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⬅️ Previous chapter
November 2009
Thanks to the miracle of modern pharma, Grace is breathing better than she has in a year. She takes her new twice-daily meds faithfully. As motivation, Dr. Cannedy showed her grisly photos of scarred, thickened airways from poorly managed asthma, and warned about permanent lung damage.
It’s early, just after dawn on the day she returns north to visit Warbird and three new sites. Still catching up from her hospitalization. She’s walking to her mother’s car, having borrowed it after hers was towed to a junkyard.
The back of her neck prickles at the same time she hears a soft shooshing sound and here comes a red-tailed hawk flying low just over her right shoulder, so low she could almost touch him. He soars past her with ease and grace, and now she spots a fat squirrel in his beefy talons, still warm, still dying, fuzzy tail streaming in the breeze of flight. This exchange fills the moment before the hawk banks right down an alley:
“Were you surprised the squirrel was that easy?” Grace asks.
She offered herself, the hawk says.
A chill runs through Grace. They don’t usually answer. “I wish you could see what I see: your trailing feathers glowing pink-gold in the sun’s spark.”
I feel your attention, your wonder. You’re captivated by my flight.
“I know flight, but not the hunt.”
The soft feather-flow of wings fills her ears long after the hawk disappears. Grace weeps as she hustles through the November wind. She’s been weeping a lot lately.
The PTSD pamphlet from the nurses at Barnes-Kasson County Hospital waits on the passenger seat of the car, along with the unmailed worker’s comp claim. “You’ve suffered a trauma,” the discharge nurse had said. “Better prepared than blindsided.” On the back, she’d written Emily with a phone number and a heart. Emily and another nurse watched Grace fill out the worker’s comp claim forms. Their mistake was trusting her to mail it. Workers comp on her own project is unthinkable.
At the entrance to Warbird, Grace waits behind a sand delivery truck hazed in a cloud of its own dust. A catch in her chest sends her hand into the front pocket of her backpack to finger the inhaler she hasn’t needed. The security guard holds her there, gate down, while he makes a call. He hangs up, shakes his head. “Sorry, Miss. No admittance.”
“It’s Doctor, not Miss,” she snaps. “There must be some mistake. I’m due to service my equipment today. Call Scott Johnson.”
“That’s who I called.” Dennis is written in white thread script on his brown uniform shirt. He’s red-faced, soft, bored, and impatient.
An airhorn blares behind Grace. A massive sand truck fills her rearview.
“Turn around there,” Dennis says in an officious, rent-a-cop tone.
Or, Dennis, I could floor it through your flimsy fucking gate. She’d do it if she wasn’t in her mother’s car.
The truck blares its airhorn again and revs the engine. Grace pulls into a side parking space to call Scott.
“Yo,” he answers. “How are you, Grace?”
“What the hell, Scott? This guy Dennis won’t let me in.”
“Sorry, no can do. Orders of the boss. He was spooked.”
She eyes the flaring stacks, quiet today. Her chest tenses at the sight of them. “You know I need to calibrate and sync today, just let me in. I won’t tell.” She also needs to collect water samples from a stream on the property and the evaporation pit, to baseline the site. Not ideal to start testing the water this late in the game, but better than nothing.
“The boss rode in the ambulance with you, said you basically died. He stuck around the hospital until they . . . saved you.”
A feeling of violation stiffens her back and shoulders. Nobody told her he saw her in that state. It’s not an episode of Gray’s Anatomy, for fuck’s sake. “Why would he do that?” She pictures James pacing an over-lit waiting room, tiny foam cup of watery coffee growing cold in his hand.
“He was worried. We both were. You turned blue and passed out on the floor.”
She manages to arrest a feeling of panic by staring out her dirt-streaked windshield at her monitor near the fence glinting through the haze. She draws a deep breath. Her body flushes hot with frustration. “Come on, Scott. I’ll be quick. In and out, you won’t even see me. Promise not to die.”
Another truck roars through the gate in a fresh cloud of dust.
His breathing sounds like static. “Scott.”
“Not gonna happen. Send someone else, just tell me who and I’ll alert Dennis.”
“There is no one else. I’m here now. I have to—”
“I gotta go. These sand cans are all up in my ass. It’s a war zone. You take care.” The click raises furious tears in her eyes.
