The Courage Tree

“You must worry about Sophie when she’s away,” Suzanne said suddenly, and Janine knew that the worry was evident in her eyes, or maybe in the way she was knotting and unknotting her hands.

“Well,” she said, “this is new to me. Sophie’s never been away from home without me or her father by her side.” She’d also never been so far from emergency care, which was why Joe had said the trip was out of the question. But Sophie had begged to go. There was so little she ever asked for, and so little Janine could do for her. She said yes, after getting permission from Dr. Schaefer, who even called Joe to assure him that Sophie would be fine, as long as she watched her fluid intake and was home for dialysis on Sunday night and back at Schaefer’s office for Herbalina on Monday. Joe, who lost his temper too easily and too often, had hung up on him.

Like Sophie’s regular doctors, Joe thought Schaefer’s study was a sham, and he had argued with Janine about making Sophie into a guinea pig. Although Janine and Joe had been divorced since Sophie was five, they usually were in agreement on how to handle their daughter’s treatment. This study had driven a wedge between them and was unraveling the already frayed edges of Janine’s relationship with her parents, as well. They hadn’t wanted Sophie to take part in such an unconventional treatment, either. It wasn’t like Janine to stand up to any disapproval from Joe or her parents, at least not in recent years. But Sophie was terminally ill. Even dialysis was failing her, and she’d been given mere months to live. There was little to lose.

“I don’t think you need to worry,” Suzanne said. “Gloria seems like a very caring and responsible leader.”

“I wonder about Alison, though,” Janine said. Alison was the younger of the two troop leaders. Only twenty-five and single, Alison had no children of her own. She’d been a volunteer leader in Sophie’s troop for the past two years, and all the girls loved her. She was fun-loving, comical and had a spirit of adventure that the girls adored and the parents feared. Alison had made a few errors in judgment over the past couple of years. Very minor. Nothing life-threatening. But then, she hadn’t had a child as frail and needy as Sophie under her care before.

“Oh, I think Alison’s super,” Suzanne said. “How many young women do you know who are childless themselves but still volunteer to work with kids? And the girls love her. She’s a good role model for them.”

Janine felt mildly chastened and wished she had thought before she’d spoken.

She was about to apologize, when she spotted a white van pulling into the parking lot.

“Is that them?” she asked.

“Looks like it,” Suzanne said.

The van was heading toward them, and Janine waved.

Stepping away from Suzanne’s station wagon, she wished she could make out the faces behind the van’s tinted windows. Patience, she told herself. If she charged the van, or God forbid, started crying when she saw Sophie, she would only embarrass her.

The van came to a stop next to the station wagon, and Gloria stepped out of the driver’s side, giving them a quick wave as she walked around the front of the car to slide open the side door. Five grimy, tired little Brownies began tumbling out. Suzanne stepped forward to give her daughter, Emily, a hug, and Janine looked past them, watching for a sixth girl to emerge. She walked toward the van, trying to see through the dark windows, but there appeared to be no movement inside.

“Janine,” Gloria said. “How come you’re still here?”

“I’m waiting for Sophie,” Janine said, confused. “Isn’t she with you?”

“Didn’t Alison get here yet?” Gloria asked.

Janine frowned. Alison? Gloria had let Sophie ride with Alison?

“No.” She tried to keep her voice calm. “I’ve been here since ten of. I haven’t seen her.”

“That’s strange,” Gloria said, reaching into the van to pull out one of the girls’ knapsacks. “Sophie and Holly wanted to ride with Alison,” she said, “and they had a good ten-minutes’ head start on us.”

Suzanne must have caught Janine’s look of panic. “Maybe Alison drove Sophie straight home?” she suggested.

“She knew she was supposed to come here first,” Gloria said, reaching for another knapsack.

“But maybe Sophie or Holly persuaded her to take them straight home,” Suzanne said.

Gloria shook her head. “She knew Janine would be waiting here for Sophie.”

Janine turned her head between the women as if following a Ping-Pong game. “I’ll call home,” she said, heading for her car. “I’ll see if they showed up there.”

Her hands shook as she opened her car door and reached inside for her cell phone. She dialed the number for the mansion, and her mother answered.

“I’m at Meadowlark Gardens, Mom, waiting for Sophie to get back, and I just wanted to check to see if her troop leader might have dropped her off there.”

“I haven’t seen her,” her mother said. “Could she be in the cottage?”

“Possibly.” Although if Sophie had been dropped off at the cottage and found that Janine wasn’t there, she probably would have walked up the driveway to the mansion. “Could you check, please?”

Janine heard some movement of the phone. “Frank?” her mother called, her voice obviously directed away from the receiver. Janine pictured her father sitting in the leather recliner in the Ayr Creek library, his favorite perch, either reading or working on his laptop. “Go over to the cottage and see if Sophie’s inside. She might have been dropped off there.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Janine said, once her mother was back on the phone.

“Why would they bring her home if they were supposed to meet you at Meadowlark Gardens?”

Janine tensed. Here we go, she thought. “There might have been a misunderstanding,” she said.

“Well, if they could get something as simple as that wrong, what else could they get wrong?”

“Mom, please.”

“She’s only eight years old, and a very fragile little girl,” her mother said. “I wouldn’t have sent you off to camp when you were eight, and you were healthy as a horse.”

It was true that her parents had never sent her to camp. She’d had to create her own adventures, and create them she did.

“I think this was a terrific experience for Sophie,” Janine said, although she’d argued about this with her mother and father and Joe so much over the past few weeks that she knew anything she said now was pointless.

Janine heard her father’s voice in the background, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“She’s not there,” her mother said into the phone.

“All right. Please call me on my cell phone if she shows up there instead of here, okay?”

“How late is she?”

“Not really late at all, Mom. I was just checking in case they took her home. I’ve got to go now.” She hung up and walked back to the van, where Gloria and Suzanne were talking. Emily leaned tiredly against her mother, and Janine felt a pang of envy witnessing the simple, uncomplicated warmth between them. She wanted Sophie here with her, now.

Gloria and Suzanne were looking toward the entrance to the parking lot. Janine followed their gaze, but there were few cars pulling into the lot this late in the day.

“What color is Alison’s car?” she asked.

“Blue Honda,” Gloria said. “Sophie’s not at home?”

Janine shook her head.

“They probably took a bathroom break,” Suzanne suggested.

“We had to take three of them,” Emily groaned. “Tiffany had to pee twice.”

“Shh,” said her mother.

Janine turned to look toward the far corner of the parking lot, searching for a blue Honda. Maybe Alison had her southeast and northeast confused, but this was the same spot from which the troop had taken off. Besides, she surely would have noticed the van by now.