4 - Brie
A Fish Out Of Water
~
Brie
I had a text message from Holly. “Just checking in, making sure a bear hasn’t eaten you or something.”
It made me smile to think of her going about her life, from one patient to another, still filled with purpose. I wanted to feel that way again, too.
“Haven’t seen a bear here yet,” I replied, attaching a picture of my view.
I wasn’t about to elicit her ‘I told you so’ or send her into a panic over what had happened last night. I was going to make the most of my time here, though with Tobias’s temper, I couldn’t be sure it would be for long.
I was surprised by the enthusiasm I had after the disaster of my first day.
I jumped out of bed and headed to the bathroom.
I brushed my teeth while staring at myself.
I still had the same wavy brown hair, still tied it up in the same bun I had worn to work for years.
Something had to change. I couldn’t give myself a full makeover here in a bathroom I had hardly settled in, in the middle of nowhere, but even a small change would do the trick and lift my mood.
I brushed my hair out and left it down. Just that one thing made me relax a little. Let the day flow without trying to control how it turns out. That would be my mantra.
I ignored the anxiety I felt walking toward the kitchen, ignored the questions my conscience whispered about the tension I had walked out on the night before.
Instead, I felt the hair touching the sides of my face, bouncing on my shoulders.
It felt different; it signaled a new day, a do-over I was gifting myself.
I walked into a kitchen full of laughter, the smell of eggs frying on the stove, while Lexi explained the food pyramid in her own way.
“It’s true!” Lexi insisted with a chuckle. “I need to get sweets every day to be healthy, just a little.”
I didn’t want to intrude. I wanted to stop and watch them, get a proper feel of what all of them were actually like without the walls that came up when they knew I, a stranger they hadn’t learned to trust yet, was watching.
“How do you like your eggs?” Gideon said suddenly.
He knew I was there. There was no way he could see me, but he knew, and the spell was broken. I walked into the kitchen and smiled my greeting.
“I don’t really mind, as long as they’re medium,” I said, my voice coming out softer and more timid than I intended.
The only person whose mood did not change with my arrival was Lexi. She turned to grin at me.
“Tell them, Brie, tell them about the food pyramid. It has all the food we should eat to be healthy, even sweets,” she said definitively.
“Well, not exactly,” I laughed awkwardly. “You can have sweets, but in moderation. Everything in moderation.”
The cabin fell silent again, all but the sound of eggs sizzling in the pan, the oil hissing.
“Are you going to show me how things work in the city again today?” Lexi asked. There was less joy in this question.
“No,” I said. I walked over to smooth her hair. “Today, you can show me how you do things here.”
Lexi looked up at me, smiling her approval, “Good. Gunner says you’re a city girl, and he doesn’t think you’ll survive a week out here.”
I saw Gunner blush, expecting him to turn away from me and find a spot to stare at on the floor, but he looked straight at me and winked.
It was so unexpected that it sent a flush across my cheeks, too.
He passed me a plate of hot eggs and pointed to the toast on the table for me to help myself. I sat at the kitchen island and ate, watching the men move between the kitchen and the living room. They tidied the living areas while Lexi read the newspaper aloud.
She stumbled on the word ‘disparity’ in a business article, and without turning to read it himself, Tobias said the word slowly, explaining gently to Lexi that it was just a fancy way to say ‘unfairness’.
Lexi continued reading the whole article fluently until the end before turning to ask what ‘wage disparity’ meant.
“How are people being paid unfairly?” she asked.
I was about to answer when Tobias explained it. “It means people aren’t being paid what they deserve.”
It seemed natural to him; he answered her questions without blinking. It was simplified, but not in a patronizing way.
Everything that had happened the night before had seemingly been swept under the rug.
I felt stuck. I didn’t know whether to bring it up, apologize and try to make it right, or just let things be.
There was definitely tension. Tobias wouldn’t look at me, not even when I spoke.
Even if he did look my way, I doubted I would be able to read him.
“There’s a plow truck that needs servicing,” Gunner said, strapping on his tool belt and heading for the door. “Are you old men coming?”
“Who are you calling old?” Tobias laughed, standing up to grab the toolbox.
Lexi stood up quickly, looking for something small enough for her to carry, then turned to look at me. “Come on, Brie, we’re going outside.”
She sounded serious, taking to her role as teacher for the day in a way that made it impossible not to stand up and obey. I stood up to take my plate to the sink, but Gideon saved me the effort.
“I’ve got it. I’ll be out in a minute,” he said as if he thought I might wait for him.
*
Outside, the morning sun felt weak. Its warmth barely reached me through my sweater. I walked in long, fast strides to catch up to Lexi as she trotted behind Tobias and Gunner, carrying a water bottle that sloshed with every step.
“Brie, do you know there are mushrooms that grow here in the woods?” Lexi asked.
“Really?” I asked, encouraging her to go on. “Are they poisonous?”
“Only some of them,” she said, “I can show you how to pick the good ones. Gunner can cook them into a wild mushroom stew.”
