Season of Change (4 page)

“Well, it’s her mother,” Grandpa said.

There was silence. Diana looked at me and nodded, and we continued down the stairs. My heart pounded in my chest. Grandma and Grandpa did know about where Daddy and Lynn had gone! Would there be a big argument when Mama got here?

Diana, who is better than I am at faking things, pretended we hadn’t heard anything. She immediately talked Grandpa into letting her drive to the movie store, so she climbed into the drivers’ seat, Grandpa rode shotgun, and I climbed into the back of their sedan. Diana had a little trouble backing out of the long driveway, and I turned and watched out the rear window, thinking about how I would be learning to do this myself next year.

“Slow down, now,” Grandpa told her as she drove down their street. “This is a winding road and you don’t want to take these corners too fast.”

“Okay.” She slowed down a little. Diana didn’t talk back to Grandpa the way she talked back to Lynn.

On the way home, after getting a movie, dusk was approaching, and Grandpa made Diana turn on the
headlights. As we turned back onto Grandpa and Grandma’s street, and began the winding descent down to the lake, Grandpa said, “Well, Diana, you did a pretty good job driving other than being a bit aggressive with the accelerator. When your mother learned to drive a stick shift, I believe my hair turned white in one day.”

Diana laughed. “That’s pretty funny.”

We were all laughing when we came around the last turn. And, that was when it happened. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a deer leaped right in front of our car. Its narrow head, with large frightened eyes, soared directly in front of our windshield.

“Look out!” yelled Grandpa Roberts.

“Oh!” Diana yelled slamming on the brakes.

The deer’s long, powerful front legs hit the road directly in front of our right tire, and then we slammed with a loud thump into the deer’s shoulder.

I screamed.

“I
couldn’t help it! It jumped right out in front of me!” I burst into tears.

“Just pull over to the side of the road,” Grandpa said.

But I was shaking all over. I couldn’t move. I had hit a deer! A beautiful deer! I sat there frozen and sobbing, with the engine running. Over and over in my head, I kept hearing the sound of that thump.

Finally, Grandpa got out and walked around to the driver’s side. “Can you slide over, honey? Let me pull the car over.”

I managed to move over to the passenger seat. “What happened to it?”

“I don’t know. That’s what we’re going to see,” Grandpa said. He slid behind the wheel and pulled the car over to the side of the road.

“I’m going to look for the deer,” he said, cutting the engine. “You girls stay here.”

“No, I’m coming with you!” I said.

“No, if it’s hurt I don’t want you to see it,” Grandpa said.

But I didn’t listen. Still shaking like crazy, with tears rolling down my cheeks, I jumped out of the car and followed Grandpa into the wooded area beside the road. Even though we had hit the deer, it hadn’t fallen down. It had just kept on running. And it was nowhere to be seen. Grandpa and I tromped through the branches and underbrush, searching through climbing vines and under pine trees, combing the area for fifty yards around, while Stephanie waited in the back seat of the car. We couldn’t find it.

Finally Grandpa said, “It must have been okay. It didn’t stop. Maybe it wasn’t that badly hurt.”

“That thump sounded so awful, Grandpa.” Tears started leaking again from the edges of my eyes just thinking about it. “Do you think if I had been a more experienced driver I could have done anything?”

“No, it jumped out directly in front of us, honey,”
Grandpa said. “There was absolutely nothing you could do. If I had been driving, I would have hit that deer.”

Still I was shaking.

Grandpa stopped to examine the car when we got back. The right front headlight was smashed. “Well, it’s a good thing it’s not any worse,” he said.

“Did you find the deer?” Stephanie asked when we climbed into the car.

“No, it completely disappeared,” I told her. “So maybe I didn’t really hurt it.”

“Just no way of knowing,” Grandpa said as he started the car and headed back down the road. “You know, when living things have the fight or flight response, they have a lot of adrenalin running through their system, so they can do some amazing things, even with serious injuries. We’ll probably never know what happened to that deer.”

