Stay

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  The dogs paid no attention to the food, and very little attention to me. They were caught up in full-on mourning. It was written all over their faces.

  As I left, I tried to shut the door behind me. But its lock had been broken, and part of the doorframe molding that held it had been torn away. It gave me a little shiver, because I realized the sheriff’s guys had literally broken down the door to get the lady out of here.

  I found a dish towel hanging over the oven handle of the cookstove. I folded it up and used it to wedge the door shut.

  I looked at the dogs and their full bowls of food and realized I’d have to come back before sundown to see if they’d eaten. If not, I’d have to take up the food overnight. Otherwise it would attract raccoons and heaven only knows what other variety of wildlife, and the last thing I wanted was the dogs fighting it out with raccoons. They could be vicious little beggars.

  The dogs looked back at me with eyes that said, “Can you believe how bad this is? Have you ever seen a day this awful in your life?”

  “I’ll come back,” I said. “You won’t go hungry.”

  They turned their eyes away and set their chins down on their paws, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were disappointed in me. Because they couldn’t seem to make me grasp that food was not the problem.

  I walked home. I did not run.

  When I got home, my mom was not there. She’d left a note on the table that said, “Gone grocery shopping. Eat cookies.”

  Under the note was a small dessert plate with six chocolate chip cookies covered in plastic wrap. I shoved one into my mouth whole and dialed the sheriff’s office again while I chewed and swallowed.

  “Taylor County Sheriff,” the same high voice said.

  “Hi. It’s Lucas Painter. Can I please talk to Deputy Warren again?”

  “Hold please,” she chirped in a singsong voice.

  Then Warren was on the line. Just like that. With hardly any pause.

  “What can I do for ya, son?”

  “I just wondered how she was. Is she okay?”

  “Not so okay,” he said. “No.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Overdose. Prescription meds.”

  “You mean, like . . . accidentally?”

  “Son, I have no idea,” he said, in a voice sharp enough to close off that area of questioning. “But I will tell you this. You did a damn good thing to call it in. She’d gone over into a coma, and if you hadn’t found her, I can’t say I’d like her chances much. You probably saved her life. Or . . . well, what I mean is, if she survives, it’s because of you. So tell me something. How exactly did you happen to be out there in the middle of nowhere to notice?”

  “Oh,” I said. “I was going there to see those dogs. I really like those dogs.”

  “Folks won’t get you a dog of your own?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, if you like ’em so much, you might want to go by and see they got food and water.”

  “I already did.”

  A long silence on the line. Then I asked the obvious question. Even though I already knew he didn’t have my answer.

  “Is she gonna be okay?”

  “Son, I may be many things, but one thing I’m not is a doctor. You’ll have to call over to the County General Hospital for information like that.”

  “I forgot her name already.”

  “Zoe Dinsmore is who she is.”

  It was a strange sentence, and he said it in a strange way. As though being Zoe Dinsmore were truly noteworthy in some way, and the way did not sound good. There was subtext. But I could not imagine how to dive into it. There seemed to be no entry point.

  I thanked him and hung up the phone. Then I got the number for County General, and called, and got exactly nowhere. They wouldn’t tell me a thing about her condition because I wasn’t family to Zoe Dinsmore.

  I wondered if anybody was.

  I had to run back out there at sunset, lock up the uneaten dog food in the shed, then go back to my life not knowing.

  I had to go to bed that night not knowing.

  I thought it would be a wonderful thing to have saved somebody’s life. Something I could feel good about. Something even most grown-ups couldn’t say.

  But I didn’t know if I had saved a life or not. For that, the person you tried to save has to survive.

  Chapter Three

  Any Family

  I was out at the cabin again at dawn, putting down kibble that I knew the dogs wouldn’t eat.

  They were lying on the porch, heads down but eyes open, as if they had no choice but to feel every terrible thing. I guess they didn’t have a choice. They were dogs.

  I was a human boy with a variety of methods to avoid the emotions I didn’t care to feel. Yet those options seemed to fail me in that moment.

  I found myself lying on the porch beside them, sharing their sense of despair. I wondered what would happen to them if the lady never came back.

  I would have taken them home with me in a heartbeat if my parents would’ve allowed it, but I knew they never would. Maybe they could keep living out here in their doghouse, and I could come out and feed them and care for them and run with them. But I couldn’t shake the sense that I would come out one day and find that someone had swept them away. Animal control, or some member of the lady’s family. Which made me wonder again if the lady had any family.

  I picked up my head and looked the female dog in the eye. She tilted her head slightly without lifting her chin off the porch boards, her signal that she didn’t understand what I wanted.

  I pushed to my feet against the boards and took off running. Just four or five long strides. Then I stopped and looked back over my shoulder at her. She allowed me to catch her eye, then carefully averted her gaze.

  I walked back and sat on the edge of the porch and stroked her silky ears.

  “Worth a try, I guess,” I said.

  I patted the boy dog on the head and he sighed.

