What kind of teacher had Paul been? Liz wondered for perhaps the first time. There seemed to be tiers between students, cosseted favorites who got to make use of that room, then further elevated ones, like Jake, whom this girl appeared to admire almost as much as she did Paul. As a teacher, Liz realized, Paul created the same structure as had arisen in his family. There was Ally, on the surface seeming to share Liz’s love of the earth, but really putting her wares on display for her dad. Reid, taking anything, everything, he could for himself, and literally afraid of the ground, the final resting place it posed. And Paul, always, always at the center of everything.
“No,” Liz said. “He isn’t.”
The girl began shuffling forward again, sandals flapping on her feet.
“Sara?”
She stopped.
“I came in through Urban studies,” Liz said.
Sara nodded.
“There’s a student in that department—Jeffrey Matters? He seems to be interested in some of the same things Paul is.”
The blush, which had never entirely faded, flared again on Sara’s cheeks. “Tree.”
“He’s interested in trees?”
She let out a snort. “Um, for sure. But also, he calls himself Tree.”
“Really?” Liz said.
“I know,” Sara replied. “Can you say pretentious?”
“Did he and Paul know each other?”
Sara’s face went redder and angry. “Know isn’t the right word. He was positively awful to Professor Daniels. Really made an ass of himself.”
“What happened?” Liz said. “When?”
The girl faced her. “It was the night of the faculty dinner. This guy shouldn’t even have been there, it’s not like he’s faculty. But he’s sainted for whatever reason and so he came.”
Liz nodded patiently. “What did he do?”
Sara gave a sharp thrust of her shoulders. “Said awful things. About how Professor Daniels should climb back into his ivory tower and let the real men climb trees.”
“Real men climb trees?” Liz repeated, baffled.
“I told you he’s an ass.”
“But—” Liz broke off, knowing how Sara was likely to take this. “It sounds like it was Paul who was humiliated. It sounds like this guy made a fool of him.”
“No one could humiliate Professor Daniels,” Sara told her, eyes shining.
No one ever had, that was probably true. Paul had been in command when it came to environmental politics for as long as Liz could remember. The vacations they took, or didn’t take. His desire to control waste and contaminants, even where the children were concerned. Especially where the children were concerned. For a long time, Liz had seen this as a result of Paul’s need to be revered. But that wasn’t entirely fair. Paul truly had an investment in more responsible living. How could this guy have said otherwise?
Sara was still speaking. “He thinks his department’s so much better than ours, new and shiny, and Ag is for a prior century,” she said. “Well, I don’t see him making inroads in New York City either. We can’t even start county-wide composting up here.”
Liz nodded, distracted. “Do you know how I’d find him?”
“Not sure why you’d want to, but he lives right off campus. You know that road you come to if you don’t turn in at the gates? But don’t look for a house—he has a grant.”
“A grant that allows him not to live in a house?”
Sara snorted again. “You’ll see.”
THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
Abby woke before the sun came up. Finally, the heat had broken, and the bed she inhabited felt cool, not warmed even by a whole night’s tossing and turning. Cold breaths of air emanated from the other, empty side of the bed.
She hadn’t expected to be here still.
A text had arrived, giving an address where she and Cody would be met. Apparently their destination was all but impossible to access: a tangle of overgrown passages, hardly roads, led in. The only other way was more difficult yet and needed to be traversed on foot.
Abby had gone to the meeting point immediately. In hindsight, poring over the sparse words in the message while dark descended and she and Cody continued to wait, Abby realized that she hadn’t been given a time or a date, just the place.
She had jumped the gun in her urgency to get away.
She texted, asking if there was any way they could be picked up that night, but no one was able to get away.
She and Cody were creeping around behind the house like characters in a spy movie. Then the owner had come out, clearly perplexed, distraught even, and Abby had really felt like someone in a movie, running away with her son.
She pulled the covers up to her throat.
