What Comes After (32 page)

“Your daughter didn’t want pets?” I asked tentatively, a bad feeling in the bottom of my stomach. They had never mentioned any children. There were no pictures of a daughter in their house, or none that I’d seen.

“Alice,” Mrs. Tuten said. “I always thought that was the prettiest name. I think it confused Aunt Nonny at Thanksgiving, seeing you there. She thought you were Alice, all grown up. I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s OK,” I said. “Alice
is
a pretty name.”

Mrs. Tuten nodded. “I know it’s an old-fashioned name — it was even then — but I did always like it.”

“My mom and dad felt the same way about my name,” I said.

Mrs. Tuten smiled. “I like your name. Very much,” she said. “Iris is my favorite flower.”

“My dad said he liked it because Iris was the messenger of the gods,” I said. “She traveled between heaven and earth on a rainbow.” I wasn’t sure why I was telling her that. I stroked Huey’s neck the way Mrs. Tuten had been doing, first down, toward his shoulder, going with the direction of his hair, then back up so I felt the bristly ends. It reminded me of running my hand over the carpet in Mr. DiDio’s office.

“We just liked the sound of
Alice,
” Mrs. Tuten said.

“Where is she now?” I finally asked.

Mrs. Tuten had that look I saw on her when she thought she was alone. “We only had her for a few days,” she said. “She was so tiny and so frail. She was in such a hurry to meet us that she came out too soon. They tried everything to stop her, to stop the early contractions. And then they tried everything to keep her alive. We got to hold her only once while she was alive, with gloves, in the incubator. She was as small as a kitten. As small and as light. She never made a sound. She was such a good baby.”

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Tuten,” I said. She seemed far away, though we were just a few feet from each other in the stall, sitting on either side of Huey in the dry straw.

“It’s all right, Iris,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”

The lantern flickered, making shadows dance around the cold barn walls. The wind had died during the night, but I could still see my frosty breath, and Mrs. Tuten’s, and shallow puffs from Huey’s nostrils that came out in little chugging sounds, like a far-off train. Then Huey lifted his head. Just a little. He looked at me, or at least he opened his eyes in my direction. Then he settled back down.

I checked Mr. Tuten’s watch again, even though only a few minutes had passed. Mrs. Tuten was shivering again. I wondered if it was from the cold or from thinking about Alice. I suggested we go ahead with the next dose, since we were close enough to the six-hour mark, so she held Huey while I got the dropper and the medicine.

Huey opened his eyes again after I gave him his dose, and this time he kept them open. He sort of shrugged, and then he stood up. He wobbled, but he stayed standing for a couple of minutes. Mrs. Tuten was beaming. I thought she might even start clapping. I hugged Huey gently — laid my cheek against his side and my arm softly over his back. I was so happy, I couldn’t speak.

He pulled away from me after a few minutes and took a few steps around the stall, but before long he settled back down and nodded off to sleep again.

After I laid the blanket over him, I realized Mrs. Tuten was silently crying. “It’s all right, Mrs. Tuten. I think he’s going to be all right. It probably just tired him out getting up for a little bit.”

“I know, Iris,” Mrs. Tuten said, wiping away her tears. “It’s just the happiest thing.”

Louie woke up and came over to Huey’s stall, about as casually and sleepily as if he’d just gotten up to go to the bathroom, then he lay down next to his brother. I stood and stretched and peeked out the barn door. Gnarly poked his head out from under the porch steps, where he’d been sleeping lately — I guess it was warmer there. Stars still lit the sky, but a faint light crept over the tree line, too, east of the farm. Mrs. Tuten stepped outside with me, and we looked at things together for a while. Gnarly crossed the backyard and leaned against my leg, still half asleep. One of the goats
maa
ed in the barn. I couldn’t tell for sure which one, but it kind of sounded like Huey.

“I’m sorry I lied to you and Mr. Tuten about coming out here,” I said. “But I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have the goats. And I don’t know what they would do if they didn’t have me.”

