No one, not Hank, not Theodore, not even Margaret, had been able to coerce the goat to stay near enough to even make the slightest attempt to milk it.
The goat gave a bleat, then trotted over to Lydia just as merrily as a lapdog. Lydia reached out and petted the goat, which shifted closer and nudged the girl with its muzzle.
“Good goat,” she murmured and laid her head against the goat’s neck. Lydia began to cry again, hugging the goat and sobbing, sputtering words broken and lost and desolate. Disjointed words that made no sense, but somehow Margaret understood.
The girl talked to the goat through her sobs, telling it how scared she was and lonely and sobbing that no one could understand. Lydia finally held the goat so tightly that it bleated but didn’t move away.
Lydia moved back and stroked the goat as she tried to catch a breath. “I’m sorry,” she told the goat. “I hugged you too hard, didn’t I? I didn’t mean to hold you so tightly. I guess... I guess I’m just scared... because there’s no one left to hold me anymore.”
Margaret leaned against the tree and rubbed her forehead, trying to think. She waited a few minutes, then took a deep breath and called out, “Lydia!” Then she tromped toward the clearing with as much noise as possible. “Lydia!” She stood on the fringes of the clearing. “Oh, here you are.”
This time the girl’s back was straight and stiff as an ebony tree.
Margaret stood there a second longer. “This is a lovely spot.”
Lydia said nothing.
Okay... Now what?
The girl began to fiddle with the goat’s beard.
Margaret took a deep breath and walked into the clearing. She stood over Lydia. “What are you doing?”
“Braiding the goat’s beard.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Because she’s a girl. My mama always said girls should wear braids.”
Margaret sat down next to Lydia. Their arms brushed slightly, and Lydia jerked a few inches away. She looked at the girl’s hair, the side sections tied back off her troubled face with blue ribbons. “I never learned to do that.”
“What?”
“Braid hair.” Margaret gave a short laugh, hoping she might break the ice between them. “For the life of me, I can’t do it.”
Lydia didn’t say anything.
“We need to name that goat. I don’t think it’s fair to keep calling it ‘goat.’ Do you?”
The girl shrugged.
“You can name her,” Margaret suggested.
“I can’t think of anything right now.” Lydia let go of the goat’s beard.
Margaret stared at the vines twisted into knots on the moss-covered ground. She felt just as choked as they were because she was so unsure of what she could say to help Lydia. Some part of her needed to help the girl, for herself as much as for Lydia. Finally she cocked her head and looked at the girl. “Why are you here?”
“No reason.”
Margaret made a big deal of looking around the jungle. “It’s rather quiet and secluded, isn’t it?”
“I like to be alone.” Lydia folded her hands in her lap.
“Do you? I never did.” Margaret turned toward Lydia. “After my mother died, it took a long time before I could stand to be alone.”
Lydia’s knuckles were white because her hands were so tightly knotted. She turned toward Margaret. Her cheeks were blotchy, her lips and eyes slightly pink and swollen. “Your mother died?”
Margaret nodded and stared at the lines in her palm. She realized that Lydia wouldn’t truly listen if she were looking at her. “I never wanted to be alone after that. I think I was always afraid that if I wasn’t with the only family I had left, that they would die, too.” She paused, then admitted, “I was more afraid of being left alone than almost anything I could imagine.”
