Firefly Island (9 page)

All I could do was watch him go and stare at the screen with my mouth frozen in a weird sneer. “What was that . . . ? Is he serious?”

Daniel hovered, seeming shell-shocked, then he rubbed his forehead roughly and started after his new boss. “Now wasn't the time to bring up the house.”

The words went in like an arrow, and I instantly felt betrayed. “I thought
you
would bring it up, and . . .” I bit down on the sentence, severing it before it could become a return volley. It wouldn't help for Daniel and me to fight. “It's ridiculous that anyone would expect people to live this way, Daniel. The house should be fit for habitation, at least. A bottle of bug spray and a jug of paint from the hardware store aren't going to fix what's wrong here. I don't know how to paint a
house or . . . exterminate bugs . . .” A shudder of revulsion went through me.

In the yard, Jack West had stopped to investigate the ripening fruit on a small tree. They looked like plums, although I'd never seen a plum in the wild before.

Nick progressed slowly in Mr. West's direction, one step at a time, curious about the tree, or the man, or both. I wanted to run outside and snatch Nick away, like a mother protecting a child from getting too close to a snarling lion. “And steel wool? We're supposed to crawl around God-knows-where and figure out how the mice are getting in? If the mice have been there, I don't
want
to go there. We can't stay in this place, Daniel.”

Jack picked a plum off the tree and took a bite. Beside him, Nick imitated, though they weren't talking. The dog, I noticed, kept himself on the other side of Nick, away from the hulking man in the cowboy hat. Jack pointed a finger at Pecos, commanding him to proceed to the pickup, but the dog refused, instead moving closer to Nick's legs. Jack responded with an unhappy scowl. Apparently, on top of everything else, we'd stolen the boss's dog.

A giant, chicken-sized bird of some sort landed on the fence. Jack threw a half-eaten plum either to it or at it; I couldn't tell. The bird flapped down from the fence and chased the plum as it rolled to a stop. Nick laughed and threw his plum, too.

Daniel reached for the door, the motion quick, his gaze distracted. In the yard, his boss was clearly waiting for him. “Be realistic, Mallory,” he snapped, suddenly morphing into the stiff, impatient Daniel I'd met only yesterday during the broken air-conditioner incident. “We can't change our life plan because the closets are dirty.”

The torn screen flapped as he opened it and walked out.

A moment later, he and Jack rumbled off in the white truck, while Nick stood at the fence near the U-Haul, where boxes of Grandma Louisa's Fostoria waited, still lovingly contained in cardboard and paper.

I briefly considered becoming a runaway bride.

If it hadn't been for poor little Nick and the fact that I couldn't figure out how to carry my grandmother's Fostoria on a bus, I might have done it. I'd never seen this side of Daniel before the wedding. I didn't like it. I didn't like being spoken to as if I were a minion, as if my thoughts didn't count for anything.

I went inside and paced the kitchen, feeling desperate. Finally, I did exactly what all the bridal advice columns tell you not to do after your first big fight: I called my mother.

She didn't want to talk to me. She'd read the advice columns, too. Aside from that, she'd married off four daughters already. She said that she'd always made it a policy not to meddle in her children's marital affairs. Which was so much hooey. She meddled all the time.

She gave only one piece of advice before she told me that she was hanging up because I should not be calling my mother just days after the wedding: “Say you're sorry, Mallory, even if you're not feeling that way. Marriage is about sacrifice. A wife must, at all times, realize that a man's ego is fragile. He needs to feel that you trust him to be the head of the household. Take the blame for starting the fight. It won't hurt you. Women lose their wits over a mouse in the house all the time. No one expects us to know better.”

My indignation fumed in a dozen different directions, sending off molten spears like a sparkler . . . no, a sunspot. More like a sunspot. The kind that burns at a bazillion degrees and alters tides thousands of miles away. “The fight
wasn't
my fault.” Suddenly I was supposed to relegate myself to the
role of quiet cleaner-upper and soft-spoken apologizer? My life was supposed to be all about keeping the peace, no matter how I felt on the inside? I was supposed to become
my mother
?

