Nicola Griffith - Stay

“Things didn’t go so well in Arkansas, huh?”

“No. Well, yes, sort of.”

“Well, that’s clear.” Déjà vu. She shut the stove door. “Have you eaten? One thing I learned while you were gone: you can cook a whole meal in one pan if you just fry everything. How about steak, eggs, and fried potatoes? And then you can tell me all about it.”

She cooked. We drank coffee with our meal. In the mixed lamp- and firelight, Tammy’s rounded cheeks glowed like those of an ancient, burnished idol.

“You look good,” I said. She raised her eyebrows. “The mix of softness and strength suits you.”

“I feel pretty good. More at home with myself, you know what I mean?”

“Yes.” At least sometimes.

“So now I want to hear about Arkansas.”

I told her about the Carpenters, of Luz and her Spanish and Adeline’s covert fostering of it. Of Jud and his discomfort with strangers, of Button and his odd eyes. Of Goulay, and Mike.

“You tied him up like a pretzel?”

“He looked more like a pool triangle, actually.”

“I don’t get how he got his hands loose to hit you.”

“I was careless. I made an assumption—that he wouldn’t be flexible enough to step backwards through the belt and get his hands to the front.”

“Well, hey, you won in the end, even if you did get a few more dings to add to your collection. But the letting-them-go part doesn’t seem too smart.”

“I couldn’t turn them over to the police, because then I would have had to explain how I’d come by my information.” She gave me a crooked smile, and eventually I nodded. “Killing them would have upset Luz.”

“They might come and find you.”

“They can’t, and they won’t. They’re going to be only too glad to forget I exist.”

She gave me a look. “Oh, right. You said you’d be shutting down their business. That’s pretty easy to forget.”

“True. Except it’ll be my lawyer doing the watching.” Bette already had the preliminary information, and was busily amassing more. When we had sufficient hard evidence, she would—without using my name or Luz’s details—bring in the child welfare agencies, charities, and news organizations, the crusaders and rights groups, and INS. There had to be a way of helping these children without wholesale deportation. Meanwhile, if Goulay broke or even bent so much as a traffic ordinance, Bette would tie her up in knots.

Then I told Tammy about Luz. “So Adeline has told her I’m an honorary aunt. But I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, if I should have left her or taken her away. How can you tell if a child is getting what she needs?”

“Jesus, if you could answer that one you’d be pulling down the big bucks as a parenting guru.” She grinned. “Imagine the Oprah show: ‘Well, Oprah, you tell them what to do, and if they don’t, you kill them and buy another.’ No,” she said hastily, seeing the look on my face, “you’ll figure it out after a while. It’s like anything else: you get better with practice.”

“Do you think I’ll do a good job?”

She looked at me, fascinated. “Are you asking me for reassurance?”

Being vulnerable got easier with practice, too. “I suppose I am.”

“This has got to be a first. Okay. Well, you’re stubborn and smart, and you like to be the best, so whether you end up being Fairy Godmother or the Wicked Witch to that little girl, you’ll find a way to make sure she gets a good life.” She grinned again. “As long as you don’t fuck it up. Or as long as she doesn’t. It takes two, you know.”

It takes two. “Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“I took that job at Sonopress—start Monday. I found an apartment in Asheville, it’s small but it’ll work for a while. I got the utilities turned on day before yesterday and the phone went in today.”

“I guessed. All your things were gone.” I paused. “Dornan was here. He told me you talked.”

“How is he?”

“About as you’d expect. Sad. But no blame.”

“I’m not sure I deserved him.”

“People aren’t merit badges.” Which is a good thing because I had never deserved Julia. People just… choose, and then leave, one way or another.

Tammy got up, went to her jacket, and pulled out her cell phone. “I don’t need this now.”

“Keep it, just transfer the account to your name.”

She nodded. Thanks would have been ridiculous. “I’m taking the car back tomorrow. I’ll make sure they run it on my plastic, now that I’ve got an address to bill things to. Here’s the new address and phone number.”

A three-by-five card with that strong black lettering I’d first noticed weeks ago when I had searched through her papers. I put the card in my pocket.

“Dree said she’ll introduce me around, and I’ll meet people just doing my job. It’ll be cool not being in the city for a while. You’re going back, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I was quiet for a few minutes. A year ago, Tammy would have been unable to bear the silence. Now she just got up and brought the coffeepot to give us both a refill, and settled back comfortably, happy to wait. “I don’t know. To be in the world. It’s home.”

My muscles lay lazy and loose on my bones, the food sat well in my stomach, the mug warmed my hand. I sighed and leaned back. Tammy’s weight shifted slightly with the couch cushion, touching me now at hip and thigh. As we breathed her jeans rubbed against mine, seam to seam, but there was no question being asked, and no answer needed. The tension was gone.

She kept her T-shirt on and climbed under the covers, and when I came to bed she took me in her arms and I rested my face on her breast, and we lay like that for half an hour, not talking, not moving, just holding and being held, until our hearts slowed, and our breathing softened, and we slept.

I didn’t wake in the middle of the night; I had no bad dreams; I slept, neither protector nor protected, just one human being next to another, mending.

When we woke, I made breakfast, and she left at first light.

By midday the yellow snow clouds began dropping their load and fat flakes sifted down in silence. The Subaru tracks were invisible within ten minutes. I packed the truck bed carefully, snow boots and shovel on top, just in case. The woodworking tools were well oiled and wrapped in tarps, the hogpen securely locked. I’d drained the pump so freezing water didn’t split the pipe while I was away, and the cabin, ashes raked, flue shut, food removed, and bed stripped once more, was as winterproof as I could make it. I had built well. It was sturdy. It would be here when I came back in spring.

I changed my mind about the snow shovel and boots, and threw them in the backseat instead.

I made one last circuit of the clearing, beginning with the cabin, checking the door and windows, then moving on to the heath bald at the south end. The trees would soon be hidden with snow folded down on the branches like meringue. If I stood here a month from now, all would be white, with nothing but animal tracks to indicate the massive fecundity beneath. It has been here two hundred million years, a climax forest, very stable, not changing, not in the middle of turning into anything. I envied it.

A wren flittered onto the boulder I had used as a seat a few weeks ago: a tiny mouthful of a bird, fluffed against the cold like a Viennese truffle. It tilted one bright eye at me, then another, just like Luz, and flew on over the snow. Six months from now, it would have three cheeping fledglings running it ragged.

“I’ll be back,” I told it, and crunched my way to the truck.

It started with a low rumble that suited the wintry quiet, like a bear grumbling in its sleep, but once I was at the top of the track I turned off the engine, took my foot off the brake, and coasted down the road in silence.