Bones & All (23 page)

In the spring her parents came out for the wedding. They tried their best to be nice to me, but they didn't like that they hadn't been able to get to know me before I asked her. Whenever Janelle's mother smiled at me it seemed like she had pasted it on, and I was afraid she suspected my secret. But they are good people, and I hope you are close to them now.

Your mother didn't know my secret before we got married. She knew there was something I kept from her, but she kept loving me like it didn't matter if I ever told her or not, so I thought maybe I would never have to.

If you ever come here I know what you will ask me. Why did I let myself fall in love with her? What could have made me think that I was good enough for her, that the bad thing wouldn't matter?

Then again, maybe you are old enough now that you have fallen in love yourself. If that is the case then you must already know how I would answer.

For a second I could see myself several years older, frying up bacon and eggs for Lee with a belly as round as the moon. As soon as I saw it, I knew it would never happen.

I wish I could have been a good father for you. A real dad. When Janelle told me she was going to have you I promised myself that I would be, that your childhood would be nothing like mine. Your mama was always a happy person, but while she was pregnant with you she was even happier. She used to sing lullabies all through the day like you were already born.

The breath caught in my throat as I read those lines. Mama had
wanted
me. For a little while at least, I had made her happy.

We hadn't told anybody, but we knew you were on the way and we wanted to save up as much as we could, so Janelle got a job at a hotel up on Whippoorwill Lake. She was at work one night when Robby came over. He had had a lot to drink, and he said things he should not have said, things about your mother's body. He said she wasn't the sweet, innocent girl I thought she was. I knew he was lying, but I also knew I could never think of our perfect summer again without hearing his ugly words.

I told him to leave, but he wouldn't. I told him I would hurt him, but he just laughed. It is so very hard to find out what someone you have called a friend really thinks of you.

I could have written this.

Then the unthinkable happened. Your mother came home early from work.

No matter how many times I told her I would never ever hurt her, not even if we fought, I don't know that she truly believed me. From that night until the night I left, I could feel her love for me but also her fear. I want to believe it was not her fear that kept her with me, but maybe I am lying to myself. It is a relief that I will never know for sure.

One night when your mama was eight months pregnant, we had an argument. Janelle wanted to move back to Pennsylvania, but I told her I wanted our baby to grow up loving those woods and hills and rivers as much as we did. The fight was about more than where to live though. I knew she wanted to be near her parents because she was afraid. I told her this, and she raised her voice as she moved away from me. I saw the terror in her eyes. I left the cabin to think things over. Janelle never laughed anymore, and I knew why.

I tried to remember Mama's laugh, and I couldn't do it. But she had loved me. She had.

There were a few blank pages, and then:

I want to be good for you, little Yearly, but I can't. I can only be honest. Now I will tell you everything.

The first thing I remember is being very small beside a big long bus at the edge of a gas station. A man had me by the hand and he was leading me into a restroom behind the gas pumps. I don't remember his face, but he locked me in with him and he was trying to get me to do something bad but I did something much worse. I ate him.

I am so very sorry for the pain and shock this will cause you. I don't know if there is anyone else like me in the world. I know there are people in the world who eat other people the way an ordinary person eats a steak or a hamburger. That is not what I did. I was only a little boy, but even with my milk teeth I ground his bones down to nothing, and the more I ate the hungrier I got.

Your mother had a way of making me forget I was a monster even after she found out what I did. She made me feel like I could live a good life and be an honest man, and that was only one reason why I loved her.

I did not want to leave you. But I had to because even though I knew I would never hurt you or your mother, I also knew that I could never be completely sure of it. The only reason I did not write to her was because I was so afraid she would not write back. I am very sorry for this now, but it is too late.

She was my sunshine. It is the worst pain of my life to know that I will never see her again.

More blank pages, and when the writing appeared again it was much bigger and more childlike.

On the first of each month they celebrate all the birthdays on the ward that happen that month, and there is always a vanilla sheet cake and a game of bingo. I never knew my birthday, so the Yearlys made it January 1st. If I knew your birthday I would ask Travis to remind me when it comes. That way I could picture what you might be doing to celebrate it. Travis says it is April 1, 1991, so I think you are almost nine now. I wish I knew if you were a girl or a boy because it is hard to picture you, not knowing that.

There was a space, and then one more line at the bottom of the page:

Travis is my friend. He is the only one here who knows me.

I looked up at the attendant. “Have you read any of this?”

He cleared his throat, but he didn't look away. “Parts of it.”

“He … he showed you? He wanted you to see it?”

Travis nodded.

I felt myself hardening toward him. He'd had no right to read this, when my father was clearly not in his right mind. “Why?” I asked. “Why did he let you see it?”

“I'm sorry if you feel I violated your privacy,” he replied kindly, and I had to soften. “He was anxious for me to read it. He needed someone to understand, you know?”

I nodded and turned back to the notebook. More blank pages, and then:

I can't keep hold of my thoughts. I have one, and it is gone in the time it takes to pick up the pencil. They won't let me write with a pen, only dull pencils. I think they must pay someone to lick the pencil tips before they let me have them.

There is one good thing about forgetting. Their faces are gone. I can't remember them anymore. When I fall asleep now it is only blackness.

But I take your mother's picture out of the drawer and look at it when I am in bed, as soon as I wake up and right before I go to sleep. This way I will not forget her face. It pains me to look because I know I will never see her again, but I look anyway because if I forget her face then I know there will be nothing left of me.

