The evening was a good one. We ate our pizza and salad in the living room, off of paper plates and TV trays. When Evan and
Guthrie made their appearance, ready to eat, Jill still hadn't come back downstairs. Nancy and Guthrie and Clare had already
headed to the living room with their plates. Hannah paused in her pouring of iced tea.
"Go and tell Jill it's supper time, will you, please, Harlie?" Hannah told me.
I grimaced as I was putting two slices of pizza on my plate. "Do I have to?" I asked, and I was only half-joking. I really
didn't want to.
Hannah was turning, giving me a 'look'. "Harlie-" she remonstrated.
"Well, she knows it's time to eat-why do we have to keep treating her like she's made of glass of something?" I asked.
I felt a hard thump, as Evan flicked his fingers on my shoulder.
"Ow," I protested, stepping back from him, as he passed behind me. "What are you doing?"
"Thumpin' you. Go and do what Hannah said," he ordered.
I gave Evan a glare. I would have liked to have told him to jump off a cliff. Ask him why he was being such a 'bossy boots'.
I hadn't meant that I was going to refuse to do what Hannah asked. I was just voicing my opinion before I did it. Granted, I probably
wouldn't have done it, if Adam or Brian had been standing there. Well, I might have. In any case, I didn't like it that Evan
was talking to me like that. Or 'thumping' me.
I knew right then that the evening could go either way for me. Continue to be good, and end well, or I could say something
smart to Evan such as 'why don't you do it' and the evening would likely go south. I wasn't sure what he would say, or do about it, but
it wouldn't go my way. And, Hannah would be put out at me, besides.
"I was just stating my opinion," I said, giving Evan a lofty look. "I didn't say I wasn't going to do it-"
"Then go-" Evan ordered, reaching around me for the pizza.
Hannah was watching us, looking half-amused, half-something else.
Whenever Evan gets like this-a little too bossy for my liking, I put my mind back in time-to late spring, last year, when
I'd had to work so hard, for weeks, to get Evan to forgive me, and to act regular with me again. I never wanted to have to do
that again. Though it wouldn't happen over something as trivial as this, I still made myself not cross him usually. In fun, sure,
I was a smartass to him. But, in serious things, I tried hard now not to be.
I huffed a little, and said, "I'm going-"
I went up the back staircase, and to the door of the boy's bedroom. I listened, but couldn't hear anything from inside. Not the sounds
of Jill moving around, or the radio or anything.
I rapped on the door with my knuckles. "Jill? Time to eat," I said.
"Alright," she said, in response. "I'll be down in a minute."
"Okay," I said, and went back down to the kitchen, retrieving my plate with pizza, and headed to the living room, where
everybody was sprawled out.
"Is she coming?" Hannah asked me.
"Yeah. She said in a minute," I reported.
"Good. I don't think Daniel would like it if we didn't attempt," Hannah said, but she looked at me. "Do you?"
I shook my head, feeling a little badly about my earlier 'made of glass' comment.
Hannah smiled to show that she wasn't put out with me, and then, about ten minutes or so later, Jill came down
the stairs. Guthrie, by now, was ready for second helpings of the pizza, and Jill went behind him to get her own.
After we ate, since there were no dishes to do, we all pored over the boxes of pictures, and what scrapbooking that
Nancy had gotten done.
Clare, to her obvious delight, found a dog-eared Polaroid picture of two little boys, each wearing cowboy hats and chaps, and
looking ferociously into the camera.
"Look!" she exclaimed. "Is this Brian? And Adam?"
Hannah looked at the picture, and had the same reaction as Clare. Her face got all soft, and she said, "It is-it has to be, this one's
the image of Isaac!"
"Brian's looking impatient-he gets that same expression now-" Clare continued to be captivated by the photo.
"Weren't they the cutest?" Hannah said. "Guthrie?"
Guthrie took the picture, and looked it over. "Adorable," he said, wryly.
"You were adorable, too," Hannah told him.
"You mean there's pictures of me and Har in here?" Guthrie asked, echoing what I'd said to Nancy a few days before.
"Of course there is," Nancy said. "I've found some-" she reached into the corner of a box and brought out a stack of pictures
with a big rubber band around them. "I've started to separate the pictures. Here's the ones of you two that I've come across so far."
Guthrie took the stack from her and held it up to me. "Look, Har-they actually snapped a picture of you and me now and then-"
I looked at his grinning face, and motioned him to come and sit beside me one of the couches. "Come sit here. Let me see."
Jill ate her pizza and some of the salad, and then she sat, quietly, looking at some of the pictures. At one point, she
held out one. "Is this Daniel?" she asked, holding out a picture of an 'about two year old'.
Hannah looked at the picture, and said, "I think so-I'm not sure, though-is it, Evan?"
Evan took the picture that was passed along to him, and scrutinized it. "Yeah. That's Daniel."
Hannah took it back, and looked at it again. "I didn't realize that Daniel was a towhead when he was that age," she said, and then
returned it to Jill.
Jill held that picture for the longest time, and when we were finished for the evening, and gathering things up, she said, "I think
I'll keep this to show to Daniel-is that alright?"
"Sure," Hannah said.
