Counting Miracles

Chapter Nine

I

“Where the hell is all the corn?”

“Maybe they ate it already.”

“That’s impossible! We just put it out here last night!”

From his refuge between the boulders and the ridge, Jasper couldn’t hear the Littletons, but he could imagine what they were saying to each other. Melton hadn’t come with them, but the brothers were standing directly over the spot where they’d left the bait.

“Are we in the right place?”

“Of course we are.”

Jasper continued to watch the darkly silhouetted figures while remaining as still as possible, knowing that even in dim light, any movement might be detected. Somehow, he’d been able to grab the corn and the rake and the flashlight; somehow, he’d been able to hobble to the boulders before finally collapsing behind the largest one. But the effort had cost him, and he’d had to bite back a groan as his back began to knot. By the time the spasm had passed, the Littletons had arrived.

Above him, the last of the stars faded away. The old saying It’s always darkest before the dawn was hogwash; anyone who watched the evening sky knew it was darkest in the middle of the night, halfway between sunset and sunrise, but what did that matter now? Dawn was coming, which meant it would soon be light enough for them to find him if they decided to search. Jasper took hold of Arlo’s collar to keep the dog from running into the open.

The Littletons continued to look around, their flashlights moving in sweeping arcs. Jasper again imagined their words.

“Maybe someone took it.”

“Who?”

“The wildlife guys, maybe?”

“It wasn’t them.”

“How do you know?”

“Hold on. I want to check something.”

A beam from one of the flashlights swung in his direction and Jasper ducked lower, grimacing in pain. How was he going to get out of here? And what would happen if they found him?

He didn’t want to think about that.

Once, decades ago, when he and Audrey had taken the kids camping near Asheville, he’d been awakened by the heavy grunting of a bear right outside his tent. The kids had been young then, sleeping together in their own tent, and Jasper immediately wiggled out of his sleeping bag and rushed to protect his children. But there’d been no bear; aside from the sound of crickets, the forest was quiet. Other tents in the campground were undisturbed, and it was only after Jasper searched the ground for prints that he finally realized he must have been dreaming. Later he wondered what he would have done had there actually been a bear nearby; he had no weapon, hadn’t even been wearing a shirt or shoes. There was nothing he could really have done other than wave his arms and scream.

That stew of initial confusion and panic was the same sensation he was experiencing now as he listened for the sound of the Littletons’ approach. Hearing nothing, he risked another quick peek over the boulder and realized they were heading toward the fallen tree. Jasper cocked his ear, concentrating, and he was finally able to make out their words.

“That’s weird.” The voice was Josh’s; Jasper would never forget the sound of it.

“What?”

“Do you smell something? I thought I smelled it back there, too, where we dumped the corn last night. Whatever it is, it stinks.”

The deer repellent, Jasper thought. And Josh hadn’t used the word stinks; he’d noted that it “ smells like f——g s——t,” spewingprofanity. Beside Jasper, Arlo yawned, letting out a squeak.

“I don’t smell anything.”

“Shut up,” Josh hissed. “Did you hear something?”

“Like what?”

“Shhhh…”

They went silent. Arlo’s ears perked up and Jasper held his breath.

“What are we listening for?”

“Would you shut the hell up?”

Jasper closed his fist around Arlo’s dog tag so it couldn’t clink against his collar. A few seconds passed, then ten. Then twenty.

“I think I smell it, too,” Eric said. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s that deer from the other day? The one you shot?”

“I don’t know.”

There was a pause. Then: “What do you want to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Since there’s no corn, maybe we should just go home.”

“We’re not going home.”

In the silence that followed, Jasper could feel his fear continue to gnaw at him, almost as though it were a living thing.

II

The first thing Jasper had done upon leaving the burn center was to have his family’s remains exhumed and brought to the property near his cabin. Jasper held his own private service and dug the graves himself, every movement agonizing, and afterward, he moved into the cabin for good. He didn’t have the money to rebuild the house, even if he’d wanted to. The insurance money he’d received barely covered his medical bills.

For months, even years, afterward, he simply wanted to die. There were moments when he pulled out his old hunting rifle and loaded it, but he could never summon the courage to use it on himself. Instead, believing that God had chosen to smite him, he set the rifle aside, knowing it was his punishment to simply bear it . Jasper, you shall suffer day and night, he imagined God saying to him, and in a twisted sense, Jasper felt that he deserved to suffer. He’d failed to protect his family when they needed him most, when everything was on the line.

