My son wouldn’t put his duck down after she returned from a night missing. His mother had left seventeen months earlier, and I couldn’t ask him to let go again. Then I found a message attached to the bird’s leg, and by supper someone had arrived to tell us what I couldn’t explain.
He’d already missed breakfast, and his school clothes were still folded where Erin had left them.
Any time I reached toward him, he turned so the duck stayed behind his shoulder.
“Just let me check her.”
“You can check from there.”
I crouched beside him instead, close enough to hear her bill brushing the front of his sweatshirt.
Her name was Ramona.
Gavin had chosen it because, according to him, she walked like someone who should have a grown-up name.
He was eight, and he could make that sound perfectly reasonable.
She’d appeared behind our house in Marion months after Kara left, and she’d kept coming back.
At first, I thought he only liked having something that followed him.
Then I started leaving breakfast ready before I called him, because he actually came when she did.
He’d bring her as far as the back step and explain why she couldn’t come inside.
Every morning, the explanation changed.
“You haven’t wiped your feet.”
Or, “You’ll eat my homework, and they won’t believe me.”
He’d wait afterward, as though she might argue.
I missed that.
Before she arrived, I could ask him about school all afternoon and get nothing beyond a shrug.
He stopped finishing his cinnamon oatmeal, even when I made it thick enough to stay on the spoon.
That had always mattered to him.
Too runny, and he’d push the bowl back without tasting it.
After his mother left, he stopped complaining about that too.
I would’ve made it wrong on purpose if I thought he’d tell me off.
But with Ramona waiting outside, he started asking to hurry.
He had things to tell her.
A spelling word he’d got right, somebody who’d taken his seat, a cloud he thought resembled a shoe.
I’d hear him from inside and leave the window open a little longer.
He’d told the duck things he wouldn’t tell me, and I was grateful she stayed still for them.
Then Monday came.
Her shelter was empty when he went out, and he returned without shutting the back door.
“Did you move her?”
I shook my head before I understood why he was asking.
“Erin did, then.”
Erin was already pulling on her shoes.
We checked behind the shed and along the drainage ditch, then walked back over places we’d already searched.
Gavin called her name until he started coughing.
He wouldn’t drink anything because he thought she’d come while he was inside.
“I’ll stay here,” Erin said.
“You might not hear her.”
“I’ll listen.”
He studied her face before he let me take him back through the door.
I kept expecting a feather, a sound, SOMETHING that would tell me which way to go.
There was nothing I could show him.
By bedtime, he was asking whether ducks knew where houses were once it got dark.
“She knows this house,” I said.
“Then why isn’t she here?”
I sat beside his bed until he stopped asking, which was worse than having no answer.
He tucked her photograph inside his pillowcase with the picture facing him.
I could hear him crying after I left, and I went back without pretending I’d forgotten anything.
He moved over.
That’s where I stayed.
Tuesday morning, Erin touched my shoulder and pointed toward the window without saying the duck’s name.
Gavin was awake before I reached the stairs.
He got outside ahead of me, with his sweatshirt caught crooked at his neck and his shoes left behind.
Ramona stood beside the drive.
There was mud along her belly, but she stepped toward him when he crouched.
He lifted her carefully, then pressed his cheek into the feathers beside her head.
He shut his eyes.
I reached to straighten his collar, and his grip changed immediately.
“DON’T.”
“I’m fixing your shirt.”
He let me pull the fabric clear, but he never moved his face away from hers.
The duck made a low sound against him, and his shoulders dropped a little.
Only then did I see the strip of green cotton knotted just above her foot.
It was loose enough to slide, with a small card attached.
I thought it might be caught rubbish until the card turned and showed handwriting.
“Gavin, hold her still.”
He tucked his chin over her head while I worked the card around without pulling the cotton.
The message said, “Home again. She made her choice.”
I read it twice.
Somebody had held this bird while my son was calling for her outside.
Somebody had written about a choice while I was trying to answer why she hadn’t come home.
“What is it?” Erin said.
I held the card toward her, below Gavin’s elbow.
Her mouth stayed open after she read it, and she looked past me toward the road.
