Bear

Chapter 38

In her bedroom, alone, Sam worked. There was nothing else she was better at than this. She had perfected, over years, the ability to set herself to an ugly task. One month earlier, this bear had appeared at their door and ruined everything, but Sam was not going to let its influence last one minute longer. Once the bear was gone, the sisters would, in their long love and mutual grief, mend. Sam had messed up, yes, and she might’ve lost Elena’s trust, but she wasn’t going to lose Elena herself. She wasn’t going to let an animal take her sister away.

First she emailed Madeline Pettit to tell her to fuck off. At least on that front, Elena had been right all along: no outsider could ever help them. Allowing Madeline’s involvement had been a blunder. Sam had learned her lesson.

She texted Danny, then, though it was late, a Sunday night, and awkward. Who cared? If he really was so dedicated to her sister, he could put up with a text message to prove it. Sam’s innards felt coated in cooled metal. The rage she’d carried had turned from fire to something cold and hard. Inside her, certainty. She wasn’t going to give up Elena, even if Elena declared she was willing to give up Sam.

His reply made the phone vibrate in Sam’s hands. She tapped out a rapid response: he had once told her he would lend them his dog, so she would like the dog, please, and his gun. She was forced to wait longer than she would’ve liked for him to write back. While he, next door, took his time, she searched online for what scared bears away. Loud noises. Sudden movements. One website recommended a water balloon coated in peanut butter and filled with bleach. That sounded good, she thought, and then Danny responded, saying he’d heard from Elena that the bear stuff was getting complicated with the sheriff, and he didn’t want to get in the middle of anything. Coward. Fool.

Sam pressed her phone to her forehead and deliberated. Then she put her thumbs back to the screen to hammer out her appeal. Had he seen this bear? He hadn’t? Sam had. It approached Elena—it was aggressive. Had Elena told him that? The scientists from the state had warned Elena against calling it to her, because that would make it behave more riskily, but she’d persisted, and that’s why the sheriff had gotten involved. Did he know that? He didn’t. Danny, Sam wrote, you say to trust her, and I do, I always have, but this is different. This is dangerous. If you care about Elena, you’ll understand why we have to keep her away from it. It’s got to be chased off before something terrible happens.

The Danny they’d grown up with would ignore all this in favor of school dances and soccer practice. But the Danny who’d fixed their siding—well. Sam waited to see. She expected a response from that sweet, trusting, bearded man, the one she’d sat in quiet beside. Instead she got a text from the person she’d suspected and never yet spoken to, the one who hid between the two far-apart versions of himself Danny showed the world. Here was the real one. Jealous. The one capable of doing harm. No I didn’t know that, he wrote back. But to be honest I guess some part of me’s not surprised to find out. I know she hides stuff/has been hiding stuff. She’s been more distant lately. I could tell. Yeah you’re right Sam. She read that message cold and clear. It came as comfort, in a way, to have this confirmation: people who could grasp what Sam was saying would only come from this particular place. He wrote, El needs us even if she can’t admit it yet. The way she acts about this thing is crazy. It is time for someone to make it stop.