Suffering, however, necessitated work, if only to survive. With his injuries, a job in construction was no longer possible, nor was any type of manual labor. Sitting at a desk for more than fifteen minutes at a stretch was excruciating, so working in an office wasn’t an option. Because part of his face and scalp had been burned, no one wanted him interacting with customers. In the end, he found a job doing stocking and other work at a local home supply store. It didn’t pay much, but then again, Jasper didn’t need much. The owner—a woman named Nell Baker—had known him and his family for years. He’d supplied the garden center part of her store with Bradford pear trees, and she was a member of the church that Jasper had once attended; Jasper assumed she’d hired him out of pity.

Between surgeries, he spent much of his time watering and fertilizing flowers, herbs, and shrubbery in the garden center. He swept and mopped and restocked shelves. The job wasn’t difficult, but because many of his sweat glands had been destroyed, he had to be careful when summer brought higher temperatures. Scar tissue made it difficult to move without pain. He began wearing a bandanna over his face. He was careful to keep his distance from customers; his scars, unhealed skin grafts, and incisions made him look like Dr. Frankenstein’s pet project. At home, he removed the bathroom mirrors and stored them in the work shed out back. Other than for work and shopping for basics, he seldom left the cabin.

He stopped reading the Bible and no longer prayed, and slowly, the years began to pass.

Work. Surgery. Recover. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. He turned fifty, and then fifty-five, before God struck again, adding yet more trials to the Book of Jasper, as though all that had occurred wasn’t quite enough.

A few years after his final surgery and a little more than ten years after the fire, the skin that had been undamaged began to itch before giving rise to pink scaly patches that resembled a poison ivy rash. The diagnosis was psoriasis. Doctors speculated that the fire might have triggered some sort of systemic autoimmune reaction, but no one could tell him for certain. What he did know was that the psoriasis continued to spread, eventually taking root in almost all the places that hadn’t been scarred. It itched to the point of madness, and the doctors tried various medications to reverse the condition, without success. Eventually, the diagnosis was changed to chronic psoriasis, and he was told he’d have to live with the condition for the rest of his life. In that moment, he knew he was a changed man.

He still had his faith; in his heart, God and Christ were as real as ever. But back at the cabin, he placed his Bible and religious carvings and photographs and albums into boxes he stored in the work shed next to the mirrors, certain that neither God nor Christ had ever really cared about him at all.

III

In the forest, morning birdcall drifted from the trees, darkness finally giving way to the gray light of dawn. Jasper remained hunkered down behind the boulder with Arlo; the Littleton brothers, meanwhile, had taken up a vigil behind the fallen tree. For the most part, they remained silent. Jasper assumed they had their rifles ready in case the white deer decided to make an appearance. No doubt they hoped it would return in search of more corn, and Jasper was happy that he’d doused the area with repellent and set out those ultrasonic gizmos.

A small rock had begun to dig into Jasper’s behind, just enough to be irritating. He wondered if trying to get rid of the rock would cause Arlo to stir, but the dog seemed to be fast asleep. Taking a chance, he shifted, trying to stay as quiet as he could. Arlo’s ears twitched but his eyes remained closed, and Jasper was finally able to flick the rock away. It helped, but only a little. Though his back seemed to be improving—albeit slightly—his knee was getting worse. It had swollen to the point that it pressed on the fabric of his pants and he felt a heated throb of pain with every heartbeat.

That was one of many irritations with growing old—injuries were more painful than ever. Worse, they took forever to heal or never fully healed at all. A few years ago, he’d jammed a finger while reaching for the cast-iron frying pan, and even now, the knuckle was larger than the others and ached when it rained. Given the condition of his knee, he figured he’d end up limping for the rest of his life, however long that might be.

Then again, what did he know? A few months back, the doctor had used the phrase “aging with dignity,” but as he’d left her office, he wondered if such a thing was possible or even, frankly, what it meant. How did one age with dignity? Did that mean being proud of the fact that you didn’t dare drive faster than the speed limit because you couldn’t see the road very well? Did it mean holding your head high even if you needed adult diapers? He wasn’t judging, mind you, even if he was secretly pleased that at least a few parts of his body still seemed to be working properly.

