Say That Again (17 page)

Hannah slipped Echo a carrot underneath the table. He sniffed it, then took a nibble. Soon, he was crunching away and begging for more.

“I saw that,” Hunter said.

“Mommy says carrots are okay for dogs.”

He couldn’t argue with that. But he hadn’t meant what he said as any kind of admonishment. He was merely teasing. Sometimes jokes were lost on Hannah.

The rumble of the ATV sounded just outside, then stopped. Brad strode into the kitchen, pools of sweat already darkening his shirt under his arms. He tickled Hannah’s neck, but instead of giggling, she hunched up like a turtle pulling into its shell.

A few moments later, Lise came in and pulled a couple of water bottles from the fridge. “Calvin Rowe isn’t answering his phone and the Minards are busy fixing their own fences.”

“Gus said he could be over in an hour or two.” Brad took one of the bottles from her. “Looks like it’s just the two of us for now. Time for a roundup. Let’s go, cowpoke.”

Hunter didn’t like not being able to help. Yet he couldn’t just park Hannah in front of the TV and trust that she was going to stay there. He’d left a message with Jenn, but so far she hadn’t answered. Knowing Hannah, she’d suddenly feel the need to wash her hands, then decide a bubble bath was a good idea and dump the whole box of Calgon into the tub while watching the bubbles overflow onto the floor. It had happened just last week. Thank goodness Jenn had walked in before Hannah stepped into a tub full of scalding water.

As Brad and Lise started out the door, Hunter stood. “You know, I was thinking maybe I could ask our new neighbor, Heck, to keep an eye on Hannah so I can help you guys. I saw his car when we came over. I’m pretty sure he’s home.”

Lise shrugged. “Sure. It’s worth a try, I suppose.”

“You go ahead and see if you can locate the flock. I’ll walk Hannah over and ask. If she’s standing right there with me, it’ll be hard for him to say ‘no’.” Even so, given Heck’s cold reception of them last week, he wasn’t sure Heck would agree to watch Hannah. Or that it was a good idea, given that he didn’t know anything about the guy. But with Echo along to supervise, Hunter felt reassured.

Echo nudged Hannah’s leg. A carrot dropped from her fingers onto the floor. He snarfed it down, then stretched out at her feet.

No, that dog wouldn’t let anything happen to Hannah. Even if his life was at stake.

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—o00o—

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“J
ust remember, you need to keep an eye on Echo. Make sure he doesn’t get into anything, okay?” Hunter eyed his daughter sternly. Really, he’d said that to make sure Echo always had Hannah in his sight, not the other way around. When she didn’t acknowledge his question, he took her small jaw in his hand and turned her face so he could look into her eyes. “Okay, Hannah?”

Shifting side to side, she nodded. They were only standing on Heck’s porch and already she was growing anxious.

“What did I just tell you?” he prompted. He’d learned to have her repeat things to make sure she understood. Sometimes her mind was a million miles away.

She twisted her face away. “Watch Echo.”

“Good. Now let’s see if Mr. Menendez will let you watch TV here while Daddy helps Gramma and Grampa. I’ll come back in an hour and check on you.” Actually, he couldn’t promise if he’d be back in an hour, but Hannah wasn’t likely to notice the time. Besides, he wasn’t even sure if she could read a clock yet. He’d have to ask Jenn when she got home.

Hunter knocked on the door. No one answered. He knocked again, waited. Hannah was rocking on her feet, swaying like a tree in the wind. Heck’s car was still in the driveway. And the TV was on. He checked his phone for texts, just in case he’d missed the little beep. Nothing.

Stepping away from the door to peer in the picture window, he called his mom. “Any sign of them yet?”

“Yeah, they’re exactly where I suspected. I don’t think any have wandered away from the group, but I won’t know until we get them back in the pens and accounted for.”

“Any luck getting them headed back toward the house?”

“Not yet. They’re light, Hunter. Practically wild. They’re spooked, too. It’s like they found themselves outside the fence and reverted to their ancestral roots. Trying to do this with two people is just impossible. And the ATV is only scaring them more, even though they’re used to seeing Brad ride it around the farm. You’d think a spaceship from Mars had landed in their midst.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, Mom. I know Heck’s here, but he hasn’t answered the door yet.”

“Maybe he’s indisposed, Hunter?”

