History of Wolves(25)

At any point along the way, Lily could have tipped the boat and stranded Mr. Grierson. All it would have taken was a hard lurch to one side. She knew this lake like her own pretty face. He knew nothing at all. When he pulled out a disposable camera and aimed it at her, he acknowledged as much. He said he wanted Lily to know how vulnerable he was, how his fate was in her hands. He said if he were lucky enough to get back to the car, it would be because of Lily’s kindness and mercy. He wanted her to know how grateful he was—in advance. Before he unzipped his pants, before he said just a kiss and pushed her down, he wanted her to know she had a choice.





8


LEO’S PANCAKES HAD CHOCOLATE CHIPS AND RAISINS. His orange juice was thick, boggy and sweet with pulp. He played word games as he cooked, Liar Liar and Mental Hangman. Paul’s guesses were the same every time. N-O and P-A-U-L. As he made our breakfast, Leo found lots of excuses to touch people, Patra of course—who was grinning like an idiot, still in yesterday’s clothes—and also Paul, whom he high-fived as he cooked, as he flipped things with spatulas. And also me.

“Here, Linda,” he said, his palm on my shoulder as he ushered me to the table with a plate of pancakes. When he’d first come through the door that morning, he’d hesitated only an instant before holding out his hand for me to shake. Under his rain slicker, which he’d draped over a chair, he wore a bright blue T-shirt and a matching fleece vest. But his shoes were real enough. Red Wing boots. No one made him take them off at the door.

“Sit, eat!” he said, though I kept threatening to leave, kept saying that I needed to get home, that I needed to brush my teeth and get started on homework.

“Sit! Eat!” Paul yelled. He pounded the table with his utensils.

Patra had been sitting at the table for a long time already, legs drawn under her, red eyes blinking. Her newly cut hair was a frizzy halo of yellow and gold. All her makeup was gone, save a tiny wedge of mascara on one eyelid. She wiped syrup from her plate with a finger, sucked it off. She lifted the hatchet with sticky hands, pretended to take a swipe at Leo when he said all the orange juice was gone.

“Fee-fi-fo-fum!” Paul screeched.

“Patty!” the husband scolded. But she seemed surrounded by a force field of pleasure and just grinned up at him. She set down the hatchet, rubbed her hands on her skirt.

“Who needs napkins?” her husband asked, handing Patra one first.

I left when the sun came over the treetops, when it bore a shaft of light and dust into my skull and turned everything else in the room into shadows. Paul was shouting about Europa’s capital, and Patra was saying something about Paul’s “demonstration” the day before, so no one noticed much when I got up for more milk and slipped out the door. Last night’s rain gave the sunny woods a squinty newborn look. It seemed fizzed, fermented—everything shimmering and throwing lights. I was almost out of sight of the house, almost to the tasseled pines, when I heard someone behind me on the path. “Linda, wait!” Patra called.

I turned and saw her running awkwardly, stumbling over roots and pinecones. She was still in her socks. I held my breath when I saw her coming like that. Long wrinkled skirt caught between her legs, hair shot through with sun, like a mane.

“Thanks!” she said, handing me four ten-dollar bills.

My heart sank. I already had four soft, unspent bills in my pocket from my mother. I already had enough money from a month of Paul to buy a kayak, or a bus ticket to Thunder Bay, or a purebred malamute if I wanted.

The problem was I couldn’t bring myself to want any of these things quite enough.

“No, thanks,” I mumbled, refusing to hold out my hand.

“You’ve got to take it, Linda. I’ll feel bad.” She mock pouted. Mock stamped her foot.

“Okay.” That’s not my problem, I meant. I turned to leave.

“I’m going to bury it here under this rock if you won’t take it. I’m not kidding!” I could see she was still buzzed from the conversation inside the house—the back-and-forth of it, the pointless frolic. “Here I go, burying your wages!” she said. “Dig, dig.”

She really did. She got down on her hands and knees in the dirt, in her skirt. She went ahead and lifted a piece of granite, revealing, in the wet soil beneath, a clump of earthworms writhing skyward. It was like the guts of the woods were showing.

“Seriously!” she called.

I shrugged.

“Here goes your money. Under a rock with the bugs.”

“Bye,” I said.

Finally, she stood up and shook her head at me, unable to keep from grinning. Hands on her hips. “You’re a pretty funny kid, you know?”

Her socks and palms were black with dirt. “You’re a weird adult.”


I arrived home muddy from my walk through the woods. The dogs reared against their chains as I made my way to the door. “Mongrels,” I told them, bending down and making sure to touch them all the exact same amount, even old Abe who was my favorite. Two pats on the side of each ribcage. Then I straightened up. I could just catch the rumbling voices of my parents through the screen window. I thought maybe I’d hear my name—Madeline—but no, they were talking about a groundhog in the garden. I turned impulsively and went the other direction.

The shed was cool and dark, the roof beam awhirl with startled sparrows. I stood still and listened to them flap. I glanced at the fish cooler but couldn’t bear the idea—not after last night, not right now—of slicing ribcages out of walleye. The day-old fish would be on the edge of spoiling, but I didn’t check the ice. There would be so many tiny bones for me to deal with, if I did, a bucketful of gleaming skins. Doing my take-home trig exam would be no better—would be worse, probably—so I stood in the musty shed a long minute, wavering, before filling my backpack with a few things, tying a crushed rain slicker around my hips, and dragging the Wenonah down to shore.