by Lisa Preston
She eyed the clock, decided Ardy would be home in less than an hour—he was spot-logging a small job—so they’d talk soon. She dialed Doug, sighed with the message that the cell phone was beyond the service area. She dialed Maddie and left a message for her or Doug to call back as soon as they could.
Okay, sometimes, given that Ben and Clara and Doug and Emma and Frankie were all adults and the bulk of her child-rearing was long past, raising a little one at this age was a bit tiring. She pushed herself up from the sofa and called for Greer to come do his homework at the dining table. And she winced at the sting of his snide oh-kay.
“Momma, how do you know if you’re someone who can see things that are going to … that might happen?” Greer looked up from his math textbook, a face full of emotion. Bella thought she saw fear and hope for an answer, then annoyance when she smiled at his cuteness.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, how?” Greer insisted, saying his simple words slowly as he pushed away from her, eager to understand. “How do you know?”
“Sweetie.” She reached for him, then sighed when he stiffened and refused her hug. “I don’t understand yet what you’re asking me. Can you give me an example? A ‘for instance’ or something like that?”
He shook his head. She cocked hers and eyed him. “Can you tell me exactly what you thought of that made you have this question?”
“No.”
“No?” She let offense into her tone, hands on her hips, eyebrows raised. “Greer, I think you need to find your manners and put them back on. Should we look around and see if we can’t find them? Maybe they’re under your bed. Maybe at the back of your closet. Could you have left your manners at the barn? Let’s go check.”
He slumped into his chair and swung his heels against the rails. She paused, waiting. Usually teasing him about where he’d left his manners worked a treat when he was being a pill, which wasn’t often.
“Greer, I think it’s high time you cough up and tell me what is going on in that little cement head of yours.” She poked him in the ribs and smirked, trying for some fun to ease him out of his mood.
He headed down the hall and she followed him into his bedroom where he belly flopped on the floor, crawling under his bed. She hauled him out by his ankles, couldn’t think what to say, to ask. A dust bunny stuck to his wet face. He’d been crying, just a little.
“What’s going on with you?”
He shook his head.
Bella sighed and told him to lie down for a nap. This secret business with Doug, she noted, would have to be cleared up right away. Still, she could be letting Greer just escalate an unnecessary drama, making something out of nothing. A high threshold for alarm had always been a good Donner hallmark. It’s how she and Ardy had begun a life together in high school. A life well-lived accounted for possibility, adjusted to the wonder and strangeness brought by years in the natural world under the gamut of humanity.
He sat up in bed and wrapped his arms around himself. He was such a good little guy, her Greer. He sank down in the pillow and crossed his arms. Was he just tired? She thought she heard him up once in the night. Just being overtired could make anyone weird and cranky. She scooted to sit on the floor, her face beside his, and playfully uncrossed his arms.
He screwed his eyes shut but popped them open, like he’d seen a ghost.
Bella patted his hands, jostled his shoulders, and kissed him smack dab in the forehead. “Talk to me, buddy. Just tell me what’s on your mind.”
“No, Momma, please.”
He was so serious. When was the last time she heard her youngest laugh?
Her little boy didn’t want to fish that weekend, or ride. He wanted to stay in his room. Bella didn’t like any of this. Ardy’s answer was to put the lad to work. Ardy believed no father was more delighted with his kids, each having won some struggle. Greer would get there, too, he promised, kissing Bella.
Their firewood pile was already substantial, but he announced over pancakes and sausage that Greer should have a second helping because he and Greer were going to work their tails off, cutting, splitting, and stacking all day and the next day, too.
Bella stood ready to deal with the kid’s fast reasons why he needed to stay inside instead of work, but he seemed perfectly happy to be pressed into hard labor at his father’s side.
The school nurse called Monday because Greer was crying out of control at recess. He refused to tell her what was wrong and she sent him to the school counselor.
