Solomon's Oak (32 page)

Chapter 10

JOSEPH

T. S. Eliot had declared April to be the cruelest month, but Joseph knew better. February was the worst, with that awful sweetheart holiday tucked in the middle, mocking all the people who weren’t in love. Also, it was short on days, moving up his deadline for leaving.

“Joseph is doing this out of the goodness of his heart,” Glory whispered to Juniper, who stood there yawning. “No more sleeping late. Tomorrow you get your butt out of bed earlier and be ready to work, and I mean it.”

Joseph stacked the homeschooling books on the old picnic table. Glory was snorting like the old bull on his father’s farm, way past doing anything about whatever made him mad, but clinging to habit. How could she be this angry when spring was just around the corner? It was the first dry day in a week. The rain had beaten down so hard that part of the Oak Shore’s hillside had slid away, exposing the foundations to several of the fancy lake houses. The developers were more preoccupied with reinforcing things with rebar and concrete block than they were with tearing his cabin down. But with the bitter came the sweet.

Everywhere Joseph looked, flowers budded and bloomed. A sweet taste was on the wind that rustled through the greening tree branches. Cadillac was rambunctious, racing around the property when Juniper was occupied with her studies, not above bringing the girl “gifts” in a plea for attention. He dragged fallen tree limbs up to the table and stood there panting, waiting for praise. He regularly found dead things to roll in; he was thrilled with the baths that followed, but the worst thing ever was the day he ran up to them with a hunk of a cow’s jawbone, teeth intact, in his mouth.

Juniper screamed and screamed, convinced it was human, even though the teeth were immediately recognizable to Joseph as used for grinding grasses into cud.

Cadillac, so proud of his find, would not let it go for a piece of lunch meat, his beloved Frisbee, or his favorite treat, a “bully stick,” a more socially acceptable term for what it was, which was a steer’s penis.

Glory, the luckiest woman on the planet, had been off working at Target that day, which left Joseph to deal with the hysteria, so he went onto Wikipedia to look for an anatomical illustration of a cow’s skull, intent on proving to Juniper that it was a bovine mandible and not a human’s. But try finding a lateral view that showed enough of the
Margo interalveolaris
to convince her that it was part of a larger structure. The Internet often disappointed him. It was either too easy or lacking. He thought fondly of the bookmobile that drove up to his elementary school once a week and wondered where those old blue vehicles had gone. Car heaven. Scrap metal.

Home school. He’d assured Glory that she’d be able to take over when he left, that it was manageable, when in fact every day seemed to include one commotion or another. The A Plan often went awry, and sometimes the B Plan did, too. Frankly he couldn’t imagine Glory coping with it day after day.

At the end of one especially grueling day he’d opened the door to the Land Cruiser to find Dodge in the passenger seat. Joseph tried to shoo him out, but the dog was having none of that. “Fine,” Joseph said, “but don’t expect the kind of life you get here.” He took him home.

Dodge
insisted
on a walk around the lake every day, and a swim. Joseph could only make it so far—but indeed, a little farther each day—before he had to stop and wait for the clutching pain to release his muscles. On the days he homeschooled Juniper, Joseph brought Dodge along and tried to convince him it was a better deal all around to relocate back to Solomon’s Oak, but at the end of every day the dog was waiting in the car for him.

“You probably think that Joseph’s such a nice guy he’ll let you slide,” Glory said that sunny morning of February 28. “Trust me, Juniper. You’re going to earn your high school degree. By doing the work.”

The kid was learning when to keep her mouth shut—around Glory. Everyone else Juniper had problems with, which meant Joseph, which meant he had to find a book on etiquette, and that was no easy endeavor in the year 2004. Joseph began to think that every high school teacher deserved a six-figure salary and free spa treatments for life.

Glory put her hands into her pockets. “After I finish my errands I’m going to have lunch with Lorna. You behave yourself. I will call every hour to check in.”

Juniper, stone-faced, folded her arms across her chest.

“Say good-bye to your mother,” Joseph said.

“Buh-bye, Mrs. Solomon.”

Glory huffed, “That’s right, be snarky. Fools that we are, we’re only trying to save your educational life. Joseph, call my cell if there’s any problem, no matter how small.”

Juniper said, “I still don’t get why I can’t have a cell phone if you can.”

Looking as if she might snap in two if a good wind blew through, Glory turned her back on them and walked toward her truck. Edsel, that teaspoon of a dog with the goofy outfits and toys, howled like a monkey when Glory left, and Cadillac joined in. Outdoor-dog rules did not apply to that dinky pup. Personally, Joseph thought the dog could use more dinner—his ribs showed—and the opportunity to urinate on trees. It made Dodge happy to leave his calling card on every leaf or bush or rock bigger than a baseball. “Joseph’s dog,” Glory called Dodge now, even though the dog minded only Glory.

Juniper tapped her pencil against her open notebook. “Did you get a good look at Mrs. Solomon? How much weight she’s lost? Seriously, what if she’s sick?”

“Only kind of sick she is, is sick of your shenanigans, and guess what? Me, too. Open your Spanish book. Let’s get started.”

“You know what she does at night?”

“Juniper, focus. Your Spanish book.”

“She’s back to sitting in her closet every night. Cries really quietly. For exactly ten minutes. Isn’t that weird?”

“That’s her business.”

“You’re wrong. It’s your business because she’s your friend. Isn’t she?”

Joseph turned the chair around and straddled it so he could stretch his back while he worked. “Did you think having to take you out of high school before you got expelled was her dream come true? She had to do some fancy talking to keep the school from pressing charges. What were you thinking?”

“They totally overreacted. A plastic cafeteria knife would break if you stabbed real human skin. It’s physics.”

