For Those We Can’t Always Protect

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/well/family/for-those-we-cant-always-protect.html

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When my daughter opened the front door after a socially distanced walk with a friend, she called out, “Mom, I need to tell you something you really won’t like.”

Oh no, I thought. Did she and her friend forget to wear their masks and cough all over each other? Did a stranger in a trench coat flash them? Did someone in a van pull over and offer them drugs? She has just started high school, which as every parent knows — regardless of whether school is online or in person, pandemic or not — means I have recently added “child encounters adult dangers” to my repertoire of anxiety dreams.

“Up there,” she pointed up the hill of our driveway, toward the curve of the road. “I didn’t want to look, but …” It was a flasher, wasn’t it? “The shell is broken, and the body is definitely dead.”

“Oh! Sweetie, I’m so sorry. Is it…?”

“I don’t know if it’s him, Mom.” Her chin quivered.

“Would you like me to come look with you?” I believe in facing the unimaginable rather than pushing it away. I also believe it’s better to do it together than alone.

“Yeah,” she sniffled.

We trudged up the driveway, both of us hoping out loud that the hit-and-run victim she had seen on the street wasn’t Frank, the wild turtle who lives in our yard. Frank is almost as much a part of the family as our two dogs, although unlike the dogs, Frank is not a pet. We offer him an occasional snack of parsley and tomatoes, but mostly we leave him to eat according to his diet of foraged plants and various creepy-crawly proteins. He comes and goes as he pleases, sometimes knocking on our door to say hello.

This year, the coronavirus warped everything that had once been predictable about life for my daughter, her older brother, my husband and me. Our home turned into an office, a schoolhouse, and a poor replacement for our favorite restaurants. Our existence transformed from a complex machine with many moving wheels and cogs to a sealed-off container. Four people in one house, all day. I loved the closeness, but periodically the reason for it washed over me like an icy tide: We’re enjoying all this time together because we’re hiding from a deadly virus blazing through our species.

I worried about my friends who were getting sick. I worried about my friends who hadn’t gotten sick but might. I worried about my parents, my father still going to work every day in a hospital and my social butterfly mother feeling lonely at home. I worried about my children for all these new, scary reasons and also for the same old reasons. And yes, by late spring, I even worried about Frank.

Every warm day that we didn’t see his leathery face, I wondered if something had happened to him. A hawk, a lawn mower, an illness? It’s normal for him to disappear from our lives in winter and early spring, when he hibernates, but tell that to a mind that has gone into worry overdrive.

One Saturday morning in June, we humans were sitting on our back porch, contemplating what to bake next (it was that phase of isolation, remember all the bread?) when I heard a rustle behind me. I turned to see Frank shuffling through the grass.

“Frank!” I yelled. We all jumped up and ran to encircle our beloved reptile, exclaiming “We missed you!” and “You’re back!” with the kind of weepy relief that must have made our neighbors think we’d just welcomed a brother home from war. We sat down on the ground and let Frank toodle around us. Someone brought out a slice of apple. I am never less than thrilled to see him. It feels like pure wonder and delight, like I’m being visited by a deity or a tiny, time-traveling dinosaur.

Lately, my husband and I have been talking about what we’ll do when our nest empties out in a few years, whether we’ll stay in this house or move somewhere else. It occurred to me that if we leave, we will have to say goodbye to Frank. Box turtles stay in their home territory all their lives; if removed to another area, they will wander in an attempt to get back to the place they know. “Well, remember,” my husband said, “We don’t know how old Frank is. He may say goodbye to us before then.”

As my daughter and I rounded the curve from the driveway into the street, she stopped, and I proceeded in the direction where she pointed. There it was, at the muddy edge of the black asphalt. An intricately whorled dome, cracked into pieces and smashed over a mottled leg, a four-toed foot, a gray head flattened, one lifeless amber eye still open. If I could have stepped in front of the car that did this and screamed STOP, I would have, but it happened when I wasn’t looking. I couldn’t fix it.

I’ve come to recognize our little friend’s size, color and distinct shell pattern, so I knew instantly: This wasn’t Frank. Nor was it any of the three other repeat turtle visitors we can identify (Shirl, Taco and Louise, all named by the kids). “It’s not one of ours,” I called to my daughter. But it’s someone’s, I thought. Everybody comes from somebody.

As we made our way back down the driveway under the shade of the ash trees, we debated what to do. If it were Frank, we probably would have had some sort of funeral. We might have thought about burying him, although that would make no sense. We live on the ridge of a wooded hill, where coyotes roam and big birds fly overhead. A fresh turtle would make a satisfying meal for an animal or two. It wouldn’t be fair to bury all that food, although nothing about this situation seemed fair.

Every creature is made to withstand some forces and break under others. The line between the two is what defines one’s place in the brutal, bittersweet natural order, but nature’s design could not have protected this creature in such an unequal battle. When it’s tires versus turtle, tires always win. We decided to leave the poor thing where it lay.

My daughter and I lingered by the front door. We discussed how if you’re going to operate something as heavy as a car, you have to be very careful of others, although even a good driver might not see a turtle. We talked about how near-misses remind us that they won’t always miss, how no one can hide from bad news forever, and how lucky any of us are to wake up and live another day.

And as I went inside and she walked back off into the outdoors, we agreed we would feel extra happy the next time we saw Frank, knowing that worries don’t always come true.

Mary Laura Philpott is the author of “I Miss You When I Blink.”