I crouched down and began getting her ready for whatever nature may have had waiting for us. Above me, she asked, “Why do I have to have my pants like that? I don’t when we play in the yard.”
Every warning about Lyme Disease my parents repeated every summer when my sister and I would go off to summer camp repeated in my mind as I moved to her other pant leg. When I finished, I looked up at her and explained, “We want whatever is living in the woods to stay there, and if it decides to come back home with us, then it needs to travel on the outside of your clothes. No hanging out on your legs. Those are for you only.”
I punctuated my words with a smile and patted her ankles, now protected against ticks. “All set! Ready to do some exploring?”
“Yes!” she squealed before running down the well-worn path into the woods.
“Wait for me! And don’t touch anything! The last thing we need to do is bring back poison ivy to your uncle’s house. His head will explode.”
Not that I wouldn’t secretly enjoy that after how nasty he’d been.
Our timein the woods netted Grace enough leaves for her to create an autumn picture she had planned, ten acorns that would adorn the outside of the paper as a border to frame her masterpiece, and zero ticks, thankfully. I still made her undress completely and put on all new clothes while I shook her old ones out in the yard, just in case.
By the time she finished, she looked so exhausted I wasn’t sure she’d make it another hour to lunch, so nap time took precedence. She barely got her head down on her pillow before her eyelids fluttered closed and she was out like a light.
As my mother always told me, fresh air can do wonders for a body. Maybe if Mr. Allen spent more time outside, he wouldn’t have been such a bastard.
Happy to let Grace sleep until lunch, I made my way down to the kitchen to find a snack and to read a little more of my book. Oddly enough, in my time at this house, I’d found that the quietest place always seemed to be the kitchen. In most homes, the kitchen was the hub of the family, but since there was essentially no family here and merely a collection of people who worked for Mr. Allen, I guessed it wasn’t a big a surprise that no one gathered in that room.
After grabbing some graham crackers and a cup of hot chocolate, I settled into my favorite chair at the kitchen table right next to the window that overlooked the backyard and began reading at Chapter Thirteen. Someone was about to die, and the FBI agent on the killer’s heels wouldn’t get to the abandoned house in time.
Lost in the story, I didn’t hear anyone join me until someone cleared their throat. I looked up from the page and saw Mr. Allen staring down at me like I was doing something that wasn’t allowed in his home. Didn’t he let anyone read in this place?
“Yes?” I said with so much sass that my dislike for him was obvious.
“What are you reading?” he asked in a far kinder tone.
I held up my paperback for him to see the cover. “Just a thriller I picked up one day at a used book store.”
“Is it an interesting story?”
Nodding, I answered his question. “It is. On a chilly fall day, there’s nothing better than a cup of hot cocoa, some cookies, and a good book. Grace is in her room taking a nap after our field trip this morning.”
I honestly had no idea why I bothered telling him all of that. He never cared enough to ask me a thing about what she and I did together each day. As long as I kept her out of his sight, that’s all that mattered. At any moment, I expected him to grumble about how he doesn’t give a damn what we do as long as she stays away from him.
But he didn’t seem to be in the mood to snap at me like that this morning and walked over to the refrigerator as he said, “I haven’t read a book in years. Not fiction, at least. You’re right about there being nothing better than curling up with a good book. Some of us forget that sometimes.”
For a few seconds, I didn’t know what to say. He sounded downright pleasant now, and I definitely didn’t want to do anything to put a stop to that. The problem was I had no idea how to respond to Mr. Allen acting like a decent human being.
So I said nothing. Instead, I simply waited for him to walk out and leave me to the impending death of that secondary character I was sure would occur on the next page.
He didn’t leave, though.
As he pulled out the chair across the table from me, he asked, “Do you mind if I join you?”
Part of me instantly wanted to say, “Yes, if you’re going to be that jackass you’ve been to me since I arrived here.” However, he appeared to be making some kind of effort at kindness, so I gave him a tiny smile and said, “No, please do.”
It was his house, after all.
He set his coffee cup down on the table and sat down, and all I could think of was how proper he sounded. Then again, wearing a three piece suit did tend to bring out the formal in anyone, I guessed. I wondered why he dressed like he had to go into the city when he worked out of his home.
“So my niece…Grace, is taking a nap? Where did you take her on your field trip?”
“Into the woods at the end of Revere Road a few blocks from here. Do you know if she’s ever spent any real time in nature like that? Because she had a great time but I got a sense it was something brand new to her.”
For the first time since I’d come to his home, Mr. Allen relaxed and sighed, blowing the air out of his lungs like I’d brought up a subject so weighty he didn’t know how to answer. I opened my mouth to apologize, thinking I must have said something wrong, but then he began to speak, and I realized exactly how lost he was when it came to his niece.
“I doubt Grace has seen much of anything in the outdoors. My sister isn’t much of a nature girl. Not that I am either, but I think I’m better than she is. Then again, that might change now that she’s getting to enjoy the fine accommodations of prison courtesy of the State of New York for the next year and a half. As for Grace, I’m happy you take her out as much as you do. Children need that. I tend to forget those things.”