by Jenn Bishop
I clutch my backpack to my chest as we taxi over to a gate. The guy next to me wakes up and slides his headphones off. “Visiting Denver?” he asks.
“Wyoming, actually.”
“All by yourself? You’re braver than me.”
I doubt that and offer him a small shrug. He doesn’t ask what brings me out this way. Even if he did, I’m not sure what I’d tell him. The truth? Part of the truth? Or some white lie, made up on the spot?
When we land, I’m met by my escort, a short young woman named Jessica with long shiny black hair. We walk for what feels like forever, eventually passing by a store selling purple-and-gray Colorado Rockies T-shirts, and that’s when I feel it, feel it for real. How far I am from Boston, from my family, from everyone I know.
It’s like my parents traded me to another team for the summer. Another family. I haven’t even been gone twenty-four hours—I can’t be homesick. Not yet.
We take the escalator down to the train toward baggage claim, and while we’re on it, I get a text from my dad. Let us know when you’ve found Delia. Love you. The train comes to a stop, and I shove my phone into my backpack. At baggage claim I start looking for them—Delia; her husband, Chris; and Sadie. Mom wasn’t sure if all three of them would make the drive, but she hoped Sadie would tag along.
The thing is, I don’t even know who I’m looking for exactly. They used to send us Christmas cards every year with a photo of the three of them. Mom’d tack it on the fridge with one of her bajillion 26.2 magnets. The photo was always of something exciting they’d done that year—an African safari or a baseball game in Tokyo. Delia’s a teacher, so she gets summers off, which always makes Mom jealous. She says some summer she’ll trust Betsy to run the store and Dad’ll take a sabbatical from the station, but who is she kidding? Not me.
“Emma?”
Standing by the ATM is a tall, tan woman in yoga pants, her short curly brown hair kept back by a headband. I search her face and see a glimmer of the woman from the Christmas cards. Finally someone I know! Well, sort of.
I say goodbye and thank you to Jessica and head to Delia, who wraps me tight in a bear hug. “So great to see you, kid. I can’t believe how long it’s been. Too long. Way too long.” She takes a step back. “Oh, Emma, you look so much like your mom.”
“Really?” No one ever says that back home. They always say I look like Dad. His build, his eyes, his complexion. That Austin’s all Mom. Athletic and fidgety, always needing to be busy. The only thing I got from Mom was my hair, thick and blond and way more of it than I can handle.
“Oh, so much, kid.” She whips around. “Darn it. Where’d Sadie wander off to now?” Delia pats my arm. “Probably needed to charge her phone again. Let’s go grab your suitcase.”
We head to the conveyor belt and quickly spot my bag. A teenage girl with long brown hair wearing cutoffs and a way-too-big tank top wanders over to us, chewing on the straw of a Starbucks frappé.
That’s Sadie? I focus hard, trying to find pieces of that girl from the picture way back when, but I can’t. I see bits of Delia in her, though. The same nose and posture.
Sadie turns to me. “So you’re… Emily?”
“Sadie!” Delia sighs. “Sorry, Emma. She knows your name; she just has a weird sense of humor.”
“Oh,” I say. Already I like Delia, but I’m not so sure about Sadie. “Okay.”
Sadie presses a finger to her temple. “Sorry, I’ve got this raging headache right now, which hopefully the caffeine will fix. You drink coffee?”
I shake my head. What twelve-year-old drinks coffee?
“You’re missing out.”
“How… old are you?”
“I’ll be fifteen in October.”
Fifteen?
For a second my eyes well up. How could Mom not have said that? Sadie wasn’t just a little bigger than me in the picture; she was older. More than two years older. It was one thing for a three-year-old and a five-year-old to play together because their moms were friends, but there’s a huge difference between seventh grade and high school.
I hope that’s the only key detail Mom left out.
* * *
We’ve got about forty-five minutes left on the drive to the town where Delia and Sadie live when something up the road catches my eye. Something huge and brown and…
“What’s that up ahead?” I ask, pointing.
