“Seriously?”
“Every year. Dispatch has a standard response: ‘It’s cedar fever, ma’am. Close your windows.’” I shake my head. “The old-timers cleared it when they could, but it grows back faster than you can cut it. Aggressive. Stubborn. Takes over everything if you let it.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“The cedar or the old-timers?”
“Both.”
This time, the laugh gets out. Brief, warm, real. Her face opens, and for a second I see her without the walls: the quickintelligence, the warmth she keeps banked, the lines at the corners of her eyes that say she used to laugh more than she does now.
My chest does something I’m not prepared for.
“There’s a swimming hole,” I say, because my mouth is apparently operating independently today. “In a canyon south of town. A spring feeds it year-round. Even in August, it’s full. The water’s so clear you can count pebbles on the bottom from twelve feet up. Trees all around it. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t feel like it should exist.”
“Hidden?”
“Not exactly. Locals know it. But it’s not on any map, and you can’t find it from the road. You have to know which trail to take.” I hear myself and stop. I’m describing my favorite place to a woman I’ve known for less than a week.
“Where I grew up, we had a place like that,” she says, quieter now. “A pool at the base of a waterfall, tucked into a hollow between two ridges. Hickory and red oak so thick overhead you could barely see the sky. The water was cold. Always cold, even in July. When I was a kid, I thought it was magic.”
“Where was this?”
“East. Hill country, but different from yours. Green. Wet. The kind of place where everything grows, whether you want it to or not.”
“You miss it.”
The pause is a beat too long. “Every day.”
“What happened?”
Another pause. Her expression doesn’t close exactly, but something behind it steps back. “Things changed. People left. The land’s still there, but it’s not the same place it was.”
I know that feeling. Not from personal experience. My world hasn’t changed, not for me. But I’ve watched other wolves lose territory to politics, to expansion. I know what it looks like in aperson’s face when they talk about a home that still exists but isn’t theirs anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be. It made me who I am.” She reaches for a nearby napkin and folds it. Then folds it again. “All of it.”
The way she saysall of itcarries significance I don’t fully understand. As if “all of it” includes more than a change of scenery. Loss. Damage. Things she’s not going to tell me over diner coffee.
She’s quiet for a moment. She folds the napkin yet again… slow, absent.
“There’s a thing this weekend,” I say. “Saturday. Barbecue at the compound community grounds. Live music, food, the whole town comes out. Open event, not a family thing.”
She tilts her head. “Are you inviting me?”
“I’m mentioning it exists and suggesting you might enjoy it.”
“That’s smooth.”
“I try.”
“You don’t, actually. That’s what makes it work.” She drains her mug. “What time?”
“Starts around four. I could pick you up.”
“I’ll drive myself.”