“You don’t need to come pick him up. He’s fine, absolutely fine. We just wanted to let you know. Let’s not make too much of this.” The nurse had obviously seen more than her fair share of upset kids. “I did wonder if you’ve had a death in the family. He was asking me provocative questions about what happens when people die.”
“What people?”
“He was asking in general.”
“We haven’t had a death in the family. I’ll talk to him about this. If he’ll talk to me. He’s been kind of odd when we talk these days.”
“Perhaps a death in the extended family? A family friend? A pet?”
“No!”
“Now, now. I know he’s your baby and this is upsetting.”
“He’s not my first child,” Bella reminded the woman. “I’m not a new mother. I’m not hysterical. This is different. Greer’s been different lately.”
Bella called the pediatrician and spoke to his nurse about Greer’s behavior.
“Well,” this nurse said, “having some virus, say some new flu bug perhaps, could make your boy more susceptible to other problems. Say, if he was possibly going to be upset about, oh, maybe not being allowed to watch TV one night, then being a little sick or ill could make him grumpier. He’d have a bigger fit. You see?”
“Of course I see that. I’ve raised five children to adulthood,” Bella all but shouted. Everyone in her doctor’s office knew she had adult kids. The school knew. Why would they speak to her this way? She wanted to throttle everyone she’d talked to about Greer for weeks. She’d seen her little son clutch his head and cover his eyes. When she asked if he had a headache, she didn’t believe his denial.
This nurse echoed the family doctor and the pediatrician. “There’s nothing wrong with his noggin that doesn’t just need some growing up.”
They thought she was being silly to want the boy’s head x-rayed or scanned.
It took all Bella had to wait for Greer to come in from the school bus that afternoon.
He was fine. Absolutely fine.
But he didn’t engage, only said, “I don’t know,” to anything she asked. What was he thinking about? Did he have a good day? Did he have homework for tomorrow? Where was his spelling list? What was the next book he had to read and do a book report on? She told him to lie down and take a nap. He surged for his bedroom.
Bella frowned over the way he jumped when she pushed a sticky dresser drawer shut with a bang.
“We’re going to see someone special,” Bella told her cranky son when she got a referral from her doctor. Greer wouldn’t look at her, just stared at the mountains beyond town.
Bella jumped when Maddie called. “You left a message while we were out of town.”
“I actually wanted to talk to Doug.”
“He’s right here,” Maddie said. “I’ll pass you to him.”
Bella listened to her say something to Doug. Even though she couldn’t make out words, the tone of their voices was happy music, so lighthearted, easy, and contented. Doug sounded so much like his father at that age, she felt a tug of nostalgia.
“What’s up?” Doug asked.
“Greer’s being a little pill and the best I can get out of him is that you told him a secret. He ran off on me when we were in town for errands.”
“He ran off? You have no idea where he is? Have you called Ben and Emma?”
“No, he’s here with me now. It was a few days ago. Listen, what’s this secret business between you two?”
“Yes. Please tell me what it is.”
Doug laughed. “It’s no reason for drama. Want me to beat the crap out of the kid?”
“I’m serious. Is anything going on? Anything at all I should be aware of?”
“Nah. But I do kind of want to thump on him.”
“Doug, I’ve been called by the school over him acting up.”
“Look, I’ll talk to him about this secret business.” His voice caught on the last two words. Mocking her? “Put him on the phone.”
Bella pursed her lips. Greer was in his bedroom. She set the kitchen cordless down and roused her youngest to the living room. “Your brother wants to talk to you.” Slipping back to the kitchen, she brought her handset to her ear, setting aside the guilty pangs as she eavesdropped.
“Dude, are you being respectful?” Doug’s question to Greer hung in silence. “Dude, don’t be giving Momma a hard time. And what I said to you before, that’s quiet for now. Between brothers. I asked you if you could keep a secret and you agreed, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” came Greer’s murmur.
“You gonna man up?”
“Yessir.”