From the back seat Sadie says, “You mean the bison?”
As we get closer, I can see that’s what they are. Bison. Buffalo? I don’t know the difference, only that they’re Austin’s favorite animal. When he was little—before I came around, obviously—he had this stuffed animal he took with him everywhere. He called it his “buffy.” By the time I was born, he’d outgrown it, but he was still obsessed with bison. I swear, the only reason he even likes that band Modest Mouse is because they have buffalo on all their stuff.
Now that I think about it, did Delia give him that stuffed animal?
I reach for my phone to text him, but then I remember he doesn’t have his. Won’t for a whole thirty days. “Are they always there like that? Just hanging out by the side of the road?”
Delia laughs. “Their terrain’s a lot bigger. As far as you can see, out that way. Huge ranches in this part of the state.”
Huge ranches. “Wait. People eat them?”
“Where’d you think bison burgers and bison jerky came from?” Sadie pipes up from the back seat.
“Oh.”
Delia peeks in the rearview mirror to see if there’s anyone behind us, but the highway out here is quiet—the complete opposite of Boston. She slows the car to a crawl as we pass them. There are five of them. Two big ones, three little. A family? The largest has clumps of fur falling off him like he’s shedding. His head has got to be as big as my whole body. Hey there, I say in my head.
I take a quick video with my phone to share with Austin later. I want him to see them, just chilling by the side of the road.
“Kind of majestic, aren’t they?” Delia says.
“Kind of smelly if you ask me.”
Delia takes a hand off the steering wheel and playfully swats Sadie’s knee.
We’re past them now, but I watch in the side mirror as they get smaller and smaller until they’re just a smudge of brown against the blue sky.
In the back seat Sadie cracks open a library book, and I can hear the spine breaking. Becca would kill her for that, if she were here. Call her a book murderer. She did that once to Ethan Shaw back in Mrs. Katsoulis’s fourth-grade ELA class. The entire class cracked up, and it became an inside joke for the rest of the year.
Of course, that time they were laughing with Becca, not at her.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When I pull up the shade in the guest room, the moon casts shadows on the wall. Delia’s sewing machine, the pile of quilt squares, the old jam jar filled with pencils and markers and scissors. Something tells me most of their guests lately haven’t been people so much as quilts.
My phone’s still plugged into the wall outlet. When I grab it, the bright screen blinds me for a second. Five twenty-five.
I want to crawl back into bed, but I’m wide-awake.
Of course I am. Back home it’s 7:25. Back home I’d be eating breakfast, getting ready to head to the store with Mom. Back home I’d—
I guess it doesn’t matter what I’d be doing back home. I’m here now, right?
Still in my pajamas, I creep down the hallway. Delia’s house is a split-level, and her former craft room/guest bedroom is on the lower level. Across the hall from me is Sadie’s bedroom. The door is covered with posters for bands and Broadway musicals—Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, even Cats. This one band Lucy got obsessed with right before school ended is on there too. Just thinking about Lucy makes my stomach pinch. She texted me a bunch of times yesterday, but I still haven’t responded.
It always felt like she and Kennedy shared one body, one brain. But I know she doesn’t really. She’
s her own person. She didn’t do what Kennedy did.
But there’s no way to be friends with her without also being friends with Kennedy. Not even over text. I’m sure she’d tell Kennedy whatever I say. So I guess I shouldn’t text back. At least, not yet.
I pad up the carpeted stairs to the living room. Their cat, Dumbledore, a fat gray thing with one fang sticking out, is curled up on the sofa, peering at me with glowing green eyes. I grab a glass of water from the kitchen sink and tiptoe over to him.
“Hey,” I whisper.
I don’t know why I wait for him to say something back. Of course he doesn’t. He’s a cat, Emma. Good grief.
