Bird Lake Moon (11 page)

Mitch scanned the racks of candy and salty snacks. He decided on a pack of gum, which would leave him with money to spare, and so he continued to survey the possibilities. As he picked up a bag of potato chips, a small section of dog and cat food caught his attention. If he didn't buy anything else, he'd have enough money to buy a small box of dog biscuits for Jasper. His mood lightened as he made his final decision. He paid the cashier and ran to the car.

“You look happy,” said his mother. “What did you get?”

Smiling, he held up the dog biscuits.

“Oh, great. This is what we've come to,” she said. She laughed, and he knew she was joking.

“They're for Jasper,” he told her.

“I figured as much.” A pause. “You're a nice boy.”

He smiled again. He was doing a good thing, and he knew it. Periodically on the way home, he shook the box to match the tempo of the music playing on the radio.

“You're a nice boy,” said his mother, “and a funny one.”

“Yes, I am,” he replied. “Yes, I am.”

Mitch hurried from the car right to Spencer's house. The late-afternoon sun remained a force, a great white ornament dangling above the treetops. Already he knew, as he knocked on the door. The first clue: no barking. More evidence came to him like still images flashing across a screen. No open windows. No swimming suits and towels left on the bushes to dry. No kayak. No car. No canoe in the middle of the yard. No dog dish under the maple tree. No folding chairs on the lawn.

The house was closed up and locked. They were gone.

Knowing it was pointless, he ran around the house to check the screened porch. It was orderly and clean, and looked officially abandoned. In sadness, anger, and frustration, he shook the box of dog biscuits at the little house. And he glared at it, as if it were a person who had betrayed him.

From beyond the lilacs he heard Cherry calling his name. He kicked the ground savagely and followed her voice.

She was at the bottom of the porch steps, drying her hands in a dish towel. “Your friend came by looking for you,” she said. “The little girl, too. Three times. The last time he said to tell you good-bye.”

“How long ago?” Mitch asked.

“Oh, several hours, I'd guess. Before lunch.”

“What else did he say?”

“Well, he wanted to know if you'd be here for the rest of the summer. I told him I couldn't be certain. He thought he'd be coming back at some time.”

“When?”

“He didn't say.”

Mitch tried to remember the street name on Jasper's tag, but couldn't.

As if she somehow had access to and understood the train of Mitch's thoughts, Cherry said, “I wrote down our address and phone number here at the lake and gave it to him. I told him to let us know when he'd be back.”

“Thank you.”

“I thought you'd like that.”

“Did he give you his address or phone number?”

“No. No, he didn't.”

“Oh.”

“I did my best.” Her hands moved uneasily, awkwardly, around and around the dish towel.

“Thank you, Cherry.”

The beginnings of a smile quickly rose on her lips, then collapsed just as quickly. “I've got some cooking to finish,” she said.

Mitch's eyes strayed, then fixed on her dish towel. “I'll help you,” he said.

“That's okay,” said Cherry.

A spell of silence descended upon them. They went their separate ways—Cherry inside the house, Mitch down to the lake.

There was a particular rock by the shore—large, smooth, and mottled—where Mitch had seen his mother sit before. He dropped the box of dog biscuits into the tall grass nearby and hopped onto the rock and got comfortable. He stared ahead, out at the water. Hundreds and hundreds of finely engraved ripples flowed toward him, one after the other, endlessly. His vision blurred. He remembered the last thing he'd done with Spencer. The previous night, he'd played cards, a game called King in the Corner, with Spencer and his family at the rickety table in their cramped kitchen. Because the small room had been bathed in shadow, the dim overhead lamp had been like a dull moon in a cave. Mitch had been happy. So happy that ordinary time had lost its usual hold. He'd truly wanted to win and tried to, but truly didn't care at all if he lost. Laughter, as easy and natural as breathing, had come and gone in surges.

Mitch heard something and jerked his head around.

“It's just me,” said his mother. “Cherry told me about Spencer. I'm sorry you missed him.”

