He stood up and walked out of the barn. “Where are you going?” I called, but I couldn’t follow him. I wouldn’t leave Syrah.
Ten minutes later, Gideon returned. He was holding two bottles of baby oil and a Sara Lee pound cake I recognized from my own refrigerator. I followed him into the kitchen of the Asian barn, where we prepared meals for the elephants. He started to unwrap the cake’s packaging. “I’m not hungry,” I told him.
“This isn’t for you.” Gideon set the cake on the counter and began to stab it with a knife, repeatedly.
“I think it’s dead,” I said.
He opened a bottle of baby oil and poured it over the cake. The fluid began to sink into the sponge, settling into the puncture marks he’d made. “At the circus, the elephants colicked sometimes. The vet used to tell us to get them to drink oil. I guess it gets things moving.”
“The vet didn’t say—”
“Alice.” Gideon hesitated, his hands stilling over the cake. “Do you trust me?”
I looked at this man, who had worked by my side for weeks now to create the illusion that this sanctuary could survive. Who had saved me once. And my daughter.
I read once, in a silly women’s magazine at the dentist, that when we like someone, our pupils dilate. And that we tend to like people whose pupils are dilated when they look at us. It’s an endless cycle: We want the people who want us. Gideon’s irises were nearly the same color as his pupils, which created an optical illusion: a black hole, an endless fall. I wondered what mine looked like, in response. “Yes,” I said.
He instructed me to get a bucket of water, and I followed him into the stall where Syrah still lay on her side, her belly rising and falling with effort. Gertie sat up, suddenly alert. “Hey, beautiful,” Gideon said, kneeling in front of the elephant. He held out the cake. “Syrah, she’s got a real sweet tooth,” he told me.
She sniffed the cake with her trunk. She touched it gingerly. Gideon broke off a small piece and tossed it into Syrah’s mouth while Gertie sniffed at his fingers.
A moment later Syrah took the entire cake and swallowed it whole.
“Water,” Gideon said.
I settled the bucket where Syrah could reach and watched her siphon out a trunkful. Gideon leaned in, his strong hands stroking her flank, telling her what a good girl she was.
I wished he would touch me like that.
The thought came so fast that I fell back on my heels. “I have to—I have to go check on Jenna,” I stammered.
Gideon glanced up. “I’m sure she and Grace are both asleep.”
“I have to …” My voice trailed off. My face was hot; I pressed my palms against my cheeks. Turning, I hurried out of the barn.
Gideon was right; when I reached the cottage, Grace and Jenna were curled together on the couch. Jenna’s hand was caught in Grace’s. It made me feel sick, to know that while Grace had been taking care of someone I loved, I had been wishing I could do the same with someone she loved.
She stirred, careful to sit up without waking Jenna. “Is it Syrah? What happened?”
I gathered Jenna into my arms. She woke up briefly before her eyes drifted shut again. I didn’t want to disturb her, but it was more important, in that moment, to remember who I was. What I was.
A mother. A wife.
“You should tell him,” I said to Grace. “About not being able to have a baby.”
She narrowed her eyes. We had not discussed this since first broaching the topic weeks ago. I knew she was worried that maybe I had already said something to Gideon, but that wasn’t it at all. I wanted them to have that conversation so Gideon would know Grace trusted him, wholly. I wanted them to have that conversation so they could make plans for a future that included surrogacy or adoption. I wanted the bond between them to be so strong that I could not, even accidentally, find a chink in the wall of their marriage through which I could peek.
“You should tell him,” I repeated. “Because he deserves to know.”
The next morning, two wonderful things happened. Syrah got up, seemingly over her colic, and wandered with a bouncing Gertie into the Asian enclosure. And the fire department dropped off a gift: a used fire hose that they wanted to donate, since they’d recently upgraded their equipment.
Gideon, who had gotten even less sleep than I had, seemed to be in a terrific mood. If Grace had taken my advice and spoken to him about her secret, he either had taken it well or was too happy about Syrah’s recovery to let the news affect him. At any rate, he certainly didn’t seem to be thinking twice about my awkward exit the night before. He hefted the hose over his shoulder. “The girls are going to love this,” he said, grinning. “Let’s test it out.”
“I have a million things to do,” I replied. “And so do you.”
I was being a bitch. But if that created a wall between us, that was safer.
The vet returned to examine Syrah and gave her a clean bill of health. I buried myself in the office, checking accounts, trying to figure out where I could borrow from Peter to pay Paul, so that the vet’s bill would be covered. Jenna sat at my feet, coloring the photos in old newspapers with her crayons. Nevvie had taken one of the trucks into town for a tune-up, and Grace was cleaning out the African barn.
It wasn’t until Jenna tugged on my shorts and told me she was hungry that I realized hours had passed. I made her peanut butter and jelly, cutting the sandwich into squares just the right size for her hands. I took off the crusts, saving them in my pocket for Maura. And then I heard the sound of someone dying.