I reach out cautiously, but he surprises me by leaning into my hand. I scratch under his chin. “Aw, hey, buddy.” I stroke down his back and his tail, the only sound his purring and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the dining room. “You’ll be my friend here, right?” I’m leaning down to rub my chin against the top of his head when he swipes my cheek with his paw.
“Oh, okay then.”
Dumbledore hops off the couch, his tail sashaying with each step.
“So that’s how it’s going to be.” I touch my cheek to see if he drew blood. Thankfully, no.
I’m about to go back downstairs for my sketchbook when I hear footsteps from the direction of Chris and Delia’s bedroom. Chris comes in, still in his pajamas too. He’s rubbing his beard and his dark brown hair sticks up in the back. “Thought I heard another early bird. Morning, Emma.”
“Good morning.”
“You always an early riser?”
I shake my head. “Not back home. I think it’s the time change.”
He pops into the kitchen and pulls a bottle of orange juice from the fridge. “You want some?” I nod and he pours me a glass, bringing it back to the living room. “Has Delia told you what I do for work?”
In the five-hour drive yesterday, Delia talked plenty, but I don’t remember her mentioning that.
“I work at the mines, just outside of town.”
“Oh.”
“Do you know much about mines?”
“I used to play Minecraft… but I’m guessing it’s not the same.”
Chris laughs. “Not really.” He explains how the whole reason anyone lives out in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming is because of the coal mines and that he works more than a mile underground. “I could take you down there sometime to see, if you’d like.”
I don’t even like being in basements. Without natural light or fresh air, I feel trapped. But I don’t want to hurt his feelings, so I say, “Maybe?”
“Anyhow, the reason I wanted you to know is because my schedule’s kind of peculiar. I work twelve-hour days, and then I get time off, and unfortunately you got here during one of those stretches where I’m at work a lot, so you may not see much of me for the rest of the week.”
“That’s okay,” I say before realizing that sounds like I don’t like him. “Sorry, I mean—”
“No worries. In any case, I’m sure Delia and Sadie can keep you entertained.” He takes a sip of his orange juice, staring past me out the huge bay window. “We’re so glad to have you here. We’d do anything for your mom. She’s been through a lot lately with your brother.”
I stare at the pile of magazines on the coffee table: The Atlantic, Yoga Journal, Real Simple. You can learn a lot about people from the magazines they leave lying around. Already I’m feeling better about not packing a cowboy hat.
“He’s a good kid. I know he is because he came from your mom and dad. It’s not easy being a teenager. Sometimes it feels like the whole world has changed since I was that age—and now as parents, Delia and I are just scrambling to keep up. Growing up in a mining town myself, I’m no stranger to substance abuse and all the hurt it can bring to a family. In any case, I just want you to know, if you ever want to talk about things, I’m happy to listen.”
When Mom took me to see the counselor in Cambridge earlier this week, it was all new. I was still in so much shock, I barely knew what to say. Barely even knew what I thought. And I wasn’t exactly ready to sit down in an office and talk about it with a complete stranger. But here, now, with Chris? It feels different. “Your family?” I ask.
“My father was an alcoholic.”
“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing for you to be sorry about,” Chris says. “He was a complicated man. And I loved him very much. Just like you do Austin.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek. It stops the tears from welling up in my eyes. Who am I to even think how weird it is to be in this nice house in Wyoming when Austin’s in some treatment facility with no one he knows at all? I picture his room there—blank white walls, no Modest Mouse poster, no Patriots banner. And not even his cell phone to text a friend or me or Mom or Dad. He’s entirely alone. Removed from everything—no, everyone—he’s ever known.
“Emma?” Chris’s voice startles me.
“Sorry.”
“Emma, there’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s okay.”
But he doesn’t know. There’s plenty to be sorry about. I should have said something to Mom and Dad. I could have stopped it. Maybe not entirely. But maybe if I’d said something, it wouldn’t be this bad. Not so bad that Austin had to get sent away.
