Chapter 25. Fisher
“Hold still,” I admonish.
“It’s harder than you think,” Sage replies.
She has no idea. I’ve convinced her to let me attempt painting her toenails—a difficult enough task on its own, to be honest. But I might be a sadist after all, because I also thought it would be fun for her to stay naked during this foray into arts and crafts. I’ve got one of her dining chairs at the foot of her bed, her feet braced on my thighs, and the rest of her less than a yard away, bare beneath a sheet. Every time she wiggles, I get peeks of her that threaten to unman me.
After dessert—a strawberry-rhubarb madeleine, with a vanilla crémeux and pops of lemon—we jogged back to her house again, crashing and colliding along the way. We made it to the bed that time, then fell into the most restful sleep I can recall. I woke to the sound of her shuffling around, bottles clicking together as she rifled through her collection. After brushing teeth and taking care of basic human needs, we wound up here.
I think subconsciously I thought that getting physical might ease this feeling in me, but I feel myself tripping precariously into that addiction. Sage is honest and curious and vibrant in everything she does. Anytime I set out to tantalize her, she naturally ends up wrecking me.
Her free heel grazes me through my briefs like she can read my mind.
“Hold. Still,” I warn again. She dips her chin innocently. “I don’t think I can redo these.” I blow on her toes to speed up the drying process. Magenta, the color of a marionberry stain.
“What else do you want to do today?” she asks. “Indy comes home tomorrow?”
I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do. “This,” I admit, polishing the last layer on her pinkie toe. “Talk, eat, lie around—” I wag my brows. “Eat again. Happy Fourth of July, by the way.”
“Fireworks imminent,” she replies.
I find her laughing eyes, and my mouth waters. She’s so damn captivating. Sleep rumpled and still disheveled from the night (and half day) before. She blinks and calms when she sees whatever change comes over my expression.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she says.
That fate is cruel and wonderful. That I am already so twisted up in this maze and don’t want it to wash away. “That you’re very, very beautiful, Sage.” Her color heightens, and it only emphasizes the point.
From somewhere below, a phone starts to ring.
She clears her throat self-consciously. “I’d better get that,” she says. “I can’t imagine who would be calling me.”
“No!” I say, then, more calmly, “I’ll go grab it for you. Don’t—don’t mess up your toes.”
Approximately an hour later, I find myself driving past the border of Spunes, a vibrating Sage in the passenger seat.
“Are you nervous or excited?” I say with a poorly suppressed laugh. “I can’t tell.”
“Both,” she replies, hands clenched in her lap. “I need you to help me keep it under control, Fisher. I can’t take on too much more. I shouldn’t take on anything more.”
I press my lips together to stop a smirk. “Sweetheart, it’ll be all right.”
“I mean it, Fisher!” she cries. “Do not let me come out of there with more than a cat. Maybe, like, a normal-sized dog, okay? I don’t need any other big pets. And for the love of everything holy, do not let me near any fucking ferrets or birds.”
It’d been Dr. Serena calling Sage, letting her know that a hobby farm outside of town had been abandoned when the owner passed unexpectedly. The family has no use for all the animals left behind, so Serena asked Sage to come and see if she might have room for anything. She was suspiciously vague on the variety of species. Sage has been wringing her hands ever since.
“You don’t get it,” she says. “Something comes over me. I swear to god if I cry, you’d better not laugh.”
She stabs a vicious finger my way. I snatch it and give it a bite just to see if it’ll break her anxious haze. When that doesn’t seem to work, I hold her hand on her thigh.
“Hey,” I say, waiting for her to look my way. “You know no one can make you do anything you don’t wanna do, yeah? It’s okay if you can’t take on another animal. We can turn around right now and it won’t make you a bad person at all.”
Her head hits the seat behind her miserably. “That’s the problem. I want to. I’ll want them all. I always want them,” she says in defeat.
That something that’s been there since the day she cried into my chest wedges in a little further.
“Well, it’s not like we have a trailer to transport anything large, anyway,” I say.
She looks at me like she’s already apologizing.
“Ohmygod, Fisher,” Sage wails. “Feel my forehead.”
“I—hang on,” I say, frightened. I have a baby Nigerian Dwarf goat under each arm. I had no idea how tiny they were. Someone should have warned me. Their entire bodies each fit in my palms. I’d been defenseless. I easily finagle both into one arm and lay my knuckles against her brow. “Also, why?”
She faces me with shining eyes and nutty glee. “I think I have a fever of some kind.”
She isn’t warm at all, so I can only discern that she’s referencing whatever spirit has overcome her in the midst of all the infant livestock. The real issue is that I can’t seem to get a grip myself. I let out a shaky sigh at Bert and Ernie. At least these two are already weaned. I managed to talk her away from the emus, and the housebroken raccoon couldn’t go to a home with any cats. I feel both my luck and feeble resolve wearing thin.
“This,” Sage excitedly declares, “is Rosemary, and this is Ginger.” She leads me and the boys into a barn and to a stall that appears empty.
“I see nothing.” Shit, maybe she really is possessed.
