I was gross.
I leaned against the wall of the brick building, crossed my arms over my chest, and scrunched down into my jacket. I could not see Jace now. I swallowed hard. No, I couldn’t do it. I looked like pancake batter and felt like rotten tomatoes. Plus, it felt wretched to think about him. Probably always would.
I tipped my face up to the snowflakes, hoping they would make me feel cleaner and freeze the tears in my eyes. When I was sure Jace would be gone, I slunk back around the building like a sneaky coyote, and there he was.
“Hey, Olivia.”
“Jace.” Shoot, shoot, shoot.
“It’s probably not necessary to hide from me.”
I could lie. I wouldn’t. “I didn’t think it would be much of a wait until you were down the street, so it was no problem.”
His mouth tilted up in a smile. I used to kiss that smile. His black hair ruffled in the wind.
“Maybe we should talk.”
“No, thank you.” He was so tall. Heckuva manly man.
“No? Never?”
“I don’t think we need to right now.” My breath caught and I made this awkward, high-pitched sound.
“I do. But, Olivia, we don’t need to talk about anything”—he looked away for a second—“stressful. We don’t need to talk about us. I’d like to hear about your girls. Your job in Portland. Your family. Easy stuff.”
“You think we can do easy?”
He smiled. “I think we can do anything, but maybe we need to start easy.”
“No.”
“How come?”
“What’s the point, Jace?” I tried to get control of the tears that I could feel welling up in my heart. “I’m here for a while, probably not long, and then I’m going back to Portland.” No, I wasn’t. Not if she was there. Not if the threat wasn’t smashed down. Heck no. I felt scared to my toes thinking about her. I refocused on the cowboy in front of me.
“For me, the point would be to spend time with you again.”
“Why would you want to do that?” I could think of many reasons why he wouldn’t want to. I didn’t blame him at all. He had every reason to be furious with me. I deserved it.
“Because I like being with you.”
How could he like being with me after what I did to him? How could he stand there and be nice and friendly? Why didn’t he hate me? “Why, Jace? Why would you want to be with me?”
“A hundred reasons, Olivia.” He kept smiling.
I about melted. “Jace—”
“Lunch? Coffee? Want to see the ranch?”
I thought about it. I was so tempted. I was also tempted to take off his clothes. “No. No. And no.”
I did not miss the hurt in his dark eyes before he covered it up.
“When do you think that might be a yes?”
“I can’t do a yes with you, Jace.” A whisper. It was all I could do.
“I wish you would.”
“I can’t.” I turned to walk away. I think I swayed. The tears got me off balance. The memories almost brought me to my knees.
* * *
Because I was the temporary guardian of Lucy and Stephi, Children’s Services in Oregon would regularly send one of their caseworkers to see us at my apartment in Portland. The case worker would talk to the three of us together, then he would talk to me alone, and to the girls alone, to get all the different perspectives. His name was Dameon. He was dour, serious, had little personality, and never smiled. The girls were a tiny bit afraid of him.
He wrote me glowing reviews. “Girls are thriving . . . Olivia Martindale is an outstanding mother to Lucy and Stephi . . . Family activities are numerous . . . Girls learning how to cook . . . Many books and crafts . . . A patient and caring woman . . .”
When I moved to Montana, I had a new caseworker, who would report back to Children’s Services in Oregon.
I was nervous for her visit. By the time she arrived at the log cabin my hands were shaking. After all, the caseworkers have the control. If she didn’t like me, that was going to be an enormous problem.
Joan was about forty, lots of frizzy red hair, huge smile.
She loved the log cabin, the gazebo, the lasso around the deck. She loved making ice-cream sandwich chocolate chip cookies with us. The girls made her play Candy Land with them. On the way out she said, “That game drives me out of my head.”
I knew we’d get along.
