"Don't mind Haven," Gage had said dryly, watching his sister with a faint smile. "She's never met a cause she didn't like. It was the biggest disappointment of her life not to be disenfranchised."
Gage was different from his siblings. He worked too hard and challenged himself compulsively, and seemed to hold nearly everyone outside his family at arm's length. But he had begun to treat me with a careful friendliness I couldn't help responding to. And there was his increasing kindness to my sister. It started in small ways. He fixed the broken chain of Carrington's pink two-wheeler, and drove her to school one morning when I was running late.
Then there was the bug project. Carrington's class had been studying insects, and every child was required to write a report on a particular bug and make a 3D model. Carrington had decided on a lightning bug. I took Carrington to Hobby Lobby, where we spent forty dollars on paint, Styrofoam. plaster of Paris, and pipe cleaners. I didn't say one word about the cost—my competitive sister was determined to make the best bug in the class, and I had resolved to do whatever was necessary to help.
We made the body of the bug and covered it with wet plaster strips, and painted it black, red, and yellow when it was dry. The entire kitchen had been turned into a disaster zone in the process. The bug was a handsome creation, but to Carrington's disappointment, the glow in the dark paint we had used for the bug's underside was not nearly as effective as we had hoped. It didn't glow hardly at all, Carrington had said glumly, and I had promised to try to find a better quality paint so we could apply another coat.
After spending an afternoon typing a chapter of Churchill's manuscript, I was surprised to discover Gage sitting with my sister in the kitchen, the table piled with tools, wires, small pieces of wood, batteries, glue, a ruler. Cradling the lightning bug model in one hand, he made deep cuts with an X-Acto knife.
"What are you doing?"
Two heads lifted, one dark, one platinum. "Just performing a little surgery," Gage said, deftly extracting a rectangular chunk of foam.
Carrington's eyes were lit with excitement. "He's putting a real light inside our bug, Liberty! We're making a 'lectrical circuit with wires and a switch, and when you flip it the lightning bug's going to flash."
"Oh." Nonplussed, I sat at the table. I always appreciated help whenever it was given. But I had never expected Gage, of all people, to get involved in our project. I didn't know whether he'd been recruited by Carrington or if he'd offered on his own, and I wasn't certain why it made me uneasy to see them working together so companionably.
Patiently Gage showed Carrington how to make the wired circuit, how to hold the screwdriver and twist it. He held the pieces of a little switch box together as she glued it. Carrington glowed at his quiet praise, her small face animated as they worked together. Unfortunately the added weight of the bulb and wiring caused the pipe cleaner legs to collapse beneath the model. I had to bite back a sudden grin as Gage and Carrington contemplated the prostrate insect.
"It's a lightning bug with sleep inertia." Carrington said, and the three of us snorted with laughter.
It took Gage another half hour to reinforce the bug's legs with clothes hanger wire. After setting the finished project in the middle of the kitchen table, he turned the kitchen lights off. "All right, Carrington," he said. "Let's give it a test run."
Eagerly Carrington picked up the small wired box and flipped the switch. She crowed in triumph as the lightning bug began to flash in a steady repeated pattern. "Oh. it's so cool, look, look at my bug, Liberty!"
"It's great," I said, grinning as I saw how elated she was.
"High five," Gage said to Carrington, holding up his hand.
But to his astonishment, and mine, Carrington ignored the high five. Instead, she threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"You're the best," she said against his shirtfront. "Thanks. Gage."
He didn't move for a second, just looked down at Carrington's small blond head. And then his arms went around her. As she grinned up at him, still hanging around his waist, he ruffled her hair gently. "You did most of the work, shorty. I just helped a little."
I stood outside the moment, marveling at how easily the connection between them had been formed. Carrington had always gotten along with grandfatherly men like Mr. Ferguson or Churchill, but she'd been standoffish with the ones I had dated. I couldn't fathom why she had taken to Gage.
She couldn't become attached to him. when there was no chance of him becoming a permanent fixture in her life. It would only lead to disappointment, even heartbreak, and her heart was too precious for me to let that happen.