Say No More (6 page)

Today, Estelle was dressed differently. Her stretchy jeans and loose sweatshirt had been replaced by a fitted black skirt and jacket, tan stockings covering her lower legs. Instead of her white sneakers, she was wearing a pair of black leather shoes, dull and stiff from years of infrequent use. Now that she was closer, I could see that her nose and cheeks were chapped from crying, her eyes rubbed red. She nearly tripped over me as she fumbled to put the key in the lock and open the door.

I glanced back at the car, still expecting Ray to step out and follow her, only ... he wasn’t there anymore. Gone. Like he’d never been there at all. The window was free of fog, drops of water sliding down the pane like rivers of tears.

“Did someone forget you?” Estelle said as she nudged the door open with her hip, her hands held above her rounded stomach so as not to contaminate them with dog germs should she accidentally brush against me.

It wasn’t like her to willingly let me in the house, but I rushed through anyway, glad to be inside. After lapping up some water, I plunked down on top of the register to let the waft of heated air warm my tummy. Her eyes unfocused, Estelle peeled off her gloves and hung up her coat. She lifted the teapot from the stove and ran water into it from the sink faucet.

“I don’t know why she lets you smelly creatures inside,” she mumbled, her back to me. “It’s hard enough to keep a house clean ... clean with just ...”

Her words broke apart. She snuffled back tears. “No, none of that, Estelle Ruth Skidmore McHugh. You’re going to be strong today. It’s just that ... Damn you, Ray. You can’t just up and die on me like that. I can’t run that farm by myself. You left two hundred acres of wheat in the field. What am I supposed to do with it? And the corn! I don’t even know how to drive that stupid combine. And Ned Hanson can only take care of those cows and hogs for so long. Damn you for not thinking of me and —”

A rustle sounded from behind. Lise hovered in the entryway to the kitchen, one hand resting against the doorjamb.

“Estelle?” Lise said softly.

The teapot nearly dropped from Estelle’s grasp. She clutched a hand against her mouth, as if ashamed of what she’d said.

“It’s okay, Estelle.” Lise’s voice was husky, like she’d been out in the cold for hours, even though I knew she hadn’t. She took the teapot from Estelle and set it on the burner. She twisted a knob and a tiny blue flame leapt up beneath it. A tight black dress clung to her gentle curves. Glimmering pearls hung from her slender neck to brush the low neckline. I’d seen this dress before. It was the one she wore a couple months ago when Cam took her out for their anniversary. He told her she looked ‘hot’ in it. Which made me wonder why she didn’t take it off and put on something cooler. Humans are such slaves to fashion. They took Hunter to his grandparents then and went to dinner. Within minutes of them coming home, the dress was on the floor and they were on the couch, touching and kissing each other, making happy sounds. It seemed so long ago now.

“I get mad, too.” Lise fished two teabags out of the ceramic snowman and dropped them into a couple of mugs. “Mad that it happened. Mad they weren’t more careful. Mad that Cam won’t be here when I need him most.”

“It’s my fault, Lise, dear.” Estelle touched her shoulder, but quickly drew her hand back before the gesture became something more. “I should’ve insisted Ray put that roll bar back on the tractor. Even if I had, though, he probably would’ve ignored me. He could be so stubborn sometimes.”

“That’s absurd. It’s not your fault.” But she didn’t say the rest — that Ray had removed the roll bar that at least would have saved Cam’s life. The whistle on the teapot shrieked. Lise poured the hot water into the cups and set them on the table. She sank into her chair and bobbed her tea bag up and down, before scooping a teaspoon of sugar into the cup.

“I saw it happen from my sewing room window.”

Lise dropped the teabag into the cup. Her head snapped up. “What?”

Eyes lowered, Estelle joined her at the table. “I saw Cam drive the tractor over the silage pile. They were trying to tamp it down so they could pull a tarp over it. Keep the rain from ruining it.” She took her handkerchief from her pocket and twisted it between her hands. “Ray ran up beside the pile to tell Cam to back up. And when, when he did, it ... the tractor, I guess it hit a pocket of air. One of the tires spun. The tractor slipped sideways and, and I screamed at them from inside the house. Screamed. But it rolled. Cam was thrown. Ray couldn’t get out of the way in time.”