His thoughts were interrupted again by the sound of voices.

“I don’t think any deer are coming,” Eric whined.

“Would you keep your damn voice down?”

“I’m just saying. We’ve been out here for almost an hour already.”

“Would you shut up?”

“How long are we going to stay?”

“Why do you care? There’s no school today.”

At that, the boys went silent again. Jasper shifted, hoping to move the ache from one limb to another. The dog lifted his head at the movement, then closed his eyes again. He looked strangely content, and in that moment, Jasper was reminded of his older son, who’d always looked blissfully untroubled as he slept, especially when he was young.

David had always been the most mature and confident of all their children. Even as a toddler, he’d look people in the eye when they were speaking, and he seldom threw tantrums. Audrey used to describe him as an old soul. Even before he’d started kindergarten, he would help Audrey with his younger siblings. He would rock them or feed them and help them get dressed whenever Audrey asked, and he’d clear the table after dinner without complaint. Of all their children, he was the only one who made the bed and kept his room clean through his teenage years.

He was tall from the very beginning, with a cowlick that wasn’t tamed until adolescence. He brought his natural maturity with him to school, where he was an excellent student, well-liked by both teachers and other kids. His calm, quiet dignity made him a shoo-in for class president every year of high school.

He didn’t laugh much, however. In all the years of his childhood, Jasper had heard that joyful sound only a handful of times, and once he got to college, he seemed to become even more reticent. He didn’t seem to feel that taking care of his family and community was enough; the world’s problems somehow became his to solve. When he was home over Christmas and during the summer, he spoke little about his classes or the friends he had made. Instead, he worried about the Soviet Union, he fretted about nuclear weapons, he wanted to limit pollution and feed the starving children in Ethiopia. He expressed deep concern about declining rates of church attendance and studied the Bible for hours as though searching for the answers that eluded him. Even after deciding to become a pastor, he confessed to Jasper that he wasn’t sure he would be good enough; that if he didn’t truly understand God’s purpose for him, then how could he help others discover His purpose in their own lives?

Jasper could remember smiling at his son while James 4:10 floated through his mind ( Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up ).

He said as much before finishing with “I’m proud of you” and holding open his arms. David went into them, clinging like the child he had once been. “I love you, Pop,” he’d whispered, “and I thank God every day for you and Mom.” The words had filled Jasper’s eyes with tears and he held his oldest child for a long time.

Not long after that, David was gone forever.

IV

“What the hell is that?” Josh Littleton snarled. He was no longer even attempting to keep his voice down, and Jasper could now hear him easily.

“What?”

“Over there. By that tree. Look.”

It must have taken a moment for Eric to see what Josh had pointed out.

“Is that a sprinkler?”

Nope, Jasper thought. It’s a solar-powered ultrasonic gadget to keep the deer away.

“There are no sprinklers in the forest, you moron. Hold on. I want to check it out.”

The clearing went quiet and in his mind’s eye, Jasper saw Josh slipping the rifle strap over his shoulder and walking toward the device.

A few minutes later, he heard Josh again, his irritation plain.

“I think it makes sounds that keeps the deer away. Martin’s mom used to put things like these in her garden.”

“Who’s Martin?”

“Just shut up and take a look.”

“Who put it here? The wildlife guys?”

“It’s not the wildlife guys, you idiot. Whoever took the corn and put these here came after we left last night.”

“Then who did it?”

“Take a guess.”

It took Eric a moment. “The old burned-up guy who came to the house?”

“Ding, ding, ding!”

“But why?”

“Because he’s a…”

Jasper tuned out as Josh began cursing him, one foul word after another. “Come on,” Josh finally said, his voice thick with disgust and anger. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Things went quiet. Because Jasper was afraid to risk a glance over the boulder, he couldn’t be sure they’d left immediately, so he settled in to wait. To his relief, even though his knee continued to swell, the muscles in his back had loosened. Being forced to hide, he thought, had been a blessing in disguise, if only for the chance to recover. Just as he began to think that the coast might be clear, he heard Josh’s shout reverberate from a distance, its malice and rage poisoning the morning air.

“I KNOW YOU’RE STILL OUT HERE!”