“Fat chance.” Hunter pressed his face to the glass. “I can see the bathroom from here. Door’s wide open. Pretty sure there isn’t a second one in this house.”

“Give him a break. It’s not like he was expecting you. Besides, a lot of people don’t shut the bathroom door when they’re in the house alone. You’re going to feel pretty foolish when he comes out and sees you staring into his bathroom as he’s zipping up his fly.”

She had a point. Hunter stepped back to the door and pounded on it with the heel of his fist. “Call you back as soon as I figure things out, okay?” He ended the call and slipped the phone in his pocket, muttering, “Who is this guy, anyway? Some sort of hermit? A famous screenwriter escaping Hollywood? Kind of rude to ignore a neighbor in need. Geesh, you’d think —”

“I was in the garage.”

Hunter wheeled around to see Heck standing on the other side of a crepe myrtle at the far end of the porch. He could smell the paint thinner from fifteen feet away.

Wiping his hands on a rag, Heck came around to the steps. He had on a pair of overalls covered in dabs and smears of various paint colors. “Did you say you needed something?”

For a moment, Hunter wanted to melt into the floorboards. Calling his neighbor a rude hermit was slightly more embarrassing than catching sight of him zipping up his pants while coming out of the can. “Sorry, Heck. I, uh, was getting a little flustered. My mom’s sheep got out after the storm. She could use some help —”

“I don’t know the first thing about sheep.”

A dry laugh escaped Hunter. “Uh, no. That’s not quite the favor I was going to ask.”

Heck came up the steps slowly, looked down at Hannah, who was twisting side to side as she hugged Faustine. Echo surveyed him with a guarded expression, as if he hadn’t quite made up his mind about the man.

“Don’t know much about kids, either. Or dogs.”

“I hate to ask. I’m kind of in a bind here. The quicker I can get out there to help, the better. Otherwise she could lose the entire flock. You could just sit Hannah here down in front of the TV, maybe with some paper and a pencil. She doesn’t talk much. Well, usually she doesn’t talk to strangers at all. I mean, you’re a stranger to her, not me. But she —”

“Excuse me,” — Heck turned his head partway, as if to hear better — “what did you say her name was?”

“Hannah. Her name’s Hannah. It would only be for an hour, hopefully. Well, I can’t promise that, actually, but it would take that long at least for us to —”

“The dog, too?”

Was he saying he would? Or that the dog was a deal-breaker? “Yes, they’re kind of a two-for-one deal. Hannah doesn’t go anywhere without Echo.”

“Even school?”

“We’ll figure that out in about a week.” Hunter waited for him to say more, but Heck just stood there blank-faced, like he was waiting for them to get off his porch. “Look, sorry to bother you. I’ll just wait till my wife gets back, whenever that will be. Have a nice day.” He couldn’t help but let the sarcasm leak through on that last bit. This guy was about as warm as a freeze-pop. He took Hannah’s hand and started past Heck.

“Is
Sesame Street
okay?”

Hunter stopped. “Pardon?”

Heck gestured toward the front door. “I don’t have a satellite dish and I can only get four, sometimes five stations, but I think PBS is one of them. Figure they probably have a children’s program on this time of day. Although I’ve never really checked, so I don’t know for certain.”

When the idea of first asking Heck to watch Hannah had popped into his head, Hunter had thought it a reasonable solution to a dire situation. But the more he talked to the man, the less sure he was. Jenn would probably skewer him for leaving Hannah with someone they had barely spoken to, especially after their initial encounter. Yet one look at the gaping hole in the fence from across the road here told him he didn’t have much choice. Still ...

Hannah tugged at his hand. This was a bad time for her to have to use the bathroom.

“Daddy?” she whispered.

“Yeah, sweet pea?”

“Echo says it’s okay.”

He sank down on his haunches to meet her eye to eye. “What do you mean? Okay for what?”

“For me to stay here. That Heck’s okay.”

Reaching out, Hunter stroked the dog’s neck. “How would he know, sweet pea?”

“He can see it.” She pointed to her eyes. “Here.”

The fact that she had spoken in front of a stranger was enough to dumfound Hunter.

