The front door slammed so hard it made a kitchen windowpane rattle.
Cassie jumped. It was Tyler. No one else slammed the door; it was hard to slam, solid and heavy, but Tyler slammed doors just to make a sound.
Mom was taking an afternoon nap, which was unusual for her; clearly, she needed the rest. Cassie wondered if she’d slept at all during the final days of Dad’s illness. The pain had made it hard for him to sleep, despite the medication, and Mom hadn’t wanted him to face that alone. Even when Cassie had been there, ostensibly to give Mom some time to herself, Mom had still sat with him. Cassie hoped Tyler’s excessively loud entrance wouldn’t wake her up.
Cassie stayed sitting at the kitchen table, sipping at a glass of water, and waited to see what brought Tyler over. He must want something.
“Mom!” he bellowed.
“Shut up!” Cassie hissed. “Mom’s taking a nap.”
“You’re kidding,” he replied, coming into the kitchen. He made a beeline to the fridge and pulled out a piece of pie, then grabbed a plate and fork from the drying rack and sat down at the table.
“Why are you here?” She edged back a bit. He was wearing a staggering amount of aftershave.
“I gotta talk to Mom,” he said, between bites.
“She’s sleeping.”
Tyler hesitated. “Well, it’s kind of important.”
“It can’t wait until tomorrow? We just had the funeral.”
Tyler put down his fork and folded his hands on the table. “It’s time Mom sold the house.”
He waited, probably for Cassie to start yelling, but she was too stunned to do anything but repeat him. “Sell the house?”
“Yes,” he said, “sell the house. It’s really too big for Mom to take care of by herself. Look at how bad the garden has gotten. There’s a ton of money locked up in this property—not so much the house itself, but the land. Real estate is doing well right now, but who knows when the market is going to go south? Everyone’s predicting it. I even know a guy…”
Cassie watched him speak as her hands tightened on the table. She could feel her face growing hot, which she knew from bitter experience meant she was flushing bright tomato red. Eventually, Tyler wound up his spiel and waited for Cassie’s response.
Cassie took a deep breath, and then another, because the first had felt so good in her tight chest.
“Get out.”
“Cassie,” said Tyler, “you’re not listening.”
“You’re right; I’m not. You are not,” she spat, “going to approach a widow the day after her husband was buried and tell her she needs to sell her house!”
“I know, I know.” Tyler patted the air in supercilious placation. “The timing’s not great, death-wise, but we have to move on this. Do you want Mom to be destitute in ten years? This house is worth a lot of money, but we have to move on it quickly!”
“How much commission are you getting?” Cassie demanded.
“What?” Tyler flushed.
“How much money?”
“I can see there’s no reasoning with you.” Tyler pushed his chair in roughly. “I’ll be back later.”
“Don’t bother!” she snarled.
She waited until the door slammed before she cried. How dare he. How dare he come here, the dirt still fresh on their father’s grave, trying to score a deal? Let some developer raze it to the ground and put in modern housing that was elegant and impersonal. Open-concept concrete-countered subway-tiled-backsplash bullshit.
And the worst part was that he was right.
She swallowed.
The house ought to be sold.
Cassie walked numbly out the kitchen door and stood on the deck, staring at the backyard without seeing it. Mom had just planted a row of zucchini seeds. You couldn’t sell a house with zucchini seeds waiting to sprout.
Someone was standing in the backyard.
Cassie was so surprised she didn’t even jump; she simply stood in place while her brain frantically tried to process how long the person had been standing there.
“Good morning,” said the man from the funeral.
“Hi.” Cassie still felt like she was running about three steps behind. “Good morning. What are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d come see how you were doing.”
“No. I mean—” Cassie gesticulated broadly. “Why are you in the backyard?”
The man looked around with an expression of vague bemusement on his face, as though he only just now realized he was in a backyard. “You’re out here,” he replied, “and Tyler just came out the front door looking angry.”
Cassie cracked a wry half-smile; she’d probably sneak around the back to avoid an angry Tyler too. “Well, Mom’s napping, but I can let her know you stopped by. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”
He gazed at her in silence for a moment, face unreadable, before saying quietly, “I came to see you.”
“I—oh.” Cassie was suddenly acutely conscious of her stained sweatpants and mismatched socks, and hair that had been unceremoniously piled into something resembling a pineapple on the top of her head. Thank god she was at least wearing a bra; she almost hadn’t bothered. The man’s dark hair was wild and his face was scruffy with a few day’s growth of beard, but at least he was wearing real pants. “Please, come in.”
She sat him at the kitchen table and immediately busied herself in a cabinet so she wouldn’t have to look at him with her flame-red face. “Tea? Coffee?”
“Just water, please.”
Cassie held the glass under the refrigerator spigot with a sweaty hand, feeling his eyes on her back. “Do you have the day off work?” Smooth. She handed her guest the glass of water and retreated to the other side of the table.
