Sugaring off, p.12
Sugaring Off, page 12
“Yeah?”
Pauses, forcing her body to stillness, determined not to let a jiggling knee or fidgeting fingers give away how much this offer is costing her. “If you really want to see my drawings, they’re up there.”
He takes a few steps toward the stairs, assessing her in a way she returns with a frank look, then glances over toward the back hallway one more time, as if Seth or Holly might suddenly come rushing out and catch them.
She hangs back a little, watching how he slows near the top as he reaches the curtains, just as Seth does, then moves one panel aside to check out the room before he enters. Aida’s been in her room, of course, and the Boulier sisters, briefly. No one else but family.
By the time she’s in the loft, he’s made his way over to the wall near her bureau, looking at the sketches of the mother deer and fawn she did last year, a much rougher, unfinished picture of a scattering of broken robin’s-egg shells she found in the grass beneath a nest.
Silence goes on too long. “Not bad.” He doesn’t turn, keeps going from drawing to drawing, a quick study before moving on.
She shrugs, a small defensive stab in her middle, wounded pride even after she had convinced herself it didn’t matter, nothing he could say.
He lingers over the drawing of the splintered antler she found on a hike, maybe evidence of where two bucks had battled, the ground well trampled. “Where’s this?” Taps the corner of another sketch, the waterfall into the basin.
“We call it the Notch.” She goes toward the stairs, ready to head down, all this seeming like a mistake now, an embarrassing overstep on her part, none of this anything that he would ever want to see. “About an hour’s hike away.”
“You gonna take me there sometime?”
She throws a look over her shoulder and sees he’s really waiting for her answer. “If you’re lucky.” Starts toward the stairs.
“Hold up.” His hand lands on her shoulder, firm pressure, and she jerks around partway.
His gaze is on the top of her head, his height giving him the perfect angle to see the place she covers with a side part raked into her scalp with a pintail comb after every shower. He touches without permission, too focused on the line of pinkish-white scar tissue that stands out against her pale hair, pressing his fingertip to it. “What’s this?”
With a firmness of her own, she pushes his hand away.
Then—a moment’s fearlessness—she pulls the covered elastic from the end of her right braid and untwists the three segments, raking her fingers through until her hair hangs loosely, letting him look.
She doesn’t expect his touch again—quite the opposite; maybe she wanted his shock, revulsion. But his fingers trace the full four inches of the scar with a sort of patient, thoughtless fascination, not seeming to flinch from the worst place, the spot she hates, the last inch where the flesh puckers and twists, a florid peony pink, despite the surgeon’s best efforts, where no hair will grow again. She lifts her head, steps back when she isn’t sure if he’s going to take his hand away.
“What the hell happened to you?” he says.
Again, his face so different when genuine emotion is right on the surface. Can imagine what he might’ve looked like as a kid, before everything.
“Skull fracture. That’s why I can’t hear much. Auditory nerve damage.” Barely a beat before adding the obligatory: “I was lucky.”
Snorts softly. “Bet you felt real lucky.” He takes her in, standing with one-half of her hair hanging to her shoulder, tightly waved from being plaited while wet. “Took a header, huh?” A quiet, casual summing-up that gets a smile out of her.
“Yup.”
“And then you had to come here.”
She nods, waiting for him to ask the question no one has posed to her since Seth and Holly stopped making her see that child therapist in Stokely, when it was obvious that, after a year and a half, Owl had nothing left to say to the woman, who’d never been more to her than a stranger making listening faces, the two of them riding on the same carousel of questions about Daddy, the scenery a never-changing blur. Worse, the questions about her mother—what can you say about someone you barely remember? She left us. Left me with him. Knowing.
Cody doesn’t ask. He takes a few steps away and pops a drawing down from the wall, not bothering to remove the tack. “Can I have this?”
It’s the sketch of the Notch. Owl’s nonplussed—no one’s ever asked before. “I guess . . .” But he’s already walking past her with it, folding the sheet into quarters. “Were you in our woods the other night?”
He stops at the curtain, looking back.