  I wanted to tell them something encouraging. That she’d come home. That they’d be okay. But I couldn’t bring myself to lie to them. So I had nothing.

  My mom was in the kitchen when I got home. Doing up a few dishes. Probably the ones from the breakfast she undoubtedly would have made for my father before sending him off to work. I was surprised that any dishes had survived that much time around my parents. Or, anyway, that was the dark joke I told myself in my head.

  “Where’ve you been?” she asked me, sounding only half-interested.

  She was wearing a faded flower-print apron. Her hair had been pinned up but was now trailing down in a number of places.

  “I like to go out and run in the morning.”

  “Since when?”

  “Couple weeks now.”

  “Why haven’t I noticed?”

  Good question, I thought. Why haven’t you?

  “Probably because I went right off to school afterward.”

  “Oh. Right. Have you had breakfast?”

  “I could eat,” I said, to avoid telling her that I had scarfed down a ton of cereal but I still wanted more food.

  “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll make you some eggs.”

  She was pushing scrambled eggs around in a too-big cast-iron skillet when the phone rang. She turned the gas flame to low and jumped to answer it.

  “No, he’s at work,” I heard her say into the phone. Then she fixed me with a strange and disturbing look. I can only call it withering. “Oh, Lucas,” she said. “Yes, Lucas is here.” She covered the mouthpiece of the phone receiver with her palm. “Why is the sheriff’s office calling for you, Lucas? What have you done?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Then why is some deputy sheriff calling? Your father will have a fit if you’ve brought some kind of trouble down on this house.”

  Right, I thought. Heaven forbid this house should see any trouble. We’re all really content as it is, with you guys fighting your own personal war
and Roy overseas with bullets whizzing by his head in a real one. Be a shame if anybody spoiled all that happiness.

  “I just reported something is all,” I said. I kept the rest of those thoughts to myself.

  “Like somebody else committing a crime?”

  “No. No crimes. I just reported somebody who needed help.”

  I was starting to worry about the poor deputy sheriff waiting on the line, so I reached for the phone. She frowned at me, but she handed it over and hurried back to the stove. I wondered how badly my eggs had been burned. I knew I’d be expected to eat them regardless.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Morning, son,” Deputy Warren said. “Hope I didn’t get you out of bed.”

  “No, sir. I’ve been up a couple hours. Already been for my morning run.”

  My stomach had begun to churn uncomfortably because it was occurring to me—for the first time, oddly—that he was calling to tell me the lady died.

  “Well, I just wanted to let you know she pulled through,” he said, and I breathed out a long exhale I hadn’t known I was holding. “I mean, not that we know absolutely, but that first twenty-four hours is critical. The fact that she got through it bodes well for her chances. Nurse at the hospital told me somebody called looking into her welfare yesterday, but they couldn’t give out any info because he wasn’t her family. I figured that was you.”

  “But you’re not her family,” I said, and then immediately felt stupid.

  “But I’m law enforcement.”

  “Right. Duh. So . . . does she have any family?”

  I heard a big sigh on the line. “Yeah. More or less. She has an ex-husband, but I can’t decide if that counts or not. Probably not. And she has two grown daughters, but they both got married before they moved away from here, and I don’t know their married names off the top of my head. But I’m doing some research on it.”

  “I’m thinking they’d want to hear about this,” I said, and then felt stupid again.

  “I’m thinking the same, son. I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thanks for letting me know.”

  Then we said our goodbyes and he hurried off the phone.

  I sat back down at the table, and my mom set a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of me. I poked the eggs with my fork. They weren’t exactly burned, but they were awfully dry.

  “We got any ketchup?”

  She sighed theatrically and flounced over to the refrigerator. I was waiting for her to ask me about my conversation with the deputy. You know, take some interest in my life. But she seemed lost in her own head.

  “I saved a lady’s life,” I said.

  She set the bottle of ketchup down in front of my plate.

  “That’s nice, dear.” She said it the way a person says “That’s nice” when you’re talking to them while they’re trying to read the newspaper. “I’m very proud of you.”

  I got in touch, suddenly, with how nice it would feel if she actually was. Proud of me, that is. And maybe she was. Looking back, it’s hard to say what somebody else is feeling. But the moment felt unconvincing.

  I don’t think it was the next day when I ran out to the cabin and ran into some of the lady’s family, almost literally. I think it was the day after that.

  I had taken the water bucket off the hook on the doghouse, and I was carrying it near the front of the cabin, headed toward the pump. All of a sudden someone came around the corner and we nearly slammed into each other. We both let out a yelp of surprise.

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Then we just stood a moment, neither one of us seeming to know what to say.

  She was a woman in her early to midtwenties, with short, curly hair. Small and compact. She wore a frown that seemed to have permanently creased itself into her face. She was holding a narrow strip of wood, which I recognized as part of the framing of the door—the part that had been broken when the deputies crashed through it. Apparently she had pried it off somehow.

  “I was just getting some water for the dogs,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  I kept expecting her to ask me who I was. But she didn’t seem particularly curious.

