Lock and Key(28)

“Oh,” I said as the dog rearranged himself, wedging himself between my shoe and the cabinet behind me. “Okay.”

“Look, I’m breaking up,” he said, “but I’ll be home soon. Just—”

There was a buzz, and then he was gone, dropping off altogether. I hung up, replacing the phone carefully on its base. I wasn’t sure what “soon” meant, but I hoped it meant he was only a few blocks away, as I was not much of an animal person. Still, looking down at Roscoe trembling against my leg, it seemed kind of mean to just shut him up in a small space, considering the state he was in.

“Just relax, okay? ” I said, untangling myself from around him and walking to the foyer to my bag. For a moment he stayed where he was, but then he started to follow me. The last thing I wanted was any kind of company, so I started up the stairs at a quick clip, hoping he’d get the message and stay behind. Surprisingly, it worked; when I got to the top of the stairs and looked down, he was still in the foyer. Staring up at me looking pitiful, but still there.

Up in my room, I washed my face, then slid Cora’s sweater off and lay back across the bed. I don’t know how long I was there, staring out the windows at the last of the sunset, before Roscoe came into the room. He was moving slowly, almost sideways, like a crab. When he saw that I’d noticed him, his ears went flat on his head, as if he was expecting to be ejected but couldn’t help taking a shot anyway.

For a moment, we just looked at each other. Then, tentatively, he came closer, then a bit closer still, until finally he was wedged between my feet, with the bed behind him. When he started shaking again, his tags jingling softly, I rolled my eyes. I wanted to tell him to cut it out, that we all had our problems, that I was the last person he should come looking to for solace. But instead, I surprised myself by saying none of this as I sat up, reaching a hand down to his head. The moment I touched him, he was still.





Chapter Four


At first, it just a rumbling, punctuated by the occasional shout: the kind of thing that you’re aware of, distantly, and yet can still manage to ignore. Right as my clock flipped over to 8:00, though, the real noise began.

I sat up in bed, startled, as the room suddenly filled with the clanking of metal hitting rock. It wasn’t until I got up and went out on my balcony and saw the backhoe that it all started to make sense.

“Jamie!”

I glanced to my right, where I could see my sister, in her pajamas, standing on her own balcony. She was clutching the railing, looking down at her husband, who was on the back lawn looking entirely too awake, a mug of coffee in his hands and Roscoe at his feet. When he looked up and saw her, he grinned. “Great, right? ” he said. “You can really visualize it now!”

Most of Cora’s response to this was lost in the ensuing din as the backhoe dug once more into the lawn, scooping up more earth from within Jamie’s circle of rocks and swinging to the side to dump it on the already sizable pile there. As it moved back, gears grinding, to go in again, I just caught the end, when she was saying, “. . . Saturday morning, when some people might want to sleep.”

“Honey, it’s the pond, though,” Jamie replied, as if he had heard every word. “We talked about this. Remember?”

Cora just looked at him, running a hand through her hair, which was sticking up on one side. Then, without further comment, she went inside. Jamie watched her go, his face quizzical. “Hey!” he shouted when he saw me. The backhoe dug down again, with an even louder clank. “Pretty cool, don’t you think? If we’re lucky, we’ll have it lined by tonight.”

I nodded, watching as the machine dumped another load of dirt onto the pile. Jamie was right, you could really picture it now: there was a big difference between a theoretical pond and a huge hole in the ground. Still, it was hard to imagine what he wanted—a total ecosystem, a real body of water, with fish and everything—seeming at home in the middle of such a flat, square yard. Even with the best landscaping, it would still look as if it had fallen from the sky.

Back inside, I flopped back into bed, although sleeping was clearly no longer an option. Hard to believe that the previous Saturday, I’d been at the yellow house, waking up on the couch with our old moldy afghan curled around me. Fast-forward a week, and here I was at Cora’s. My basic needs were certainly being met—running water, heat, food—but it was still strange to be here. Everything felt so temporary, including me, that I hadn’t even unpacked yet— my bag was still right by the bed, where I was living out of it like I was on a vacation, about to check out at any moment. Sure, it meant the little bit of stuff I had was that much more wrinkled, but rolling over every morning and seeing all my worldly possessions right there beside me made me feel somewhat in control of my situation. Which I needed, considering that everything else seemed completely out of my hands.

“The bus?” Jamie said that first night, when he mentioned Nate picking me up and I told him I’d prefer alternate transportation. “Are you serious?”

“There isn’t a Perkins Day bus in the morning,” Cora said from across the table. “They only run in the afternoon, to accommodate after-school activities.”

“Then I’ll take the city bus,” I said.

“And go to all that trouble?” Jamie asked. “Nate’s going to Perkins anyway. And he offered.”