Firefly Island (20 page)

I glanced sideways at Al.
The research conclusively proves . . .
Those words didn't sound like Al at all. And was it my imagination, or had the Texas twang vanished for a few sentences? I had the impression, as had happened a few times before, that Al was not at all what she seemed to be, that something lay hidden beneath the façade of rusty pickup trucks and well-worn cowgirl clothes.

Her gaze cast my way, and I pretended to be watching the kids.

“We need to get this program funded for the full school year and into next year.” Al's words came with a long, slow Texas drawl this time. “If you had a greenhouse, you could grow all through the winter.”

Keren's shoulders sagged a little more. “There's no money for a greenhouse. The school just can't afford anything more, especially with all the state budget cuts. They're talking about not having the horticulture class in middle school at all next year, which would pretty much mean the supper garden program is finished. I'll either be teaching an elementary homeroom all day, or they'll just combine classes and I won't have a job at all.”

“Well, we'll see about that.” Al removed her cowboy hat, then dropped it on the table before using the crook of her elbow to swipe sweaty strands of intermingled brown and gray. “I'll have a few things to say to that school board before they start laying off good young teachers.”

“James wants me to quit, anyway.” Keren's expression was unusually glum, a wrinkle worrying her brow. “Really, everybody does—his family, my family. Everyone wants to know when we're going to start having babies. As soon as we got to our second anniversary, it's like we crossed some invisible line.” She looked down at her hands, locking them together. “If the horticulture program gets cut, maybe it's God's way of saying it's time.”

Self-consciously, I rubbed my stomach, thought of my conversation with Trudy, felt myself tumble into Keren's push-pull of career and family. For just an instant, I wanted to tell the two of them what Trudy had said, admit to the dilemma that had been cycling in the corner of my mind all day—similar to Keren's, but opposite. If,
heaven forbid
, I had to announce an accidental pregnancy so soon after an impromptu marriage and a cross-country move, my family
would be calling the men in white coats. I had no idea what Daniel would say or how his parents would feel about it. And, on top of that, there was the mystery of Jack West and the question of whether we were really safe on the ranch at all.

It might just be God's way of saying it's time. . . .
An accidental pregnancy for Daniel and me at this point couldn't be anyone's idea of a good plan.

“Or else your family needs to mind their own business,” Al said to Keren, and I took that as confirmation. Trudy just needed to mind her own business. There wasn't any way I was pregnant.

“Maybe,” Keren admitted. “I mean, I get where they're coming from. It's not like our family is old order conservative or anything. They were fine with me going to college when I got the scholarship, but I guess they just thought that after college I'd settle down and do the normal thing.”

“You're young, Keren,” I pointed out. “You've got years to think about having kids.”

Keren nodded, squinting contemplatively at Chinquapin Peaks, far in the distance across the lake. “Do you ever just . . . have the feeling that God's using you right where you are?”

Al answered with a shrug that had a sense of
harrumph
to it.

I felt compelled to come up with an answer, but contemplating the mind of God was hardly my specialty. I looked down at my finger, thought about the dandelion ring. That first day in the rotunda, had God envisioned the dandelion ring . . . started a seed growing, far away on a lakeshore in Texas, so that the flower would be there when Nick was ready for it? Had He made sure that Alice would be here to aid Nick's tiny fingers in weaving the ring? Had He envisioned everything about this moment?

Did He plan things so intricately? Adjust the timing of seeds, and summer enrichment classes, and sisters visiting over books?

A school bus rumbled into the parking lot, and Keren jerked upright. “Oh my word! Line up, kids, the bus is here!” Cupping her hands around her mouth, she called the kids a second time.

“I'm Birdie's ride home today,” Al said, as we stood up. “Sheila was going to keep her over at the Waterbird until Len could come get her, but Sheila's got a cold today, and she thought it'd be better if Birdie just went on home. No sense in her getting sick.”

Al moved to the loosely forming kid line and extricated Birdie, who came out towing Nick by one hand. Before the rest of them could leave, I got a hug from Sergio and a high-five from Sierra. On her way up the hill, Sierra walked backward and pointed at me. “I'm gonna put you in my story!”