“No.”
Cassie waited for an explanation, but he just took a long drink of water. His coarse black hair reached nearly to his shoulders in unkempt strands, and brushed the collar of his plain black t-shirt as he tilted his head back to drink. The sinews of his neck stood out under his olive skin before descending into the lean musculature of his chest and shoulders. She surreptitiously glanced below the table on a hunch: his worn leather boots were coated with dirt. And then the green intensity of his eyes was on her again and she had to look away.
“You’ve been gardening,” he declared, putting down his glass.
“Yes,” Cassie replied, looking down at her outfit and feeling herself redden even further. “I don’t normally dress like this.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Do you garden often?”
“Not as often as I’d like.” Cassie finally looked up at him and found him listening intently, waiting for her to continue. “I have a tiny little apartment near the university,” she explained. “There’s a balcony, but it’s about three foot square and the neighbors below me smoke constantly, so I’m hardly ever out there. I’ve got pots all over the railing and hanging from above, but it’s not like this.” She looked wistfully out at the yard. “I miss this.” Her stomach turned over when she remembered just how much more she would miss it when the house was gone.
“What do you grow?”
“Herbs, mostly. Basil, mint, thyme, cilantro, parsley, rosemary. The hanging plants are varieties of tomato.”
“Those are all very nice plants,” he said seriously, “except maybe rosemary. She’s very pushy.”
“She?” Cassie chuckled.
The man stilled.
Instant remorse; this man clearly did not understand teasing. “I’m sorry,” Cassie rushed out. “I’ve been known to get pretty sentimental about plants myself. Occupational hazard.”
After a moment of looking at her face as if to memorize her features, he nodded. “What is your occupation?”
“I’m a postdoctoral research assistant at the university’s phylogenetics lab,” she replied, tucking a leg up. “My thesis was on systematic botany.”
“You’re a botanist?”
“Yes.”
It was as though the sun had dawned on his face, so bright was his sudden smile. His green eyes shone with excitement. “A botanist!” His laugh filled the kitchen, rich with genuine delight. “That’s wonderful!” He reached forward and clasped her hands and squeezed. “Tell me about your botany!”
Off-kilter from his unexpected exuberance, the first thing that came to Cassie’s mind were snippets of her thesis. It was wildly inappropriate for a layperson. But he listened keenly, eyes never leaving her face as she rambled through taxonomic classifications and assay methodologies. His hands were as warm as the green-filtered sun that crept along the kitchen wall.
A sudden creak from above made Cassie jump. She snatched her hands back unthinkingly, wincing as something scraped her knuckle. She absently rubbed the sting without looking down. “I’m sure I’ve talked your ear off with plant minutiae. Sorry.”
“You didn’t,” he replied softly, still smiling. “And you don’t need to apologize. Never apologize for your passion.”
Cassie flushed so hard she thought her cheeks must be radiating heat. “I—”
Another creak sounded from above. They both looked at the ceiling. “Your mother is awake.”
“Yep.” Cassie stood. Her guest did the same, swinging his long legs out from under the table before unfolding to his full height. Cassie looked up at him, floundering for words again. “I should—I have a lot to help Mom with.”
“Gardening.” He smiled again. “I’ll see you later.” Cassie opened her mouth to offer to walk him out the front door like a civilized person, but before she could say anything he loped to the kitchen door, slid it open, and stepped off the deck.
By the time Cassie collected herself enough to follow him—and shout advice on working the finickey lock on the gate to the side yard—he had already disappeared. She walked back into the house and shut the door, then stood blankly in the middle of the kitchen, listening to the sounds of an old house bearing the weight of a grieving wife as she prepared for her day. No sounds from the yard; either that man was the sneakiest gate-whisperer to ever cross the property, or he had vanished off the face of the earth. Or maybe the gate had been left open? She’d have to check.
She rubbed her hand again and looked down at it in consternation. How on earth did she get a scrape like that? It was even bleeding a little. But he hadn’t been wearing any jewelry, had he? Cassie shook her head. She’d ask Mom what his story was. There was no way a guy that weird didn’t have a story.
Jesus Christ—she didn’t know his name. She still hadn’t asked. For that matter—did he even know hers?
What a pair of idiots they made.
⥈
Mom had decided the next day was the day to clean out the office.
Cassie was helping with the two paper grocery bag’s worth of unopened mail. Most of it was junk, of course, but a few letters had managed to end up there unnoticed. It was mindless, but it kept her busy.
“So tell me about work.” Mom was going through boxes of packing peanuts, making sure there wasn’t anything lost in them. She was wearing gardening gloves, in case of spiders. She hated spiders.
Cassie sighed. She’d been pleased to talk about her thesis earlier, but that wasn’t what Mom was asking. “It’s okay.”