V

Jasper gave it another hour, just to be safe. Arlo continued to doze. Jasper threaded pebbles between his fingers and watched a pair of squirrels bound along a tree branch. Above him, a hawk was circling in the sky, making bigger and bigger loops, and Jasper followed its flight pattern with fascination, just as he’d often done with Mary.

That girl had always loved animals of every kind. When she was little, her bed had been overrun with stuffed animals—a penguin, an elephant, and a pink horse—but her favorite was a plush arctic fox that she slept with for years and even took along to college. She was one of the reasons Jasper had begun whittling animals—the same kind he now made with the boy. Mary had loved them, and named them all—Wally Woodpecker or Sally Squirrel or Harry Horse—and she would play with them constantly, making up elaborate adventures for them.

It was also because of Mary that they’d owned two dogs (Bert, followed by Ernie); two cats, named Cookie and Cream; a hamster; a gerbil; and even a gecko, until it escaped out the bedroom window. Like Mitch, she loved to visit the North Carolina Zoo, and on weekends Jasper would occasionally bring her to a neighboring farm that had cows and horses as well as Tennessee fainting goats. When the goats were startled, their muscles tightened, causing them to topple over. As a little girl, Mary would clap and watch them fall over, laughing with delight; as she grew older, she felt bad for the goats and tried to make as little noise as possible in their presence. “Making them fall over is mean, Daddy,” she admonished. “Look how sweet they are.” Sometimes she’d borrow his camera to take pictures, using up entire rolls of film.

For the most part, Mary was a pigtailed tomboy, happier spending time outside than in the confines of her room. She didn’t mind getting dirty and could climb trees and hit a ball even better than her brothers. But there was a tender side to her, and not just when it came to animals. In seventh grade, she asked a boy named Michael to attend a Sadie Hawkins dance with her; when he admitted he was hoping that another girl would ask him instead, she spent the rest of the afternoon and evening crying in her room. She cried, too, when it came to studying, for she had to work harder than most to master the material. Sometimes, frustration and anxiety would get the better of her.

She didn’t always have an easy time with her younger sister, either, even though Deborah was her best friend in the world. She’d always believed that Deborah was prettier than she was. When she admitted as much to Jasper, he assured her that both were beautiful in their own ways, but his words only made her grimace. “She’s taller than I am, her hair is straight and not curly, and boys call the house every night for Deborah, but never for me.”

Jasper hadn’t known how to respond, and later, he would wonder if his failure in that moment was the reason they never spoke of it again. He pretended not to notice that Mary seldom dated in high school; he pretended not to notice when she announced that she was going to the homecoming dance with a group of girlfriends instead of the boy she had a crush on. It genuinely puzzled Jasper that the boys at her school weren’t drawn to her natural beauty and vitality; it was, and still remained, a mystery to him.

Next to animals, and much like they were for Audrey, books were Mary’s passion. She loved mysteries and adventures, and often, Jasper would see Mary and Audrey seated next to each other on the couch, each of them transported to another world in the pages of her book, both of them absently twirling thick strands of their hair.

Of all his children, Mary was the most diligent in school, working relentlessly to achieve her hard-won grades. Her study habits served her well in college; at UNC Chapel Hill, she received straight A’s every semester and remained focused on her goal of becoming a veterinarian. She also met a young man halfway through her junior year, eventually confiding at one point to Audrey that he might be the one. They continued to see each other after graduation, and both enrolled in the veterinary program at NC State. She even invited him to the house over the Christmas holidays, and Jasper noticed him stealing looks at Mary over dinner that seemed to convey the same secret longing Jasper had felt for Audrey as a youth.

It was hard to believe that just half a year after that, only the memory of Mary would remain.

VI

As the morning sun continued its ascent, Jasper waited, then waited some more. Even Arlo seemed to be getting bored by this point and probably needed water.

He hadn’t heard the boys for a long time and when he’d risked a peek over the boulder, he hadn’t seen them either. They could, of course, be waiting for him, but he couldn’t stay put much longer; if his knee continued to swell, he might not be able to move at all. As it was, he could barely bend his leg.

Deciding to risk it, he scooched closer to the boulder. Gripping it with both hands, he got his good leg into position, and tried to stand. It had been years— decades! —since he’d attempted to stand using only one leg and his thigh trembled with the exertion. He strained, trying to keep the momentum going, his thigh shaking and his back beginning to tighten again. The exertion made his vision go black around the edges, and his lungs exploded with a gasp when he was finally upright.

