11

Boundaries

Birds will defend their territories fiercely from members of the same species. However, many large birds—such as corvids, owls, and eagles—will tolerate numerous small songsters in their midst.

—G. Gordon’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Pacific Northwest

Anne watched the morning light bloom slowly over the lake from her perch at the kitchen counter. On the far shore, a thick mist crept down out of the trees and spread into the ravine below like the ghost of a waterfall. As the sun made its way over the hill behind the house, the mist broke apart and dissipated. A few insubstantial clouds streaked the skies pink and orange before disappearing into the bright blue sky of what Gran always called “second summer.”

Anne sipped her tea, feeling jittery and tired. Aiden, who’d grown accustomed to the rhythms of the lake house, had slept through the night. But Anne remained alert, listening for any sound from his room, her body bracing for action. Neither she nor Tim had revisited the topic of Aiden’s disappearance in the storm. But Anne couldn’t stop thinking about it—waking from a doze on the empty beach, the cast-off life preserver, her failure to watch him. Was Tim thinking about the same things? He’d wandered before—to one of the neighbor’s apartments and once, terrifyingly, out into their Seattle neighborhood in the middle of the night. But both Anne and Tim had been equally to blame those times. Blame. Was she keeping score or worried that Tim was?

Now, while Tim and Aiden slept, Anne checked the pastry dough she’d begun the night before. The smell of warm yeast rose as she turned the dough, gave it a fold, and covered it with a towel. She mixed up a batch of scones and slid them into the oven. Eyeing Christi’s generous double oven, she pulled a frozen roll of shortbread dough out of the freezer and sliced it into thin rounds. They browned nicely and filled the house with the smell of butter, sugar, and lemon. All the recipes were Gran’s.

“With respect, I don’t see the point, Mary,” Katherine had said to Gran. She sat on the kitchen counter watching Gran pull a heavy tray out of the old oven, drumming her bare heels against the cabinet. Anne had brought her friend home from uni for the bank holiday weekend, and Mary was teaching Anne to make proper pastry.

“Why not just pop down to the shop and buy a packet of biscuits? Why spend hours fussing about in the kitchen when you could be out doing something fun?”

Katherine was the eldest of six children and Anne knew that in the chaos of the O’Faolain household there had been no time for dreamy afternoons of baking. Katherine had grown up changing diapers, helping her mother get supper on the table, and chasing her siblings to bed.

In her youth, Gran had volunteered with the WAAF in France during World War II and came back with a talent for pastry. Gran passed Katherine a plate.

“We don’t have a bakery on the island, dearie” was all she said.

Katherine sank her teeth into the hot croissant and groaned.

“I take it all back,” she mumbled with her mouth full. “Don’t ever leave this kitchen, Mary. Please. For the love of Christ.”

Gran tsked but smiled at her.

Anne loved baking with Gran, but she didn’t keep it up at uni. For one thing, her bedsit only had a small toaster oven. For another, there was so much to do in Dublin. Music in the pubs and cafés. Concerts in the market, at the park, and at the university hall every weekend. The practice rooms were full of aspiring musicians of all stripes, and visiting artists came on a regular rotation. Anne wanted to stuff her brain with it, pass it all through the sieve of her senses. Her plan for Trinity had originally been practical—to get her teacher’s license and eventually teach closer to home on the west coast. But at Trinity she’d fallen hard for music. She wanted to listen and perform and write. Music had completely taken over her life. It was everything. It was who she was. What had happened to that girl? she wondered now. And why had her music deserted her? So much had happened since then.

Aiden’s bare feet tapped the floor as he tiptoed into the kitchen. She turned to greet him and kept her arms by her sides, resisting the impulse to hug him tight.

“Hello there. How’s my young man this morning?” she asked.

A smile played about his lips, and he looked away. She turned back toward the counter and pulled a cooling rack out of the cupboard. Her son sidled up next to her and leaned his soft weight into her side. She put an arm around him lightly and he moved away. She closed her eyes against hot tears. Aiden crossed the room and climbed into the window seat with his book. With the little volume of fairy tales propped on his pajamaed knees, he looked like any five-year-old boy on holiday in the morning.

Tim came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist, leaning down to bury his face in her hair. Anne turned to embrace him and felt his body still warm from the bedclothes. His familiar physical presence was a comfort and made things feel okay between them.

