Heaven Adjacent

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “Then I’d say you did the right thing, miss. Running away from home and all.”

  And with that he reeled in his line, apparently giving up.

  “You’re the only one who thinks so. So far, anyway.”

  “Well, you should listen to me, Miss Rosie. Because I’m very wise.” His face broke into a self-deprecating smirk. “Actually I’m not. But I’m agreeing with you. So why not think so? I give up for this afternoon, miss. They’re in there all right, but they’re just not biting.” As he spoke, he carefully removed the bait from his hook. Tiny, bright red salmon eggs that he gingerly returned to a small glass jar. He collapsed the rod again, taking it apart section by section. “So, listen. I’m probably pressing my luck with this. But I’m going to ask anyway. Never hurts to ask, and you can always tell me to go to hell. Sundown and sunrise is the time I’m most likely to catch one. And it’s a little late in the afternoon to be moving on by foot when I don’t know what’s ahead of me—what’s within walking distance, and whether or not I’ll be able to hitch a ride. Any chance you’d let me pitch my tent here for tonight? I’ll wade across the creek and go behind that stand of trees. You won’t see me from the house. And I’ll be as quiet as a whisper. I promise.”

  “You’re more than welcome,” she said, surprising herself. Because under normal circumstances, she knew, she did not make people feel more than welcome. Or even barely welcome. It was probably because he was polite, and he agreed with her thinking about running away from home.

  He tipped his hat to her as an unspoken thank-you.

  “Want me to tow you up that steep hill like I promised?”

  “No,” she said. “Thank you. I want to get up there all by myself.”

  And she did, without even pausing to rest. She puffed and panted, but didn’t stop moving her feet to do so. She had been here two months, she realized, and she was getting in shape. It pleased her in a way she could not remember having been pleased in the past.

  Willa hauled the young man up to the house by his hand the following morning. Roseanna couldn’t miss noticing because the little girl was shouting, “Rosie! Rosie! Rosie!” quite stridently, as if something were on fire.

  Roseanna dashed out onto the porch to see nothing on fire, and Willa dragging the semiwilling ex-Army man up onto her porch.

  “He’s Nelson,” Willa said, as if this were a sobering and highly relevant fact.

  “Yes, I know,” Roseanna said. “We’ve met.”

  “Oh,” Willa said. She sounded disappointed. Apparently the scoop factor in discovering a new person on the property had been important to her. “You have to feed him.”

  “No, that’s not the case,” Nelson said, his face reddening. “You don’t have to feed me, miss. Willa, remember? You weren’t going to say that.”

  “Oh,” Willa replied. “I wasn’t going to say that. I was thinking it was the other way around.”

  Then the little girl ran off to join her mother, who was watching carefully from a distance. Nelson looked at Roseanna and she at him, and his face flushed even redder.

  “So,” Roseanna said. “Can I offer you some breakfast?”

  The young man looked down at the wooden boards under his sturdy boots. “I’m not destitute,” he said. “I have a little money on me. I set out prepared to take care of my own self and not sponge off anybody. Just, after I had my breakfast yesterday morning, this road took me out in the middle of nowhere. Does no good to have money for food if no one is selling any.”

  “Do come in,” she said. “I was just about to make some scrambled eggs and toast.”

  He stepped into her living room, doffing his hat and holding it respectfully in front of his belly with both hands.

  “I was hoping to catch one of those nice big trout to solve the problem,” he said as she began to gather the ingredients for their breakfast.

  “But how would you have cooked it?”

  “I have a little camp stove. That’s not the trouble. Trouble is, they’re not biting. At first I thought it was the wrong time of day, and they just weren’t in a feeding sort of a mood. But I’ve tried an awful lot of times of day. Now I think they just won’t go for my artificial bait. They seem to be natives. You know. As opposed to stock fish—the fish that get poured into streams by the thousands so the sport fishermen have something to catch. The stock fish’ll take just any old thing. They feed them on some kind of pellets at the hatcheries. Sometimes the natives only want bugs or worms. That’s all that looks familiar to them.” He leaned his back against her kitchen wall and watched her work. “This is good of you,” he added.