I’ll be damned, he thought, trying to catch his breath.

He continued to pant while keeping a tight hold on the boulder, his heart beating out of rhythm. In his pocket were the nitroglycerin tablets, and he leaned against the boulder to open the bottle. He slipped a tablet under his tongue.

Once his breathing and heartbeat stabilized, he studied the ground. He wondered for a moment if he might use the rake as a crutch or walking stick, but it was too long and lacked a place to grip. Assuming, of course, he could even reach it—or the flashlight—without falling over, which he doubted. As for the bag of corn, in his present condition, it might as well have weighed as much as a ship anchor. He’d have to leave those things behind.

Hesitantly shifting his weight to his bad leg, he tested his knee. It hurt, but the pain wasn’t crippling, and he tried again, adding more weight until he began to wince. He wondered if he’d have to get X-rays to make sure he hadn’t cracked anything, and he knew the doctor wasn’t going to be pleased about any of this. He could already imagine her shaking her head at his recklessness.

All that was in the future, though. For now, he had to get going. He spied another, slightly smaller boulder four or five feet away. He set out for it, limping and hobbling. The bones in his knee felt as though they were rubbing together, but he slowly drew closer. When he finally reached the boulder, he leaned against it, waiting for the pain to subside.

When he was ready, he looked around. There were no more boulders, so this time, he chose a nearby tree, a loblolly pine that stretched toward the sky. He started for it, clenching his teeth at the pain; for a split second he lost his balance and had to windmill his arms to stay upright. That was close, he thought. If he fell again, he knew he might not be able to get back up. He gimped forward, finally reaching the trunk. He took another moment to catch his breath.

One tree down, only a gazillion left to go.

And the ridges.

And what if the Littletons found my truck and are waiting for me there?

He forced the question away, figuring he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. Except…

He whistled to Arlo, who trotted back to his side. “Don’t go wandering off, you hear? I don’t want them to take another shot at you.”

Arlo stared at him with a dim yet loving expression. Jasper chose the next tree, steeled himself, and started slowly limping forward again. Arlo walked beside him, watching for a moment as though trying to decide if Jasper’s jerky movements signaled he was playing a game, before losing interest. Instead, he began nosing at some nearby shrubbery.

A dozen hobble-limps later, Jasper had his hands against the trunk. Again, he rested, waiting for the pain to recede. Then, after focusing, he started for yet another tree.

One at a time, he repeated. It might take hours or even all day, but I’m going to make it.

VII

At some point in the morning, Jasper lost count of the trees that had served as his way stations. The day continued to warm, and Jasper leaned, exhausted, against the thick trunk of a magnolia. From the treetops, he heard the call of a warbler—like a squeaky wheel turning round and round—mixing with the flutelike melody of a wood thrush. Their chorus made Jasper think of Deborah, whose singing voice was perhaps the most divine sound he had ever heard. He’d always called her My Little One. She was born four weeks prematurely, weighing just over four pounds. He could hold her in the palm of his hand, and in the hospital, he wondered how something so tiny could ever grow into a normal-sized human being. Mercifully, she was otherwise healthy, but for the first months of her life, Audrey held Deborah during most of her waking hours and was ready to rush to the pediatrician at the slightest sign of a failure to thrive.

But Deborah grew, just as David and Mary had, albeit at a slower pace. For years, she was in the bottom fifth percentile for her age group in both height and weight, and up until twelve or so, she remained the smallest in her class, a delicate, fine-boned girl always at the far left in the front row of any classroom photo.

Unlike Mary, Deborah didn’t have a rough-and-tumble bone in her body. She played with Barbies and loved to have Jasper brush her hair before she crawled into bed. She was always singing along with tunes on the radio, and whenever she sang with the church choir, Jasper was able to pick out Deborah’s voice, marveling at her pitch and unusual range. Sometimes when Jasper was whittling on the porch, Deborah would wander outside and ask him to listen to a song she’d just learned. He’d set the pocketknife aside and listen to his daughter’s voice, awed by the gift God had given her, which neither Audrey nor he shared.

