The silence in my ear was as loud as the slamming of adoor.
Why did I always come off as the bad guy in these conversations? Was it so wrong to just want to live my life in peace? To let my accountants handle my money while I took a sabbatical for a year, or a decade, or the rest of my life? Seriously, was it selfish to just want tobe?
I wished there was someone I could ask, but there wasn’t another soul around formiles.
I threw the phone against the sofa cushion and rubbed a hand through my hair. It was getting long now. Maybe one of these days I’d stop shaving, too, and go full-on mountain man. I had only myself to please, afterall.
I grabbed a book from the stack on the floor and tried to read, but I couldn’t. I’d done all the little chores around the cabin, and my fridge was stocked. I had nothing to do, and no one was expecting me, which was exactly the way I wanted it, but after that phone call I couldn’t enjoy it. I was too aware of the solitude, too aware of myself. There wasn’t a single ticking clock, or honk, or gurgle of water from someone else’s pipes. Even the refrigerator was silent. The sound of my own heartbeat was making my headacheworse.
I grabbed a sweatshirt and my hiking boots—one of the few things from my old life I hadn’t boxed up and donated before coming here—and set out on the trail I’d discovered behind my house that led into thewoods.
No one ever came out this way. The cabin I’d purchased sight-unseen last winter was located about a quarter of a mile down an unpaved driveway from Route 222—which O’Learians called the Camden Road, since it led from Camden to O’Leary and no one in this place had any imagination, as far as I could tell. The other side of the highway was state park land, and occasionally got hikers. I’d met one or two when I ventured over that way to tramp around Lake Loughton or climb Jane’s Peak. But this side of the road was all mine. Sixty acres of forested land, purchased for a song… or, more accurately, for a sizable chunk of my remaining inheritance from Grandfather Michaelson, a man who’d died when I was an infant, but had nevertheless been the single best and most influential member of myfamily.
I wondered ifhe’dhave been disappointed too, if he were still alive… and then I stopped myself. I hated all kinds of parties, but pity parties were theworst.
“You are here becauseyouchose this,” I reminded myself firmly. “Forget everything that came before, everything that wants to drag you down. Donotgive one more ounce of headspace to a bunch of assholes who pretended to be your friends, or the woman who claimed to love you, or your goddamn parents, Daniel Michaelson. The past is in the past. Move the fuckon.”
I nodded to myself, like I was accepting my own advice, and I rolled my eyes. Talking to myself was one thing. Having a conversation with myself wasanother.
I got maybe a hundred yards up the trail, not very far at all, when I spotted a big bunch of crows all huddled together in a natural clearing just off the path. A couple were startled by my arrival, but the others didn’t seem to care. They were too busy pecking at something on the ground—a little, brown mass huddled there, unmoving. An animal of some kind. And the fucking crows had killedit.
Now, you could say whatever you wanted about the circle of life or whatever. You could tell me that nature is nature and I should stay out of its business when it wasn’t actively attacking me. I would have agreed with you on any other day. But on this particular day, at this particular time, I felt an instant, earnest kinship with that little animal that I knew would mortify me when I remembered it later. The animal was all alone, with no one to protect it, and had been set upon by a hundred beady-eyed assholes who chose to spend their lives picking at someone else. The poor thing needed to be buried. To be shown a little care and respect that it hadn’t gotten while it wasalive.
I rushed forward, flapping my arms, and the crows flew away, leaving me to kneel down by the animal. It was a bird. A little owl, I was pretty sure. It was covered inblood.
I crouched there, feeling more miserable then ever and I wondered if there was a shovel in the shed full of junk the last owner of the cabin had left behind. Then the sweet baby twitched. It was barely a movement—a quick ruffle of feathers on its wing—but it looked like she might bebreathing.
I didn’t even think before I whipped my sweatshirt off and wrapped it around the bird, carrying it back to the cabin only long enough to grab my keys, and then cradling it on my lap as I drove through the warm summer air toO’Leary.
I didn’t have the first clue about animals. My mother was the type who donated huge sums to the humane society but wouldn’t allow a pet to spoil the pristine sterility of the modern condo where I’d grown up, and my interest in hiking had begun at precisely the moment I realized that having no cable or internet at the cabin meant not only freedom from social media, but alsono access to any form of entertainment.I had no clue if it was possible to save a bird like this, or whether any old veterinarian could do it. Were there owl specialists? Was it likely there were any aroundO’Leary?
“I’m going to find you an expert,” I told it, like it spoke English or I spoke Owlish. “We’re going to get you fixed up, okay? You’ll be hunting all the mice, soon as possible.” Owls did eat mice, right? I was prettysure.
I pulled into a spot outside Lyon’s Imperial, the town grocery store, since that was the place I was most familiar with. An older man I’d never met before was setting up a display of charcoal and other grilling supplies out front, festooning everything with red, white, and blue bunting, and as soon as I slammed the truck into Park, I hopped out of the truck, cradling this bloody creature to mychest.
“Do you have a vet?” I demanded. “An animal doctor?” I elaborated, when he looked at me like I had three heads. “Please, I found an injuredbird.”
The man—Abe, according to his name tag—frowned down at my sweatshirt. “Whatkind?”
“An owl. It’s pretty bad off,” I said. “It needs medical helpnow.”
The old man’s face twisted with a kind of resigned pity. “Wild animal,” he said. “Better to just leave them be, son. That’s how natureworks.”
He had a point. I knew he did. But I wasnothis son, and I was tired of old men who tried to tell me how the fucking world worked. I felt like this little owl’s fate and mine were intertwined in some weird way. Like giving up on her would be like givingin.
“But do you have a vet?” I repeated. I wasn’t going to argue with this guy about whether some animals were more deserving of saving than others. “I can pay whatever hecharges.”
“Well, we got our Doc Ross, o’course.” He pointed at a building a fair distance down and across the street. “Clinic’s next to the bright red door. Can’t missit.”
I nodded and ran off without even thankinghim.
Doc Ross, I thought to myself. The name did not inspire confidence. It brought to mind either a man more ancient than the one who’d given me the directions—and with the same attitudes about wild creatures—or the mad scientist dude fromBack to the Future.But I had enough money to bribe the guy, if it came to that, and I wouldn’thesitate.
I jogged down the street while the residents of O’Leary watched in fascination.Nothing to see here, folks. Just the serial killer from the cabin in the woods, trotting a bloody corpse through your town.From the little bits of town life I’d overheard at the grocery store, I could imagine this would be gossiped over for weeks, but I didn’tcare.
Let them call me strange. I’d been called farworse.
I pulled open the glass door to the clinic, making the bells jangle, and stepped inside. The waiting room was dark and the reception desk was empty. A quick check at the clock on the wall showed that it was five minutes before five. On a Friday. Before a holidayweekend.