“What does it say?” Gavin said.
“That she came home.”
“Read ALL of it.”
I did, and he pressed his cheek harder against the duck before I reached the end.
“See?” he said.
I couldn’t give him anything better than that, so I let him keep it.
Erin broke an oat biscuit into pieces he could manage without setting Ramona down.
He ate with her across his lap, then brushed the crumbs from her feathers with his thumb.
When it was time to leave, I brought his shoes over.
He drew his feet back.
“She can wait here.”
“She waited yesterday.”
Erin took the shoes from me before I tried to answer that.
The yellow bus stopped outside, and Gavin turned away from the window until it moved on.
“He can’t miss school every time he’s frightened,” I said after Erin followed me into the kitchen.
“Today,” she said.
“What about tomorrow?”
“Terrance, can we do TODAY?”
I called the school while she sat where Gavin could see her.
For the rest of the morning, he kept Ramona close enough to touch, even when she settled beside him.
He opened his rabbit book and held the pictures toward her, with his finger keeping his place.
When she turned her head, he moved the book rather than ask her to look back.
I kept the card.
By late afternoon, the edge had softened where I’d rubbed it between my fingers.
Then a station wagon stopped beside our drive, and an older woman stepped out.
Gavin raised his head at the sound.
The woman came toward us slowly, with her hands held together in front of her coat.
“I’m Diane,” she said.
I still had the card between my fingers, and her gaze stopped on it.
“I’m fairly sure that’s my bird he’s holding.”
Gavin pulled Ramona higher against him.
“She’s HERE,” he said.
Diane looked from his face to mine.
“That duck,” she said. “SHE BELONGS TO ME.”
The back door
“She lived with you before she came here?” I said.
“Since she was small. I kept her yesterday, too.”
I put the card in my pocket and stepped between Diane and Gavin.
There was the answer to Monday. Somebody’s house. Somebody who could stand in our drive and say kept her as though we hadn’t spent the night listening for her.
“Did you write this?”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you asking for?”
“I’d like to discuss where she belongs.”
Behind me, Gavin climbed the step with Ramona against him. The door closed, and the lock clicked.
He’d never locked me outside before.
Erin stood on the other side of the glass. She put her hand against it, then pointed toward the kitchen. Gavin stayed where he was.
Diane took a step forward.
“Give him a minute,” I said.
“I haven’t come to upset anybody.”
I wanted to ask what she usually did when that was the purpose of a visit.
Instead, I held up one finger to Gavin through the glass. One minute. An excellent unit of time for a father who had no idea what he was doing.
Diane took her phone from her coat.
“My daughter has the carrying crate. I’ll ask her to bring it, in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case we can’t settle this.”
She turned toward the drive to make the call.
Through the door, Erin held out her arms for Ramona. Gavin shook his head. Then he bent to unlock the door for me without moving the duck away from his chest.
I went inside and shut it behind me.
“Is that lady taking her?”
“She’s telling me Ramona used to live with her.”
He waited for the rest.
I didn’t have a rest.
“Then don’t let her in.”
The photograph in his pillowcase
I sat on the floor beside him.
At thirty-nine, I could still get down without making a noise. Getting up required negotiations with both knees.
“She hasn’t shown me anything yet,” I said.
“I’ve got a picture.”
“I know.”
“No. I’ll get it.”
He gave Ramona to Erin. After a day of refusing every offer, he handed her over because he needed proof.
That hurt in a place I couldn’t reach.
He came back with the photograph from his pillowcase. One corner had bent overnight. In it, Ramona stood beside his shoe while he held his rabbit book open toward the camera.
I’d taken it because he’d wanted a picture of them reading.
The duck was looking at his shoelace. Gavin hadn’t minded.
“Show her,” he said.
I took the photograph to the door. Diane had finished her call.
“My daughter Amber will be here shortly.”
I held out the picture.
“This is her life here.”
Diane put on her glasses. Her thumb stopped against the bent corner.
“She’s filled out.”
“We feed her.”
“I can see that.”
“She has a shelter behind the shed. Water. Someone shutting her in every night.”
