When she could not run any harder, any longer, she’d fallen from the thick jungle of corn plants onto a bare, grassy field, trees all around. Strange lights shot through the trees, and she stayed low to the ground, trying to figure out what they were. She heard voices, and the panic rose in her throat, and she ran until she came upon the cars. A row of them—trucks, vans, sedans—parked in the crushed grass. She ducked behind a bush as the voices got louder.
“That sucked, Mom.”
“Shhh! These people work hard to arrange the orienteering courses.”
“But I took a day off from school. And this isn’t even a real forest. There wasn’t anything to find. Look at the map! We had to locate a rock. And some stupid spindly tree. No waterfalls, nothing cool.”
“Well, were you the first one over the finish line?”
Silence.
“Then I guess this course wasn’t so easy, was it?”
Some low grumbling. “It still sucked.”
“Shhh!”
The people came into view, a mother and two children, one boy near to Roza’s age and another some years younger. The three held flashlights, the beams pointed at the ground. The younger boy giggled. “You’re just mad because that girl already had a boyfriend.”
The mother said, “What girl?”
“Never mind,” the bigger boy said.
“No normal girl is going to want some guy with Hulk arms,” the younger boy said.
“Better than having a Hulk face.”
“Stop it,” said the mother. “Your arms and faces are perfectly normal arms and faces, and I don’t want to listen to the two of you bickering the whole way home.”
“Maybe we can put him in the trunk,” said the older boy.
“Was that supposed to be a joke, Miguel?”
“No,” said Miguel.
The woman pulled a key fob from her pocket, and the red lights of a minivan flashed. “Before you get in the car, I want you to scrape your shoes. If I find dirt in my car, you’re going to be the ones vacuuming it.”
The boys grumbled some more but sat in the grass to remove their shoes, clap them together to rid them of the dirt. The mother wandered over to another car, began chatting with another family. Roza looked from her, to the boys, to the minivan. A stiff breeze hit the cornfield behind her, the whispering sound urging her on.
Miguel said, “Doesn’t it sound like the corn is talking?”
His brother said, “Only if you’re loco.”
Roza cracked the rear door and crawled inside, burying herself in tarps and cleats and empty shopping bags. She pulled the door closed, wincing at the noise, hoping no one had heard it, that no one would check. No one did. The boys and their mother got in the minivan, and the boys bickered the whole three-hour ride. By the time the mother stopped, told the boys to shut up and get out, and everyone did, and left the van dark, engine still ticking, Roza was afraid she’d stay folded like a pretzel in the minivan for the rest of time. But, after a long, long while, as long as she could stand it, long enough for the evening to shift into night, she rose out of the pile of tarps and empty shopping bags, pushed open the door, and stepped out into the crisp air. Wherever she was, it was clear and full of stars. Her wrist and ribs and cheek and foot hurt, but it was her stomach that was making the most noise: she was starving. She limped around the perimeter of the house, looking for a garden, some carrots she could dig from the earth, a tomato she could pluck from a vine, but these people didn’t keep a garden. She peered into the back window, into a dark kitchen, where a pile of apples sat in a bowl on the table. Her mouth watered and she tried the back door. Unlocked. She crept into the kitchen, took an apple, and ate it in just a few bites. The fridge beckoned. She rifled through it, devouring a chicken leg, a piece of cheese, a handful of grapes. She closed the door and almost fainted when she saw the older boy standing there in the kitchen, swaying slightly. He was wearing striped pajama bottoms that made him appear much younger, as did his dazed expression. He did have big, powerful arms, which might have scared her had she not had the most peculiar thought: those arms would allow him to give some lucky girl excellent hugs if she wanted them.
“Sorry,” she said. “I pay?” Though she had no money, nothing to pay with.
“I heard the corn talking to you,” he said.
“What?”
He didn’t seem to hear her. He lurched forward and she stepped back, only to realize that he was not grabbing for her, he was opening the fridge. He pulled a container of cooked spaghetti from the shelf and shoveled the tangled nest into his mouth with his fingers. His glazed eyes were focused on the window behind her. As if he was asleep.