An iron fist squeezes a warning in her chest. She gasps. Fumbles for her inhaler. She curls and falls sideways into the passenger seat, rigid with rage. Or is it fear?
One puff and she’s fine, but she takes another for good measure. She closes her eyes and tries the slow-count breathing she learned from Nurse Nanna in therapy. Maybe she’ll sleep here until Scott leaves, then sneak in and—
Sharp tap tap tap on the window. She hauls herself up and rubs her eyes. It’s doughy-faced Dennis. Holding a canister of bear spray. Or mace. Relishing his power.
She has to start the car to roll the window down. “What’s up, Dennis? Gonna mace me?”
He blinks his beady eyes fast. “Miss, you can’t stay here.”
“It’s Doctor,” you asshole, “and, yeah, I got it.”
She slams the car into reverse and floors it, sending him staggering backwards. He trips on his own feet and lands on his ass in the gravel. Grace replays the scene again and again until her smile is genuine, then she pulls over to call James.
He picks up on the second ring. “Grace, I’m so glad you called. How are you?”
“There’s been a mistake. Scott thinks you’ve banned me from our sites. But I told him that’s ridiculous, especially with our expansion—”
“He’s right. I—we—can’t have you . . . risking your life—”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“You . . . died in the ambulance, Grace. I was there.”
“Yeah, how weird was that?” Her attempt to inject some levity falls flat. “I’m fine, James.”
She hears a whoosh in the background, a car horn, his breathing. Maybe he’s outside and it’s the wind. When he doesn’t speak, she says, “Hello?”
He sighs. “I’m . . . Trying to find words, Grace.”
“How about, yes, go ahead? Do the work we agreed to and planned. And need.”
“Look, I’m not saying the work . . . doesn’t matter. But you have to send someone else. Someone with no . . . health issues.”
“One, I don’t have health issues. Two, I doubt it’s even legal for you to exclude me just because—”
He laughs. “Are you kidding me? Seriously?”
“Look, all I’m saying is, it should be my call. And I feel fine. Really.”
Another sand truck barrels by, buffeting her car.
“Do you have any idea how many safety regulations we follow? I’m talking thick volumes—local, state, federal. Union for god’s sake. This is a dangerous business. It’s imperative that we protect our workers.”
“And yourselves.”
“Sure, fine, yes. Shareholders tend to look askance when someone dies on-site.”
“I didn’t—”
“Stop. Please. We can’t keep going around in circles.”
Grace thinks of Erin and Steve, their new lab assistants. They’re too green to trust with field work, and more hours plus travel isn’t in her budget unless she dips into her own salary. Which wouldn’t be the first time. So that leaves Barbara. If she’s even willing to go up every week. And if she can be trusted. She can’t be worried that Barbara could steal her research. That’s absurd.
“Look, Grace, I know this isn’t how either of us pictured it last spring. I’ve been thinking a lot since I saw you last. I might as well tell you, I gave notice yesterday that I’m leaving.”
“What? You can’t quit your own family business.”
“Watch me.”
“But you . . . can’t. I need . . . We were . . .”
“It’s the best decision I’ve made in my entire adult life, but I do have one regret. I’m truly sorry we won’t be working together.”
“How can you give up all your brilliant ideas? Triple-lined well casings and recycling wastewater?”
“It’s easier than I thought. Mainly because I finally faced reality. Nobody gives a shit about any of that.”
“I do.” Grace’s limbs are stiff with tension. She tries to stretch and is rewarded with a stabbing cramp in her calf. She should get out, but she’s immobilized by frustration.
“I know,” he says. “So did I. But the board, the shareholders, Hank, they’re the ones with all the power. I talked myself hoarse and they said no way.”
“So you’re just going to . . . give up?” She never pegged him for a quitter. He was so passionate only months ago.
“I can’t spend one more day wasting my life on this bullshit. It’s wrong. We all know this is a dying industry. The future is in clean energy. That’s where my heart is. I am sorry to leave you in the lurch, but, seriously, Grace. You’re overdue for a rethink yourself. You’re so much better than this.”
Grace is skilled at navigating around have-your-best-interests-in-mind assholes like this one. People who put her in a box, tell her who she is. She never thought James would stoop this low. “Thanks for your condescension. It’s clarifying to know where I stand with you.”