“If it was you . . . please just say.” Waits, her fists pressed to the sides of her thighs. “I need to know.” Whatever reason he had for coming back doesn’t matter, not in comparison to this. “I found your cigarette butts.” Like maybe he’d stood there, watching her and Seth from the convenience of darkness, smoking, listening to them talk.
“Okay. I probably took a break there sometime. I know how freaked you are about smoke around the sap.”
“Near the den?”
“I dunno. Maybe.” Lifts his brows. “That it?” He doesn’t wait for her to nod before he ducks through the curtain. Calls back, “We boiling or what?” She hears the first few bumps of his feet on the steps. Then he’s out of range.
14
“I need to go to Griffin’s house after school.” Owl doesn’t say it until she’s gathering her backpack before going out to meet the Suburban the next morning, glancing over at Holly, dressed for work in her forest-green Van’s polo shirt, dark-wash jeans, and boots. Holly hesitates in packing her lunch. “We’re working on a project. It might take an hour and a half?” Can’t stand another second of waiting, says, “I’ll ask Trini for a ride home.” Irritating—asking Aida for a favor—but she also knows the spot she’s putting Holly in and hates the awkwardness.
“No. It’s okay. That’s pretty much when I’ll be coming home from work anyway. I’ll finish up a little early.”
“Are you sure?” When Holly nods without looking at her, Owl leaves it alone.
Seth is outside, opening the sugarhouse for the day, getting ready for Cody’s arrival, and they raise a hand to each other from across the yard. The appointment with the surgeon went well—Seth’s been deemed a good candidate for knee replacement, with a follow-up appointment scheduled for next week and a phone call coming eventually to set a date for surgery.
Owl still feels like she got away with something yesterday while they were at the doctor, even though she and Cody hadn’t broken any established rules. But she’d still taken a minute to wipe clean any trace that Cody had been inside the cabin, washing and putting away his coffee mug, even taking the tack down from her wall on the off chance anyone should notice a drawing missing. No one’s ever set any guidelines about who she’s allowed to ask up to her loft. Yet she hides Cody. She hides that she let him touch her scar.
Owl, Aida, and Griffin spread their stuff—backpacks and papers and phones—all over the big table in the Baptistes’ dining room. They’re watched over by a row of baskets on the mantel, all different shapes and sizes, woven into fluted-looking geometric patterns. Aida scrolls madly, not taking much part in the brainstorming until Mrs. Baptiste comes in, setting down a bowl of chips and an armload of soda cans in the middle of everything, wiping condensation from the cans on her jeans. “Yeah, I wouldn’t open those right away if I were you guys.” She’s wearing one of her slogan T-shirts—no one is illegal on stolen land—beneath an unzipped red hoodie, her long hair loose around her shoulders. “Everybody good? Need anything?” Watches wryly as Aida fumbles her phone facedown onto the tablecloth. “You guys know what you’re doing yet?”
“Copper mining. I guess?” Griffin glances at Owl, who shrugs agreement; now that she’s in their house, she feels reluctant to meet Mrs. Baptiste’s eye, wondering what the woman thinks about the fact that Holly never called—if maybe she assumes Owl didn’t pass the message on at all. “We got some books from Mr. Duquette. No internet sources allowed.”
“Well, good for Mr. Duquette. You kids think truth is spelled W-i-k-i—any fool can write those things.”
“You kids today,” Griffin quavers, groping blindly around on the table. “Hand me my teeth.”
His mother holds her fist up. “You’re the one’s going to be eating his Doritos through a straw, motehsan.” Turns, hands held up as she goes into the living room. “All right. Butting out.”
Once she’s gone, Aida grabs a handful of chips. “Your mom is so awesome.”
“Pretty much.”
Owl’s book is marked through with Post-it notes—A Descriptive History of Coös County, a maroon library binding holding together some of the driest old-fashioned writing on the planet—but at least she found the kind of statistics and facts that teachers seem to salivate over. Aida’s back on her phone, hasn’t moved. Tickle of annoyance. “Did you find anything about the North Plover dig?” Owl asks her.
