Random Acts of Kindness (19 page)

Jenna understood the act of defiance. Zoe had a reason to be suspicious of authority figures she’d once trusted. She watched Zoe approach while her heart stumbled through a three-step shuffle in her chest. Her daughter dug her high-top sneakers deep in pine litter and dragged the rubberized toe through. Her shocking magenta hair lay over her brow in choppy pieces. As she came closer, Jenna realized it wasn’t just the bangs that had been cut short. All that lovely, light blonde hair that once fell to the middle of her back…Zoe had taken scissors to that, too.

Look what you’ve done to our strong young fledgling, Nate.

Zoe shuffled to a stop on the other side of the log. “I guess this means the bitch is finally expelling me.”

The expletive exploded between them. Jenna lost the power to speak while she waited for the shock wave to pass. She’d never before heard such a word in her daughter’s little-girl voice. She tangled with the competing urges to reprimand her or ignore her.

When unsure, Nicole had advised, speak the facts in a nonjudgmental voice. “Master Ranger Garfunkle is not expelling you, Zoe.”

“Man, what do I have to do to break out of this place?” Zoe kicked over some reedy wild mustard. “She’s been riding my ass all summer about my hair, about my eyeliner, about my piercing, about my ‘attitude.’”

Zoe turned her head just far enough so Jenna could see a flash of silver hanging from her ear. Right next to the little silver stud from Zoe’s first piercing, Jenna caught sight of a paper clip holding up a long chain of other paper clips.

Neutral voice.
“I hope you iced that ear good before you put the needle in.”

“I didn’t even feel it.”

“I’m glad it’s not your eyebrow.” She glanced at the hem of Zoe’s T-shirt. “Or your navel.”

“I’ll be getting a navel piercing on my fourteenth birthday.” She crossed her arms. “Dad promised.”

Jenna absorbed that little tidbit thinking it sounded like a pie-crust promise, thinking it sounded like a bribe.

“Look,” Zoe said, “if I’m not being expelled, then who died?”

“Nobody died.”

“It has to be something real bad for Godzilla to break, like, a thousand regulations.”

Jenna forced her voice calm. “I’m here because I need to talk to you about what’s going on between your father and me.”

Zoe’s face went still. It was a cold, swift tensing of muscle that looked so strange on a face still round with baby fat.

Jenna knotted her fingers together and then braced them against her knees. “It’s about nine months too late, but your father finally told me about Siss—Mrs. Leclaire.”

“Well, it’s about fucking time.”

“That wouldn’t be Algonquin for ‘finally,’ would it?”

Zoe twisted and sat down with a huff on the log. “How did you figure it out? Did you catch him sneaking out her back door at night when he was supposedly working in the garage? Or did you catch them doing it on the living room couch? Or did you find her tent-size cotton underwear under that chair in Dad’s workshop?”

Jenna felt like she’d been struck in the back of the head. She unlocked her fingers and flattened them on the gnarly bark of the log. “That was a multiple-choice question, and you didn’t offer me a ‘none of the above.’”

“Gawd, Mom.”

“It’s actually a virtue to have absolute faith in someone’s loyalty.”

Zoe’s whole body heaved as she made a huff of such cynicism that Jenna winced.

“I only found out after we put you on the plane,” she explained. “That’s when your father handed me the petition for divorce.”

Zoe’s head swiveled. One incredulous blue eye peeped out from a rim of black eyeliner. “Divorce?”

“Alas.”

“Wow,” Zoe said, blinking. “He’s really doing it.”

“I’m afraid so—”

“After all that,” Zoe barked, her voice rising. “After all that, he just went ahead and did it anyway.”

The words rang in Jenna’s head.
He did it anyway.
As if Nate had discussed the possibility of divorce with his thirteen-year-old daughter before he’d talked about it with his own wife.
He did it anyway.
Her mind tumbled, struggling to think up a different scenario—any scenario—that would prompt Zoe to say such a thing.

Zoe’s blue gaze skittered away to find interest in something on the other side of the lake. “So, did Daddy also tell you that he knocked the bitch up?”

Jenna raised a hand as if to catch her brain before it exploded out of her skull. To think she’d worried about how unethical it was to visit Zoe without Nate’s knowledge. To think she’d almost texted Nate ten minutes ago to let him know she and Zoe were going to have a one-on-one. To think she’d been ready to reassure him that she’d only wanted to let Zoe know that she didn’t have to keep secrets anymore.

