The Skunk

The skunk wasn’t crying when Valjean found it. She was walking the perimeter of the property, like she did every Saturday morning after coffee, checking the rat traps for missing bait or a furry dead prize. When she came upon it, its large size (for a rat) and black fur startled her, made her jump back and gasp. Once she saw the eyes, the whole picture came into focus: a skunk; its arm through the wire fence; its paw snapped between the jaws of the clamp, the small animal licking its tiny hand. Even in their brief exchange, Valjean saw more despair than fear pooling in its dark marble eyes.

When you need help, there’s little room for fear, she thought. But when you’re a skunk found by a human, I suppose there’s little hope, either.

The skunk went back to licking its split paw, its nose peeking through the rectangular wire frame.

“Sometimes the world catches the wrong thing,” Valjean said aloud, sighing with her hands on her hips. It’s what her late husband had said when their seventeen-year-old son died. It’s what she had said at her husband’s funeral two years after that. It’s why she felt compelled to save the cute, helpless, stinky rodent trapped in the clutches of her yard.

There was no question that Valjean would help the creature; it was how to help it. Certainly, she was not qualified for task-of-freeing-the-skunk. Steve had always taken care of those kinds of things. Anything larger than a gopher, that was all him. But this time, not even her would-be-twenty-two-year-old could help her. It was just her now.

Valjean stared at the animal, still in her morning robe and with one fresh cup of coffee in her hand, the other on her hip, tapping her foot in the overgrown grass. It was always overgrown these days. The fire department always had to remind her.

Would the fire department help? No, that was cats, stuck in trees, not traps. Plus, they’d probably just warn her about the grass again. She switched her hip hand with her coffee hand, hmming and hawing at the skunk who had no answers other than to keeping soothing his aching paw. The sight of its pain gnawed at Valjean and made her even more anxious.

What to do, what to do, her tapping foot chanted. Quick, quick, quick, her teeth dug into her lower lip.

Well, the sensible thing to do, her late-husband’s favorite phrase crept into her mind – could she finish it herself? – would be to…

Call the weird neighbor across the street! Ugh, the thought sent chills down the bare skin beneath her robe.

To… Call Charlie, their son’s best friend! …who moved to Chicago two years ago…

She thought of the pest guy who set the traps...was this his job? She wasn't sure.

And then the answer came to her, like Steve himself had provided it.

“Animal control!” Valjean said loudly, like she was shouting a Wheel of Fortune answer. This time the skunk startled, and it must have tugged on its arm, because it let out a squeal of pain. “Oh, don’t worry, little guy. We’re gonna get you out of here, soon.”

We’re, because, Steve, you gotta help me with this one, she thought, walking away from the stuck skunk.

It turned out Animal Control operates through a chain of volunteers, and “soon” might have been a little bit of a white lie. They had to find someone who was vaccinated against rabies first before dispatching anyone to her home. Rabies. Valjean had two thoughts on this, as she washed her face, put on a little mascara, and changed her clothes: Thank goodness she hadn’t attempted to free the skunk herself; and, that little thing was far too cute to have rabies. Even so, they were able to find someone who’d had the vaccine, and they would be arriving shortly. Well, “shortly” had given Valjean enough time to finish a load of laundry, sweep, and mop the floors. She was outside, checking on the skunk, still licking its paw, when a bright green Nissan Leaf pulled into her driveway.

Who the hell…thought Valjean, nearing the neon vehicle. She was used to people using her driveway to make U-turns, but this car had made a full stop and turned off its engine. The sun shone on the windshield, so she wasn’t able to see the driver until he stepped out. Up until this point, Valjean hadn’t even considered what an Animal Control volunteer would look like, but no marked car, no uniform? Instead, the man was wearing a very worn pair of grey-blue Carhartt work pants and an even more worn grey t-shirt with several small holes scattered along the bottom hem. His shoes? Very old (used-to-be) white Vans. The whole attire could have been plucked from Steve’s still-full dresser, and in the blinding rays of the morning sun, the man could very well have been her late husband walking back home from Heaven. It was such a surreal vision, Valjean was stunned, about to choke on a gasp-turned-laugh when the volunteer’s face finally materialized: a crooked, flat-top nose (obviously broken once in his life), a rugged jaw-line, and angular cheekbones that begged to have a finger trace a heart around them. The eyes were the last to reveal themselves: cloudy-blue, like a storm far off in the horizon.

Despite being wrinkled by time, Valjean knew those features. Each and every one of them.

“God Almighty,” she whispered, breathlessly.

The man seemed to be taking in her appearance, now, too, leaning between his open door and the rest of the car. Where Valjean was mouth agape and awestruck, the man was smiling at her, the curl of his lips making his eyes narrow.

“Have we met before?” he finally said, closing the still gap between them.

The words hit her like a sneaker wave, cool and surprising, but then settled into something more pleasurable and refreshing, as if she hadn’t had water in years and someone was finally offering her a cold, tall glass of it.

She’d heard those words come from that mouth before.

They were the first words he’d ever said to her. And even her twenty-year-old-self had known immediately that they hadn’t met before, and that he knew it. Just like she was sure now, that he knew that they had.

“Cameron?” The name sank in her stomach like rocks, then trickled to the surface like little popping pockets of air.

His smile only widened. “Val.” Her name in his mouth sounded like he’d been holding onto the word for centuries, and then his arms were around her, tightly gripping the space between her shoulder blades, her queasy stomach against his. For a moment, their bodies talked to each other, telling all the secret events that had transpired since the last time they were pressed together: his arms still firm, but no longer hard logs; his abs now hidden by a layer of what she guessed was probably too much gin and beer; her breasts not as firm; and her stomach whispering about a child that once grew there.

