I found Jeannie in the gift shop, awaiting the swarm of kids and teachers after the presentation. She wore cheaters pushed down to the end of her nose. She didn’t get up from her chair, but I bent down and gave her a hug. I was surrounded by shelves crowded with T-shirts, magnets, DVDs, hats, and stuffed eagles and owls. Visitors to the center typically didn’t go home empty-handed.
“Is today your shift, hon? I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“No, I came by to talk to Lucas about something.”
“Ah. Of course. Lucas.”
“Yes, Lucas, and don’t give me that look.”
Jeannie took off her reading glasses and eyed the vet on the other side of the gift-shop windows. I knew what she was going to say. “I still don’t understand why the two of you didn’t make a go of it.”
“We tried,” I told her for about the millionth time.
“You tried? You had, what, one dinner?”
“One very nice dinner where we realized that we both had busy lives and no time for romance. So now I have a really good friend instead of an ex-boyfriend.”
“Or you could be friends with benefits,” Jeannie pointed out. “So what do you need to talk to Lucas about?”
“My father.”
“Is there a problem?”
“He wandered off last night. We found him forty miles away.”
“Oh, that’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. I have some decisions to make.”
“I’m sorry to hear it, hon. I guess you knew this day was coming.”
“I did.”
Jeannie’s youngest, a ten-year-old named Hildy, wandered into the gift shop and interrupted us. She was heavily built like her mother and wore a long-sleeved T-shirt with a close-up photograph of Winston’s sober owl face and the slogan, “Hoooo Are You?” Hildy gave her mother a rundown of ticket revenue with all the poise of a corporate vice president. Like the rest of Jeannie’s kids, she was basically a genius.
I waited until Hildy was gone, and then I said to Jeannie, “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“Do you ever lie to your kids?”
Jeannie laughed. “What, little white lies? Sure. If there’s only one Snickers bar left, you better believe I’m telling them we’re out.”
“Not little lies. Big stuff.”
Jeannie’s round face turned serious, because she could see I was serious, too. “What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Say you’d done something wrong in your past. Would you be honest about it with your kids? Would you tell them?”
“I suppose it depends on what it is, but I’d like to think so. We all make mistakes. I don’t want my kids thinking I’m perfect. Not that they’d ever believe that.”
“What if it was something that affected them?”
“Like what?”
“I have no idea. Sorry. It’s not important.”
Jeannie wasn’t convinced by my denial. “Is everything okay with you, Shelby? What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
I was rescued from saying anything more by the arrival of a crowd of chattering seventh graders in the gift shop. Jeannie was immediately busy at the register. I glanced out the windows of the learning center and saw Lucas and Winston disappearing toward the outdoor shelters for the raptors-in-residence. I waved goodbye to Jeannie and followed them.
By the time I caught up with Lucas, he had the horned owl safely back on his perch inside the screened enclosure. He returned outside and gave me a friendly embrace on the trail. The morning was cold and as gray as ever, but the snow my father had predicted hadn’t arrived yet. We were surrounded by the watchful eyes of bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, barn owls, and turkey vultures.
Lucas had hardly changed at all since I first met him. His blond hair was still long and loose, and he still had the most gentle eyes that I’d ever seen. He’d taken over the vet practice in Stanton when Dr. Tim passed away four years earlier, which meant he was on-call pretty much every day of the week. Not that he ever complained. He loved what he did and had the gift of looking at ease wherever he was. That was what came of knowing who you were and being comfortable inside your own skin. The only time I’d ever seen him look out of place was when we met for dinner on our first and only date. Formal surroundings didn’t suit either of us. Honestly, neither did dating.
It had been several months since I’d seen him, but we always reconnected as if no time had passed in between. I felt relaxed with Lucas in a way that I hadn’t felt with anyone else since Trina died. Maybe it was because neither one of us had any expectations of the other. I didn’t see him as a man, and he didn’t see me as a woman. Or at least, that’s what we pretended.
“How are you, Shelby? It’s been ages. It’s wonderful to see you.”
That was all it took. That was how close to the edge I was. He didn’t have to say anything more than that to get me crying. I’d been able to hold it together with Jeannie, but not with Lucas. I broke down. Everything that had happened the previous night overwhelmed me. I stood there with tears running down my face, and Lucas pulled me to his chest and held me until I’d regained some semblance of control.
When I could speak, I told him about my father’s disappearance. I knew he’d been through it with his grandfather and could understand. He waited until I was done before he even said a word. He was a good listener.
Eventually, when I’d talked myself out, he said, “But Tom’s safe?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Well, that’s the main thing.”
“I know. I just feel like I’m at a crossroad.”
“It sounds like you are.”
I slipped my arm through his elbow. We walked on the plowed trails through Jeannie’s acreage, ignoring the chill of the winter morning. It was peaceful here under the tall trees.
“What was it like with your grandfather?” I asked him. “How did you deal with it?”
“Well, Grampa Paul was much older when I came back here, and the disease was already further along. He had some lucid stretches, but he spent a lot of time jumping through his past the way Tom’s doing now. I’d been hoping to figure out a way to take care of him at home — you know, a combination of myself and in-home nurses — but I realized pretty early on that was going to be impossible. I’d have emergencies where I needed to be out the door immediately and couldn’t wait for a caregiver to arrive. I’m sure you’re in the same situation.”
“Exactly.”
“Even live-in care wasn’t enough. You can’t watch someone 24/7, and Paul was a wanderer. If I went to take a shower or cook a meal or read a book outside, he’d be gone. I’d literally have to lock him in his room at night, and I’d wake up and hear him rattling the doorknob to get out. It was awful. Sometimes I still hear that noise at night. It haunts me.”
He looked behind us at the cages where the raptors lived. The cages kept them safe, but a cage was still a cage.
“So finally, I made the decision to put him in that facility in Stanton,” Lucas went on. “Believe me, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The fact that I didn’t have a choice didn’t make it easier on either of us.”
“Yeah.”
“I won’t tell you not to feel guilty, Shelby. If it comes down to that for you and Tom, you will feel guilty. All you can do is find a way to live with it. And any time you need to talk to someone who knows what you’re going through, I’m right here.”
“Thanks, Lucas.”
“Are you at that point?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, and I didn’t. I had no idea. “Most days, he’s functional. I mean, he can do basic life stuff. He has periods where he seems entirely normal, but then he can be gone just like that. If he’s going to start disappearing, I need to do something. I don’t want him ending up on the side of the river like your grandfather.”