by Jessie Haas
The brush stroked across the surface of the door. The colors brightened and deepened. The dog stood out more and more solidly, and the blank place stood out, too, a white place with ragged edges of paint where the beautiful lady would go—if this was enough to persuade her.
On the third day Louise looked at the door and said, “All right.”
The next day she brought a long dress, as requested. To Chad’s delight, it was a deep ruby red. He hadn’t known what color he needed to complete the picture, but red was perfect. The dress was long-sleeved and hot; he brought her chair around to the shady end of the deck.
“So what am I doing in this picture?” Louise asked. “Waiting around for the knight to rescue me?”
A sharpness in her voice warned Chad. He said, “Maybe you’re waiting around to rescue him!”
That made her laugh and relax a little, but Chad couldn’t relax. He could hardly look at her, let alone draw. The first sketches were angular and lopsided and awful.
Maybe it was the pencil: too hard, too pointed. He switched to vine charcoal, pushing up and up the page in free, branchy swoops. Strokes for nose and mouth and chin; in one picture they were just the right strokes, short, beautiful lines that said “Louise.”
“Your grandfather took Sky to lunch again,” Louise said. “I thought that was nice, taking your grandson on a lunch date.”
Keep talking, Chad thought. It freed her neck; it freed his hand. “It is nice,” he said, and the whole experience of lunch in town with Jeep flooded into his mind: the counter in the general store, the high stools and the odd-tasting water in thick plastic glasses, the BLT that squirted down your chin. Jeep. Good for Sky, and good that it was now, just when Chad most needed to be free of him.
Say something more, he thought at Louise. He couldn’t talk and draw at the same time, not the kind of talking in which you think about what you’re saying. He could throw out random comments or respond to them, but it felt like someone else speaking, as if there were three of them here, not two.
Fortunately Louise wanted to talk, about David mostly. They were creating a new life together, discovering new likes and new customs. She saw her father as fragile, needing constant care. “After the divorce I had to train him to cheer up. Everything he taught me about seeing what’s positive—he didn’t use it on himself. I had to show him: ‘Look, you can read the paper at breakfast! Look, today no one will criticize you!’”
That might not make up for losing your wife, Chad thought. He stroked the charcoal across the paper, feeling out the dip in Louise’s collarbone.
“I told him,” Louise said, “‘The glass isn’t half empty; it’s half full.’”
“It’s both, really,” Chad said. “Has to be.”
Louise swiveled to stare at him, ruining the pose. “That’s what Daddy said!”
The charcoal made a lightning flash down the paper, catching the new position. “And what did you say back?”
“I said, ‘You’re right! Is the glass half full or half empty? That’s not the question!’”
“What is the question?”
“Will you reach for the glass? Will you drink the water?”
The backs of Chad’s eyeballs prickled. Will you drink the water?
I will, he wanted to say. But was that true? Was he the kind of person who reached for the glass? Or did he stand back, with arms folded and lips closed?
“Can I stand up now?” Louise stretched and came over to look at the sketch pad. “Oh!”
Chad thought even the back of his neck must be brick red. Now she was seeing what he saw when he looked at her.
“On the door it’ll be mostly dress,” he said. He’d be walking by that door several times a day, as she knew full well. He wasn’t going to put an awkward, botched portrait there, and he wouldn’t put up anything that would seem too intimate. It would be just a suggestion, just enough to say “Louise” to him. He didn’t know how to put that into words.
“Well,” Louise said, “tomorrow can we go for a walk? Because I need to start using this ankle. I was hoping you’d show me some of the trails.”
She met him and Queenie on the road at noontime, wearing black shoes with high, thick soles. “They lace up tight,” she said, seeing him look. “They support my ankle.”
They appeared dangerous to Chad and made her two unnecessary inches taller. He chose the easiest trail he knew.
The next day she wore sneakers, but she still seemed taller. This time it was the hair, spiked nearly straight.
“Wouldn’t you rather be able to wear a hat?”
Louise sparkled her eyes at him. “No! I don’t want a hat!”