Deborah was the most talkative of all his children, chattering away at dinners to the point where Audrey sometimes asked her to be quiet so her siblings could speak. She always had a story to tell and loved asking questions, which probably explained her popularity in school. Growing up, Deborah was invited to every classmate’s birthday party, and by the time she reached middle school, nearly every weekend was taken up with slumber parties. Jasper remembered making popcorn for her and her friends while they watched movies on television and finally forcing them to turn out the lights and stop giggling.

Her growth spurt arrived when she was a freshman in high school. In the evenings, after finishing her homework, she’d thumb through teen magazines, studying the latest techniques to apply eye shadow or lipstick. Boys began to take particular notice of her. She had a string of boyfriends, most of them lasting a few months, some—like Allen—lasting longer. She went to movies and dances and out for ice cream, and the boy of the moment would call the house almost every evening. At the time, the phone was in the kitchen, but it had a cord long enough for her to stand on the back porch, and she spent hours outside, talking and laughing while waving off the moths attracted by the lights. It all seemed mysterious to Jasper—some of those calls lasted a long time. What could they possibly be talking about?

Deborah was especially close to Audrey, and it intuitively made sense that she wanted to become a teacher, just like her mom. Jasper knew she’d become the kind of teacher that children and parents alike would love.

But she never got the chance, for in the space of a single night, she, too, was gone forever.

VIII

Jasper’s watch showed he’d been on the move for at least two hours, maybe a little more, and he figured he was halfway back to his truck. He knew the ridges would grow steeper from this point on. Despite the chill, parts of his forehead were starting to perspire, a sign that his body might be beginning to overheat.

Knowing he needed to rest, he spied a downed tree in the distance. He staggered toward it, noting that the hip on his good side had begun to hurt, no doubt due to the strain of supporting most of his weight.

Bad back, bad knee, and now a bad hip.

I’m a living, breathing catastrophe, he thought; even if I do reach the truck and get back home, then what?

For all he knew, once he reached the cabin and collapsed in bed, he might not be able to get back up. He might be stuck, unable to even make it to the phone. In time, he’d get hungry and thirsty, and eventually give up the ghost. But the thought of dying wasn’t the worst of it. Arlo might go crazy as starvation set in and would probably end up chowing down on Jasper himself. Eventually, when the boy noticed that Jasper hadn’t been around the last few Saturdays, officers or deputies would come to the house and they’d probably find Jasper in pieces while Arlo wagged his tail, his belly as round as a Buddha’s.

Jasper snorted at his lurid train of thought. I must be getting loopy, he mumbled. But allowing his mind to wander made the pain seem more distant, at least for a little while.

By the time he got to the downed tree and sat, he felt as though he’d trekked to California.

Reaching for his bandanna, he dabbed at the perspiration and thought about the last of his children. Paul, he remembered, had been a difficult pregnancy for Audrey. She’d spotted periodically throughout her first trimester; in the last two months, her blood pressure went through the roof, and she was put on bed rest. During her twice-weekly doctor visits, there were multiple discussions about whether to induce Audrey early. Because her symptoms didn’t seem to be worsening, the physician recommended that they simply watch and wait. Nonetheless, Jasper brought Audrey’s overnight bag to every one of those appointments, just in case she needed to be rushed to the hospital.

To their relief, the pregnancy went almost full term, and Paul weighed more than seven pounds at birth. Audrey, however, was hospitalized for nearly a week due to bleeding complications, and in between hospital visits, Jasper had to care for Paul entirely on his own. It wasn’t until he brought Paul home from the hospital that Jasper realized how little he actually knew about caring for infants, despite having three children already. With care for Paul combined with watching over the other children, Jasper staggered around in an exhausted haze, discovering profound and renewed appreciation for all that his wife did. For the six months after Audrey came home, he spent as much time at the house as he could, trying to anticipate her every need. While she was appreciative at first, she eventually suggested that he return to work full-time. She enjoyed her routines, and frankly, Jasper understood, he was getting in her way.

Paul was special to everyone in the family from the very beginning. For Jasper and Audrey, he was the baby; for David, he was the brother he had always wanted. Mary coddled him like a favored pet, while Deborah treated him like one of her dolls, albeit a living one. Jasper remembered that Deborah had once applied Audrey’s makeup to Paul’s face after squeezing him into one of her old dresses. She must have been five or six at the time. Audrey was so tickled that she took a photograph of the two children. Years later, the photograph vanished from the family album and Jasper knew that Paul was the likely culprit.

