“They won’t hurt you,” I said. Then, to the dogs, “Rembrandt. Vermeer. Come meet my friend.”
They wiggled over with tails swinging, and Connor petted their heads. I could tell he was still a little bit intimidated by them. But it’s hard not to pet a dog who’s looking up into your face and wagging.
“Is this who you wanted me to meet?” Connor asked. He sounded hopeful. Like maybe he could be done now. Maybe he could just go home.
“No.”
“Oh,” he said. “That’s too bad.”
We walked up onto the porch and I rapped on the door.
“Mrs. Dinsmore? Are you dressed yet?”
No answer. For one horrible moment I thought I might’ve brought Connor out here to witness the aftermath of the suicide of the lady I was hoping could help him.
Then the door swung open.
She looked at Connor. Then at me. She was wearing her overalls on top of a solid-gray flannel shirt. Her feet were bare and her hair had been freshly braided.
“And who do we have here?” she asked, indicating Connor with a flip of her head.
“This is my friend Connor. He’s the one I was telling you about.”
“I see.” A pause. A sigh. “Well, you two boys come in.”
But the minute we stepped inside, she grabbed me by the shoulder and steered me back out the door.
“A private word with you outside,” she said. Then, to Connor, “Make yourself at home, son. We’ll be back in just a few.”
She pulled the door closed behind us, and we stood on the porch together. The sun was just coming up over the rise, between the trees. It burned into my eyes when I tried to look at her.
I had the definite sense that I was in trouble.
“You mind telling me what exactly I’m supposed to do with him?”
“Um,” I said. Not a great start. “I was hoping you might . . . help him.”
“Help him how?”
“I’m not sure. But you always help me. And I don’t know how you do that. You just do, somehow.”
I watched her eyes narrow. I had to squint to see it, because of the way the rising sun was shining into my own.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re worried your friend doesn’t want to live anymore. So you bring him to talk to the one person in the world you know for sure doesn’t want to. Is there a logic in here that I’m missing?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know.” I dug deep. If there was ever a time to dig deep, if there had ever been such a time in my life, this was it. “I think . . . sometimes I’ll think bad things about myself. Like I’ll think I’m stupid or I can’t do anything right. But if Connor told me he was stupid and couldn’t do anything right, I’d stand up for him. Sometimes it’s easy to want something for somebody else, even if it’s more than you want for yourself.”
“Interesting,” she said.
I hoped she would go on to say more. She didn’t.
“Do you think I’m right?”
“Kid, I have no idea.”
“It’s dicey,” I said. “I’ll grant you that. All morning I was lying in bed thinking of that room with nothing but mirrors inside. Remember that? It was in that traveling art exhibit that we all went to see when it stopped in Blaine.”
“I didn’t go to see it,” she said.
“Oh.”
I should’ve known. She wouldn’t have wanted to mix with all those locals. Also, now my point was lost. I knew I could never put it into words.
“I know what happens, though,” she said, “when you have a mirror on both sides of you. It reflects out to infinity.”
“Right!” I said. “That! I was lying in bed worrying that if you met Connor, his troubles and your troubles would reflect out like that. Multiply. Off into infinity, like you said.”
She screwed her face up into a cartoon of criticism.
“So then you got up and brought him here.”
“Yeah. Sounds weird, I know. But I was still hoping for that first thing, where you want him to stay even if you don’t want to stay yourself. I knew it was either the best or the worst idea I’d ever had. And I tried and tried to figure out which it was. But I couldn’t. There was just no way to know.”
“Big chance to take,” she said.
“Yeah. I know. But I was out of ideas.”
We stood that way for what felt like the longest time. I figured she was thinking. I didn’t want to move or speak, because I didn’t want to interrupt her thinking. In case it was about to come down in my favor.
“I think you’re crazy,” she said. “And I think I’m crazy to let you talk me into having any part of it. But go on ahead and take your run and leave him here. I’ll see if he wants to talk.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I really appreciate this. I owe you one for it.”
“You don’t owe me crap,” she said. “And vice versa.”
Then, just as I was stepping down off her porch, she said one more thing to me.
“Hey. Lucas. Sorry I cost you that girlfriend.”
I stopped. Turned back. The dogs were disappointed, I could tell. But they waited.
“You didn’t,” I said. “She just turned out to be . . . not who I was thinking she was.”
“Yeah,” she said. She had her arms crossed over her chest. “Relationships are like that. You have to hang back for a time. See what you’ve got and what you’re getting yourself into.”
I nodded, and began my run.
What she had just said about relationships—I chalked that up as one more thing I couldn’t possibly have known if I hadn’t had Zoe Dinsmore to tell it to me.
When I picked Connor up again, it was full-on light. Hot, almost.
I’d purposely taken a very long run.
He marched out of the cabin in perfect silence, his eyes trained down to the porch boards. Like his mother.
I looked past him to the lady and mouthed the words “Thank you”