“Okay? What does that mean?”
Cassie took a breath and held it for a moment, thinking. Mom obviously smelled blood in the water. “My boss stresses me out, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“He’s just very driven. He wants the best for the department, and it’s a lot of work.”
“How so?”
“Well, the grant proposals, for example. He emails me about them around the clock, and expects an instantaneous reply. If he doesn’t get one, he calls.”
Mom looked over the edge of a box. Her eyes were concerned, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the packing peanuts clinging to her frizzy hair. “Have you talked to HR?”
Cassie shook her head. “No, that’s not really an HR issue. He’s just trying to help the department.”
Mom nodded. “Looks like what you need is to set some boundaries.”
Cassie nodded back solemnly. “Be right back. I need to pee.”
She got to the bathroom and stuffed her face into a towel before she started laughing. The very idea. Mom was such a doormat, and she thought Cassie needed some boundaries?
Cassie used the toilet and washed her hands for verisimilitude then went back to the office.
Mom was sorting through a drawer of assorted household detritus now: unused gift cards, mystery keys, tangled chargers for small devices that had long since died and been replaced. “Weren’t you applying for a grant of your own?” Mom asked. “To work in a field?”
Cassie smiled. The misinterpretation was understandable, given the nature of her work. “I submitted a proposal for independent fieldwork, yes. Field Evaluation in Ecoregions 2-4 of Apomixis and Propagation in Rosaceae Genera. It’s to, uh—” Cassie cast about for a comprehensible description. “A grant to help further define classification structure in the Rosaceae family of plants.”
Cassie could sense the tremendous effort of will her mother marshaled to sound earnest as she exclaimed, “Oh, how exciting!” while trying to shake two tangled sets of earbuds apart. She eventually settled for picking at them carefully. “Will you get to name a new species?”
“If I can adequately justify my rationale for delineating a new...” This was not going to go anywhere; Mom was now squinting at the earbuds in frustration. “Maybe, if I’m lucky.”
“When do you hear about winning the grant?”
“Well, first of all, I’m probably not going to win it,” Cassie said bluntly. “It’s intensely competitive and I’m probably one of the only solo submissions for this one. Second of all, nobody’s winning it right now, because the funding for the grant is on hold pending some sort of NSF politics. They were supposed to have selected winners already, but now the earliest we’ll hear is—” Cassie checked the date on her phone. “Oh, maybe as early as next week, actually.”
Funny how she’d come unmoored from time after only a few days away. Honestly, it was probably best that she’d forgotten; less opportunity to get her hopes up. She wasn’t sure this grant board would take a solo application seriously: she’d have to arrange for her own laboratory time in the second phase, she’d have no university resources automatically at her disposal, and she hadn’t listed any senior experts as consultants. It would just be her, hiking around with nothing but a few gigs of cited research on her laptop and a rucksack of specimen collection and preservation equipment. For the entire first phase.
God, she wanted to win this grant.
“Well, even if you don’t win it this time,” Mom was saying as she leafed through an old hanging file that had fallen to the bottom of a drawer, “you can always try again, right?”
“I can, yes. Next year.” Cassie pressed her mouth into a thin line and dug into the pile of paperwork excavated from the drawer Mom was currently pawing through. “And in the meantime, I am gainfully employed in my desired career area, so really, I can’t com—”
“Oh!” Mom exclaimed suddenly. “Here it is!”
She reached into the bottom of the drawer, set aside a handful of creased report cards (all A’s except for a C in PE—must be Matt’s), and pulled out a sheet of paper. She handed it to Cassie with a smile.
Cassie peered at it. It was thick white construction paper, torn from a drawing pad, bearing a colored-pencil drawing whose vibrancy had only faded a little over the years. Two figures stood to the left: a boy leaning back to hurl a pale yellow ball, villainous face dominated by angry eyebrows, and a smaller, rounder boy wearing an exaggerated frown. Lest there be any doubt, Cassie had helpfully labeled them as Tyler Harris and Matthew Harris in precise black lettering, with ruler-straight arrows pointing to each.
On the right was the blackberry bramble.
Even if it hadn’t been identified as such, both in English and in Latin, it would have been clear; she’d taken care to draw a few leaves and flowers in the foreground of the appropriate color and shape. The rest was a more abstract tangle of green and brown pencil, ticked with thorns. In the center of the tangle was a hollow space, inhabited by two other figures: long-haired Cassandra Harris, arms held stiffly before her as though to ward off Tyler’s pitch, and a boy.
He alone was unlabeled. He towered behind Cassie, hands at his sides, rendered mostly in black, brown, and purple. For some inexplicable reason, the drawing omitted his feet—but even more striking was his face. His wild black snarl of hair was ticked with thorns as well, and the eyes that gazed from within it were a piercing green.