She wanted to be taller. She was making him safe to hang out with. Short, young, safe.
I’ll take it! Chad thought. It’s a start.
David had appointments that afternoon, so Louise wasn’t in a rush to get back. Chad showed her the waterfall.
It was astonishingly cool there. A breeze off the falling water turned the hollow into a refrigerator. Louise looked for a long time, really seeing it, as Chad had wanted. He thought about saying how the stone shaped the water, how the water shaped the stone. But it was either obvious or too complex, and he didn’t.
They sat on rocks by the edge of the pool, and Queenie waded into it to lap from the middle. Louise took off her sneaker and tenderly unwrapped her ankle. She sank it into the water with a sigh. “This is the one thing I wish hadn’t happened this summer. School’s already going to be hard enough.”
“But you’re looking forward to it, right? I mean, you’re going to be a dancer.”
Louise shook her head. “I’m not good enough, and I’m probably not driven enough. I could never make myself throw up, for anything!”
“Should you?”
“If I was serious about dance, I should think I’m fat. Even though I’m not. I should care that much.”
“That’s crazy!”
“I should be crazy. I should be sad that I’m not crazy! I think it’s going to be an awful lot of work for someone who isn’t crazy. I think I’m going to find out that lunacy is required.”
“So …?”
“I do love dance. I love how it looks. I love being able to. And leotards! I love leotards!” She was laughing. “It’s a little girl thing. Oh well! An arts high school should be interesting.”
“Yeah,” Chad said glumly. Guys who could lift her with one hand, he was thinking. Guys who could paint like Michelangelo. Not in a million years was she going to remember her father’s wimpy little research assistant. He stretched out an arm to snag Queenie as she passed, and pulled her close. “You’ll be with your mother, anyway.”
She made a face. “I’m a daddy’s girl. But Mum’s okay, as long as they aren’t together.”
It was none of his business, but Chad had to ask. “What happened with them?”
Louise hugged her knee, and rested her cheek on it. “Okay, what I think? I think his being a dog trainer was marginal for her, maybe right from the start, but lately for sure. But at least he was a star dog trainer. You saw his video, right?”
“He hates his video.”
Louise nodded. The motion shivered the surface of the water. “He stopped being a drill sergeant and became Doctor Dolittle. But Mum didn’t want to be married to Doctor Dolittle. So she took him to the cleaners in the good old-fashioned way and moved to New York. She even got our dog.”
“How come she didn’t get you?”
“She got most of me!” Louise said. “She got the school year! “
Dumb question, Chad thought. Sad answer.
Louise wrapped her ankle again, put on her sneaker, and they started across the hillside. To keep her interested, Chad was prepared to give away all his secrets. What he had left was the lookout point from which he’d watched her. After that he’d just have to think of something. Or she would.
They came to the lower edge of Jeep’s hayfield. The green expanse opened before them, brilliant after the
deep woods. Here they’d seen the fox, the day of that awful picnic.
Chad was about to remind Louise when, far up the hillside, he saw the tiny figure of a horse and rider. Julia’s bright tie-dye was dimmed by distance into a sort of camouflage. Tiger’s chestnut coat flamed against the green.
What were they doing? Around, around, around. Tiger’s neck was high; his steps were short and mincing. Chad saw him shake his head, shorthand for what he really wanted to do.
At his side Queenie whined, and Chad put a hand on her neck.
Then Julia jerked on one rein, yelling. She jumped off. She slapped Tiger’s neck, and the sound rang down the hillside. “I’d like to kill you!” The voice was small with distance and thick with sobs. “I’d like to sell you for dog meat!” Jerk! Slap!
Chad went hot all over. His heart seemed to sink through his body. He didn’t want to look at Louise; he wanted to evaporate.
But he did look. Louise was—what? Shocked? Her mouth opened as if to speak, and tears sprang up in her eyes, drained back.
“Oh no!” she said suddenly, looking up toward the barn.
