Page 16 of Sunny Undone

Ridge laughs. “Who the fuck uses the word scrotum for your ball sack?”

“Vitamin D deficiency can be associated with low testosterone,” I say, tapping into the max end of my memory.

“First, vitamin D is made by skin all over the body,” Della says. “Like, if you get sun on your face, the vitamin D you get impacts your whole body. And second, given the scrotum is particularly vulnerable to ultraviolet damage because the skin is so thin, statistically speaking, you’re more likely to achieve sunburn than vitamin D overload.”

She’s probably right. But…

“You’re a wetland ecologist, not a ball sack guru, so I’m gonna stick with the advice I got on the internet.”

Della scoffs. “The internet also says the Earth is flat, so I doubt the advice you got is peer reviewed.”

Ridge chuckles. “She has a point.”

We ride around to the place Della parked her vehicle. It’s a vintage camper van. Old-school. And the driver side window is smashed.

“Oh no, what did they do to my baby?” she says.

It’s perhaps the least logical thing I’ve heard her say, but I understand the feeling. I get a weird ache when I see broken things, especially when they belong to me.

She’s out of the truck before I’ve properly parked.

“Della, wait,” I shout, but she doesn’t listen. “We don’t know if those people are still around, Ridge.”

“I got her,” he says, before stoically running to follow her.

As soon as the truck is properly parked up, I hurry to join them.

“It’s been ransacked, but not damaged more than the window,” Ridge says.

“They took all the equipment that was left in the camper, and I obviously had to drop anything that wasn’t in my bag.” Della turns to me, grief all over her face. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this.”

“Indy,” I say, tugging her to me, “don’t doubt yourself. Sure, this is frightening. But you’re doing something good.”

For a brief moment, she leans into me, her hand sliding beneath my leather cut to press against my back. I tighten my arm around her. I like the way she fits against me, and she’s not so tiny I’d break her. But just as I settle into holding her close, she jumps back. And I can’t decide if it’s because she doesn’t want to show any signs of weakness, or because it was me she was holding on to.

“I’m not doing anything right now except collecting data that this area is slowly dying. It’s like I’m a macabre observer. There is a big difference between reporting changes and fixing them.”

Ridge rubs his hand over his chin. “Seems to me like you can’t have one without the other. You can’t fix things you can’t see.”

Damn. I wish I could have said that.

“Ridge is right. Step one must be to have a full set of data. What else can you get done today?”

“I need a qualitative baseline.”

“In English?” I ask.

“There are two types of observations. Quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative is like quantity or quantify. It’s something we can objectively measure. Like the water temperature is twenty-six-point-four degrees. Or the dissolved oxygen is four milligrams per liter. Those are all hard numbers, and if another scientist were here with me, they’d get the exact same number. Qualitative is descriptive, like…” She looks around, then crouches next to a plant. “Like this Pontederia cordata, also known as pickerelweed. A healthy plant should have upright flower spikes like this.” She gently touches the vivid violet-blue flowers. “But look at that cluster over there.”

I look in the direction she’s pointing. They’re browned and wilting. “Those are the same plant?”

Della nods. “The leaves are curling at the margins. In some cases, the stalks have browned before the last blossoms opened properly. And others, the flower spikes have collapsed, and the tissue is beginning to necrose. What’s happening here isn’t natural senescence.”

“For the love of God, don’t ask her what senescence is, or we’ll be here all day,” Ridge says.

Della smiles, finally finding her feet after her shock. “Sorry. Nerding out.”

She’s pretty when she smiles. “My opinion is that all the ones in this area have blackened stems and wilted flowers unlike the healthy ones over there. That’s a qualitative data point?”