A Home for Goddesses and Dogs

by Leslie Connor

  “But Lydia, wh—”

  “And I know you want to know why I didn’t tell you about it, and the answer is, I don’t know.” I took a second to think. “But it wasn’t a secret, and I wasn’t trying to deceive you. I did the same thing with that card that I’ve done with every other one. I stashed it away.” Ugh. I could only hope that made sense to them.

  “But Lydia, this is different. Your life has changed. A lot. Your mom dying, and this move. We didn’t expect to hear from him.”

  “Neither did I!” I said. “I’ll give you the card! You can read it. I don’t care!”

  “So, you didn’t open this card?” Her voice was very gentle.

  “No,” I repeated. “Are you going to make me?”

  “No. Never,” said Aunt Brat.

  “No, never,” Eileen echoed.

  “I’m just wondering what’s on his mind,” Aunt Brat said. She drew a breath in and let it go slowly.

  “The few cards I did open over the years said almost nothing.”

  “Okay. But let me say something, Lydia. If ever you want to reach out to Kemp”—I let my body sag, I rolled my eyes, but Aunt Brat waited me out—“and just see what he’s all about, I’d rather help with that than have you sneak around about it. Please. Please?” I was already nodding yes, making the promise. “Because he is your father, and—”

  “Yeah, but he’s the one who chose to turn that into nothing but biology,” I said.

  A faint smile crossed Aunt Brat’s lips. “That sounds like something Holly would say,” she said, and the smile grew broader.

  “She did say it.”

  “Huh-haw,” said Eileen.

  “But Aunt Brat, and you too, Eileen, I was not trying to hide that piece of mail from you.” I waited a second, then added something that was a surprise even to me. “I was keeping it unimportant. Just like all his cards.”

  Oh, my gosh, Mom. I just put it into words. . . .

  45

  Wrong Thing, Right Reason

  Aunt Brat wanted to see where I had most recently encountered Moss Capperow’s uncle. On a Sunday morning in the middle of March, she skied and I snowshoed out to the tiny stream. I carried the two mousetraps in the tote. Aunt Brat had shouldered her backpack. It wasn’t unusual for her to take it on her ski outings. I did note that something was rattling around inside of it.

  We’d left the dogs at home. That was Aunt Brat’s idea. “In case we do encounter the Tormentor Capperow, or if we want to journey afar today.”

  “Afar, did you say? Boston by sundown?” I teased, and she laughed.

  For now, she followed me, using her fat skis the same way one walks on snowshoes. I wondered how I’d keep up with her if we did go afar. She could glide; I couldn’t. But I had become surprisingly swift on the snowshoes, and I figured I’d race her if I had to.

  “This is the place,” I said when we reached the tiny stream. I hopped across it and pointed with one pole into the woods. “See the gouges?” I said. “Those are from the four-wheeler.”

  “It’s a bit sickening,” she said. “And this is Elloroy’s land.”

  Aunt Brat watched me release the first mouse. We gave it kudos for heading into a hollowed tree stump. But the second mouse skittered out of its trap and over the back of my hand.

  I let out an “Eeep!” Then an “Ayi-yi-yi!” I jumped backward. I tripped on the snowshoes and fell on my rear. I looked at Aunt Brat. We made the same face at each other: mouths and eyes wide open in surprise. Then we burst out laughing. The mouse was gone.

  “Come on!” she called when she could talk again. “Get up! Let’s hike!”

  “Ha! Easy for you to say,” I said. As I came back across the stream, she reached to take the tote from me. She rolled it up, traps and all, and tucked it into her own backpack.

  “Now you’re less encumbered,” she said. “Try to keep up!” Off she went, bending into each glide of her skis. I stabbed my poles into the snow and chased her.

  I know that she slowed down for me. I’d catch up every hundred yards or so, only to fall behind again. I sweated. My nose dripped. But Raya and Sari had taught me the useful art of shooting snot rockets, and I did what I had to do when I had to do it.

  We began to climb, and that’s when I knew I’d been on the other side of this hill before.

