Leaving Time(103)

The reason the last check bounced was that we didn’t have any money. The reason there was no spare cash was that I’d used it to pay for produce this week. If I wrote another check, this one would bounce, too—I had used the last of the funds in our account to pay the vet’s bill.

I didn’t know how I was going to pay for groceries for my daughter next week, much less hay for the elephants.

“Clyde,” I said. “We’re going through a rough patch.”

“So’s the whole country.”

“But we have a relationship,” I replied. “You and my husband have been in business together for years, right?”

“Yeah, and he always managed to pay me.” He frowned. “I can’t let you have the hay for nothing.”

“I know. And I can’t let the elephants starve.”

I felt like I was in quicksand. Slowly, but surely, I was bound to drown. What I needed to do was fund-raise, but I barely had time for it. My research had been long forgotten; I hadn’t touched it in weeks. I could barely stay ahead of operations without trying to gauge the interest of new donors.

Interest.

I looked at Clyde. “I’ll pay you ten percent more if you give me the hay now and let me settle with you next month.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because whether or not you want to admit it, Clyde, we have a history, and you owe us the benefit of the doubt.”

He didn’t owe us anything. But I was hoping the guilt of being the straw that broke the sanctuary’s back would be enough to make him pretend otherwise.

“Twenty percent,” Clyde bargained.

I shook his hand. Then I climbed into the truck and began to haul the hay bales.

An hour later, Clyde drove away, and I sat down on the edge of a bale. Gideon was still working, his back flexing as he stacked the bales for more efficient storage, lifting them higher than I physically could manage.

“So,” I said. “You’re just going to pretend I’m not here?”

Gideon didn’t turn around. “Guess I learned from a master.”

“What was I supposed to do, Gideon? Do you have the answer? Because believe me, I want to hear it.”

He faced me, his hands resting lightly on his hips. He was sweating; bits of chaff and straw were caught on his forearms. “I’m sick of being your fall guy. Return the orchids. Get hay for free. Turn f*cking water into wine. What’s next, Alice?”

“Should I not have paid the vet, then, when Syrah was sick?”

“I don’t know,” he said brusquely. “I don’t care.”

He pushed past me as I stood up. “Yes, you do,” I called, running after him, wiping my hand across my eyes. “I didn’t ask for any of this, you know. I didn’t want to run a sanctuary. I didn’t want to worry about sick animals and paying salaries and going bankrupt.”

Gideon stopped in the doorway. His silhouette was framed by the light as he turned. “So what do you want, Alice?”

When was the last time anyone asked me that?

“I want to be a scientist,” I said. “I want to make people see how much elephants can think, and can feel.”

He walked forward, filling my field of vision. “And?”

“I want Jenna to be happy.”

Gideon took one more step. He was so close now that his question drew across the bow of my neck, making my skin sing. “And?”

I had stood my ground before a charging elephant. I had risked my scientific credibility to follow my gut instinct. I had packed up my life and started over. But looking into Gideon’s face and telling the truth was the most courageous thing I had ever done. “I want to be happy, too,” I whispered.

Then we were tumbling, over the uneven steps of the hay bales, into a nest of straw on the floor of the barn. Gideon’s hands were in my hair and under my clothes; my gasp became his next breath. Our bodies were landscapes, maps burned into our palms where we touched. When he moved in me, I knew why: Now, we would always find our way back home.

Afterward, with hay scratching my back and my clothes tangled around my limbs, I started to speak.

“Don’t,” Gideon said, touching his fingers to my lips. “Just don’t.” He rolled onto his back. My head lay pillowed on his arm at a pulse point. I could feel every beat of his heart.

“When I was little,” he told me, “my uncle got me a Star Wars figurine. It was signed by George Lucas, still in the box. I was, I don’t know, maybe six or seven. My uncle told me not to take it out of the packaging. That way, one day, it would be worth something.”

I tilted my chin so I could look at him. “Did you take it out of the packaging?”

“Shit, yeah.”

I burst out laughing. “I thought you were going to tell me you had it on a shelf somewhere. And that you were willing to use it to pay for the hay.”

“Sorry. I was a kid. What kid plays with a toy in a box?” His smile faded a little. “So I slipped it out of the box in a way that no one would notice, if they didn’t look too closely. I played with that Luke Skywalker figure every day. I mean, it went to school with me. Into the bathtub. It slept next to me. I loved that thing. And yeah, it might not have been as valuable that way, but it meant the world to me.”