This was not at all what I'd bargained for. This was not me.

A sickening premonition materialized, a dark vision. I imagined the girl who had confidently walked the halls of Congress in her favorite designer suit, but in the vision, she was disappearing day by day, until she vanished completely. A victim of death by acquiescence.

“I'd better go,” I muttered.

“Say you're sorry,” insisted my mother, whose policy was not to interfere.

“I love you, Mom.” The end of the sentence choked in my throat. I wanted my mommy, but I wanted her to be on my side.

“All married couples have fights.”

“Bye, Mom.”

“Don't sulk. That's a bad habit of yours.”

Who
was
this woman talking to? Me? Sulk? I never sulked. Sulking was for wimps.

“And never go to bed angry.”

“
Bye
, Mom.”
I love you, but you are not telling me what I want to hear.

“You're always welcome back at home.” There was a catch in Mom's voice now, and I felt myself crumbling as she quickly tried to mollify the interference implied in that comment. “If Texas doesn't work out . . . for the two of you, I mean. You three can turn around and come right back. This house is too big for just Dad and me. . . .”

My low point sank lower, a raft with air hissing from it. Mother had managed to come up with an alternative worse than living in Texas on the property of a possibly homicidal maniac—moving my new family in with my parents.

I, quite wisely, ended the phone conversation there and called my sister Trudy, instead. She was upset with her husband, because he wanted to give up on the in vitro procedures if this next one didn't work. He was in favor of surrogacy or adoption.

I commiserated with her, and when she finally got around to asking why I'd called, I couldn't bring up the house-mouse fight or the stuffed-bobcat thing. Both seemed shallow, compared to Trudy's pain.

The hormone shots had given my sister mind-reading abilities, though. “Did you two get in a fight?” Her voice had a knowing undertone.

“Huh?”

“Did you call Mom?” The way she said it, as if it were a foregone conclusion, pushed blood into my cheeks.
Dork of the world. Right here. Big red arrow, pointing to Moses Lake, Texas.

“Yes.” There's no point lying to your sister. Sisters know.

“Did she tell you to get over yourself?” Trudy was holding back a laugh.

“Yes. You don't have to sound so happy about it, though.” That long-way-from-home feeling grew potent and heavy. “She said that right before she told me that Daniel, Nick, and I could come back and live with her and Dad if we needed to.”

“Ouch,” Trudy chuckle-groaned. “Which option sounds best?”

“Getting over myself.” I glanced at the clock on the scary gas stove that looked like it had been there since 1940. I was hungry, and there was no food in the house. Any time now, Nick would want something, too.

“Guess you have your answer, then.” Leave it to Trudy to drive the point home.

My cell phone beeped a low-battery signal. “Hey, Trude, my cell is going dead. If this thing cuts off, I love you, 'kay?”

“Man, you
are
homesick.” She didn't return my sappy endearment. Trudy was anything but sappy.

“I'll be all right.”
I hope. I will, right?
“It's just been a long day, already.”

“Hang in there, Wheezy.” Her use of the nickname, which I had been saddled with ever since having a little nasal problem as a baby, was her idea of getting warm and fuzzy.

“I am. It was a dumb argument. I admit it.”

“Most of them are. Actually, I should go apologize to Andy. These hormones have turned me into a part-time barracuda.”

“Part time?”

Trudy snorted. “Very funny. Kiss and make up, first chance you get. That's the good thing about fighting. When it's over, you have a new appreciation. Just remember, if you're going to argue, argue against the point and not the person. You can change your position on a point, but once you step over that line and criticize who he is, you can't go back. There's no sense bothering, anyway. People really don't change. They are who they are.”

“I'd better go before the phone cuts off.”

“You know how I knew that you'd called Mom, right?”

“Huh? Well, no. How did you know?”

She laughed, a soft, tender sound that felt like her wrapping her arms around me from hundreds of miles away. “All of us did it. Before the cell service went to free long distance, Mom used to include prepaid calling cards in the wedding gifts. She started that after Caroline and Merryl called collect, and the bill was horrendous. You're the first one not to make it a week past the wedding, though. Andy and I had been in Hawaii for seven days before I called Mom.”