* * *
Jace’s Martindale Ranch was on the front page of the newspaper the following week. The newspaper was highlighting companies that hired local people. Jace hired many local people to work at the ranch that had been in his family for three generations, and he hired another group of employees for Martindale Ranch, and more again in the summer and fall when tourists poured in. It was also highlighted because when people are staying on the ranch, they wander into town and spend money there, and attend the art, theater, and symphony festivals.
There was a photo of him and a photo of the ranch from the top of a hill, which showed the charming guest cabins, the dining hall where all meals were served, the game room, the towering mountains, and the lake. The ranch was perfect, so perfect. I remembered all of our happy planning, watching the buildings grow from the ground up, the marketing, the menu planning, the activities we scheduled for the guests, the opening . . .
Jace was quoted as saying a number of interesting things but one was, “When we opened we had an outstanding chef in Olivia Martindale. A huge part of the reason we were successful early on was because people were coming to eat the best food in Montana.”
I must stop being so emotional.
* * *
I received a check from my car insurance company. I used all the cash, plus another $500 from my account that I desperately needed, and I bought a truck from an older neighbor. It had 160,000 miles on it. It was light blue. Fifteen years old. Two rows, open cab in back.
I hoped it wouldn’t fall apart. I waved at Sherman when I left. He waved back, then gave me a thumbs-up.
Yes, I needed a thumbs-up. The truck growled. I liked the growl.
* * *
We heard three knocks on the door of the log cabin. It was Kyle, Chloe’s son. He always knocks three times.
I hugged him when he walked in. I adore Kyle. He hugged me back. He was stiff, patted my back three times. Chloe had had to teach him how to hug. “Who knew I’d have to teach my own son how to hug? Like he’s a shark or something and has to figure out how to get his flippers around someone. Like he’s a robot and has to program a hug in. This Asperger’s is a tricky one, but I am wrestling with it and I will win.”
“I like your outfit, Aunt Olivia, because I like a cacophony of color.”
“Thank you.” I was wearing a pink kimono-type jacket with dragons—so comfortable—from Japan and purple jeans.
Kyle is over six feet tall. Brown hair cut short, same green eyes as his mother, with some blue thrown in. Glasses, black rims. Gangly. He stands as if he doesn’t know what to do with those long legs and arms, as if they are appendages he has to manage. Sometimes his hands flap around, as if caught by air.
For six months after his father died, he didn’t speak. Later he said that he had not had anything to say because his father had left a hole in his life and that hole held no words.
“Your log cabin is two point four miles from my house, Aunt Olivia. The average speed of cars traveling along the roads through town is twenty-four miles an hour. Out here in the country, it’s forty-eight. Today the average temperature is expected to be thirty-five degrees, snow expected tonight, accumulation of one inch.”
“Glad to know it. How are you, Kyle?”
“Fine.” His gaze met mine, then slid away. His hands flapped, then stopped in midflap. “How are you, Aunt Olivia, birthday February twenty-seven.”
Kyle knows everyone’s birthday. Truly. Everyone’s. If you give him your phone number, he will have that memorized, too. And any previous phone numbers. “I’m better now that you’r
e here, Kyle. Would you like to come in and have cookies? I made snickerdoodles.”
“Snickerdoodles. Made with cinnamon, cream of tartar, salt, other ingredients. Are they still warm?”
“I can warm them up.”
He thought about that. “I can have three snickerdoodles. Warmed up.” He cleared his throat. “Mother says it is appropriate to say please when offered food, and I did not say it. She says people without manners are rude like baboons that slobber, her words, not mine. I apologize. Please.”
I smiled at him. “Super. Come on in.”
He stopped in the entry. The girls were standing in the middle of the family room, holding hands. They were unsure about Kyle. He had come to visit me twice in Portland, with the rest of the family, but they didn’t know what to do with someone who spoke formally of extremely complicated topics like the origin of black holes, what Saturn’s rings were made of, and the full history of the beginning of the universe, including basic information on evolution.
