Where the Forest Meets the Stars(22)

“I think up stories like that, too.”
“It fits the situation.”
“What if the grandmother never gets better?” Jo said.
“What if she does and we got the poor kid put in foster care?”
“How long would we wait for the theoretical grandmother to reappear?”
“I’m just saying we should think about it for a few days. Maybe she’ll learn to trust us and tell us the truth.”
Ursa stuck her head out the front door. “Are you done talking about me?”
“Nope. Get back inside,” he said.
The door shut.
“I think we could get in trouble for waiting,” Jo said.
“No one’s reported her missing. No one gives a crap about her, not even that cop you talked to. And like he said, she could get stuck in a shitty foster home, and I see no reason to rush that when we might find a better solution.”
“If we turn her in, we could make sure where she goes isn’t shitty.”
“How?”
She had no answer.
“If you want to turn her in, do it,” he said.
“I don’t.”
“Then take her back to Kinney’s.”
“And leave her alone when I go to work in the morning?”
“Drop her at my road as you drive by. I’ll be doing morning animal care.”
“That’s early.”
“I know. I hear you drive by. She’ll deal with it.”
“How will you explain her to your mother?”
“She’s a local kid who likes hanging out at our farm.”
“I don’t feel right doing this,” she said.
“Don’t you feel worse about locking her in a closet and calling the cops on her?”
“Damn it, I do.”


9

For four days Jo and Gabe surreptitiously exchanged Ursa. Sometimes it felt like she and Gabe were a divorced couple passing a child between their homes. But more often it was like some sort of illegal trade because they handed Ursa off in the dark hours of predawn and twilight. Jo checked missing children websites every night when she got home, expecting to see Ursa’s haunting brown eyes with every scroll of her finger. But after more than a week, no one had reported her missing.
On the third day, Gabe took Ursa to a yard sale to buy clothing, which resulted in a wardrobe heavily biased toward the color purple and screen prints of big-eyed animals. By the fourth day—dressed in decent clothing, well fed, and playing outdoors for long hours—Ursa didn’t look like a changeling anymore. The dark circles under her eyes disappeared, her skin turned a wholesome pink, and she’d gained a few pounds.
Each night after her shower, Ursa told Jo about the fun things she’d done at the homestead, and sometimes Jo was a little jealous of how much Ursa loved being with Gabriel in Wonderland. That was when it felt like a divorce, though she barely knew Gabe.
The tension between the two “parents” became more real on the fifth night when Ursa said, “Guess what Gabe let me do today?”
“Did you milk the cow?”
“I already do that.”
“Ride a baby unicorn?”
“I wish! But shooting his guns was almost that fun.”
Jo set down her fork.
“I hit close to the middle of the target three times!”
Jo pushed out her chair. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She grabbed her keys and slipped on sandals.
“Where are you going?”
“To talk to Gabe.”
“Why are you mad?”
“What gives you that idea?”
“Your eyes get like thunder.”
“I’m not mad at you. Stay here.”
Jo put Little Bear on the porch so he wouldn’t follow. She cursed Egg Man every time her mother’s precious Honda scraped bottom on his neglected road.
Gabe opened the door wearing a pink apron, and if she hadn’t been angry she might have laughed at the muscular bearded guy in Martha Stewart mode. “You should fix that Grand Canyon you call a road,” she said.
“You came over to tell me that?” he said.
“No.”
“Is Ursa okay?”
“She’s great,” Jo said, “and I’d like her to stay that way, so please keep your guns away from her from now on.”
“Who is it?” his mother called from inside the cabin.
“It’s Jo. She needs to borrow some sugar. Wait here,” he said to Jo. He returned in less than a minute, minus the apron, with a baggie of sugar in his hand. “You’re one of those gun-control militants?” he asked, grinning through his beard.
“I’m against putting a gun in the hands of a little girl who can’t possibly understand the danger of firearms.”
“She wore ear and eye protection, and I taught her every safety rule.”
“She’s a kid, and kids do unexpected things. Sometimes they sneak into their dad’s gun cabinet and shoot their baby brother.”
“She’s smarter than that. And who knows where she’ll end up? Some day she may need the skill.”
“To take out her pesky foster parents?”
“I believe in being prepared,” he said.
“Right, for the apocalypse.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re one of those? You’re a survivalist nut? How does a guy who reads Shakespeare dumb down his brain enough for that?”
“So all gun owners are dumb people who don’t read Shakespeare? Is that really going to be your position?”
“I’m too tired for this. Just keep the guns locked up and away from Ursa.” She started down the stairs but went back and plucked the sugar out of his hand. “I actually need this for my coffee. I’m out.”