Chapter 20 #2
But standing in that corridor watching her hold herself together through the worst day of her life, that uncertainty was gone. What replaced it was the clear, hard knowledge of my feelings for Scout. I couldn't deny those feelings any longer, even if they scared me.
Things were still complicated and maybe they always would be.
Claire still had a powerful hold on me, one that was different from Scout, but growing with every moment I spent with her and her family.
And though it pained me to admit it, Grace had become a source of joy in my life that I had long been missing.
These tangled feelings were real, but for now they could wait. What mattered was Scout and making sure I helped her with everything I had.
I walked back and sat beside her.
"I got you something."
I held up the package. Scout looked at it. Her brow furrowed.
"It's a phone. Prepaid, one year of service. I'll program my number into it so you can reach me."
She took the package and turned it over in her hands. Then she looked at my face. The exhaustion in her eyes made my heart ache.
I put my arm around her shoulders. She leaned into me, and her hand came up and gripped my forearm with a strength that surprised me. Her fingers dug in. She held on.
"I was just thinking," she said. "Remembering when we first moved to the woods. Everything was so overwhelming. The trees, the sounds at night, the way the dark differed from anywhere I'd been before."
Her voice was quiet but steady.
"One morning when I was eight, same age as DJ, I saw a red fox near the cabin.
It was so beautiful. Its coat was glossy and its eyes were so intelligent I thought it might speak to me if I waited long enough.
It turned and walked into the trees, looking over its shoulder like it was inviting me to follow it and so I followed it.
I don't know how far. I was small and the brush was thick and I thought I was tracking it, the way Father had started teaching me to track deer.
But the fox was gone, and when I turned around, nothing looked familiar. "
She paused. Her grip on my forearm didn't loosen.
"I knew I was lost. I called for my father until my throat was raw. Nothing answered. The trees all looked the same. I couldn't find the path. I couldn't find anything. When it started getting dark I curled up under a Douglas fir and sobbed until I couldn't breathe."
The waiting room hummed around us. The television flickered silently in its corner.
"When my father found me I cried harder than I ever have in my life. I just shook apart in his arms while he carried me home. I was ashamed of it afterward. I told him I was sorry for being stupid. He said I wasn't stupid. He said I was lost, and those were different things."
She looked up at me.
"The funny thing? I thought I was miles deep in the wilderness, but I was actually less than a hundred yards from the cabin. Father said that was a good reminder. Help is always closer than you think, if you can find it."
Her mouth curved into a smile, her lips trembling.
"I found help the day I came upon you sleeping naked beside your pond," she whispered. "And so much more than help."
I leaned down and kissed her, gentle and soft. She kissed me back the same way, her hand still gripping my forearm. When we separated, she rested her head against my shoulder and closed her eyes.
I felt her body release some of its tension. Not all of it, but just enough for her to rest.
An hour later, a nurse approached.
"Miss Flint?"
Scout straightened. "Yes."
"Your father's been stabilized. We're moving him to Acute Care.
The pulmonary team will want to speak with you in the morning, but his oxygen levels are responding to treatment and his vitals are steady.
The doctor said to plan on him staying with us for three days, minimum. He'll brief you in Acute Care."
"Acute Care, not Intensive Care?" I asked.
"That's right. That's a good sign."
Scout absorbed this. "Can I stay with him?"
"There's a foldout chair in the room. It's not the Ritz, but it works." The nurse's face softened. "Your father is a tough man. He's going to be okay."
The nurse said someone would come get Scout when her father was settled in. She gave Scout a professionally reassuring smile and left.
Scout turned to me.
"I need paper and a pen."
"What do you need to write?"
"A list. Things that have to be done at the homestead while I'm here.
The goats need feeding and watering. Cincinnatus gets into the garden if the gate latch isn't secured properly, you have to lift it and push it left, not right.
The garden needs checking, the beans are close, but the deer fencing has a hole.
Father's solar batteries need the charge levels read every morning. And more things I have to write down."
She was organizing, being Abner's daughter. Methodical, practical, her mind already reaching across four hours of highway to the homestead and the animals and the systems her father had built and that could not be left untended.
I found a pen at the nurses' station and a piece of paper from a notepad. I brought them back. Scout wrote the list in her careful, slightly old-fashioned handwriting, each item numbered, each instruction precise. She handed it to me.
"I'll handle everything," I said. "Whatever you need. For as long as you need."
She nodded. Her chin was firm. Her eyes were clear. Her back was straight.
And then it all finally broke down.
The control she had maintained since the clearing.
Through the ambulance and the oxygen mask and her father's blue face on the stretcher.
Through the drive to Forks in silence. Through the phone call that rerouted everything to Seattle.
Through watching a helicopter carry her father into the sky.
Through four hours on the highway, watching the world pass through the windshield, landscapes she didn't recognize.
Through the waiting room and the institutional chairs and the brief meeting with her ailing father.
All of it released at once.
She fell against me and her body shook. The sobs came quietly from deep inside her. Her fingers twisted into the fabric of my shirt. Her face pressed into my chest. She shook and shook and I held her. Stroked her hair. Let the silence do what words could not.
It passed the way weather passes. Gradually, then all at once. The shaking slowed. The grip on my shirt loosened by degrees. Her breathing steadied. She pulled back and looked up at me through eyes that were red and wet and entirely unashamed.
"Thank you, Thomas. For all of it. For everything you've done."
Scout smiled. I smiled. We kissed, soft and unhurried. Then we rested our foreheads together, eyes open, recognizing ourselves in each other's gaze.