Shoulder goes up. “I didn’t have time last night.”
“You didn’t read?” Glances at Griffin. “You knew we were meeting.”
“I just said I didn’t have time.” Stares at Owl over her phone, puts it down roughly. “It’s not like we can’t still work on it.”
Owl bites her lip, then flips open to her first Post-it-marked section harder than she really intended, the cover smacking the tabletop—a statement.
“Yeah . . . so I found out the North Plover mine closed in 1973.” Griffin looks between them, clears his throat, as he flips through the thick, musty tome he’d chosen. “Open pit mining for smelter ore—”
“Are you seriously mad about this?” Aida, intense, across the table at Owl.
Owl lifts her gaze slowly, emotional boiling point achieved. “You knew we would do the reading, so you thought you didn’t have to.”
A tight, indignant sound from Aida’s throat. “We had math, and those questions for English, too. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to every tiny little thing.”
“I had to work after school, and I still got to it.”
Griffin keeps his eyes on the table. Aida buckles, without a comeback—then: “Like flirting is work.”
Owl stares, gripping the table, stripped off all memories of ever being this person’s friend—swimming together in the little aboveground pool in Aida’s backyard while deerflies dive-bombed their heads, going to each other’s houses to exchange gifts on Christmas Eve every year, birthday parties where they were each other’s only guest who wasn’t family. “Who’d want to flirt with me, right?” Each word bitten off, staccato.
Aida’s expression tightens. The specter of last year and the other older boy, Riley, with his short-buzzed haircut, Realtree camo sweatshirts—backwoods cool in every way—now here in the room with them even though his family moved last June. The things Owl read from his smiling lips, spoken to Aida, in the community hall during gym—Hear how she talks?—and Aida, her best friend, who did nothing but glance over from across the room anxiously, to see if Owl had picked up on it.
Now, in the Baptistes’ dining room, Aida turns from his memory, looks off to the far corner, arms crossed.
“Guys . . . this is due in less than two weeks.” Griffin speaks carefully, neither girl giving him her attention. “Can we just—”
“Forget it.” Aida grabs her phone, shoving her chair back. “I’m going home.”
She leaves the dining room, and a minute later, they see her through the far window, dropping down onto the wheelchair ramp put in place for Mr. Baptiste’s use, coat on, hood up, hunched over her phone.
Mrs. Baptiste comes in. “Uh, Hurricane Aida’s outside calling her mom. I couldn’t even talk her into waiting in the kitchen. What’s going on?” Neither Griffin nor Owl want to be the first to speak. “You know Trini’s going to be on the phone to me later if Aida’s off her feed in the slightest. Fess up.”
“She’s just mad. Nothing new.” Griffin tosses his pen down onto the table, shoving his hands through his hair. “Whatever. Let her go home if she wants. Owl and I will figure it out.”
And they do, at least partially, Griffin coming up with the idea of making a cross-section model of a copper mine they find in a book, sort of like an ant farm: “We could put it behind a piece of plexiglass or something—like different types of sand or dirt to represent the ore and veins and stuff, with a little hole dug down through to be the vertical shaft. Labels stuck on everything.” Both avoid turning to the window when Trini’s Jeep pulls in and Aida walks to meet her.
“Seth might have something. He’s built displays and things for festivals before. Could be plexiglass.” Owl works the tip of her pen on a corner of notebook paper, bearing down hard, a mass of concentric swirls. “How will we get the sand layers to stay put, not get mixed together? It has to go all the way to the Stokely school.”
“Yeah. Haven’t gotten that far yet.” Griffin releases a burst of laughter, and Owl joins him. “Also, if you have any ideas on how to build a teeny-tiny mining cart system that really works, let me know.”
“You’re the one going to MIT.” Checks the time on her phone; Holly’s due any minute, and Owl’s determined to make it seamless. “My ride’s coming.” As she stuffs her things into her backpack, Owl’s attention is drawn by the baskets, and she walks over to look at them more closely, particularly the one in the center, with the careful, needle-etched tree silhouette. “Are these made of wood?”
