Over Wanda’s shoulder, Lucas caught Phyllis’s eye. She let the hand holding the garden spade fall to her side as she considered what it must mean for him to come back, after all this time. He’d been gone so long, she’d let herself imagine that Wanda was hers to keep. But watching Wanda hang from his neck, her toes brushing the ground, her face buried in his chest, Phyllis understood that this dream had never been real. She tried to let it go as gracefully as she could.
“You’re back,” she said, willing warmth into her voice. Wanda finally let go of him and Phyllis took stock: He looked tired, as big as ever but malnourished, as if holding up the mass of his own body was too much for him. Mud caked his face and neck. Water dripped from his pant legs, pattering softly against the grass. Phyllis stepped forward and took her turn. It felt strange to hold a man in her arms. He smelled of swamp water and body odor, the moisture in his clothes steaming ever so slightly in the heat. He leaned into her, heavy enough that she had to brace her feet.
“Easy now,” she whispered in his ear.
“A little off the beaten path, yeah?” He laid his head on her shoulder for a moment, then pulled himself back up to his full height and released her. Glancing at the smear of damp and dirt across her shirt, he added, “Sorry about that.”
“It’s nothing,” Phyllis said. “We’ve missed you.”
He nodded and turned his attention back to Wanda, who was practically vibrating with excitement. She almost looked like a child again. “I can’t believe you’re here,” Wanda said.
“I’m here,” he replied, picking his pack up off the ground with a groan.
“For good?” Wanda asked, taking the pack from him and easily swinging it across her back. Phyllis watched Lucas’s face as he followed his sister around to the back door.
“I—” He glanced at Phyllis. His eyes pleaded with her, but for what?
“Let him get settled, Wan,” she said. “He’s come a long way.”
The three of them went inside and Phyllis turned on the air conditioner in the kitchen. They didn’t use it often—it overpowered the solar panels’ capacity if they weren’t careful—but this was a special occasion. Wanda had so many questions, she couldn’t manage to allow him the space to answer any of them before she asked the next one. She wanted to know how long it took to get here and where he came from and did he find a boat to bring him down and did he have to swim and if so did he come across any gators and what was college like and what was California like and did he still live there and if not where and if so did he like it and on and on. Phyllis left the two of them together while she went looking for something dry for him to wear. Upstairs, she leaned against the wall in her bedroom and listened to the soft murmur of their voices. Wanda’s high and constant, Lucas’s intermittent and deep. She found an old pair of too-big shorts with an elastic waist and an oversize T-shirt and went back down.
In the kitchen, Lucas had his face right up next to the air conditioner while Wanda still hadn’t reached the end of her questions. “Wanda, honey,” Phyllis said, putting the clothes on the table. Wanda understood and stopped talking long enough for a few beats of silence to fill the room. Lucas turned away from the cold blast of the AC unit and saw the clothes.
“Thanks,” he said, and held up the shorts, raising his eyebrows at Phyllis as he tested the elastic.
“Best I could do.”
“I appreciate it. I’ll change. Everything in my bag is wet, I think. I had to swim a stretch at the end there.”
“It’s fine, we’ll give them a wash.”
He nodded. “The water…it’s so high.”
“Higher every year,” Wanda chimed in.
“Wanda, show him where the towels are.” They trooped upstairs, Wanda chattering, Lucas mm-hming, and left her there to contemplate the puddle that was slowly forming around his bag. She wondered how long he might stay and how much of her heart he would take with him when he left.
It was strange to have another body around the house, but Phyllis was surprised by how quickly they adapted to his presence. Days passed. He silently trailed behind as they went about their chores, and eventually she started giving him things to do. He seemed grateful for the work, so she gave him more. Phyllis sent him up onto the roof to do solar panel maintenance. That took a few days. Then she asked him to muck the henhouse, to set rat traps in the attic, to clean the pantry, to build a new raised garden bed. There was a great deal to do during the daylight hours, but in the evenings, when the work was done, Wanda brought forth her stockpile of questions and Phyllis watched as Lucas slowly succumbed to her persistence.
The picture he painted of the world outside what was formerly known as Florida was dire. He told them he moved around a lot, taking contracts on linemen crews where the need was greatest. He’d gone back to electricity after all. Phyllis didn’t ask what had become of his college degree. All those big dreams for making big changes. The answer was right there on his face. His eyes seemed to float across the room without seeing anything when the conversation turned to the years he’d been away. Phyllis stayed quiet during these inquisitions, witnessing Lucas’s reticence and Wanda’s eagerness, a delicate balance between the two siblings rediscovering one another that she didn’t wish to upset.
When they weren’t working or resting, Wanda took Lucas out in the canoe and showed him what Rudder had become. Phyllis saw them off on these adventures, Blackbeard twining between her legs, mewing as Wanda got farther and farther away. The blue house was built on some of the highest ground Rudder had to offer, but beneath it, the water had claimed almost everything. It was a difficult, in-between phase for navigation—in some places, it was too shallow for the canoe; in others, too deep to wade. Phyllis didn’t like Wanda going out on her own. She imagined her getting stranded, the canoe stuck among the weeds and debris, Wanda forced to swim through polluted water with who knew what lurking behind every ruin, but with Lucas joining her, she didn’t worry quite so much. She was glad for them to have the time together. Waving them off, she reminded herself that it was practice for the day they would leave her for good. She braced herself for this eventuality. But it didn’t come. And it didn’t come. And still, it didn’t come.
Finally, it came. But not how she expected. Wanda was off hunting for eggs in the swamp where the chickens liked to lay sometimes when Lucas told Phyllis he was leaving. She sterilized canning jars at the stove while Lucas sliced beets into thick half-moons, a deep purple-red stain creeping across the knife, the cutting board, his broad sunburned hands. She stopped what she was doing.
“I’ve overstayed as it is,” he said.
“I like having you here,” she replied slowly, as if speaking to an animal prone to startling. “I like having both of you here. I hope you know that. That it’s been—” A tremor crept into her voice. She swallowed it and continued, “It’s been a great honor to be Wanda’s guardian. And to have you here, too. But I of course understand if it’s time to move on.”
“That’s good to hear,” he said, scooping up a handful of beets and dropping them in the bowl. The vivid juices soaked into the weather-beaten crevices that crisscrossed his hands, illuminating the lines on his palms in bright, bloody slashes. She wished she were a palm reader. That his heart, head, fate lines were revealed to her in this moment. But Phyllis had no such skill for divination. Lucas continued, “Because I think that Wanda is better off staying. I’m not sure that there’s anything for her out there. Certainly not with me. She seems so…well, she seems happy here. And I’ll be honest, Phyllis, what’s out there is not good. It’s changing fast, and not for the better.”