“Hello, Lucy, oldest sister, birthday July one. Hello, Stephi, birthday November twelve.”
His tone was, as always, formal.
“It’s a pleasure to see you once again.”
“Hi, Kyle.” They had been making a tent out of blankets. The blankets kept falling off the chairs and table.
“Are you constructing a tent?” he asked.
“Yes.” They were hesitant, shy. They are afraid of men, but Kyle was a teenager, so maybe he was safe. “Do you want to play?”
Kyle studied the tent, the blankets in a pile. “I believe I can be of assistance to provide a better structural foundation for the tent.”
The girls were confused. “What?” they both said.
“We don’t always understand you, Kyle,” Lucy said, pointing her finger up in the air to make her point.
“You’re confusing,” Stephi said.
“I’m afraid many people hold this unfortunate opinion about me. It is something that I must continue to work on with diligence, and with the help of my mother. She has told me that my ability to understand social situations and people’s emotions is, and I quote her, ‘Poor.’ I agree with her. However. If I apply my limited knowledge of home construction, weight-bearing walls, and the most effective way to adhere blankets to poles, I’ll be able to design a tent that you can play in.” He turned to me. “Do you have a drill? Where is your spare wood?”
A drill? Spare wood? I saw the hopeful expressions on Lucy and Stephi’s face. “I do.”
We all trooped out to get wood from the barn and the drill. We also brought in a hammer and nails. Kyle drew a rough draft, in detail. The girls were fascinated. In the loft upstairs, he went to work and the girls received their first construction engineering lesson.
He was at our house for three hours. I served him the snickerdoodles and a snack. Kyle’s food must be separate. I was careful that his sandwich, fruit, and salad not touch one another.
In the end, the girls had their tent. It had a wood floor, studs in each corner; a roof in which he sawed a hole for a skylight; and a pole in the center for the blankets to hang on. Both girls could stand up in it.
They hugged him and he patted their backs, three times. They jumped up and down, then brought their books and games into it. It was perfect.
“We love it, Kyle.” They jumped up and down again.
Kyle nodded, gave them a slight bow. “I think this will give you an area for creative play, to use your imaginations, and hopefully a quiet place to read and reflect upon scientific topics.”
He took out a small black notebook. It was his Questions Notebook. That was actually the title of it. He wrote things down in there that he didn’t understand so he could ask my sister about it later. “I am writing down a question for Mother, which is, ‘As a conversation starter with peers my own age would it be appropriate to tell them that I built a tent fort, including the dimensions of the wood, number of nails, and structural integrity, or would that constitute boring conversation?” He closed the notebook. “I’m leaving now.” He started out.
I hugged him. He let me. Patted my back. Three times. “Thank you so much, Kyle. That was so kind.”
He was puzzled. “Kind? Stephi and Lucy needed a tent to play in, and because they are my new cousins I provided it. Mother says that our family is the most important thing and must come first. Hence, the tent. She told me this after she told me that I needed to quit flapping my hands like a ‘damn bird,’ her words, not mine. I endeavor not to swear. I am trying not to flap my hands so much. I do not want to resemble a bird, as I am human. Good-bye, Aunt Olivia. I am two hours and twelve minutes late.”
“Late for what?”
“My studies.”
“What are you studying now?”
“The works of Michelangelo. He is a fascinating man. I am studying his paintings now, then will move on to his sculptures.”
And out he went.
* * *
When Kyle was a baby and then a toddler he wouldn’t make eye contact. He would cry and pull away from being touched or hugged, except from Chloe. He would kick off a yellow blanket but not the blue knitted one. He would wear one of two T-shirts and throw a fit if Chloe tried to put him in something else. He would wear his pajama pants with galaxies on them or red cotton pants, not the black ones. His fits were impressive, his distress acute, when he was dressed in anything else.
