck. “Lunch awaits.”

  Gabe went in the half bath to wash his hands, and Jo pulled Tabby into the living room. “Don’t ask him a lot of questions,” she whispered. “There are some things he won’t want to talk about.”

  “Like what? That ax murder he committed last month?”

  “He’s had some bad times. Just keep it light.”

  “More bad times than you?”

  “It’s a different kind of bad stuff.”

  “My god. You two are some match.”

  “Yeah—weird that we found each other, isn’t it?”

  Tabby hugged her. “I’ll stick to weather and politics. But, wait . . . is he liberal or conservative?”

  “You know, I’m not sure.”

  “What? That’s the first thing I have to know!”

  “It hasn’t come up,” Jo said.

  “Holy shit. Is the sex really that good?”

  “Shh!” Jo returned to the house, relieved when she found Gabe in the kitchen with Ursa. Ursa’s drawing of the tabby kitten—exceptional as always—was already stuck to the refrigerator with a veterinary magnet that read PLEASE DON’T LITTER. SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR CRITTER!

  During lunch Tabby only asked Gabe a few neutral questions such as, How long have you lived in Southern Illinois? She steered the conversation onto politics, and they discovered Gabe leaned toward libertarian views. Jo could work with that.

  They finished unloading the cars by around three. Jo didn’t have time to unpack because she had to run a few errands on campus. She had to leave everything stacked on the floor and the bed Frances Ivey had left behind. Tabby had cleared her day for the move, and she insisted Jo take Gabe to campus without Ursa. “Alien and I are gonna do human girl stuff,” she said.

  “Tabby is going to paint my nails,” Ursa said. “We’re doing purple.”

  “Are you sure you want to stay here?” Jo asked Ursa.

  “I do!”

  Jo wished she and Gabe could walk to campus through the state-street neighborhood, but she had to get to the biology office and her bank on Green Street before they closed. On the drive out, Gabe said, “I was last here when I was a kid, but these streets look familiar. I think George Kinney lives in this neighborhood.”

  “He may,” Jo said. “Some students call the state streets the Professor Ghetto.”

  “I remember that. My father joked about it both times we came here.”

  “More jabs at George?”

  “Definitely.”

  She parked near Morrill Hall, where the Animal Biology office was located. She had to submit paperwork for her fall classes, but first she wanted to show Gabe the quad. She held his hand as they walked into the large rectangular space surrounded by old buildings. “Pretty campus,” he said.

  “That’s Illini Union, the student center,” she said, pointing to the north. “And the big domed building on the south end is Foellinger Auditorium.”

  They walked one of the diagonal paths. The quad was mostly empty, typical of midsummer. A few students lounged in the grass, and in the south end, a shirtless guy threw a Frisbee for his dog.

  “This reminds me of the quad at the University of Chicago.”

  “I’ve never seen it.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Do you ever think about going back to school?”

  “No.”

  “That was a fast answer.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Because keeping your gifted brain hidden in the woods is as criminal as hiding your face behind the beard.”

  He stopped walking and faced her. “I knew this was why you brought me here.”

  “This is my world, Gabe. If you could find a way to be in it, everything would be much simpler.”

  “You said you wanted to live in the woods.”

  “I have years to go before I get my degree and find a job at a university.”

  He sat on a bench and put his head in his hands. “This is impossible. Why did we ever start this?”

  “I don’t recall having much control over it.”

  He looked up at her. “Me either. Do you know I was attracted to you from the first time you bought eggs at my stand?”

  “You sure didn’t act like it.”

  “You couldn’t see me checking you out when you walked away.”

  “You mean my ass?”

  He only smiled.

  She tugged him to his feet by his hand. “Good thing you’re an ass man and not a breast guy.”

  “I’m an ass man?”

  “Yeah, like the guy in Midsummer Night’s Dream .”

  “Nick Bottom.”

  She pulled him down the sidewalk. “Come on, Nick. I have stuff to do.”

  They entered Morrill Hall and took the stairs to the fifth-floor biology office. Jo left Gabe out in the hall so he wouldn’t have to chitchat with the secretary while she did her paperwork. “Now, the bank,” she said when she left the office.

  Gabe started for the stairway they’d used on the way up. “No, this way,” Jo said, gesturing toward the eastern stairwell. “We’ll come out closer to my car.” They walked a long corridor past office doors. The majority of biology professors and graduate students were away from campus working on their summer research.

  “After the bank, are we getting on the road?” Gabe asked.

  “Only with a fight.”

  “Why?”

  “Ursa is set on having dinner with Tabby at a restaurant she likes. Would that be okay?”

  “I guess so.”

  Jo wrapped her hand around his. “It’s a pizza place—really casual.”

  “Gabe?” a man said behind them.

  They turned around, hands parting. Dr. George Kinney stood in front of an open office. He walked toward them, clearly confused but smiling, his gaze fixed on Gabe. “I thought I was imagining it when I saw you walk by.” He stopped in front of Gabe. It was like a strange mirror of time, the elder reliving the face of his youth, the young man confronting his future.