Maybe because he was the youngest, Paul was the most sensitive of all the kids. When Bert, their cocker spaniel, had to be put down after getting struck by a car, Paul wept inconsolably for weeks; when his best friend, Jonah, moved away in second grade, Paul fell into a wounded funk, as though he’d never have a best friend again.

Jasper grew concerned when Paul’s temperament began to manifest in his teenage years as an unquenchable desire for peer approval. He seemed to try on different identities in phases that often lasted for months: for a while, he mimicked the seriousness of David; other times, he’d insist he wanted to become a veterinarian, just like Mary. He went through a cowboy phase, a sports phase, and a skater phase. In high school—perhaps envious of Deborah’s popularity—he began growing his hair longer, as though desperate to fit in with the cool kids the way she did. When he was sixteen, he began wearing jean jackets and Ray-Ban sunglasses, and threatened to get a tattoo as soon as he was old enough to do so.

Though his youngest child seemed to struggle with self-acceptance, Jasper consoled himself with the knowledge that Paul remained an exceptionally kind person. When Mary cried after not being asked to the homecoming dance, Paul cried, too, and spent all weekend writing a poem about how special she was. Mary later told Jasper that it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. When Deborah failed to win a solo in the school Christmas concert—something she desperately wanted—Paul rode his bicycle to the store to get her favorite cookie dough ice cream and asked her to sing the song just for him.

Perhaps as an outlet for the storm of feelings with which he perpetually seemed to grapple, Paul kept journals. He could frequently be seen scribbling furiously while sitting on the porch, or late at night, before bed. Of all the keepsakes of his children that he’d lost in the fire, Jasper regretted the loss of those journals the most. Somehow, he imagined they might have provided the answer to why Paul had chosen to die the way he did.

But then again, Jasper already knew the answer.

His sensitive, emotional child, the one who felt everything deeply and craved the approval of others, simply couldn’t live with what he’d done.

IX

Jasper rose and began trekking again, tree after tree, continuing to sweat despite the temperature having begun to fall quickly. A cold front was on the way and he limped, he rested, and limped again, trying to keep a slow but steady pace. Here and there, he was forced to circumvent steep ridges. Having to avoid climbing had probably added at least an extra hour to his trek. Now, between him and the truck rose a ridge too long to skirt. It was fifteen, maybe twenty feet high. He paused to lean against a tree, trying to figure out the best way up. He figured he’d finally be able to spot his truck from the top, but his body felt absolutely wrecked. Even standing in place, he could feel his legs trembling, and his back was on the verge of another spasm.

Arlo, too, was exhausted. His head hung low, his tongue lolled, and he no longer seemed interested in exploring.

“You think we can make it?” Jasper asked. Arlo just looked up at him and wagged his tail once.

Jasper tried to steel himself for the effort, wondering again whether the Littletons might be nearby. They hadn’t spotted his truck behind the berm the first time, but that had been at night. He hadn’t locked it, so they’d be able to look through the glove compartment. He’d left his wallet there, which would confirm their suspicions that he’d been the one who’d foiled their deer trap.

“If they found the truck, they’re probably waiting for me,” he muttered to Arlo. “But there’s only one way to know for sure.”

After eyeballing the ridge a final time, Jasper gritted his teeth and began the climb. He took small, careful steps, and as the angle of the incline increased, he found himself tottering. He planted one foot, rebalanced, inched his other foot forward slightly, and rebalanced again.

He reached the halfway point.

Then, eventually, the three-quarter mark.

Then a bit more, and he could finally see over the top. He kept going, his view becoming clearer. As he readied himself for the final push— only a few more steps! —he heard a voice ring out, distant but unmistakable.

“YOU STOLE OUR CORN, DIDN’T YOU?”

Eric.

Jasper felt his heart hammer in his chest, and he swiveled his head, trying to find the source.

“DID YOU SEE HIM?”

This time, it was Josh’s voice, closer, but coming from a different direction.

“NO!”

“THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU YELLING ABOUT?”

“I’M BORED! CAN WE PLEASE JUST GO HOME?”

Arlo perked up his ears and before Jasper could stop him, the dog climbed to the top of the ridge. Without tree cover, he was out in the open. Jasper hissed at him to come back, but Arlo either didn’t hear him or ignored him.