“That’s not what I meant. Honestly, I’ve been dreaming of inviting you to come see my research lab. You’d be a brilliant addition to the team.”
Now she considers that he’s had a psychotic break and that’s what this is all about. It makes more sense to see it like that. His father died suddenly, then the thing with her in the trailor—
“Not at United Energy, sorry if that was confusing,” he says. “I have a side gig, a lab on the East River in Brooklyn. My own research team with friends from MIT. We’ve got a little funding and—”
“Good for you. I wish you well. Now I need to sign off and call Hank.”
He sighs. “Guess that’s a no? Listen, Grace, I say this as a friend. Your best move here is to get your partner—”
“Assistant.”
“Whatever. Get her to take over the fieldwork. Save yourself.”
“I don’t need saving.” She ends the call and throws the phone hard away. It bounces off the passenger door and lands in the footwell. She gazes out at the bucolic landscape of dairy farms and fallow fields and forested hills rimming the horizon. Can’t even tell it’s under assault by a “dying industry.” She thinks of the “beauty strips” of forest left behind to line roads and conceal the acres of brutal clearcuts just behind them.
Feeling bereft, she stares at her phone, willing her fingers to work so she can call Hank. A text appears from James. It’s his personal number and email, along with a message: Take care, Grace.
At least the day isn’t a total waste, Grace thinks as she cycles to Ned’s house for dinner. His daughter will be there, and Ned hinted that she might have some questions about a science fair project.
Why do you want to get into those sites so badly? comes the familiar voice of Dr. Marguerita Hack, minus her usual gruffness. Last time, it almost killed you.
You’re always saying I should fight for what I want, right? Grace replies in her mind.
Are you still eating meat? You’d be healthier if you didn’t.
Of all the Italians to be pestered by, I get the one militant vegetarian.
You’re smart, Grace. Stubborn and willful and smart. You can do anything.
Except access my own study sites.
I never heard the word, “No,” in all my life. If it’s what you truly want—
Grace hits a pothole, skids off a parked car, overcorrects into the path of an oncoming Prius that swerves and just grazes her leg. At the light, the driver rolls down the passenger window to give her an earful. This from someone with the bumper sticker, Go Vegan and no one gets hurt.
Madonna Mia, these people are barbarians, Dr. Hack says.
At least they’re vegan.
Dr. Hack laughs, a surprisingly girlish sound. So they are. I take it all back. You should be more careful, dear. In all my years of cycling, I never had such trouble.
Besides go vegetarian, what should I do? Grace immediately regrets asking. Dr. Hack must think she’s a total loser.
Does your work light you up? Are you eager to start each day?
It’s been a while, Grace says without thinking. The truth terrifies her.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
It’s like a bad relationship, which Grace has never hesitated quitting. But her work. That’s her ground, her refuge.
You Americans put too much stock in personal fulfillment and fame.
Says the woman who has an asteroid named after her.
A Toyota pickup makes a sudden right turn, forcing Grace to grip her brakes hard. She unleashes a string of curses while peddling on. Dr. Hack goes silent. For the first time, Grace is disappointed.
She turns onto Schenley Road, the one affordable street in Roland Park according to Ned. He moved there for the neighborhood elementary-middle school, where his daughter Hélène is a seventh grader. The maids, carpenters, mechanics, and shop clerks lived on Schenley. They still do, along with first-time homeowners, college kids, and journalists like Ned. His house is narrow and long, like a rowhouse but separated from his neighbors by narrow side yards.
Grace arrives twenty-five minutes late. Hélène is sprawled on the porch swing, reading a dogeared paperback.
“Whatcha reading?” Grace asks.
“A Wrinkle in Time.” Her legs are draped over the armrest, toenails each painted a different color of the rainbow. It’s warm for November, but not enough to justify being barefoot.
“No way! That was my favorite book as a kid.”
“It’s one of mine.” Hélène slips in a tasseled marker, closes the book, and swings her legs to a seated position.
Grace leans on the railing to appear relaxed. “Who else on your bookshelf is in Madeleine L’Engle’s league? Harry Potter?”