“It smells amazing in here,” Tim said, kissing her cheek. “You’ve been up with the elves, I see.”

Anne shook her head.

“Oh, not me,” she said. “It was all Suzy.”

Tim laughed, as she’d hoped.

“Oh, Suzy,” he sighed. “What would we do without her?”

Suzy was a long-running joke. During the first months of their cohabitation, when Anne was newly pregnant, it had become abundantly clear that neither one of them excelled in the domestic arts. Tim, because his mother had hired people to cook and clean for the family, hadn’t learned to boil an egg. Anne had been an only child with two working parents and was expected to look after herself but also had a grandmother living just over the wall who helped with the household chores.

They’d fought about it one morning after Tim tripped over a pile of dirty laundry in a rush to get to work. He’d suggested in a not very nice way that Anne find time that weekend to run a couple of loads of laundry.

“I’ve done my washing, thank you very much!” she said, also running late and also crabby. Her pregnancy had advanced to the point that hardly any of her clothes fit and she was faced with wearing the same pair of fat pants for the third day in a row.

“I’ve spent more than enough time in the basement with Hippy Dave!”

Anne had learned not to linger in the basement laundry room after one of their neighbors had discovered she was a musician. When he saw her in the elevator with her hamper, he’d fetch his guitar and try to enlist her in a jam. Bob Dylan and the Stones mostly. She’d tried to be polite and told him she wasn’t into that kind of music. Dave had so persisted that now she took the back stairs to the basement.

“And I did the linens and the towels, thank you very much!”

“Well, what about that?” Tim gestured to the overflowing hamper. “What’s all that?”

Anne crossed her arms and stared up at him.

“That, my friend, is your own fecking problem,” she said coolly. “I am not Suzy Fecking Homemaker.”

Tim’s frown disappeared and he squeezed her tight, laughing.

“You’re my fecking problem, you Irish terror!”

That’s how they fought—fast and furious and then it was over. Tim had done his own laundry and they shared the responsibility of grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning. The apartment was less tidy than either one of them preferred, and when one of them grumbled about it, the other would suggest they call Suzy.

That’s the way things had been before, anyway. They were in strange new territory now that she was on leave. She looked around the spotless kitchen, the piles of freshly baked goods, the rising tray of pastry. Suzy Fecking Homemaker was exactly what she felt like just now. Bloody hell. And as for arguing, she preferred those furious exchanges to the polite restraint they’d adopted lately. She pulled away and poured him a cup of coffee.

“When are you heading down the lake?” she asked.

“After breakfast,” he said. “I have a few calls to make and I’ll probably stop at the marina store to pick up a few things if they’re open. I’ll be back after lunch. Why don’t you and Aiden come with me?”

The timer dinged and Anne turned toward the oven. She pulled out the scones and demurred, saying she’d promised Aiden a walk in the woods after breakfast. Was it a lie, an excuse, or a bargaining chip? Did it matter? Tim let it drop and she was grateful.

“I’ll stop by the post office while I’m down there,” he said.

He didn’t say more, but Anne wondered if he was thinking about the assessment from the University of Washington Department of Pediatrics, which neither of them had mentioned since their arrival at the lake. They’d been expecting a response for weeks now, but it hadn’t arrived. At home, she’d dreaded the sight of the postal truck each day and was dismayed to learn their mail would be forwarded up to Mill Three. The thought of the report from UW sat like a stone in her belly.

Later, as Tim pulled away from the dock, she waved with false cheer. And as the boat receded into the distance, she felt both shame and relief at being alone with her son.

Aiden scampered away from her back to the beach and shed his life preserver on the grass. Her breath caught as she remembered pulling it from the shallows of the lake water. But he was following the rule they’d impressed on him: If he was on the beach, in the water, or on the dock, he had to wear his life preserver. Pulling it off on the grass was within bounds. She couldn’t scold him for doing as they’d asked, now, could she?

Aiden paused at the foot of the cliff. The red trolley that had been there the day of the storm was absent. Anne recalled how Tim had found Aiden’s precious book tucked in there out of the rainstorm. It made her smile now. Practical little vagabond protecting his precious storybook.

Aiden eyed the track climbing up the hillside. And in a flash, he was clambering up the adjacent trail.

“Aiden, wait, love!” Anne called, but he didn’t slow.

