Sugaring off, p.7
Sugaring Off, page 7
“He’s not out there.”
“Where’d he go?”
“I don’t know. Home.” Last Owl saw of him, he was heading away from the sugarhouse after finishing some discussion with Seth. Owl had deliberately stayed outside, busying herself by gassing up the side-by-side and stacking freshly washed pails for tomorrow, stalling until she was sure Cody was leaving, his figure stretched long and lean in the growing dusk shadows on the driveway.
“Really? I thought Seth would teach him how to filter tonight.” Holly goes to the glass pane in the door, peering out at the dusk, as if Cody might’ve changed his mind and was now sitting on their front steps like a lost puppy. “Well, next time he’s heading out right at suppertime, invite him to eat with us, okay? A meal at Wallace’s place probably adds up to a can of Spam and a fork.” Shakes her head. “Don’t ask me why Wallace doesn’t at least lend him one of his vehicles to come up here. Like his own grandson can’t be trusted with one of the four-wheelers. It’s cold out there.”
Owl drags her hat off. “Why can’t Seth and I work together and leave Cody at the evaporator?” Her sudden vehemence makes Holly turn. “He’s getting trained on boiling. And Seth can take breaks if he needs to—”
“What he needs is”—Holly’s voice is a whip’s crack—“a knee replacement. About three years ago.”
In the awkward silence that follows, Holly paces over to the stove, where the saucepan is bubbling, splattering the range; she stirs swiftly. “Then we wouldn’t be living like this, him in agony half the time, on the pills and the rest of it. Of course, if the surgeon at the VA hospital hadn’t screwed up so completely in the first place, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. He’s got an appointment coming up with an orthopedic surgeon in Berlin, and it’s way the hell overdue.” Releases a tense breath, sets the spatula down, keeping her gaze fixed on the backsplash. “I know you miss it being just you guys out there. But your uncle can’t keep doing this to his body. It’s killing Seth not to run the sugaring himself, and you complaining because you don’t like Cody isn’t helping.”
Owl shifts, knuckles curled on the edge of the countertop. “I didn’t know Seth needed a new knee.”
“Because he doesn’t tell you things like that, hon. When does he ever?” The letter lies beneath the surface of Holly’s words, unmentioned in days; now she studies Owl’s small, tense face with less frustration. “Better take him his food before it gets cold.”
“Can I bring mine, too?” Owl’s voice is quiet, humbled, lifting her aunt’s gaze. “I want to check on the den after I eat.”
Holly smiles a little. “Good thing I don’t mind dining alone.”
Seth’s in the sugar kitchen, lit brightly against the fading daylight beyond the windows, chair pulled up in front of the steam bottler, which he’s unhooked from the evaporator now that the sap’s all boiled for the day. From the valve, he’s filling plastic half-gallon and pint containers, labeled with dotrice maple syrup, a picture of a farmer driving a team of Belgians up to a steaming sugarhouse, and gold foil stickers reading grade a: golden. The refractometer, nearby, is used to grade the syrup by how much light passes through sample drops from each batch.
“Lifesaver,” Seth says as Owl sets his plate, loosely covered in a sheet of paper towel, beside his elbow. “I was about to pour some of this stuff on a piece of cordwood and start chewing.”
Smiling, she pulls another folding chair out and sits beside him, taking over the bottling for a while so he can eat. It’s her favorite stage of the process, seeing the hot, finished, filtered syrup streaming straight down into the bottle neck, so pale and golden at the kickoff of the season that it reminds her of the word gossamer; she isn’t totally sure of the definition and, for once, isn’t motivated to look it up, choosing to believe this sheer, sweet reward at the end of all the hauling and cooking and monitoring is just that: gossamer.
His knee—not just damaged but beyond saving—hasn’t left her mind, and she says, “You didn’t want to teach Cody this?” as she twists on a plastic cap until the safety seal locks together, standing the bottle up with the other ten Seth has done.
