Dinsmore was the devil without knowing either one of
them. And that her worldview made no sense.
I didn’t. Because I knew she was not my girlfriend
and she never would be. So why even bother trying to
get through?
That disastrous conversation had allowed me to
look through the window of her and see the space inside.
And it was not a nice place. And I no longer wanted to
go there.
“Let’s go back,” I said.
I got to my feet and began to take up the tablecloth to
fold it. Which involved more or less pulling it out from
under her. I was upset, to put it mildly.
“Wait,” she said. “Give me a minute to get up at least.”
I waited, and she did.
I folded the cloth, hoping she wouldn’t keep talking.
She kept talking.
“See, this is just what I was trying to tell you before.
You have to be careful who you hang around with. People
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will judge you by who you hang around with. And then
they might not want to be around you, either.”
“Stop,” I said. And I looked her right in the face.
She was shocked that I had spoken to her so abruptly. I
could tell. “Stop talking. I don’t want to talk about this
anymore. I just want to go home.”
“What about our date?”
“It’s over.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
She snorted. Literally snorted through her nostrils
like an angry bull. Then she stomped off toward town.
“Wait,” I said, picking up the basket and following
her. “Let me walk you home at least.”
“I don’t need you to walk me home.” She threw the
words over her shoulder, like something she spat out.
“You might. It’s easy to get lost in the woods.”
“I can see the town.”
I was nearly jogging to keep up with her.
“But when you get down off this rise, you won’t. And
it’s easy to get turned around.”
“I’ll manage,” she said.
But I followed her. To make sure she would find her
way out okay. I didn’t try to talk to her again. I didn’t
want to talk to her again. But I followed her until she
stepped out onto my street and turned toward home.
Then I followed her home.
She glanced once over her shoulder at me as she disap-
peared into her house. Then she slammed the door hard.
And that was it. My first girlfriend. My very first
relationship. Two whole days of it, and that was that.
* * *
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Catherine Ryan Hyde
I showed up at Zoe Dinsmore’s cabin at what I guessed
was about seven o’clock in the evening, judging by the
sun. I was out of breath from running. I was deeply feel-
ing my lack of sleep. But I was far too upset to go home.
I pounded hard on the door. Raised my fist high over
my head and banged with the outside edge of it. The dogs
were inside, and they barked a few deep barks, because
they couldn’t see it was only me.
“Who is it?” she called through the door.
“It’s Lucas.”
The dogs stopped barking at the sound of my voice.
The door opened and they came spilling out, lashing
me with their wagging tails. For the first time ever, I
paid them no mind.
Zoe Dinsmore looked into my face in the fading light.
“Uh-oh,” she said.
“Why do people do that? Why do they need to make
you wrong? Or make you out to be some kind of bad per-
son? Everybody knows bad things happen. I know we’re
not supposed to talk about this. I know you don’t want
me to. But I’m talking about it. I’m just talking about it.
Because I need to know.”
In the moment of silence that followed, I watched
her face. She was looking down at the threshold and her
own bare feet. She didn’t look angry that I had asked.
She didn’t look much of anything.
“I suppose you’d best come in,” she said.
* * *
“Here’s the thing,” she said. “If they admit to themselves
then they’re admitting it could happen to them.”
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“But it could.”
“But they don’t want to admit that. Until it actually
does happen to them, they want to be completely sure it can’t.”
It was a good while later. The sun was nearly down.
We were sitting on the floor of her cabin, our backs
against the end of her bed. She had started a fire in the
woodstove to get her through the night, and we were
staring at it. The little cast-iron door was open, and we
were sitting there transfixed by the fire.
I wouldn’t have thought it would be cold enough for a
fire in June. But then, I didn’t live in an unheated cabin in the woods. She obviously knew more about it than I did.
I had long ago told her about my date. I had spared
not one ugly detail.
“So they would do that to you? Just to make them-
selves feel a little more comfortable?”
“Apparently so.”
“Even though it’s just a lie in their heads and they’re
not really safe at all?”
“They’ve been doing it to me for seventeen years, kid.”
“Everybody?”
“No. Not everybody. Some are more understanding,
but the way they look at me is almost worse. I swear I’d
rather have the contempt.”
“Why did you stay?”