  “It’s not a problem. We can’t send you out on the road half-starved.”

  She specifically mentioned the road because she already sensed that he felt comfortable in this place, and that his wanting to stay here was not out of the question. Though exactly how she sensed such a thing, she could not have said.

  He seemed to pick up on the hint.

  “This is an amazing place you have here,” he said. “You’re lucky.”

  “I agree that I am,” she said, breaking the first of seven eggs into a bowl.

  “It has a special feel to it. I woke up this morning and put some coffee on the camp stove and sat cross-legged staring out over the hills for the longest time. It was just as the sun was coming up. It was a tad misty down in that valley. And I watched the sky turn colors, and I just felt like . . . like there’s something akin to heaven here. It’s just so natural and so quiet.”

  “Natural it is,” Roseanna said. “But it’s only quiet until Willa wakes up.”

  He smiled, but it was a sad little thing. He knew he was about to need to go. She could see it in his eyes. He didn’t want to go. She could see that, too.

  “Wish we had a fresh trout to go with those eggs. Ever had trout and eggs for breakfast?”

  “Can’t say as I have, no.”

  “Well, but . . . you know how a fish tastes when it’s fresh out of the water.”

  “I don’t know that I do. I’m sure I’ve had some fish that’s fresher than others. But I lived in the city all my life . . .”

  “You never had a fish fresh out of the water? Like, not twenty minutes from his last swim?”

  “I have not.”

  “Well, it’s official, then,” he said. And the lost puppy look disappeared from his eyes, replaced by a surging enthusiasm. “You need to taste that. And I’m here to make sure you do.”

  “But you couldn’t get one to bite.”

  “I’ll dig some worms. But don’t worry. I won’t leave holes all over your property. I’ll dig right in the creek itself. In the shallow places. And the flowing water’ll fill the holes right back in. But I’ll get you a fish. And then we’ll have the best breakfast you ever had. Or lunch, or dinner. Depending on when I catch one. But don’t you worry. I’ll catch one. I don’t care if it takes days.”

  Roseanna offered no reply. She couldn’t help noticing that he wasn’t asking her, the property owner, if she cared if it took days.

  But he was so fresh faced and enthusiastic, so earnest in his desire to share this experience with her, that she couldn’t bring herself to dash his youthful hopes on the matter.

  Just as he left her house, his belly full of breakfast, Nelson turned and looked straight into Roseanna’s eyes.

  “You need to tell more people that story,” he said.

  “What story is that?”

  “About that friend of yours who died. Who thought she had time to live later. But she didn’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t think of her name now.”

  “Alice,” Roseanna said. Quietly.

  “Right. You need to tell more people that story about Alice.”

  “Why do I need to do that?”

  “Because they’re not happy, miss. Haven’t you noticed that? Because hardly anybody is happy.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Thank You for Not Biting

  A couple of weeks and several trout-and-egg br
eakfasts passed, and no one new came along to whom Roseanna could tell the story of Alice and her miscalculation. The young ex-Army man did not move on, and she did not force the issue.

  Then one day Roseanna looked out her window and noticed that a couple had pulled their beat-up compact car off the road in front of her fence. They were standing by her gate, taking pictures of the sculptures with a cardboard-covered disposable camera.

  She walked out of the house and toward the gate to greet them, waving as she did so, to telegraph that the impending encounter would be a friendly one.

  They waved giddily in return.

  They were middle aged. Maybe a couple of years younger than Roseanna. The man had bushy dark hair partly smashed by a silly-looking boater hat. The woman was blonde, though probably not naturally, and more than a little bit stout. Beyond that their faces were effectively hidden behind dark sunglasses.

  “Those animals are just so much fun,” the woman squealed. She was naturally loud, which had become Roseanna’s least favorite quality in a person.