“He knocks up a neighbor, and you’ve got nothing to say?” Zoe said. “Aren’t you furious at him?”

Jenna thought about the tangle of emotions she’d carried with her when she’d flung a box of mementos in the trunk of her car and set off for a new life…the shame and the shock and the crushing sense of worthlessness and failure. Later there had been anger, too, but it had been like a comet, a flare and then a flameout.

“Anger is like a hot coal, Zoe. If you hang on to it for too long, then you’re the one who’ll get burned.”

“What, did you read that on a Hallmark card somewhere?”

“Wisdom from a Buddhist nun.”

Zoe cast her that blue eye again. “Well, if you’re not angry, that means you can’t ground me.”

“Ground you for what? A bad purple dye job and a piercing?”

“For keeping those secrets for Dad.”

Jenna managed to just brush her fingertips against the frizzing purple ends of Zoe’s hair before Zoe shifted away, scuffing down the log out of arm’s reach. Jenna sat there with her arm outstretched and her ribs squeezing her breath out of her body.

“I was never mad at you, Zoe, never, ever, not once.” What could she say to make everything better? “Your father shouldn’t have burdened you with such a secret. It was wrong. He wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Yeah, I saw that much.” Zoe took intense interest in the chipped purple nail polish on her fingers. “So I guess that it’s going to be me sharing a room with my new stepsister Natalie while Dad shares a room with his second wife Sissy and we all wait with joy for the arrival of our new little half brother or half sister like one big weirdly fractured dysfunctional family.”

Jenna’s mind was starting to hurt. “That’s something we’ll have to work out.”

“Whose house, ours or…
hers
?”

“Your father wants to keep the house.”

“After all he’s done?”

“Oregon is a no-fault state.” She shrugged as if she could dismiss fourteen years of joyous nesting. “I’ll probably get an apartment nearby.”

“Where would I stay, in the house or your apartment?”

“The house. It’ll always be your home.” Jenna braced herself to hit Zoe with the next wave of truth. “You should know that your father is asking for full legal and physical custody.”

“What does that even
mean
?”

“He wants to be the main parent. I’ll get visitation rights.”

“What, like I’m in prison?”

“It’s going to be complicated.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“It’s going to be complicated,” she repeated, “because I’m going to counter and ask for
shared
legal and physical custody.”

Zoe turned her face away, but Jenna knew her baby. She knew the curve of that cheek. She knew when it quivered a certain way that Zoe was biting the inside of her lip, that her chin was starting to pucker. This was a lot for a thirteen-year-old to absorb, too much, all at once. Jenna had vowed she wouldn’t make the same mistake Nate had by putting too much of a burden on those slim shoulders.

“So,” Jenna said, changing the subject, “did you get any of my postcards?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice vacation, huh?”

“It’s
weird
. Did you really camp out at an archaeological dig?”

“In South Dakota. I also went skinny-dipping in Lake Michigan.”

“Gawd, Mom, TMI.”

They sat in silence for a little while. A woodpecker clattered away in the trees. A chipmunk darted out from a root, crossed in front of them, and burrowed in the litter. Jenna recognized the birdsong of a cardinal whistling through the woods, and after a long pause, she heard another cardinal respond in the distance.

Zoe finally said, “You still haven’t told me how you convinced Godzilla to break, like, four epic rules to let you in here.”

“I’ll explain that as soon as you tell me why the Great Sachem tossed those rules to the wind upon hearing your name.”

“You go first.”

“Would you believe I threatened to break in from the northwest with a SWAT team?”

A spark of a smile, extinguished far too quickly.

“Actually, I was ready to have my Master Ranger badge ripped off my chest for the chance to talk to you. I had a backup plan that involved trekking to the wigwams after dark, but first I tried a frontal assault. I figured it would fail. Then Godzilla heard your name and she practically drove me here in the camp golf cart.”

Zoe’s mouth curved. “We hijacked that golf cart just last week.”

“Well, that does raise some interesting questions. Your turn.”

Zoe’s smile fell. “You should know right now that I won’t be making Apprentice Ranger.”

Jenna heard a ribbon of regret amid the defiance. “Five years to Apprentice Ranger is almost unheard of, you know. There’s always next year to earn that badge.”

“That badge doesn’t mean
anything
. This whole place is a joke. I won’t be coming back next year.”