She dropped the life preserver and hurried after him, breathing heavily by the time she reached the top. There sat the caretaker’s cottage, a cheerful yellow one-story house tucked under the trees like something out of a fairy tale. A plume of smoke curled out of the chimney and twisted through the trees. At the back, a laundry line was hung with flannel shirts and work pants. Aiden had alighted in the little red trolley at the top of the tracks.

“Aiden, time to go now. This isn’t our house,” Anne said, her voice low, glancing at the back door to the cottage.

He ignored her and kicked his feet against the seat. Anne tried to coax him away, saying it was time to go back to Grandad Tim and Grandma Christi’s house. Aiden giggled and twisted away from her. Her frustration rose and she heard Christi’s voice in her head. “Who’s in charge of whom, Anne?” She closed her hand around Aiden’s wrist and tugged him toward her. He resisted, and when she let go, he sprang out of the trolley and ran toward the house. She chased him, now furious at herself. She knew better than to try to grab him.

“Aiden Matthew Ryan Magnusen! You come here this instant!” she hissed.

He’d reached the door by then and had both hands on the knob, twisting it back and forth. His brow was furrowed in concentration and when the door opened in front of him, he fell back with such surprise, Anne would have laughed had she not been angry.

The young woman in the doorway looked down at Aiden and then up at Anne. She was tall and thin, with short dark hair that she pushed out of her face with one hand. She wasn’t smiling.

“Oh, hiya!” Anne called, waving a hand, and then, “Bloody hell,” under her breath.

She moved quickly to close the space between herself and her son. She stood behind him and resisted the urge to grab his shoulders.

“So sorry to disturb you! I’m Anne Ryan, Tim’s wife,” Anne said, trying to catch her breath.

She gestured in the direction of the trail. The woman didn’t say anything, and her face was blank. Anne felt the weight of the silence between them, the heavy pause where it was the other person’s turn to speak. Aiden ducked under her arm and skipped back to the trolley and clambered onto the seat. The woman crossed her arms, glanced at Aiden and then back to Anne.

“Erm, this is my son, Aiden, and we were just out for a walk, and he decided to come up the trail.”

The silence was unnerving.

“Sorry—I don’t know your name,” Anne said, feeling desperate to fill the quiet. “Tim told me your family are the caretakers? But we’ve never met.”

The woman uncrossed her arms and blinked.

“Oh. Sorry. I’m Frankie. Frankie O’Neill.”

Her voice was low and quiet. She brushed her hair back and held out her hand. Anne shook it, wanting to laugh at the awkward formality.

“Pleased to meet you, Frankie. I’m so sorry to disturb you. This rascal son of mine!” she said and forced a laugh.

Frankie looked at the boy, then back to Anne and down at her own attire, which Anne realized consisted of men’s boxer shorts and a jumper with “UW” emblazoned across the front.

“. . . wasn’t expecting anyone,” Frankie mumbled, her face flushing with color.

Anne began to move toward the trail.

“Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Frankie. Perhaps we’ll come back some other time when its more convenient and pay you a proper—Aiden!”

The boy flew between them and bolted into the cottage behind the tall woman. Frankie turned slowly to look after him and then back to Anne.

“I’m so sorry,” Anne said, moving toward the doorway. “He doesn’t—he won’t. If I could just—”

Frankie stepped aside to let her in, and Anne felt a barrage of familiar and impossible feelings—maternal concern, shame, frustration, and deep down the urge to laugh at the absurdity of the situation: chasing her child through the house of a complete stranger.

Aiden was standing in front of the sofa and Anne crossed the room to him. He was paging madly through a book on the table with a fierce sense of purpose. She crouched down next to him and spoke quietly in his ear, trying to keep her voice calm.

“Aiden. Sweetie. This is not our house. You need to knock first and wait to be let in. It’s very impolite to barge in. Remember what we talked about with Mrs. Silva?”

She could tell he was listening, though he didn’t look at her. His fingers slowed over the pages, and he stood stock-still. Before she could react, he ran across the room and out the door, slamming it shut behind him. Frankie, who’d followed Anne into the house, looked surprised. There was a furious knocking at the door, and when Frankie opened it, Aiden bolted back inside and dashed to the coffee table, smiling triumphantly.

Anne began to laugh great, heaving peals of laughter. She knew she shouldn’t, which made it harder to stop. He looked so pleased with himself for finding a work-around. Wait to be let in, she’d said. Little conniver. Hands on knees, trying to catch her breath, she struggled to pull herself together. Oh, what must this poor woman think of them both?