  We crested and started down, both of us sidestepping. Soon, we were just a few feet from the place where I’d asked my friends to turn back a few weeks ago. Both Aunt Brat and I knew this set of tracks. She said nothing, but she chose to rest here. We stood catching our breath. I looked down on the Gerber farm—the view in miniature.

  “Shall we?” Aunt Brat said.

  “Shall we what?” I asked. “Go down?” I continued to breathe.

  She nodded. “I want to check on them.”

  “On the Gerbers?”

  Aunt Brat gave me a soft smile. “No, Lyddie. The goats.”

  We looked at each other.

  “I know you know,” she said. Then, almost as if we’d planned it, we switched our gazes down the snowy slope to the farm again. The shiny obsidian creek had become a wider line through the snow.

  “Well, you did come home with hay on your socks,” I said. “And you did make a path. . . .”

  “Hmm,” Aunt Brat hummed.

  “Why have you kept them a secret?” I asked. “I mean, what about Eileen? She wanted them.”

  “I did it for Eileen,” she said. She sighed. “Oh, Lyddie. If it had been anything but goats that turned up at the Feed that day . . .” She shook her head in a confounded sort of way. “I could neither bring them home, nor leave them to be rescued by someone else—because they were goats. I wanted them for Eileen. I knew we could give them a home—the perfect home. But given the horrible shape they were in, and after what Eileen went through with her herd, I just had to know that this little pair had a fighting chance. I needed to know they were going to survive.”

  “Yes,” I said, though it came out no louder than a breath. She was right, I thought. “And? Do you know now? Are they going to be okay?”

  My aunt nodded and smiled. Her eyes pooled with hopeful tears. “Weeks of touch and go. But they’ve done well,” she said, a high little song of triumph in her voice. “They will need special care, and prostheses, and we can do that.”

  “So, when?” I asked. “When will you tell Eileen?”

  “Soon,” she said. “I’m sorry, Lydia. It is unfair of me to ask—and secrets are a burden—but I need us to hang on just a little longer.”

  I opened my eyes wide at her. “Aunt Brat . . .”

  “I want to get them through one last course of antibiotics. I want them to be one week stronger, a little closer to ready for their prostheses. Eileen will be so good at helping them through that next stage.”

  “Right,” I said. “Okay, Aunt Brat.” Nothing she was saying seemed wrong or untrue. But I could not help worrying about how Eileen was going to take this news once Brat broke it to her.

  46

  A Bag Full of Stones

  Aunt Brat glided, and I chased her, down the hill to the Gerber farm.

  We cleaned the stall together, filling a wheelbarrow with old bedding and laying down new. The goats stood and stumbled on their little pink casts, then lay curled against each other. Their weird hyphen-pupil eyes seemed eerily wise and maybe grateful.

  “Enchanting, aren’t they?” Aunt Brat said. She stopped midpass with the hay rake in her hands.

  “I wonder . . . ,” I said, but then didn’t finish.

  “What, what?” my aunt pressed me.

  “I wonder . . . if they had both their ears—in full, you know—would they use them the way a dog does?”

  “Hmm. In an expressive way?” She sounded wistful. “I don’t know the answer.” Aunt Brat took up her raking again.

  How hard she must have worked at this, I thought. She’d given them medications, she’d mucked stalls. Perhaps she’d changed dressings and dealt with blood a
nd puss—I did not know. It could not have been easy in the first weeks to look into the eyes of two injured creatures and hope that they could understand that you were there to help. At least Aunt Brat had had Gwen and Florry for all those things—and to shoulder some of the secrecy.

  But Aunt Brat was alone in having kept this from her partner in love and life. The coming home and not saying . . . well, that had to be like carrying a bag full of stones.

  Okay, Lydia Bratches-Kemp . . . you carry that bag with her now.

  I grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow, lifted, and pushed forward. I hoped with all my heart that Eileen would feel Aunt Brat’s love when she found out about this.

  I met Florry Gerber at the end of the barn. She swung the wide half door open for me and I wheeled the load out to the compost heap.

  “Hey,” I said. “How are you? How are your Belgian Hares today?” I asked. I struggled as I tipped the wheelbarrow up to empty it.