“Who are you?” he said.
“No one. I am ghost.”
“Okay.” The boy frowned at the empty container in his hand. There was a strand of spaghetti sprouting from the side of his mouth. “Was that a sandwich? I wanted a sandwich. La Reina Pepiada.”
“That was sandwich,” Roza said. “Good sandwich.”
The boy’s expression was mournful. “It was a bad sandwich. No chicken or avocado or anything.”
“No, good. Very good. The best.”
The boy put the empty container back into the fridge. “Okay. I need to go to bed now. Good night, ghost.”
“Good night.”
He turned, stopped. “The corn told me that if you follow the stream going east, you’ll find a red barn with a slanted roof. Did the corn tell you that?”
“No,” she said.
“You should always listen to the corn. You don’t want it to get mad.” His eyes were still focused on the window behind her, but he leaned in and whispered, “I think it walks around at night. The corn. It doesn’t like the Scare Crow.” And then his eyes slid back in his head, his body swiveled, and his legs walked his sleeping brain from the kitchen.
Corn or no corn, she’d had no intention of following any streams, but when she stepped outside the stone house and got a lungful of the crisp, clean air, and an eyeful of the winking stars, she felt freer than she had in a long time. The professor was gone, the city was gone, and here she was under the beautiful stars—alone, alive. She smiled as she found the stream and followed it. The full moon watched her with a warm and approving eye as she hobbled along, slowed by the injured foot, pained by it, but not troubled. She didn’t know how long she walked, or how far, and it didn’t seem to matter. There was the cool water, the smell of flowers and honey, the sparkling, winking stars that told stories of little bears and big bears, Orion and Andromeda and Hercules, even if she didn’t know which star was which. And finally she saw it as if the moon was illuminating it just for her: a barn slanted to the left. She left the stream and made for the barn, which sat right next to a peeling white house, now dark and sleeping. She opened the barn door and peered around inside. Not much, but there was an old pile of hay in the corner that didn’t smell too awful. It was as good a place as any to sleep.
“A barn needs a horse,” said Roza under her breath. A blur of movement caught her eye. “Or a cat.”
The cat, a tiny thing with brown and gray stripes, wound around Roza’s legs, joined her in the pile of hay, curling up next to her face, breathing the same breath. Though her foot throbbed and her ribs and wrist ached, she fell asleep in the hay.
When she woke up, the barn was bright with sunlight, the cat was gone, and a beautiful dark-haired boy was standing there, gaping at her. Weirdly, he wasn’t gaping at her face, but rather his eyes darted from her hair to her dirty sweatshirt and back to her hair.
“Are you okay?” the boy said. “Are you hurt?”
She struggled to stand, straightened as best she could, and limped past the boy toward the open door. He reached out—to help her, she guessed—but when he touched the skin of her elbow, she was so startled she stumbled. Instead of hauling her back to her feet, or scooping her up like a sack of cabbages, he turned and ran.
She crept out of the barn and around the side of the structure,
seeking the stream that had led her here. Maybe she could go back to the stone house, back to Miguel with the long arms and the kind face. Maybe she could hitch a ride to somewhere with an airport and stow away on a plane. Maybe she could ask about a police station and allow herself to be deported.
She heard footsteps and fell against the wood, then into a green bush. The footsteps came around the barn—the first boy with another boy—a young man—tall and muscular as an action hero. Not handsome like the first boy, but rugged and compelling, with huge, powerful hands.
The man crouched next to her. “Hello.”
She didn’t answer.
“Can you tell me what happened? Are you injured?” He didn’t stare at her face or her breasts or her legs the way other men had. He was looking directly into her eyes, seeming to see straight into her, as if he knew something about her already and was not that surprised. Or impressed. The effect was so disconcerting that when he held out one of those enormous hands, she slapped it away.