The door clicked shut. Frankie O’Neill smiled faintly.

“Excuse me a minute,” she said.

She went into another room and pulled the door closed. Anne, swallowing her laughter, sat on the couch next to Aiden and touched his curls lightly with one hand. He had the book in front of him open to a series of photos—crows and ravens and rooks. His face was now a picture of contentment. She dropped a kiss on his wee head, and he shifted away from her.

“Young man,” she murmured. “What am I going to do with you?”

The coffee table was strewn with books, a deck of cards, and an unfinished cribbage game. A pair of floral armchairs framed the view, and two cozy beds were tucked in on the screened-in porch. Out the front windows, Mount Adams loomed over the navy-blue waters of the lake, and a skein of geese skimmed the water, honking as they landed. The fire crackled and popped in the woodstove and the wind played through the big trees in front of the house. It was so comfortable and inviting.

Frankie returned wearing trousers and a flannel shirt. Her hair was damp and her face slightly pink.

“Would you like some coffee? I just made some.”

Anne followed her to the kitchen. There she took in the deep farm sink, a battered old stove, and a diminutive refrigerator. The kitchen was painted a warm bottle green, and the rest of the room was bordered in cream-colored wainscot. A bookshelf filled one entire wall and a series of framed photos adorned the opposite. A long table divided the kitchen from the living room area and one end was covered in books and spiral-bound notebooks. The doors to what she assumed were bedrooms and bath were closed.

When she turned back, Frankie was watching her and frowning.

“Bit of a mess . . .” she said faintly.

“Oh, I think it’s lovely,” Anne said. “So warm and comfortable. It reminds me of my grandmother’s place.”

Frankie handed her a mug and glanced at Aiden, still bent over the bird book.

“Is it okay that he’s looking at your book?” Anne asked.

“Yes, it’s fine,” Frankie said.

They sat at the kitchen table, and Frankie pushed aside a large stack of journals.

“Sorry about all this. I’m sure things are much neater down at the Magnusens’.”

She sounded embarrassed.

Anne recalled the last family trip up to the house when Christi had enlisted her help in tidying the already tidy drawers and cupboards.

“That’s one word for it,” she said dryly. “Christi runs a tight ship.”

Frankie smiled faintly and asked how long they were up for. Anne found herself explaining about the newspaper expansion and Tim’s research on other markets. Frankie nodded politely, but Anne could tell she wasn’t terribly interested in plans for the Magnusen media empire. She wasn’t either, if she was honest.

“And you? Do you—work? Or are you mostly busy with—” Frankie gestured toward Aiden.

Anne’s face grew hot. People often assumed that the wife of a Magnusen would never work outside the home, as Christi liked to put it.

“I’m a musician,” she said, “and a teacher at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.”

“Oh,” said Frankie, sounding surprised. She leaned forward on her elbows. “What kind of musician?”

Anne turned her cup in her hands.

“Traditional Irish music,” she replied. “I’m a singer by training and I teach voice and composition at the college.”

“Irish—I thought so from your accent. My grandfather was from Ireland. From County Kerry.”

“Really?” Anne said, feigning interest. Here we go, she thought. The story about how the family went over to find their roots and all that. Visited the graveyard and read the church records. How it felt like a part of them belonged there. Then they bought their sweaters and headed back to America.

“You been over yourself, then?”

Frankie shook her head and frowned.

“We never had money for a trip like that. My grandfather went back once, I think, when he was young. When his mom died.”

“Yes, I know. It costs a mint going between here and there,” Anne said.

She glanced at her son, still absorbed in the book on the coffee table and whispering to himself.

“What about you? How long will you be at the lake? Tim said you were probably shutting things down for the season.”

Frankie’s eyes traveled the length of the table over the books and notebooks piled there.

“I’ll be closing up the house in a couple of weeks, I think,” she said slowly.

Anne sensed she didn’t want to explain further. Frankie was looking at Aiden again.

“You’re sure it’s okay? Your books?” Anne asked.

A strange look crossed Frankie’s face.

“Yes, it’s just . . . Aiden came over the other day,” she said slowly, and stopped.

Anne’s body flushed with shame, and she braced herself.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. What did he—did he come in the house? Did he break something?”