Diane looked past me.
“I had a place for her, too.”
“How did she leave it?”
“The ditch overflowed during that rain. Part of the fence went over. I looked for her.”
“So did we.”
She handed the picture back.
“I kept her feed dish out for weeks.”
The woman standing on my step had waited at a window, too. I didn’t like having to make room for that while my son waited behind me.
“Why didn’t you knock this morning?” I said.
“I thought I’d come back when you were all home.”
“We were home.”
“Yes. I can see that now.”
She smoothed the front of her coat. A piece of green cotton showed at the cuff.
“Did you bring her back?”
“Yes.”
“Then why the crate?”
“I wanted to see how things were.”
Inside, Ramona stretched her neck toward Gavin. He took her from Erin and settled on the floor again.
Diane’s face softened. She lifted her hand toward him through the doorway.
He turned away.
Her hand came down.
“He can’t hold her all day,” she said.
“It’s been a day.”
“That doesn’t make it good for her.”
I gave the photograph back to Gavin. He tucked it under his thigh.
Diane pointed at the duck.
“Ask him to put her down.”
The water bowl
I let Diane into the kitchen because I wanted an answer that didn’t have to pass through a door.
That was my first mistake.
She stayed beside the counter while Erin filled Ramona’s water bowl. Gavin sat near the back door with his legs around the duck.
“She needs room,” Diane said.
“Gavin, let’s give her a drink.”
He loosened his arms. Ramona stepped over his ankle and went to the bowl.
Water reached the floor almost immediately.
“She’s very tidy,” I said.
Gavin’s mouth moved at one corner. Then Diane bent toward Ramona, and he reached for her again.
“Leave her,” Diane said.
He stopped.
I crouched beside the bowl.
“Nobody’s grabbing anybody.”
Diane straightened.
“I’d never hurt her.”
“I didn’t say you would.”
“I’ve kept ducks longer than you’ve had that boy.”
Erin put the cloth down harder than she needed to.
Diane looked at her.
“I mean I know what they need.”
“He’s been up most of the night,” Erin said.
“That won’t help him care for an animal.”
I wanted this conversation outside again. Preferably at somebody else’s house, with somebody else’s floor covered in duck water.
“Can we agree she stays here tonight?” I said. “Then we talk tomorrow.”
Diane studied Gavin.
“Provided he goes to school.”
His hand closed around the photograph.
“We’ll deal with school,” I said.
“And provided she isn’t brought indoors every time he wants her.”
“Today was different.”
“Then you agree.”
I’d asked for one night. Somehow I was being offered an inspection.
Erin moved the bowl farther from the door. Ramona followed it, and Gavin crawled after her.
Diane pointed.
“There. That’s what I’m talking about.”
“He’s making sure she doesn’t go outside.”
“She has to be allowed outside.”
“He knows that.”
“Does he?”
Gavin looked at me.
I could have ended the discussion. I could have said we’d speak without him present. Instead, I tried to prove we were reasonable people who deserved a duck.
“Show Diane where you keep her food,” I said.
Gavin didn’t move.
“You can leave Ramona here with us.”
“No.”
“I’ll stay beside her.”
He looked at Diane’s hands.
Erin stepped between Diane and the bowl.
“I’ll get it.”
“No need,” Diane said. “You clearly feed her.”
The words landed harder than I expected. We’d been showing a stranger our homework, and she’d decided she didn’t need to mark it.
I picked up the card.
“You wrote ‘Home again.'”
“You found her waiting by your drive.”
“And ‘She made her choice.'”
“Yes.”
“So let her stay.”
Diane took off her glasses.
“I’d like to think I can trust you.”
I’d spent seventeen months trying to get my son to trust breakfast, bedtime, the sound of a car leaving.
Now I was applying for approval in my own kitchen.
“What exactly do you want?” I said.
“I’d need to be able to check on her.”
“We can arrange visits.”
“And take her home if I don’t like what I find.”
Erin’s chair
Erin pulled out a chair and sat beside Gavin.
“Could we stop for a minute?” she said.
Diane folded her glasses into her coat pocket.