This couldn’t take too much longer. Bill was closing in. Abby knew it, like she’d always been able to intuit Bill’s presence, his endless wants and needs and demands, even those he never made explicit.
Bill had never abused her physically; he was far too buttoned-up for that. But Abby had always sensed a potential for violence simmering like liquid beneath a lid. If a man like Bill—straitjacketed by regulation—ever blew, it would be a volcano. Even without physical force, Bill had made a zombie out of her, a reflection of his every vision. Abby had to dress as he demanded, keep her hair and face and body to standards he set, read about subjects he deemed worthy, fill her days with the activities he decreed, and worst of all, the camel-breaking straw, raise Cody as Bill dictated. Only in the lightness of her new state could Abby feel the full weight of the orders her husband had issued every day and the rules she’d had to follow.
Which brought her to the frigid state of this bed.
Abby kicked back the sheets and got up.
Today Cody was going to start school.
Abby decided to make French toast. Despite the fact that she lived at a slow boil of fear these days, Cody deserved to have his special day marked. Abby hurried with the mixture and the soaking, then fired up the stove. She flipped a piece over, slapping it back down in the pan. She should be dressed already, a dash of makeup on, smiling at Cody as he ate breakfast. She had fallen behind; the rigid schedule Bill set served some purpose. If Abby didn’t hurry—run around like a harridan, she heard Bill accuse—Cody would be late his first day.
She set the plate down, noticing that although she’d remembered the syrup, the French toast was missing the fruit Bill insisted on and which Abby admitted did make for a pretty presentation. No time now. Leaving Cody in the kitchen to eat, she dashed upstairs for the outfit she’d at least had the forethought to lay out the night before.
She got Cody dressed, kneeling on the floor, and contemplating the next step: tooth brushing. Her son smelled yeasty and sweet, delightful to her mind. But the voice of Bill was loud in her head. Teeth had to be cleaned, the spaces between them flossed, after each and every meal.
She led him into the bathroom.
“Mama?” Cody asked through a mouthful of froth. “Am I going to have to do this every day?”
“Go to school, you mean? Every weekday,” Abby confirmed as she worked the nylon thread up and down. Who knew what Bill would do if she stepped out of line? Cody had better be enrolled, present and accounted for in his new school, as long as they were here. She vowed that her son wouldn’t come down with so much as a cold. “Why? Don’t you like it so far?” Abby offered an encouraging smile. “French toast in the morning’s pretty nice, right?”
Cody nodded.
Abby studied her son’s small form. She didn’t see the eagerness she’d hoped for, evidence that despite everything, Cody was ready to move on to this next stage. Instead her son looked a little lost; his face aimed down.
Abby’s gaze sought out the clock. In just seven minutes her son would be on his own. She mounted a smile. “One sec, Bun.” She had remembered the source of the nickname. Honey Bun, she used to call him as a baby.
Abby trotted up the stairs, returning with a small silver whistle on a string. She brought
the loop down over Cody’s tousled head, trying to smooth out his hair at the same time.
Cody touched the whistle in wonder, tilting his head down to see it. Folds of flesh compressed on his neck, a little leftover baby fat.
“That was mine,” Abby told him. She’d had to blow the whistle when she came to the busy street that lay between her house and school. Other kids got driven, Abby walked. If one of her siblings was home when she reached the corner, and heard the whistle, they would help her cross. Otherwise she had to make her way between the whizzing cars herself.
“Can I blow it?”
It was a mark of Cody’s earnest personality that he hadn’t emitted a shrill note already. The whistle sat on his chest, its lump concealed beneath the new yellow shirt Abby had bought him, a size up in the hope that it would last throughout the year. Bill never allowed clothes to be bought big; they had to fit precisely. But Bill hadn’t paid for this shirt. Also, where she and Cody were going, it would be necessary to hang on to clothes for as long as possible.
“Only blow the whistle if you need to,” Abby replied, making her tone severe.