“Well, at least I get to be first at something.” There was
comfort in knowing that my settled, sane, still-happily-married sisters had gone through this sort of thing, too. Maybe Daniel and I weren't such a mess after all.

“Take my advice. Kiss and make . . .” Trudy was gone. Time expired. Battery dead.

Despite the fact that Daniel had left the Jeep hooked to the U-Haul after he'd backed the trailer near the yard gate, I grabbed my purse and made up my mind to drive into Moses Lake and seek out the café and the hardware store. The Gypsy Wagon would just have to ride along, since I had no idea how to unhook it. Nuclear bug bombs and acres of steel wool were in our future.

From the kitchen counter, a brown mouse sat up on its delicate little hind feet and waved good-bye, having no idea what was headed its way.

Never a ship sails out of the bay
But carries my heart as a stowaway.

—Roselle Mercier Montgomery
(Left by a sailor who came and went unnoticed)

Welcome to Moses Lake! If you're lucky enough to be at the lake, you're lucky enough
, the sign at the edge of town read. Ancient-looking rock pillars supported the weathered wooden timbers, casting a shadow over the words and sheltering a spray of purple wildflowers. Considering that it had been a fairly mild night, it was hot today. Downhill from the sign, the waters of Moses Lake glittered in cheery patches between the trees. Boats crisscrossed the twinkling surface, leaving foamy white trails. Near the shore, docks of various vintages floated with brightly colored canoes, faded paddleboats, and pontoon craft tugging at their leashes, eager to be released to the water.

I had the strangest urge to pull over and abandon the Jeep and the trailer, which was catching wind today and weaving like crazy. I pictured myself running down the hill, hopping into a speedboat, and taking off across the water to the hills on the opposite side. They seemed wild and unspoiled, no docks, houses, or boat sheds marring the rocky shore. I could build a thatch hut there, hide away from everything. . . .

“I wanna go swimmin'!” Nick piped up, poking his finger against the window glass, leaving behind smudgy dabs of enthusiasm. If Nick felt at all out of place in this new life, it didn't show. He seemed as comfortable with the house and yard, with the town of Moses Lake, as if he'd always been here.

“It looks like fun, doesn't it?” I agreed. “Maybe we can do that later, but right now we have to find the hardware store and a place to get some lunch and some groceries. Doesn't that sound like fun, too?” The question sing-songed upward in an attempt to win Nick's cooperation. Truth be told, I didn't have much experience being alone with Nick, other than the weekend of the stomach flu when he was too sick to argue about anything. Beginning with our departure from my parents' house, I had seen Nick throw some fits my sisters would have classified as
snotty humzingers
, a description that had been in our family, not coincidentally, since I was little.

I'd been in public with my sisters a few times when one or more of the nieces opted to go the route of the snotty humzinger. The great thing about being only an aunt was that I could step away and pretend I didn't know those people. With Nick, I was responsible. I had no idea how to singlehandedly quash a zinger. So far, I'd been able to pretty much leave the discipline to Daniel.

The weight of parenthood fell heavily on my shoulders as we drifted past the Moses Lake sign. What qualifications did I have for guiding and shaping a small, fragile, developing human being? What if I screwed him up totally?

I glanced in the rearview mirror, and Nick was gazing toward the water with his brows slightly lowered. He craned to see the lake as we passed a small Corps of Engineers building and then a little rock church with a park along the lakeshore
in back. In the picnic area, kids from a day care or a school were playing in the shade of sprawling pecan trees near the water's edge.

“Ohhhhh . . .” Nick breathed, straining toward the window. “Look, there some kids-es!” His hand pressed flat against the glass, as if he were trying to reach out and touch the excitement.

“They're having a picnic.”
Please, no zingers. Please, no zingers . . . We can't stop and play with the kids. We have steel wool and bug bombs to buy.
“Maybe we can get your dad to go on a picnic with us after we get home.”

“I wanna go wit' the kids-es.” A lonely little whine frayed the last word.

