He folded his stick arms across his narrow chest, scrunched up his face, and looked off into the park. She always wondered how he could make his features move like that when they were made out of wood, but since he had a tendency to regard such questions as some sort of invasion of his personal life, she’d never had the courage to ask. She waited patiently as he sighed and fussed and littered about.
“There’s someone here to see you,” he announced finally.
“Who?”
“Well, I think you had better see for yourself.”
She studied him a moment. He refused to meet her eyes, and a cold feeling seeped through her. *Someone from before?” she asked quietly. “From when my father… ?”
“No, no!” He held up his hands, quickly to calm her fears. “No one you’ve met before. No one from then. But . . .” He stopped. “I can’t tell you who it is without getting myself in deeper than I care to go. I’ve thought about it, and it will be better if you just come with me and ask your questions there.”
She nodded. “Ask my questions where?”
“Down by the bayou below the deep woods. She’s waiting there.”
She. Nest frowned. “Well, when did she get here?”
“Early this morning.” Pick sighed. “I just wish these things wouldn’t happen so suddenly, that’s all. I just wish I’d be given a little notice beforehand. It’s hard enough doing my job without these constant interruptions.”
“Well, maybe it won’t take long,” she offered, trying to ease his obvious distress. “If it doesn’t, we can still get some work done in the park before I have to go back.”
He didn’t even argue the point. His anger was deflated, his fire burned to ash. He just stared off at nothing and nodded.
Nest straightened. “Pick, it’s a beautiful October morning, filled with sunshine. The park has never looked better. I haven’t seen a single feeder, so the magic is in some sort of balance. You’ve done your job well, even without my help. Enjoy yourself for five minutes.”
She reached over, plucked him off the tabletop, and set him on her shoulder. “Come on, let’s take a walk over to the deep woods.”
Without waiting for an answer, she rose and headed for the hedgerow pushing through the thin branches into the park. Sunshine streamed down out of a cloudless sky, filling the morning air with the pale, washed-out light peculiar to late autumn. There was a nip in the air, a hint of winter on the rise, but there was also the scent of dried leaves and cut grass mingling with the pungent smells of cooking that wafted out of barbecue grills and kitchen vents from the houses bordering the park. Cars dotted the parking lots and turnoffs beneath the trees, and families were setting out picnic lunches and running with dogs and throwing Frisbees across the grassy play areas ahead.
On such days, she thought to herself with a smile, she could almost imagine she would never leave.
“Pick, if we don’t get back to it today, I’ll come home again next weekend,” she announced impulsively. “I know I haven’t been as good about working with you as I should. I’ve let other things get in the way, and I shouldn’t do that. This is more important.”
He rode her shoulder in silence, apparently not ready to be mollified. She glanced down at him covertly. He didn’t seem angry.
He just seemed distant, as if he were looking beyond her words to something else.
She traversed the central open space to the parking lot serving the ball diamonds and play areas at the far end of the park, crossed the road, and entered the woods. The toboggan slide stood waiting for winter, the last sections of the wooden chute and the ladder that allowed access to the loading platform still in storage, removed and locked away as a safeguard against kids’ climbing on and falling off before the snows came- It never seemed to help much, of course. Kids climbed anything that had footholds whether it was intended for that purpose or not, and the absence of stairs just made the challenge that much more attractive. Nest smiled faintly. She had done it herself more times than she could count. But she supposed that one day some kid would fall off and the parents would sue and that would be the end of it; the slide would come down.