Chương 74: “The Emergency Biscuits”

They had lost the sandwiches somewhere between the bus and the park and June had been very serious about this for approximately four minutes and then had found it very funny, and then he had found it very funny, and they had sat on the blanket with nothing but the emergency biscuits from the bottom of the bag and the sun coming through the trees at the angle it comes through trees on Saturday mornings in early June.

He had packed the sandwiches himself, badly, apparently, because they were now gone, and he had packed the apples and the water bottle and the little plastic box of carrot sticks June had specifically requested and would almost certainly not eat. The tin of biscuits had not been his doing.

It had been wrapped in a dish towel and pushed into the deepest part of the bag, beneath June's cardigan, where he found it only after searching for the missing sandwiches for the third time, as if they might have become ashamed of themselves and returned. For a moment he had only looked at the tin. Then he had understood. Cecile. Of course Cecile. She had not said anything when he left the house that morning.

She had stood in the kitchen with her tea and watched him check the bag twice, and he had thought, with the irritation that came from being watched by someone who had known you too long, that she was preparing to tell him he had forgotten something. She had not. She had only said, "Have a nice morning," in a tone that suggested she expected him to manage at least half of one. They had never been very good with each other, he and Cecile. They were not enemies. Nothing that grim.

But there had always been some small, hard thing between them, some old disagreement that had outlived the original argument and become part of the furniture of the family. She thought he was too stubborn. He thought she was too certain. She had a way of being right that made being wrong feel like a personal failure.

He opened the tin and saw them arranged in careful rows, more than enough for two people who had lost their lunch and one six-year-old who had decided that an adventure without sandwiches was still an adventure, provided there was something sweet at the bottom of it. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. He thought then, unexpectedly and with a warmth he did not quite know where to put, thank you, Cecile. He did not say it aloud.

June would have asked why, and then he would have had to explain, and he was not sure how to explain that sometimes gratitude arrived sideways, for a person you had spent years failing to understand properly. So he only set the tin between them. June leaned over it with immediate reverence.

"Nan packed those?"

"I believe so." June smiled as if this proved something important about the world. They ate two biscuits each before the fox came out from between the trees. It was a small fox, narrow-faced and red-brown, with its ears high and its body held low as if it was not sure whether the blanket was dangerous or merely interesting. It stopped at the edge of the grass and looked at them. June froze with half a biscuit in her hand.

"No," he said at once. She looked at him.

"June."

"It's hungry." June looked back at the fox. The fox looked back at June. There was, he felt, an immediate and deeply irresponsible understanding between them.

"Just one," she said.

"No." She broke off the smallest corner of the biscuit and placed it on the grass at the very edge of the blanket. The fox came forward in two quick movements, took the piece, and was gone again before he could say anything more useful. June watched it vanish into the trees with her whole face brightened by the event.

"We should take him with us," she said.

"We absolutely should not."

"He could live in my room."

"He could not."

"Under my bed, then."

"That is worse." June sighed, not with disappointment exactly, but with the sorrow of someone whose excellent plans were regularly ruined by adults and reality.

"He belongs here," he said, more gently. She looked toward the trees.

"Because it's his place?"

"Yes. That's why." She thought about that. The fox did not come back. The trees moved a little in the wind, and somewhere beyond them a child shouted, and a dog barked, and the park went on being ordinary around them.

"I guess that's fair," June said. Then she looked at the biscuit tin again and chose another one.

"But I still think he would've liked me."

"I am certain he would have found you useful." They ate the biscuits.

"Dad?"

"Mm?"

"How come you never had any pets?" He looked at her.

"I don't know. It just happened that way." She considered this, chewing.

"When we move to the new house," June said, "I'm going to have a cat."

"One cat."

"And a dog."

"Two animals?"

"Uh-huh." She nodded, very serious.

"And a bird, too." He laughed.

"That seems excessive."

"No, because the cat can sleep inside, and the dog can guard the garden, and the bird can go places and come back."

"I see." He brushed crumbs from his coat.

"And what will I do?" June thought about it seriously.

"You'll make sure they don't fight."