“I bet the hardware store has candy.”
Redirect, redirect.
Where was that hardware store? “Tell you what, though, let's go find the café first. I'm hungry. Are you hungry, Nick? Remember the place you went with Daddy this morning? Can you help me find the way there?”

Nick didn't answer. He was too busy watching the kids as we passed by. I couldn't blame him for wanting to hang out with them. He was used to being surrounded by children every day. Daniel and I weren't much of a substitute for playmates his own age, and even Pecos the dog couldn't really make up for all the friends Nick had left behind in day care. Once we were settled here and had our finances back in order, maybe we could find some kind of preschool for Nick. I could use the time to look for a job, but for now getting the house in order had to come first.

Taking in the town of Moses Lake, I felt my hopes for future job possibilities shrinking. The place was tiny, just a few things on the edge of town: a convenience store that served Chinese food, a bank, the Harmony House Bed and Breakfast, and the church. Beyond that lay a little strip of old stone buildings
with high false fronts—dollar store, hardware store, a few antique shops, and a smattering of other things. No office buildings, no government facilities, no global corporations.

What could I possibly do with a degree in political science and foreign language in a place like this? The nearest town was Gnadenfeld, which we had passed through on our way in last night. It was larger, with a Walmart, various restaurants, new housing developments, and a fairly impressive-looking school building, but there was no business and industry section there, either, other than some sort of massive food processing facility.

I'd never find anything in my field around here, and if I didn't work, what would I do with myself? Who would I be?

Stop
.
One thing at a time.
The words came from outside my head as much as within it—as if someone were trying to deliver a cosmic chill pill, telling me to lay off the expectations. Just let things happen.

I tried to allow the placid rhythms of Moses Lake to wash over me as Nick and I proceeded through town, following signs to the Waterbird Bait and Grocery. When we rounded the corner and the place came into view, I had an uneasy feeling about eating there. With a rusted tin roof and an odd configuration of rooms and additions, the building looked like it had metamorphosized over time, growing out of the lakeside hills with no particular plan in mind. This was the spot Daniel had mentioned—the origin of this morning's delicious breakfast burrito? It looked more like one of the fish markets in Mexico.

In the backseat, Nick was already working his shoulders out of his safety harness as we turned into the gravel parking lot and the vehicle slowly drifted to a stop. “Can we get some fishies? And some wo-r-r-rms.” Stretching the last word, he lifted his little fingers and wiggled them in a crawly fashion.
I could only guess he'd gotten that from his dad. Nick and Daniel were similar in so many ways that it was hard to imagine, other than the blond hair, where Nick's mother was in the picture. Nick seemed to be a one hundred percent copy of his father, or maybe I just wanted to feel that way. It bothered me when I really thought about the fact that Nick had a mother out there. I wondered if, on some random day, she would awaken to what she was missing and come back to stake her claim. On Nick. On Daniel.

I worried that I would never really be Nick's mom, but I hadn't admitted that to anyone. I'd even denied it to my sisters when the subject came up.
Nick's biological mother doesn't have any interest,
I'd said, but every time I looked at Nick, I couldn't imagine how that could be true. How could anyone not want him?

“I think we'll just get something to eat today,” I said and came around to finish springing Nick from his car seat. He smiled as I did, and stretched his arms toward me as if it were completely natural.

“I wanna eat fishies and worms!” He gave an evil giggle and made crawly-hands against my shoulders. I got it that he was trying to do a gross-out on me.

“Fishies and worms?” I asked, hip-butting the door and tipping him forward at the same time, so that I was leaning over that adorable, mischievous smile. How in the world could I have been worried about that face pitching a snotty humzinger? He had to be the cutest kid who'd ever lived.

“Oh, you are so funny.” I tickled under his arms with my thumbs as his legs wrapped around me monkey-style. “What color fishies and worms?”

“Red fishies and gween wor-r-rmies!” Nick squealed and did the crawly hands again, giggling. “Big, squi-sy gween wor-r-rmies! The wittle cweam fill kind.” He quoted a line
from
The Lion King
, where Pumba bites into a particularly delicious bug.

“Eeewww!” I shook him upside down. “Did your dad feed you worms this morning?”