The two boys talked about hospitals, but she didn’t want to go to the hospital. She didn’t want to go, period. She was sitting in a bush, yes, and she’d walked miles with an injured foot, she’d barely escaped a psychopath, she was done with America, she’d had enough of men, she’d had enough of adventure, she needed to get home to her babcia, she had hay in places she didn’t want hay, but suddenly, suddenly, she didn’t want to go anywhere. She was too hurt, she was too tired. And though these two were men, and young, she felt seen and unseen at the same time, and it was such a relief. When they offered her the keys to an apartment in the back of their house, she almost cried at the kindness.
So she stayed, telling herself it was only for a day or two. They showed her the “apartment,” gave her some threadbare sheets for the bed. She locked the door behind them, tucked a chair under the knob. She fell into the bed and slept like a princess under a spell.
When she emerged from her coma, she was so stiff that she thought there was a danger of her limbs cracking off if she moved, so hungry that her stomach was willing to risk it. She let herself out of the apartment and hobbled to the back door of the house, lifted her hand to knock, hesitated. The kitchen light was on, but the room was empty. And then one brother, the big one, stepped through the doorway and into the kitchen. He had half a bagel clamped in his teeth as he buttoned up his shirt, some sort of uniform. He finished buttoning and took a bite of the bagel, set it down on the counter while he poured himself some coffee. The tiny striped barn cat trotted into the kitchen, whirled around his ankles. Absently, he reached down, scooped her up, and perched her on his shoulders. He leaned against the counter, eating his bagel and sipping his coffee, the cat frantically rubbing his hair with her little head. Despite her stiff body, her embarrassment at her predicament, Roza laughed.
He turned, saw her through the window in the door. His cheeks went ever so slightly pink as he pulled the cat from his shoulders and set her on the floor. When he opened the door, the smell of strong coffee wafted out with him. Already, the blush was gone and she wondered if she’d imagined it.
“Sorry,” he said. “Have you been there long?”
She shook her head.
Again, he looked straight into her eyes, his gaze oddly weightless, demanding nothing. “You slept a long time. How are you feeling?”
She shrugged.
He dropped to one knee in front of her and she stumbled back, clutching the top of her sweatshirt.
He held up both palms. “Just checking these feet, okay?”
The striped cat rubbed along his thigh, covering his uniform pants with fur.
“Okay,” she said.
He inspected her toes—one foot, the other—then stood. “They’re not any more swollen than they were yesterday, so that’s something. How are your ribs? Your wrist?”
She shrugged again. Her stomach rumbled. She wrapped her arms around her middle.
Again, the oddly weightless gaze. “If you’re hungry, we’ve got plenty of food,” he said. He pointed to the fridge, various cabinets and drawers. “Milk and eggs in there. Bread right here. Other stuff in the pantry. And the coffee’s still hot, if you drink it this late. I’m on my way to work, so take what you like. But I wouldn’t stay on your feet too long.”
She nodded. He nodded back—crisp, professional, as if he were talking to a patient.
Before he left, he said, “Get some ice on those toes.”
She nodded again, and then he was gone. The cat mewled and head-butted her. Roza remembered the pink blush on the man’s cheeks. She tried perching the cat on her own shoulders, but they were too thin. She settled for carrying the cat like a baby as she poked in the cabinets. There was a lot of food that came in boxes and jars, but she found some good dark bread and some butter and jam. She poured herself a cup of the strong coffee and ate her fill with the cat on her lap. Then she filled some plastic bags with some ice and hobbled back to the apartment. She crawled into the bed and laid the bags on her feet. She had one last thought before she fell asleep again: she had forgotten to lock the door.
She slept, she woke, she ate, she slept again. She carried the cat like a baby. The big one checked her toes and asked after her ribs and wrist, and then dashed off for work. The younger one was shy and awkward and seemed much more comfortable simply bringing her things: bags of ice, glasses of water, tea with honey. She asked to borrow a phone to call her babcia, so he brought her that, too, waving off her offer to pay them back. Eventually, her toes felt better, her ribs began to heal.
She still didn’t want to leave.