He had hardly any expression on his face unless he was throwing a fit. As my sister said, “His face is a blank slate. What the hell happened to his emotions? Did they slide out of my placenta when I was pregnant?” His first word wasn’t Mama or Dada, or bird, it was paramedic, followed by Dove Mountain Range, cirrus cloud, and weather vane. He had seen the sun weather vane on top of the log cabin that my granddad put up for my grandma.
As a toddler he was soon fascinated by weather, and my sister brought home piles of books from the library on weather and clouds.
He had to listen to classical music or he couldn’t sleep. He played with LEGOs for hours and built intricate houses within neighborhoods. He collected pens and grouped them by color. As he grew, he developed this loose-limbed, almost on his tiptoes walk, and his fingers were constantly tapping the insides of his palms.
The brilliance came early. In kindergarten he did a report on Mozart. He wrote about him, and he drew his picture. This was followed by piano lessons, which he continues to excel at today. He was doing complex multiplication at the age of six and reading at an eighth-grade level. He started studying biology, the universe, and animals in depth. Books and charts all over.
He has all As and is currently taking calculus, chemistry, and physics, but he hates the physical act of writing and his letters are a scrawl. He wants to type everything. He does calculus for fun and is even in an online calculus group with other brilliant people. He is a whiz at computers. Truly genius.
“It’s like raising Einstein,” Chloe said with total exasperation. “The way he talks, Olivia. Big, complicated freaking words, all said so precisely. I mean, does he think he’s from the sixteenth century? The other night I told him he sounded like a prince from a castle in England, and he thought about that and then said that could not be true because modern syntax, American-accented English, and twenty-first-century cadence would rule out the possibility.”
He loves to draw and paint and has for years. He studies how to draw people, and he studies the great masters.
The painful problem is social. Kyle doesn’t get it. He can’t read people’s expressions, doesn’t get sarcasm or jokes, and can’t pick up verbal and nonverbal cues. He sometimes will laugh at inappropriate times and smiles when he shouldn’t, for example, when something sad or embarrassing happens to someone else.
He talks at kids, not with them, in a monotone, and doesn’t understand when they’re bored straight out of their minds. He will appear unempathetic to other people and difficult situations. He can come across as a know-it-all. He doesn’t mean to be either, though my s
ister has told him, “Look, Kyle. Restrain your brain. You come off like you know everything on the planet, so knock it off. It’s irritating.” His response? Surprise. “Mother, I know only a tiny fraction about the planet Earth, its inhabitants, history, mathematics, and science, which is why my studies are ongoing. My knowledge is extremely limited.”
The worst thing is that he’s sometimes picked on and bullied in school. Most kids are nice, or flat-out ignore him, but there are always a few, and a few boys now—Eric, Jason, and Juan—who are particularly mean to him. Those three are knuckle-scraping idiots who will amount to nothing, but for now they constantly try to bring Kyle down. He does get hurt; he knows he doesn’t fit in. He realizes he doesn’t have friends, like other kids do.
If only everyone could see Kyle’s heart. He is one of the kindest people I know, he simply shows it in a different way. My sister works with him all the time. Kyle told me that she has said the following things to him: “Look, Kyle. You come off odd, okay? Strange. So you have to accept it and change some of this shit you do.”
My sister has also told him, “Don’t ever rock back and forth in your chair like that at school, Kyle. You look like a dying turkey. Sit straight and don’t fiddle and for God’s sakes if your food touches other food in the school cafeteria don’t look at it like the freakin’ world has come to an end” and “Kyle, smile. Okay? No. Not like that. You look like you want to fart. Smile normal. Oh, my God. Are we going to have to practice smiling? Yes, smile like that. In a friendly way, not like you’re a robot.”
And, most important, “Kyle, I love you so much.”
Kyle told me once that with his mother’s help, “I am learning to act in a more normalized manner, socially speaking, within the educational construct of my high school, which has many perplexing and changing cultural dynamics. Each day Mother and I address my questions in the Questions Notebook. Mother is extremely wise.”