The Sweetness of Salt(47)

The door to the next bedroom was open just a crack. A tiny circle of light from a lamp on the floor revealed Sophie propped up on her elbows on top of a bright blue sleeping bag. There was nothing else in the room except for a wadded up drop cloth in the corner. The single window was bare, its edges chipped with old paint. Behind it, the thinnest sliver of a moon illuminated a circle of coal black sky.

Sophie was still in her T-shirt and overalls, but her shoes were paired neatly against the far wall, and she had taken the bandanna off her head. Her braids had been loosened and her hair hung in smooth, yellow waves alongside her face. She was looking down at something small and flat in between her arms—a book? a photograph? a card?—and weeping uncontrollably.

Suddenly, she picked up the object, pressed it to her chest, and rolled over on her side, away from me. She groaned, as if the movement had caused her physical pain, and brought her knees up against her chest.

I thought of going to her. It was probably something to do with Maggie, something she alone had to come to terms with. Over the last few nights, I’d found myself wishing that I had laid down better ground rules when we made the agreement about talking about Maggie. Something more definite than the “whenever she felt like talking about it” arrangement. It gave Sophie too much leeway.

But maybe leeway was what she needed. Maybe I was the one who needed to be more patient. I stood silently, rooted to the spot for a long time without moving, until the soft cries coming out of Sophie turned into slow, hiccupy breathing. Then I turned around and went back to bed.





chapter


34


The next day, on my usual walk down Furnace Road, the growl of a motor sounded behind me. I turned around and leaped to the side of the road as Aiden came hurtling toward me on an orange moped with black flames painted on the sides. Dust flew out from under its wheels, and the handlebars were as thick as arms. He came to a sudden stop, turning the handles sharply so the back wheels spun and growled. “Hey!” he grinned. “I was hoping I’d run into you today. You wanna go for a ride?”

I looked at the ever-present soft black hat on top of his head. “Where’s your helmet?”

“No helmet,” he said. “We don’t have to wear them up here.”

“Up here?” I repeated. “You mean you can’t get head injuries in Vermont?”

“Something like that.” Aiden grinned again. “Come on. This is just a quad. It’s not like we’re on a motorcycle. And I won’t take you out on the road. We’ll just stick to the dirt trails in the back.” He held out his hand.

I looked down at my shoes.

“Come on,” Aiden said. “I’ll go real slow.”

I looked up.

“Promise.” He held up a palm. “Scout’s honor.”

I took a step forward and swung my leg over the back part of the seat behind him.

“Hold on around my waist,” Aiden said, turning slightly to talk to me. His breath smelled like warm coffee. I put my hands tentatively on the sides of his jeans. “Tighter,” Aiden said. “Come on, hold on.”

“I thought you said we weren’t gonna go fast,” I said.

“We’re not. But you still have to hold on. Otherwise you’ll go flying backward.” My nervousness evaporated when he said that, and I adjusted my hands, threading three fingers on each through his belt loops. “Atta girl,” he said. “Okay, here we go.”

Aiden veered off Furnace Road almost immediately, hurtling through brush and leaves until we reached a dirt trail. After the initial heart-stopping sensation of moving forward and my fear of being thrown off the vehicle whenever he turned the wheel disappeared, I sat back as we sped along and actually looked around. We were riding through an entire forest house, it seemed, with walls made only of trees, and a carpet of dirt and pine needles. Up ahead, there were more trees, their leaves green as jade, with pockets of blue sky peeking through, and then more trees after that. The smell out here—mowed grass and sun-drenched hay—was new to me. Aiden’s back curved slightly over the handlebars, but I could feel the heat of his skin next to my arms. I closed my eyes, feeling the sun on my face, and wished for a moment that we could just keep going.

We didn’t, of course. The quad emerged suddenly from inside the forest house, spinning into an enormous yellow field. Tightly rolled haystacks, thick as tractor tires, dotted the field in a haphazard checkerboard pattern, and overhead the sky was as blue as a marble.

“Want to sit for a while?” Aiden asked, getting off the bike without waiting for an answer. I followed him as he walked over to a patch of grass and sat down. “I love it out here,” he said. “Sometimes I run out and leapfrog over all of those haystacks. Just for the hell of it, you know?” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s harder than you think.”

I smiled. “It’s pretty out here. So quiet.”

“And the light,” Aiden said, stretching out his hand. “Look. It’s perfect. Right now, especially, when the sun’s low like this.”

I’d never really looked at light before. But now, as I watched a few insects swoop lazily through the air, I realized that Aiden was exactly right. There was a clear, amber sort of hue to it, like looking at honey through the bottom of a glass. “I can tell you’re an artist,” I said.