“Birchbark. From our trees right out back.”
“Your mom made these?”
“Nope. I did.” Sees her surprise. “Well, she made that one. And that one. But the rest are mine. Making baskets in the traditional style is basically an endangered art, so Ma really wanted to get me into it. A lot of it is about showing respect to the tree, taking the bark in a way that won’t hurt it.”
“They’re beautiful.” There’s a framed photo collage on the wall nearby. As Owl shrugs on her backpack straps, she leans in to study the pictures: Griffin and his parents standing together toward the back of a big family reunion group shot; Griffin growing throughout the years: a laughing little kid with his hair shagging in his eyes, another picture of him in full traditional dress, leggings, fringe, feathered headband, frozen in dance in a line of other tribal members.
Griffin follows her gaze, nods. “Sacred circle at Recognition Day in Houlton when I was like eight.”
“Cool.” She leans closer, studying the details, the obvious crowd in the background. “Wish I could see that.”
He leans against the wall beside the frame. “Does your aunt really not have any contact with her tribe at all?”
Owl doesn’t want to betray Holly’s privacy, unsure where the line is. “I don’t think so.” Glances toward the window for signs of Holly pulling in. “I’ve never met her family. She doesn’t talk about them much.”
Griffin nods slowly. “Must be hard. Wolastoqiyik is part of who I am, you know? Even living so far away from the river and tribal lands and everything now. I always know I’ve got a place there. Ma made sure of that.” He looks hard at the picture of his child self. “I think she’ll move back there after I graduate. Dad moved us down here to take the choke-setter job—got to go where the work is, right? Then he got sick. All kind of felt like it was for nothing.” He pauses, and Owl looks down, not wanting him to feel stared at, knowing how much she hates it. “This powwow coming up in July will be the first one we’ve gone to since Dad. Feels like Ma getting back to herself, her people.”
Owl nods, casting about for recognition within herself, something to relate all this to, the thought of a large and varied family forever anchored to a broad and churning river. Of history, ancestry, blood. Her hook cuts through water, snagging nothing.
Owl makes sure to be out the door before Holly shuts off the engine, tossing her backpack onto the floor space as she slides in next to her aunt. Holly’s looking at the face of the Baptistes’ small house: dark brown clapboards, stone chimney, whisper of smoke.
Holly glances over, smiling distractedly. “How’d it go?”
“Good.” Except that Aida might never speak to her again after this. Owl envisions the permanent silent treatment, carrying straight through summer vacation and into their senior year, plodding along behind Aida in a yoke of shame, for what she said today. Owl tries to just feel the relief of purging that infected, stinging place left by Riley, letting the brand sear into Aida’s skin for a while.
Holly backs the Land Rover down the twisting driveway, Owl gazing out the window at the trees blurring darkly, holding her question in her mouth, tasting the risky flavor of it. “Do you know how to speak Passamaquoddy?”
Holly’s quiet a moment. “Why are you asking me that?”
“I . . . No reason.” Realizes she’s made it seem like this is the Baptistes’ doing, like they’ve coached her, when in fact, she’s been wondering since her meeting with Ms. Z. “I just never hear you use it.” Owl fidgets—in too deep, no way to reverse—picking at one of her torn fingernails. “Is it . . . because Seth and I aren’t . . . ?”
When she answers, her words are slow, deliberate. “Doesn’t seem like there’d be a lot of point, would there?” Gaze unwavering on the road ahead.
Confirmation: The flaw is in who Holly spends her days with, in Owl, in Seth. Owl waits, counting seconds. Finally pulls from inside, “You shouldn’t stop speaking just because we wouldn’t understand.” Then she turns back to the windshield, heartbeat fluttering rapid, afraid of having ventured too much, not enough.
15
“Cody. You up for a drive?”
Owl and Cody watch Seth work his way down from the cabin along the snowy path on Friday afternoon with a stick in his hand. He reaches them as Owl is looping the storage tank hose back onto its hook, and she sees Seth’s holding a wooden cane she’s never seen before. It’s hand-carved, narrow, and varnished to a shine.