“I’m offering a way forward.”
“You’re offering to leave him waiting for you to come back,” I said.
“Would you rather I took her now?”
Gavin put the photograph on Erin’s knee. He needed both hands free for Ramona.
I hated Diane for saying it. I hated myself for making that the question.
Erin kept her hand beside the photograph.
“Terrance, we can’t keep arguing over his head.”
“Then she stays tonight.”
“If she’s Diane’s bird, we can’t settle it by wanting her more.”
I turned toward her.
Erin looked tired enough to sit down wherever the conversation ended. She’d spent Monday searching a ditch and Tuesday defending a missed school day. I should have heard that.
What I heard was her taking Diane’s side.
“So you want me to hand her over?”
“I want us to stop promising things we don’t know.”
Gavin looked from her to me.
I nearly told him Erin didn’t mean it. She did mean it, and using her as the bad answer would have been easier than admitting I had none.
“Diane,” Erin said, “could you let us explain things to him?”
“Of course.”
She moved toward the door.
Gavin stood so quickly the photograph slid from Erin’s knee.
“I can go to school.”
Nobody answered.
“I can go tomorrow.”
“We know you can,” Erin said.
“I can put her down.”
He crouched and set Ramona on the floor. His hands stayed beside her until she stepped away.
“There.”
Diane’s mouth opened. I put up my hand.
Gavin stood with his arms pressed against his sides.
“I didn’t know that was the rule.”
I had been angry before. Now I couldn’t find anywhere to put my hands.
“There isn’t a rule like that,” I said.
“You said she can stay if I go.”
“Diane said that.”
“You’re talking about it.”
He was right. We’d let him sit there while we discussed the terms.
Erin covered her mouth. Then she took her hand away and reached toward him.
He stepped back.
That was what our sensible conversation cost. The woman he’d trusted to listen for Ramona on Monday couldn’t touch him on Tuesday.
“I can do it,” he said.
“Gavin, you don’t have to show us.”
He looked down at the duck.
She had begun investigating the bottom of Diane’s coat. He didn’t move toward her.
His effort was so visible that I wanted to pick him up. He would have fought me, and I wouldn’t have blamed him.
Diane bent and let Ramona touch her fingers.
“She remembers me.”
“Of course she does,” Erin said. “Nobody’s saying she doesn’t.”
Diane glanced at her.
I took Gavin’s photograph from the floor.
“Come outside with me.”
“Is she coming?”
“Ramona can stay with Erin.”
He took the photograph from my hand. He left enough space between us for another person as we went through the door.
On the step, I sat beside him.
“I shouldn’t have let that turn into a test.”
He rubbed his thumb over the bent corner.
“You told me she knew our house.”
“She does.”
“You didn’t say somebody could come and get her anyway.”
I reached toward his shoulder.
He stood up before I got there.
“Don’t tell me anything else yet.”
The crate beside the drive
Amber arrived while Gavin stood at the edge of the step.
Diane went out to meet her. I stayed beside my son.
The crate came out of Amber’s car with its door folded back. It was big enough for Ramona to turn around in. A towel lay across the bottom.
Someone had made it comfortable. That almost made it worse.
“This is my daughter,” Diane said.
Amber nodded to me.
“Where do you want this?”
“Here for now,” Diane said.
Amber put it beside the drive. She was a grown woman carrying equipment for her mother, and I gave her the look people give the person holding the parking ticket.
She hadn’t earned it.
“Sorry,” I said. “We’re trying to work something out.”
“All right.”
Gavin stared at the crate.
“I don’t want to go inside,” he said.
“You don’t have to.”
Erin came to the doorway. Ramona stood behind her feet.
Diane turned toward the duck.
“We’re getting nowhere. Perhaps she should come with me tonight. Everybody can have some rest.”
“No,” Gavin said.
“Then we can discuss visits when you’ve had time.”
I wanted to say no just as loudly. But Diane had said she’d raised the bird. She’d shown no doubt about it. Keeping Ramona because Gavin loved her wouldn’t answer that.
“Can we have five minutes?” I said.
Diane nodded.
Gavin looked up at me.
