Heaven Adjacent

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  He downed the rest of his milk and frowned.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I still think that was rude of me. You don’t want to hear that much about my troubles.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Roseanna said. “I’ve got nothing but time. Besides. I have a story I wanted to tell you, too, so long as we’re talking about the losses that changed the direction of our lives.”

  “So,” Roseanna asked—hesitantly—as they stepped out onto the porch together. “Now that you’ve lost the house, where will you live?”

  “Haven’t quite figured that out yet.”

  “Is your pension enough to cover a place? A rented apartment, maybe?”

  “Not anywhere near where I lived.”

  “Which was . . . ?”

  They paused in the shade of the porch, surrounded by that feeling. His having to go but not wanting to go. What was it about this place that drew people like a magnet, then held them?

  “Newark. Not that you can’t live cheaply in Newark. I mean, compared to New York City. But really, my monthly pension is very small. I’d have to move to someplace like Arkansas or Kentucky. Somewhere the cost of living is just entirely different. And even so, if I pay rent, I won’t be able to afford much else. I guess I thought if I lived on the road . . . you know . . . camping at night and such . . . maybe I’d have enough for incidentals and food. And maybe I’d find a cheap enough place to settle. But I don’t know. It’s grueling on my old bones, being on that bike all day long. I’m beginning to think it was a lousy idea.”

  Based on her interactions with the last two parties she had taken the time to get to know, it almost sounded as though he already planned to stay. But he didn’t. He was thinking no such thing; she could tell. Because the possibility of such a plan had not occurred to him, would not occur to him all on its own. He had felt it too much of an imposition to trouble her for a sandwich so he wouldn’t faint from heat and hunger and fall off his motor scooter.

  Still, she began to wonder if she should offer. One night, maybe.

  She shook the idea away again. It always started with one night. It never ended there.

  They walked down the steps together and moved off toward the gate.

  A little shriek of laughter caught their ears and turned them around. Melanie was down by the creek, near the tents. As usual, she was being too loud.

  “Neighbors?” Martin asked.

  “No, that’s my property down there.”

  “And people camp on it?”

  So there it was. The idea that he might stay had just jumped into his head. She could see it in his eyes. Hear it in the tone of his voice.

  And out of all four of the drifters—six if you counted Patty and Willa, seven if you counted the dog—who could possibly need accommodation more than this poor eighty-year-old widower?

  It wouldn’t be so bad, she thought. It might be a good thing for her purposes. She could invite him to pitch his tent for one night. Then in the morning she could tell them all that it had been fun, but it was time for them to move along. She could kill all four birds with one stone. Just have the big talk once and clear the premises.

  “Yes,” she said. “There are people camping down there by my creek. If you’d like to set up down there for one night and then drive on in the morning, I suppose I wouldn’t mind. It’s just one night, and, after all, what’s one more?”

  In the morning, after a bracing cup of strong coffee, Roseanna walked downhill to the creek. The plan had been to take off her shoes, roll up her pant legs, and wade across to the tents.

  She didn’t. It looked deep and fast, and the stones at the bottom had been worn shiny and smooth, which she assumed would make them slippery. The last thing she wanted was to take a fall in running water. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

  “Good morning!” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth.

  Nothing.

  “Good morning!” she called again.

  A few seconds later Nelson came hurrying out of the woods.

  “Sorry, miss,” he said. “I was off using the little boys’ room.”

  “I’d like to have us all together for a talk,” Roseanna said.

  His face fell, and she could not miss his disappointment no matter how hard she tried.

  “Here on this side of the creek would be nice,” she added, “since you all seem to be better at wading the thing than I expect I would be.”

  “I’ll get everybody together,” he said, his understanding of her meeting agenda sadly clear in his voice.

  “So what’s this all about?” Melanie asked, rubbing her eyes more dramatically than necessary. “I was still sleeping.”

  Yes, on my property and only with my permission, Roseanna thought. She could have said so. Almost did. But she decided against it. So long as they were all on their way out, what was the point of getting snippy?

  “Sorry if I got anybody up before they were ready,” she told the four of them. Then she immediately regretted having said it. The idea that she should apologize to any of them, but especially the unwelcome Melanie and Dave, seemed laughable.

  “I was awake,” Martin said politely. “I’ll be out of your way before you know it, Rosie. Thanks for letting me rest up a bit.”

  “And thank you, Martin, for helping me slide into the topic of this little meeting. Martin’s been here just the one night, as you all know. But for the rest of you, it’s been a couple of weeks. It was never really supposed to be that way. It’s not something we talked out in advance. I know you all like it here, and maybe it even seems like some kind of heaven to you. It does to me, too. But one of the reasons I moved here was for solitude. My version of heaven involves a lot of silence and alone time.”

  “Say no more, miss,” Nelson interjected. “I’ll pack my things.”

  “Well, gosh darn it,” Melanie said. “We were so hoping to stay the summer! Then we could go home and tell the principal and the school board we’re retiring, and then we could make a new winter plan from there. But this . . . this is just . . . inconvenient.”

