Chapter 2 Lorna Now #3
He was terribly agreeable, this sweaty, chubby kid.
She studied him a moment. In her considered opinion, he was too young to be left alone.
She felt something against her pant leg and glanced down.
Agnes had at last acknowledged her, the one who bought squeaky dog toys and kibble that cost as much as caviar, and was licking the dirt she’d kicked onto her clothes.
The skin on Lorna’s neck began to tingle like it did when she felt she might scream. She was still holding the shovel, but instead of using it to fill the hole, she shoved the blade into the edge, filled the scoop, and hurled the dirt away. She did it again. And again.
She kicked off her shoes, hard, and they sailed across the yard. She could feel her hair fall out of the containment pins. She kept digging, fast and furious, tossing mounds of dirt, forgetting the kid, forgetting Agnes, forgetting everything but the rage that wanted to explode out of her head.
“Hey!”
She didn’t hear him at first, she was so intent on the hole.
“ Hey! ” the kid shouted again.
Lorna realized in a moment of horror how she must appear to the boy.
He was probably frightened out of his wits.
She paused, her mind racing around all the things she could say to ease any distress she’d caused.
That was probably impossible—her chest was heaving as she tried to catch her breath.
Her back and chest had sweated through her clothes. Her pant leg was sticking to her skin.
“Do you think there’s treasure buried here?” he asked excitedly. “Because the Indians used to live here. They might have buried something!”
Lorna paused to consider it. She doubted there was treasure of any sort, but she and Kristen had buried a box of coins back here once. “Maybe. We won’t know if we don’t dig.” She started digging again.
So did the kid, with his metal thingy. He didn’t last long.
Neither did Agnes. And when Lorna finally gave up, her rage spent (for the moment—rage had a way of creeping back in when she least expected it), she dropped the shovel and fell onto her butt beside the kid.
Her clothes were ruined. She was covered in sweat and dirt.
And she wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.
“Are you okay?” the kid asked.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I’m fine .”
“Because you’re crying,” he said. “Wait!” He hopped up and ran to the back door that led from the main hall. He was back a moment later with a bottle of water and a metal box. He handed her the water bottle, then put down the box. She glanced at it—it was a first aid kit.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re crying,” he said again. He produced a small bottle of aspirin. He opened the lid and shook two into his grimy palm. He held them out to her. “I cry sometimes too, and my dad gives me these. He cries a lot .”
Weird. “I don’t need this, but okay,” she said, and took the two aspirin, washing them down with a grimace.
“Your hair is really big,” he said.
“I’m aware.”
“It’s like a superpower. Like Samson.”
Lorna snorted and took another swig of his water before wiping off the mouth of the bottle with the tiny bit of sleeve that had escaped sweat or dirt. “Not exactly,” she said.
“You have to believe,” the kid said. “That’s what my dad says.”
His dad sounded like a dolt. Believing didn’t give you a superpower. “What’s your superpower?” she asked as she looked around for her shoes.
“I’m still deciding,” he said, and began to draw something in the dirt with his metal thingy. “My dad says you have to try different things to find out what you like. Hey, want to see my box of badges?”
She had no idea what a box of badges was but shook her head. “Maybe some other time. I need to clean up.” She rolled onto her knees and came to her feet, holding on to the shovel for support.
“Can Aggie and I still play?” the kid asked.
“I don’t know. Can you do it without being loud? Because you were being loud when I came out here.”
He looked surprised by this news. “ Super loud?”
“Super-duper loud,” she said, although she wouldn’t swear to it in a court of law. “Can I trust you to stop kicking the ball against the house?” She bent down to pick up her shoes.
“I’ll be quiet. When we have quiet time at school, my teacher said I’m the quietest.”
Doubtful. “Congratulations. Just keep it down. I had a terrible day. And don’t fall in the hole—I don’t need a lawsuit.”
“Okay. Come on, Aggie!”
“ Agnes ,” Lorna said again, but the two were already off like a shot across the yard.
She returned to her apartment, pausing at the threshold to kick clumps of earth off her shoes. No sooner had she closed the door behind her than the kid kicked the ball against the house again.
She stood very still in the kitchen, her eyes closed, her fists clenched at her sides.
Then she stepped back to the kitchen door and watched the boy and Agnes.
She’d been so happy playing in this backyard as a kid.
Before everything went to hell. Nostalgia, warm and thick like honey, moved through her, filling her up.
It was the good kind of nostalgia. Sometimes it made her feel sick, because not all nostalgia was good. But this was not that.
She watched the kid and Agnes long enough that if anyone saw, they might think she was being creepy. When the two went racing around the side of the house to the front yard, she finally turned away.
She heard a car door slam, then voices. Moments later, there was a knock at her door.
Lorna straightened her suit jacket, then remembered she was covered in dirt and sweat.
She frantically tried to smooth her hair away from her face but felt it pop right back around, probably going off in a million frizzy curled directions.