The nurse in me immediately panicked. “Maybe we should wait for Gunner then.”
“No, silly,” she giggled. “We will only pick morel mushrooms. There’ll be more in the spring, but there’s a log with a few of them over there. We’ll get enough just for a taste.”
I looked at Tobias and caught him watching us, a small smile playing on his lips. It was pride.
“Do you know how to tell the mushrooms apart?” Lexi asked. “Gideon says it’s a survival skill.”
“No,” I admitted, “I’ve only really ever seen wild mushrooms in a textbook and at the grocery store, where I know they’re safe.”
She clicked her tongue and shook her head in disapproval. “Is it because there aren’t wild mushrooms in the city?”
There weren’t wild mushrooms growing in the city, no wild berries either. Out here, this little girl understood far more than I did. She led me to a log not far from the tractor Tobias and Gunner were working on, and skillfully picked one.
“This is a morel mushroom,” she explained. “It has all these holes in it that make it look like a sponge. That’s why some people call it a sponge mushroom. You see?” she said, holding the mushroom up for me to look at.
“I see,” I agreed, looking at the mushroom closely. Not just to pacify her, but also to make sure it wasn’t on the list of poisonous mushrooms I had studied.
“When you pick the mushrooms, you grab them like this,” she said. “You pinch the stem and twist.”
It looked simple enough. I followed her instructions, holding the mushroom stem and twisting only for the head to break off in my hand.
“City girl,” Lexi teased with a lively giggle. “You need to hold the stem lower.”
A muffled chortle came from the truck. I looked up, expecting to see Gunner doubled over at the nickname he had teased me with being used by Lexi.
Instead, I saw Tobias laughing with his hand over his mouth.
He didn’t look away when I saw him; he just kept laughing, meeting my eyes for the first time since last night.
“I’ll get the next one,” I said, determined to get it right. If a child could do it, then so could I, surely.
“Don’t worry,” she said, comforting me. “My dad and Gideon couldn’t get it right the first time either.”
I listened while Lexi continued. Tobias and Gideon had both had to learn how to navigate life out here, while Gunner seemed to know everything about living in this remote mountain cabin already.
I looked up to see him working hard on a snowplow while Tobias had moved on to reinforcing a loose piece of timber on the cabin. He pounded a hammer into it hard, building up enough of a sweat to justify unbuttoning his shirt.
His chest glistened with sweat as he raised the hammer again and again.
My attention was drawn by a sudden rustling in the nearby trees. I looked up quickly, and everyone was accounted for, even Gideon, who was outside inspecting something mechanical.
“Lexi, let’s go,” I whispered. I tried to hide the panic in my voice.
“Why?” Lexi asked, looking into the woods.
We saw it: an elegant deer with broad-branched horns staring right at us. I had only ever seen them in pictures and on TV. I screamed, grabbed Lexi, and made to run back to the cabin with her.
“You’re supposed to be quiet,” Lexi laughed. “Gunner told me that when he was teaching me about hunting. Sometimes he brings them back to the cabin for freezer meat.”
The men, startled by my scream, watched the whole thing unfold and laughed openly.
“They don’t bite,” Lexi assured me.
“Still, I think we should go closer to where your father is,” I said, taking her hand and walking her back to the cabin, my heart still pounding in my chest.
I knew I wouldn’t live this down. I’d have to do something to show them I wasn’t just a bumbling city girl.
I watched Lexi disappear into the house, a bunch of mushrooms held in her shirt, and looked around for some way to be useful.
I knew nothing about mechanics; I couldn’t chop wood to save my life, but I could climb a ladder and hold something down while Tobias made his repairs. So I set out to do just that.
Without asking anyone, I carried a spare ladder and leaned it against the cabin, then started to climb.
I didn’t dare take my eyes off the rungs, but I could feel Tobias’s steady gaze on me.
I climbed, determined to look natural, as if I had done this before, and when I was level with him, I finally met his eyes.
There was something new there, a softness I had never seen before, something that held my eyes and held me in place.
I tried to blink it away, made myself move one hand at a time off the ladder to become useful, then I felt the ladder wobble, gently at first, then faster, refusing to become steady. I was falling.
Without a second thought, Tobias’s arm snaked around my waist, steadying me. My breath hitched. I put my hands back on the ladder and looked at him. His eyes had hardened again, his brow creased in irritation.
“What the hell are you doing?” he growled. “You could have fallen. You almost did!”
His words made it real. Not a near miss—a miss he had saved me from. I looked down for a second, imagining how I had very nearly fallen from a height I might not have survived.
“I’m sorry, I was just…” I stammered, unable to find the words.
“You were just doing everything, but thinking.” He snatched his arm from my waist.
“I was trying to help!” I snapped.
Tobias looked me up and down scornfully. “You’re here to help with Lexi, not to cook, not to climb ladders. If you want to help, just do your job.”
I climbed down the ladder carefully and retreated into the house without another word.