Zoe launched up from the log. Jenna saw little bits of bark peppering the backs of her thighs as Zoe strode down the path. Nicole had warned her that a lot of teenage mood swings stemmed less from hormones than from the stew of confusion, self-doubt, ambivalence, guilt, and anger that young adults were just learning to handle. Jenna’s instinct was to run after her daughter, pull her into an embrace, and hold her little girl until Zoe stopped fighting. But Zoe wasn’t a little girl anymore, and Jenna sensed that holding her like that would only make her feel smothered.

Jenna caught up with Zoe just as the archery range came into view. “Listen—”

“You didn’t come to get me out of here, Mom. So why don’t you just go back to your
friends
?”

“I intend to.”

She let Zoe absorb that as she walked in the flat-footed way she’d once been taught in these very woods.

“I am going back,” Jenna repeated, “because you need a few days here to make a certain decision.”

“What?” She flung her arms up. “Am I supposed to decide
now
? Between you and Dad?”

“You’ll never have to make that decision. It’s been a horror show lately, Zoe, but your father and I both love you, and in the end, we’ll do what’s best for you.”

“Blah blah blah.”

“I realize that over the past months you’ve had to grow up much faster than you should have—”

“Am I old enough to get a navel piercing now?”

“Those secrets your father made you keep put a big distance between you and me.”

Zoe made a noise as if she’d wanted to say something but then, at the last moment, swallowed it down.

“So, respecting the fact that you’ve had to grapple with big issues, I’m going to make you an offer.”

“Can I refuse it?”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. It’s a radical change of plans. You’d be giving up a week at Nana’s. You’d be giving up all those home-cooked meals and daily trips to Six Flags.”

“It better be good.”

“I drove all the way here from Seattle in Grandpa’s old Lumina. I have to get it back home. If you can stand being in that car with your less-than-perfect mother for five or six days,” Jenna breathed, “I would love for you to join me for the road trip home.”

A
s they drove closer to the Hudson River Gorge, Nicole pulled the plug on the GPS and let the screen go dark. She didn’t really need directions. These roads followed the familiar meanderings of shallow, rock-strewn streams that now and again revealed a fly fisherman or a pair of helmeted kayakers. While navigating them, she heard in her mind the shout-singing of her softball team as if she were riding not in Jenna’s Lumina but instead in a hired bus to an away game in high school. She and her teammates used to stand in the aisle or braced their arms against the backs of the chairs, howling as they sang the Pine Lake Beavers song. Not just the official one, but the one with all the dirty jokes, too, as the bus careened far too fast around the hairpin turns or rattled over potholes not yet fixed after the long winter.

She sidled a glance at Claire, who wasn’t meditating but had nonetheless grown unnervingly still since they’d left the inn this morning. That stillness made Nicole anxious. She wished Claire was as lost in youthful memories as she was and not worrying herself into knots about the prospect of whitewater rafting.

A phone beeped, breaking the silence.

Claire spoke without glancing from her window reverie. “Nic, darling, you must get a thousand texts a day.”

“That’s not my phone.”

Claire nudged her tote bag with her foot. “I know it’s not mine.”

Jenna jerked up in the backseat and dug for her cell. She sucked in a breath as she glanced at the face. “It’s a text from Mrs. Garfunkle.”

“That’s impossible.” Nicole flicked a look in the rearview mirror. “The phone in that office was tethered and had a rotary dial.”

Claire said drily, “Apparently Godzilla owns a cell phone, too.”

Nicole shook her head. “First Mrs. Garfunkle lets Jenna onto the sacred grounds during the Season of the Long Days, and now she’s allowing electronic communications. All the sacred institutions are falling. What’s next, a satellite dish on the Trading Post?”

Nicole watched in the rearview mirror as Jenna’s face, awash in the light of the cell-phone screen, became suffused with nothing less than a heavenly glow. Nicole’s heart did a little leap of relief. After everything Jenna had told her yesterday, Nicole hadn’t been so sure that her discussion with Zoe would end well.

“Let me guess.” Claire rolled her head against the headrest in order to glance into the backseat. “Zoe said yes to the road trip.”

“Yes.” Jenna’s laugh was shaky with relief. “Yes! Mrs. Garfunkle also says she only allowed this communication because Zoe promised not to toilet-paper any more buildings in the last few days of camp.”