“I can't wait to read it,” I called back.

The kids boarded the bus. Mama B, the Binding Through Books sisters, and the church ladies waved good-bye from the back steps, and the park grew strangely quiet as the helpers dispersed to their cars. Birdie and Nick crouched down together, watching an inchworm move across the cement footing of a picnic table.

“You ever been up in Chinquapin Peaks?” Al leaned over to pick up a candy wrapper that had dropped from one of the kids' backpacks.

“I really haven't been anywhere but the hardware store, the house, the Waterbird, and the Walmart in Gnadenfeld,” I admitted.

Al nodded toward the parking lot. “Come ride along with us. You'll see some things.” It was more of a command than a request. Al wheeled an arm as she walked up the hill. “C'mon,
Birdie, let's load up.” She didn't check to see if I was following; she just assumed I was.

Grabbing Nick's backpack and my bag of Foxy Moxy, I started after her. I knew enough about Al to know that if she wanted me to go to Chinquapin Peaks with her, there was a reason.

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.

—Rabindranath Tagore
(Left by Danny and Elaine, racing sailboats in the rain)

I
had a feeling that Nick would be asleep before we made it out of town, and he was. Birdie soon joined him, and Al and I drove along in silence awhile. We traveled several miles along the road that paralleled the river, then we turned off, then turned again and again, weaving our way past hills, trees, and small ranches.

As we drove, the pavement dissolved into gravel and the homes became few. Gravel melted into narrower gravel, smooth surfaces becoming pockmarked trails that wound lazily up steep slopes and into rocky valleys where clearwater creeks cascaded over beds of loose limestone. In the backseat, the sleeping kids bobbed back and forth as the truck bounced over chuckholes and rattled across miniature canyons left behind by rushing water.

“Is this the
normal
way of getting up here?” I asked after we'd driven thirty minutes or so. I knew it must be. People did live up here. While the foothills had been dotted with ranches where cattle and goats dozed in the shade, up here
the signs of human habitation were more hardscrabble—aging trailer homes with old tires holding tarps over the roofs, rusting school buses converted into dwellings, ancient camp trailers that were obviously being used as permanent residences, tiny homes with peeling paint, leaning front porches, and the carcasses of old cars half buried in the weeds. In small lots scratched from cedar and scrub brush, skinny horses, goats, and cows searched in vain for edibles. Dangerous-looking dogs chased the truck or barked from behind ragtag yard fences made from shipping pallets and road signs.

“This is the way.” Al's answer was flat, matter of fact. “The meth boilers and the pot farmers don't live up here for nothing. It's remote. They like it that way.” We topped a hill, and she pointed out the window, where the view stretched for miles. In the distance, Moses Lake shimmered cool and peaceful, like a spill of glitter at the edge of fabric tumbling forth in shades of green and gray.

“There's some beautiful country up here, too.” Al's voice seemed far away for a moment. “And plenty of good people, just doing the best they can with what they've got. Like Birdie's grandpa. He's a veteran, a good guy, suffered head trauma in Vietnam, so he's limited somewhat, but he's working hard to raise that little girl. Birdie's mother dropped her on Len's doorstep about a year ago, and now the mom is in prison on a meth conviction, among other things. She won't be coming back anytime soon. If it weren't for Len, Birdie would be in foster care. There are a lot of kids up here with stories like that.”

“Wow,” I sighed, still taking in the view. It seemed so serene, yet the kids I'd met today and the things I'd learned made it clear that for all the beauty here, an ugly reality hid also.

“One of the worst things is the access in this area, really. Like with Len's place—it's so far back in the hills, the school bus can't even get there when the roads are bad and the low-water crossings flood. On top of the other strikes against them, kids in Chinquapin Peaks miss a lot of school, partly because they can't get there. The school has been begging the county commission to spend money on the roads up here for years. The people in charge always make excuses to commit funds on the other side of the lake where there's already money, if you know what I mean. Blaine Underhill from the Ranch House Bank just got elected to the county commission, though, and he's making some headway against the old guard.” Pausing, she pointed a finger at me. “I should introduce you to his wife, Heather, come to think of it. She's a city girl, like you. You two would enjoy each other. You know that big white house on the edge of town, the one with the Harmony Shores sign at the gate?”