She thought of Mrs. Silva standing in the hallway in her bathrobe with dripping hair, furious. “You need to teach that kid some manners, Mrs. Magnusen!” she shouted.

“I want to replace it if he took something or—”

“No, he was fine,” Frankie said.

She explained that she’d come back to the house during the storm and found Aiden there. He was perfectly well-behaved, she said.

Anne couldn’t speak.

“We had hot chocolate and looked at some books. I was going to walk him home when it stopped raining, but then he ran outside. I saw you all on the trail together and I didn’t want to . . .” She trailed off. “Sorry. I should have come out and explained,” she finished.

Anne laughed with disbelief and turned to look at her son.

“So, you came up and had a nice cup of chocolate, did you? Made yourself right at home, you cheeky monkey?”

Aiden did not turn, but from the tilt of his head, Anne could tell he was listening, and she would wager he was smiling. She turned back to Frankie and tears rose in her eyes. The fear of having lost him lived in her body.

“Thank you so much,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. “We were down on the beach and I . . . He’s afraid of thunder.”

Frankie looked uncomfortable and glanced away.

“It was nothing. I never lock the door, and I’m glad he came in out of the rain.”

There was a strange sound from the kitchen then, a sharp and rasping squawk. Frankie pushed back her chair and stood.

“Excuse me a second.”

She lifted a wicker basket off the sink with slow and careful movement. Another squawk, louder and demanding this time. Frankie half turned to Anne.

“It’s a little crow. Do you want to see?”

Anne stood and Aiden flashed between them. He moved in close to Frankie, who used an eye dropper to dribble water into the beak of a bright-eyed little crow. Anne could see it had some sort of splint on one leg. The bird stopped drinking to look up at them, then resumed.

“Anne and Aiden, meet Charlie Crow. He’s got an injured leg,” Frankie said in a low, steady voice. “But mostly I think he was just hungry and thirsty. I’m fattening him up to get him back to his family.”

Aiden curled his small hands over the edge of the sink and leaned closer to the little bird.

“Careful, Aiden,” Anne said.

“He’s fine,” Frankie said quietly.

The bird sidled sideways, the splint clicking against the sink. Frankie set down the water and the dropper and picked up a pair of tweezers.

“Aiden, will you please pass me that can of tuna?” she asked in that same low voice, not looking at him.

“Sorry, he won’t—” Anne started to say, then watched, dumbfounded, as her son pulled the can toward him with both hands and held it up to Frankie.

“Thank you, Aiden,” Frankie said, and explained in the same steady voice that crow babies like this one needed to be fed every hour or so. And after he learned to feed himself, he would spend the winter with his parents and his older siblings and likely the next few years until he started his own family. So, it was very important he get back to his family quickly.

Aiden leaned in as Frankie fed the little crow. At her request he took the water and dropper and set them aside. Anne struggled to compose herself. When was the last time he’d taken directions from anyone? Even his parents?

After a few quiet minutes, Frankie put down the can and the tweezers.

“Okay, little buddy. I think that’s enough for now. See you in a bit, Charlie Crow. Say goodbye, Aiden.”

She replaced the wicker laundry basket over the sink and turned back to Anne, smiling. Aiden returned to Anne’s side and twined a small hand around her wrist, then let her go. Her heart flipped over, and she could barely trust herself to speak. She pulled her hair off her neck and forced a smile.

“Well, that was lovely and so interesting. Thank you for the coffee, Frankie. We’ll let you get back to your day. Please pop on by the house while we’re here.”

She knew she sounded abrupt, but if she didn’t get away, she’d start to cry in front of this stranger. Frankie stood in the doorway watching them as Aiden hopped up into the trolley and off, and then scrambled down the trail as nimble as a mountain goat.

What to make of it all? Who was this strange, quiet woman who drew Aiden so? Aiden, who did not want to be touched, who didn’t speak, who didn’t respond when spoken to. Aiden, who lived in his own little world.

She thought of the questionnaire from the University of Washington Department of Pediatrics, the written part of the assessment Dr. Shelley had asked her and Tim to fill out. Information about Aiden’s home life to provide context for the clinical assessment. That bloody long list of aggravating questions.

“What activities does your child enjoy doing alone? With others? How does your child behave when meeting new people?”

She thought of Aiden holding up the can of tuna fish like some precious thing, an offering, a prayer, a magic token of understanding.