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She did it, and told him as she poured the third cup of warm water over his head, “You know, you’re an observant person.”
“I am?” His eyes were still squeezed shut, but he opened them a cautious half-inch and peeked at her sidelong. “I don’t know what that is, though.”
“It means you watch people and notice what they do. That’s good, because it helps you learn. Watch out, here comes some more water.” She poured Cup Number Four over his head, sluiced the water over his hair with her hand for good measure, wiped his forehead with the washcloth, and said, “All done. And see? I’m now a hair washing expert, because you taught me. I’m teaching you swimming, and you’re teaching me hair washing.”
He giggled. He didn’t do that often, she realized, and wanted to hug him.Well, why not?“About ready to get out?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “except I still want to hear about the crows.”
If she hung out in here much longer, she’d be avoiding Beckett, so she said, “Tell you what. Climb out and I’ll help you dry off, and you can get into your PJs andthenI’ll tell you about the crows.”
“Like a story?” he asked.
“Exactly like a story.” All right, it was possibly avoiding Beckett and the disastrous consequences of her own overeager heart, or whatever had possessed her to think that his moving in with her was a good idea. But it was also putting Troy to bed while Beckett talked to Janey, which was helpful.
That was why, five minutes later, Troy was in rocket-ship PJs, at one edge of a queen-sized bed in which he’d have looked impossibly small and lonely if he hadn’t had Bacon curled up under his arm, and she was saying, “I like to take a walk sometimes at lunchtime, especially if I’m having a hard day. There’s a park with a stream and a big duck pond near the courthouse. It’s peaceful, and I like the sound the water makes running over the rocks. When it’s not frozen, anyway. I escape there and eat my lunch, even if it’s cold and snowy and maybe most people wouldn’t like to have their sandwich freeze. Being outdoors always makes me feel better.”
“When you have to yell at people? Like you yelled at Dad?” Troy yawned.
She smiled. “I told you that you were a good observer. That’s it exactly.”If I have a sex offender,she didn’t say,or a child custody case where I wish there were a better answer.“So anyway,” she went on, “one day in late autumn, when the trees were turning red and gold and the geese were flying high overhead in an arrow, honking in that lonely way they do, like a train whistle in the night, I was walking and eating my sandwich, because I couldn’t sit still, and I realized that the crows were in their tree again. I’m not always as good an observer as you, and I hadn’t really noticed before that they tended to roost in the same tree, and that two of them would swoop down and fly around when I came by. That day, I noticed. I stopped walking and watched them, and then I dropped a little bit of my sandwich, even though you’re not really supposed to feed them human food.”
“Why not?” Troy asked.
“It makes them lose their fear of people, which is dangerous for them, and it keeps them from working to find healthy food. Putting birdseed out in winter is OK, because that’s the kind of food birds do eat, but not sandwiches. But I did it anyway, on that day. I guess I wanted to see what they’d do, if they’d come near me. And when those two, the ones I named Boris and Natasha, came down and picked up the ham and bread off the ground, they cocked their heads and looked at me like they were saying, ‘Thank you very much! You finally got the hint!’ They were just so … funny. It felt like they were talking to me.”
“Maybe they knew you were a friendly person,” Troy said.
“Maybe so. Anyway, that night I looked up what youcouldfeed crows without hurting them, and I learned more about them, too. They’re so smart that they can recognize faces, even a long time after they last saw them. They know who they like and who they don’t like. Somebody did an experiment once and wore a scary mask around them, so he looked like a caveman, and somebody else wore another mask that just looked like a regular person. They didn’t like that scary mask at all, but they didn’t care about the regular-person mask.”
“Oh,” Troy said. “I don’t really like scary things either.”
“But wait, there’s more. Months later, when the people wore the masks again and walked by those crows, they reacted much more. They dive-bombed the man with the caveman mask like the Australian birds you told me about and made a lot of noise, too, trying to chase him away. They’d decided that caveman was dangerous, and they didn’t want him around.”
“But you didn’t have a scary face,” Troy said, “and they liked you.”
“That’s right. Maybe it’s silly, but that’s how I felt. So I came back the next day with peanuts in the shell, because that’s a much healthier treat for crows, and they came down again. After that, when they saw me, they’d start flying around my head, and they even started following me back to the courthouse again when I finished my walk.AfterI’d given them their peanuts and they knew I didn’t have anything else, so you see? It was for company.”
“Like friends,” Troy said.
“Exactly like friends. It’s a little bit like Bacon, maybe. They made me smile, and sometimes, they’d bring me a present. They’d fly down and put it on the ground like they were offering it—a bottle cap, or a rhinestone button once, or whatever special, shiny thing they’d found—and I’d say ‘thank you’ and put it in my pocket and give them their peanuts, and they’d fly back to work with me.”
“Animal friends are nice,” Troy said, “if you’re lonesome.” His lids dropped over his blue eyes, and he sighed and snuggled closer to Bacon, who was curled into the tightest little dog-ball you could imagine and snoring already.
The lump was nearly blocking her throat, and her hand rose to stroke over his still-damp blond hair. How could it not? “Yes,” she said, “they are. Time to go to sleep, I think.”
“Can you ask Dad to come kiss me goodnight?” Troy asked. “I like it when he does, but sometimes he doesn’t remember.”
Her heart contracted. That wasn’t possible, but that was how it felt. She said, “Sure,” then rose and turned out the bedside light. “Good night.”
“Can you leave the door open?” Troy asked on a sleepy sigh. “It’s more friendly, so I’m not scared because I’m alone.”
How could your heart take it? How couldBeckett’sheart take it?
She’d always thought she was brave, but for this? How did you have the courage to love a child, to leave your heart walking around outside your body, so vulnerable and unprotected? How did you find the strength for that?
* * *
Beckett foundQuinn sitting on the couch, looking thoughtful. He told Janey, “You’re on.”
