I snorted a laugh. “Mm-hmm.”
“Stop, you know what I meant!” she chastised me, though I could hear her smiling through her words. “Things that are hard are usually the ones that are worth it.”
“The snake plant wasn’t hard,” I pointed out, ducking under a curtain of willow vines. Under the shade of the tree, there was a fold-out chair that wasn’t very old at all. If I’d had to guess, I’d say that Wykofski came here sometimes. I wasn’t sure who else would.
“No, but you having cared for it was,especiallywhen you didn’t have to. When you were already swamped with catch-up work from school. When we had to boil our water because the house we were renting had rusted pipes. And the plant died anyway, remember? It was too far gone.”
I sat down in the chair, and it creaked. Thiswasa nice spot, the golden sunlight sending pinions of light through the waving willow vines. “I know. But I had to try.”
“Exactly. So it’s not wasted time. If you’re doing something you care about, it never is.”
But that didn’t stop me fromfeelinglike I was wasting it all. I was in my prime, and instead of spending summer in the city, going out and meeting people and burning memories into my brain, I was here filling up vole holes and being chased by geese.
I missed sitting down on the back porch with her and talking over coffee or sweet tea. Phone conversations were nice, but home never felt closer than when I closed my eyes and imagined the smell of the Virginia Slims Menthols that she smoked, and the soft murmur of her phone game, as we sat in uncomfortable wrought iron chairs on the back porch.
“I hope you’ll still be saying that when you finally come up here to see this place,” I said, deciding to change the subject. I picked a bur off my sock. “I think all of the lilies will be in bloom soon.”
“Oh, sprout, about that . . .” she said hesitantly. “We’ve all been talking here at the beach, and we all agree that maybe it’d be best if I didn’t come visit.”
My heart fell. “Ah.”
“It’s just such a far drive and you know how Eddie feels about planes . . . it’s not very feasible. And what about the dogs? We can’t leave the dogs.”
“It’s fine,” I said, swallowing my real feelings. “Are you sure?” she asked.
As I sat under the boughs of the willows, the psithurism of the leaves in the wind was soothing and gentle, dampening my disappointment.
“Yeah, it’s a long drive,” I agreed, though Harriett and I had taken that same drive ten years ago. It was also a beautiful road trip. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.
“I just—I feel awful,” Mom went on, “but Eddie really doesn’t have the vacation after this trip, and he needs to start getting the budget for the next quarter ready and . . .”
“Damnit!” someone shouted. That wasn’t Wykofski orOliver, and Yafir wasn’t working today. One of the volunteers? “Get—stay away—stop it!”
No … Iknewthat voice.
“Mom, I’m sorry, I have to go,” I said, pushing myself up from the fold-out chair and grabbing my shovel. “I think someone is chasing the goose.”
“Thegoose? I thought the goose chasedpeople?”
“That, too,” I amended, and said my goodbyes to her before I hung up and hurried out of the Willow Grove and toward the Moon Bridge. I scanned the grounds, looking for a door—
There, against the fence that hid the Reservoir. It was ajar already. I ducked through it.
And found Cyrus standing atop a stone bench, hands out toward the goose as it snapped at his shins. “Ow—ow!Stop it! Youknowme, you awful thing!”
“That means nothing to her,” I said, staking the end of my shovel into the ground and leaning on it. He snapped his attention up to me. His eyebrows rose. I said, “Hi.”
“Hi,” he murmured, eyes wide, as if he wasn’t quite sure if I was real or a mirage. “I thought you’d never—argh!”
Damnit nailed him directly in the shin. He let out a string of expletives. I winced, because I knew how muchthathurt. “Why do youhateme? I was the one who saved you!” he cried.
Damnit spread her wings wide and snapped at him again.
I had to get her away before she murdered the man. The things I did for people I wasn’t sure I even liked. Steeling myself, I clicked my tongue to the roof of my mouth and poked
Damnit in the behind with the tip of my shovel.
Affronted, the goose whirled around to me, absolutelyenraged.