I nodded. I had noticed the place. It was beautiful, a stately icon of the bygone era of southern belles and two-story porches with tall white pillars.

“They've refitted that into a bed-and-breakfast. Good people. Heather commutes to Dallas some for her architecture business. I'll find out her work schedule and get you two together.”

“Thanks.” Sometimes I wondered if I would have survived this long here, had Al not taken me under her wing. Other times, I couldn't imagine why she wanted to bother. I had to seem like such a nuisance, always needing something, and with no skills to contribute to the relationship, unless Al ever happened to need someone who had experience writing congressional legislation. Not very likely. Still, I had the underlying feeling that Al was interested in me for a reason, but I couldn't imagine what it might be.

“Not a problem.” Al turned off the road into what looked like a wagon track winding off into a field. Tall grass scraped the undercarriage of the truck as we passed, and branches squealed across the windows like fingernails on a blackboard. “Anybody who has to put up with that sorry so-and-so you work for deserves a little extra help.”

As usual, I didn't answer. The animosity between Al and Jack West was legendary around town. They were not good neighbors. Al only came to my house when I knew Daniel and Jack would be gone for the day, which was just about every day, so Al and I had plenty of time to work.

Birdie's house, when it came into view, seemed pretty typical of what I'd seen so far in Chinquapin Peaks, although it was in better shape. The small, square home listed slightly to one side, but the roof was new, the porch posts were parallel, and the place had a fresh coat of paint. Ruffled curtains hung inside the paint-spattered windows, giving the place a homey touch.

A mule brayed from a corral as we rolled to a stop, and Birdie's grandpa appeared in the barn doorway. I remembered him from my first day in Moses Lake, when Pop Dorsey in the Waterbird store had suggested that I hire Len to help with construction projects in our house. I'd been mortified at the time. Now, here I was, rolling up to his farm in a pickup truck. Who would have thought?

Today he was wearing overalls with what looked like blood smeared on the front. My skin crawled, and I gaped in complete revulsion. That really was blood, and it was wet . . .

Al opened her door and stepped out. Didn't she see the blood? I stayed where I was. The man was carrying . . . a knife. The knife had blood on it, too. I smiled and tried to look friendly, but I was inclined to do my visiting from inside the truck.

In the backseat, Birdie and Nick woke up. She was already wiggling out of her seat belt when Al opened the door beside her.

“I ubb-been ubb-butcherin' up hogs,” I heard Len say. “I udd-don't s-s-smell too ugg-good. S-sorry.”

Shuddering, I pressed back against the seat, staring at the knife.
Butchering hogs?
My stomach lurched and I was uncharacteristically lightheaded. Behind me, Birdie wrestled with Nick's seat belt, trying to help him out of his booster. She was telling Nick he could have a ride on the mule.

“No. No-no.” I swiveled around to lay the Mommy-panic-hand over Nick's buckle. “We're not staying, sweetie. We have to go home now.”

Nick's bottom lip jutted out. “I wanna go see Birdie's haw-see!”

“I can ugg-get 'im real f-f-fast.” Len's bushy eyebrows lifted over his gray eyes, and he motioned amiably toward the corral, the knife flashing in the sunlight. “He's a ugg-good m-mule.” The words came with a reassuring smile, flecks of tobacco dotting his teeth.

My head swirled like a car on the Tilt-A-Whirl, the sights and smells of the place overtaking me in a sudden assault. I saw stars. “I'm . . . I'm sure he is. Thank you, that's really kind of you, but . . .”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, it'll only take a minute.” Al flicked a look of appraisal my way, and beyond the swirl of panic, I realized this was a test, and if I didn't step up, I would be lumped into a certain category.
Who are you, really?
Al's look asked.

Who are you, really?
The question penetrated, echoed, demanded an answer. It nipped at me in ways I wasn't prepared for, pinched in places I didn't like. Was I really so entrenched in the world I'd been raised in, so set in my ways
that I couldn't look beyond the surface of another person and see a human being? Was I that shallow? Was I The Frontier Woman, or wasn't I?

