Sugaring off, p.22
Sugaring Off, page 22
“Owl?”
Holly waves her hand through the opening in the curtains, testing.
“Hi.” Owl shifts, closing her sketch pad, not wanting to share how little she’d been able to get done on her new drawing, begun after burying her previous work in progress under sheets of blank paper. Now she’s starting a fox kit, done mostly from memory and pictures found online, since she’d yet to get a clear pic of them outside the den. Doesn’t matter. Whatever oasis her brain finds when she draws is awash in stormwaters, no place she wants to retreat to.
Holly comes in, a quick appreciating look at Owl’s other sketches before she holds out a folded envelope. “I found this in your back pocket when I was doing the wash. It almost went through.”
The sight of it makes Owl sick, remembering the excitement, terror when she’d finally resolved to read it, face her fear with Cody beside her. Owl stares until Holly makes a move as if to set it on the bureau and leave. “Will you read it with me?” Quietly.
“Are you sure?”
Owl nods, moving her drawing supplies aside to make room for her aunt to sit next to her on the bed. Holly opens the envelope, hesitating. “I can just be with you if you want. I won’t look.”
Owl shrugs, exhausted by it now, the power this letter holds. “Doesn’t matter.” She doesn’t move to take it, though, letting Holly remove a small sheet of lined paper.
This message is relatively short. A date at the top right, like a school assignment:
Dear Rochelle,
I hope it’s OK that I’m writing to you. I should have done it a long time ago. I sent a letter to Seth, but I had some things I wanted to say just to you.
I’m staying at this halfway place now for guys who just got out. They set me up washing dishes at a café I can walk to. Not a bad life for somebody who’s done bad things. Anyway I wanted you to know that I’m working.
I’m not the same guy you remember. For a long time I was angry, but the prison has people to talk to and I got to see that I was feeling sorry for myself when you were the one who got hurt so bad. I never wanted to hurt you, Baby Girl. I wanted to take care of you and give you a good life. Seth ended up being the one who did that. I know he did because he always looked out for me growing up when I let him.
I don’t blame you if you hate me. I had problems and you’re the one who paid for it. It’s not fair. But if you want to see me, I’d love to see you and tell you I’m sorry in person. You must be so grown up and pretty now like your mom.
Love you forever,
Daddy
They sit in silence, Owl’s gaze raking over the spare words, the halting voice, someone unused to expressing themselves, and she finds herself laughing, some choked version of it, fingers going to her hair. “Pretty?” Digs into the scar, the pink and twisted part that will never heal. “Pretty?”
“Owl.” Holly pulls her hand down, holding it tightly in her own. “Stop.”
Another snorting burst of laughter-sobs, shaking her head helplessly. “He wants to see me.”
“Do you—?”
“No. No, never. I can’t look at him.” Behind closed lids, child Rochelle is ensconced in the memory of him, held tightly in the crook of his arm, where she once rode, small and high. Daddy. All the safety and love and fear and harm in the world right there, in that word, in the twining double helix of their shared DNA. “I loved him so much.”
Holly makes a soft, empathetic sound, wraps her arm tightly around Owl’s shaking shoulders.
Owl looks up, blinking back tears, which have reached no farther than her lashes. “Do you think . . . my mom . . .” Words she’s turned over inside so many times it’s laborious to unwind them, locate the beginning and end of her question. “What if he . . . did something to her? And that’s the real reason nobody could find her?”
“You mean, like, killed her?” A flinch of affirmation in Owl’s shoulders. Holly straightens, staring ahead for a long moment. “No. I really don’t think so, hon.”
“But . . . I asked Seth, and he said when I was a baby, he saw her hold me so tight.” Voice breaks. “Then why—? How could she just . . . ?” Palm drops open to her lap, beseeching, as tears break free, dropping to leave dark spots on her jeans.
