Bonnie Nadzam - Lamb

“Emily?”

Lamb gave Linnie an odd smile. “That’s right.” Lamb raised his index finger at Linnie to shush her and turned to the man at the door. Linnie stood, the blankets and rug wrapped around her, and immediately sat down again. She looked at the child not with sympathy or concern but with rage. The girl did not look at Linnie.

“It’s a not a shed,” the girl said. “There’s a whole bedroom.”

Linnie stared at her.

“That’s right,” Lamb said. “Bunk beds and books and blankets and snacks.” He looked down at the child and smiled at her, then winked at the man in the doorway.

“Everything’s okay here, then?” the man asked again.

“Sure, we’re great,” David said, and he wrapped Tommie in an afghan and sat her on the edge of the pull-out couch beside Linnie. The two did not look at each other. Tommie’s eyes were fixed to the cabin floor and Linnie’s upon Lamb.

“What about you? Are you down at the Fosters’?”

The man outside the door finally extended his hand. “I’m Emory Foster. My mother passed away day before yesterday.”

“Oh.” David shifted his eyes and his weight. “I’m sorry to hear that. It must hurt.” He ignored Linnie and Tommie completely now, kept his eyes and attention entirely upon the man. “How is your father doing? Can we help?”

“Well, actually he asked me if I’d come down here and just let you know. My wife’s up there with him now, and we’ll be expecting Doug Michaels—the county coroner—an old family friend. He’ll be along shortly.”

“Okay.”

“We just got a couple drifts in the drive and”—he looked out behind him at the road—“I think most of this will clear up through the day, but I can plow us a straight line from here to the house while I’m at it.”

“Please. Go right ahead. Or”—he touched his chest—“do you want me to do it? Maybe you want to be inside with your father and wife?”

“Oh, no. Little air will do me good. I’d appreciate it. I’ll bring back a second cleared line when I return the plow. Make it easier on Doug that way.”

“Well.” Lamb looked for the first time at Linnie and Tommie, then back to Emory. “Fact is we were all planning on shipping out today.”

Tommie and Lamb glanced at each other.

“We were just going to make a family breakfast the three of us and ship out.”

Emory nodded. “Okay. Well, I’ll do this right away and get back case you need it too.” He looked back again, at the girl, and at Linnie. “Though I think it’ll clear up pretty quick.”

“It’s a bright sun at this altitude.”

“It is.”

“Emory.” Lamb extended his hand again. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks.” He leaned into the house and waved. “Good to meet you, Emily. Hope you’re feeling better soon.”

She looked at the man in the doorway but said nothing.

Emory Foster pushed the snowplow from the drive up the road into the jewelry of early winter. Lamb stooped down and asked the child if she wanted hot chocolate, then asked if the fire was still going in the shed. Linnie sat frozen in place while Lamb put on his boots to walk Tommie outside. As he was stepping out into the snow, he turned back.

“You want some hot chocolate too, Linnie?”

“Sure. No. David?”

“I’ll be right back. It’s a bit of an odd situation but everybody’s okay, I’ll tell you in a minute. I just want to see about her stomach and make sure she doesn’t have a fever. She’s been sick. I didn’t want you getting sick.”

“You didn’t even say.”

“It’s okay. Everybody’s okay. I’ll be right back.” And he pulled the door shut and went back out into the shop with Tommie.

And they hadn’t a minute alone again—not David and Linnie nor Linnie and the girl. David explained he really should take the girl back to her mother, her fever had broken but she wasn’t well and the time they were going to spend out here fishing and camping had pretty much been snowed out. Her father—my little brother Nel, he explained—died years ago and it had fallen to Lamb to be the occasional father figure.

“She never remarried?”

“She tried once—twice, actually—but it was no good.”

“Sad.”

“It is. You would’ve liked Nel.”

“How much younger was he?”

“Four years.”

“Oh.”

“He was a blondie.”

“I’m sorry, David. I didn’t know.”

“Let’s reschedule this for… first of the year, you and me. We’ll rent something with big wheels and come back out, right? Drive through the nineteen feet of snow.”

“I’d love that.”

“This seems like a bad time doesn’t it. Emily sick, Foster’s wife suddenly gone, unexpected snow. Let’s all get home. I’ll take the girl back to her mother.”

“It’s Chicago?”

“Michigan. Muskegon.”

“Ah.”

“Her mother drove her to Chicago, but I’ll take her all the way back up.” Linnie nodded.

“David.”

“Lin.”

“Why the story? About the kid who disappeared?”

He lifted his chin, a thin-lipped smile on his face, as if to convince the day around him that he was smiling and not about to sob again like a boy. There’d been enough of that.

“Now that we can be… you know… closer, you’ll learn more about my family.”

“And you mine,” she said. “But I don’t understand.”

“Be patient with me, Lin. Please. I need that from you.”

She was quiet a moment and studied him. He smiled.

“Excuse me just a minute, will you?”

Lamb went to the girl in the shop to help her gather up her own things while Linnie packed up her car.

“We get the afternoon together,” he told Tommie.

“We do?”

“And the night. And tomorrow. And the next day. Our last day.”

“Three days?”

“We’ll have you home on day twenty. That’s almost four times as long as we originally said.”

“I know.”

“Do you forgive me?”

“I wanted to stay.”

“It wasn’t my idea?”

“It was our idea.”

“Equal partners?”

“Equal partners.”

“Good. Sweetheart, listen. She’ll be gone within the hour. You stay put and I’ll get dressed.”

When Lamb was loading up Linnie’s rental, checking the air pressure in the tires and the oil for her, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, she went into the shop, rooted around in the cooler for a snack for the road, put a Little Debbie cake and a can of pineapple juice into her purse, walked over to the bunk room door, stood before it. Just a moment. Then she walked over to the woodstove and rubbed her hands before rejoining Lamb on the driveway, where she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind and kissed his neck.

“Let’s move out here to live.”

“How about we try a single week in the middle of winter and see how much you still like it?” He turned around to face her.

“I can’t wait to see you in Chicago.”

“You tell Wilson I’m doing good by you.”

“You think he knows?”

“You’re just a dumb kid sometimes.” He grinned, and they loaded her up. “The whole reason I invited you out here was so I’d be able to keep my job.” She started the engine and rolled down the window.

“I’ll call you from the airport and leave you messages.”

“I love your messages.”

“I might have to whisper them, so turn up the volume on your phone.”

He turned a dial near the side of his head. “All my ears are on.”

“Mine too.”

“Kiss me.”

“See you in six days.”

“Six days. Put your seat belt on.”

The girl was savage inside the bunk room.