“Ye-h-h-h-es!” Nick laughed, letting his hands fly free.

“We'd better shake those worms back out, then. Boys aren't supposed to eat worms.” I bounced him a few more times, until his face turned good and red, and he was laughing breathlessly. Roughhousing with kids, I could do. I could stir them up until they were so hyper they wouldn't sit still for a week. It was one of my best Tante M skills.

It didn't occur to me until I'd turned Nick upright and set him on his feet, that maybe getting him all stirred up before lunch wasn't the best idea. He jittered and tugged on my hand as we walked toward the door, and the moment I let go of him at the deli counter so I could look at the menu, he was gone. Like a Ping-Pong ball with a good spin on it, he bounced around the store, leaving fingerprints all over the fish tanks in the bait section along the side wall, sticking his hands in the worm dirt, bothering three ladies at a corner table, then snagging a pack of gum from the candy aisle as I was ordering lunch and waiting for our food. I rounded him up just as he was about to stick his dirty little fingers into a warmer full of sausage biscuits. At that point, he wasn't happy to be corralled.

The elderly man behind the counter, who was working from a wheelchair, smiled tolerantly as I swung Nick onto my hip. “You hungry, little fella?” He smiled at us over tissue-lined chicken finger baskets.

Nick answered by burrowing his face into my shoulder, refusing to speak.

The old man chuckled, then tried again. “Looks like since breakfast this morning, you done developed a case of acute
Need-a-Nugget. You bring your mom back here for some lunch?”

Nick stopped burrowing in. Leaning back against the circle of my arms, he squinted at me, as if he were looking for the answer to that question, wondering if I knew the answer.
Did you bring your mom back . . . your mom . . .

Blood prickled into my cheeks, and I found myself caught in a moment for which there was no blueprint in my life. This was the first time the question had come up. At what point did I tell people that I was Nick's stepmother? I wimped out on it completely and grabbed a French fry from the chicken nuggets basket, handing it to Nick. “I think we've got a case of Need-a-Nugget, all right.”

I pretended to be busy digging a wet wipe from my purse, opening the packet, and swiping the worm dirt off Nick's hands as the man behind the counter fixed our drinks. Nick wiggled down so he could snatch another fry. The old man grinned at him over the sodas and tapped Nick's hand with a craggy finger. “You remember my name, young fella?”

Nick backed away a step and shook his head.

“Pop, like lollypop. Pop Dorsey. You remember that now?” The old man's hands disappeared below the counter momentarily, and Nick watched with expectation, clearly having been through this drill before. A green lollypop was soon on its way to Nick's chicken basket.

Nick nodded, licking his lips.

“He can have a lollypop, can't he?” Pop Dorsey turned to me after the fact.

“Sure. Thanks, that's very sweet. What do you tell Mr. Dorsey, Nick?”

“No
mister
, just
Pop,
” the old man corrected. “I'm Pop to kids of all sizes and stripes. Been running this place too long to be anything else.” He stuck out a hand to shake mine.
“Yer husband said he moved here for his job, but he didn't say whereabouts.”

“At the West Ranch,” I answered. Pop Dorsey lifted an eyebrow, and I felt compelled to explain further. “My husband will be working in the laboratory out there.”

It still felt strange to say those words,
My husband
. It was hard to believe that a little over two months ago, marriage wasn't even on my radar. I still felt as if the man behind the counter should roll his eyes and say,
Yeah right, like I believe that.

But instead, some private thought swirled behind Pop Dorsey's cloudy gray eyes, and a wrinkle sketched lines of concern on his forehead. Nick paused, his hands motionless on the edge of the counter, as if even he felt the undercurrent. A cold sensation crawled up my back, making the skin tight and itchy.

“You livin' out there on the ranch?” Pop Dorsey asked with more than ordinary curiosity.

“Yes. At the old headquarters, I think it's called. The house came with the job. We'd be foolish not to take advantage of the offer.” The explanation was meant to convey that we weren't homeless or destitute, but what I got back was the sense that Pop Dorsey thought we'd be better off living somewhere else.