Where the Forest Meets the Stars(28)

Ursa looked up at Jo as they walked. “What makes Gabe get sick?”

“I’m not sure,” Jo said.

“I think Lacey makes him sick.”

“It’s more than that. Human bodies are very complicated. Inside us there are all kinds of genes, hormones, and chemicals that affect our moods, and sometimes people have a certain combination of those things that makes them feel sad.”

“All the time?”

“Usually not all the time.”

“Gabe wasn’t sad until Lacey came.”

“Our environment—what’s happening around us—affects the chemicals inside our bodies.”

“Lacey made my body’s chemicals feel bad,” Ursa said.

“Mine too,” Jo said.

They checked the nest at the far end of the length of road, then headed in the direction of the Nash driveway. They were on their way to monitor a cardinal nest, wading through vegetation powdered with lime-rock dust, when they heard Gabe’s truck. “Gabe! Gabe!” Ursa called, waving her arms.

Gabe slowed the truck, smiled, and waved back but kept on driving.

“Why didn’t he stop?” Ursa asked.

“I guess he didn’t want to bother us when we’re working. He has work to do, too.”

“But he could have stopped for one minute!”

He could have.

An hour later, they finished the work and drove to the intersection where Gabe was seated beneath his blue canopy and FRESH EGGS sign. Jo parked in the ditch behind his truck. Ursa sprang outside and ran to his table. “We missed you!” she said. “Why haven’t you come over?”

“I thought it best to let things settle down,” he said, his eyes on Jo as she approached.

Jo stood next to Ursa. “Did Lacey leave?”

“She left the day before yesterday.”

Which meant she’d stayed at the cabin one more day. “How have you been?”

“Just great,” he said brusquely, aware of the question’s implication.

“Can I stay at Gabe’s farm today, like I used to?” Ursa asked. “Can I? Please?”

“That would be up to Gabe,” Jo said.

“That can’t happen anymore,” he said.

“Why not?” Ursa said.

“You know why. If my mother tells my sister you’re spending days at the farm again, Lacey will call the police.”

“I could stay in places your mom can’t see.”

“It’s not a good idea,” he said, watching a car pull up to his stand.

“Can I see the kittens tonight? When Jo and I get back? Your mom won’t see me in the dark.”

“How’s it going, Jen?” he said to the approaching middle-aged woman in a nurse’s uniform.

“I’m beat and ready for bed,” the woman said. “I’ll take a dozen.” She handed Gabe a five.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, giving her change.

She took a carton off the table. “Have a good one, Gabe.”

“You too.” As Jen walked away, he lifted a battered copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance out of his lap.

“Can I?” Ursa said.

“Can you what?” he said.

“See the kittens tonight.”

“I told you why you can’t be at my place anymore. If the sheriff comes again, they’ll be set on taking you where you belong.” Looking at Jo, he added, “They have to do what’s right.”

Ursa stared at him like she didn’t know who he was.

“Come on,” Jo said. When Ursa didn’t move, Jo took her hand and tugged her toward the car. Gabe kept his eyes fixed on the paperback in his hands.

“Why is Gabe mad at us?” Ursa asked when they were driving again.

“We shouldn’t assume he’s mad.” She wished he were only angry. Because what he was doing was much worse. He was freezing them out, shutting down his emotions.

They worked a typical day, but everything felt strange. Ursa was more subdued than Jo had ever seen her. She barely even reacted when they saw a fox running along the edge of a cornfield. At the end of the day she was still quiet, and Jo thought they might make it past the Nash homestead without reference to Gabe.

That would not be their fate. As the Honda’s headlights hit the dark Nash driveway, they shined on Gabe seated on his open pickup gate. He dropped to his feet and waved them down.

“What’s up?” Jo said out her window.

“I’ve been waiting for you. You’re getting in late.”

“I had to run to the grocery store.”

“Are you too hungry to see the kittens?”

“No!” Ursa said.

“Follow me in,” he said.

At the barn, Ursa jumped outside as Jo shut down the car. “Can I go in?” she said.

“Hold your horses and wait for Jo,” Gabe said.

“I wish I had horses to hold,” Ursa said.

The interior of the barn was black, but Gabe turned on a lantern to light their way to the kittens. The mother cat emerged from shadows, mewing at Gabe as he set the lantern on a hay bale near her nest.

“Look how big they got!” Ursa said. “And they can kind of walk!” She petted each kitten as she said its name. She scooped Juliet and Hamlet into her hands and held them against her cheeks. “Did you miss me? I missed you.”

“Would you come outside for a minute?” Gabe asked Jo.

Ursa sprawled on her belly, watching Juliet and Hamlet clumsily tussle.

“Jo and I will be right back,” Gabe said.

Once outside, he closed the barn door and led Jo out of Ursa’s earshot. “I wanted to apologize for how I behaved this morning,” he said.

“You should be saying that to Ursa.”

“Was she upset?”

“I think she was.”

He studied the ground, preparing to say something. He looked at her. “That’s more the reason she can’t come around.”

“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

“She’s gotten too attached. And I have . . .” He looked away from Jo’s eyes for a few seconds. “This can’t end well,” he said. “Every day you don’t turn her in to the police, you’re making it worse for all of us.”

She bristled at his phrasing—you instead of we—as if he were abandoning all responsibility for keeping Ursa.

“Do you even think about what you’re doing?” he asked. “You’re bonding with a kid who’ll be heartbroken when you go back to your life up at the university. You’re feeding a dog that will starve when you leave, and you’ve let Ursa get attached to him. No way will that dog be going wherever she ends up.”

She didn’t need his lecture. She harangued herself on those same points constantly.

“I can’t be a part of this anymore,” he said. “Everyone’s going to get hurt.”

“More like it already hurts and you want it to stop before it gets worse.”

“Yeah, it already hurts—maybe for her more than us. This thing has gone too far.” He waited for her to respond. “Don’t you agree?”

“I do. It’s gone further than I ever imagined.” Jo scraped a line in the gravel with the toe of her boot. “When I knew my mother would be dead in a few months, I had two choices . . .” She looked at him. “I could distance myself from the pain or get closer to it. Maybe because I’d lost my dad without getting a chance to tell him what he meant to me, I decided to get closer. I got so close, her pain and fear became my own. We shared everything and loved each other like we never had when death was some distant thing. In the end, part of me died with her. I’m not recovered from it even now, but I made the conscious choice to enter the darkness with her. Everyone I know who’s lost someone they love has voiced regrets—they wish they’d done this or that or loved them more. I have no regrets. None.”

He had nothing to say.

“I guess it’s impossible for you to understand.”

“The dumb farm guy isn’t quite that dumb,” he said. “I’ve always thought what’s happening with you and Ursa has something to do with what you’ve been through. But it’s not the same as what happened with your mother. In the end, you will have regrets. Loving her will only have increased Ursa’s pain.”

“What if the end is different from what you imagine?”

“How?”

“I might try to become her foster parent.” She had never vocalized the tantalizing idea. Finally, it was out there. And she felt good about it.

He just stared at her.

“I know you have to get certified or whatever, but I doubt that’s too difficult. And even though I’m single, I have the resources they’ll want a foster parent to have. My dad had a big life insurance policy because his work was risky. My mom used some of that money to buy another policy because she was a single parent. I have enough money to hire people who can watch Ursa when I’m in school. And I have a plan for Little Bear, too. I can’t have dogs where I live, but Tabby is good at finding homes for strays. I’m hoping one of her vet friends will adopt him and Ursa can visit.”

“No matter how much money you have and what you plan for the dog, you can’t change the fact that you’ve lied to the police.”

“I haven’t broken any laws.”