“Actually, it’s intentional assault, and the knife qualifies as a weapon. Haul in the history of your fights with this girl, present your case in adult court, the DA could argue premeditation. These days plenty of judges try juveniles as adults. Come to think of it, you’d look great in an orange jumpsuit.”

“Lois says that you making fun of me isn’t good for my self-esteem.”

Joseph looked toward the barn, envying the animals living
la vida sencilla
, the simple life. When he’d researched homeschooling, he’d become a vocal convert as soon as he read John Holt’s words:
Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the activity of learners
. Now he’d like to dig the man up and have him try to work with Juniper.

“Okay, forget about the knife for a second. What did you say to her, your exact words?”

Juniper liked saying it: “ ‘You’d be a really great person if there was someone there to kill you every day of your life.’ ”

“That’s a threat.”

“It’s not a threat, it’s kind of from a Flannery O’Connor story.”

“No matter who said it, when it comes out of your mouth, it’s a threat.”

“She deserved it.”

“So tell the principal what she said to you.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

Joseph sighed. “Do you know how lucky you are,
chica
? I know kids in Albuquerque who went to juvie camp for less. Terrible shit happens there.”

“Terrible shit happens everywhere! I never heard you swear before. Why now?”

“Some situations require it. Now open your Spanish textbook and
vamanos
or I’ll make you run hills.”

Juniper sighed, groaning dramatically at how heavy the book was and how many pages there were to read through. “What’s Spanish good for besides bossing your maid around if you’re rich, which I’ll never be? I can order a taco dinner and cuss in Spanish already.”

Tempting as it was, Joseph refused to take the bait. “Do you know who Ponce de León was?”

“Not really.”

“He brought the Spanish language to America.”

“Big deal. Someone was bound to, eventually.”

“The deal is big. In fact, it’s
muy grande
. From 1990 to the year 2000, the number of Spanish speakers in America grew by sixty percent. It’s the fastest-growing ethnic group. It’s estimated that by the year 2010, over thirty-five million Americans will speak Spanish.”

“So? That’s only ten percent of all the people who live in the U.S.”

Joseph rubbed his jaw. “Do the math. How many Spanish speakers will that make a hundred years from now? By the way, if you were trying to hurt my feelings by disrespecting my heritage, you failed. Sticks and stones, that’s the biggest lesson you need to learn. Now turn to lesson four and read the dialogue.”

“I thought we were going to take pictures today.”

“We are, when you memorize the dialogue and show me that you know the math problems in chapter four.”

“You’re not a real teacher,” Juniper said, and bent her head and began reading. “
Hola, Carmen. Vas a la bib-li-oh-tee-ka
?”

Joseph looked up into the oak tree, which was green and full of birdsong. Juniper and Glory were part of his life now. Dinner companions, dog training, late-night phone calls. When he thought of it like that it sounded like a single’s ad:

DLM ISO SF (troubled teenage children okay),

for short walks, long talks, and distraction
from the pain in his back.

“Bib-li-o-
tec-
a,”
he pronounced. Poor old Juan had been asking for directions to the library for fifty years.

GLORY

Lorna let the Butterfly Creek General Store door slam shut behind her and handed Glory a shopping bag.

“Jeepers. What’s in here?” Glory asked. “Granite?”

“Don’t sass me, child. It’s just a few additions to our picnic doings, that’s all.” Lorna pointed to the sign for the creek trail. “Let’s take the path to the water. The spring runoff is the highest I’ve ever seen. Come on. What’s got you moving so poky this morning? I’ve seen crippled snails outpace you.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Insomnia’s the sign of a guilty conscience. What do you need to confess?”

“Nothing a pound of Valium couldn’t cure.”

“Then walk faster. That’ll get your endorphins pumping like an oil rig. Plus, you sweat out all your sorrow if you put your back into it. Know what I do when I feel down in the dumps? I walk it off. Some days it takes five miles, but it’s never failed me yet.”

Even with her cigarette habit, Lorna could keep up with New Yorkers. “Walking” to Lorna was racing to anyone else.

“Just smell this spring air,” she said. “What a treat to sit with my favorite girlfriend on Butterfly Rock and have lunch.”

Though Glory had been up half the night, she plodded down the trail until they reached the railroad ties, arranged like stairs in the earth, leading to the creek bank, which was rutted with tree roots and stones. The hard-packed dirt was stubbly with native grass that had already turned green. In a few weeks, when temperatures rose another twenty degrees, the landscape would turn golden and as flammable as a gasoline-soaked rag. Dan would still be dead. Joseph would be gone. Juniper would have a whole new bag of tricks with which to torture her foster mother.

“This is a nice spot,” Lorna said. “Hand me a napkin so I can wipe the squirrel poop off that boulder.”

Glory collapsed more than sat, her breath heaving. “I told myself to live this day like any other. But that turned out to be worse than making a big deal out of it. How can grief take so much out of a person?” The shallow creek had a swift, noisy current as it flowed down the creek bed on its way to the river.

“Did you run Dan’s anniversary obituary like I told you to? Ask the mission church to say a mass in his name?”

“No,” Glory said. “That’s part of your culture, not mine.”

“Well, then, Miss Smarty-pants, what is your culture?”

“I’m white and religion-free. The absence of culture creates its own culture.”

“I never heard such a load. Actually, you’re pinker than white, and something as ordinary as blow-drying your hair qualifies as a ritual. Time set aside to remember, to mark certain days as special, that’s what makes us function. You know I’m always willing to lend you my culture.”

“I’ll survive,” Glory said, and that was the problem. Survival was being stuck in the same place for months without a shred of comfort—except for Joseph, who was a great comfort—but not for long.