Carrie Jones: Need

"Little bitter there, sweetheart?"

“Yeah. I know. I'm sorry."

Betty smiles. "Bitter is better than nothing. From what your mom says you've been awful depressed, nothing like your normal stubborn, save-the-world self."

"He died, Betty."

"I know, sweetie. But he would want us to keep living. God, that's a cliche, but it's true."

Betty's pretty decent as far as grandmothers go. She used to head up a life insurance company, but then my grandfather died and she retired. She didn't have anything to do other than play golf or go fishing, so she decided to start some new ventures.

"I'm going to improve myself and then the community," she told my dad. So she started running, and trained until she could compete in the Boston Marathon at the age of sixty-five. That goal achieved, she got a black belt. Then, she decided to become an EMT. So that's what she does now. She's the head EMT for Downeast Ambulance in Bedford, Maine. She doesn't let them pay her, though.

"I have retirement money. I want them to give it to the young guys with families," she explained to my dad back when she first started riding ambulances. "It's only fair."

Grandma Betty is big on fair.

"I'm not sure how fair it is you being stuck with an old coot like me," she says as we drive down Route

1A toward Bedford.

I shrug because I don't want to talk about it.

Grandma Betty notices. "The leaves are beautiful, aren't they?"

That's her way of letting me not talk about it.

"They sure are," I say. We drive past all the trees turning colors. It is a last stand, I know. Soon they'll be naked and dead looking. They're beautiful, but they're barely hanging on to the branches. They'll plunge off soon. Lots already have. They'll rot on the ground, get raked up, burned, trampled on. It's not easy being a leaf in New England.

I shiver again.

"You know we're all just worried about you?"

I shrug: it's all I can bring myself to do.

Betty turns up the heat and it blasts in my face. She laughs. "You look like a model with the fan blowing your hair so you look suitably sexy."

"I wish,” I mumble. "You'll adjust to the cold," "It's just so different from Charleston, so cold and bleak…" I put my head in my hands and then realize how melodramatic that is. "I'm sorry. I'm so whiny."

"You're allowed to whine."

"No, I'm not. I hate whining. I have nothing to whine about, especially not to you. It's just the land in Maine isn't half as lush or alive. It looks like the whole state is getting ready to be buried under snow for winter-a season of death. Even the grass looks likes it's given up."

She laughs and makes a creepy voice, "And the trees. They crowd in on you so that you can't see off in the distance and you can't see what is on the ground, hiding in the ferns or behind the tree trunks, in the bushes."

My hand presses against the cold glass window. I make a hand print.

"It's not a horror movie, Zara." She smiles at me so I know she's kind of sympathetic, but also teasing.

This is how Betty is.

"I know."

"Maine is cold compared to Charleston, though. You're going to have to bundle up here." "Yep."

Cheimaphobia."You still chanting phobias?" "Did I say it out loud?"

"Yep." Her hand leaves the steering wheel and she pats my leg for a second before adjusting the heat again. "I've got a theory about that."

"You do?"

"Yeah, I think you are one of those people who believe that if you can name something, then you can overcome it, conquer it, which is what you're going to have to do about your dad dying. And I know that it hurts, Zara, but-" "Betty!" There's a tall guy standing on the side of the road, not moving, just staring.

Betty jerks the truck across the double yellow line and then puts us back where we belong.

"Crap!" she yells. "Idiot!"

She's almost panting. My hands clutch my seat belt.

She pulls in a couple big breaths and says, "Don't start talking like me or your mom will kill me." I finally manage to speak. "You saw him?" "Of course I did. Damn fool standing on the side of the road. It's a good thing I saw him too, or else I'd have run him over."

I stare at her, trying to figure it out. Then I look behind us, but we've gone around a curve, and even if the tall man was still there I wouldn't be able to see him anymore.

"You really saw him?" I ask.

"Of course I did. Why did you ask?"

"You'll think I'm stupid."

"Who says I don't already?" She laughs so I know she's joking.

"You are one mean grandmother."

"I know. So, why did you ask?"

She's not the type to give up, so I try to make it sound like no big deal. "I just keep thinking I see this same guy everywhere, this tall, dark-haired, pale guy.

That couldn't be him, though."

"You saw this guy in Charleston?"

I nod. I wish my feet could touch the Door so I wouldn't feel so stupid and little.

She thinks for a split second. "And now you're seeing him here?"

"I know. It's silly and weird."

"It's not silly, honey, but it is most definitely weird." She honks at another truck heading the other way.

"John Weaver. He builds houses. Volunteer firefighter, good guy. Zara, honey, I don't mean to scare you, but I want you to stay in the house at night, okay? No fooling around, no going out."

"What?"

"Just humor an old woman."

"Tell me why."

"A boy went missing last week. People are worried that something happened to him" "He could've just run away."

"Maybe. Maybe not. That's not the whole reason, though. Look, my job is all about saving people, right?

And I know you are used to training at night in Charleston, but there aren't that many streetlamps here. I don't want to be scraping my own granddaughter off the Beechland Road, got it?"

"Sure." I stare at the trees and then I start laughing because it's all so ridiculous. "I'm not running much anymore."

"You aren't doing anything much anymore is what I hear."

"Yeah." I pick at the string around my finger. It's part of a rug my dad bought. It used to be white but now it's sort of a dull gray.

I shudder. Grandma Betty and I toss back some tidbits for the rest of the ride, and I try to lecture her about the War on Terror's impact on worldwide human rights issues. My heart's not in it though, so most of the time we're pretty quiet.

I don't mind.

"Almost home," she says. "I bet you're tired." "A little."

"You look tired. You're pale."

Betty's house is a big Cape with cedar shingles and a front porch. It looks cozy and warm, like a hidden burrow in the cold woods. I know from what my mom told me that there are three bedrooms upstairs and one down. The inside is made of wood and brick with a high ceiling in the kitchen, a woodstove in the living room.

The first thing Betty does when we pull into the driveway is wave her hand at the Subaru parked there.

My mouth drops open. I manage to say, "It still has the sticker in the window."

"It's brand new. The driving's tough in Maine. I wanted you to be safe. And I can't be driving you around everywhere like some sort of damn chauffeur."

"You swore."

"Like a fisherman. Better get used to it," She eyes me. "Like the car?"

I fling my arms around her and she chuckles, patting my back. "Not a big deal, sweetie. It's still in my name, you know. Nothing big."

"Yes, it is." I jump out of the truck and run over to the car, hugging the cold, snow-covered metal until my fingers freeze stiff and Betty hustles me inside.

"I don't deserve this," I say.

"Of course you do."

"No, I don't."

"Don't make me swear at you. Just say thank you and be done with it."

"Thank you and be done with it."

She snorts. "Punk."

"I just… I love it, Betty." I throw my arms around her again. The car is the first good thing that's happened in Maine. It is the first good thing that has happened in a long time.