That fell to her floor and lay there for a moment. I
swear I felt like I could look down and see the question
lying—uncomfortably—on the floor near the sleeping
dogs.
She didn’t answer.
“Your daughter told me that everybody thought
you should go far away and start again somewhere new.
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Someplace where nobody knew you. And that nobody
knew why you didn’t do it. Not even her, and she’s your
daughter.”
“I was born in this town, kid. Lived here all my life.
Everything I know is here.”
“So? If you’d gone someplace else seventeen years ago,
you’d know that place like the back of your hand by now.
There has to be more to it than that.”
“I don’t think you’d understand.”
“Try me.”
The fire crackled and snapped while I waited for her
to try me.
“I didn’t think I deserved it,” she said. “There. Is that
honest enough for you?”
160
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Dark and Uneven Path
I’ve lived my whole life in a small town, but in the days
after my uneasy breakup with Libby Weller, I was stunned
by the downside of small-town living. Even though I had
nothing to compare it to. It didn’t matter. The problems
were simply glaring.
It was the second morning after the dreadful picnic. I
came down into the ki
tchen early, hoping to scarf down a
bowl of cereal and go running before anyone else was up.
Instead I found my mom sitting at the kitchen table,
talking on the phone. The cord that hooked the receiver
to the phone base was ridiculously stretched, and my
mom was curling a little section of it around her finger
as she listened.
She looked up and caught my eyes, and I knew all
was not well.
“Speak of the devil,” she said. Into the phone, as far
as I could tell. “I’ll have to call you back, Marilyn.”
She got up to hang up the phone.
“I’m going running,” I said, and tried to break for
the door.
“The hell you are,” she barked. “Sit.”
I did as I’d been told. She rarely if ever used that voice
with me, though she used it with my father all the time.
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I found it best to freeze like a deer in the headlights at
times like that. Say nothing, do nothing. Almost like
playing dead. My father had a different set of theories.
“How do you know Zoe Dinsmore?” she asked, sit-
ting across the table from me.
“She has these two really nice dogs,” I said. I had an
angle. I was going to play on her guilt over the fact that
I’d always wanted a dog and she’d always refused to get
me one. “And you know how I feel about dogs. I got
sort of attached to them. They go running with me in
the morning.”
Then I stopped talking, and realized my mistake. If
I’d left the dogs out of it, I could’ve pretended I somehow
knew Mrs. Dinsmore from town. That I kept bumping
into her at the library or something. But I had tipped my
hand regarding my life up in the forbidden woods.
“I thought I told you never to go in those woods.”
“Yes, ma’am. I guess you did.”
“And do you want to tell me why you went and de-
fied me?”
What I said next might have been another angle.
In the back of my mind, I might have been trying to
play the guilt card to get myself off the hook. But it was
also the damn truth. Why go further into motives when
somebody asks you for the truth and you give it?
“I think because it’s so quiet up there. It really gets
to me when you and Dad fight.”
I waited for her reaction. I guess I was assuming she
would take that into herself in some way. Feel the pain I
had just described and understand that she had caused it.
I didn’t get what I was waiting for.
“I told you, you could get lost up there.”
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“But I never do. I know it like the back of my hand.”
I waited again. Nothing happened.
“You really can’t get lost,” I added. “I don’t know
why you think so. The whole place is only about two or
three miles wide. On one side you can see town, and on
the other side you can see the river. I don’t know what
you think the problem is.”
“The problem is,” she began, her voice booming,
“your little cousin got lost up there, and it scared the
hell out of everybody. He was gone overnight. He was
only nine. We thought he might’ve been kidnapped. We
thought he might be dead. And when the search party
finally found him, he had hypothermia. He had to be in
the hospital for a day. It was terrible. I never want to go
through a thing like that again.”
My cousin—well, I had three, but only one was a “he”—
was five years older than me. So this must’ve happened
when I was four. Which explains why I didn’t remember.
“But he lives in Oregon,” I said.
“They were here for a visit. You were too little to
remember. I felt totally responsible, because they were
staying with us. If they hadn’t found him, I don’t know
what I would’ve done. I’d have never gotten over it, I
can tell you that right now.”
We sat quietly for a few seconds. In my head, I was
going over what I had learned. Not in words, exactly,
but I felt it.