They were kind to her, but that wasn’t it. She felt so light around them, as if the eyes of others had a heft and a pressure that she couldn’t comprehend until the pressure was gone. She ignored the boxes and the jars and cooked her favorite foods, she baked tray after tray of cookies. She worked the dirt in the garden—rich dirt wriggling with worms—bringing a sad patch of vegetables to life.
“Looks good,” said the big one, Sean.
She glanced up from the tomato plants. They had been planted too close together, and she had decided to replant a few in the hopes they would flourish even this late in the season. The day was hot and she had taken off her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist, baring her shoulders to the sun. She had been enjoying the feeling until she heard his footsteps.
But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the root ball she cradled, at the garden all around her.
“It’s never looked this good,” he said. “The plants, the whole garden. Everything’s so green. Green as . . .” He didn’t finish.
“Green as?” she said.
“Really green.”
Her eyes were green, but that couldn’t be what he’d been going to say.
“Where did you learn how to do this?” he said.
“My babcia.”
He frowned at the unfamiliar word. “Bop-cha?”
“Babcia. Is grandmother. She has garden. She teach.”
“A garden in Poland?”
“Yes.”
She was sure he’d ask how she came to be in America, and then how she came to be in his barn, how she could trust him so fast, and she was trying to figure out how she wanted to answer when he said, “Do you miss it?”
“What?”
“Poland.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Will you go back?”
“I will be back,” she said. “But . . .”
“But?”
“I stay here,” she said, embarrassed by her need, by her inability to put it into words he could understand, that she could. “For little while? Is okay?”
Again, she was sure he’d ask about her feet and her ribs and her wrist, and how she’d hurt them, or maybe who had hurt her, but she didn’t think she could explain that either. There had been little hurts and big ones and she could hardly tell them apart, and it all sounded crazy anyway. The sun was warm here, she knew that. The garden was green. The dirt was good. She could
bury herself and be happy.
He said, “Do you want help?”
Heat burned her skin—anger or embarrassment or some mixture of both. When she’d first come, she’d overheard him talking to the younger one, Finn, about counselors and doctors and shelters for girls like her.
Girls like her.
“Toes better,” she said. “I better.”
“No, I mean, do you want help with those tomato plants?”
His eyes were dark brown, just like the earth under her feet.
She sprawled in the grass, Rus beside her, wondering what Sean was doing now. Was he looking for her? Had he found someone else to work the garden?
A shadow fell over her. Rus growled. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Of course it was the man.
Of course she had not killed him.
Of course he could not be wounded.
But she could be. He could kill her right now, she supposed, though she could hardly gather up enough energy to care.
She sat up, opened her eyes. He was a dark figure blotting out the sun.
“You’re crying,” he said.
That he said these kinds of things made no sense to her. “So?” she snapped.
“Perhaps this will cheer you up.”
Because the sun was behind him, it took her a moment to realize that in his arms he held a wriggling black-faced lamb.
“Oh!” she said, the sound escaping before she could pull it back.
He smiled that smile of his, and she knew he would ask the question he always asked, and despite the sun and the cows and the hills and the wriggling black-faced lamb, she buried her hand in Rus’s fur, steeling herself for her answer.
The man scratched the little lamb between the ears and did not ask the question he always asked.
He said, “Would you like to hold him?”
Roza’s hand dropped to her lap, the tears still wet on her skin.
“Yes,” she heard herself say. “Yes, I would.”
Finn
BLINDSIDE
FINN SPENT THE NIGHT WRAPPED IN FEVERED DREAMS that he could barely remember upon waking, so he spent the next morning and the rest of the day refusing the pain pills and insisting to anyone who would listen that he was fine, he was absolutely fine, he didn’t need skin on his legs, he was ready to go. He was released in the early evening, and not soon enough. Sean picked him up, drove him home in a silence so absolute Finn felt as if he were wearing a helmet packed with lamb’s wool. He was relieved when Sean dropped him off, when Sean didn’t bother stopping inside to eat.