“Dr. McHugh ...” Heck began. “Hunter, is it? I understand your reservations. I wasn’t particularly receptive to your visit the other day. The fact is that I moved out here for the peace and quiet. I was also very tired from packing and unpacking. I may not have a lot, but at sixty-seven, well, you don’t have as much energy as you used to. Or tolerance, for that matter. But I’m not one to turn away someone in need. She can stay until your wife comes home, or until you find your sheep. The dog, too. But don’t think this is a standing offer, understood?”

Straightening, Hunter extended his hand for Heck to shake. “Okay, thanks.”

Heck kept his hands at his sides. “I have a thing about germs. As soon as the kid and dog are gone, I’ll probably break out the bleach.” The corners of his mouth turned up in a weak smile.

Great, Hunter thought, a germophobe who doesn’t like kids or dogs. What could go wrong?

The door latch clicked behind Hunter. Hannah had already let herself in and turned the TV on. This was unusual. But if things were going his way for once, he wasn’t going to question it.

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F
austine propped up next to her, Hannah sat on the end of the couch closest to the door. She never looked at Heck directly, but every time his back was turned for more than a second, she stole a glance. Amazingly, she showed very few of the nervous habits I’d seen her display around other strangers. Probably because he just handed her the remote control, then went about his business, cleaning the kitchen. He didn’t ask her questions, or offer her snacks, or sit uncomfortably close. He simply acted like she wasn’t there.

A long time passed, though, before Hannah changed the station from a baseball game to a nature program about penguins in Antarctica. She didn’t pay much attention to the person speaking from inside the TV, but whenever they showed the birds, every part of her went still, as if focusing on the sounds the penguins made.

I was stretched out on the floor in front of her, my eyes closed, halfway to sleep, when Heck’s shoes scuffed softly near me. I pried one eye open, watching. He settled himself in the recliner and watched the rest of the program with her in silence until the credits scrolled up from the bottom of the screen.

Then he said, like he was the only one in the room, which he was probably used to being, “Emperors get all the attention. You’d think they were the only penguins in the world.”

As slowly as snow melting on a cloudy day, Hannah turned her face from the TV toward him. He, in turn, looked at her. An understanding passed between them. An agreement of sorts, that Emperor penguins were indeed highly overrated. The significance of the moment was not lost on me, but Heck and Hannah were less aware of it. To them it was simply a natural progression, a breaking down of walls, like when most humans shake hands or say ‘hello’.

The credits ended and a woodworking show came on. Disinterested, Hannah began to fidget. Heck removed himself from the room, gathering laundry from a hamper in one of the two bedrooms, then lugging it into a small room next to the kitchen where he turned dials and punched a button. The washing machine started up with a splash and a gurgle.

Hannah took the opportunity to change the channels, stopping on an old western, where the cowpokes were rounding up a large herd of cattle. Whenever they panned the herd of lowing cattle, Hannah’s face took on a deep intensity. Heck even drifted past the doorway once, paused to make sure all was well, then wandered back to the bedroom with an armload of freshly dried sheets.

When the cattle drive scene ended and the movie switched to a saloon full of boozing cowboys and women in frilly costumes, Hannah lost interest. Her gaze wandered around the room. It was relatively austere, as if Heck were afraid too many things would anchor him there interminably. The only non-functional items in the room were the books in the short bookcase on which the TV sat and a row of paintings on the wall leading to the kitchen.

For the longest time, Hannah sat transfixed by the paintings, each a subtle wash of bright colors. Close up, the delineations between the objects in each picture were blurred. But from a distance the colors came together in shapes and patterns to create images so vibrant they appeared more real than any photograph I have ever seen. While she remained hypnotized by the paintings, Heck mopped the kitchen floor, wiped down the counters, and put a second load of laundry in.

Hannah was still sitting in the very same spot when Hunter knocked at the door.

“There you are!” he remarked with obvious relief.

Upon hearing his voice, Heck came out of the kitchen and let him in. I went up to Hunter and sniffed his pants legs, then his hands. He smelled strongly of those fluffy white creatures I often saw farther down the road. Sheep, he called them. I wondered what good they were as pets if they weren’t allowed in the house. Judging by their scent, they clearly pooped and then laid in it. Which would explain why they were kept outdoors.

“How was she?” Hunter asked.

“How was who?” Heck joked dryly. “Oh, her. Forgot she was even here. She’s been mesmerized by the TV ever since you left.”