Chapter 4

Machinery rumbling past our house and toward the woods wakes me from a dream about Ranger. In the dream, the sky rolls with thunder. The ground shakes. I’m petting Ranger, but when I lift my hand, fur drifts off him and falls to the ground. When I look at the ground, the fur has turned into a bush of rose hips.

I lie on my pillow for a minute, thinking. Once the truck has passed, it’s so quiet I can hear a mouse scratching behind the wall. I tap on the wall, and the mouse stops.

Then another roaring truck rattles the window, shakes the quiet house. I sit up and press my nose to the windowpane. It’s a Kloche’s Hydraulic Fracturing truck with a trailer full of Grandpa’s pipes. The tailwind shocks loads of leaves off the trees. Even after the truck is out of sight, the leaves twizzle.

This morning, the air outside looks hazy in the sunrise. We live on a long dirt road. Usually, it’s very quiet out here. I like it that way. Quiet and private.

Toivo likes it out here, too. He grew up in the woods. He comes from a long line of lumberjacks, true all the way back to Finland. His father was a logger for one of the mills that used to exist in this town. When Toivo was twelve, on the last week the mill was open before foreclosure shut it down, his father fell out of a tree and died. Once in a while, when I look at Toivo, my jaw gets tight when I think about that. He probably looks at me and gets the same chokehold on his throat.

Right behind the last, another truck cruises by. I wonder if trucks will always be blowing by now.

I throw the blanket off my legs. The jeans I was wearing yesterday, they’re a bit stiff and smell a little like turkey feathers, but they’ll do for another day, so I slip them on.

I grab Mom’s recipe book and sneak out of my room. Past the boys’ bedroom, I tiptoe and avoid the creaky floorboards. Mikko and Alexi remain fast asleep, snoring, drooling, and draped over each other in the bed they share like a couple of bear cubs in a den.

In the kitchen, Toivo sits at the table, drinking coffee. He’s opening envelopes and scribbling checks to bill collectors.

“Good morning,” he whispers.

“Morning.” I flip on the light switch for the basement.

“Gonna make us breakfast?”

“Yeah.” I rub my stomach. “I woke up hungry.”

The narrow basement steps lead to a small laundry room, where salamanders sometimes run, and another room we call the food cellar, where I keep all the jars of fruits and vegetables I’ve preserved and pails of sand with fresh vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, and turnips. Toivo keeps his deep freeze down here, too. When times are good, it’s full of fish and meat—walleye, grouse, duck, pheasant, turkey, venison, and bear. When times are rough, like they were before Toivo got the turkey yesterday, the freezer looks like an old man’s toothless mouth.

I ignore the large pile of dirty clothes next to the washing machine. Instead, from a pail in a dark corner, I pull out four groundnuts, which look like small, knobby potatoes. They grow underground on long roots, spreading out like baubles on a necklace.

Back upstairs, I put a teaspoon of instant Folgers in a cup and fill it with rusty tap water. I go to put it in the microwave when Toivo says, “It’s broke.”

“Oh,” I say.

“I heat mine up in a saucepan,” he says.

So I dump my coffee into the saucepan and turn on the gas and ignite the stove. I put a pot of water on the stove to boil. Then I dab some butter in a frying pan and set the burner to low.

I notice that Mikko’s and Alexi’s round and lumpy backpacks sit nearby on the floor. “Guess I better check if the boys had homework we forgot to do last night,” I say.

Toivo adjusts his hearing aid. “What?” he says.

I repeat myself.

“Good idea,” Toivo says. He sips his coffee, but he doesn’t make a move to open the backpacks.

First, I open Mom’s recipe book.

With a sharp paring knife, I flick the peelings off the groundnuts and soften them up in the boiling water. Once they are ready, I slice a few petals off the mushroom and toss it all into the melted butter.

“Do you smell smoke?” Toivo asks me. Deep, dark circles stress his eyes.

I sniff. “Well,” I say, “I smell gas from the stove. And butter. But I do smell something burning, too.” I sniff again.

The windows rattle as another semi loaded with piping from Grandpa’s factory barrels down our road toward the woods.

Toivo scoops up most of the envelopes and heads outside for the mailbox. Two unopened envelopes have been abandoned on the table. One is from Grandpa’s lawyer. The other is from Children’s Protective Services. I slide them under the plate that holds the napkins and salt and pepper. I don’t want to see them, either.