  Florry didn’t answer me, except for her blooming grin. She followed me back down the center of the barn. I let myself back into the goats’ stall with Aunt Brat. Florry climbed up and stood with her feet hooked under the bottom board and her chin on the top one, looking in.

  “Yore the onliest few what took ’em.” She said this to my aunt. “Onliest one what could pay for those.”

  Aunt Brat, who was giving one of the goats a rubdown—checking for fleas or scabs or other trouble, perhaps—nodded. “I couldn’t have done it without you and your mom.”

  I watched Florry absorb the compliment. Her face began to glow.

  Minutes later, Gwen Gerber came out to the barn with a thermos tucked under one arm and the handles of four mugs hooked on her thumbs. She seemed unfazed to see me with my aunt. Florry started pulling on that thermos. Gwen chuckled and let her daughter have it.

  “How goes the caprine infirmary, Bratches?” She bent to set the mugs on the top of a wooden crate.

  “They both seem well,” Aunt Brat answered, and again I heard that hopeful lilt. She pulled a bottle of pills out of her backpack. The two women discussed the next part of treatment for their patients.

  Meanwhile, Florry had twisted the lid off the thermos. She began to pour, her cheeks rigid with concentration. She filled each mug without a spill. Threads of steam rose and released the scent of chocolate.

  “Ah . . . cocoa,” I said. I was thirsty and tired from chasing Aunt Brat. Cocoa was going to hit the spot.

  Florry slowly turned to me with one mug pressed between her hands. “Not too hot. Muthas furst,” she said. She pushed the mug at me and opened her eyes wide. “Take it. You give it to your mutha. Furst.” I cupped my hands under the mug. I turned toward Aunt Brat.

  “Hey, Florry,” said Gwen. “Remember what I said? Bratches is Lydia’s aunt,” she explained. Florry blinked.

  “Yee-ah. But she’s the onliest few what can be hur mutha,” said Florry. I saw Gwen cock her head and close one eye, as if thinking how else she might say it.

  But Aunt Brat spoke up. “That is a stunning and lovely thought,” she said. She was smiling at me ever so softly. I stretched toward her with the mug. She took it, closing her hands over my hands.

  “Well,” I said, “you are my last of kin.”

  47

  A Big Reveal

  Aunt Brat took her last sip of red wine. She held it in her cheek. I caught her looking at me through the thin wall of the glass. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “I wondered if I could take a minute to say something,” she said. “I have a bit of a confession to make.”

  I saw Eileen halt. She turned to look at Brat. We set down our forks—as if that were required. Meanwhile, Elloroy raised his head to tune in. He pushed his lower jaw forward. Then he set his fork down too.

  Aunt Brat looked at me again. She dipped her chin ever so slightly. She turned to face Eileen.

  “I have something to tell you all, and Eileen, especially you, since you were the inspiration.” Aunt Brat paused and Eileen sat up straight with a curious grin on her face. “Y-you remember the unfortunate little goats?” Aunt Brat said. “The ones that were left at the Feed—”

  “Bratches!” Eileen winced. “Of course we remember. But why would you go bringing that up now? Here at our table, and all these weeks later. . . .”

  “Because, I have them,” Brat said.

  “You have them?” Eileen drew her chin back so that it doubled up.

  “Oh boy,” whispered Elloroy. (I may have been the only one to hear.) His great, magnified eyeballs seemed larger and more meandering than ever.

  “What does that mean, Brat?”

  “I took them in,” Aunt Brat said clearly. “With help from the good women at the Gerber farm—”

  “What? Why would you . . . For how long?” Eileen’s face twisted up like she’d been fed a lemon. I started picking the ruffled edge of Mom’s sweater.

  “Since . . . since it happened,” Aunt Brat said.

  “That was weeks ago,” Eileen said.

  “A couple of months.”

  I grunted. Why would she say it like that? Elloroy seemed to agree. His mouth hung open and he huffed a breath.

  “And you didn’t tell me? Why? Why the hell couldn’t I know? Huh, Bratches?” Eileen fixed a stare on my aunt, who sighed heavily.

