“I can get it.” Salix fished the stuffed owl out of the branches. She put an arm across my shoulder and laughed. “That was about as unprivate as you can get.”
“Welcome to my current life,” I said. “All the privacy I ever had is back in Port Townsend in a little log cabin in the woods, all locked up.”
My house seemed a lot farther away now: the bus ride to Seattle endless and the drive to Port Townsend impossibly long. It was as if the distance had stretched, and now it was easier to be here, in Vancouver, than to make my way back home. Maybe this was home enough for now. Maybe I didn’t want to go back to Port Townsend. I hadn’t checked the bus times in days. Not since that day at the park when Salix reunited me with my half of the cookie.
Five months and thirteen days, and then I’d have to say goodbye. To Salix, the new baby, Claire and the boys, and even Dad. Unless I had to say goodbye to him sooner.
—
That night I checked my email. There were two messages from Mom. And none from Ruthie. Just as well.
The first message from Mom was a reply to my request for advice.
Honey, stay out of it. Let Claire and your dad sort things out.
Your dad has a history with alcohol, as you well know, but he’s always managed to pull himself up, right? Sounds like you’re having a great time with Salix. Don’t worry. Send pictures!
xoxoxo
Mom
The other email was short too. Dan had stacked our cordwood for us and would I please send him a little something in the mail as a thank-you. Maybe some maple syrup. Love you, Maeve. Love, love, love.
Firewood. For the winter. When I’d be back in Port Townsend. Back to getting up and starting the fire in the stove each morning, because I was always up before Mom. I’d be home in January, when the garden was finally finished, the last of the kale wilting, the ground muddy, rotten leaves and endless rain. I didn’t mind the rain at all, especially in the forest. Mist shrouded the cedar trees in the morning. Sometimes I had time to sit out on the porch before the bus came and watch it lift. The rain on the tin roof, the eaves so blocked with leaves that the water poured over the edges, making a muddy little trough in the dirt. Last year Mom and I stacked some bricks at one end of the porch and put a metal fire pit on top of it so we could sit on the porch by the warmth and watch the glimmering flames.
I didn’t want to think about deep, dark winter. I loved winter at home. The black sky awash with stars. The crisp air. The stillness when it snowed, which was so rare it was like magic.
Salix and I were at Continental one late afternoon after we’d been swimming. We were both tired, our muscles sore, when it suddenly occurred to me, as it so often did, just how much time I had left. One hundred and fifty-two days.
In the two weeks since the spray park, I’d seen my father twice. Both times in the morning. Once, he was sitting on the couch doing up his bootlaces. He was pasty and pale and hardly looked up before leaving. The other time he was throwing up into the kitchen sink.
“Good thing we have a garbage disposal,” Claire said as she nudged past him to reach for the bowls.
She tried to keep things normal. She tried to make light of it. She tried not to care that he was never home, and that when he was out he was getting shit-faced. What kind of family was this baby coming into? Would he even be around when the baby came? Maeve, she said, I know you don’t want to, but there really isn’t anyone else I’d want. She handed me a stack of books that I’d already read. I need a backup. I just don’t know about your dad right now.
I didn’t know about my dad right now either. And so I read the books. Not because I wanted to. But because it’s like when you take an umbrella and it doesn’t rain. You have a lighter in your pocket that you never need until the one day you leave it home and it’s someone’s birthday and no one can find the matches. I read because by my doing so, Dad would show up and do what he was supposed to do.
Until then, it was one more thing to worry about.
“It must be nice not to worry,” I said to Salix.
“I do worry,” she said. “A lot.”
“What things do you worry about?”
“If my mom’s cancer will come back. Not getting into Juilliard. Playing in front of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. To name a few.”
Mr. Heidelman had invited her to perform at one of their rehearsals, but she hadn’t talked about it since then. I’d thought maybe it was a good-luck thing. I’d had no idea she was worrying. “You never said.”
“Terrified, anxious, nauseous,” Salix said, “whenever I think about it.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“It’s not only you,” Salix said. “Everybody worries.” Her words were clipped, and her gaze slid toward the street. “We all have our worries. There is no corner on the market.”
“No. You’re right. Sorry.”
So she didn’t understand. And that was fine. Most people didn’t. Only 3 percent of the population has an actual anxiety disorder. Worrying is different for those people. We always think things will go wrong, even if they’re not likely to. We are almost always fearful and uncertain. Sure, everyone worries. But not everyone worries in the same way. Even worrying about her mother’s cancer coming back could be easier for her than one panic attack for me about whether I left the stove on. That was wrong, and I knew it. But it was true. Even though her mother’s cancer was so much more important than leaving an element turned on on the stove.
I could hear Nancy as if she were right beside me. I could practically smell the incense. Worrying is something everyone does differently. We all think our worries are the worst. Never compare your worries with someone else’s. No one wins.
“No.” Salix took my hand. “I’m sorry. There is a corner on the market, I know. I know it’s harder for you. I know that it makes things hard for you.” She took my other hand. “Things like life.”
Someone dropped a drink and the glass smashed. Someone pulled up in a pink Vespa. We laughed at a woman in high heels walking a tangle of eight tiny poodles and carrying one draped over her shoulder like a baby. We shared a muffin. Someone Salix knew stopped to say hello, and Salix held my hand and introduced me as her girlfriend. She said the word so easily, I hardly noticed. But once I realized it, it was all I could hear.
Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Girlfriend.
Pay attention, Maeve. They’d been in junior orchestra together, Salix said as he left. And then a girl walked by, and Salix leapt to her feet.
“Maya, hey!”
It was the girl from the ferry terminal in Gibsons. The one with the clipboard and ponytail. She was wearing a cute little dress, like something out of the fifties. Robin’s-egg blue, with tiny white polka dots. Her ponytail was up high, and she was wearing cat’s-eye sunglasses. I was so busy noticing how cute she was and how frumpy I was and how good she would look beside Salix, I could barely say hello before she said her goodbye and continued down the street.
“Her mom just lost her job and they might have to move.”