“You’re getting her.”
“I’m going to talk to Erin.”
“You’re getting her for the box.”
“It’s a crate,” Diane said.
I turned toward her so fast that Amber stepped between us.
“We know what it is,” I said.
Erin came down the step.
“Come with me, sweetheart.”
Gavin shook his head.
I went inside alone. Ramona followed me to the water bowl and dipped her bill.
After everything, she was thirsty.
I stood beside her with the card in my hand. Its corner had gone soft. I’d rubbed away part of the word choice.
Erin came in behind me.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I said.
“Neither do I.”
“He’s going to think we gave her away.”
She wiped her face with her sleeve.
“Then we stay with him when he’s angry.”
It was the sensible answer. I couldn’t bear it.
Through the doorway, Gavin crouched beside the crate. He pulled one edge of the towel flat.
I went back outside.
“What are you doing?”
“It was bunched up.”
He smoothed it again, though it didn’t need it.
I crouched beside him. My knee hit the gravel, and I let it.
“If she has to go tonight, I’ll go with her. I’ll see where she sleeps.”
“Will you bring her back?”
I couldn’t say yes.
He nodded before I’d answered.
Amber looked at her mother.
“Go tonight?”
Diane put a hand on her arm.
“We’ll talk in the car.”
Gavin crawled backward from the crate and stood beside Erin.
“She likes the door open until she’s settled,” he said.
The green cotton
I stood up with the card still in my hand.
“Amber, were you here this morning?”
“Yes.”
Diane said, “She drove.”
“You brought Ramona to the drive?”
“We carried her over,” Amber said. “Mom wanted to put her right by the house.”
The crate sat between us.
“So she didn’t walk back.”
“No. Mom showed me where.”
I looked at Diane.
“Yesterday, too?”
“She was tangled in rubbish along the ditch,” Diane said. “I got her free. I recognized her.”
“Thank you for getting her out.”
She looked down.
“I took her home to clean her up.”
That was Monday. A duck caught where we’d searched, taken away before we got there. No secret person had called her from our yard.
“And this morning?” I said.
Diane reached toward the card.
“I brought her back. You’ve got the note.”
I kept it.
“What did you tell Amber you were doing?”
Diane said nothing.
Amber looked toward the kitchen.
“You said you were giving her to the boy.”
Gavin turned.
Diane shook her head.
“I hadn’t spoken to his father.”
“You didn’t say you were lending her.”
“I wanted to see them first.”
“Mom, you saw them yesterday.”
Erin took a step forward.
“Where?”
“From the road,” Diane said.
“You saw us looking?”
“Later. After I’d taken her home. I came back to see if she might have been living here.”
“And you left us looking.”
“I was trying to decide.”
My son stood beside Erin with one hand against the doorframe.
I put the card in Diane’s palm.
“You decided before you tied that on.”
“I wanted to do something kind.”
Amber’s eyes filled.
“You told me, ‘She can stay with that boy. He’s been keeping her safe.’ That’s why I brought you this morning.”
Diane looked toward Gavin.
“I didn’t expect all this.”
Neither had I. I’d expected to beg an owner for a duck. I’d been ready to offer anything short of Gavin’s bedroom.
Diane had brought Ramona home as a gift. Then she’d come back and found a frightened boy who wouldn’t let anybody touch it.
“Did you bring the crate to take her away?” I said to Amber.
“Mom said to bring her things.”
Diane closed her fingers around the card.
I opened the back door.
“Come inside. Gavin needs to hear this.”
Five voices in the kitchen
Amber left the crate outside.
Diane came into the kitchen behind her. Erin stood beside Gavin, and Ramona settled near the water bowl.
I put a chair where Gavin could sit without having to get past anybody.
He stayed standing.
“Diane,” I said, “tell him what you meant this morning.”
She looked at Amber.
Her daughter didn’t help her.
“I brought Ramona back because I knew you’d been looking for her,” Diane said.
Gavin touched the edge of his photograph.
“And because she was happy here,” she added.
“Then you said she’s yours.”
“She was mine. For a long time.”
He looked at me.
