“Mr. Morrison, please. Try to understand. These things take time. Meanwhile, you might use this opportunity to gesture toward improving your situation. You might seek therapy, for instance. That would show that you’re wanting to be healthy. And Mr. Morrison, don’t take this the wrong way, but you might also work to tidy up a bit. We offer a class on that…”
By that point I wasn’t listening, not really. Six months, eighteen months: I wasn’t about to wait around for some court to determine whether I was good enough to be my own kid’s dad. No, sir. Meeting with that caseworker confirmed it. I knew what needed to be done.
Late that night, I went to the Judges’ house and got Grace Elizabeth. Let’s leave it at this: I did what I had to do, and I got her.
THIRTEEN
Now that we’ve stocked up on supplies from Walmart, the second arm of our new survival plan involves expanding our hunting territory. We’ll head down to the river, a place we call the valley. With a water source, it’s our best chance of seeing some game, and we need meat. Usually Finch is excited about these expeditions, especially since we’re heading into less familiar ground. But this afternoon, she’s off. She harasses the cat. She stands close, fidgets, head hung low. I set my bow against the door and rest my hand on her shoulder. “You all right?”
She reluctantly pulls something from her back pocket and holds out her hand. “I found this,” she mutters, staring at the floor. “Last night when I was scouting.”
I take it, flip it over in my palm. A round, plastic disk. A lens cap, I think. Black with silver lettering: NIKON.
I think of Scotland, the spotting scope. “Where?”
“East.”
“How far?”
She twists her new boots back and forth. “By Old Mister.” Her name for a massive, gnarly white oak about a quarter mile away, between the cabin and the valley.
I wrap my fingers tight around the lens cap, try to hold in my frustration. At her, for wandering, but also at him. “What were you doing all the way out there alone? You know the rules.”
“I was trailing a squirrel. I lost track.”
“Why didn’t you show me yesterday?”
She shrugs. “I knew you’d be mad I’d gone too far.”
An unsettling realization: that Finch could keep something from me. Withhold information. That she could have secrets of her own. “Listen,” I say, kneeling next to her. “I don’t want to take it from you, the freedom to roam. But if you can’t be trusted, I will. You understand?”
She nods.
I set the lens cap on the shelf above the woodstove. Her discovery confirms a suspicion I’ve had, which is that Scotland has been in our woods. Not just on his way to visit the cabin, but other times, too. The footprints at our hunting blind, now this, even closer. Closer to us, farther from his place. And I don’t like it one bit.
Maybe this seems like a small transgression—trespassing—but with Scotland, it’s more than that. Because, of course, he could’ve just asked, if what he wanted was to hunt. Not like I’m in a position to tell him no, him having me pinned down the way he does, knowing who we are and why we’re here. He could’ve said, Cooper, I’ll be hunting in your valley. But that’s not his way. He wouldn’t ask because it’s not in his nature to ask. He’d rather sneak. Heck, for all I know, he’s been using our woods the whole time we’ve been out here, maybe even before, and he’s just now made a mistake, leaving the lens cap.
Plus now he’s got me wondering if maybe all along he hasn’t only been keeping tabs on us here at the cabin. Maybe he tracks everything we do in the valley, too. Hunt, fish. Tap maples. Maybe he’s always done that, watched us, nestled himself in that blind and I just never noticed, it being on the far end of the valley, where if he had his spotting scope, he could be tucked down in there and see us, but we wouldn’t know to look for him. If that’s how it’s been, he could be watching us leave the cabin, then scuttling down there quick and hiding until we arrive.
But if the lens cap was at Old Mister, he’s infringing beyond where I thought.
Well, frankly, I’ve had enough. Sure, I could just say, Hey, we found something that belongs to you. Saw you’ve been using the hunting blind, too. Let him know we know. But when I think back to the way he brought that stack of newspapers with all the articles about me, I decide there’s a more fitting way to communicate our discovery. Besides, the thing is, I don’t want him just to know. The man needs to learn a lesson about minding his own business. About boundaries.