They settled into lawn chairs while Ursa cooked marshmallows. Gabe was quiet, staring moodily into the fire. Ursa didn’t say much either, her usual exuberance diminished by his silence.
“Is Lacey leaving tomorrow?” Jo asked.
“Now that I’m up, she probably will,” he said, still gazing into the fire.
“Where does she live?”
“Saint Louis.”
“That’s good.”
He looked at her. “Why?”
“Because it’s a short drive.”
“It would be better if it were longer.”
“She visits too much?”
“Not because she wants to. She comes when my mother calls her and tells her to come.”
“Does your mother do that often?”
“If I lie down for a long nap, my mother calls Lacey. If I’m in a quiet mood, she calls Lacey. If I skip the morning chores, she calls Lacey.”
“Why?”
“Because she thinks I’m going down again.” He glanced at Ursa to see if she understood his meaning. “She’s terrified I’ll stop taking care of her and the animals.”
“Has that ever happened?”
He made a wry sound. “I wouldn’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never had a chance to see if I would let it get that bad. Lacey always shows up before it does.”
“And then you shut down because you can and they expect you to.”
His eyes lit up with more than reflected fire. “Exactly!”
“That’s messed up. And having Lacey around would make anyone shut down. She almost seemed pissed that you were able to get up.”
“She was. She complains about coming here when I get depressed, but in reality I think she enjoys it. It’s some power thing with her.”
“That’s why she wouldn’t let us see you. She was threatened by the possibility that you have friends.”
“Who might give me a reason to get out of bed . . . which you did, by the way, and thank you for that.”
“Thank Ursa. I was too chicken to do it.”
“Thanks for sticking to your guns, Ursa. I mean . . . not guns . . .”
Jo and Ursa laughed.
He looked better and maybe felt better, because he toasted two marshmallows and ate them both. But anything he gained would be lost when he returned to the poisonous atmosphere of his home. “What did your sister say when you left to come here?” Jo asked while Ursa ran after a firefly.
“You can imagine.” He tossed his marshmallow stick into the fire. “No, you probably can’t, because you’re a normal person.”
“What did she say?”
He glanced at Ursa to make sure she couldn’t hear. “First, she ripped into me for buying clothes for Ursa. My mother told her about that while we were in the barn. When I ignored her, she got nastier until I got angry, like she always does. She said I might be accused of being a pedophile if I kept letting Ursa come to the farm. I asked her if that was a threat, and she said maybe. She said it was weird that I was picking her up in my arms.”
“That’s terrible!”
“Yeah, it was bad. And she mocked me about you—like she thought we were involved or something.”
So Jo had guessed right about that. “What a bitch! If she thought you found someone, she should be happy.”
“My happiness can only make Lacey miserable and vice versa. She’s hated me since I was in the womb.”
“You know what she said to me?”
“What?” he asked with alarm. Apparently he didn’t trust anything his sister said.
“She told me I should dump you now, rather than later when my research was done.”
“God damn her!” he said, looking in the direction of his cabin.
“Don’t worry about it. I could see what was going on. But I thought you should know.”
He studied Jo’s eyes. “Did she say anything else?”
“That was the gist of it.”
He kept his eyes on hers, as if searching for the truth beyond her reply.
“What did you think she’d said?”
He looked down at his hands, rubbing his palms between his knees. “She and my mother think you’re the reason I went down—because I was last with you before it happened.”
She had surmised as much when he first disappeared, but she wouldn’t ask if it was true. That question might lead to why she had suddenly turned cold the night they looked at the galaxy. She never talked about how the surgeries had changed her view of her body. She could only visit that desolate place in private.
Gabe turned his face toward her. “She had no right to lay that on you. I’m sorry she involved you in our family bullshit.”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry I called her a bitch. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?” He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “You bitch!” in the direction of his property.
“I doubt she heard.”
“You never know. You can hear loud noises between these houses. I’m sure you hear our cow.”
“I do.”
“I meant Lacey.”
“Okay, stop. We should feel sorry for her. People as bitter as her usually have a reason. Is she divorced or something like that?”
“No, but you’re right about her being bitter. She was always desperate for our father’s approval, and she hated that he bragged about how smart I was when I was little. Mostly to please him, she majored in English and tried to become a writer, but she failed. Around that time, she got really mean. She used to tease me relentlessly until my temper blew. She enjoyed trying to make me look bad in front of our parents, especially our father.”
“That’s all pretty typical sibling rivalry.”
“Is it typical for a woman in her twenties to play games with a little kid so she could crush him and tell him how dumb he was? Or to say her newborn brother looked like a toad and call him Mr. Toad into adulthood? Around her, I felt like the ugliest, stupidest thing on Earth.”
“That’s awful. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be. I got over it a long time ago,” he said in a hostile tone that contradicted his assertion. “I stopped hoping she would like me the day she abandoned me in the woods. I was picking flowers for my mom, and she just walked away. I still remember how terrified I was.”
“How old were you?”
“Five. It took my mother an hour to find me. She’d asked Lacey to take me for a walk while she worked on a poem. Lacey lied, said I’d wandered off. And she went on and on about how I’d have found my way home if I was smarter.”
“God, I hope she never had kids of her own.”
“She has two sons, and she spoiled them rotten. They’re both in college now.”
“Does she have a job?”
“She kept writing while she did the stay-at-home mom thing, but none of her books ever took off. She felt like she’d disappointed my dad. But she shouldn’t have chosen that field just to please him—especially once she realized writing wasn’t her talent.”
Ursa had returned during their conversation. “Are you talking about Lacey?”
“Yes,” Jo said.
“Why did you yell when I was over there?” she asked Gabe.
“I was just fooling around.”
“I thought Lacey was here and she came to make you leave.”
“She can’t make me,” he said.
“Will you stay?”
“I’ll go soon. I’m sure you two are tired.”
“You have to stay!” Ursa said. “If you go back, they’ll keep you prisoner again. But this time, they’ll lock the door and we won’t be able to rescue you.”
“It’s not as dire as all that,” he said.
“Please? Jo wants you to stay. Jo, tell him not to go!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go back,” Jo said. “Show your sister you have a life of your own. And your mother needs to learn that, too. Why doesn’t she ever stay with Lacey in Saint Louis so you can have a break? Or they could hire someone to help her. Who voted you the forever caregiver? You’re way too young for that burden.”
Gabe stared at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I tend to spew opinions when I’m pissed.”
“Don’t apologize. Everything you said is true.”
“Then teach them a lesson and sleep on the couch. Ursa can sleep with me, if that’s okay with her.”
“Yes, it’s okay!” Ursa said, thrusting her arms in the air. “And tomorrow Gabe can come with us to Summers Creek! It’s the best place, Gabe! It’s like a magic forest!”
“I’ve never seen a magic forest,” he said.
“It’s pretty damn magical,” Jo said.