by Ryan Byrnes
“Where’s the money?” Rod stood over me.
“I buried it, wise guy.”
“Aw, yeah?”
“Yeah. You’ll never get your dirty hands on it now!”
Rodney suddenly got distracted and reached over to snatch one of the hot cross buns that Mrs. Roberts had set out to cool. They looked good, so I got up and figured I’d take one, too. Rod was going to take a bite, but there was a fly sitting on it, right on the warm, crisp crust. Rod pulled his finger back to flick the fly off, but it saw him coming and buzzed away.
“Aw man. Looks like I’ll have to get that fly another day. Fight’s over.”
“No hit Jim!”
Oh God. Luther. I’d almost forgot he was still there. Now, he was suddenly screeching and flapping his hands against Rodney. Rodney stuffed a big bite of bun in his mouth and stepped aside. He didn’t even try to block Luther. He just turned way. And then he was on the ground, head cracked open on the pavement, and Luther was standing over him.
The fly buzzed back and landed in the pooling blood.
~ CONSTANCE BAKER ~
God in heaven, I had never seen so much blood—staining the skin like ink on paper, darkening the pavement. Luther ran behind me, crouched down on his heels and rocked back and forth while flapping his hands and smacking himself in the head. Jim just stood there. Frozen. Looking down at his friend like he’d never seen him before. For a moment, I stood frozen as well. So much blood—my fingers tingled and my stomach lurched.
I didn’t know how to act. I couldn’t swallow; I couldn’t speak. Maybe someone else, a doctor, would come strolling by, cry out, and seize the body in his arms? He would rush off to the hospital, leaving me just a bystander featured in next week’s post. Scenarios dreamed themselves up separate from my thoughts, kind of like how they say life flashes before the dying, one of whom was bleeding out on the ground at my feet. Finally, after what seemed ages but was probably seconds, I bent over Rodney Stoker and lifted his head; my fingers came away sticky with thick blood from the gushing patch at the back of his head. A bandage? I looked up at Jim and considered pulling his shirt off to use as a bandage, but he might resist and delay me. So I reached for the buttons of my own blouse, pulling it open, yanking it off my shoulders and using the long sleeves to tie it tight it around Rodney’s head. The white cotton—the blouse I had borrowed from Lavinia all those years ago and then “forgot” to return was already stained like the strawberries I would coat in chocolate for St. Valentine’s Day.
And the blood kept gushing.
I needed to call for help, but my voice wouldn’t work. And, besides, we were too far from the village green and there was too much activity for anyone to hear me. Could I carry him? Was that allowed? My arms were jelly, and I feared any touch would break him. I touched his face, no movement. I slid my arms under his knees and his back, and then struggled to stand. He was limp and warm and heavy in my arms.
Where to? The hospital? Too long of a walk—I didn’t know how long he even had. Doc Abbott’s place on the other side of town? I’d walk up to drawn curtains and a closed gate. The church? I hadn’t been there since the incident with Luther and the hymnal and the old woman. Besides, as soon as anyone saw me with a bloodied boy, everyone would accuse Luther, no doubt. Especially Mrs. Stoker. Oh, god. What would Mrs. Stoker say?
But the boy needed help. Now. Someone at the Easter festivities would know what to do.
I turned to Jim. “Take Luther home. Now.”
Jim looked up at me, shock written on his face.
“Jim!” I wanted to shake him. “Do you hear me? Take your brother home now!”
I left my boys and hurried down the cobblestone with Rodney bouncing in my arms, down Gordon Street, around the corner, under the trees, red brick at one side, white plaster on the other. Down the row of vine-curled steel fences where the stray cats hissed as I passed. New Street. Church Terrace. There, ahead, the green at the flank of All Saint’s Church where tents flapped and children played chatter buzzed. I saw children running with bubble wands and playing jump rope, fine gentlemen and farmers stumbling down the egg-and-spoon race while their best girls clapped and squealed, prize-winning rabbits with blue ribbons pinned on their cages, and bearded men spinning war stories and sipping on Scotch.