They hung up with mumbled good-byes. For Donner guys, a breathtaking display of emotion. Bella clicked her phone off and set it aside quietly, in case Greer came in. She wouldn’t want him to know she’d listened in on his conversation.
The phone rang again and she ignored it, still considering her youngest.
Emma’s voice rang out on the recording in progress. “Mom? Momma?”
Bella picked up, listening to guy problems, ticking off answers in her mind as she struggled to not say the obvious and stay with Emma’s rant about how her boyfriend berated her. Her daughter didn’t used to talk so fast, the city had done this to her. If only Emma would see that such a life was not for her. Emma was trying to be two people, trying to be like her sister, the city-smooth Clara, with the big-money career and cultured husband, yet remain the country girl of her heart. For three years now, Emma sous-cheffed at a four-star Seattle hotel bistro three days a week, roommating, aching over a guy who did not treat her well. When she came home at intervals, recently breathing life into a dying coffee shop with sweet and savory baking, she looked so much more relaxed, sounded happy. The big city had stolen several of her kids. Something else was stealing her baby.
Emma said something about a little apartment above the bakery, her gluten-free recipes being ignored, working a ten-hour shift at the bistro, and more about her boyfriend standing her up for dinner tonight and not responding to her texts.
“Mom,” Emma sighed, “this is like the third time this month he’s just dropped off the radar.”
Quit that guy. Quit that job. Come home and make your life here where you love it.
But she couldn’t be so blunt to her daughter. She had to let Emma work her own way to the solution. This was the kind of girl-talk she shared with Caroline, whose daughter, Maddie, felt every bit like a daughter to Bella. From the moment Doug and Maddie had taken up together, Bella thought Maddie was born to be in the roughhousing Donner clan, that Doug had chosen his perfect woman.
Oh, she loved Clara’s Wes, loved Ben’s partner, Ryan. But that city guy Emma was with? He was a setback. The one time Emma brought him out to meet everyone had been a stiff dinner. The guy raised his eyebrows at just about anything—wasn’t cool with Ben having a boyfriend. But now Emma said she was going to bring him out again almost in the same breath as she fussed about how he ignored her or the slighting comments he made. This wasn’t the guy for Emma. Even Greer had said so. Bella kept her mirth inside as Emma talked, but remembered Greer’s indignation when the guy had called Greer “Greg” then stuck to calling him “sport” and “little dude.” Ugh.
“Hey there.” Maddie looked up from her herb garden on the cabin’s south side. Her delight at the surprise visit basted Bella in glorious goodwill.
“I’m so glad you two are back. I’d really like a word with Doug.”
“He’s inside, cooking dinner.”
Bella was impressed by that. Doug, the guy who moved like a whisper in the woods, was being domestic. She crossed the worn little porch, flooded with memories. Ardy had built this cabin in his senior year of high school, to take care of Bella, his scandalously pregnant classmate and girlfriend, rejected by her parents. He had seen only good in their premature entry to parenthood. Bella had been pregnant with Frankie when she left the cabin, divorced Ardy, and moved with four children under five years old to the home she’d suddenly been able to buy with an inheritance. During the many years they’d been divorced, she and Ardy raised the children in determined cooperation. When their romance relit, Greer was the result.
Doug was the only one of the adult kids who hadn’t moved away to the city or beyond at that point, so he’d announced he’d be the protector of the next whelp. The one to stick, the one most like their father, the fisher, the woodsman, the first to marry.
“Doug, this secret you told Greer. I need to know.” Bella wondered if her daughter-in-law had other ideas about this secret business, or if Maddie was outside just giving them space, or just gardening.
When he was younger, Greer drove Maddie to distraction during the times she kept an eye on him. Bella and all the rest of the family assured her Donner kids bled and got lost and had catastrophes, and it would all come out in the wash. Maddie had worried about him falling out of a chair, down the front steps, anything.