“It's okay.” He made room for her on the rock.

“Hang on to those dog biscuits. I'm sure they'll be back.”

Mitch could feel his mother searching his face. He wondered what she was looking for.

A car sped past on the main road. Mitch turned, listening until the sound of the car faded away.

“I'm going in to help Cherry with dinner, whether she likes it or not. I'll call you when it's ready.”

“Can we play a card game after dinner? All of us? It's called King in the Corner. I'll teach it to you.”

“I'd love to,” his mother said. “But I can't speak for your grandparents. I can only speak for myself.” She slid off the rock to leave. “Don't forget the dog biscuits,” she said. She tossed her hand and fluttered her fingers—part salute, part wave, part blown kiss.

After dinner, Papa Carl went to the store for coffee for the next morning, Cherry insisted on weeding a section of her garden before nightfall, and Mitch's mother received a lengthy phone call that drew her into the spare bedroom with the door closed behind her.

Mitch wondered if they'd ever play cards. He sat on the front steps. Darkness was settling over everything like fog; Cherry wouldn't be able to work much longer. Hunched, she inched slowly along the rows of flowers, bringing to mind the image of a dusky animal scavenging for food. In the dwindling light, Spencer's house was a lifeless gray box. It seemed silly to Mitch that he'd believed he'd actually live there. I'm moving to an apartment, he thought. This was a fact now. A fact of his life. Tears leaked from his smarting eyes.

Blinking, he looked for the moon. It was nowhere to be seen. A few nights ago it had been full, attention-seeking, a glorious advertisement for itself. Now it was concealed behind clouds. But it was still there. Somewhere.

Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there.

Headlights illuminated the velvety yard, heralding Papa Carl's return. It took him a minute to maneuver his knees out of his truck. He walked stiffly, carrying a small bag in the crook of one arm like an infant. “My coffee,” he said.

“Yep,” Mitch replied.

“Are you ready to teach us that card game, Mr. Mitch?” asked Papa Carl.

“You bet.”

“Me, too. Go find your mother. I'll round up Cherry.”

“Okay,” said Mitch. He rose and walked into the quiet house. For a moment he felt—perfectly, completely, particularly—alone.

And then Papa Carl's voice boomed in the night with an urgency that indicated that a statement of pressing importance was being made. “Call it quits and come in, Cherry,” he said. “Mitch is going to teach us a thing or two.”

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked Lolly.

“I'm trying to remember everything,” Lolly answered. “In case we never come back.” She was brushing her cheek against the screen on the outside of the porch. Her eyes were closed.

“We're coming back,” said Spencer. “They said we'd come back.”

Lolly shrugged.

“I told Mitch's grandma we'd be back.”

“She's crabby,” said Lolly. “Mrs. Burden.”

Spencer agreed. They'd gone to Mitch's house three times looking for Mitch. The last time Mitch's grandmother had gone so far as to say, “You don't have to stop by anymore. I'll send Mitch over when he returns. I doubt it'll be soon. He and his mother are apartment hunting in Madison.” Displeasure and distraction had laced her tone and manner. Knowing that he was too timid to try again, and that they'd be departing shortly anyway, Spencer had told her goodbye. She'd written her address and phone number on a slip of paper. “Here,” she'd said, extending a wrinkled hand, offering the information. “Call or write to let us know when you're coming to Bird Lake again.”

Spencer continued to watch for Mitch's mother's burgundy car. Only if he saw the car would he risk another interaction with Mitch's grandmother. The slip of paper was folded, secure in his pocket.

When Lolly was done with the screen, she dabbled with her fingers in the birdbath, sniffed the bark of the maple tree, and counted the number of pine trees on the side of the house. “Remember, remember,” she murmured.

Spencer followed her, observing. “Who are you today? Birdy Freak Show Lake?”

“I am me,” Lolly replied in a measured voice. Her behavior was strange, but, at the same time, she seemed more grown-up than ever to Spencer.