Claire said, “A girl after my own heart.”

Jenna pressed her phone against her throat. “I hope you two don’t mind. It’s going to get crowded in this car on the way back home.”

Nicole said, “No, it won’t.”

“But with Zoe’s duffel in the trunk and Lucky’s bed taking up half the—”

“No, no,” Nicole interrupted, “Zoe doesn’t want to do this trip with two middle-aged women sitting in the backseat breathing all over her. And just imagine how much you two could talk if you were alone in that car for thousnads of miles.”

“But what about you and Claire?”

“If you’re okay doing the drive, then Claire and I will fly home.”

“But Claire doesn’t fly.”

Claire made a snorting sound. “I lied about that.”

“What?”

“Back in Oregon, I told you I didn’t fly because I wanted to convince you to drive across country. It’s a much more mindful way of travel, don’t you agree?”

“Why, you lying Buddhist.”

“Even Buddhists allow for an occasional evasion,” Claire said, “as long as it does some good and no harm.”

Nicole eased up on the gas as they approached a hairpin turn.

“Jenna, are you worried about driving all that distance by yourself?”

“No, I’m fine driving. It’s talking to my teenager that has me in a cold sweat.”

“I hear you. I’ll make all the flight arrangements when we get to Pine Lake.”

In truth, Nicole was relieved to be flying home. Not just because she was developing a swollen rock of a calf on her gas-pedal leg, but because they were running out of time. Noah would be coming back from the residential facility in ten days. Even a direct route home meant driving three thousand miles, and she’d hoped to stay for at least a long weekend in Pine Lake.

Nicole snuck a glance at her other lost sheep, who was staring out the window as if to map every curve of every stream. With one arm pressed against her midriff, bracing her other elbow, Claire chewed on the end of her thumb. On her lap sat a package of chocolate pretzels, unopened.

Nicole understood how Claire felt. At least, she thought she understood. For Claire, this final goal was the equivalent of, say, the last, tense, all-or-nothing playoff game of a long high school career—with all the fierce expectations, pressure to perform, and the stomach-churning conviction that failure and disappointment were inevitable.

Nicole understood the feelings even though she
hadn’t
experienced them on her last, tense, all-or-nothing playoff game of her high school career. That special morning she’d woken up intensely aware that once that playoff game was over—and win or lose, it would be epic, every bright crack of the bat seared in her mind—then never again would she arrive on the softball field on a bright April morning with the chill of snow in the air. Never again as captain would she grasp the icy iron of the lock as she opened the shed to the musty blast of wood and mold. Never again would she set out the bases and the bats and balls while the other players sleepwalked onto the field. For all intents, the high school career she loved was over and the halcyon days done. All that remained was to enjoy the moment.

“Hey, Claire,” Nicole said, her heart rising in her throat, “do you remember that Cubs game in Chicago?”

Claire stopped chewing on her thumb long enough to give her an odd look. “Is this a pop quiz?”

“I’ve been thinking about that rookie closing pitcher who came out on the field in the ninth inning.”

“I remember the pitcher we drank in the Cubby Bear after.”

“The game was tied. There was a man on first.” Nicole kept her eyes on the road, but she could feel Claire’s reluctant curiosity. “You have to remember it. We stood up because everyone in the whole stadium was standing up, and roaring, and watching the pitcher’s every wind-up. The whole ball game hung on how well that one guy pitched.”

“Do I get extra-credit points for remembering I had to pee?”

“Forty-one thousand nineteen people were watching that poor sap. That guy should have been a wreck. He should have been sweating bullets.”

Claire paused, as if remembering the focused, unwavering, cold-as-ice look on the rookie’s face at the same moment she realized what Nicole was trying to say. “At least he wasn’t facing mortal peril.”

“Wasn’t he?” Nicole said. “A ninety-six-mile-per-hour fastball can do a lot of damage if someone hits it straight toward his head. That boy,” she said, knowing the Cub’s rookie was only twenty-two, “knew that he had to focus on getting into position, on the signals the catcher was sending him, on settling his fingers just the right way along the seam, on the feel of the wind on his face, on winding up and letting athletic instinct take over as he threw a pitch the same way he’s been throwing a pitch since his high school coach chose him from the crowd of hopefuls and put him on the mound. Claire, you have to do the same thing today.”

“Pitch in a major league baseball game?”

“Approach this situation in the exact same way I’ve watched you handle everything that’s been thrown at you.”