The pictures of Guthrie and I were, truthfully, more of Guthrie than me. There were a few of us together, though, and some of me
alone. I was mostly outside in the pictures. Sitting on the front porch, or in a patch of flowers, and with a big, black dog. I kept that one
back of the dog, and asked Evan about it.
"That was Tip," Evan said. "We had him for a long time. He died when you around three or so."
Jill went upstairs and Clare shortly after that. Hannah and Nancy were in the kitchen, and I was still sitting on the couch,
looking at pictures. It seemed odd to me to think that my mother had been the one to take the pictures of me-at least the ones
where I was an infant.
Evan came back in from outside, and came over to sit beside me on the couch.
"Where's Nancy?" he asked.
"In the kitchen with Hannah."
Evan saw the picture in my hand, and said, "Tip was real protective of you. He stayed right with you, wherever you were at."
"Really?" I asked. It was always cool to hear stories that I hadn't heard before.
"Yeah. He loved Mom best, though," Evan said. "He was her dog."
In the moment of quiet, I said, "Do you think Mom would have had more kids?"
"I don't think so. Dad used to say that their quiver was full," Evan said.
"Oh," I said, running my fingers over the picture.
"There's things goin' on, Har," Evan said, then, surprising me. I turned to look at him.
"You know what it's about?" I asked.
Evan shook his head. "I've got a couple of notions, but I'm not sure of it."
"Would you tell me if you did know?" I asked him.
"Nope. Not my place to tell you," he said.
"What are your notions?" I asked.
Evan hesitated, and then said, "I think I better keep them to myself, too. I'm probably way off base with them, anyway."
I lowered my voice, and said, "I'm not sure Jill really loves Daniel, Ev."
Evan gave me a direct look. "You've got no way of really knowin' that."
"I feel it," I said.
Evan shook his head again. I thought he'd probably tell me to quit being goofy about feelings, but he didn't. He
looked serious and said, "Well, that's one thing I hope you're wrong about, shortcake."
7
Evan and Nancy left, and Guthrie had gone up to bed. I found Hannah in the kitchen, setting the table in preparation
for breakfast the next morning.
"You should be getting to bed," she told me.
"I'm going soon," I said. I prepared to do my diabetes shot.
I knew that Hannah wouldn't tell me what was going on, and I knew better than to even ask her. But, I was bothered
enough by my conversation with Jill to want to share with her.
"Do you think Jill loves Daniel?" I asked her, quietly.
Hannah gave me a quick look. "I hope that she does," she said, just as quietly, as she poured water from the teakettle into
a cup with a tea bag.
"She said that Daniel is her lifeline," I said.
Hannah's eyes stayed on my face. She took in what I'd said, and turned it over in her mind.
"I don't know that that's a bad thing," she said.
"But, you're not sure that it's a good thing, either, right?"
There was a bit of a hesitation on her part. "I think that will depend-on how their relationship evolves." She went to sit at
the table, holding her cup of tea.
I was quiet, putting my supplies away, and thinking that over.
"Daniel hardly knows her," I said.
"That's true."
When Hannah didn't dispute, or offer excuses on Jill and Daniel's short acquaintance, I went to sit down beside her
at the table. I was still, waiting for her to speak.
"Love can't be explained," she said, after a few moments. She ran her fingers over the rim of the cup. "Or always understood."
"I told her not to hurt Daniel," I confided.
Hannah reached out to cover my hand with hers. She gave me a half-smile. We sat in the stillness of the kitchen
for a while after that, both of us in our own thoughts.
7
Of course, I had to tell Hannah about the extra dogs in the barn. We were walking upstairs together, both of us, ready to
head to bed, when I told her.
She gave me a sideways look. "Oh, Harlie," she said.
I went over the details in haste, telling her that one pup was to leave the next afternoon.
"And then the other one?" she pointed out. "What about it?"
"I'll work on it," I said.
Hannah stopped at the top of the stairs, and gave me a silent look that said, 'Harlie, Harlie, Harlie, what are you thinking?'
"Will you tell Adam and Brian when they get home in the morning?" I asked.
"Oh, sure, I will," Hannah said, glibly, her sense of humor shining thru. "Maybe they'll get home before you leave for school and
you can tell them yourself."
I smiled at her, and gave her an impulsive hug.
7
I got up earlier than usual in the morning, to go out and make sure the visiting dogs were fed and watered. And, I had to clean
out the stall and put down some fresh, clean hay. Guthrie helped me, keeping a hold on them while I forked the new hay in.
Warrior stayed back, not causing a problem, but the one dog still seemed aggressive towards Warrior, trying to lunge at him. It
took Guthrie hanging tight to keep it from happening.
"I don't know about this one, Har," Guthrie said, retightening his hold on the pup. "He's a wild card, I think."
I cast a glance towards Warrior. Jethro, too. Jethro doesn't get far from Guthrie at any given time. Jethro seemed less
than impressed with the yipping, wild pups, too.
"I know," I said, over the sound of the annoying yipping.
I had to go and change my clothes again after that, before I could get around to check my blood sugar level, and eat
breakfast, and then head off to school.
The braid that Jill had done two days before, had finally begun to unravel. I tucked up the loose pieces, thinking that I
would make it last thru today, and then take it out tonight.
It was sort of weird to not have Adam standing on the porch, with his cup of coffee in hand, as Guthrie and I
headed off to school. He was always there, telling us to have a good day. Every single day.
7