History of Wolves(53)

Lily wasn’t as dumb as she looked. But probably you knew that already.

I thought once about moving to California. That’s where you’re from, right? I wanted to see the redwoods there. I wanted to feel miniature beside those big trees, to alter for good my sense of the scale of things. I’ve heard people say those trees can do that to you. But Minneapolis is more affordable. The trees here are a lot like the trees in Loose River, though there are fewer of them.

I’ve never been to Florida either. I think if I came into your shop I would buy the rocking chair with the high back and the bent oak runners. It looks comfortable in the picture on your website. It doesn’t seem like junk. I’ve read what people say about you online, about how you shouldn’t get to live in their town. What if a kid wanders into your store and so on. Maybe they have good reasons to write what they do, but I think you should hear this too: I think you’re innocent. I think you should hear that from someone. I think someone should say that to you, and in case no one has, I’m that someone for you.

Sincerely,

Mattie Furston



Dawn is a free pass. I’ve always thought that. The hours between four and seven belong to a few fidgety birds and maybe a last bat charging mosquitoes. In Minneapolis, the traffic from the highway would grow louder and louder, and eventually a slant of light would work its way in through the curtain and crawl up my neck. That’s when I put away my books and papers. At seven on the dot, I got out of bed, boiled water on the stove, and strained coffee for me and Ann. I wiggled into my pantyhose in the bathroom. When I stuck out my tongue to brush it, the girl in the mirror was gagging at me, earnestly. Eyes red.


That morning in the Gardner cabin, seven o’clock came and went without anyone stirring at all. This was a surprise to me I guess, but only because I’d assumed the Gardners were early risers. From my place on the couch beside Patra, I watched the lake silver gradually, and then I watched it net the first few bits of new sun. A loon surfaced on the far side and looked around. A motorboat sped past grumpily, calving the water, and when another boat followed in its wake, I remember wanting the morning to slow down, slow down. I wanted the morning to hold still, to take its time in coming.

Patra woke up reluctantly. She kept opening her eyes partway and closing them again—as if reassured by my presence, as if my presence gave her permission to return to unconsciousness without guilt. When the early light caught her face, every freckle became vivid and precise. I watched two of them quiver together over her right eyelid. I noticed a slim white scar I’d never seen before, parting the down on her upper lip. I saw tiny flecks of dandruff riding a few hairs near her scalp. Later, it would be impossible for me to tell anyone of the happiness of those hours, the exquisite sweetness of sitting there with her asleep beside me on the couch, and it was very hard for me to admit even to myself how much of that feeling had to do with Paul and Leo being safely out of the room. A slice of sunlight edged up her blanketed thigh. I remember how her breathing moved the natty yellow cotton up and down, how her eyeballs beneath the freckled lids shifted in her sleep. I noticed the palest blue vein in her neck. I didn’t touch her. I sat cross-legged on the couch, the blanket covering us both, one of her small red knees poking out from a corner.

At the time, I did not question why she’d stayed with me in the living room—and not with Leo in their bed or with Paul in his room. I did not wonder why she chose to stay asleep so long, which seemed natural to me at the time, proof that everything was fine. That she was there with me after all those hours, that she was calmly sleeping still, was the only reassurance in the world I needed. Later, of course, I would wonder about it. Later, when I was asked about her actions, I wouldn’t have a very good answer for why she hadn’t gone in to check on Paul that night. The suggestion at the trial was that she’d remained with me in outright denial of the facts, that she’d aligned herself with a fifteen-yearold because she wanted to feel less responsible herself. A more generous interpretation was that she identified with me because we were both susceptible in a sense, young girls under the influence of a dogmatic older man. Leo, it was said, had kept Paul away from her on purpose. There’s some truth to both theories advanced at the trial—I saw evidence for each—but even at the time I understood that they had missed something. They’d left something out. They didn’t account for Patra’s awareness of her own power, her disorganized but formidable determination. They didn’t account for what made Patra Patra.


Didn’t she always need someone to watch her and approve?

And wasn’t I better at that than anyone?


When at last she woke for good, when she sat up on the couch and pulled the blanket over her knees, she had a closed-lip smile waiting for me, like a reward for my vigil.

“So,” she said. “Janet stayed all night.”

“Janet?”

“Rochester’s name for Jane Eyre. She was a governess, too. Like you.” She brushed some hair out of her face. “You’re both governesses.” She smiled at the word. Then, as if catching herself: “What time is it?”

I shrugged.

She sat up straighter. “Where’s Leo?”

I shrugged again.

She turned and shot a wild look down the hall. But instead of standing, as I thought she would, she closed her eyes. She appeared to be fighting something, summoning stillness through strength of will. Then she let out a deep breath through her white teeth, and I could smell it a foot away—the rot and decay, the remains of an undigested meal.