Here are the words I have for it now.
When somebody holds a view that seems to make no
sense, know that it makes sense to them, but for reasons
you don’t know anything about yet. And I guess in a lot
of cases, you never will.
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Catherine Ryan Hyde
I wanted to answer her, but I wasn’t sure what to say.
So in my head I went to Mrs. Dinsmore’s cabin. I just
thought to myself, What would the lady tell me to do?
“I’m really sorry you had to go through that,” I said.
“It sounds scary and terrible.”
“It was.”
“But I’m not nine. And I really know my way around
in there. And I promise I’ll be fine.”
I got up from the table, thinking I could make my
break.
“Wait,” she said. “There’s more.”
I didn’t sit down again. I didn’t want to commit to
much more listening. I just hovered over her, feeling tall.
Too tall.
“What?”
“I don’t want you anywhere near that Dinsmore
woman.”
“Why not?”
“She’s just not a suitable friend for you.”
“I wouldn’t say we were friends,” I said. But it was a
lie. I would say it. Only, not to my mother. “I just really
like those two dogs.”
“She’s not a good influence on you. On anyone. I
don’t want any more phone calls from people telling
me you’re spending time with a person like that. It’s not
appropriate.”
“I don’t understand how you can say that. Just because
she had a bad accident?”
“Oh, honey. That’s not all. There’s a lot you don’t
know about that lady. She drank, and she took tons of
drugs. Showed up different places in town out of her
mind. They say it started after the accident, but I don’t know. It just sort of made everybody wonder. Some say
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she cleaned up her act and stopped. Others don’t believe
it. I don’t know what to believe. I just don’t want you near any of it. I don’t know why she stays in this town, but
she obviously wants to be left alone. So leave her alone.
You understand why I say that to you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I understand why.”
I did understand why she’d said it to me. I just had
no intention of following her order.
I slipped out the door, and only as I was jogging down
the street did I realize I had skipped breakfast. But I just kept running.
* * *
When I got to Connor’s house, things only went from
bad to worse.
His mom came to the door, then turned and walked
away down the hall without saying a word to me. I had
no idea what that meant. But she left the door standing
wide open, so I came in and closed it behind me.
I walked up the stairs to Connor’s room. Slowly. Like
I wasn’t sure what wait
ed for me up there. Because, truth-
fully, I was less sure with every passing day.
I rapped on his closed bedroom door.
“What?” he said from inside. From the tone of his
voice I gathered that, whatever it was, he didn’t want it.
“It’s me.”
No answer. I turned the knob and pushed the door
open.
Connor was sitting in the same chair he almost always
sat in, but it wasn’t pulled over to the window. It was fac-
ing a blank corner of the room. He was literally making
himself sit in the corner. It was very strange.
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Catherine Ryan Hyde
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you made yourself go sit in the corner.”
“Well, there you go.”
He said nothing more, so I perched uncomfortably
on the end of his bed. I stared at the back of his head as
he sat perfectly still and said nothing at all. Just in that moment I saw Libby’s point about his dark cloud. You
could almost see it. The rest of her observations could go
take a hike as far as I was concerned.
The silence lasted for a minute or two, and seemed
to get darker.
Then Connor spoke. His voice was quiet but hard
edged.
“Why didn’t you tell me you broke up with her
over me?”
For a moment I couldn’t find it inside myself to answer.
I’d told him about my disastrous picnic date the day
before, when I’d come and sat with him just about all day,
whether he wanted me to or not. But I’d left out what
Libby had said about him. Of course I had. Who reports
on a thing like that when they could just as easily keep
it to themselves?
“Because I didn’t. It wasn’t about you.”
“That’s not what I heard. I heard I’m holding you
back. That you’d have lots of friends and girlfriends if
you didn’t have me standing in your way.”
I lost it in that moment. It was a buildup of stress
breaking free, I suppose. I raised my voice to him, which
I don’t think I’d ever done before.
“Who are you talking to, Connor? Who are you
hearing this from? You won’t even go out of the house.
Where are you getting all this information?”
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Then I stopped myself. Breathed. Tried to drop my
shoulders. I was still staring at the back of his head. If
it upset him to be yelled at, he was doing a good job of
keeping it to himself.