Jeep came running. Actually running. That was something Chad had never seen off the baseball diamond. Jeep’s leather work boots sprang over the mown grass, never stumbling. He came swiftly, like a skipping boulder. Tiger backed away, shaking his head. Julia stood motionless, staring the way Chad was staring.
Jeep grabbed them. One hand wrapped into the cheekpiece of the bridle, dragging Tiger’s head down. The other seized Julia’s upper arm. He shook her. Her braid flapped twice. Now Jeep was yelling right into her face; his voice was deep, and his words were unclear. Julia crumpled, melting out of his hand into the grass.
Jeep turned from her and led Tiger up the hill. The horse’s tail cringed into his haunches. Jeep stumbled once or twice, a short-legged man, seventy years old. All the way up the hill he marched, nonetheless, and disappeared into the barn.
Julia never moved, just lay where she was like a heap of laundry.
“We have to go to her,” Louise whispered. There were streaks of white under her eyes, and she looked frightened.
Chad nodded. He didn’t want to go anywhere near Julia, or Jeep, or Tiger. But Louise was right. They did have to. They crossed through the gap in the stone wall and started up the field.
They began to hear the low, heavy sound of crying. It made Chad sweat with embarrassment. She was groaning from deep inside, and he remembered how that felt, as if you had too much pain to keep in, as if you had to give birth to it, heave it out of yourself, and your throat was nearly too small. They shouldn’t be here. When he’d cried like that, for Shep, he’d been deep in the woods, where no one could hear.
But Louise dropped to her knees beside Julia and put a hand on her back. Julia’s body jerked. “It’s Louise. And Chad.”
Julia wrapped her arm around her head and pushed her face deeper into the grass. Even now she couldn’t seem to catch the groans. Louise sat rubbing her back while the sounds slowly ran down. Chad stood a few feet away, smoothing one of Queenie’s silky ears over and over between his fingers.
After a while Julia was quiet, just lying there. A change came in her breathing. She was starting to think, maybe come up with some story. Chad wasn’t sure he could take that. He said, “We saw.”
Julia stopped breathing, for what seemed like a long time. She didn’t raise her head. After a while her voice came low and slow out of the grass.
“I hate myself. I hate myself. I can’t do it. He should never, never have given me a horse to train. I don’t know how. I don’t know how. I—”
“Learn!” The harsh sound of Louise’s voice made Chad jump. “You think you should automatically know how to train a horse? Were you supposed to be born knowing?”
Julia raised her head. Her face was pale and blotched and wet. “I try. I read my books—”
“I’ve seen your books! You’re trying to read Shakespeare, for God’s sake, without even knowing the alphabet!”
Julia didn’t move or blink.
“Look, it’s not your fault!” Louise said. “There are rules, they’re simple, and you can do everything with them. You don’t have to be a saint, and you don’t have to be a horse whisperer, and you don’t, for God’s sake, need a psychic reading! You just have to learn the rules. Ask Daddy—”
“No!”
“Yes!” Louise said. “Yes!” She bent forward to look into Julia’s eyes. Chad was outside the circle they made, standing while they were down in the grass, awkward while they were perfectly unselfconscious. Louise stared gently, fiercely at Julia.
At last Julia stirred, with a look of hope, and then her face crumpled again, and she dropped her head onto her arm. “Jeep’s going to sell him.”
Jeep. Jeep. Heat mushroomed through the core of Chad’s body, swift and smooth.
“He won’t do that,” Louise said.
Julia said, “He will. He will. He can’t stand cruelty to animals—”
“He shoots animals!”
The words ripped at Chad’s throat. Louise started and looked up at him. Then she drew a deep breath. “He won’t, once he knows you’re getting help. I’ll have Daddy talk to him.”
Julia said, “The auction is tomorrow.”
Yes, auctions were on Saturdays. Jeep always left early, his truck rolling past the house before it was light.
Louise said, “I’ll talk to Daddy the minute he gets home.” Jeep and what he would do weren’t real to her. She thought she could brush it all away.
Chad drew a deep, openmouthed breath. Things seemed unusually vivid, as if an electric shock had cleared all his channels. Afternoon shadows streaked across the green and golden grass. Swallows dived. Chad could see the tiny insects they snatched from the air. Off in the woods a hermit thrush began her evening song.
