I trained the binoculars on her face. The woman rarely came outside, so I was curious to get a look. She was younger than her long baggy dresses led me to believe. Auburn hair cascaded down her back in wavy tangles as if she hadn’t bothered to brush it that morning. She wore no makeup, but was exceptionally pretty with a smooth, creamy complexion. A slight smile rested on her lips as she clipped away like she might have been having a silent conversation with herself.
Zooming the focus out, I captured her whole body in my view. Her clothes were weird. I’d noticed them before in the glimpses over the past year. She favored long flowing skirts layered over each other in a way that my mother would have called Bohemian. Her top was a simple, long-sleeved t-shirt in bright blue. I was thinking of zooming in on her house when the woman glanced up and looked right at me. Her face broke into a toothy grin and her hand raised in a little wave.
I shot out of my window, dropping the binoculars on the carpet, embarrassed to have been caught spying. Oh, well. It was time to do something more productive than stare at birds anyway.
The text books that Shawn had brought sat in a neat stack on my desk. Just the thought of school overwhelmed me and made my palms sweat. I’d already missed eleven days in a row. Neither of my parents had mentioned anything about me going back. The doctors at the hospital advised them I should take it slow and suggested a therapist who specialized in post traumatic stress disorder. I had an appointment scheduled for Wednesday.
I carried the school books over to the bed and opened my literature text. A blue envelope baring Ms. Crowell’s loopy handwriting on the front dropped out from beneath the cover. I opened it to find a sympathy card with a little note inside.
“Words can’t express how deeply sorry I am for your loss. I know school is the last thing on your mind, but you might find it helpful to focus on something else for a while. I marked a few pages in the poetry section that you might find comforting. I’ve also enclosed a list of assignments that you’ve missed. Don’t worry about the due dates, just do the best you can. If you need any help, please feel free to contact me anytime.”
On the bottom, Ms. Crowell listed both her home and cell phone numbers. I ran my finger over the digits. I had only been in her class for a week before the accident, not nearly long enough to decide whether I liked her as a teacher or not. Somehow, that handwritten note with her phone numbers meant more to me than any of the hundreds of sympathy cards we’d accumulated since the funeral.
Maybe Ms. Crowell was right. I needed something more than a family of cardinals to distract my mind. Reviewing the assignment list, I noticed the class had already moved on from the Greeks and had skipped ahead to the Elizabethans. I heaved a sigh of relief at seeing we were to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’d watched the movie on television once and liked it well enough. I couldn’t have handled reading one of Shakespeare’s tragedies. I flipped open the thick book and began reading.
I’d just gotten to the point where Nick Bottom’s head was turned into a donkey when the land-line phone rang. Probably Dad checking in on me again.
“Hello?” I answered, my eyes still half-reading the page.
There was a long pause before the caller spoke. “Uh, may I speak to Arcadia please?” His voice was soft and unsure, not familiar to me at all.
“This is Cady,” I replied.
“Hi. This is Bryan…Bryan Sullivan…you know, the new kid.”
It took me a moment to place the name. When I did, my belly did a little flip. “Oh, right, from literature class.”
I sat up straight on my bed. Boys called the house all the time, but other than Shawn, they had usually wanted to talk to Lony.
“I hope you don’t mind my calling. Are you busy? Do you feel up to talking?”
I shoved Ms. Crowell’s card between the pages to keep my place. “No…I mean, yeah…it’s cool. I was just catching up on some homework, but I could use a break. How’d you get my number?”
“Phone book.” He paused and took an audible breath in and out. “Listen, I’m really sorry about your sister. I actually went to the funeral, but you looked sort of overwhelmed with people, so I didn’t come up and say anything.”
“Oh…” I don’t know what surprised me more, that I hadn’t noticed him or that he’d been there at all. “Told you I’m not very observant.”
“Well, you had a good excuse.”
We both went quiet for an awkward moment. A faint metallic taste touched my tongue. I realized I was gnawing the chapped skin on my lower lip.