  27

  They looked more alike than Jo had realized. They were about the same height. Dr. Kinney also had blue eyes, but a lighter shade. His hair was white and he wore it on the long side like Gabe, his part on the right, while Gabe parted left. Dr. Kinney was slimmer than Gabe, but robust, as fit as a man could be at the age of seventy-three.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you without the beard,” Dr. Kinney said.

  The irony of the comment wasn’t lost on Gabe. But he said nothing.

  To ease the awkward silence, Dr. Kinney turned to Jo. “Good to see you, Jo. How’s your research going?”

  “Very well,” she said.

  “Glad to hear it. I hope that living room air conditioner isn’t giving you too much trouble. Do I need to replace it?”

  “It’s fine. I don’t use it much.”

  “I see you’ve met the neighbors,” he said, glancing at Gabe.

  “Yes,” Jo said.

  “We should go,” Gabe said to Jo as if Kinney weren’t there. His contempt was palpable, shocking even Dr. Kinney, who must have been accustomed to it. But rather than back down and retreat to his office, Kinney said, “Gabe . . .”

  Gabe reluctantly looked at him.

  “I’d like to talk to you”—he directed his arm toward the open door down the hall—“in my office.” Relaxing his tone, he added, “If you can call it that. When you’re emeritus, they give you a closet. Sometimes the janitor accidentally puts his mop in there.”

  Jo smiled. Gabe didn’t.

  Dr. Kinney kept his eyes on Gabe’s. “Lynne is very sick. She has a month at most.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gabe said at last.

  Dr. Kinney nodded. “Please come into
my office. I need to talk with you.”

  “Sounds like you two need privacy,” Jo said. “I’ll run over to the bank while you talk. Meet me on the benches out front when you’re done,” she said to Gabe.

  “Sounds good,” Dr. Kinney said.

  She walked away before Gabe could refuse. “Take as long as you want,” she said over her shoulder.

  She expected Gabe to be at her side any second, but she made it outside alone. Somehow she found her car and made it to the bank, though every bit of her brain was focused on Gabe and Dr. Kinney.

  She drove back to Morrill Hall. Gabe wasn’t on the benches. Either he’d run off in a panic and forgotten the meeting place, or he was still talking to Dr. Kinney. She sat on a bench and waited. After fifteen minutes, she started browsing on her phone.

  When forty minutes passed, her worries intensified. Maybe Gabe had snapped and run off. She considered going inside to see if he was still in Kinney’s office, but interrupting them would be weird and intrusive. She also contemplated calling Tabby to see if he’d gone home, but she couldn’t possibly explain a call like that.

  Ten minutes later, Gabe came out of Morrill Hall, his body limp.

  Jo approached, but he kept walking. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  “We talked. About everything.” He kept walking, no apparent thought to his direction.

  She had to let him come back to reality on his own. She remained silent as they walked. When they arrived at the large expanse of the quad, he stopped and stared, seeming to register where he was. He started walking again, fast, as if hurrying to some known destination. He stopped at the closest tree and flopped to the ground in its long shade. He lay on his back in the grass, the bottoms of his palms pressed into his eyes. Jo sat next to him, caressing his chest.

  “You were right,” he said, hands still pressed on his eyes. “My father—Arthur—knew and let it all happen.”

  Jo considered saying I’m sorry , but it made no sense.

  He took his hands off his eyes and looked at her. “He was glad George gave Katherine a son. Arthur was glad to have a son, too. He was impotent. Lacey happened one of the rare times when he could do it.”

  He put his palms over his eyes again. “Lynne’s liver is shot. I never knew it, but all those years she was an alcoholic. When I was a kid, I thought her stony face and silence were signs of how dumb and uninteresting she was. But I guess she was drunk.”

  “He keeps that private,” Jo said. “I’d only heard rumors that his wife was sick.”

  His hands were still on his eyes. “Guess what he asked me?”

  “What?”

  “He wants to marry my mother when Lynne dies. He asked my permission.”

  Jo hadn’t expected that. She supposed that was why Kinney had been so forceful about making Gabe talk. “What did you say?”

  He took his hands off his eyes and looked at her. “Did you take me past his office hoping this would happen?”

  “No! I didn’t even know that was his office. I’ve only talked to him twice—both times in the main office.”

  “He said he moved into the smaller space two years ago. He had to retire earlier than he wanted to take care of Lynne.”

  “Two years ago I was getting cancer treatment. When I left, his office was still in the entomology department.”

  Gabe nodded, conceding that Jo hadn’t steered the meeting.

  “Does he know your mother has Parkinson’s?” she asked.

  “He does, and he still wants to marry her.” He sat up and looked at her. “Are you crying?”

  “I’m trying not to.”

  “Why?”

  “I think this story is beautiful. But really sad, too. Maybe Lynne knew George didn’t love her. Maybe that was why she started to drink.”

  “That’s why there’s nothing beautiful about it. Their selfishness wrecked people’s lives.”

  Their love had changed lives. That mattered to Jo.