“Give up?”

The words hung in the air. Nicole forced herself not to be angry, even though what she wanted to do was pull the car over and give her friend a good, long shake. Instead, she took one deep breath and then took another so she would feel the blood rush to her brain. Yes, Claire had given up on many things. But Claire didn’t see herself the way the rest of the world did. She didn’t see a strong, determined woman who was her own worst enemy.

Nicole said, “You’ve driven forty-five hundred miles in a creaking car that smells like ranch-flavored potato chips and wet dog. You’ve put up with me listening to a hundred hours of country music, without a word of complaint—”

“No risk of drowning there.”

“You’ve publicly line-danced in Cheyenne. You escaped out of the back door of a pool hall in Kansas. You swam naked in Lake Michigan—”

“Still, no mortal peril.”

“Is it mortal peril that’s got you chewing on your fingernails?” Nicole asked. “You’ve faced that, too. And you have been facing it since the moment you were diagnosed.”

Claire opened her mouth and then shut it. She shifted in her seat. The word
cancer
seemed to whisper through the car. Nicole paused to give Claire a chance to spit out another sassy reply, but Claire had gone mute, finding intense interest in the seam of the bag of chocolate pretzels in her lap.

Nicole said, “The Claire I’ve come to know is a woman who accepts what the world has thrown at her, as bad as it is. The Claire I’ll never forget is the one I saw in that airport terminal in Des Moines, when you planted your feet and stood up to your formidable sister to assert—for better or for worse—your own free will about treatment.” The words came fast, her tongue tripping over them. “Your giving-up problem, my old friend, lies in an utter lack of confidence in yourself. You have always, always,
always
underestimated what you are capable of accomplishing.”

The car rumbled over a pothole. Lucky’s dog tags jingled in the backseat, as if the pup had just woken up to the charged atmosphere in the car. The hum of the tires over the road went up in pitch as they traveled over one of the many little bridges that crossed the streams.

Nicole fixed her gaze on the winding road as the air stretched tense and her confidence began to waver. She once thought she knew how to ferret out people’s weaknesses and the unconscious habits that sabotaged their better intentions. She once thought she knew how to nudge folks over the fence to better pastures. Even Claire once claimed that Nicole knew how to inspire people. Still, it took a long time for her to muster the courage to look over and gauge the expression on Claire’s face.

Claire looked straight at her, blinking, her brown eyes full of gratitude…and tears.

Nicole let out a breath she felt as if she’d been holding for about eighteen months. She let out a breath that seemed to expel so much air that her belly button touched her spine. She felt adrenaline shaky, nicotine shaky, caffeine shaky, public speaking shaky, both jittering and relieved and strangely, oddly thankful. She wanted to stick her head out the car window and feel the wind rush past her ears. She wanted to pull the car over and run circles around it until she stopped trembling.

Then Claire started to laugh, and Jenna laughed with her, and they all scrambled for the last of the tissues and whatever scratchy fast-food napkins they could rustle up, as the road opened, as buildings appeared through the trees. She caught sight of a sign ahead, a rustic placard of elaborate lettering swinging on a pole, and her heart did another Olympic leap knowing that the real test of their friendship was coming.

Gravel popped under her wheels as she pulled the car into the parking lot of the Birchbark Rafting Company. She turned to Claire as she shut the car off. She waited until her friend lifted her face from the T-shirt she was using to dab her eyes.

Nicole sensed the high wattage of her own expression. “Are you ready?”

Claire nodded once. “Bring it on.”

Nicole swung open the door, stepped out, and bounced to the front of the car. She shaded her eyes with her hand as she squinted down the slope to the water’s edge. Her heart gave a little leap as she caught sight of a group of folks getting ready to go rafting, then stilled in disappointment when she realized the group was not who she expected—only a bunch of guys.

Claire hefted her hands onto her hips as she joined her. “I see we’re not the only fools to be doing this today.”

One of those “guys” suddenly turned and shouted in their direction. What he shouted sounded very much like
Claire.

Nicole froze as the rest of the group swung around and looked their way. She stuttered in disbelief as she watched the whole group rush up the slope with a collective squeal that didn’t sound in the
least
bit like it came from the throats of men.

Nicole counted them. Then she pressed her hand against her mouth as she counted them again.

Yes, they were all here, exactly as she’d planned.

But every last woman was bald.