Cody mimicked her solemn nod.
“It’s for emergencies,” Abby said. “If you need to try and summon help. Or let somebody know you’re nearby.”
Even to her own ears, the words didn’t quite make sense, and she knew Cody would be unlikely to apply them to any situation he might be in.
The whistle had been just for fun, really. A first-day-of-school present to jog Cody out of his apprehension.
“Come on,” she said, taking her son’s hand. “Let’s walk down the hill.”
Abby hadn’t realized just how steep the hill in front of their new rental was, how far away its peak, until she stood at the bottom with Cody.
The bus appeared from around a bend, and Abby’s heart seemed to lift and leave her body. She swallowed around an obstruction. Her stomach was pulsing and she could hardly hear when her son piped up.
“That’s what I ride in?” Cody asked.
Abby tried to nod, but her head wouldn’t obey the command. She was a marionette with no puppet-master. Cody’s hand slipped from hers and she didn’t recapture it.
“Mama?”
He was speaking through water. They both were. Abby couldn’t answer her son.
The ancient bus pulled up, its yellow color faded and its brakes wheezing. A pair of accordion doors sighed open.
Abby had called the company after her meeting with Cody’s teacher. She’d described her situation at length, and the dispatcher had dutifully taken a report, promising that the driver would be made aware.
Abby studied the man now as Cody hung back at her side.
“Good morning, Mrs. Harmon,” said the bus driver from high up in his seat. He glanced down at a sheet of paper. “And this must be Cody.”
“Ms.,” Abby said rotely, or thought she did. “Yes. He is. Cody.”
The bus driver didn’t respond to her strange delivery, for which Abby felt grateful.
“My name is Earl. I’ll be driving the steed this year. Does Cody like trucks?”
He was an old guy with steely hair and a sharp look behind his lenses. Not someone whom Abby would have chosen to transport her son. She worried that divorce and a custody battle would be a foreign language to a man of his generation.
He’s experienced, Abby told herself. The dispatcher had said exactly that. You have our most experienced driver.
Earl leaned over, shifting so that the bus gave a heave. As it settled into place he stood up, turning and facing the students, who sat up straight in their first-day-of-school outfits and kept quiet, as if stunned by reimmersion into this routine.
“Hold on, kids.”
The driver took a step down. His knees appeared to pain him; the three stairs were hard to traverse. After a moment he stood before them on the road.
“My dispatcher told me about your situation, ma’am.”
At closer glance, she saw that his gaze was indeed sharp, but only in one sense of the word, not stern so much as probing, and alert.
He crouched down with a grunt of effort. “Cody?”
Abby was surprised to see her son nod. Usually he didn’t respond to strangers, especially men.
“What do you think of my bus?”
Cody ducked his head.
The driver jerked a thumb toward the humped yellow hood. “Know what kind of engine I got under there?”
This time Cody spoke up. “Nuh-uh, sir.”
The bus driver smiled at that. “A big one.”
“Really?” Cody said. “Can I see it?”
“You can do better than that.” The bus driver got to his feet, one leg at a time, and aimed a smile in Cody’s direction. “You can hear it, and you can feel it working when the bus goes up that hill.”
Abby felt her chest clutch upon being reminded of the distance. But Cody looked eager now, and some of her fear receded. She watched her son’s slight body disappear behind the driver’s bigger form as he helped Cody mount the steps. Dimly, she heard the man assigning another child the task of helping Cody buckle in. And then the bus was laboring to life, its body bucking as it made the arduous trip uphill and disappeared from view over the rise.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The road you came to if you didn’t turn in at the gates, Sara had said.
Liz pulled over onto a piney shoulder, staring down at her phone, which wasn’t any help out here. A dirt trail bisected the woods over there; from here it looked like more of a footpath than a road. Liz maneuvered her car onto it, driving beneath a high-slung canopy of trees.