Toivo’s phone vibrates and lights up with BIG JOHN.

Grandpa.

I don’t want to talk to him, but I don’t want Grandpa leaving a nasty message on Toivo’s phone, either. So I flip open the phone and say “Hello?”

“Johanna?” Grandpa says.

Oh no. He thinks I’m Mom.

“Oh, Fern. Fern.” Grandpa’s words are muffled. “I’m sorry, Fern. You just sound so much like your mother.… I forgot for a second.” He takes a slobbery breath, and I hope he doesn’t start crying.

“That’s okay, Grandpa.” My eyes burn, but I look down at the floor and try to think about something else. No one’s ever said I sound like Mom before. A lot of people tell me I look just like she did. That makes me happy, I guess. Except that when I look in the mirror, all I see are gigantic alien eyes.

A few seconds pass. It’d be hard to imagine a big guy like my grandpa weeping, but he does. I’ve seen him. But Grandpa has a knack for doing something that makes you mad at him all over again in a hurry.

“How are you?” I finally ask him.

He allows a few more seconds to pass while he composes himself. “I’m fine, Fern. How are you?” He sounds tired and grumpy, like an overworked old mule, the kind you think is safe to pet but will bite your hand off if you try.

“Fine.”

It’s silent again. I don’t know why two people who share the same blood can have so little to talk about, but that’s how it is with Grandpa. He adds, “That’s good to hear. And how are the boys? Are they keeping up in school?”

“Um…” I cradle the phone between my ear and shoulder. I unzip Mikko’s and Alexi’s school bags and tip them upside down. Baseballs bounce out. Animal bones rattle to the floor. Banana peels slither on their own decaying gel. Mismatched gloves tumble. Soggy motocross magazines flutter out. And pocketknives, unsleeved, stab the floor at my toes. I’ll have to talk to them about the pocketknives. Even though having one is normal for boys around here, I know there’s a school rule against them.

I shake each bag just to make sure there’s nothing else in there. A lone school paper floats to the floor. Spelling test. He scored 6/10.

“Yeah,” I say. “Alexi just did really great on his spelling test.”

“Oh, that’s good to hear. Seems I got a call about his spelling tests from his teacher not too long ago. Glad to hear he’s doing better.” Alexi’s teacher and Grandpa’s secretary are best friends. They are also the two biggest gossips in town.

“Yep,” I say. “He is.”

“And you?”

“Um… I’m doing pretty good, too.”

“My company just donated a nice prize to the STEM fair,” he says. “I hope you have a good project idea that you’re working on.”

My face feels hot, and more of my hair is probably turning gray. “I better get the boys ready for school now, Grandpa.”

“I bought a pair of Jet Skis for you and the boys to take out on the lake next summer.”

“I saw a truck with a bunch of your pipes on it,” I say.

“Oh yes!” His voice brightens up. “We secured a very good contract with Kloche’s. And once they get Millner off his land and start clearing those woods, you just watch the jobs come back to Colter.”

“Wait,” I say. “What about Millner’s woods?” I bite a fingernail.

“Kloche’s is going to put a wastewater pond there. That darn Millner has got to go.”

Millner used to work for Grandpa. Until the accident. Then Grandpa fired him. Getting Horace Millner out of my life sounds good to me. But not the “clearing those woods” part.

I spit my torn fingernail onto the floor. “You mean Kloche wants to cut down the trees? The ones around our property?”

“Of course!” says Grandpa. “They have to. They have to put the fracking wastewater somewhere!”

Fracking again. Drilling miles and miles beneath the surface, Mr. Flores said. Wastewater pond, he said. I’m trying to imagine the trees gone and a big scummy pond in its place. Where will I find mushrooms or white onions? “B-but,” I stutter. “But what about—”

“Now, Fern,” he interrupts, “don’t you worry. I’m getting you out of there. I’ve got lots of trees and toys for you here.”

Grandpa’s property is surrounded by ornamental trees, perfectly pruned and perfectly spaced, not my idea of a woods. Woods should be wild, with animal trails and bird fights and overgrown plants.

“I like it here,” I tell him, my voice shaking. I look around the kitchen and try to think up a reason to get off the phone.

“Is Toivo around? I have to speak with him.” Grandpa’s voice has changed. He’s all boss now.

