Page 70 of Cut Off
“Okay.” He pulls the hood back, and Sydney’s eyes get shiny and then unshiny again so fast I’m proud of her.
She doesn’t hug him. She doesn’t ask him a single thing about Rosie, or court, or Gwen, or Jonah, or how he’s sleeping, or his therapist, or any of the questions I know are sitting on her tongue like hot coals.
March has warmed to April, and the wind’s now a breeze as Syd walks. Eli follows, and I trail behind him like a documentarian, phone already out, because I know Jonah will want every frame later.
The path along the lake’s edge is maples going copper. Reeds whispering. The lake itself is doing that gorgeous flat blue mirror thing, and it’s not even trying.
Sydney leads us off the path before Eli has time to register that we’re near water, slipping into a stand of birch where the underbrush has been cleared into something that looks accidental but is absolutely not. There’s a flat rock near a slow inlet.
Sydney sits on it, cross-legged, and pats the spot next to her. “Okay, Blastman. First lesson in beaver communication. They are extremely food motivated. Same as the rest of us.”
She produces, from a little canvas bag, a Tupperware of blueberries. “Hold a few in your hand. Flat palm. Don’t move fast. Don’t talk yet. Just… open up your power. Whatever it is. Tune in.”
He does it. Of course he does it: Blastman takes his job seriously. He sits on the rock with his palm flat, his hood back, his lightning bolt rumpled, and closes his eyes like he’s listening to something only he can hear. I’m doing my best notto make a sound because I’m filming this, and if Jonah Holt does not get to watch his son tune into beaver frequency, I’ll have failed at my one job.
Sydney whistles. Low, soft, two notes. Same whistle she’s used since I’ve known her.
Water ripples at the bank. Then a wedge of brown moving through the water, then another behind it, and Floyd and Fiona—because these beavers listen to Sydney Holt—climb up onto the muddy lip of the inlet and waddle over like they’re collecting rent.
“Holy, wow,” he whispers, then makes a small, knocked-over sound that comes out of him before he can stop it.
“Steady,” Sydney whispers. “Hand still.”
Floyd, who’s bigger and more entitled, gets there first. He sniffs Eli’s palm, then he takes a blueberry, neat as a thief, and gobbles it.
Fiona is right behind him.
Eli’s not breathing. I’m not breathing. The phone in my hand is shaking.
Floyd takes another blueberry. So does Fiona. They’re eating out of his hand, and Eli’s watching them like it’s a miracle.
“It’s working,” he whispers. “Zoe. It’s working.”
“I see it, Blastman.”
“They’re letting me. I think they understand.”
“I think they do.”
He turns his head, oh-so-slowly as not to spook the beavers, and looks at me. The hood slips off his hair. His mouth is open just a little. His eyes are wide, like he’s forgotten to be angry or careful or nine going on forty.
“I wish Jonah could see this,” he whispers.
“I’m videoing it, Blastman.”
He grins at me, big and wide and missing one of the back molars he lost on a piece of pizza crust last week. Then he turns back to the demanding beavers because Blastman has responsibilities.
I keep filming, my hand steady now. Behind the screen my eyes are doing something inconvenient, and Sydney pretends she’s looking at a leaf because she’s the best person I know. Her eyes might be doing the same inconvenient thing.
Jonah’s going to watch this video and possibly text me from the next room. Jonah’s going to be sad as hell he missed it. But Eli was right—Jonah has to do the drills. He has to get back. And the deal we’ve made, all three of us, without ever putting it into words, is that we cover for each other in the moments we miss. We video. We narrate. We bring it home.
We let the beavers eat us out of berry inventory, and then Sydney, with oodles of experience, eases us back onto the path before either of them gets pushy. Eli holds the empty Tupperware like it’s a trophy.
“That was real,” he tells Sydney, in the tone of a scientist.
“That was very real,” Sydney agrees.
“My power works on beavers.”