“Look over the door, Fisher,” she explains.
When I do, my first thought is that at least they will all fit in the truck.
“I mean,” I say, “their names are Rosemary and Ginger. I feel like that’s gotta be a cosmic sign.”
“Miniature donkeys?!” Indy exclaims when she gets back the following day. She’s been home for four minutes and is already jetting back out of the house.
“And a pair of goats,” I say, laughing at her intensity. “Wait! Tell me about your weekend. You had a good time?”
“Just walk with me,” she replies irritably, rushing down the porch stairs. “And yes, it was nice. We made s’mores and watched fireworks. The normal things. Nothing untoward.” She devours the meadow with lengthy strides. “And how was your weekend?”
“Nice,” I say, voice an octave too high. “Cooked. Hung out with Sage.” A very different sort of fireworks display. I have no idea why she celebrated me so fervently again last night when I’d technically let her down in terms of holding her accountable. I gulp at the memory of her pushing me into the chair in the sunroom and yanking down my pants. Her on her knees and her messy, hot mouth around me. “Nothing untoward.” Indy’s eyes narrow at me—dubious and shrewd, the understanding plain on her face. I step past her and into the barn.
“They have to stay quarantined in here for a few days, but then Sage will introduce them to Bud,” I say. We find Sage in their stall, smiling up at us with Ginger’s brown-and-white-spotted head in her lap. “That’s Ginger, and that’s Rosemary. They’re mother and daughter.”
A strange look comes over Indy’s face. “Rosemary’s the mom?” she asks.
“Yeah. Go on in if you want.”
“They’re very sweet,” Sage adds.
Indy unlatches the stall door and lets herself in carefully, walking over to sit beside Sage. She looks happy and young again, rubbing at the fluffy fur on Ginger’s belly.
Rosemary pauses in her snacking and marches over to Indy as cautiously as Indy had approached her babe. They regard each other for a moment, before Rose lowers her head in some sort of offering. Indy presses her forehead into hers and closes her eyes.
Memories hit me with violent clarity.
When Freya was seventeen and I was sixteen, still living at home. Indy only months old, Freya balancing her on her lap, Indy gnawing on a chubby fist.
“It’s you and me, kid,” Freya said with their foreheads pressed together. “I guess your uncle sometimes, too.”
When Indy got her first bike one year for Christmas, she slipped on ice and scraped up her arm.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” Freya said, head against Indy’s as she calmed her down. “Now, you’re gonna get back on that bike and pedal home, kid. You know why? Because riding a bike is one of the greatest things. You might get hurt again, but you’re gonna have so much fun before that. The important thing is to have courage and try again. And what is courage, Indy?”
A sniffle. Indy’s tiny voice saying, “Courage is a muscle.” You strengthen it with use.
Indy turns to me now, but where I let out a wet and wistful chuckle, her face pinches closer to rage, eyes darting back and forth, overcome with what I can only guess are similar flashbacks. She blinks and looks around as if coming out of a trance before I watch it carve itself in her body language—the helpless anger when she’s reminded of her mom and the injustice of the world again, the fear that she’s become too attached to something that might hold her back. She gets up, fighting hard for control, and flees.
Sage gives me a baffled look. I give her one I hope conveys that I’ll explain it to her later, and I head back out after Indy.
She tries to slam the front door on me at the house, but I catch it and close it quietly at my back.
“What are you doing?” she snaps. “There’s obviously more going on with you and Sage.”
“Indy—”
“Just because you’re lost or going through some shit, do not tell me you’re gonna abandon your whole life and give it all up to slum it on some farm!” she spits. “What a cop-out.”
“That’s enough,” I seethe. “Say what you feel, but don’t you dare disrespect that woman when she has been nothing but kind to you.”
She scoffs and paces angrily, slapping at a tear. “I can’t do it, Fisher. I lasted three years in that place without Mom. Without anyone. The town cautionary tale my whole fucking life. Don’t make me be the new sob story in another small, shitty place. Don’t make me trade one for another.” And then, more vehemently, “You already signed me up for school! I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do! I don’t want to get stuck.”
More memories. Whore spray-painted on our driveway in big red letters. Freya, after driving me three hours to the nearest airport, waving goodbye to me with a toddler Indy in her arms. The feeling that I could finally breathe when the plane lifted off.
“I thought you were having a good summer here, Ind. You seem like… like you’ve made some friends?”
She looks at me in frightened outrage. “I’m making the best of being here! Why wouldn’t I do that?! I’m just doing what I thought I was supposed to do,” she sobs.
I pull her into a tight hug, even as I feel like I’m breaking, too. “You won’t get stuck, Indy,” I assure her. Because I know she’s right. I can’t abandon my life. I’ve done that before. I have to stay steady for her now, after deserting her twice. She deserves that—feeling like someone wants her to get what she wants. Like someone still sees her and puts her first. And I still want to make that comeback again. Especially from a better place, mentally. “We’re going back to New York at the end of summer. I promise.” And just like that, some of the sand gets carried away, taking a piece of me with it.