“I know, Iris,” Mrs. Tuten said. “I can see that.”

Patsy came out of the barn and stood between me and Mrs. Tuten, pressing her shoulders against our legs to let us know she was there, too. She studied the sky with us for a while, then shook her head, as if she didn’t quite get the point.

Mrs. Tuten reached down to pet her.

“Tell me this one’s name again?” she said.

“Patsy. She’s the herd queen.”

After a few more minutes, Mrs. Tuten spoke again. “There are some things I need to say to you, Iris, and I need you to hear them.” She let out a breath as if she’d been holding it for a long time. “The first thing is that you should not have gone behind our backs to come out here to the farm, and drive your aunt’s truck. You should have told us about the agreement with your aunt. You have apologized, but the one thing we cannot have, if you are to continue living with us, is any more lying. That has to be understood.”

“Yes,” I said, hope filling my chest at the words “continue living with us.” Still, her tone was serious, and I worried that she was going to order me to stay away from the farm. But I couldn’t agree to that. Ever. “I do understand,” I started. “But the goats —”

“Let me finish,” Mrs. Tuten said.

So I waited.

“The second thing,” she said, “is that we’re going to have to clear this arrangement with Mindy and Mr. Trask. We’ll need their permission for you to continue coming out to your aunt’s farm, to take care of the goats. It’s probably a formality, but we need to do this right.”

She knelt down to scratch Patsy under her chin. I couldn’t believe what she’d just said. I wanted her to repeat it, to make sure I’d heard her right, that I wasn’t imagining things.

Mrs. Tuten looked up. “And finally, you have to let us help.”

Mrs. Tuten and I had an appointment with Mindy and Mr. Trask two days later. Huey had almost completely recovered, but Littleberry was staying with him out at the farm anyway, just to make sure he was OK. Reba and Louie stayed close by, too.

Mrs. Tuten stopped me when she parked the car downtown and said she didn’t think we needed to mention that I’d already been driving the truck and going out to the farm to take care of the goats and Gnarly.

“It might be best to just make a fresh start,” she said. “Let the past be the past.”

The receptionist escorted us right away down the hall to Mr. Trask’s dark-paneled office. Mindy was already there, and we sat with her in a row of spindly chairs. Mr. Trask blinked at us from behind his desk, which was bare except for a single yellow number-two pencil. I wished he’d turn on more lights.

He looked at his watch and pressed a button on the side — probably the stopwatch function. “You asked to see me?”

I took a deep breath, thanked him and Mindy for meeting with us, then nervously explained as well as I could about how much the goats meant to me, about the situation with Animal Control, about my visit to the jail, about the agreement with Aunt Sue. I showed them a copy of Aunt Sue’s letter giving me permission to take care of the animals. I showed them my report card from school and told them I’d joined the softball team, which I hoped demonstrated what Mr. DiDio called “a healthy balance of activities.” Then I explained my proposed schedule for visiting the farm, handling the cheese production, and working at the farmers’ market — all things Mrs. Tuten had suggested I do.

“I recently accompanied Iris to the farm,” Mrs. Tuten interjected, “and was able to see for myself how well she can manage things. One of the goats fell ill, and I was very impressed with how Iris dealt with the situation.”

Mindy scribbled notes as we talked, and seemed to be nodding, which was always a good sign. Mrs. Tuten had spoken with her on the phone the day before — they had talked for more than an hour — but she still asked a couple of questions, which Mrs. Tuten and I took turns answering.

Mr. Trask looked at his watch again and started drumming on his desk with the eraser end of his pencil.

Mindy stopped writing. “Do you have any questions you would like to ask, Mr. Trask?”

He said he didn’t. We waited to see if he would say anything else.

He didn’t.