Her mouth twisted into an ugly shape. She clenched her fists until her knuckles whitened. “I rushed outside, but all I could see at first was the mangled underside of the tractor. When I moved around to the other side and saw, saw ... I knew. There was nothing I could do.” Estelle’s gray eyes took on a distant look, as if she were reliving the day. “They found them right next to each other.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Lise lifted her cup, her mouth tight. They were words spoken out of civility, not compassion. “They couldn’t have heard you that far away. Not with the tractor running.”

“I screamed at them because Hunter had run after his grandpa.” Her voice diminished to a scratchy whisper. Like autumn leaves skittering over concrete on a windy day. “I was afraid for Hunter.”

Lise’s hand froze in mid air. “He saw it happen?”

Estelle nodded dully, her jaw trembling as she dissolved into muted sobs.

Half-standing, Lise reached across the table suddenly, her cup tumbling onto the floor. Hot tea splashed everywhere. The cup shattered into a dozen pieces. A shard skittered across the linoleum, nicking my back paw. I jumped, as much because of the anger I saw in Lise’s face as from the sound of a mug breaking.

“How close was he?” When Estelle didn’t answer right away, Lise smacked the table with her palm. She repeated herself, more loudly, more accusingly. “I said how close was he?!”

Estelle’s shoulders hunched forward. Tear stains dotted her blouse. She unwadded the tissue, blew her nose. It took a few seconds for her to find her voice. “I don’t know. Ten feet, maybe?”

“You mean, he could’ve —?” Lise collapsed onto her chair like she’d been struck. “Oh my God.”

Whatever trust there was between them broke at that moment. Just like the cup hitting the floor. Even if you glued it back together, it would never be as strong again, never be whole.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly. Each pulse of the second hand sounded like the drum beat of a death march. I had never noticed that sound before. Never realized how time actually
could
change pace. But it did. It plodded.

Finally, Lise pushed her chair back and got up. She turned away, one hand covering her mouth, as if to dam back words better left unsaid. The other hand drifted downward to touch her stomach. It was something she’d been doing a lot this past week. I didn’t understand why until she spoke again.

“Thank God this baby will still have a big brother to look up to.” There was a steeliness to her voice. She was trying to be strong, even though inside she was dissolving like a chalk drawing in a downpour. By the way Estelle’s mouth drooped heavily, I could tell there was also an edge of blame in Lise’s words.

“You mean you’re —?”

“I am. Just two months.” Lise lifted her chin, shoring up her resolve. “So you know, my mom invited me to come live with her. I told her ‘no’ at first, but I think maybe I should. Hunter doesn’t need to be reminded of what happened. He needs to stay safe, where someone can keep an eye on him.” Lise glanced at Estelle, who was still staring at the snotty tissue balled up in her fist. “You don’t know how hard a decision this is for me. My mom needs me. Hunter ... and the baby, they’ll be looked after there.”

Estelle raised her face. “I can look after them.”

“Obviously you can’t. You
knew
Hunter wasn’t supposed to be around running machinery after what happened to the Hiddleson’s little girl last year. We discussed it. You both promised Cam that you —”

“So you’re going to take Hunter away from his home? From me? Because of something that didn’t happen.”

Lise didn’t answer right away. She let that silence stretch between them, making it all the more potent. “Because of something that very nearly did.”

Estelle turned her face away. Fury brewed beneath her shroud of grief. “And the dogs? The sheep? What about them?”

“You know I can’t ...” Lise expelled a weighty sigh, then twitched her shoulders in a shrug. “I’ll figure it out.”

That was when I noticed Hunter standing in the doorway to the kitchen, the fingers of one hand covering his heart, his favorite stuffed animal clutched in the other arm. Bernard the Bear is what he named it after Cam brought it home from a trip to San Diego once. Hunter had slept with it every night since. Today Hunter had on a dark gray suit, complete with a little black tie. He looked like a tiny adult — except for the bare feet.

In the four days since his daddy had died in the accident, Hunter hadn’t said a single word. Not even so much as a grunt. In fact, he didn’t respond at all when people spoke to him. As if he didn’t hear them. I’d often noticed him rubbing a hand over his chest, like he was soothing an ache in his heart.

Hunter drifted across the kitchen, which seemed a vast distance, it took him so long. He sank down next to me, wrapped his spindly arms around my neck, and hugged me hard, crushing Bernard between us. I licked his face once, then tucked my muzzle against his shoulder.