Holly holds and shushes, the rhythmic comfort of a lullaby, rubbing Owl’s back now and then. When the girl has settled some, Holly gives her a tissue from the box on the nightstand, waiting as she blows her nose. “When Seth said that . . . I know he meant well. And I know—obviously—your dad could be violent. But from what was said about your mom at the time everything happened, she was a runner. She was trying to get away from a bad situation when she met your dad, and then when things went downhill with him, she ran again. It’s heartbreaking that she didn’t take you with her, but . . . for my own sake, I’m glad she didn’t.” Returns Owl’s stare. “I never thought I wanted to be a parent before I had this chance with you. Afraid I’d turn into my mother, I guess. Seth and I talked about having kids. Talked around it, anyway, but . . .” Shrugs. “Then you came to stay. Got to tell you, for the first couple weeks, I was absolutely terrified.”
“You were?”
“Oh, yeah. You couldn’t tell? I was convinced I was going to do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, make everything worse for you. That I couldn’t do it, any of it. Couldn’t . . . give you the love you needed. But after a couple months, it was like we couldn’t remember how we’d ever gotten along without you. We needed you, Owl, not the other way around. You know how they say when one door closes, another opens?” Holly tucks a strand of Owl’s hair behind her ear. “I guess, tragic as it was, I’ll always owe your mom for closing that door when she did.”
Owl rests against her, then hugs impulsively, squeezing tight. Holly strokes Owl’s hair smooth again, touch gentle over the scar, reminding Owl so vividly of those late nights, the nightmare images fading from her mind, replaced by the images Holly painted with those creation tales. “You said that the stories you used to tell me were precious. Who told them to you?”
“My grandmother.” Holly’s smile lingers. “She’s a storyteller. Used to travel around the state, performing at schools, festivals, preserving Passamaquoddy culture as much as she could. She and I were close when I was little. The only person who really made me feel special in our family, not like ‘the hard one.’ She used to call me Kinapesq. Brave Girl.” Laughs softly. “She’s salty. Hilarious. I miss her.”
Owl’s quiet. “You should let her know.”
“She’s not exactly tech-savvy. By choice.”
“So go see her. And your little sister. She wouldn’t message you like she does if she didn’t want you to come back.” Pauses. “I just know how much we love you. And how awful I’d feel if you left.”
Holly looks at her, taken aback, then faces away. “Well . . . maybe. Sometime.” Clears her throat. “When I told you those stories, I guess part of me was passing them on to you. Keeping them in our family. Do you remember them well enough to tell?”
Owl nods. “I wouldn’t mind hearing ‘Glooscap Fights the Water Monster’ again.”
Holly takes a breath, shakes her hair back, and rests her chin on top of Owl’s head a moment. “Okay. Let me think. Begin at the beginning, right? You know Glooscap is a medicine man, a sorcerer. He’ll last as long as the world will last. He made all the animals and the humans. And even though sometimes he grows tired of running things and needs to leave us, he can’t abandon the people forever . . .”
Owl sits, letting Holly’s words sketch, shade, and shadow, until her eyelids grow heavy and she closes them.
When Owl lies down, neither of them notices that the letter wafts to the floor, eventually swept beneath the bed as Holly tucks sleeping Owl beneath the quilt and returns to the downstairs.
28
I brought you something. Owl makes the sign for gift—gesturing toward Ms. Z with both hands, forefingers crooked—then unzips her backpack, bringing out the eight-ounce bottle and setting it on the desk in front of Ms. Z, flushed with the clumsy anticipation of giving.
Her teacher picks up the glass maple leaf, turning it in the daylight filtering through the window. Beautiful. The gravity with which she says it completes the ritual, allowing Owl a puppyish squirm of relief, pleasure, before being able to sink into her own skin again.
“You always share your lunch with me, so.”
“And you helped make this, is that right? Mr. Duquette mentioned that you lived on a maple farm. You work at it year-round?”
“We tap through late February into March. The rest of the year is filling orders, things like that.”
Ms. Z cracks the seal, takes a sniff. “Oh, my goodness.” Amazing. Moves her spread, slightly bent fingers across her mouth twice. “I’ve always thought that trees are soulful things. They’ve got character.” Owl nods avidly, never expecting anyone else to appreciate that part of it other than her and Seth. “Thank you, Rochelle. Truly.” Puts the bottle into her satchel. “I don’t suppose you’ve reached out to the kids from the Stokely school?”