  Roseanna did not look at Melanie as the woman gave her aggravating and fairly rude monologue. Instead she watched Nelson attempt to contain his own agitation. In the end, it could not be contained.

  “But the lady didn’t invite you to stay the summer!” he barked at Melanie. “And it’s not polite to just invite yourself.” Then his face reddened. He glanced quickly at Roseanna, then cut his eyes away. “Well, I guess I’m not much better, am I, miss? You didn’t invite me to stay for weeks, either. But at least I’m willing to leave without complaints when you ask me to.”

  “You just stay out of this,” Melanie barked back. “This is not even your property.”

  “No, but it’s hers. And she just told you it’s time to clear off.”

  “Now listen, you . . .”

  Roseanna jumped into the pause, verbally speaking. “See, this is exactly what I’m trying to avoid.”

  “You don’t worry about a thing, miss,” Nelson said with almost exaggerated respect. “You just give us a few minutes to pack up our stuff, and we’ll be out of your hair. All of us,” he growled, turning a withering look on Melanie.

  She narrowed her eyes at him in return, but said nothing.

  Roseanna sipped at a second cup of good coffee and watched them slog up the hill toward her house. More importantly, toward the road. Nelson seemed to be carrying both his own and Martin’s belongings. They all looked a bit downtrodden, like weary and wounded soldiers returning from a battle that had been decisively lost.

  For a moment Roseanna felt guilty, but she shook the feeling away again. She had every right to ask them to go. She had been more than hospitable. And in just a few minutes she would have her lovely heaven. She would have this beautiful, natural, quiet place all to herself to enjoy in silence.

  The thought was interrupted by the shriek of the five-year-old, reminding her that she had been counting incorrectly. There were still two squatte
rs who had not been asked to leave. One and a half, at any rate.

  She stepped out onto the porch and watched Willa chase the brown dog around in a wide circle. The dog seemed to enjoy the game. He looked back over his shoulder at the girl to be sure she was still chasing. His tongue hung out sideways, his mouth held wide open, making him look as though he were grinning broadly. His tail wagged furiously as he ran.

  Roseanna saw Patty standing by their tiny shack of a guesthouse, watching her daughter. Supervising the play. She stepped down off her porch and walked to the young woman.

  “He seems like a nice dog,” Patty said.

  Roseanna ignored the dog-related small talk. “It’s been a few weeks since you told me you were going to approach your parents about a loan,” she said.

  Patty’s face fell. Roseanna seemed to be having that effect on everybody this morning.

  “They said no.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “But I figured you’d changed your mind about wanting us to go. Because all these other people are staying now. I figured you must’ve decided you liked the company after all.”

  “Hardly,” Roseanna said.

  “Why are they here, then?”

  “They’re not. Not anymore. They’ve broken down their tents and packed up their stuff, and they’re on their way up the hill right now. Headed for parts unknown.”

  “Oh,” Patty said. “Why were they here so long?”

  “Now that’s a good question. I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately. I guess I’m not very good at confrontation.”

  Patty laughed out loud, an embarrassing pig-snort of a sound. “You? But you’re an attorney.”

  “True. I guess I’m good at other people’s confrontations. Turns out I’m not so good at my own.”

  “Miss, miss!” Nelson’s voice called out. “We have some trouble!”

  Roseanna turned to see him running toward her. He crossed the play circle formed by the dog and Willa. The dog skittered out of his path.

  “Martin collapsed coming up the hill. He has a high fever, I think. I don’t have a thermometer or anything, but his forehead’s all clammy and hot. And he says he’s been having body aches. I think he might be coming down with the flu.”

  “Oh dear,” Roseanna said. “Maybe we need to bring him into the house.”

  “I’m not sure about getting him the rest of the way up the hill, miss. The only way he’s making it is if I carry him. And he’s not small. He’s bigger than I am. But I guess I could try.”

  Roseanna sighed deeply. “Let’s go see what’s what.”

  Martin was sitting up in the grass, Roseanna noted as they headed down the hill. But it looked as though that was only the case because Dave was supporting the old man.

  When she reached him, Martin looked up at Roseanna with a look of utter shame and humiliation.

  “Oh, I feel just terrible about this, Rosie. I guess I must have caught some kind of bug. No wonder I’ve been all dizzy and tired. I swear I’m a solid old guy when I’m feeling well. I’m just not sure quite how to get up to the road in the state I’m in.”

  Roseanna held a palm to his forehead, the way she’d done with her son when he was little. Martin definitely had a fever.

  “We need to get you up to the house,” she said.

  “No, ma’am. I won’t hear of it. You deserve your privacy, and anyway, if I’m in your house I’ll get you sick, too, and I won’t be having any of that.”

  “I could take him back down the hill and set up his tent again,” Nelson said.

  “He shouldn’t be living in a tent if he has the flu.”

  “Don’t see why not, Rosie,” Martin said. “It’s warm enough. And I have my little sling cot.”

  Roseanna stood a moment. Thinking, yet not thinking. Just waiting for the details to settle in. For some kind of plan to emerge. A direction, at least.