“Not tonight. Learning his way around the evaporator is going to be enough for a while. I don’t think the kid’s ever even started a woodstove before—didn’t know the first thing about how to stack the wood or add kindling or anything. Not that he came out and said so. Can’t get much more than a yup or nope out of him.”
Lucky. Owl’s glad her hands are full so they can’t project her thoughts without her permission, which happens from time to time, a sign popping up like a dropped bar of soap in bathwater. She wouldn’t mind trading the honor of being the only one Cody seems to want to talk to. “How old is he?”
Seth pauses with his fork. “Nineteen, Wall said.”
Another full bottle, another cap locked. Not for the first time, Owl almost tells him that she and Aida saw Cody going into Houlihan’s on Sunday—but it would only make Wallace look bad, maybe get him in trouble; not worth the fleeting satisfaction of knowing she’d made life as difficult for Cody as he does for her on a daily basis. “What do you know about him?”
“Not a ton. Wall said he’d had a rough time growing up, got into some trouble. But he’s earned his GED, and now he’s trying to save money, get some legit work experience under his belt.”
“What was so bad about Manchester?” She glances over. “You said he needed to get out.”
“I don’t know. Bad friends, bad choices, I guess. Needed a break from the place, get some perspective.” Seth slides a cardboard box over to her—it’s the glass maple-leaf bottles, eight- and three-ounce sizes, big sellers as gifts and souvenirs. They were always a point of fascination for Owl; she likes to hold them up to a window just to watch the light stream through. He watches Owl fill the first maple leaf, cutting the valve at the right moment—almost too full, compensating for the syrup shrinkage that happens after a bottle is sealed—nodding as she lays it on its side, where the hot syrup will sanitize the mouth and inner cap. “Huh. Perspective. We could all use a little of that.”
Seth goes with her to the fox den afterward, even though kneeling is almost impossible for him at this point. He edges down onto the balsam branches at an angle that makes Owl cringe, wanting to hold her hand out to him but not wanting to shame him, either—this isn’t how it works, her steadying him—instead, holding her arm at a useless level a few inches from her body, where he probably doesn’t even notice it in the near darkness.
She’s missed this, pairing up for outdoor projects, hiking deeper into the woods than they’ve ever gone before, Seth pointing out signs of wildlife like deer rub or holes where yellow jackets have made a ground nest. They’d lost it a scrap at a time, Seth begging off when he never would’ve before, Owl spending more and more time alone with the trees. “This is a good time to see her,” Owl says. “She’ll be coming out to hunt soon, I bet.”
It happens, but not until night comes down, the sky twilight blue with a sprinkling of stars, when it’s gotten so cold they’re ready to pack it in.
Seth seems to hear the vixen first, breaking off their quiet conversation as he looks over, and Owl sits forward, phone in hand, ready to take video.
A flash of white chin and throat in the dark as she emerges and skitters across the crusty snow toward the trees. Owl tries to follow what she can barely see with the eye of her camera, the seconds cycling onscreen until Seth puts his hand on her shoulder. “I think she’s gone.”
“Hope I got enough to tell if she’s really going to have kits.”
“Ah, she must be. The way she’s sticking to this den. She’s probably got a couple more dug around here as backups. They usually do that, in case the first one gets disturbed by some other animal.” He falls silent a second. “Now, if you don’t help me up, I’m going to have to spend the night curled up in there with her.”
With an anxious laugh, Owl leans in with both arms, a relief to be able to help without worry of pride, providing a brace for him to heave himself up onto his good leg.
They walk back with Owl’s phone flashlight glowing, even though they don’t really need it; both have walked this path enough times to have the topography memorized, every exposed root and dip in the ground, Seth holding a heavy, low-hanging cedar branch aside so Owl can go first down the slope that ends beside the sugarhouse.
It takes her a moment to realize he isn’t following. Turns the light on him, sees him standing, looking back, branch still in hand. “What?”
When she looks in that direction, an inky shape takes off into the sky, some sort of bird spooked into flight. Seth’s face is still, listening. “I don’t know. Something prowling ’round.” But his tension makes her think he has a very definite idea. She scans the thin beam through the darkness. “Come on,” he says. “You must have homework. Don’t want to be up too late.”