And on the next page, in waxy blue-violet:

Today they took my pencils away.

There were many more blank pages, and I began to think there was nothing more to read. Then there was a page in bright red crayon, the handwriting so messy I could hardly make it out.

Today I ruined the hand I write with.

HAND IS GONE

GONE

GONE

I glanced up, my heart in my throat. My father's eyes were closed, and I couldn't tell if he'd fallen asleep.

“What did he mean?” I said to Travis. “What did he mean, he ruined his hand?”

Slowly, with eyes still shut, my father withdrew his left hand until it fell into his lap to shield the right. I watched the way his face crumpled, like a sheet of paper spoiled by a single typo. Travis looked at the floor.

I turned the page, and another, and another. The rest of the notebook was filled with one word, over and over in every color in the Crayola box:

Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle Janelle

“Where is your mother?” Travis asked quietly.

“Gone,” I said.

“That's what I was afraid of.”

I looked at my father. Slowly, very slowly, my sadness turned into anger. “Why won't you answer my question?”

“Please, Maren. I asked you not to upset him.” Travis sighed. “Listen to me now. This is important. Dr. Worth is making calls about you.”

“Calls? What do you mean?”

Travis's eyes reminded me of a dog's, wet and brown and anxious to please. “Child protective services.”

“Why?”

“She said you brought a big rucksack—”

“I left it in her office. Was that wrong?”

“Not wrong, no. But it was pretty clear to her that you were carrying your life on your back.”

I sighed. “Is someone coming for me, then?”

“I don't know yet. Listen, Maren, if you don't have anywhere to go…”

“I'll be all right,” I said quickly.

“My shift is over at six,” he went on. “I understand why you feel you ought to say no, and I wouldn't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with. I just know Frank would like me to at least extend you the offer.”

My father's eyes were still squeezed shut.

“Thanks. I really can't, but … I appreciate that.”

“Are you sure? I can help you figure out what to do next. If you don't want to go into foster care, I mean.”

“You think there's another option?”

“I don't know. But I'll make you dinner, and maybe we can figure it out together?”

“All right.” I turned back to the man in the chair. “I have to go now, Dad.” He groped for my hand and tried to squeeze it. I felt like I should tell him I'd be back soon, but I didn't.

Travis stayed behind a moment to offer my father a few last words of comfort.

“Wait.” I froze in the doorway and put my fist against the jamb. “I'm not leaving until you tell me what he did to his hand.”

Travis gently nudged me aside before he closed the door and turned the key in the first lock. “I think you already know the answer.”

*   *   *

At ten minutes past six Travis drove down the Bridewell road in an old black sedan. I got in, and he smiled and said, “I hope the day didn't pass too slowly for you.”

“It was all right.” It
had
passed slowly—a walk into Tarbridge had yielded very little, not even a public library or a secondhand bookshop. But Travis had stowed my rucksack in his backseat, so at least I hadn't had to lug it around town all day.

He cast me a sidelong look. “How long have you been on your own?”

“Not that long,” I said. “Only a couple of weeks.”

“A lot can happen in a couple of weeks.”

It only really hit me then, how strange it was that a person who wasn't an eater knew there was any such thing. Travis was one of the calmest, pleasantest people I'd ever met. He hadn't shown the slightest flicker of horror or disgust, not even when he told me in not so many words what my father had done to his hand. Maybe it hadn't occurred to Travis that I could be like Frank.

“Did you find safe places to sleep?” he asked. “Were people kind to you?”

I didn't lie—at least not outright. I let him imagine that Mrs. Harmon had seen me off with a wave and a smile, that Sully thrived on farm-stand vegetables and fresh venison, and that Lee had shown up at the Walmart that night in his own black pickup truck. We did not talk about my father.

Travis lived in a little blue bungalow a half-hour drive from the hospital, back in the direction of Sully's cabin. Another cozy, empty house. I didn't like how familiar this was starting to feel.

A small table opposite the stove was already set with a plate, utensils, and a drinking glass on a quilted place mat that reminded me again of Mrs. Harmon. “You'll have to excuse me,” he said as he opened a drawer and drew out a second set of cutlery. “I wasn't expecting to have a guest tonight.”

“You live alone?”

He nodded. “Since my mother passed.”

“Oh,” I said. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

Travis opened the fridge and bent to retrieve a covered pot with both hands. “I made some stew on my last day off. My mother's recipe. Will that be okay?”

“Sure.”

“I hope you like it,” he said as he placed the pot on the stove and lit the burner.

“I'm sure it's delicious.”

He smiled as he lifted the lid and gave the stew a stir. “I never had to cook for myself before, but I've found I enjoy it. I like making my mother's old recipes because it lets me forget for a little while that she's not here anymore.”

“Have you always lived here?”

Travis nodded. “It's a nice little house, don't you think? I never wanted to live anywhere else.”

To please him, I cast an appreciative glance around the kitchen and into the living room. There was a brown and yellow afghan on the sofa and a rocking chair in the corner, looking as fragile as if it were made of matchsticks. As Travis went around the room opening the windows he saw me eyeing the chair and said, “That rocking chair has been in my family for over a hundred and fifty years. My mother nursed me in it. My grandmother nursed my father in it. And all the way back to the pioneers.” As he spoke he gazed through the patterned rug on the floor, smiling absently. “I guess it was my great-great-great-grandfather who made it.”