“Doc Abbott! You—where’s Doc Abbott?”
I singled out a raggedy old man because raggedy old men seemed to be the only ones who would acknowledge me.
He pulled off his cap and ran. Mothers grabbed their children by the shoulders, covering their eyes and turning them away. A bearded man from one of the tents hurried toward me. He opened his arms and motioned for me to hand over the boy, which I did.
“What happened?”
“Hit his head on pavement—playing like boys do. An accident, a terrible accident.”
“We’ll get him to the Doctor. Don’t you worry yourself. Best tell Mr. and Mrs. Stoker,” and the man rushed off with Rodney limp in his arms.
With the warmth of the boy’s body gone, the humid air was cold against my skin. I looked down to see my arms were bare and remembered I’d taken off my shirt to staunch the blood. Now, I was standing out in the open in my silk shift, matted and bloody. Young boys stared and then looked away, embarrassed. Some of the women scowled, while others mouthed, Dear me.”
On the church steps I saw Father Carmichael chatting with a wealthy widow who stopped, put her hand over her mouth and pointed at me. The priest clicked his polished shoes down the front steps, and hurried straight at me. I crossed my arms tight over my chest and held my chin high. People stared as he ripped off his black jacket and draped it over my shoulders.
“Come,” he motioned me to walk with him, “It’ll do no good having a whole town frown on you.”
“What happened?”
“A playful tussle. Jim and Rodney. Rodney took a misstep and tripped.” My hand instinctively touched the back of my head. “There was so much blood.”
“Who has the boy?”
“I don’t know his name. I think he’s new in town. He grabbed him and said he’d take him to Doc Abbott’s.”
“My good people, the crisis is resolved.” Father Carmichael’s voice echoed over the greenspace as he hurried me along. “Enjoy this holy day in Christ and do not trouble yourselves.”
The mothers ushered their children back to their business, but the festivities had lost their vibrance.
“I trust you will accompany me to Doctor Abbott’s?”
“What?”
“For the boy’s parents—Mr. and Mrs. Stoker, God bless them. They will be frantic, in need of counsel and comforting. You are close with them, are you not?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“You saved their boy’s life, Mrs. Baker. And your Jim plays with him all the time—a best pal of Rodney Stoker if I ever saw one. It would be most kind if you explain to them what happened.”
“Father, I really don’t think they would appreciate—”
“Maybe you could say a prayer with them. For safekeeping of the boy.”
“I—I’ll do my best.”
He set off at a brisk walk down Bath Street, and I tried to keep his pace. I noticed, as we walked, dark drop marks spotting the cobblestone, some connected by a dark drizzle.
“Somebody will have to clean that blood sooner or later,” Father Carmichael said. “Let’s hope for a nice cool rain to wash our filth away.”
I agreed.
The tidy rows of houses stared quietly as we passed under the train bridge. Water dripped on us and a few puddles had settled into the cracks and depressions in the sunken sidewalks next to dented rubbish bins. On the other side of the bridge, Leamington was much less tidy. Everyone said Doc Abbott kept house and office there because that’s where the need was greatest. I had been there several times when the boys were young, but had stopped going when the doctor suggested Luther be sent away.
We stopped at a knicked-up white plaster home facing the
butcher shop. The plaque out front read:
Abraham Abbott, M.D.
Private Practice
Father Carmichael rapped on the front door several times and then opened the door and motioned me in. Rodney’s parents—Margie, who had called Luther a cow and Mr. Stoker, the fat lawyer who always looked me up and down as if I were a piece of meat in the butcher’s shop—sat on chairs by the window, both sniffling into handkerchiefs. The waiting room smelled like old furniture, like the musty antique wardrobe of my mother’s that Lavinia kept in her bedroom. The curtains were dark, and the outside light peeked through in grey, slanting beams. An empty desk sat in the corner next to the door to the doctor’s examining room. The lamps were dusty and gave off little light. I got the impression the doctor was counting on the office being closed on Easter Day.
“Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Stoker,” Father Carmichael said, his voice soft and low. “I came as soon as I heard.”