She continues, her spine straightening, shoulders prickling with the pins-and-needles sensation of something very wrong on the edge of her perception, but no matter how she strains to hear, she can’t discern any motion in the underbrush around them. Whatever Seth hears is out of her reach; she hates the vulnerability.
In her loft, secure in the presence of her aunt and uncle below, Owl skims her way through her assignments, slapping the folder shut on the handout about the County Founding Day group project, stomach acidic and uneasy in the knowledge that in just a couple days, Ms. Z may choose to drop the guillotine on her, hacking into Owl for everyone to see—Mr. Duquette, Seth, and Holly. The attack Ms. Z waged on her today in that low, modulated voice still hums, hivelike, in her mind, and she finally shoves away her school papers and grabs her art pad and pencils, ready to lose herself in forming her fox.
She falls asleep on top of the covers, art pad resting on her chest, fist curled beside her head. Maybe an hour passes, possibly two, before she wakes, groggily noticing a glow outside her curtains, like when the deck light is left on, which never happens once all three of them are in for the night.
She goes to the glass, peering down. Seth is partially visible from her vantage point, sitting directly below her window in one of the Adirondack chairs that flank the front door.
A rifle lies across his lap, gripped with both hands, his head turned in the direction of the woods beyond the sugarhouse. His posture is rigid, maintaining alertness. Standing sentry.
Part II
Maple Syrup Grade:
Amber
Darkening a shade as sugar levels
change midway through the season;
rich, full-bodied taste.
9
Thursday takes an eon to arrive, yet still comes too soon, Owl bound with nerves and anticipation, having rehearsed a hundred dreaded scenarios in her mind since Tuesday. And there’s every chance that Ms. Z may not show for their session at all, simply abandoning Owl to explain the situation to everyone on her own: that she essentially drove her teacher away, that she’s impossible, incorrigible, the sort-of-Deaf girl who bit the only hands that speak to her.
Owl doesn’t set up the desk and chairs, instead closing the classroom door softly behind her and perching on the front steps of the school, elbows on knees, face resting in hands, backpack on the floor beside her—so Mr. Duquette doesn’t ask questions before absolutely necessary.
The little kids at recess hesitate in their play, watching as Ms. Z’s hybrid car pulls into the lot at its usual time and parks in the spot nearest the school, before they return to whatever game has them turning dizzying pirouettes, arms outstretched, Micah the Instigator calling out orders that Owl can’t quite get a fix on.
Ms. Z crosses to the front steps with her arms folded. A beat passes, neither of their expressions yielding. Ms. Z says, “Let’s go for a walk.”
It’s sunny, but the wind has teeth, hardly the kind of weather in which they’ve taken their past sessions outside, but exactly the kind where Owl can almost feel the sap gushing from the maples’ veins, the rapid faucet drip of it into the buckets pattering throughout the bush, keeping them boiling all week just to stay on top of their good fortune before March—the true cruelest month—turns frigid again.
Owl walks with her hood flipped up over her hat, in step with her teacher, along the hard-packed trail around school property, beaten down by child-sized boots. Micah stares as they go, no doubt wondering where Ms. Z is hiding the picnic basket.
“Rochelle,” Ms. Z says, the name carefully weighted, as if reaching out to test ice gone yellow and mealy with thaw.
“I think I should talk first.” Owl walks swiftly; her words feel thick, clumsy with emotion. “You got to say a lot last time, and I didn’t get to say anything.” Checks on her teacher sideways, seeing if the woman’s going to cut her off, but Ms. Z’s profile is sculpted alabaster. Owl can’t seem to take a full breath or steady her voice. “You called me spoiled and lazy. I think what you really don’t like about me is that I’m not Deaf enough for you.”