  “Eileen, I was devastated right along with you after what happened to your herd.” Brat’s voice began to catch. “Then seeing those poor damaged creatures—”

  “Damaged? They were abused, Bratches! That’s abuse, what happened there! Let’s call these things by the right name.” Eileen indignantly balled both fists on the table. “As for my herd, that was slaughter. Murder.”

  “Yes. And I know that it broke your heart all over again when the little goats turned up at the Feed. I felt that with you.”

  “So if you were going to do something, why not bring them here, like I wanted?” Eileen demanded.

  “They were too close to death.” Aunt Brat said it plainly. “I was worried about you. You would have been devastated if they didn’t survive.” She cleared her throat. “So yes, I took them—for you—but I also kept them from you. And I know that sounds ludicrous. . . .”

  In the next silent second I glanced at Elloroy. He sat tracing the edge of his plate with one hand and the foot of his wineglass with the other.

  “Well, damn it!” Eileen shouted. She slapped her hand on the edge of the table. That made Guffer leap onto his feet. He burbled out a halfhearted woof, then began to pace. If Eileen noticed him, she ignored him. “And Barley?” she went on. “All he ever told me was that he’d heard they were coming along okay in spite of everything. He knew it was you, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. But please don’t blame him. I made the decisions. I asked for secrecy.”

  Well, Eileen lost it. Not loudly. Not with words. She just lost it. She got up from the table. Guffer trotted over to her, dog-certain that Eileen would head outdoors—and that’s what she did. Guffer led. There was a flash of plaid flannel, and bang! Out the door.

  Aunt Brat and Elloroy and I sat in silence. My heart thudded. I thought we might hear Eileen’s truck start up. When it didn’t I figured she was out in the paddock pacing about with Guffer. Maybe staring off to the south with him.

  Soonie came tapping over on her long toenails to stand beside Aunt Brat, who put her hand on the dog’s head. Finally, Elloroy leaned over to Brat and said, “Thank you for not making me complicit.” She nodded and might have flicked a tear away with her knuckle. Elloroy excused himself and went into his suite.

  “I’ll clear,” I said, and I began stacking plates.

  “Thanks, Lyddie.”

  “Sure. And Aunt Brat, I just want to say, I get it. I get all of it,” I said. “And I know things are not so good tonight. But it’s going to get better. I really believe that.”

  I couldn’t stand the sound of my own chirping anymore, so I turned the kitchen faucet on full blast and scrubbed the heck out of those dishes.

&nbs
p; 48

  The Lump in the Couch

  I was worried about my women. For two days, Eileen sulked. She had good reason. In the mornings, she’d be on the couch in an angry-looking twist of blankets and I would know that she’d slept there. She took her coffee out on the cold porch and sat under a blanket sipping it, rather than be at the table with us. Later, she’d walk off toward the barns before work. I’d see her leaning with her back against the outside wall while she stared at her feet. But the worst part was, she barely spoke to Aunt Brat. Everything felt heavy and a little broken.

  On the third morning, I took Eileen’s coffee mug to her before she’d gotten off the couch. “For you,” I chirped. I set the mug on the side table. Then I sat on Eileen. Well, on the edge of her. She grunted.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Then get off me!”

  “No. Not sorry I’m sitting on you. I’m doing that on purpose.” I let go a long, loud sigh, tried to make myself heavier.

  “Then what are you sorry about?” she said, looking pitiful.

  “I knew, too. About the goats—”

  “Oh, hell, no, no, no!” Eileen turned and pushed her face into the couch cushion. “I can’t stand it if everybody knew—everybody except me!” she yelled into the upholstery.

  “There is no everybody, and I didn’t know the whole time. I found out by accident.” I nudged her. “Come on, Eileen. I know you’re mad. But look at the positive.”

  “Humph,” said the couch. “What’s the positive?”

  “Those goats are doing well and they have a home because of you.”

  “Not because of me.”

  “It is because of you. Aunt Brat cared because she is a good human. But she also cared because you cared.”

  “That’s sideways, is what it is. What you’re saying is, it’s sort of because of me,” she said.

  “Okay, sideways and sort of, if that makes you feel better,” I said. “But come on. Come on, Eileen.” I pushed at the heap of blankets and the woman underneath them. I set my elbow on her hip.