The Searcher(130)

“Nothing much. It’s been raining all week, but it’s cleared up, so I’m planning on going for a walk up the mountains tomorrow. With my neighbor Mart.”

Alyssa says something muffled by her hand over the phone, presumably to Ben. “Oh, wow,” she says, back to Cal. “Sounds beautiful.”

“Yeah, it is. I’ll send you photos.”

“Yeah, do. It’s been raining here, too. Someone at work said it might snow, but I think she made that up.”

Cal drags a hand down his face hard enough to hurt his bruises. He remembers how he used to put Alyssa’s whole little baby foot in his mouth, and she would laugh till she gave herself hiccups. Above his garden, the sky is a mess of high sharp stars.

“You know what,” he says suddenly. “I’ve run into something you might be able to help me with. You got a minute?”

The noises stop. “Sure,” Alyssa says. “What’s up?”

“There’s a neighbor kid who’s been coming round to my place to learn some carpentry. She just found out her big brother died, and she doesn’t have what you’d call a good support system: her daddy’s run off, and her mama hasn’t got much to offer. I want to help her get through this without going off the rails, but I don’t know the best way to do it. I figure you might have some ideas.”

“OK,” Alyssa says. There’s a note in her voice like she’s rolling up her sleeves to get down to work. “How old is she?”

“Thirteen.”

“How did her brother die?”

“Got in a fight and hit his head. He was nineteen. They were pretty close.”

“All right,” Alyssa says. “So the main thing is to let her know that whatever she’s feeling is normal, but direct her away from any action that’s destructive or self-destructive. So for example, it’s natural for her to be angry at herself, her brother, the person he was fighting with, her parents for not protecting him, whoever—make sure she knows that’s fine and she doesn’t need to feel guilty about it. But if she’s lashing out at other kids, say, she needs to know she can’t do that. Help her find another outlet for the anger. Maybe get her into martial arts, or drama. Or running. Hey, you could go running with her.”

The mischievous grin in her voice makes Cal grin back, right across half the world. “Hey,” he says, mock-offended. “I could run. If I wanted to.”

“So do it. Worst case, you’ll give her something to laugh at, and she could probably use that. She’ll be looking for ways to feel like the world can still be normal. Laughing is good.”

All her confidence and competence blow Cal clean away. His baby girl is, somehow, a grown adult who knows how to get shit done and done well; who knows things, and has skills, that he doesn’t. Here he was fretting about her like a mama hen, listening every minute for her to fall to pieces, and all the while she was just tired out from the hard work it’s taken to grow into this. He listens to her talk about regressive behaviors and modeling healthy emotional expression, and pictures her sitting at ease next to some American equivalent of Trey, deftly and calmly transforming all these words into solid action. It seems to him that he can’t have fucked up too badly, if Alyssa turned out like this.

“All of that sounds pretty great,” he says, when she finishes up.

“Well, I’ve had practice. An awful lot of the kids at work, they’ve lost someone, one way or another.”

“They’re lucky to have you around.”

Alyssa laughs her big wonderful laugh. “Yeah, mostly they think so too. Not always. Is any of that going to be useful?”

“Oh yeah. I’m gonna keep every bit of it in mind. Except maybe the running.”

“I can put it in an email, if you want. And if anything specific comes up, like if she starts engaging in risky behaviors or whatever, let me know and I’ll give you whatever strategies I’ve got.”

“That’d be great. Thanks, kiddo. I mean it.”

“Anytime. You’ll be fine. Better than fine. Remember when Puffle got hit by the car? You drove us all the way out to that forest because I wanted to bury her there. And you carved her a gravestone and everything.”

“I remember,” Cal says. He wishes he could call Donna and tell her that he thinks he might get what she was talking about, at least some of the time.

“That was exactly what I needed. You’ll be fine. Just, Dad . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Your neighbor girl, she really needs consistency right now. Like, the last thing she needs is someone else disappearing on her. So, I mean, if you were planning on coming home any time soon . . . probably you should point her to someone else she can talk to, instead. Maybe another neighbor you trust, or—”

“Yeah,” Cal says. “I know.” He almost asks her whether she wants him to come back. He stops himself in time; it wouldn’t be right to put that on her.

“Yeah, I figured you did. Just checking.” In the background, Ben’s voice says something. “Dad, I’ve got to go, we’re meeting people for dinner—”

“Go ahead,” Cal says. “Say hi to Ben from me. And tell your mama I sent my best. I don’t want to hassle her, but I’d like her to know that I’m wishing her well.”