Page 24

Suddenly, a hot ray of sunshine lands between my shoulder blades. An image pops into my mind of cruel boys burning ants with a magnifying glass until I realize this warmth doesn’t hurt. Instead, it seeps through my spine and soothes my frantic heart. The muscle’s frenzied beating slows.

“Breathe with me.” A woman’s voice, muffled but matter-of-fact. “In through the nose.”

I hear a loud inhalation. As if compelled, I echo it.

“Now, purse your lips and exhale, slowly, like you’re blowing through a straw.”

The warm spot between my shoulders begins to swirl as I breathe in and out, in and out. A memory emerges of my mom rubbing my back to help me fall asleep. I’m not sure if it really happened or if it’s a wish I wished so often my brain remembers it as real. Either way, for a supernatural second, my dead mother reaches across time and space to place a loving hand on her grieving daughter.

The hand lifts. I’m orphaned all over again.

“Better now?”

Straightening up, I look over my shoulder at the gray-haired woman in overalls.

“Better,” I manage to say through swallowed sobs.

“Here are your things.” The woman holds out the tote bag of groceries.

I’m reluctant to take it. “But I didn’t pay.”

“I did. It’s all right. We’ll make a trade. Do you have any books on medicinal plants?”

“Books?”

“You are the woman who bought Red Barn Books, aren’t you? Rhonda described you perfectly. I’m Sandra, by the way. How about I come by tomorrow afternoon?”

“A trade?” I’m lagging woefully behind. “Tomorrow, sure, I’ll look around.”

“Great.” Sandra frowns. “Are you okay to get home?”

I drag my sleeve across my eyes. “Yes, thanks.”

“See you tomorrow, then.” Sandra sweeps back into the store, her long hair floating behind her.

In a daze, I shoulder the tote and retrace my steps through town, flapping my hands to dispel the trembling dregs of cortisol. The gesture is uncannily familiar. I remember doing this same thing when I was a kid, whenever I saw an apparition of my mom. Sometimes it happened down by Lake Michigan. For a heart-stopping second, a woman walking up the beach was my resurrected mother, until her face came into focus and broke the spell. Other times, I’d be bicycling down the street and see her round a corner up ahead. I’d pedal fast as I could to catch up, only to find my mother transformed into a woman I didn’t know.

Once, when my father took me shopping for school clothes at the Regency Mall, I was certain I spotted my mother among the racks in JCPenney. I was feeling angry at her for not being there to help me navigate the treacherous transition to sixth grade when she appeared—Mom, right there, real. She hadn’t swallowed that overdose of hoarded sleeping pills after all. That scout leader in the dunes had found some other woman’s body. My mother was alive, her flesh-and-blood hand shifting hangers along a silver rack.

Relief poured over me like a waterfall. I turned my joyous face toward Dad, hoping he saw her, too, but he gazed back at me with the same blankly benign expression he’d had plastered on his face all that sad summer. When I looked back, the ghost of my mother had been replaced by a stranger. The waterfall turned into a glacier. My crazy heart bounced around my chest like a rubber ball. I started crying, uncontrollable sobs, the height of embarrassment. I’ll always love my dad for not wasting time asking what was wrong or encouraging me to get a grip. He simply scooped me up (never mind that I’d just turned eleven) and carried me out the nearest exit. He drove home with one hand on the wheel, the other firmly holding mine. We never talked about it, afterward. I wished then—still wish now—I’d been brave enough to ask if it ever happened to him.

There’s David’s van, parked behind the closed diner. I jump in, slam the door shut, and give in to a fresh flood of tears. The windshield is foggy by the time my crying sputters to a stop. I shift in my seat, open a bottle of water, pour it down my scratchy throat. Weirdly, the spot between my shoulders still feels warm. It occurs to me that Sandra is the first human to lay a hand on me since David died. No wonder her touch felt like a sunbeam.

I drive back to Red Barn Books, hoping I’ll be in better shape tomorrow when Sandra comes for—what was it she asked about, medicinal plants? There must be something on that topic among all those books. The subject labels Evelyn taped to the shelves are still mostly stuck there. Sandra’s request will give me an excuse to finally figure out how the bookshop is organized.

Turning into my driveway, I’m surprised to find a parked Ford pickup towing a utility trailer, its ramp angled down. The truck bed is filled with gardening implements, bags of mulch, and various canisters topped with spray nozzles. Its tailgate is covered in bumper stickers. I roll my eyes at the ones supporting Trump. The sticker from a local animal shelter gives me hope. The County Sheriffs’ Association sticker is understandable, I suppose, but the National Rifle Association emblem is worrisome. What person in their right mind can still support them after Sandy Hook? There’s also a nasty sticker depicting Hillary Clinton with a target on her head that outright frightens me. Who the hell is this asshole? I wonder.

From beyond the house, I hear the whine of an engine on the move. Shit. This asshole is my neighbor, and he’s mowing my lawn.

The engine’s whine gets louder as a green John Deere zips around the house and hurtles toward the driveway. I wait by the pickup, fingering the keys in my pocket. My plan is to sprint back to the van and lock myself inside if I feel threatened by my Trump-loving, gun-toting, Hillary-hating neighbor.

Joe Sprague rides the speeding tractor with the panache of a cavalry officer. He acknowledges me with a raised hand before easing the machine up the ramp of the trailer. Cutting the engine, he secures it in place and climbs down. He’s a grandfatherly type with jewel-bright eyes and a rugged face topped with a camo Carhartt cap.

“I’m guessing you’re Audrey?” he says, pulling off leather work gloves.

“I am.” I fill my lungs, ready to launch into the speech I’ve been rehearsing in my head, the one where I tell my neighbor, politely but firmly, that this isn’t going to work out after all. “Joe, I—”

“I know, I told Rhonda I’d come by sooner,” he interrupts. “I apologize for that, but our dog got himself mixed up in some barbed wire. Had to run him down to the emergency vet.”