“You deciding?”
I asked.
She shrugged.
“Maybe.”
Sunny’s head rested across her knees.
One school was six hours away.
Daniel hated that.
I pretended not to.
Lucy looked toward the orchard.
“Do you think Grandpa knew we’d live here?”
“No.”
“I think he hoped.”
“Did he know about the well?”
I had wondered about that for years.
“I think he knew something had been there.”
“But maybe he believed it was filled.”
“Then why warn you after rain?”
“Habit.”
“Maybe.”
She scratched Sunny’s ears.
“It’s weird.”
“What?”
“If Grandpa remembered better, maybe nothing would have happened.”
“True.”
“But if nothing happened, we might never have known what Sunny would do.”
I looked at her.
“I would happily have remained ignorant.”
She smiled.
“Me too.”
Then she became serious.
“I think about the coat sometimes.”
“So do I.”
“He could’ve let go.”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
“He was scared.”
“Probably.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.”
Lucy looked down at Sunny.
“He never does.”
That was Sunny’s defining quality.
Not intelligence.
Not obedience.
Not some supernatural ability.
Persistence.
If Lucy cried behind a closed door, he waited.
If she went too far down the lane, he followed.
If she was sick, he stayed.
If danger frightened him, he did not run in the opposite direction.
He moved closer to her.
That was his courage.
Not absence of fear.
Movement through it.
When Lucy left for college, Sunny was eleven.
He watched us load her car.
Suitcases.
Boxes.
Bedding.
A lamp.
Too many shoes.
He followed Lucy constantly that morning.
When she finally hugged him, she cried harder than she had saying goodbye to either parent.
“Take care of them.”
She whispered.
Daniel complained.
“I can hear you.”
Lucy ignored him.
Sunny licked her face.
She drove away.
For almost an hour afterward, Sunny sat at the end of the driveway.
Then he came home.
His job had always been where the family was.
Not one place.
Not one orchard.
Family.
Lucy came home every few months.
Sunny somehow seemed to know her car.
Before we heard the tires, he stood.
Tail wagging.
Old body suddenly younger.
At nineteen, Lucy brought a boyfriend home for Thanksgiving.
Sunny inspected him.
The poor kid stood still while an elderly Golden Retriever sniffed his shoes for almost thirty seconds.
Lucy said:
“He passed.”
Daniel said:
“Sunny’s standards have fallen.”
The boyfriend laughed nervously.
Sunny eventually lay on his feet.
Approval.
At twenty, Lucy decided to study environmental science.
That surprised me.
I had assumed education.
Maybe veterinary medicine.
She chose water and land management.
One summer, she interned with a county conservation district mapping abandoned agricultural structures.
Old wells.
Cisterns.
Drainage systems.
Septic fields.
Farm ponds.
When she told me, I laughed.