Where the Forest Meets the Stars

Ursa acts energetic to prove she’s not hurt. Jo sends her inside for a bath and asks Gabe to come back after he cleans up too. She worries Ursa could have a concussion and would feel better having Gabe there overnight. Jo and Ursa wash up, and Jo cleans Ursa’s wound. When Jo finishes her shower, Gabe is already cooking dinner in the kitchen. He explains that Lacey threatened to call the cops when she heard Ursa got hurt in their care. Lacey plans to leave tomorrow.

At dinner, Ursa says that she made the branch hit her head. It was a bad thing that happened so that a good thing could happen, which Ursa explains is Gabe spending the night with them. She describes her powers: “People from Hetrayeh give off these invisible specks, kind of like quarks” (136), which cause good things to happen to earthlings. Gabe wonders if he’ll wake up to a million dollars, but Ursa explains that the quarks know what people really want in their hearts. Ursa asks for Motrin, causing Jo to suspect that she took it before. Ursa’s head still hurts, but she assures them that she’ll be fine with Motrin. Ursa falls asleep quickly, so Gabe puts her in Jo’s bed.

Jo and Gabe stay up talking. They have similar pasts because their parents were both involved in academia and taught in colleges nearby. Jo admits to having misjudged Gabe, not realizing how similar they are. She invites Gabe to sleep in the bed with her and Ursa. Jo asks Gabe to tell her more about his family sometime. Gabe alludes to some issues in his upbringing but doesn’t elaborate.

In the morning, it’s storming, so everyone sleeps in. When Ursa wakes, she observes that she’s like a baby bird in a nest. After breakfast, Gabe works on the leaking kitchen sink. Lacey comes over and makes rude comments about Gabe fixing the sink, saying he should ask George Kinney for a job. She asks Ursa about her injury and tries to pry information from her about her parents. Before leaving, Lacey scolds Gabe for letting their mother’s eczema cream run out and not going to the store for supplies.

Gabe stays with Ursa while Jo goes to town to do laundry and pick up groceries. While eating lunch in town, Jo contemplates what will happen with Ursa and what might have happened at the hospital. Jo used to think about the past during her quiet lunches, but now she focuses on the present and the future. She considers her feelings for Gabe, realizing she’s attracted to him but worried he doesn’t feel the same since he hasn’t made any moves.

Shortly after Jo gets home, Gabe and Ursa return from the creek. Gabe taught Ursa about aquatic insects, knowledge he gained from George Kinney. Little Bear starts barking outside as a police car pulls up. Ursa disappears. The officer is older than the first one. Gabe realizes Lacey called them.

The officer, Jo, and Gabe talk about Ursa. They explain they’ve been caring for her—but not the extent of their involvement. No one has reported her missing. Jo relays what happened with the previous officer and says Ursa has run away again. The officer searches the home. He knows about the cut, which Jo tells him is from a tree branch. With no signs of Ursa inside or around the house, aside from a drawing on the fridge, the officer leaves. He asks them to contact him if they see Ursa again.

Gabe decides he needs to go home so that Lacey will leave. Before he goes, he and Jo search the woods behind the house, walking along the creek. They finally find Ursa, who greets them tearfully, wondering if she’s being taken away. Jo tells her the officer left. Gabe explains he doesn’t know when he’ll see them again. He returns home to wait for everything to blow over.

Several days go by. Jo takes Ursa to her nesting sites. They don’t see or hear from Gabe at all. Ursa wonders if he’s sick again. Jo explains how brain chemicals, genes, and hormones can cause people to be sick like Gabe. Ursa thinks Lacey makes Gabe sick, adding that Lacey made her feel sick too.

On Thursday, Jo visits sites near Gabe’s egg stand to check on him. When they visit the egg stand, Ursa wants to stay with Gabe and hang out on his farm, but Gabe acts distant. He tells her she can’t come over anymore and dodges Ursa’s questions about the kittens. He warns her that the sheriff could return and take her away. Jo realizes Gabe is shutting them out to protect his own emotions.

Ursa is unusually quiet during their research outing, obviously hurt by Gabe’s coldness. When they return home, Gabe is waiting in the driveway. He apologizes for his behavior and invites Jo and Ursa to see the kittens. While Ursa visits the kittens, Gabe takes Jo aside for a serious discussion about Ursa. Gabe is worried because Ursa is very attached to him, Jo, and Little Bear. He thinks Jo is making things worse by not calling the police. When Jo moves, Ursa will be homeless and heartbroken, and Little Bear will starve. Gabe and Jo agree that it already hurts to be so attached to Ursa.

Jo recalls how she handled her mother’s diagnosis. Instead of distancing herself, knowing that she’d be hurt, she grew closer to her mother, wanting to cherish all the time they still had. She knew it would make everything worse when her mother passed, and she still feels like a part of her died with her mother. However, she doesn’t regret this approach at all. Jo then expresses interest in becoming Ursa’s foster parent. Gabe is skeptical because the law considers what they’re doing kidnapping.

Jo retrieves Ursa. Gabe declines Ursa’s dinner invitation. At home, Ursa wonders if Gabe is mad. Jo explains Gabe’s concerns about getting in trouble with the police. Ursa thinks she can just tell the police she’s from the stars. Jo replies that Ursa is smart enough to know the police won’t believe her, adding that she wishes Ursa trusted her enough to tell the truth. Ursa begins to say something but stops. She asks if Jo believes in aliens. Jo says she does. Ursa insists she’s an alien. Jo cries, thinking about something so horrible happening to a child that it makes the child wish not to be human. Ursa doesn’t see Jo cry.