I had worked in downtown DC and shopped in fish markets in Asia. Was I really afraid of a little hog butcherin'?

Yes, actually.

And there was Nick to consider. This place looked so . . .
unsanitary
.

The word made me think of my mother. My mom who, as much as I loved her, wanted me to live and die within the confines of an upscale burb, preferably no farther than sixty miles from where I'd been raised. Hadn't I spent my entire life trying to break free of that mold? Maybe I wasn't as far from it as I thought. Everything in me wanted to stuff Nick back into the seat belt and speed away from this place, tell him he couldn't be friends with Birdie because she wasn't our sort.

Something strange happened to me as I sat there in Al's truck with Birdie, Nick, Len, and Al watching me. A barricade fell. A hard place cracked open. These were only people. People living in a different way than I did, but trying to be kind, to offer hospitality. “Sure. Sure, okay. I guess we have a minute.”

In the backseat Birdie and Nick squealed gleefully, and outside, Len nodded at me, seeming pleased. “We'll be uff-fast,” he said, then was off to get the mule. On the way, he stopped at a water pump near the barn, washed the blood from his hands, and deposited the knife.

For some reason, I thought of a tapestry in the little white church where Daniel and I had married. Jesus, gathered with a crowd of listeners, some wealthy, some in rags. All sizes, all ages, all colors, all worthy of His presence, of His attention and efforts. Why should I be any different? Why were
some people worthy of my attention and not others? Why was I so afraid?

Could I change? Could today be the start of a kinder, gentler me, with my eyes and hands open to new people and new adventures?

This was what The Frontier Woman would do. She would experience the whole thing and take pictures.

So, I did.

We ended up staying for more than a quick mule ride. I even climbed onto the mule and clung to the saddle, laughing while Len led me around the barnyard. Al took photos with her phone. Meanwhile, Nick also experienced the tractor, held a fluffy yellow chick in his hands, played in Birdie's tree fort, and helped pick tomatoes in the garden where Len grew produce to sell. He ended his tour in Birdie's bedroom, where her toys were stored in a little bookshelf next to an antique iron bed that took up most of the room. Inside, the house was small but freshly painted. The furniture was old but clean, and the tiny kitchen was stocked with home-canned goods. A game of Candy Land, in progress, had been left open on the coffee table, and Birdie's drawings of herself were pinned to the refrigerator, as well as several of the walls—stick figures fishing, walking in the woods, picking flowers, flying a kite. The evidence of a happy home, a child who was loved.

I left with all the reference points in my mind slowly shifting. In DC, where upscale families had everything money could buy, I'd known plenty of privileged kids who needed that kind of undivided attention but didn't get it because their parents were busy with other things. Growing up, I'd been surrounded by families who had everything . . . but time for one another. Even though my mother's level of borderline-obsessive involvement in our lives had practically driven me
crazy, I'd always known that we were the lucky ones. I'd probably never told her that. Sometimes you don't appreciate the things your parents have done for you until you're a parent yourself. I wanted Nick to have what we'd had—what Birdie had.

Nick . . . and a new baby? I laid a hand over my stomach as the truck bounced along on the road home. I pondered the possibility, then pushed it to the back of my mind. Now just wasn't the time for a baby. Daniel and I were in such a mess here. We still had so much to learn about each other, so much to work out. I did want a baby someday, but later. Much later. We weren't ready yet. Just yesterday, I'd lost track of the one child we already had, and at present, Daniel and I weren't even speaking. So far, we had no resolution on the issue of work hours.

Not exactly ideal conditions for,
Guess what, honey?

But what if . . .

“You're quiet all of a sudden.” Al's comment broke into my thoughts.

“Just enjoying the view, really,” I answered as we topped a small peak. Below, the river wound through hills like a thin blue thread, spilling into the lake downstream.

“Something to see,” Al agreed, and we drove on without talking. For once, I appreciated Al's penchant for silence. When we neared the edge of Moses Lake, she slowed before we really needed to, as if she were trying to prolong the ride. “I've got some time tomorrow, if you want to tackle that last closet.”