After we told Grandma about hitting the deer, I went upstairs and got into the bed and pulled the flowered bedspread up over my head. I felt horrible. I had seen the deer’s beautiful face just as we hit it, with its terrified eyes. I could close my eyes and feel the thudding jolt as we hit.

For school I had just read
The Yearling
, the story about a boy who raised a deer. I had loved reading
about the way the boy related to the deer, all the deer’s antics inside the house, and the deer’s funny and mischievous personality. The boy had named the deer Flag. But the boy’s life was very hard, and the story had been so sad in parts.

Stephanie and Grandma Roberts came upstairs after me. “Maybe the deer will be all right,” Stephanie said, sitting on the side of the bed.

“I’m never driving again,” I said, from under the bedspread.

“Oh, nonsense,” Grandma Roberts said. “Grandpa told me the deer ran right out in front of you. There was nothing you could do. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Why do animals do that, anyway? Run out in front of cars?” I asked, folding the bedspread back so I could see them.

“Well, you know, they might be confused by the lights,” Grandma said. “They may be scared but not know which way to run.”

“I’m not driving anymore,” I repeated. I had been so excited about getting my license, but right now the idea of getting behind the wheel just made me start shaking again, just like Stephanie. I was pathetic. I might have killed a living thing. I might be a murderer.

A minute later, a knock sounded on the front door downstairs.

“That’s probably Mama,” Stephanie said. She went
over to the twin bed and slung her weekend bag over her shoulder.

“Oh, no, we’re not ready for you to leave, Stephanie!” Grandma said.

We heard Grandpa downstairs answering the door. “Well, hello, come in, come in,” he said.

“Hey there,” came Stephanie’s mom’s voice. “Thanks so much for keeping my Stephanie today.”

Stephanie headed downstairs and Grandma Roberts and I followed her. Stephanie’s mom, normally with perfect hair and makeup, had mascara smears and bags under her eyes. She looked like she’d been crying. She was talking and waving her hands around nervously. “I appreciate you keeping Stephanie but I can keep her now.”

“Hey, Mama,” Stephanie said.

Her mom pulled her close and wrapped her arms around her. “Hey, sugar!”

“We were expecting to have Stephanie all weekend,” said Grandma Roberts. “We were looking forward to it.”

“I know, and I so appreciate you being willing to keep her, but my plans have changed.” Stephanie’s mom was playing with Stephanie’s hair now, picking it up and smoothing it down over her shoulder.

“All right, then,” said Grandma Roberts. “We’ll miss you, Stephanie.”

Stephanie’s mother pulled her more tightly against her, wrapping her arms around her neck.

I looked at Stephanie’s face. She looked uncomfortable and a little scared.

“Where’s Matt?” I asked.

“He’s out waiting in the car. I just picked him up from his job at the carwash. We’re all going to head home and have a nice time together.”

“How is Matt getting along since his accident?” asked Grandma Roberts.

“Really well,” said Stephanie’s mom. “He regained all the movement in his arm, and he’s got that carwash job, and he’ll be taking classes at the community college this summer, too. He’s really turned over a new leaf. We’re proud of him.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Grandma Roberts.

“Well, sugar, if that’s all your stuff, let’s get going,” said Stephanie’s mom. “Thanks again.”

“Thanks for having me,” said Stephanie. “Thanks for dinner and for the kneeboarding lesson.” I looked at her face and the expression was hard to read.

“Our pleasure,” Grandpa Roberts boomed. “And we want you to come back again.”

“Any time,” said Grandma Roberts, and she lay her hand on Stephanie’s arm.

“Bye,” Stephanie said to me. “I guess I’ll see you back at home next week.”

But would she? What was going to happen when Mom and Norm got home?

“Bye,” I said. “Text me.”

“Yeah, okay, I will.”

I went outside on the front porch to watch as Stephanie walked up the long driveway to her mom’s car. Matt, sitting in the front passenger seat, waved. After a second, I waved back.

I lay on the couch in the family room of the lake house. It wasn’t going to be any fun to watch the movie without Stephanie.