Ms. Z’s gaze is trained on the snow; Owl swallows, plunges forward: “You act like having some hearing is the same as having all of it, and I’m nothing like the real Deaf kids you teach. You said it’s easy. Being half in the world and half out of it, missing things all the time, trying to figure stuff out after everybody else is already laughing?” Her teacher’s lips part, but Owl’s words come fast. “No, I don’t sign a lot. Because nobody understands. At home, they try, but they know I can hear and talk, too, and they think I should use those things. I do both because I am both. But being both feels the same as being nothing. Nowhere.” Having met a mental wall, Owl looks down. Said her piece. All she could do.
Ms. Z remains quiet for a beat, perhaps waiting to make sure that Owl’s done. “First, let me say that I shouldn’t have left the way I did last time. It was unprofessional, and reactionary, and I regret it.”
She stops, facing Owl, her eyes narrowed against the glare, strands of dark hair blowing in front of her face. It strikes Owl that maybe she wasn’t the only one waiting for a phone call from the school administration over the past two days. “But in my defense, these past months with you have been an exercise in frustration that I wasn’t prepared for. I’ve never had a student hold me at arm’s length like this. I’m here twice a week, giving you a chance to sign and maybe not feel quite so isolated or reliant on lip-reading, but all you want to do is vocally tell me that you’ve got three questions left at the end of your American history chapter. Yes, I function as a tutor, but also as a support person, who has at least some grasp of what it is to be Deaf in a hearing world. And you’re giving me nothing.”
“That’s all I ever did with Mr. Weir. Talk about homework,” Owl says sharply. “He didn’t think I was bad.”
“Rochelle.” A pained finality to her words. “I don’t think you’re bad.”
They stare at each other, Owl’s hard expression gradually fading to wary expectance.
Ms. Z exhales slowly, pushes her hair behind her ears. “I’ve completely mishandled this. We should’ve talked—really talked—a long time ago.” The corner of her mouth quirks slightly. “Pity it took an argument to open the lines of communication.”
Owl shifts, glancing at the school, wondering who can see them out here, surrounded by bare oaks. “So . . . what do we do?”
“I’m not sure. We don’t want to keep going the way we have been every week, correct?” Owl shakes her head vigorously; Ms. Z’s wry expression deepens, emphasizing a never-before-seen dimple in her right cheek. “Agreed. How about this. I give you an assignment during our time today. Don’t look like that—it’s not challenging. In fact, we’ll both do it. Each of us will come up with a list of what we want these sessions to be about. What we each need to get out of them in order to make it worthwhile.” She holds up a hand. “Then we’ll discuss on Tuesday.”
Owl considers—Ms. Z’s gaze is sharp—but then she sets her jaw, nods once. Ms. Z begins to turn toward the schoolhouse, but Owl stops her with a question: “You said Deafness isn’t the enemy. Who is?”
Her teacher blinks against the cutting dryness of the wind. “Maybe there isn’t one.”
Owl digests this, rejects it, her gaze turning inward as she scans the dark, dappled facade of the woods. “Yes, there is.”
Sugarhouse heaving steam, sweet sauna of maple and woodsmoke, gush of sap from hose to tank, from tank to evaporator pans. Cody’s shape moves through it all, around Owl, behind, stripped to a black quilted down vest over a flannel shirt to accommodate for the near-seventy-degree temperatures inside. Seth present, but peripheral, making sure the sap never boils too low, showing Cody when to scoop impurities off the foaming surface of the pans, while Owl gives the storage tanks their weekly scrubbing with hot water and a nylon brush.
The sap is boiled down and filtered by five o’clock, ready for bottling. Lights glow in the cabin windows, Holly’s shape visible, moving between counter and stove. Seth watches Cody poke at the fire with the tongs, then shut the arch door and close the dampers to let the flames burn down on their own. “Dinner break,” Seth says to him. “Might as well take a load off inside, get something to eat. Syrup will keep till after—then I can show you how to use the bottler.”
It’s the right tack to take, not an invitation but a practical matter. Cody watches him a moment, shrugs, walks silently behind Owl and Seth toward the house, coat under his arm. Owl looks back at him once, hoping to impart an entire meal’s worth of warnings with a single frown, that he’d better be damned delicate with her family, but he’s watching the ground, not noticing.