  “He told me how it all happened,” Gabe said. “He’d been going down to the Shawnee Forest with his biology classes, and he turned my dad on to the area. One weekend in their senior year, George and Lynne and Arthur and Katherine did a couples campout. Bet you can’t guess what happened . . .”

  “George and Katherine fell for each other.”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t do anything about it. George and Arthur stayed close while they were in different graduate programs—best man in each other’s weddings and all that. And even after their families started hanging out, George and Katherine still hadn’t touched each other—or so George says.”

  “Why would he lie when it eventually happened?”

  “True.”

  “When did they get together?”

  “After my dad bought the property in Southern Illinois. He was still working on the cabin when the property next door went up for sale. He considered buying it, but my mother suggested they ask George and Lynne if they were interested. That way they could get together when they were vacationing down there.”

  “I sense an ulterior motive.”

  “Do you?” he said sarcastically.

  “When did Arthur find out about their affair?”

  “When my mother got pregnant. He knew it wasn’t his because they hadn’t had sex for years. When my mother was four months pregnant with me, she made Arthur and George sit down with her and talk about what they were going to do.”

  “Okay, I like Katherine even more now. That was a cool thing to do.”

  “They decided against a divorce. And agreed Lynne couldn’t know because her alcoholism made her fragile. To this day George has never told his wife or two daughters.”

  “They didn’t notice how much you two look alike?”

  “I guess Lynne was too wrapped up in her own misery, and the Kinney girls rarely saw me. They were Lacey’s age when I was born.”

  “Apparently, they decided not to tell you either.”

  “That was one of Arthur’s two stipulations: I would be raised as his son, and George and Katherine weren’t allowed to make love on his property.”

  “Which is why they met in the woods.”

  “Right. The graveyard is on Kinney’s property—just a few feet from the Nash boundary. No doubt that was part of the joke of meeting there.”

  “Do you really think it was a joke?” she said. “Your mother is a compassionate person—I can tell from her poetry. She had to know how much Arthur was hurting.”

  “Yeah, no doubt she knew,” he said bitterly, “but, hey, he got the consolation prize, right? He got me.”

  Jo caressed his arm. “Yes, he got you.”

  He ripped out a divot of grass and threw it on the ground. “You know what George said? He said he wants to be a real father to me.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing, because it’s bullshit. He says his daughters can never know. How real would that be?”

  “Why do you hate him so much now that you know the whole story? George and your mother obviously stayed with people they didn’t love to make their partners happy. Maybe they realized they shouldn’t have done that, but by then, they had children who would be hurt by a divorce. When they finally got together, they tried to do it in a way that hurt as few people as possible. Can’t you see the beauty in their sacrifices? And in a power of love that withstands so many years?”

  “If it was your parents, you’d understand,” he said.

  “I would. If I could have my parents back, I’d let them love anyone they wanted to love.”

  He plucked more grass and rolled it in his palms.

  “We have to go soon,” she said. “We’ve left Ursa with Tabby too long.”

  He was too absorbed in his thoughts to hear her. “When I was leaving, George said it was like some strange providence that I walked past his door today. He said right before we went by, he was thinking about me.” He brushed the grass out of his hands and loo
ked at her. “You know what I was thinking? I was thinking of Ursa’s quarks. There’s something really odd about what’s been happening since that girl showed up.”

  28

  Gabe was in a hurry to go home. Ursa wanted to get pizza at the restaurant with the “Purple People Eater” song, but Gabe was in no mood for dinner or conversation. He wouldn’t even leave the car when they went back to the house. Jo told Ursa and Tabby that he wasn’t feeling well, and she made Ursa get in the back seat despite her protests and tears. “We’ll stop for food on the way home,” Jo said. “Maybe McDonald’s and you can have ice cream.”

  “I want pizza with Tabby!” Ursa said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Can I talk to you inside for a minute?” Tabby said before Jo got in the car.

  Jo followed her into the house, dreading what she had to say. Whether she wanted to discuss Gabe or Ursa, Tabby would be intense, and Jo had little energy left.

  “I was surprised you had Ursa with you today,” Tabby said, closing the front door.

  “Were you?”

  “Don’t pretend it isn’t weird. What the hell is going on? She said she lives with you.”

  “I guess she does.”

  The whites of Tabby’s green eyes doubled in size. “You have to take her to the police!”

  “You know she runs.”

  “So you put her in the car and don’t tell her where you’re taking her.”

  “She’s too smart. She jumped out of the car when we tried that.”

  “She did?”

  “We almost didn’t find her.”

  “What is this we ? She told me Gabe sleeps over.”

  “What about it?”

  “You can’t play house with someone else’s kid! You could get in big trouble. And what will you do when your field season is over?”

  “I haven’t told Ursa yet—don’t freak out . . .”

  “What?”

  “I might try to become her foster parent.”

  Tabby slapped her hand to her forehead. “Holy fucking shit. You’re serious.”

  “I am.”

  “Frances Ivey said no kids.”

  “Do you think that’s going to stop me? I love this kid.”

  They both went silent, Jo as shocked as Tabby.

  “Jo . . .”

  “What?”