“We followed each other yesterday.”
“Wonderful. You see? Kinder than you expected.”
Owl nods, gaze trailing over the homework in front of her, unseeing. “What about the other times? What do you do then?” Meets Ms. Z’s eyes. “When somebody isn’t who you think. When you trust and they hurt you.”
“Well.” Ms. Z rests back in her chair, watching the kids at play outside the window, enjoying the mostly clear day before the snow and ice storm predicted for the weekend arrives. “Sometimes it’s a matter of them not being who you wanted them to be. Maybe they never were that person. Just . . . not capable of giving you what you need.” Leans forward on her elbows. “Sometimes the best you can take away from a painful experience is a greater love for the people in your life who hardly ever let you down.”
Silence frozen between them, Owl does only what’s required to push the sugaring forward, trying to unmake Cody from her vision, her memory, as if she might suddenly look over through the trees and he’ll be gone, nothing more than some transient bit of darkness as the sun traveled behind a cloud.
Maybe he’s doing the same to her—unthinking her, unknowing her—until they meet at the tank, another awkward dance to avoid each other with pails in hand.
“Let me.” Exasperation at her hard look. “It’s faster. You’re too short.”
Handing them over hard enough to slop, sap thicker at the end of the season, running in slow drips down the plastic pail, she stands with arms folded as he empties all the buckets into the tank.
“You never going to talk to me again?” Glances at her, sees she has no intention of speaking. Takes his time gathering the pails by their handles, then meets her gaze, the two of them examining each other warily. He looks worn, shadows dabbed along his inner sockets. “S’fine, I guess. Can’t blame you.” Doesn’t resist when she reaches for her pail. Stops her as she turns away with, “But it’s me. Just want you to know that.” She looks back. “That’s why you’re feeling so bad. You’re looking at yourself, wondering what you did wrong. Answer’s nothing.”
Owl doesn’t move, expression opaque, waiting.
“This is what I do. Anybody back home could tell you. Get a good thing going, and I wreck it.” Falters, an uncertainty she’s never seen on him. “I hurt people.”
“Girls?” Her voice abrupt, brittle.
“Everybody.” Works his lips across his teeth, shrugs. “Seeing you hurt . . . sucked. Can’t get rid of it. All I can say is, I never wanted you to find out.” Sees the outrage building in her, but his gaze doesn’t waver. “Seriously. I never thought you would. I was just, like . . . kicking the shit out of the part of me that liked being with you.”
Her voice emerges choked, hoarse: “What’s so bad about being with me?”
“Nothing. Jesus. It was like . . . a chance. Or something. Be somebody else. Be better. You’re not like anybody I know, and you were trusting me to . . .” Shakes his head as she watches him, arms at her sides, useless.
“I would have done it with you, you know. Eventually. If you hadn’t . . .” Shuts her eyes against it, voice vicious with grief: “Why’d you have to do it?”
The pause taut with all the potential squandered, everything lost. “It was just a hookup.” Each word formed slowly, futilely. “It didn’t mean anything. She didn’t even want to stay the night with me. She was just a bar slut.”
“So are you. From what I saw.” Silence. “Why did you say the thing about wanting me to come with you?”
“Because I did. I do.”
“But if I did, you’d keep doing this, wouldn’t you? Hooking up. Lying, hurting me because you hate yourself.” Shakes her head, fighting for control. “Where’d that money really come from?”
“I told you—”
“No, you didn’t. You wouldn’t be hiding it on our land unless you were scared somebody might come looking for it.” Straightens, staring at him. “Where’s your phone?” When he starts to answer: “I know you lied. You had one. Did you drop it in the water up at the Notch?”
“Why are you asking if you already know?” Follows her as she turns in disgust. “Yeah, I tossed it. Now I don’t have to hear from back home, everybody telling me I got people looking for me.”
“Who’s looking for you?”