She was hugging the man who had made her question walking down the aisle and saying yes to Steve. She was hugging Cameron and remembering all the middle-of-the-night rendezvous they’d shared, all the moonlight picnics, all the evening light shone on their bare skin. She was remembering all of her life before Steve, before their son, before his death, before, before, before.

“So, we have met before,” Cameron said, his voice was hot air on her neck.

Valjean’s fingers gripped tighter into his back. “What are you doing here?” She had so many questions: where have you been? Has life been hard for you, too? Do you have children? Are you married? Did you think of me? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Laughing a vibrative, chesty laugh, Cameron finally pulled away. “Well, I heard you have a skunk problem.”

Valjean’s eyebrows furrowed, as if this was the most ridiculous thing he could have said to her. And then she remembered the tiny black and white creature licking its paw in her backyard, the whole reason he was even standing in her driveway in the first place.

“Oh!” Instantly, the shock of seeing him was replaced by a problem to solve, a life holding on. Instantly, the moment became something else, a business-like exchange rather than a time-traveling reunion; and secretly, Valjean wished there was no trapped rodent so they could spend the last hours of the morning and the entire rest of the day catching up. But, secretly, she was thankful for the situational buffer that kept that possibility at a distance. She’d asked her dead husband for help with the skunk, and he’d sent her an ex-lover?

The sensible thing to do, she thought, looking up towards the cloudy sky.

The walk to get to the trap was not long, by any means; her property wasn’t more than an acre, but in that time, she’d learned that no, Cameron didn’t have kids, and no, Cameron wasn’t married. He’d spent most of his life as a State Park Ranger and a part-time freelancing carpenter, and now that he was retired, he thought he’d volunteer with the Animal Rescue. Somewhere, a very soft echo reminded her that he’d always loved animals, that he’d always sought after opportunities to do what he loved to do. This skunk, however, was his first rescue, and that neon green car was a loan-er, in case the poor thing sprayed him; he didn’t want that all over the truck he spent seven years refurbishing. He was always thinking ahead.

“He’s right over there,” Valjean pointed to the wire fence.

“Poor little guy. Got him right on his hand,” Cameron said, carefully pulling some overgrown vines back.

“I know. I feel just awful. But, I blame the rats. The trap was for them!”

Cameron tsked, like he understood something he hadn’t before. “I’ll be able to free him, but I doubt he’ll let me do it without, ya know…”

Valjean did know. She remembered when her son, just seven-years-old at the time, snuck out in the middle of the night to try his telescope in the yard. It was far too dark out there, and he hadn’t seen the weasel-like family in the too-tall grass. It was nearly 2 AM when he came running in, completely flooding the house with skunk. It took Valjean an entire week to get the smell out of everything.

“You got any plastic bags?” Cameron asked.

A few minutes later, both of them were eyeing the skunk through clear safety glasses, N95 masks, and wearing large black plastic bags over their clothing. Cameron had another in one of his hands, using it as a shield as he inched closer to the skunk, while Valjean remained safely ten feet away. As she watched, she considered the odds of this man being in her yard; this man who’d had his nose broken by her dead husband on the eve of their wedding night; this man who’d once imagined taking her to all the fifty states in one summer; this man whose cheeks she used to trace hearts around.

He'd asked her to marry him instead, and she’d wanted to say yes.

He’d asked her to marry him instead of Steve, but she didn’t know how to undo what she’d already done.

It was all so surreal.

When Cameron freed the skunk’s paw, chaos erupted. There was the loud metallic snap of the spring releasing, his bellowing victory cry, the squeaky squeal of the frightened animal who, evidently, didn’t understand that Cameron and Valjean were trying to help it – all of this, all at once. Even Valjean thought she had let out a cry of excitement, but it was lost in the all-at-once-ness of everything else before it, transformed into a shriek, because, of course – of course – the skunk sprayed. Instantly, a tsunami of sulfuric musk filled the air and penetrated every layer of their protective gear. In a panic-cry-turned-delirious laughter, the two sprinted the length of the yard and into Valjean’s house. There, they doubled over, stripping more than the plastic bags, masks, and glasses, but everything else, until they were bare, wrinkled skin and underwear.

After her son died, Valjean thought she would never laugh again.

After Steve died, she was sure of it.

An overwhelming sense of guilt, grief, and the painful, undeniable pinch of desire for something that she felt she didn't deserve overwhelmed her, and like a child caught red-handed, her mouth snapped her laughter back inside her.

Across from her, Cameron watched her carefully. She sensed him trying to evaluate her feelings, trying to read her mind, just like the last night she saw him decades ago.

For several minutes, it was just silence as they stared at each other. Neither had seen the other this way before: aged, both new and old. They were taking each other in, finding the familiar parts.

Cameron spoke first. "I heard about your son."

A bolt of lightning jolted inside her: Your son. She'd always suspected. Valjean only nodded.

“And Steve," Cameron's voice cracked, choking on the name.

She nodded again. He hated you.

“It’s really good to see you, Val.”

Valjean knew what he meant, knew there was a dictionary of words that couldn't describe exactly what she and Cameron were feeling. “You, too,” she said, and then suggested they take a shower to wash off the awful scent still stinging their nostrils. As Cameron poured drinks for them in the next room, Valjean listened to the rushing sound of water, letting it turn warm. She was checking the drawers for clean wash rags, a new soap bar, when she caught sight of them out the window: a skunk crossing her yard, a second one, limping along side her.

Sometimes the world catches the wrong thing, her husband would have said.

Smiling, she finally knew how to respond: "And sometimes, it lets it go."