  “I’m Lucas Painter,” I said. “I’m—”

  But she cut me off in midsentence. “I know who you are.”

  “You do?”

  I wanted to ask how, but I was getting lost in awkwardness.

  “You’re that kid who’s been coming to see the dogs. Taking them running with you.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “My mom told me.”

  “How did she know that? I didn’t even think she saw me.”

  “Oh, she saw you.”

  Then the conversation stalled again. I could feel myself sink into the embarrassment of what she had just told me.

  I looked down at the strip of wood trim in her hand. “Fixing the door?” I asked.

  The bucket was getting heavy. The dogs hadn’t drunk much.

  “Trying. She’ll be home in a day or two, and she has to have a door that closes. So I took off the lock. Figured I could take it to the hardware store and get a new one. But I also have to replace this.” She held up the strip of wood. “But I have nothing to measure with. And also, I have no idea what I’m doing. I know nothing about home repair.”

  I shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

  “Maybe I could help,” I said.

  “You know anything about home repair?”

  “Not really. But I know where the hardware store is. And the lumberyard.”

  She looked into my face as though I might be stupid, but she was still trying to decide. “So do I. I grew up around here.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  I wasn’t sure why I needed to be sorry. But it was something of a default position for me at that age.

  “But none of it does any good if I can’t find a tape measure,” she said. “And I can’t.”

  “What about some string or twine?”

  “I don’t know about that. But she’s a knitter. So I have yarn.”

  “That’ll do,” I said. “Go get some of that.”

  She turned to walk back into the house, and I set down the bucket and followed her. It was a relief to be behind her, out of that intense, frowning gaze. I hadn’t realized how uncomfortable I’d been, squirming under her stare, until it was over.

  I waited on the porch.

  The dogs wove themselves around me, softly wagging their tails. It seemed to have improved their moods to see their owner’s daughter. It struck me that I didn’t even know this woman’s name. She hadn’t bothered to tell me.

  I reached down and patted their heads as they brushed by.

  I looked up to see her bring out a skein of yarn, which I took from her. I tied a knot in the free end and reached up and held the knot at the very top corner of the doorframe.

  “Here, hold this,” I said, tossing my head upward. In the direction of the knot.

  She made no move to do as I had asked. Just snorted a bitter laugh. I realized that she couldn’t reach nearly so high. She was a small woman. I placed the knot in the lower corner instead.

  She set the broken strip of wood on the floor and then knelt down and held the knotted end of the yarn, and I ran yarn up to the top of the frame and marked my place with the tip of my thumb.

  She brought me a scissors and I cut it there.

  I picked up the broken trim.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take this to the lumberyard, and you take the lock to the hardware store, and I’ll meet you back here and we’ll get this done.”

  She only nodded. She didn’t thank me. I wasn’t sure if that felt okay or not. But it was clearly all I was going to get.

  I stood inside the little cabin with her, holding the strip of molding in place while she hammered in the nails. I knew it would probably look like hell when we were done, and I was too cowardly to take responsibility for messing up her place with our bad workmanship.


  We stepped back and viewed our work. I frowned. She frowned. But then, she was always frowning, so it was hard to tell.

  “I guess it won’t look right till it’s painted,” I said.

  The other sides of the doorframe were painted an off-white color.

  “I don’t know that it’ll ever look quite right,” she said.

  “But it’ll keep the door closed.”

  “We don’t know that. We haven’t tried it.”

  I walked up to the door cautiously. As if it might be a spider or a snake.

  I saw the dogs on the porch through the partly open doorway. They tapped their tails at me.

  I pulled the door closed and tried the new lock. It was a dead bolt that locked with a simple turn from the inside, a key from the outside. I gave it a turn, but it hung up quickly. We hadn’t positioned the new lock quite right. The dead bolt pin wouldn’t go all the way in. But it wedged in enough to keep the door closed.

  I turned to find her right beside me, looking over my shoulder. Well, around my shoulder. She wasn’t tall enough to look over it.

  “It’ll do,” she said. “When she’s feeling better, she’ll tinker with it. That’s a given. She’ll get it perfect. Story of her life—everything has to be perfect. No matter what we do with it today, she’ll tinker. Meanwhile it holds the door closed, so it’s good enough for now.”

  She gathered up the tools she’d used and carried them out to the shed.

  I walked out onto the porch and sat on the low edge with the dogs. The male dog put his head on my thigh.

  I was thinking I should go home. But there was so much more I wanted to know. Still, even if I stayed, I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to ask her all my questions.

  She brushed by me again on her way into the cabin.

  I looked down into the boy dog’s face. “I should go now,” I said.

  He seemed to know what that meant. He laid his ears back along his neck and his eyes took on a sorrowful expression. Or . . . even more sorrowful, I guess I should say.

  A second or two later the woman—the daughter, whose name I still hadn’t asked—came out and sat next to me on the edge of the porch, her jeaned legs stretching out next to mine.