“The fucking—” Stops. Short exhale. “The guy I took it off of.” Brows draw together. “Don’t look at me like that—I didn’t steal shit. That asshole owes me. Owes my mom. So, yeah, I saw my chance to take what I could and got the hell out of there.” Insolence, baiting her. “There was more to start with. Lot more. Twenty-five thousand.” Owl’s eyes widen; Cody’s laughter is faint, bitter. “Yeah. Thirteen grand gone, and I guarantee she’s already racking it up again.” Sharp, dismissive gesture with his hand. “My mom. She had debts.”
Owl hesitates. “You stole to pay them off?”
“Nah. Nothin’ I’d do.” Humorless smile, walking back to lean against the trailer, gazing at her, odd light in his eyes, half-sardonic, half-haunted. “She owed everybody. Dealers give shit out on credit, knowing you can’t pay, then they got you. Make you hold for them or sell. This one guy . . . he lets her keep racking up, then comes over, slaps her around. Had her out working for him.” Pauses. “Streets. You know.”
Owl can’t speak, paralyzed while he goes on.
“Those couple nights I spent in juvie lockup . . . I was working as a courier for a dealer I met through Mom.” Cody doesn’t meet her eyes. “Delivery boy. Cop didn’t catch me with much, and he screwed up the arrest somehow—I dunno, stepped on my rights or something—so I didn’t get more than probation. Good thing I got charged, though, ’cause if you come off an arrest with no charges, guy above you thinks you rolled on them.”
“You helped sell drugs?” Her voice faint, a poor impression of itself.
“Helped transport. Yeah. Don’t tell me it was stupid. I know it was stupid. Easy money, and I wanted some. I’d done the joe job thing, and it blows. And anyway, after lockup, I knew I had to get out. I don’t do the stuff, so they can’t get me hooked that way. I just had to hang in until I saw my chance, you know?” Finally looks at her. “Took almost two years. Ripped off enough to start fresh, buy Mom one last chance to clean up. She’s on her own after this.” Shrugs. “He’ll be looking for me.”
“You came here to hide.” Under her breath, to herself as much as him.
“Good a place as any. Mom had already set it up, just wasn’t supposed to start for a couple more weeks. She wants me out of all of it almost as bad as I do. That’s the only reason she started speaking to Wallace again.” Nods at the woods. “She always said she grew up in the middle of nowhere. Figured . . . I could earn some extra in the last place anybody’d look, let things cool down. Head up to Canada easy from here. If I wanted.” He’s getting his smokes out, almost unconsciously, but she’s feeling too sideswiped to get on him about it. Around the Newport, the lighter clicking: “Hear about that dead guy?”
Raises her brows. “In the stream. St. Beatrice.”
“I knew him.” Takes a drag, tucking his chin down into his collar. “Saw on TV. It was Declan. Works down at the bar. We got talking a few times.” Blows the smoke to the side, letting the wind take it from them—trick she’d seen him do before, smoker’s courtesy. “They’re saying somebody shot him. Been in the water a few days.”
She registers detached shock, a recollection of Holly being acquainted with the man. “What’s that got to do with you?”
He gazes back. “Nothing, maybe. Just weird, is all. Not like you get a lot of murders in a place like this, right?”
Folds her arms, gauging him. “Would this dealer guy really do that?”
“Ballard. Jamie Ballard. You don’t know what he’s done to people.”
“How would he find you?”
“Dunno. Never would’ve got it out of Mom. She’s done a lot of things, but she wouldn’t sell me out. Anyway, if it came from her, he’d know right where to go, not have to dick around looking.”
Owl takes a step back as Cody gazes at the middle distance. “I don’t believe you.”
“Wouldn’t make it up, would I? And I’ve got the money.”
“No. I don’t believe you just came here to hide. You really think somebody bad’s coming for you, you could’ve used the money to run. You could’ve been out of the state or over the border weeks ago.” Spreads her arms, drops them. “So why are you here?”
“Owl.” Low, a half note of pleading; she recoils from it, shaking her head like a horse trying to free itself of bridle.
“No. You’re still lying.” Takes the embankment hard, glad she’s deaf to whatever he says to that. “I don’t want to know about any of this. Season’s almost up. Seth needs you. I don’t.”