  “I’m glad you like them,” Roseanna said, covering over her distaste for the sake of an opportunity to tell The Story.

  The man strode up to her with the camera in his left hand, his right hand thrust out to shake hers. “Dave,” he said. “And this is my wife, Melanie.”

  “You live around here?” she asked him.

  “Oh, no. Never been around here before.”

  “What brings you through here?”

  “We’re on a sort of a road trip,” Melanie said. Which was unfortunate, because, being Melanie, she said it too stridently. And too loudly. “Only we’re not sure where to. We’re teachers, and we have the summer off school, and we’re trying to decide where to go all summer, or whether to even go back at all. If we find a really great place we might just take early retirement. But that’s probably more than you wanted to know.”

  While she spoke, Roseanna noticed their dog. A short-haired, nondescript-looking brown dog, of medium size, sniffing around on the broken yellow line in the middle of the road.

  “I never mind hearing people’s stories,” she said. “I have stories I like to tell, too. But before I do, I think you’d better get your dog out of the road. I realize there’s not a ton of traffic coming through here. But that’s a blind curve right there.” She pointed toward the piece of road that curled sharply around CPR Hill. “And the locals take this road at top speed because they figure they know it like their own living room. They might never think of the possibility that somebody’s dog could be standing right in the middle of it.”

  Melanie and Dave turned their heads to look at the dog. But they said nothing. And they made no move to call the dog to them.

  “Seriously,” Roseanna said. “It could be dangerous for him.”

  “That’s not our dog,” Dave said.

  “No, we’ve never seen him,” Melanie said too loudly. “Or we hadn’t, before we got out of the car. We figured he was yours.”

  “Hmm,” Roseanna said. “Don’t go away.”

  She stepped through the gate and began walking in the dog’s direction. He noticed. For a moment he seemed painfully torn. He stood with his back arched. He tucked his tail between his hind legs, but still wagged it hesitantly. He seemed to want to meet Roseanna and to run from her in equal measure.

  She extended a hand to him, and he reached a tentative muzzle out to sniff the hand.

  Just then a speeding car tore around the blind curve. Without thinking, Roseanna reached out and grabbed the dog—who was heavier than he looked. She pulled him up into her arms and against her chest, realizing as she did that he might bite. She had no way of knowing for a fact that he wouldn’t bite.

  She jumped back a few steps, and the car swerved around her, fishtailing in the dirt, horn blaring. Then it sped on.

  She looked into the face of the dog, which was only inches from her own. The dog looked back.

  “Thank you for not biting me,” she said.

  Then she struggled to carry him back to the gate. Because if she set him down, she was afraid he would run off. And, if he did, the next time he got in trouble there would be nobody there to save him.

  “That was close!” Melanie said.

  “Yes. Too close.”

  “He doesn’t look like a stray,” Dave added. “He looks like somebody’s dog. He’s plump enough, and clean. But no collar.”

  “Yes, I’m guessing someone will be looking for him. I’m going to put him in my barn for a few minutes, so he can’t get into any more trouble. And then I’ll see if I can’t find out who owns him. But first, if you two will hold still for it, I’d like to tell you a story.”

  “That settles it!” Melanie said, slapping her husband, Dave, hard on the knee. “We’re retiring!”

  They sat cross-legged in the grass behind Roseanna’s barn, staring out over the hills and valleys, the forests and streams. Dave nodded, his boater hat bouncing up and down with the force of his assent.

  “I think you’re right, babe,” he said. “I really see your point.”

  “Oh, that is just so sad!” Melanie fairly shrieked. The word “sad” came out so loud that Roseanna was tempted to press a palm to her Melanie-side ear. “I never thought of that. Not once. Why, Dave and I tossed out a million ideas on why we should or shouldn’t retire. We even listed all the pros and cons on a sheet of paper. You know, with a line right down the middle—that whole thing. And not at any point did it occur to us that one of us could fall dead, and then it would be too late. We just never once thought of it!”