I kept my mouth shut. I’d supplied enough answers on her behalf.
Diane sat down.
“I’m seventy-three. I raised that bird. I thought she’d gone for good, and yesterday I had her in my hands again.”
Erin pulled out another chair. She didn’t sit in it.
Diane continued.
“I kept putting off coming over. I thought I’d have one more night with her, then I’d make up my mind. This morning I brought her back. I thought you’d be pleased to meet me.”
Gavin’s hand went still.
“I was holding her.”
“I know.”
“You wanted me to put her down.”
“I wanted to touch her.”
“You could have said.”
Diane pressed the card flat against her knee.
I wanted to keep that sentence. Eight years old, no sleep worth mentioning, and he’d found the plain words none of us had used.
“You could have said,” he repeated.
Diane began to cry.
Amber moved closer but didn’t put an arm around her.
“I don’t like the way this is being made to sound,” Diane said. “I got her out of that ditch. I brought her here.”
“And we thanked you,” Erin said.
“I wasn’t asking for a parade.”
“Then stop asking him to prove you should have done it.”
Diane stood up.
Ramona lifted her head. Gavin started forward, then stopped.
“She won’t sit there all evening,” Diane said. “Someone needs to put her outside.”
“I will,” I said. “When we’re finished.”
“I can see I’m not welcome.”
“You’re welcome to finish what you came to do.”
She turned the card over.
“Well, I can’t take back what I’ve said.”
“You can correct it.”
Amber held out her hand.
Diane looked at it.
“The card, Mom.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Put down what you told me this morning.”
Diane pulled her hand closer.
“I can do my own writing.”
Erin took a pen from beside the telephone and put it on the counter.
Nobody pushed it toward Diane.
She stood there for a while.
“I’d like to come and see her.”
“We can arrange that,” I said.
“I don’t want to have to ask permission every time.”
“You will.”
“And if I think something’s wrong?”
“You talk to us.”
“If you’re away, I could let myself into the yard. It would save you finding somebody.”
“No.”
She looked at Amber again.
“Are you hearing this?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t need you to stand there agreeing with everything.”
Amber’s tears reached her chin.
“You asked me to help you give her away. Then you called me to bring her things. I did both.”
“I’m still allowed to be upset.”
“Of course.”
“You think this is easy for me?”
“No.”
Amber took the crate from the doorway where she’d left it and carried it into the kitchen.
Diane reached for its handle.
Amber held on.
“Is this staying here, or am I putting it back in my car empty?”
Diane’s hand dropped.
Gavin looked at the towel inside.
Erin bent beside him.
“I owe you something, too,” she said. “I should have asked more questions before I agreed Ramona might have to go.”
He leaned against her shoulder.
It was a small movement. Erin closed her eyes, then opened them and kept her hands where he could see them.
Diane picked up the pen.
“I don’t know what to write.”
“What you meant this morning,” I said.
She rested the card on the counter.
Her first line stopped halfway across. She read it, shook her head, and began again underneath.
Then she held it toward me.
I didn’t take it.
“He’s right there.”
Diane crouched as far as she could and held the card toward Gavin.
“I’ve written that I’m giving Ramona to you. The crate stays, too.”
He took it.
“Can Dad read it?”
“Yes.”
I read every word.
“I give Ramona to Gavin. She lives with him now. I won’t take her away.”
Diane had signed her name underneath.
“Is that enough?” she said.
I looked at Gavin.
He held out the card so she could see the front.
“What about this part?”
Diane wiped her face.
“I wrote that because she kept looking toward your house when I brought her to the road.”
“You chose, too?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you say she’s yours?”
Diane sat back on the chair.
“Because I wanted you to know she loved me before she knew you.”
He looked down at Ramona.
“She can still know you.”
Amber covered her face.
Diane reached toward Gavin, then let her hand fall before it reached his shoulder.
“I shouldn’t have said I could take her back.”
“No,” I said.
She stood and buttoned her coat with the wrong button first. She undid it and tried again.
“I’d like a moment with my duck before I leave.”
I moved the chair out of Gavin’s way.
“Ask her owner.”