She'd seemed oddly grown-up at their family meeting, too. When Spencer's mother had said that they'd be leaving Bird Lake as soon as they could clean the house and pack, Lolly had appeared unfazed, nodding thoughtfully like an adult. “I understand,” she'd said.

Spencer, on the other hand, had had to work hard to keep from crying. The salt and pepper shakers on the table on which he'd been focusing had wavered because of the tears collecting in his eyes. And he'd felt angry, too. He'd taken the spoon he'd been using for his cereal, and under the table he'd gripped it so fiercely with both hands, he'd bent it.

“It's too hard for me to be here because of what happened to Matty,” his mother had said. “I suppose part of me knew that all along, but I needed to come out here one more time, just to be sure.”

“So you don't like it here at all?” Spencer had asked bravely.

“It's hard to describe,” she replied. “I still love it—and I hate it.”

“You're not going to sell the house, are you?”

“We'll see,” said Spencer's father. “We're not making any decisions like that today.”

Spencer peered at his father with imploring eyes.

“One possibility is to rent the house,” his father said. “That way we can keep it in the family. Who knows? Maybe one day, when you're an old white-haired man, you'll be sitting right here with your grandchildren.”

“I'm never getting married,” Spencer said, suddenly annoyed. “But anyway, can I come back this summer? Just for a few days, even? I never got to go fishing. I could see Mitch.”

Spencer's father looked questioningly at Spencer's mother. “Well,” he said eventually, “if we decide to rent the house, I'll have a lot of fixing up to do. So you can come with me.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Even if you don't fix things up? Can we come back?”

Spencer's father's response was not immediate, but it was the response Spencer hoped to hear. “Yes. I think we can work something out.”

“Me, too?” asked Lolly.

“Sure.”

Spencer wanted to be doubly certain. He wanted to hear it from his mother. “So we can come back, Mom?”

“You can.” The words were spoken quietly, but they were important, hanging in the air like an echo.

Spencer's father stood and clasped the top of his chair. “I'll do the dishes,” he said. “I've already loaded some things into the car and put the kayak by it. All you two need to take care of is getting your own belongings together. Mom and I will take care of everything else. When you're ready, you can go say good-bye to Mitch and just play around the yard. Whatever you want. It'll take us awhile. And to make up—a little bit—for disappointing you both, we thought we'd stay at some fun resort tonight. We can go to one of those places with a fancy miniature golf course or a water park.”

Lolly perked up. “Good idea.”

Spencer didn't respond. He was still taking it all in, processing it. Under the table, his fingers were an antsy, confused tangle. He thought he might snap the spoon in two. He wouldn't look at his mother. And he wouldn't and he wouldn't and he wouldn't. And it felt as if the moment had swelled and he had been permanently anchored at the table with his head drooped. And when he finally did look up, his mother's smooth face had crumpled. But then she swiftly composed herself and said in her mild way, “I'm sorry.” And he thought to say, “Me, too” and “I love you,” but didn't.

And that was how the family meeting had ended.

Spencer could hear his parents working in the house—the opening and closing of drawers and doors, dishes clinking together, the scraping of furniture against the floor. And he could picture Jasper, having sensed that something was going to happen, following them around, ears alert, nose nudging persistently for reassuring pats.

After she had finished counting the pine trees, Lolly circled through the yard to the lilac bushes. She faced the lilacs with outstretched arms and leisurely made her way down the crooked line, trailing her fingers along the twisty, leafy branches and what remained of the brittle flowers.

“Really, what are you doing?” Spencer asked.

“I already told you—I'm remembering.”

Still shadowing his sister, Spencer checked on Mitch's car again. Still gone. Earlier, Mitch had come to the door, interrupting the family meeting. But Spencer hadn't seen him. He wondered if he'd ever see him again.

He thought fleetingly that Mitch and his mother could rent the house, but decided that this was an unrealistic idea. After all, Mitch was looking for an apartment right now. Then Spencer wondered if he and Mitch would ever be friends in Madison. Madison wasn't huge, but big enough that they'd both probably fall into their own routines and never have much to do with each other.