Mr. Stoker stood, tall and rigid like he was on an inspection line in the army. He took Father Carmichael’s outstretched hand and gripped it tight.
“Stay strong, Charles,” Father Carmichael whispered. “Christ is suffering with you.”
Mr. Stoker swallowed and blinked back tears. “Thank you, Father. Your presence is a comfort.”
“You may have heard, but Mrs. Baker was the one who rescued your son. To ease your hearts, I have brought her along to inform you how your son came to be injured. Mrs. Baker, if you will?”
I couldn’t speak. I glanced at Father Carmichael, and he nodded for me to carry on.
I swallowed hard. “It—it was an accident, you see. Jim and Rodney, making horseplay like boys do … they were play-fighting in a garden, and I happened to hear them as I was walking along. I found Rodney had fallen and knocked his head on the pavement. They were just playing, roughhousing. It was Jim. Jim pushed him. I’m so sorry. It was an accident.”
The Stoker’s eyes met.
“Please, if there is any reparation I can make—”
“You owe us nothing,” Mr. Stoker raised a hand to shush me and sunk back into his chair. “If it was an accident, like you say, then we thank you for helping our boy.” Stoker looked at me, his eyes hard as pebbles. “A terrible, terrible accident.”
“This is the wisest course, Charles.” Father Carmichael pulled up another chair and sat down beside him. “Accidents are accidents. This was no plan of God, nor a work of fate. No soul was responsible.”
That was when Margie raised her daft pink face, stained with tears and looked straight at me. “Who was watching Luther when you found our boy?”
My throat closed.
“Please,” Mr. Stoker smoothed his wife’s hair, “it needn’t be discussed. There was no ill intent.”
“Who was watching Luther?” she repeated.
When a priest and a lawyer walk into a waiting room, they must not be kept waiting, I thought. I have to say something. I have to say something. “I, well, he was at my sister Lavinia’s house for the day.”
Even as I spun the lie, I knew I couldn’t make up enough background information to support it. I didn’t even know where Lavinia was. She may not even be home, and my story could be proven false at any moment.
“And you only saw Rodney after he fell?” Margie said.
“Yes.”
“But you think it was just roughhousing.”
I tilted my head to hide my quivering lip and tried to smile at her. “What else could it be? Jim was beside himself. You know as well as I do what great friends they are.”
Mr. Stoker leaned forward in his seat, and Father Carmichael raised an eyebrows at me.
Bollocks. Bollocks. Theyknowtheyknowtheyknow!
Then the door to the doctor’s office opened, and Dr. Abbott stepped into the waiting room. He pulled off a pair of bloody gloves, wiped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve, and announced that Rodney would most likely recover and be just fine. We all rejoiced, and Margie even gave me a hug. Then I slipped outside, walked down the street until I could disappear into an alley, and fell apart. They’ll know. Rodney will wake up, and he’ll tell them what Luther did. Oh God, he’ll tell and they’ll come get Luther and take him away.
There would be an assault charge, a conviction, a court-issued sentence to life in a mental asylum. I’d knew about the electroshock therapy and ice baths. I’d seen the men who’d been lobotomized and put in straight jackets, pumped full of drugs. Their eyes. I could never forget their empty eyes. What God would be so sick, what universe so contradictory, as to take away someone’s humanity? My Luther is such a kind boy. He gives hugs and kisses like a baby and hides in cupboards. He wants to hug his mum and brother and give us kisses and hold our hands. Only a heartless bastard would want to change my boy.
I kicked the rubbish bin and slumped against the wall. Then I stood up and wiped my eyes. I have to get home. I have to be home for Luther. For when they come to get him.
Slipping in the back door, I found Lavinia sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea. The house was almost as much hers as mine for the amount of time she’d spent there with me and the boys after James died and before she married Mark. She could help herself to whatever she wanted.
She stood and opened her arms, and I fell in them. My little sister. I breathed in deep, so deep as to fill my whole lungs, so I’d stop trembling. Then I exhaled sharply, completely emptying them. In again, out again to calm myself so the boys—who I knew were awake with ears pressed to their doors—couldn’t hear me cry.