No time. Louise would have trouble persuading David. He’d already made one mistake with their family. He didn’t like Julia; he’d no sooner met her and Tiger there beside the moving van than he’d sent them away. It would take Louise awhile to bring him around, and by then it would be too late.
But Louise didn’t know that. “You can’t just lie here,” she said to Julia. “Come to the brook, and wash your face. It’ll be all right.” She put her arm around Julia, lifting her. Julia went along passively, and Chad was left with the patch of crushed grass, the neon-bright helmet.
He picked it up. The padding was wet with Julia’s sweat. He followed them to the brook. Louise patted Julia’s face with a dampened tissue, as if they were best friends. Chad said, “I’ll take this home.” Louise nodded without looking.
Fine. She would do what she was doing. He knew what he had to do.
CHAPTER
23
THE DOOR WAS an unexpected handicap. Chad had to keep opening it to hear when everyone fell asleep. Before, he’d have known just lying on his bed.
Sky ran down about ten o’clock. Gib picked him up off the floor and carried him upstairs.
Light shone from under Julia’s door for a while longer, then went out. Chad listened, pressing his ear to the wall. Usually Julia tossed and turned, as the energy of her body resisted sleep. Tonight she lay dead still. Chad knew that stillness: despair on top of you like a rock. Julia didn’t believe in David’s help either.
After her light had gone out, he waited on the landing for a long time, listening to the murmur behind Mom and Gib’s curtain. They knew something was wrong with Julia, so wrong they didn’t dare dig it out of her. Jeep hadn’t called to tell them. Apparently he didn’t plan to; he’d just load Tiger at dawn and drive away.
The voices quieted. The glow of light from under their curtain vanished. About fifteen minutes later came a snore.
He waited a few minutes longer, then walked along the landing. His bare feet made no sound. Down the stairs, skipping the step that squeaked.
On the couch Queenie raised her head.
Chad glided past her through the dimly moonlit li
ving room. He opened the front door. Queenie’s claws scrabbled on the floor.
“No!” Chad whispered. He slipped through the door and closed it quickly. Immediately came Queenie’s whine.
“Shh!” He opened the door again. Queenie came out and thump-clatter, thump-clattered down the stairs. Chad waited for his mother’s voice.
Nothing.
He eased down the deck stairs and sat on the bottom step to put on his sneakers. Queenie stood nearly out of sight in the darkness. “What am I going to do with you?” Chad whispered. Clearly he couldn’t leave her; she’d wake everyone up. If he took her—
Off to the east came the eerie wail of coyotes, maybe one, maybe ten.
Wouldn’t hurt to have Queenie along.
He picked up his flashlight and made his way to the barn, felt along the pegs. No halter. Where could Julia have left it? He didn’t want to turn the light on and spoil his night vision, but at last he had to. A rope was tied to the hitching ring, and the halter dangled from it with no horse inside. He untied the rope and slung it and the halter over his shoulder.
Now up the road. Under the half-moon the trees cast black shadows. An owl hooted nearby. “Who cooks for you, who cooks for you-oo?” The soft, savage flutter at the end of the hoot sent a shiver down Chad’s neck. He was glad of Queenie’s pale tail glowing ahead like a candle. Up and up the road; it seemed longer than in daylight, but finally he came out of the trees onto the open hilltop above the fields.
The house slept. Beyond the picket fence Helen’s flowers made a white blur in the moonlight. A river of scent poured off them. It smelled like spiced vanilla, the way vanilla might smell in heaven.
Chad crossed the yard, feeling exposed and noisy, though his steps and Queenie’s made only slight scritchings on the gravel. He was glad to slip inside the barn, black and silent and sweet with the scent of hay.
He switched on his flashlight, holding it low and pointing the beam toward the floor. Back, back. “Good, Queenie!” he whispered to the dim golden gleam on his left. “Sit!” The pig gave a long, low grunt. No sound came from the henhouse.