Hélène’s wispy brows knit together, in concentration or disapproval, Grace can’t tell which. “I mean, he’s okay. I was obsessed with the Catwings books as a kid.” She leans over to pull a book from the crate end-table.
“Ursula Le Guin? She’s amazing.” Grace fans the book, feeling better. She’s been dreading this meeting. What could she possibly have to say to a kid? “When you’re older, you’ll have to read her other stuff. Like the Earthsea books and Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness. But not yet, your dad would kill me.”
Hélène looks offended.
Grace tries a smile. “They have, like . . . adult themes.” She removes her helmet and scratches her head. “And some violence.”
Hélène wrinkles her nose. She reminds Grace of herself at that age. “I want to be Ursula Le Guin.”
“Me too.” Grace grins. This kid is okay after all.
“I wish Dad was an anthropologist like hers, so he could take me along on his adventures.”
An image flashes of Ned bringing Hélène to cover a crime story in West Baltimore. Maybe not. “Well, your dad’s pretty cool himself.”
Hélène rolls her eyes.
She jumps down and pushes open the front door. The warmth of home, savory roasting smells, lemony tang of floor polish, faint note of dust on radiators.
“Shoes off,” Hélène says while crossing the living room. “Dad! She’s here!”
Behind the front door, low shelves hold a tangle of shoes, mostly Ned’s, that spill onto the floor. Ballcaps, scarves, jackets, and a dog leash hang on hooks. Grace catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror—hair disheveled by the helmet, dark circles under her eyes. Lovely.
In the kitchen, Ned alternates between carving a roast chicken and poking at a pot of greens simmering on the stove. He’s wearing a navy-blue apron with what appears to be the Presidential Seal and the words Hail to the Chef. Instead of an olive branch and arrows in the eagle’s talons, it grips grilling tools—a spatula and tongs.
Hélène goes to work. She drops a spoonful of French mustard into a wooden bowl, adds a splash of white wine vinegar and whisks them together. All while teasing her father about the time he cried at her kindergarten graduation. She deftly drizzles oil into the bowl with one hand while whisking with the other.
Grace finally has to ask. “What are you making?”
Hélène looks up confused, like Grace asked her how to breathe.
“Uh, dressing.” Her tone is equal parts pity and duh. Her glance at Ned telegraphs WTF?
“Honey,” he says. “Not everyone makes their own salad dressing.”
“They eat salad dry? Gross.” She finishes her whisking, then grinds in pepper and sea salt and a pinch of dried herbs.
Grace feels defensive. “You never heard of Newman’s Own? Hidden Valley? Kraft or Annie’s?”
Hélène tilts her head to one side, as if the answer will drop into her upturned ear. “Are they . . . like, oldies TV shows? Dad doesn’t let me watch much.”
Grace lets oldies go. “Your dad says you’re trying to figure out a science fair project. What are you curious about?”
They carry plates of food to the table set with placemats, cloth napkins, and candles.
“We have to decide on a topic by next week, but I’m stuck,” Hélène says.
“Sometimes asking a bunch of questions starting with Why, or What if, or even How can get you going. What do you want to explore?”
“I like plants. And animals. And weather. And the moon and the stars and music and water, like, the ocean. And whales. And dolphins of course, and algae is so cool, did you know it can generate electricity, and mushrooms. Oh, man, some mushrooms can cure cancer, and they may even be . . . like, aware, or . . .”
“Sentient?”
“Yeah, that.”
Grace smiles at Ned. He’s beaming. “Would you like help prioritizing?” she asks. “Narrowing your focus? Which topic are the most passionate about?”
“Winning,” Hélène says.
They all laugh. Ned’s face glows with love and admiration. Grace is swept by a sudden longing to be looked at like that.
“A girl after my own heart,” Grace says.
“So which one is more likely to win?” Hélène asks.
“I can say, judges look for what makes the biggest difference or helps the most people. I heard the LifeStraw started as a high school science fair project, but I don’t know for sure.”
“It’s a good story,” Ned says.
“I know a thing or two about winning science fairs. I was undefeated from seventh through twelfth grade,” Grace says. The awe on Hélène’s face helps her feel redeemed for the salad dressing incident. “I can show you my medals someday.”
“You still have them?” Ned asks.
“My dad kept all that stuff.” She lets stand the impression of a normal proud father.