I decide to change my tone, too. “No.” I clear my throat and lower my chin. “He’s not available right now. May I take a message?”

A few seconds pass. “I see,” he says. “No, no. That won’t be necessary. I’ll try him again later.”

“I think he’s pretty busy all day.”

Grandpa guffaws. “I doubt that.” In my imagination, I can see his six-foot-six frame lean forward and jab a finger in my face. “That man is the sorriest excuse—”

“Okay,” I interrupt. “I have to get ready for school now. Bye.” Then I close the phone. I exhale real long and wait for my heart to stop kicking.

I can’t let him scare me. Who does he think he is? So what if he has a big voice? So what if he has a lot of money? So what if he’s the owner of Greene Incorporated? So what if practically everyone works for him? So what if he has supper and takes vacations with politicians? He can’t just have his way all the time.

Can he?

He didn’t get his way with Mom. She chose Toivo over her father’s money. I choose Toivo over Grandpa’s money, too.

Or at least I want to. But Children’s Protective Services might have other ideas.

The boys twist down the stairs and dust-devil into the kitchen.

“Where’s Dad?” says Mikko. “We’re sick.” He places the back of his palm against his forehead and closes his eyes as though he feels faint.

“Yeah,” says Alexi, who is walking with his arms in front of him like a mummy risen from the dead. “We don’t want to go to school.”

“Don’t even try it,” I say. I fork a groundnut from the frying pan to test it. Just right. Then I use it to point at Mikko. “You’re not sick. And you are going to school.”

“Daaaad!” they yell. Mikko forces a fake cough. Alexi holds his stomach and moans.

“I know you had homework,” I say to him. “Did you bring it home? I looked in your backpack and couldn’t find it. Where is it?” Alexi is in first grade for the second time. This is Mikko’s first try at third grade, but it’s not going too well.

They hug and slap each other’s backs and collapse on the floor, rowdy with laughter, which turns into a roly-poly battle of punches and kicking. Mikko’s skinny legs strike at Alexi’s body. Alexi’s elbows shoot jabs into Mikko’s middle.

“Ouch!” Mikko shouts. He curls up into a ball. “You got me in the jewels!”

“You don’t have any jewels!” Alexi says.

“Well then, no breakfast for you,” I tell them.

“All right,” says Mikko, and fishes a folded-up piece of math homework from his back pocket. Alexi pulls flash cards out from under the couch cushion. They settle at the table with their homework. Mikko’s eyes slide up and to the right, like he’s trying to find an answer he hid behind his ear. Alexi chews on the eraser end of his pencil while I serve up breakfast.

Toivo opens the screen door. The boys run to him and cling to his legs and whine about their imaginary illnesses. When Toivo checks with me, I shake my head.

“Well,” he says, “it looks like these boys are very sick, Fernny. I guess I’ll have to give them the special medicine.” Toivo makes a natural concoction for headaches, nausea, chills, and what have you. I don’t know for sure, but I think one of the ingredients is deer urine. It smells like rotten tree bark and tastes like a possum’s tail. I would know because I have eaten possum.

The boys look at each other with widened eyes and round mouths. Alexi pinches his nose closed.

“Oh yes. I think a dose of the special medicine is just what they need.” I grab Mikko’s arms and hold them behind his back. “Open up!” Toivo goes to the cupboard and pulls out an old milk jug filled with his special medicine. Mikko strains to get away from me. He stomps on my foot.

“Ow!” I shout.

“I feel better,” he says. “And I’m hungry.” I drop his arms.

“Me, too,” says Alexi. They scramble to the table.

Toivo puts the medicine back in the cupboard, and I giggle and then join the boys.

Toivo eats real slowly. “Boys, chew your food. Don’t gulp.” He rarely enforces rules, but he insists that we eat slowly and appreciate the work that has gone into providing and preparing it. “Fernny, you are the best cook I know.” His chin glistens.

After we finish breakfast, Toivo wrestles socks onto the boys’ feet while I toss the dishes into the sink, which is already full of dirty pots and pans, when a car pulls into the driveway.

“Who could that be?” I ask. I glance at the house, all messy with filthy clothes, dust, and toys everywhere.

Toivo goes to the window and separates the blinds to have a look. “Uh-oh.”

Chapter 4

Fried Groundnuts and Hen-of-the-Woods