“I just reported something is all,” I said. I kept the rest of those thoughts to myself.
“Like somebody else committing a crime?”
“No. No crimes. I just reported somebody who needed help.”
I was starting to worry about the poor deputy sheriff waiting on the line, so I reached for the phone. She frowned at me, but she handed it over and hurried back to the stove. I wondered how badly my eggs had been burned. I knew I’d be expected to eat them regardless.
“Hello,” I said.
“Morning, son,” Deputy Warren said. “Hope I didn’t get you out of bed.”
“No, sir. I’ve been up a couple hours. Already been for my morning run.”
My stomach had begun to churn uncomfortably because it was occurring to me—for the first time, oddly—that he was calling to tell me the lady died.
“Well, I just wanted to let you know she pulled through,” he said, and I breathed out a long exhale I hadn’t known I was holding. “I mean, not that we know absolutely, but that first twenty-four hours is critical. The fact that she got through it bodes well for her chances. Nurse at the hospital told me somebody called looking into her welfare yesterday, but they couldn’t give out any info because he wasn’t her family. I figured that was you.”
“But you’re not her family,” I said, and then immediately felt stupid.
“But I’m law enforcement.”
“Right. Duh. So . . . does she have any family?”
I heard a big sigh on the line. “Yeah. More or less. She has an ex-husband, but I can’t decide if that counts or not. Probably not. And she has two grown daughters, but they both got married before they moved away from here, and I don’t know their married names off the top of my head. But I’m doing some research on it.”
“I’m thinking they’d want to hear about this,” I said, and then felt stupid again.
“I’m thinking the same, son. I’ll do what I can.”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
Then we said our goodbyes and he hurried off the phone.
I sat back down at the table, and my mom set a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of me. I poked the eggs with my fork. They weren’t exactly burned, but they were awfully dry.
“We got any ketchup?”
She sighed theatrically and flounced over to the refrigerator. I was waiting for her to ask me about my conversation with the deputy. You know, take some interest in my life. But she seemed lost in her own head.
“I saved a lady’s life,” I said.
She set the bottle of ketchup down in front of my plate.
“That’s nice, dear.” She said it the way a person says “That’s nice” when you’re talking to them while they’re trying to read the newspaper. “I’m very proud of you.”
I got in touch, suddenly, with how nice it would feel if she actually was. Proud of me, that is. And maybe she was. Looking back, it’s hard to say what somebody else is feeling. But the moment felt unconvincing.
I don’t think it was the next day when I ran out to the cabin and ran into some of the lady’s family, almost literally. I think it was the day after that.
I had taken the water bucket off the hook on the doghouse, and I was carrying it near the front of the cabin, headed toward the pump. All of a sudden someone came around the corner and we nearly slammed into each other. We both let out a yelp of surprise.
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”
Then we just stood a moment, neither one of us seeming to know what to say.
She was a woman in her early to midtwenties, with short, curly hair. Small and compact. She wore a frown that seemed to have permanently creased itself into her face. She was holding a narrow strip of wood, which I recognized as part of the framing of the door—the part that had been broken when the deputies crashed through it. Apparently she had pried it off somehow.
“I was just getting some water for the dogs,” I said.
“Okay.”
I kept expecting her to ask me who I was. But she didn’t seem particularly curious.
“I’m Lucas Painter,” I said. “I’m—”
But she cut me off in midsentence. “I know who you are.”
“You do?”
I wanted to ask how, but I was getting lost in awkwardness.
“You’re that kid who’s been coming to see the dogs. Taking them running with you.”
“How did you know that?”
“My mom told me.”
“How did she know that? I didn’t even think she saw me.”
“Oh, she saw you.”
Then the conversation stalled again. I could feel myself sink into the embarrassment of what she had just told me.
I looked down at the strip of wood trim in her hand. “Fixing the door?” I asked.
The bucket was getting heavy. The dogs hadn’t drunk much.
“Trying. She’ll be home in a day or two, and she has to have a door that closes. So I took off the lock. Figured I could take it to the hardware store and get a new one. But I also have to replace this.” She held up the strip of wood. “But I have nothing to measure with. And also, I have no idea what I’m doing. I know nothing about home repair.”
I shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.
“Maybe I could help,” I said.
“You know anything about home repair?”
“Not really. But I know where the hardware store is. And the lumberyard.”
She looked into my face as though I might be stupid, but she was still trying to decide. “So do I. I grew up around here.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
I wasn’t sure why I needed to be sorry. But it was something of a default position for me at that age.
“But none of it does any good if I can’t find a tape measure,” she said. “And I can’t.”
“What about some