But I can’t tell him any of this because he might tell Mom, and she still thinks I’m good. She needs to keep thinking that. Not worrying at all about me. I’m here, in this nice house. Chris is right. It’s okay. It’s okay—for me.
And okay has to be good enough.
I clear my throat. “Maybe we could talk about Austin some other time. I don’t want to make you late for work.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Chris says. And then he excuses himself, leaving me all alone again.
Outside, the sun rises and I’m finally seeing Wyoming in daylight. Mom was right about one thing. The sky here is big. More than big. Endless.
* * *
When Sadie stops her bike in front of the library, I’m still panting from the past hour. Maybe Mom could keep up with Sadie, but even after an entire season of track, I barely can. At Delia’s request, Sadie has spent this morning giving me an unofficial tour of town.
“And here,” Sadie says as she hops off her bike, “is the library.” She walks her bike over to the bike rack and locks it, and I follow suit. I’m still fumbling with the lock when Sadie sighs. “Come on!” she says, heading for the entrance.
Finally I get the lock to click and jog after her, out of breath all over again. Sadie stops outside the library’s café. “When I told my mom I’d take you out, I completely spaced about meeting up with my friends. We’ve got this summer school project due next week, and this is the only time that worked for everyone. You don’t mind hanging out here for a bit, do you?”
“No, no,” I say. “That’s totally fine. How long?”
“An hour? Maybe an hour and a half.” She peeks into the café and waves at a group of girls circled around a table. “One sec,” she shouts at them.
There’s a sinking feeling in the center of my chest. Sadie didn’t want to give me this tour of town today. She had to. She didn’t have a choice. I’m just this stranger thrust into her life for the summer. No warning, no nothing.
She’s not going to be my buddy here for the summer. Maybe at first she’ll pretend to her mom like she’s trying, but it’s not going to happen. She’s got her own life, and she’s not going to squeeze me into it. I’d be stupid to expect that.
“Text me when you’re done?” I say, acting like everything’s fine. It has to be, so it is.
I enter her number into my phone and she enters mine, and then she’s off. And just like yesterday at the airport, again I’m on my own.
The library is spacious and modern, not at all like the library back home. That one is old enough to have a plaque outside saying it was built in the 1800s. Not that I really went there that much. The public library was on the other side of town, closer to w
here Kennedy and Lucy live. Actually, if I’d gone more, I probably would’ve met them earlier. From what Kennedy said, the teen librarian was super into anime like her and Lucy, and they even had an anime club for a few years.
Then again, I never exactly needed a library. Being friends with Becca was like having my own personal librarian.
At one of the computers, I search “bison” and write down the Dewey decimal numbers on a little card. It takes a while to locate the books, but nobody offers to help me, and actually, it’s kind of nice to wander through the stacks until I find the books with the right numbers. I pull out a thick hardcover and wipe the dust off the top of it. Bison: An American Icon.
It’s the kind of book Dad would pack for vacation. He always goes with nonfiction, the longer the better, even though his bookmark never seems to make it past the first quarter. He’s too chatty for reading. Always busy gabbing with strangers or bugging the three of us.
I take the book over to the Teen Room, where there are two booths, a leather sofa, and several rolling shelves of books. It’s cool and quiet, except for a librarian typing away. I settle into the leather sofa, open up the bison book, and start reading.
* * *
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here when someone says, “You stole my seat,” and I jump.
“S-s-sorry,” I stammer.
“Whoa, whoa. I was kidding. You don’t have to move.” It’s a boy about my age. He’s wearing white pants and a black T-shirt with a quote from Harry Potter, I SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT I AM UP TO NO GOOD. His curly brown hair is the littlest bit messy, kind of how Chris’s looked this morning, but more like he made it that way on purpose. “I’ve never seen you here before. You new?”
There’s something about the way he talks that’s different, but I can’t put my finger on it. “I guess.”
“You’re either new or you’re not. There’s not really much to guess.”
It’s an accent, I realize. Kind of countryish? Except Delia, Chris, and Sadie don’t have one.