How soon before the boys spotted him?

With the slow predestination of a nightmare, Arlo wandered farther away. Uncertain where Josh was, Jasper hesitated to raise his voice or whistle. Meanwhile, Arlo continued to meander, now with his nose to the ground. In his mind, Jasper willed the dog to return to the ridge, to no effect.

Arlo, interested in a scent he’d obviously picked up, began veering in the direction of the truck. In that instant, in the distance, Jasper spotted Josh as he stepped from behind a tree. He was facing in the opposite direction, maybe forty yards away, the gun barrel perched on his shoulder. If he turned around, he’d easily spot Jasper and the dog.

There was no way Jasper could reach the truck. His only option was to retreat in the direction he’d just come, back down the ridge. He hoped Arlo would realize that Jasper had turned around and follow. If not, Jasper would risk a low whistle before finding a copse in which to hide.

Jasper knew that going downhill would be more painful than going up. He doubted his knee could handle it, so instead, he decided to move backward, essentially retracing his steps. He took a cautious step; with his second backward step—on the leg with his bad knee—his foot began to slide. He tried to keep his balance; instinctively he rotated his torso, and his lower body followed, his foot coming down lower on the ridge and wedging momentarily between two rocks half-buried in the dirt.

Body weight and momentum did the inevitable. His ankle torqued and Jasper heard an audible crack as he cried out in agony. A moment later, he was tumbling farther down the ridge.

Later, he would vaguely remember landing on his shoulder, his head smashing hard, causing flickers of light. Pain shot through his body like a lengthening crack in a sheet of ice.

He struggled to breathe, fighting to bring the world into focus. Arlo somehow appeared at his side. Above him, he dimly made out a figure standing on the ridge.

Josh.

“You fall, old man? I heard you scream.”

Jasper blinked, too disoriented and dizzy to even be frightened.

“Serves you right for what you did. You should have minded your own business.”

Jasper’s voice was a dry rasp. “Help me.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could make out a smirk on Josh’s face.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Eric shouted from farther away.

Josh glanced down at Jasper, with a look of calculation. Then he called out, “LET’S GET OUT OF HERE! I’M SICK OF WAITING AROUND!”

A moment later, he was gone.

Jasper closed his eyes, allowing himself to fade away.

X

From somewhere deep in his subconscious, Jasper felt a drop of water on his face. It was enough to cause his eyelids to twitch, and when the drop was followed by another, Jasper slowly opened his eyes.

With his head aching, he squinted, watching as tall shadows gradually morphed into the shapes of trees. The forest, he remembered, I’m in the Uwharrie. Trying to sit up brought a thunderbolt of agony and he cried out, the memory of what had happened returning in a series of fuzzy images.

The white deer. The Littletons. The ridge. Slipping. The crack of his ankle. Tumbling…

Gritting his teeth and gasping, he waited for the waves of pain to subside. He didn’t need to see his leg to know that his ankle was broken, and he blinked when he felt another drop of water on his face.

Rain.

Above him, the sky was thick with rolling clouds, and he heard a long rumble of thunder in the distance. Slowly moving his head, he looked for Arlo and saw him lying nearby, his tail wagging nervously. The dog had never liked storms.

The thought of even trying to move terrified Jasper. Not with his ankle, not with the bad knee and bad hip and a back that would spasm. Not with a fractured skull or at the very least, a concussion. Once again, he heard thunder, felt another patter of drops, and knew the storm was coming his way.

Drops eventually gave way to a drizzle, followed eventually by steady rain. Water entered his mouth and he coughed, the nerves throughout his body lighting up like a Christmas tree. When the pain finally receded, he slowly turned his head to the side, worried he might otherwise drown. Half his face was resting in mud.

He closed his eyes but sensed the world around him growing darker and colder with the incoming storm. In time, Jasper lost his fight to remain conscious and drifted off again.

XI

When he woke, the world was black. Sheets of rain continued to fall, illuminated by the occasional flicker of lightning.

Evening, he absently noted, and when he shivered it was excruciating. He moaned, then began to weep, his tears blending with the rain. In a fog, he sensed the dog lying beside him, their bodies close together.

Another shiver brought another wave of pain. It happened over and over as the hours slowly crept toward midnight.

Then, finally, the night began inching toward dawn.