  “Let’s try it for now,” she said after a time. “Nelson, will you keep a good eye on him? And if you’re concerned at all, you have to come tell me. If things take a bad turn, let me know right away.”

  “You bet, miss.”

  It was a worry. Martin was almost eighty. An eighty-year-old can die from the flu. It had been a contributing factor in the death of Roseanna’s own mother. She could take him to a hospital, if Nelson could carry him up the hill. Still, the hospital would likely just give him some kind of medication and release him back into Roseanna’s care. Since he had nowhere else to go.

  “Okay, then,” she said, and began the grueling walk back up to her house.

  On the way she offered a quick prayer that nobody would die on her property any time soon.

  Then she amended “any time soon” to “ever.”

  It was a good four days before she realized that Melanie and Dave had not left her property, either. Apparently they had simply kept their heads down instead. Melanie had even managed to be quiet.

  But one day Roseanna glanced out the window and noticed Dave fetching something out of their battered compact car.

  She slipped out of the house and stood on the path he would have to take to circle the house and head back down the hill.

  When he saw her there, he stopped in his tracks and offered a sheepish grin. He tipped his silly boater hat back on his head and scratched his scalp through all that bushy hair.

  “Right,” he said. “Sorry about that, Rosie. But Melanie figured since the other two didn’t have to go yet . . . But anyway, don’t worry. As soon as Martin’s back on his feet we’ll all be out of your hair.”

  Roseanna said nothing as he hurried by.

  If she had said something, it likely would have been something like “I used to think it was just that easy. Now I’m not so sure.”

  THREE MONTHS AFTER THE MOVE

  Chapter Thirteen

  Not a Horse in Any Sense of the Word

  Lance, who was not a breakfast person, had been out of the house for ten or fifteen minutes on a walk. He called it a “morning constitutional.” Roseanna had no idea where he’d gotten that term. Not from her.

  Roseanna, who was most definitely a breakfast person, was enjoying her breakfast when he stuck his head back through the door.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m a little surprised you didn’t tell me about the horse.”

  “What horse?”

  “Um . . . yours?”

  “I don’t have a horse,” she said, her mouth still full of toast.

  “Not that I begged you for one or anything. But here we were counting who all gets to live here, and . . .”

  “I don’t have a horse,” she said again, wondering how to make her answer any clearer than that.

  “Oh, I get it,” Lance said. The early morning sun lit his head and shoulders from behind like a halo. “You concede that he’s a horse, but you don’t exactly have him. He has you.”

  “There’s no horse,” Roseanna said, marveling at the disconnect. “Nobody has anybody in any way that involves a horse. There is simply no horse.”

  “Then what do you call that four-legged animal in your barn?”

  Roseanna sighed audibly and rose from the couch, leaving her food behind. Which was irritating, to put it mildly. She knew when she got to the barn this would all be revealed as some kind of joke or misunderstanding. And then she would be mad about her food getting cold. Which she was already, to some degree. It was something of an anger preview.

  She followed Lance through the barely cool morning, ignoring a couple of lookie-loos leaning on her fence and snapping pictures of the metal zoo. There were plenty of them these days, since that damned article had run. Roseanna no longer felt inclined to engage them in conversation. There were too many. And besides, what had it gotten her in the past? Just an open worm can. A swirl of problems she knew she’d be happier without.

  Together she and Lance stuck their heads into the barn.

  An animal undeniably equine swung his head around and looked at Roseanna—with mild curio
sity—over the roof of her Maserati. With perhaps a trace of good humor mixed in, though that might have been her imagination. What did Roseanna know about horses, after all?

  He was white, or nearly white. Maybe gray, or maybe a white horse who had spent too much time since his last bath rolling in the dirt. It was hard to tell if his longish, raggedy coat was stained by mud or was just a muddy color in places. His back was slightly swayed, his big head Roman-nosed and stubborn looking. He might even have been part donkey or mule, she thought, looking at his huge and ungainly ears, which swung back and forth, following sounds.

  To say he was not the most beautiful horse would have been laughably understating the case.

  Roseanna noticed that her son was staring at her. Also that her mouth was hanging open.

  “You seriously don’t know this horse?” Lance asked.

  “I never saw that beast before in my life.”

  The beast lazily swished his tail. Swatting flies, maybe.

  “So what do you suppose he’s doing in your barn?”

  “Maybe a practical joke on somebody’s part? Anybody who knows me would know the last thing I want is a horse. Or any other animal, for that matter.”

  A flash of bright pink sailed by Roseanna at about waist level. It took her a moment to realize it was Willa at a dead run.

  “Earnest!” Willa shouted, hugging the horse around one hairy front leg. “Earnest! You came back!”

  “You know this horse?” Roseanna asked.

  She walked closer to the little girl, which unfortunately involved moving closer to the outsized beast. But if a five-year-old could survive it . . .

  “Of course,” Willa said. “It’s Earnest. Everybody knows Earnest.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Well, everybody else does,” Willa said with an air of condescension. She was still hugging one of Earnest’s hairy legs.

  “Do you know why Earnest is here?”

  “He lives here.”

  “Beg to differ,” Roseanna said.

  “I don’t know what that means.”