Thinking of Maddie’s early efforts at babysitting Greer, Bella felt her face dimple. She was sure her young daughter-in-law would get calmer about children after Maddie and Doug had their first. She remembered being a new mother herself. Was it easier or harder now that she was older? Why was Greer so off? She buttonholed Doug now.
He laughed, told her he had nothing inappropriate in secret with Greer and she’d know soon enough. She could see him digging in his heels.
“I’d like to know now. Something is going on with that boy.”
“I don’t know about that,” Doug said. “But nothing he and I have talked about has anything to do with him acting up at school.”
“Doug, please just tell me.”
“Nope.”
From listening in on Doug and Greer’s talk on the phone, she’d known it would be tough going to get Doug to talk. “You are a stubborn, stubborn guy. Very black and white.”
Bella went home pissed but waited until Greer was in bed to talk to Ardy.
“There’s something going on.” She repeated every odd moment with Greer, drilling in on how she wanted to know what secret the brothers shared. “Neither one of them will give it up. I’d like you to talk to him.”
“Huh.” Ardy ran both hands through his short crop. He flexed his hands, pumped his biceps. Yes, he was still a hard body. “I really don’t know if I can get the better of Doug at this point in life.”
“I’m being serious, Ardy.”
“Me, too. Pretty sure I could whip Frankie.”
“Ardy …”
“Or either of the girls.”
“Stop it.”
“Maybe Ben, but I’m not sure. See, Doug does more hard work than Ben. His hatchery job is pretty physical. Want Ben to talk to Greer?”
“What? Why?” Bella asked.
Ardy shrugged. “You know, to find out if he’s, well, gay.”
“You think that’s what’s going on with Greer?” Bella felt her face stretch from having her eyebrows up so high. “You think he’s falling asleep in school and forgetting and dropping things and freaking out and giving up everything he used to like to do and being a regular little snot in general, you think that’s his way of coming out of the closet?”
Ardy raised his shoulders, helpless. “I dunno. Could it be? The thing is, I’m not going to make the mistake I made with Ben back when. I’m not going to, you know, freak out.”
It was a normal day, no incidents, and Bella about deci
ded life was normal. “How about you go help Papa feed the horses.”
Greer looked out the window, looked surprised. “It’s dark.”
There it was again, that sense of fear. “Then you can set the table for me.” The phone trilled and she ignored it, letting the machine pick up. She handed Greer three plates with a splay of tableware. He trundled obediently through the swinging doors to the dining table.
“Hi, it’s Caroline,” the musical voice crackled over the answering machine. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, well, it’s for my boss, actually. You may have noticed him when you dropped in the other day. Anyway, he’s looking for a youngster to do yard work. Would that work out for Greer, do you think? Give me a call whenever.”
Bella smiled. Her daughter-in-law’s mother had become her most constant companion, a confidante. They knew the private details of each other’s unique past struggles. Leave it to Caroline. Maybe a job was just what Greer needed.
Gasps. She heard the sound of gasping, as though people were running and fighting in the dining room, but there was no commotion.
“What’s going on in there, buddy?” she called. “Did you wash up?”
No response.
“Greer? You sound like a steam engine in there. What’s going on?”
Gasping, gasping. Gasping.
Bella stepped through. “Greer?”
He gripped the table, his chest heaving, mouth agape, chugging air faster and harder than she had ever seen anyone breathe. His cheeks were pale and blue and gray all at the same time. A sheen of sweat made his skin slimy. Her eyes widened at his wild-eyed, unfocused gaze, and then she saw him glimpse her, the sight of her concern, real and scared as she stared at him.
“Can’t … breathe.” He slumped against the table, collapsing before she reached him.
“Greer!” She lunged, banging a chair, knocking one hip against the table’s corner as she rushed to grab him. He slipped halfway to the floor. Her palms clasped his sinking shoulders and she guided him to the hardwood. She held him to her body, shaking him gently, then away, peering at his face. His eyelids revealing slits of white. She lowered his body to the floor, placed him on his side, and whirled for the telephone, punching three digits.