“Jim told me,” Lavinia said. “I was just headed back to the green when I ran into the boys. I brought them home immediately.”
“You … you know what Luther did?”
“Constance, it never happened. Look at me. You told me about the sanitarium and we both know what they’ll do to him if the authorities find out and send him there. So, it never happened. It was an accident. Jim did it.”
After James died, I was left with two sons and a candy store to run. Plus my father had died recently and my mother had basically disowned me because I’d married without her permission. I was lost. I’d left my whole family behind to come to Leamington Spa to live with my husband and help in his store. We were in love. Luther’s birth was a happy affair, and we thought the whole world was good. But then Luther stopped developing like the other children. I asked the local housewives, who said the disease came from promiscuity on the mother’s part. Then I asked the priest, who said the disease came from Satan. The doctors told me the mineral springs in Leamington Spa would do the trick—that they’d fix my son. And when that failed, I went to the fortune tellers, the mystics living by the road, and they stole my money.
And then little Jim was born, and we saw a new chance for hope in the world. Then came the accident. With my husband gone, the store to run, and two boys to manage, I wanted to give up.
I used to be gentle, soft, and filled with love, but I became hard, resentful, and filled with hate. I cursed my life and my God. I woke up every day with a tight chest and a clenched jaw,. No amount of sleeping syrup could relieve the stress, no matter how sick it made me. That’s what it was—a sickness. Every day I was sick and bitter and broken. My blood boiled in my veins and anger radiated from my pores.
I used to have a different kind of life, one in which I had the luxury to think about books and ideas and politics and philosophy and the future. But that life died and all I could think about was Luther. Because Jim could get along on his own, Luther became my whole existence. All I could do was feed him and try to show him I loved him. Half the time, I knew he was completely oblivious to me, but I kept trying to get through. I couldn’t bring myself to give up. Until I couldn’t go on anymore. When I confided in a letter to my little sister that I thought the boys would be better without me, she packed her bags and came to live with us. She saved my life.
Lavinia lived with us for two years. She helped me develop a routine that made living with Luther and Jim possible and helped me
figure out how to run the store. Then she fell in love with a good man. A man she deserved and that deserved her. She had the life I once had, and I would do anything to see her keep it, just to watch and marvel at what could have been.
And sitting in my kitchen on that horrible day, she saved me again. She hugged me, made me tea, and shushed my sobs.
“Rodney will wake tomorrow,” I said finally. “He’ll tell everyone what happened. You know Mr. Stoker’s the best lawyer in the shire. He’ll put Luther away if it’s the last thing he does.”
“If it comes to that, we’ll have to convince him not to. That’s all. Mark will talk to him, don’t worry. For now, you just get rest. Do you want me to stay the night?”
“No, I’ll manage. I always do.”
She kissed my forehead, pulled on her sweater, and slipped quietly out back door into the night, and I, for a while, remained at the table and tried to make sense of my chaotic thoughts.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The clock on the mantle, surrounded by knickknacks from a past life—china plates, enameled saucers Granny gave me on my wedding day, marked the time. I roused myself and went into the living room. So many reminders of James and the life we’d been building. His books had pride of place in a lovely bookshelf he’d made himself. We had Malory, Browning, Spencer, Chaucer, and a graphite rubbing of Lord Byron’s headstone from Westminister Abbey, where we’d taken our honeymoon. James had collected the complete set of Charles Dickens, acquired book by book throughout the years. The space reserved for A Tale of Two Cities was empty now, probably because Jim was reading it in his bed. Whenever there was a crisis, that’s what little Jim did. He buried himself in a story, hiding under his covers to block out Luther’s screeching. Eyes closed, and I could smell the graphite of the Byron rubbing and pretend I was back James’s arms.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The clock kept moving; its gears kept turning. Past eleven, past midnight. I paced through the shop, examining the chocolates, taffies, and bonbons that had taken me so many hours to make. Everything seemed so alien and unfamiliar.