The road narrowed further, imperceptibly at first, but by the time it dead-ended at a vast swath of land, branches fingered both sides of the car. Liz got out amidst a stand of trees, birch leaves shivering on their limbs. She began to walk up a hill.
The slope rose steeply and Liz was soon wiping sweat-glued strands of hair off her face. It looked as if she were climbing into the sky, a banner of cottony blue. She came to the crest, and the world opened up before her. Liz took in the sight with a feeling of wonder. Who knew this much open space existed less than a mile from campus?
She walked through a meadow, switchgrass and speargrass knifing her calves. Although she couldn’t detect any hint of habitation, no house or driveway anyway, this place looked as if the model in the Urban Planning and Design department had come to life. Liz passed a pond densely surrounded by reeds—these were the phragmites—and speckled with algae on the surface. When she bent down, she saw clouds of tiny shrimp rapaciously nibbling. The bodies of golden fish whisked back and forth in the murky depths. A creek led away from the pond, and Liz followed it to its source, where a crystalline stream of water was deposited into a pool.
Off in the distance, groves of fruit, hoop houses, and rectangles of crops sent out shoots toward Liz’s own soul. She wandered toward the fecund acres, scenting ripeness in the air.
“Who goes?” The voice was earnest, without humor.
Liz turned.
He was a tall, rangy guy, with hair that fell past his shoulders and a cloud of beard that hid half his face. The facial hair made his age hard to determine, a contrasting blend of boyish eagerness in the eyes and sun-creased, leathery skin.
“Who goes?” he said again, like some medieval palace guard.
“Are you Jeffrey Matters?” Liz asked. She got no response. “Um, I mean Tree?”
“Sure am.” A pause. “Hey, are you from Global Living? Or the Today Show?”
Liz frowned. “No.”
Tree dropped his head for a moment. “Oh, shoot, thought I might’ve gotten a nibble.” But then he took a look around, pride settling into his stance. “I’ve done all the local media, and the big guys should be interested now that I’ve converted the Experiment in Alternative Living dorm to humanure. But no one’s been out yet.”
Liz’s head felt caught in a swirl. She could just about keep up with what this guy was saying—slip
s of things she’d caught over the years from Paul—but she was taken off guard by the disconnect from Sara’s description. Liz had been anticipating an abrasive rub of arrogance, but this guy’s worst trait seemed to be a youthful excitement not quite in keeping with his age.
“I’m not a reporter,” Liz said. “Sorry.”
A frown appeared above the beard. “I usually give tours on scheduled days, but I can show you around if you like.”
Liz squared her shoulders. “I’m not here for a tour either. My name is Liz Daniels. I’m Professor Daniels’s wife.”
As soon as she said the name, the eagerness receded from his eyes. “What can I do for you? I imagine Paul didn’t send you.”
Anger at her husband had solidified into a small, hard stone inside Liz, but she still blanched at this guy’s palpable dislike, mostly because she knew what it would’ve meant to Paul. As far as she knew, no one had ever felt that way about him.
“How do you and Paul know each other?”
Tree rolled his shoulders back and forth. “We don’t really know each other.”
Liz followed his gaze to a distant rim of forest. “But you’ve met?”
He hesitated. “Once. At a dinner. I don’t come down from here very often, but I was—well, I was being honored.”
Honored? Sara had made it sound as if the guy were an interloper at the faculty dinner.
“You’re a professor here?”
“Not exactly. I have a DEP grant. And my father went to Eastern Ag.”
Liz nodded uncertainly. Some environmental funding from the state, she figured.
Tree’s expression darkened. “Farming nearly killed him. No, it did kill him. He died from a rare form of cancer caused by the pesticides he was using, though no one could prove it in court.” Tree had fisted his hands; now he forced them to unroll. “That’s what made me want to bring this work to Eastern Ag. And its time has come—even the administration knows it. So they gave me this piece of land, which no one was using. I have to reapply every year, but I’ve gotten it four years running now so I think I’m in pretty good shape.”
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