The empty station wagon
Diane stayed beside the back step while Gavin put Ramona down.
“She might go to the water,” he said.
“That’s all right.”
He crouched beside her and held out his hand. Ramona brushed past it toward Diane’s shoe.
Diane bent and touched the feathers along her back.
Nobody told Gavin to move away.
After a minute, Ramona went toward her shelter. Gavin followed at walking speed. He looked over his shoulder once, and I stayed where he could see me.
Amber carried the crate to the shed.
“Here?”
Gavin pointed beside the door.
“Dad can move it if it rains.”
“I can do that,” I said.
A whole assignment within my abilities. I nearly thanked him.
Diane came down the step.
“Could I come Saturday?”
I looked toward Gavin.
He clutched the card against his chest.
“In the afternoon,” he said. “She has a bath first.”
Diane nodded.
I added, “Call before you leave.”
She didn’t argue.
At the station wagon, Amber opened her mother’s door. The back seat stayed empty.
Diane stood beside it with one hand on the roof.
“I hope you won’t tell people I came here to take a child’s pet.”
“I’ll tell it as it happened.”
“Terrance.”
“You gave her to him. Then you frightened him. Then you put it right.”
Her eyes went toward the shed.
“I suppose that’s fair.”
She got into the car.
Gavin waited until both cars had left before he came back to me.
“Can you keep the writing?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Not the rubbish drawer.”
“It’s a drawer of useful things.”
“It has a battery that doesn’t work.”
“A very specific drawer.”
He gave me the card.
Then he put both arms around my waist. He held on hard enough that I couldn’t pretend it was just a passing hug.
“I didn’t want you to get her for the box,” he said.
“I know.”
I rested my hand against the back of his head.
“I’m sorry I made you think I would.”
He stayed there while Erin stood beside us.
Ramona came out of the shelter and pushed her bill against my trouser leg.
“You’re standing in her way,” Gavin said.
Wednesday’s back step
On Wednesday morning, I made the oatmeal too thick.
Not deliberately. I’d been at the window checking the shelter, which was apparently my job now.
Gavin pushed his spoon into the bowl and left it standing.
“You could build with that.”
“Eat around the foundations.”
Erin laughed into her sleeve.
He ate most of it.
His school clothes were waiting where she’d folded them on Tuesday. He put them on without asking where Ramona would be while he was gone.
Then he went outside.
I stayed at the door with his bag.
He opened the shelter and crouched while Ramona stepped into the yard. She went straight to her water.
Gavin waited for her to finish.
“I have school,” he said.
She put her bill under again.
“You weren’t listening.”
He took the rabbit book from the step and placed it inside the house. Then he came back for his bag.
At the sound of the bus, his hand stopped on the strap.
I wanted to promise that nothing would happen while he was away. I wanted it so badly the words were halfway out of my mouth.
“Erin’s here this morning,” I said instead. “I’ll be here when you get home.”
“And Diane has to call.”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the shelter.
“Can we check her door tonight? The bottom bit?”
“We can check it now.”
We went together. I pushed against the wood while he worked the latch. He opened it and tried again.
“That holds,” he said.
The bus waited.
He went down the drive without running back. I stood there until he’d climbed aboard.
That afternoon, he came through the gate with his bag hanging from one shoulder.
Ramona met him beside the drive.
He crouched and picked her up, one hand underneath, the way he’d learned. His cheek touched the feathers beside her head.
This time, when I reached toward him, he didn’t turn away.
“Good day?”
“We had a spelling test.”
“How did it go?”
“I was telling her.”
“Of course.”
He finished his report. Ramona contributed nothing, which remained the secret of her success.
Then he set her down.
I bent to take his bag, and he put both arms around my neck instead.
His cheek pressed against mine.
“You can have a turn now,” he said.
Send this to someone who knows how much a small creature can mean to a family.
For more stories about family tensions and painful surprises, read “My Father Joked About My Rent While I Owed $286,000” and “My Husband Took My Name Off the Guest List”. For another tense turn, there’s also “The Sergeant Crossed Her Name Off The Afternoon Roster”.
