What's Mine and Yours(87)

When the quiet got to her—it was so unlike living with her sisters, the dog—she would go find Bailey in the garden. He never sought her out, but he never objected to her presence either. She had helped him harvest his carrots and cabbage. Now they were laying down sawdust and leaves before the next frost. Bailey gave orders without being bossy. He had ruddy skin, a spate of brown freckles across his nose, hair that he kept buzzed around his ears. He was nearly fourteen, and he had the slender body of a boy, but his voice was changing, breaking sometimes when he laughed.

They didn’t talk much—he wasn’t the kind who felt the need to fill up silence. Noelle realized that she was. She was a Ventura, whether she wanted to be or not.

When they were done in the garden, they went inside and rinsed off all the vegetables they had picked. Sometimes they sat on the porch with the vegetables still in the colander, a tea towel underneath to sop up the draining water.

They took out a batch of green beans and sat on the swing, the colander between them. Bailey read his comics and snapped the beans between his teeth; Noelle read the play, going over the lines she liked. They stirred something in her, even when she wasn’t totally sure what they meant: Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

She had been staying with them for six days when she finally asked Bailey about his father.

“Don’t you ever think about him?”

“All the time. Probably more than he thinks about us.”

“Sometimes, I think my parents are all I think about. It’s pathetic.”

“What about that boy from the play? You must think about him.”

“I think it’s a lost cause. He’s probably going to quit.”

“Maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll do it because of you.”

Noelle couldn’t help but smile. Bailey talked plainly, as if life were easy. He still had all the clarity and candor of a child. She nudged him. “What about you? You got a girlfriend?”

Bailey began to blush. “No. But your sister Margarita sure is pretty.”

Noelle grimaced. “Her face is weird.”

Bailey looked taken aback, and Noelle saw how her meanness looked to him. He wasn’t like her. He was a sweet boy, his mouth full of metal, dirt caked under his nails. He couldn’t understand all the things she had inherited, the way she was. After all, he had Ruth for a mother, not Lacey May.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sometimes I can be a shit person. It’s my DNA.”

“You shouldn’t talk that way about yourself. Maybe you are the way you are for a purpose.”

“A purpose? You been going to church or something, Bailey?”

“Maybe your quirks are what make you who you are. Maybe you’re not supposed to be any different. Not just you, but everybody.”

“I don’t think I like that,” she said. “Maybe we are supposed to be different.”

Bailey shrugged.

“But that’s kind of deep. Where’d you get all that stuff anyway?”

“There’s this manga that I like,” he said, and Noelle laughed.

When Hank pulled up in his truck, he took them by surprise, and Noelle leapt down from the swing. She crossed her arms, ready to protest that she wasn’t going back. Bailey called for his mother.

They had hardly come to a stop before Diane burst out of the truck and darted up the driveway. Her face was puffed up and red.

“Jenkins ran away!” she wailed. “It’s been two days, and we can’t find him. Is he here?”

Margarita came loping behind her. She was frowning, her arms crossed, as if to copy Noelle’s stance. “I already told her he probably ran off to die.”

Diane’s eyes filled with tears. “If he’s dying, why would he want to be alone? If he’s dying, I want to hold him.” She turned to Noelle. “I think he left looking for you.”

Noelle opened her arms to her sister, but Diane didn’t move. She dropped her head into her hands and sobbed. Bailey called again for his mother.

Hank joined them on the porch, his hands in his pockets. “She’s been like this since you left,” he said.

Diane ran for Ruth as soon as she opened the door. Ruth gathered her into her arms and shushed her, then carried her inside. Hank followed without a word. Noelle found herself reeling. She thought of how she’d shoved the dog away, how he’d whimpered and followed her.

“You think Jenkins is really gone?”

Margarita fidgeted with the ring Robbie had given her. “We all knew it was coming. I just didn’t think he was going to run off. I thought we’d find him in the yard or something.”

“Diane probably thinks it’s my fault. She wouldn’t even let me hold her.”

“She just misses you. That’s the real reason we came.”

“What about you?”

Margarita shrugged. “Mama’s at the store, and they wouldn’t let me stay home alone.”

“Unh-hunh,” Noelle said, and she felt closer to her sister than she could remember feeling. They were alike in this way; they both refused to let on how much they needed. Noelle regretted saying what she had about her sister’s face.

“The thing about dogs is you get used to them,” Margarita said. “Just being there, around.”