It turned out it was the day of Cam and Ray’s funeral. I was not allowed to go, which made me sad, because Lise had said something about saying goodbye to Cam, right before she dissolved in tears. I had wanted to see him one more time, too. Now, all I had left of him was his scent. I stole an old T-shirt of his from behind the laundry hamper, ran out the door with it later that week, and buried it behind the bushes in the dog yard. Just so I’d always have something to remember him by.

I used to think Cam would always be with us. Never assumed my world would be anything different than what it was those first few months.

How quickly everything can change.

E
verything started off like normal that day. Although ‘normal’ wasn’t really normal anymore. Nothing had been the same in the weeks since Cam died.

Lise floated through life as if she were a body without a spirit, trapped in a place she couldn’t get out of. She didn’t go back to her teaching job. Told her mother, Becky, over the phone that she couldn’t sit in front of all those kids every day and pretend there was nothing wrong.

More than that, though, she didn’t want to leave Hunter with Estelle, who’d been responsible for watching him while Lise went off to work since he was six weeks old. In a single day, years’ worth of trust had been destroyed. Snapped like a fishing line yanked into the deep by a whale. That’s what Lise said, anyway.

Every day she sat watching Hunter, never letting him get more than ten feet from her before she launched into a state of panic. If he wandered into the next room, she darted in after him to see what he was doing. When he went to bed at night, she checked on him half a dozen times before going off to her own bed, where she lay awake for hours.

If Lise showed her emotions to an extreme, Hunter kept them zipped up inside him. She asked him a hundred questions every day, but all he did was shrug or shake his head. Most of the time, he just sat in front of the TV or lay on the floor with a book about animals propped open in front of him.

“Platypus.” Lise pointed to the picture. “Can you say platypus, Hunter?”

He traced his finger around the outline of the animal. Remained silent.

Lise tapped on the page. “‘P’, platypus starts with a ‘p’. Do you want to practice your letters today?”

Nothing.

“Would you rather go to the park? We can even invite your friend Max along. If we bundle up, it’s not too bad outside. Should get even warmer if we go after lunch.” She squatted beside him and tilted his chin up with her hand, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Hunter, I know you can hear me. I know you’re very sad about Daddy. I am, too. I miss him every day. And I wish there was something I could do to bring him back. But I ... I can’t.”

Her words trailed away, overlain with that same vapor of sorrow that seemed to pervade everything about her these days. It had been two months and still not a day went by that she didn’t fall apart. Sometimes she’d lie in bed for hours after putting Hunter down and cry herself to sleep. Other times she’d be sitting there watching TV and all of a sudden a reminder of him would leap out at her from the flickering screen: Adam Levine in a crisp white T-shirt, a commercial for Ram trucks, a movie about a rancher, a Keith Urban song ...

Cam was everywhere. And yet ... he was nowhere.

Hunter punched up the volume button on the remote control to drown out any further interruption from his mom. It was a program about prairie dogs, but they didn’t look much like dogs to me. Then he rolled onto his side and pulled himself into a ball. Snagging the corner of the blanket next to him, he covered his head with it. I sniffed at the lump where his head was. When he was very small, he used to play ‘turtle’. I’d nudge him and he’d poke his head out and erupt in laughter. But today he just wrapped the blanket tighter around him.

Looking up at the ceiling, Lise said, “Oh, Cam, I don’t know how to do this without you. I’m trying. I’m
really
trying. But I need help.”

She tromped into the kitchen and rattled some pans as she put them away in the cupboards. Part of the routine that she’d fallen into after Cam died was finding ways to fill up her day whenever she wasn’t hovering over Hunter. She rarely let more than a few dishes pile up on the counter before scouring them clean. Crumbs on the table were banished with a vengeance. Closets were purged, filing cabinets reorganized, and shelves dusted. More than filling up the hours, I think it was a way of refusing to acknowledge the emptiness that Cam’s absence had left in her life.

She slammed a cupboard door and collapsed onto a kitchen chair. She let out a sigh so long and heavy it sounded like all the air was rushing out of her lungs at once. Then the tears started — tiny sniffles at first, building until they were full-blown sobs, broken only by gasps for air and muffled nose blowing.