“You want a balance of challenge plus innovation. Not too hard, so you get good results, plus your unique twist, ideally a discovery. And the secret sauce is what I call curb appeal.” Her father’s term, but he was right, so why not carry on the tradition?
“So shallow,” Ned says. The corners of his eyes crinkle with mirth.
“Nobody worked the Science Fair Industrial Complex harder than I did. I had those judges eating out of my hand.”
Hélène can barely contain her excitement. “What’s curb appeal?”
“Your poster has to kill. Experiment design, results, graphics, fonts, color, everything.”
After the meal, Ned rises to clear dishes. “If you don’t make it as a research scientist, Grace, there’s a lucrative career as a science fair consultant waiting.”
“Big money in that,” she says.
Ned insists they leave Hélène on clean-up to sit on the porch swing. He throws a plaid wool blanket over them and pulls her close.
Grace thinks about her exchange with Dr. Hack earlier. She closes her eyes and tries to think of when she was last in her element, peaceful. The marsh. Her research there before shifting to measuring methane on drilling sites. How many years ago? Without opening her eyes, she asks, “Do you love your work?”
He begins moving the swing. “I mean, it’s fine. Some days. Why do you ask?” The gentle back-and-forth rhythm lulls her into a near trance.
“They banned me from my sites today. I can’t access them.” Her limbs stiffen from the tension. “I’m fine, but they’re all worried about liability.”
Ned holds her hand between his two and gives it a little shake. “You nearly died. Maybe they’re concerned for your health.”
Grace thinks of Scott. They had some good talks. She often brought his favorite donuts—Chocolate Cream and Coconut. It hurts to think she may never see him again. “Maybe.”
“Send Barbara. Or one of your grad students.”
Grace groans, presses her head into Ned’s upper arm. Her heart hurts.
Ned strokes her hair. “It’s hard to give up control.”
She nods. Her eyes feel hot. She can’t cry over this. Not in front of Ned.
“I do love talking to people,” he says. “Hearing their stories. Like on assignment, I’ll be talking to a grandmother who just lost her grandson. It’s me and her talking, nothing else. She’ll have a framed photo of an innocent, smiling boy with all the promise. There’s no boarded-up windows, no broken glass, no squad cars lights flashing. Just two people sharing a moment, heart to heart. That’s the real stuff.”
“Everything else is noise.”
“Exactly.”
They listen to the night chorus, distant drone of cars on the highway, a helicopter, a car alarm, a dog barking.
“I didn’t know you had a dog,” Grace says, remembering the leash by the front door.
“Yeah, we did. Bitsy. Great dog. Golden Retriever.”
“Is she. . . ?”
“Yeah, she got a rare form of liver cancer. She was young, like five or six. Tragic.”
“Was it hard on Hélène?”
“Uhuh, both of us, all of us. It was a while ago, pre-divorce, so at least three years. A chaotic time all around.”
The blanket has a musty campfire smell. Ned’s body is warm and solid. Grace could drift off—
She sits up and yawns. “I’m so tired.”
He kisses her forehead. “I’m sorry to keep you out so late. Let me give you a lift. Plenty of room in the back for your bike.”
“I’m fine. I mean I’m tired of work, of . . . everything.”
“Can you . . . I don’t know, take a sabbatical?”
“It doesn’t work that way.” She can’t tell him about the meeting with the dean, not yet. “Thanks for dinner. Hélène is great. I’m excited about her project.”
“You are under no obligation—”
“I want to, really.”
Cycling home, images from the day float through her mind. The fluffy doomed squirrel tail, Dennis’ doughy face, Hélène’s rainbow toes, James’ You’re better than this, the dog leash waiting patiently to be needed again. Each image passes, leaving curiosity, wonder, and a strange spaciousness behind. She lingers on Ned listening to a grieving grandmother at a crime scene. He’s a good listener.
Next chapter ➡️
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I’m so relieved there’s a Ned in your story Julie, I do hope Grace is listening to all the signals !
Beautifully written again, dialogue and details - I loved the conversation with the eagle 🦅
What a tender exhale for Grace. I love how you offer her this through small details, all implicit and felt. She deserved this chapter, this leaning into Ned and the spaciousness he creates for her. Now if only she’d move in and get a daily dose of that!