Jo can’t find Ursa the next morning, so she goes to Gabe’s house, where he’s already awake and working. They find Ursa in the barn, sleeping with the mother cat and the kittens. When Ursa wakes, she explains that she was afraid she wouldn’t get to see Gabe or the kittens again. Ursa wants to stay with Gabe, but Jo says people on Earth don’t always get what they want. Ursa replies that Jo and Gabe don’t know what they want.

On their research outing that day, Ursa stays quiet. When they get home, Jo finds that still no one has reported Ursa missing. That night, Jo struggles to sleep, and when she gets up to check on Ursa, the girl has run away again. Jo fears Gabe or Katherine will call the police if they catch Ursa there again.

Jo goes to Gabe’s and searches the barn with the kittens. Ursa isn’t there, so Jo decides to wake Gabe, afraid he’ll wake up and shoot her if he thinks she’s an intruder. She taps on Gabe’s window and informs him of the situation.

Gabe comes outside to help Jo search. He thinks this is getting out of control. He leads Jo to an old tree house his father built on the property. The tree house is large and extravagant, with a spiral staircase. Ursa liked to spend time in it. Jo and Gabe talk about how Ursa’s “quarks” have affected their abilities to use common sense.

Gabe touches Jo’s waist as they ascend. Jo wonders if he’s interested in her or if he’s just being a gentleman. Ursa isn’t there, but some of her drawings are on the desk. One drawing features a grave with the words “I love you” and “I am sorry” written on either side. Under the dark shaded-in “dirt,” Ursa drew a woman. Gabe and Jo speculate about the woman’s identity and Ursa’s past, adding that the apology part is creepy. He says Jo should’ve taken Ursa to the police immediately.

Jo argues with Gabe about his sudden change of heart regarding Ursa. Gabe says they’ll get in big trouble if they continue to keep Ursa and thinks Jo is avoiding the problem. Jo thinks he’s avoiding the problem by shutting them out of his life. She also thinks he’s avoiding a conversation about their relationship.

Gabe confesses he’s never been with or even kissed a woman. He thinks he’s too messed up to be with anyone. Jo accuses him of using his illness to create walls between them. He avoids the discussion and insists they find Ursa. Jo accuses him of being afraid that getting close to people means he could get hurt. They go silent for a moment before Jo gets Gabe’s consent to give him his first kiss.

Gabe and Jo embrace in the darkness. They share a kiss. Jo loves how Gabe smells. After a moment of closeness, Jo laments that they can’t stay like that because they must find Ursa.

On a hunch, Gabe leads Jo by the hand to a spare cabin on his property. Inside, they find Ursa asleep in one of the beds. They decide not to address the grave drawing yet. When they wake her, Ursa is happy to see them together. Gabe carries Ursa to Jo’s car, and they drive to Jo’s place together. Ursa notices his positive change in demeanor.

Once they’ve deposited Ursa on the couch, Jo walks Gabe out and they kiss goodnight. He comments that he used to hate coming to George Kinney’s house, but now he’s happy when he’s there. Jo asks about his complex relationship with his former neighbor. He explains that George had a complicated friendship with Gabe’s dad, Arthur. Arthur tried to one-up George regularly. Gabe invites Jo to the graveyard tucked back into the woods between their houses. He says it’s haunted, and he wants to show her.

Gabe leads Jo through the dark forest to the old graveyard behind their properties. Little Bear follows them. Gabe explains how his family spent summers, and some weekends during the school year, in the area. George Kinney lived in the house with his wife year-round. Gabe’s family spent time with George and his wife when they were in town. When Gabe was 11, he noticed his mom and George had a secret code. Gabe’s mom would say a sentence with the word “hope” in it and follow it up with another sentence where she used the phrase “love it” (180).

Gabe shows Jo a gravestone for a woman named Hope Lovett. He stumbled upon the headstone the year after he noticed the secret code. The next time he heard his mom use the code, he staked out the headstone. That night, he witnessed his mom and George Kinney having a sexual affair over the grave. Running would have alerted them that he was nearby, so he watched the whole thing in silence.

When Katherine and George finished, they stuck around to chat with each other. George told Katherine that he’d taught Gabe about aquatic insects that day, to which Katherine remarked that she was happy George got time with his son. That was how Gabe found out that he was an affair baby. His mother, father, and sister all seemed to know as well. Gabe thinks this is why Lacey hates him: He’s a product of their father’s failure. Gabe’s father and George remained friends despite the affair between George and Katherine. Gabe has never told anyone about it before.

Jo wonders why Gabe didn’t talk to his psychologist about what he saw. Gabe explains he vomited after seeing his mother and George being intimate and spent the next few days after that in bed. Jo thinks this is when he began using his bed as a sanctuary to escape the world. Gabe becomes upset at Jo’s suggestion that what he witnessed brought on his illness. He walks off, but Jo follows him, trying to explain what she meant. He thinks Jo doesn’t understand his illness. She accuses him of showing her the grave so that he could have another excuse to push her away.

Gabe disappears, so Jo returns home. It’s almost four in the morning, so she decides not to set her alarm. However, she struggles to sleep, thinking about the work she let herself become behind on while caring for Ursa and bonding with Gabe.