“Well,” Mindy said finally, “I can’t say I think it’s at all fair for Iris’s aunt to put this financial burden on her, just so Iris can see the goats. I’ve actually never heard of anything like it. But I do see how important this is to Iris. I’ve spoken with Mrs. Tuten at length about it, and I’m convinced that Iris is capable of handling the arrangement — or at least should have the opportunity to give it a try.” She nodded earnestly again. “As long as Mr. and Mrs. Tuten are comfortable with it,” she added. “And Iris continues to do well in school.”

I was ready to celebrate, a huge grin on my face, but faltered when I looked at Mr. Trask again. His mouth was twisted into some strange species of frown that made his lips disappear. He picked up Aunt Sue’s letter, glanced at it, then laid it down in front of him.

“I have to disagree,” he said, sliding the letter back across his desk toward me with his pencil. “Miss Wight has shown poor judgment in the past. There were repeated incidents of vandalism to Mrs. Allen’s property earlier this year — including vandalism to the new truck. I do not see sufficient evidence that Miss Wight is mature enough to take over the care of the animals, or to take on these financial responsibilities.”

“I already told you why I did all of that!” I said, gripping the chair arms so hard I thought they might break off. I hoped they would. “But you wouldn’t listen to me!”

Mr. Trask leaned back so far away from me that his chair threatened to tip over. I started to say more, my anger boiling over, but Mrs. Tuten stopped me.

“Iris,” she said, laying her hand on my arm.

She had a determined look on her face. I’d seen it before — the last time we were in Mr. Trask’s office, and two nights ago when she and Mr. Tuten showed up at the farm to help with Huey.

“Could I get the two of you to step outside?” Mrs. Tuten said to Mindy and me, smiling a thin smile. “Just for a few minutes. I think it would be a good idea if Mr. Trask and I had an opportunity to speak. Alone.”

Mr. Trask’s strange frown deepened further, practically on the verge of turning his face inside out. He checked his watch yet again and shook it, as though he thought it might have stopped working.

Mindy and I stepped into the hall. “I’m sure everything will be OK,” Mindy kept saying, though I doubted she was certain of that herself. “Mrs. Tuten can be very convincing — a very forceful advocate.”

I kept my hands clenched into fists, not sure what I would do if Mr. Trask didn’t change his mind.

Finally, after fifteen long minutes, Mrs. Tuten opened the door and invited us back in. She was still smiling, but it was a different, fuller smile this time.

“Mr. Trask has reconsidered,” she said once we sat down. “Iris may visit the farm and take care of the animals and use her aunt’s truck. And Mr. Trask has also agreed to let Iris have access to some of the funds from her father’s estate during those months when she may not be able to earn enough at the farmers’ market, though of course we hope that won’t be necessary.”

Mr. Trask didn’t say anything. He’d taken off his watch and it was lying facedown next to the yellow pencil.

I stood up again, but I wasn’t sure why. Mrs. Tuten was still smiling, and we just looked at each other, and she nodded. Everything seemed frozen in that moment. I didn’t know what to say to thank her. There weren’t enough words.

I thought about how hard it must have been for Mrs. Tuten to lose her baby, and I thought about her sitting up all night in the barn with me and Huey. I thought about all the things she and Mr. Tuten had done for me. And now this. After losing Mom, and losing Dad, and losing Beatrice, and losing Maine, I couldn’t have imagined there could ever be this much good left in the world.

Mindy was the first to move. She stood up and hugged me, and Mrs. Tuten came over and hugged me, too. I was so happy that I started crying and couldn’t stop. I heard Mr. Trask’s chair scrape the floor, and I heard him walk out, but I kept crying, and Mrs. Tuten and Mindy kept hugging me, and I didn’t mind that at all.

I begged Mrs. Tuten the whole way home to tell me what she’d said to Mr. Trask to make him change his mind, but she refused. She must have told Mr. Tuten later that night — I actually heard him laughing — but I could never get him to tell me anything, either.

Littleberry and I drove out to the farm early the next morning before school with a giant bag of Cheetos — with the Tutens’ permission. The goats were especially glad to see us. I was ready to get back to milking them twice a day, every day, to increase cheese production.

They were ready for a party.