Where the Forest Meets the Stars(47)

“Hold your horses and wait for Jo,” Gabe said.
“I wish I had horses to hold,” Ursa said.
The interior of the barn was black, but Gabe turned on a lantern to light their way to the kittens. The mother cat emerged from shadows, mewing at Gabe as he set the lantern on a hay bale near her nest.
“Look how big they got!” Ursa said. “And they can kind of walk!” She petted each kitten as she said its name. She scooped Juliet and Hamlet into her hands and held them against her cheeks. “Did you miss me? I missed you.”
“Would you come outside for a minute?” Gabe asked Jo.
Ursa sprawled on her belly, watching Juliet and Hamlet clumsily tussle.
“Jo and I will be right back,” Gabe said.
Once outside, he closed the barn door and led Jo out of Ursa’s earshot. “I wanted to apologize for how I behaved this morning,” he said.
“You should be saying that to Ursa.”
“Was she upset?”
“I think she was.”
He studied the ground, preparing to say something. He looked at her. “That’s more the reason she can’t come around.”
“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“She’s gotten too attached. And I have . . .” He looked away from Jo’s eyes for a few seconds. “This can’t end well,” he said. “Every day you don’t turn her in to the police, you’re making it worse for all of us.”
She bristled at his phrasing—you instead of we —as if he were abandoning all responsibility for keeping Ursa.
“Do you even think about what you’re doing?” he asked. “You’re bonding with a kid who’ll be heartbroken when you go back to your life up at the university. You’re feeding a dog that will starve when you leave, and you’ve let Ursa get attached to him. No way will that dog be going wherever she ends up.”
She didn’t need his lecture. She harangued herself on those same points constantly.
“I can’t be a part of this anymore,” he said. “Everyone’s going to get hurt.”
“More like it already hurts and you want it to stop before it gets worse.”
“Yeah, it already hurts—maybe for her more than us. This thing has gone too far.” He waited for her to respond. “Don’t you agree?”
“I do. It’s gone further than I ever imagined.” Jo scraped a line in the gravel with the toe of her boot. “When I knew my mother would be dead in a few months, I had two choices . . .” She looked at him. “I could distance myself from the pain or get closer to it. Maybe because I’d lost my dad without getting a chance to tell him what he meant to me, I decided to get closer. I got so close, her pain and fear became my own. We shared everything and loved each other like we never had when death was some distant thing. In the end, part of me died with her. I’m not recovered from it even now, but I made the conscious choice to enter the darkness with her. Everyone I know who’s lost someone they love has voiced regrets—they wish they’d done this or that or loved them more. I have no regrets. None.”
He had nothing to say.
“I guess it’s impossible for you to understand.”
“The dumb farm guy isn’t quite that dumb,” he said. “I’ve always thought what’s happening with you and Ursa has something to do with what you’ve been through. But it’s not the same as what happened with your mother. In the end, you will have regrets. Loving her will only have increased Ursa’s pain.”
“What if the end is different from what you imagine?”
“How?”
“I might try to become her foster parent.” She had never vocalized the tantalizing idea. Finally, it was out there. And she felt good about it.
He just stared at her.
“I know you have to get certified or whatever, but I doubt that’s too difficult. And even though I’m single, I have the resources they’ll want a foster parent to have. My dad had a big life insurance policy because his work was risky. My mom used some of that money to buy another policy because she was a single parent. I have enough money to hire people who can watch Ursa when I’m in school. And I have a plan for Little Bear, too. I can’t have dogs where I live, but Tabby is good at finding homes for strays. I’m hoping one of her vet friends will adopt him and Ursa can visit.”
“No matter how much money you have and what you plan for the dog, you can’t change the fact that you’ve lied to the police.”
“I haven’t broken any laws.”
“You have. We both have. Do you know what that deputy told Lacey? He said letting someone else’s kid stay in your home—especially when she’s hurt—is considered child endangerment. Maybe even kidnapping. Do you really think they’d let you become a foster parent after what you’ve done?”
“I’ve only ever been good to her! Ursa would verify that.”
“What about when she tells them she went to work with you every day—for twelve hours in extreme heat, no less?”
“She wants to go. And leaving her home alone would be worse.”
The hollowness of her last words echoed in his silence.
“Okay, you know what?” she said. “I won’t let Lacey shit all over my life like you do.”
“This has nothing to do with Lacey!”
“Doesn’t it? That last day she stayed here she did a great job of sucking all the joy out of you. Ursa and I saw the change in you this morning. If you keep this up—being afraid to get involved with people—you’ll end up as bitter as she is, which is exactly what she wants.” She walked to the barn, opened the door, and called, “Ursa, let’s go. We need to eat dinner before we’re too tired to cook.”