  “People don’t like to think about things like that,” Roseanna said. Quietly. In case it was possible to set a good example, volume-wise.

  They sat in silence for a few moments. Roseanna noticed that she could see a scrap of Nelson’s tent down the hill and through the trees.

  “We never even considered it!” Melanie shouted.

  It startled Roseanna, who decided she’d had enough.

  “Well,” she said, levering herself to her feet and dusting off the seat of her pants, “I’m going to take that dog into town.”

  Both Melanie and Dave looked up at Roseanna as if she’d said she was going to take the poor beast out behind the shed, give him a blindfold and a last cigarette, and stand him up in front of a firing squad.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Melanie asked.

  “I guess . . . put an ad in the paper? You know. Found. Dog. Brown, nondescript. Medium build. That sort of thing.”

  “Why even take him along for that?” Dave added. “I doubt you can get him to write a check for the ad.”

  Then he waited, as if expecting someone to laugh. No one did.

  “I was thinking they’d want to take his picture,” Roseanna said. “I mean . . . don’t they?”

  “I don’t think so,” Dave said. “I never saw a lost and found ad for a dog with a picture to go along.”

  “Just don’t take him to the pound and dump him there,” Melanie said. “Please. You know what they do to dogs at those places.”

  “But isn’t that where his owner will be most likely to find him?”

  “If it was me,” Dave said, “and I lost my dog, I’d look in the classified ads in the local paper first thing.”

  “Whatever,” Roseanna said. “Between the dog and me I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

  Roseanna stepped into the newspaper office in Walkerville with the dog in her arms. She set him down on the carpet. The woman behind the front-office desk had a round face and big hair. Curly and big. She looked up at Roseanna, though not directly into her eyes. And she frowned. Noticeably frowned.

  It had occurred to Roseanna that a dog might not be welcome in the building. And yet the woman wasn’t looking at the dog. She didn’t seem to have noticed him yet. She was staring at Roseanna—at a spot somewhere in the vicinity of her nose, the way people do when they don’t enjoy eye contact.

  “My name is Roseanna Chaldecott,”
Roseanna said.

  The woman lifted a half-eaten candy bar, still mostly shrouded in its wrapper, and took the tiniest bite with her front teeth only. It showed off her prominent overbite and made her look like a bunny rabbit. Then she set the candy down and wiped her lips with what looked like a clean tissue. She frowned again.

  “I know who you are,” she said.

  “Now how would you know that?”

  Roseanna walked to the desk and perched on the edge of an uncomfortable chair. The dog, having no special reason to stay with her, sat leaning against the door, hunched over, with his head down and his shoulders protruding like a vulture.

  “Small town,” she said. “You bought Macy Peterson’s old place. You have all that junk where it can be seen from the road.”

  “You must be thinking of somebody else.”

  “No.” The woman scratched behind her ear with the eraser end of a pencil. “I’m thinking of you. All those metal shapes.”

  “That’s not junk,” Roseanna said, her gorge rising. “That’s art. It was junk. But now it’s art.”

  “Make it into any shape you want,” the woman said. “It still is what it is.”

  Roseanna took a deep breath and chose to ignore the rudeness. She opened her mouth to request the ad she wished to place, but the woman interrupted her.

  “No dogs allowed in here.”

  “But I need to place a ‘found’ ad. And he’s what I found.”

  “There you go again.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “A thing is exactly what it is, no matter how you try to twist it.”

  “Let me start over,” Roseanna said. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’d like to place a classified ad.”

  “Fine,” the woman said, and nibbled another minibite of her candy bar. Then she held both hands in the air above her keyboard, poised. “Shoot.”

  “Found. Chudley area. Medium-sized brown dog. Nondescript looking. Short haired. Friendly enough. Doesn’t look like a stray. Well fed, but no collar.”

  She paused. The woman stopped typing and hovered again.

  “Is that it?”