No time to fix it now. She went to the door and opened it a sliver.
The man who lived across the hall with the kid was standing there, his arm around his son.
She’d only seen him across the lawn, but up close, she realized he was bigger than he appeared at a distance.
A little taller than her and broad-shouldered.
He looked to be roughly her age, maybe a bit older, forty-five-ish, give or take.
His hair was shaggy and long, almost reaching the shoulders of his plaid shirt.
His eyes were nearly navy blue, and he was sporting an afternoon beard.
He was good-looking. Much better looking than the men in her office.
Good-looking enough that she didn’t want to look away.
She could see instantly what the kid would look like when he was grown: barrel-chested and strong.
He cocked his head to one side to see her better in the crack of the door. “Hi there,” he said, and smiled. A very lovely smile. “I believe we have your dog.”
As if on cue, Agnes trotted forward. Lorna opened the door a little wider so she could trot in, but immediately returned to peering through just a crack. “No problem.”
He was still smiling, and she couldn’t work out why. Was he just... friendly? “Everything okay?” he asked.
“All good here,” she said quickly.
He nodded, then put his hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Can you say thank you for allowing you to play with her dog?”
“Thank you for allowing me to play with your dog,” the kid said. “Bye, Aggie!”
Lorna wanted to correct him again but held her tongue. She wasn’t a complete curmudgeon.
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “I got caught up at work. I hope my son didn’t bother you.”
“No. He’s just... young.”
“That he is. Anyway, thanks again. Have a good afternoon.”
Lorna gave him a curt nod to indicate that as much as she would like to have a good afternoon, that ship had already sailed. She watched them disappear into the apartment across the hall, the man’s arm around his son, the son chattering about (and she might have misheard this) missile launches.
She closed the door and turned around. Agnes had already melted onto the floor in a sploot. Her nubbin of a tail began to wag when Lorna glared down at her. “Thanks a lot.”
Agnes kept wagging her cropped tail and added a happy pant to it.
Lorna’s wave of nostalgia and any residual rage had already emptied out of her, leaving her numb. She glanced at the neat stack of letters on the console table next to her chair. They were all pink. All from her stepmother. All unopened.
Next to the pink envelopes was a stack of white legal-sized envelopes, all securely sealed and with premade address labels affixed.
Those were the letters she wrote twice a week, without fail, to Kristen, but could not find the courage or forgiveness to send.
Just looking at them made her eyes well with tears, which infuriated her. What did she have to cry about?
Unfortunately, of late, Lorna had noticed that she often felt like crying and couldn’t say why. It was weird and stupid, and she operated under the assumption that if she ignored it, it would go away like that mysterious bump on her neck did.
But it was also weird and stupid to write letters to her sister she never sent.
She avoided her father’s calls as best she could, and when she couldn’t, she kept them unpardonably short.
Her attempts at humor made her sound like a psychopath sometimes, and the worst part of all was that she didn’t know why she did any of it.
She didn’t know why she was so closed off to the world.
But she’d built and fortified a super-max bomb shelter in her that even she couldn’t penetrate.
The only thing she knew for sure was that living in a bomb shelter could get pretty lonely.
Sometimes she really wanted to force open the door and have a look at whatever it was she was hiding from.
Or missing. But mostly, she felt too scared to face it.
She looked down at her dog. “Come on, Agnes,” she said, and started for the kitchen. She got some kibble for Agnes and a snack pack of Nutter Butter cookies for herself. As she stood there munching the cookies over the sink, she looked again at the stack of letters.
She turned away from them. A bone-deep weariness settled over her.
Maybe she would do this wellness thing. She didn’t put much stock in things like that, but then again, she’d never actually tried it.
She did not like to do things that made her uncomfortable.
But wasn’t she always telling her team to open their minds to the many possible roads to sales?
Maybe she needed to open her mind to the many possible roads to wellness.
It wasn’t as if she really had a choice at this point. She needed her job if she was going to buy this house. Sure, she could find another job, but she’d put so much time and effort into Driskill. She deserved the promotion. And she didn’t want to start over.
She polished off the last Nutter Butter and fetched her phone. She retrieved the papers Beverly had so gleefully shoved in her hand as she walked out the door this afternoon and called the number to schedule her first appointment.
Hello, Kristen—
Today I almost got myself fired because of a letter I wrote to you.
Figures. Apparently, I push the team too hard to make our goals.
Well, guess what? I have to push if I am ever going to buy back Nana’s house, which we lost because of you.
Happy now? And don’t hand me Mom’s old argument that it wasn’t your fault but the fault of society and a lack of affordable health care.
We all know it was you. You promised. You promised and promised and promised and you never did live up to your promises and now I have to go to a wellness thing. Thanks a lot.
PS: Saw there is a hurricane headed your way. I hope you have those hurricane windows everyone talks about.