“I don’t feel good about letting that girl go tonight,” said Grandma Roberts. She sat at the end of the couch and put my feet in her lap.

Grandpa sat down in his La-Z-Boy. “Well, it’s too late now. She’s gone.”

“Did you think it looked like her mother had been crying?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You thought so, too?”

I nodded.

“What’s her husband like, do you know, Diana?”

“I don’t know.” I thought about Barry. “He’s tall.”

“Well, that doesn’t tell me much!”

“He’s a pilot. He likes golf.”

“But what’s he like?”

“I don’t know, Grandma! I never paid much attention to him. I’ve only met him once or twice. He’s not usually around.” Sometimes Grandma asked a lot of questions.

“Hmmm,” said Grandma.

“It’s all right. Nothing to worry about. It’s good for her to be with her mom,” said Grandpa. “Now, who wants some popcorn with the movie?”

“I don’t feel like watching the movie now,” I said. “Stephanie’s gone. And I hit a deer.” And Mom and Norm are fighting, but I kept that thought to myself.

“Nonsense,” said Grandpa. “This too shall pass.”

He was always saying that.

Later, in my bed in the white wicker bedroom I lay in the dark and listened to the crickets singing outside. It was a soothing sound. I wondered how Stephanie was doing with her mom and if she could hear crickets too.

I
didn’t know if Barry had gone to Asheville by himself or not. All I knew was he wasn’t at Mama’s house when we got there. Right away Matt went to his room and shut the door.

I sat in the family room with Mama and we watched some singing show that she had taped. I leaned up against her and she scratched my head the way she always does. Her phone dinged a few times, telling her she had texts, but she didn’t look at them. Once I said,
“If you want to talk to Barry, go ahead, don’t worry about me,” but she just shook her head.

At one point, Matt trooped down the stairs and went in the kitchen to get a snack, making a bunch of noise. He was on the phone arguing with a friend about whether the greatest quarterback of all time was John Elway or Tom Brady. Then, he surprised me by coming out into the family room to eat his bowl of cereal.

“I know a guy who auditioned in Charlotte for
American Idol
,” he said in between mouthfuls.

“Really?” Mama said. Using the remote, she paused the show while we talked.

“Yeah. He said he had to wait in line for hours,” he said. “And his audition lasted about fifteen seconds. He didn’t make it.”

“Oh, too bad. What did he sing?” Mama asked.

“Um … some song by John Mayer, I think.”

“Did any of the judges say mean things to him?” I asked.

“No, he said they were nice. They said to keep practicing and come back next year.”

“It must’ve been an amazing experience,” Mama said.

“A lot of waiting,” Matt said. “But he said everyone waiting in line started singing together, which was cool. And they had people with cameras coming
around and you were supposed to shout ‘I’m the next American Idol!’ ”

“That sounds fun,” I said.

Mama pressed the remote, and the show started again.

Matt sat with us and watched a girl sing, and then joked, “Well, you know, that was a little pitchy,” imitating one of the judges. He started laughing.

I laughed, too. Matt was making an effort to talk to us, and he never used to do that before.

“So, I have to be at the carwash tomorrow by nine,” he said to Mama. Because of his accident, Matt lost his driver’s license for six months, and Barry and Mama and some of his friends have had to drive him around.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay. Later.” And then he went back upstairs, leaving his empty bowl sitting on the coffee table.

After the show was over, I thought Mama would want to sit and talk. I had planned to tell her about trying to kneeboard. But she yawned and stretched and told me she was tired, so we went to bed.

I had a hard time getting to sleep. I texted Diana.

I was always feeling guilty about things, and I told myself I wasn’t going to feel guilty about that.

Goose bumps ran from my backbone up to my skull and spread all over my scalp, prickling. I started to feel like I had to throw up. It was obvious that Diana would still be with Lynn. I couldn’t answer. After a minute, Diana texted me again.

I smiled. She could tell that I was upset and was trying to joke around a little.

With relief, I answered.

Diana texted back.

She was so predictable. I was sitting here worrying about Daddy and Lynn, but there was Diana, thinking about what was happening with the animals.