My Own Lightning by Lauren Wolk

Author:Lauren Wolk [Wolk, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2022-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

My father pulled over at the bridge over Wheeler’s Run, and I climbed out, Andy’s dog following me, and we started toward the Woodberry farm as the car dwindled away down the bottom road.

The nurse in Pittsburgh had given me a collar and an old leash to keep the dog close by, and I was glad of it now, for he pulled toward home the way an ox will pull a wagon, leaning into it, his head down, flexing his shoulders and pawing the dust.

“Easy, boy!” I yelped, tugging him back gently . . . but then giving in and loping along behind him as he hurried toward what he knew and what he’d missed and what was nearly his again.

And I thought about how a desire became stronger the closer it got to its reward.

When we reached the farm, Andy was nowhere to be seen.

“Andy!” I called, the dog whining and yipping as he paced to the end of the leash and back again.

“ANDY!” I called again, louder, one hand cupped to steer my voice, the other clinging to the leash.

After a long moment, Andy stepped out of a barn on the far side of the pasture, wiping his hands on a rag.

He peered into the distance toward us, and even from so far away I could see him go still. Drop the rag. Stand straight for a moment, leaning toward us. And then begin to run.

I knelt quickly, untied the leash, and let the dog go.

He sailed over the gully, bounded through the tall grass on the far side, scooted under the wire fence, and then took off in a blur, his paws barely touching the ground, flying over rocks and tree stumps like a stone skipped across a pond.

While Andy (who seemed a sloth at school, draping himself over his desk, snoozing, disdainful of us all) likewise ran, calling a name I would never have imagined as he thundered across the pasture. “Spud!” he cried, again and again.

I waited by the road as they tumbled together onto the ground, rolling happily in the grass while the cows nearby paused in their grazing to watch.

“So,” I said quietly to myself. “So.”

I waited, my eyes on them, until Andy stood up, Spud making figure eights around his legs.

Andy looked across the pasture at me for a long, long moment.

I looked steadily back.

And then, to my surprise, Andy turned and walked again toward the barn, the dog leaping and twisting at his side.

He must have had questions.

Why hadn’t he come to ask them? Why hadn’t he come to thank me?

But there was time for that. And I hadn’t cared about thanks until it wasn’t given.

I left it behind as they disappeared into the barn and I turned toward home.

Watching their reunion would be the thing I took away with me that day. And kept.

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