If You Find Me(51)

“You’ve been very kind to us. I could never repay you.”

“But . . .” she says sadly, waiting.

“It’s not—it’s just—it’s just that I—”

She crosses the room in two strides and enfolds me in her arms. I hear sobs, muffled by her thick sweater, before I realize that it’s me crying. That’s me. When she kisses my hair, I close my eyes, making a memory, one I can take with me wherever I go.

“We knew it would be harder for you, sweetie. Especially for you. And that’s okay.”

But it’s not.

She sinks to the bed, pulling me with her. We sit together, not talking. I want to be the girl in the mirror glass, the lucky girl who has it easy, the girl who forgets all about the woods and the horrible things she’s done. I want to be like Delaney and go to sleepovers and listen to the cool music and dance around my room in my new jeans. But I don’t know how to be that girl.

“The day before your dad went to get you two, we spent three hours with Mrs. Haskell, asking all sorts of questions. How could we make you girls feel at home. How could we help you fit in. Things like that.”

She smoothes my hair from my face and caresses my cheek with the back of her hand.

“Mrs. Haskell gave us ideas as to what to do, what not to do, how it might go, what problems to expect. But in the end, even if we did everything right, she said it all came down to time.”

“Time?” I sniffle.

“Time. Time to get used to things, time to forge new bonds, new associations. There’s no rushing time. She said it wouldn’t always be easy, and that you girls might be homesick or angry or confused. She said that no matter what happened, the best we could do was just love you as you are.”

“She said that?”

“Yes. Your dad couldn’t understand how you girls could ever be homesick, especially after the way you were living. But I could. We make attachments to what’s familiar. We find the beauty, even in the lack. That’s human. We make the best of what we’re given.”

I think over her words. It’s true.

“And all of this”—she makes a sweeping gesture—“isn’t what you’re used to. We even thought it might be best if we homeschooled you, but Mrs. Haskell was right. Better to face your fears and make a new normal, instead of sitting around worrying about it.”

She stands up and smoothes down her apron. “It’ll be okay, sweetie. If you let it.”

Like she knows for sure. Could she?

“Your dad’s waiting for you.”

I let her tug me to my feet.

“This is yours, too, Carey. I know it’s different. But it’s yours.”

I take back my hand, like a leaf letting go. It hurts too much to hang on. So why does it hurt so much to let go?

“Thank you, ma’am.” I look at her, then look away. “I reckon Delaney’s not too happy, though.”

If they make me leave, I’m taking this new coat with me, I think as I zip up my puffer coat—that’s what Melissa called it, a “puffer coat”—and pull on my mittens. The quilted waist-long white coat sprouts a hood lined in faux ermine. Or at least in my mind it is.

Melissa stops in the doorway and turns, her face thoughtful.

“Delly was used to things being a certain way, too. Although she’d never met you, you were already a part of her life. Not an easy part, either. So, Delly needs time. We all need time. Thank goodness we have plenty of it.”

She leaves me alone. I pull on the strange cap with its interwoven threads of blue-, pink-, and yellow-speckled wool, the braided ties hanging from the earflaps. I turn and catch myself in the mirror.

I’m always unleaving.

The woods girl stares back with her grim face, eyes the color of rotting leaves. I blink, and the One I Don’t Know Yet, blinks back.

Outside, I follow the light. I can hear my father moving around in the barn as I crunch my way through the snow and slide open the door. He’s flipping down straw bedding for the four goats to sleep on, while the donkeys, one cocoa brown and the other softest gray, munch hay in their stalls with half-closed lids.

My father ducks his head in greeting.

“I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“Yes, sir.”

I watch him use the muck rake to pick up the last of the manure, tossing it into a huge wheelbarrow.

“You can sit there,” he says, motioning toward a bale of straw. “Let me just latch the stalls.”

He locks the animals in for the night, the goats watching me with their strange keyhole irises. They’re kind of cute, actually, with their nubby horns, which instantly remind me of Pan, god of the wild, keeper of shepherds and their flocks, nature and mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music. Wooded glens. Violins around campfires. Margaret’s Spring. The goats are a huge hit with Nessa, if not with Shorty, who constantly tries to herd them from one place to another. My father slides the barn door open a smitch and leans in the opening.

“I know it’s difficult to talk about . . .” He pauses to light a cigarette, the smoke curling out the door and disappearing. “But I wanted to ask about your mama.”

I fidget on the bale, plucking a piece of straw just to have something to do with my hands.

“Your mama hit you girls?”