“Touching me … I thought it was a dream. Soon it would stop, but he didn’t stop …”
“Ma!”
“Hands on my legs, fingers poking, pushing. His laughter, then his hands on my breasts. Billy, my brother Billy … drunk, incestuous …”
Mary had her hands over her ears. She wanted to scream. She went into a crouch and felt sick herself. Her mother went on and on, revealing the disgusting details. Finally, Mary ran from the room. Even now, years later, remembering that day, she couldn’t help but feel revulsion and nausea.
Afterward, there were those redundant nightmares—Uncle Billy coming back, discovering her, raping her. That was why she burned the pictures. She wanted no reminders of his face; no images. Gradually she overcame them, until they were replaced by nightmares of her own origin. Uncle Billy merged with all the other shadowy figures of evil.
When her mother realized what she had told her, they prayed. They prayed even for Uncle Billy, for his soul, and for those he might have harmed. Her mother was apologetic, too.
“It’s not a pretty story,” she said, “and I wanted so to give you only pretty things.”
Her mother, her body so weak and vulnerable, her soul so strong and beautiful. Please God, she prayed, take something from me and give it to her. Make her strong enough to enjoy what she has. But it wasn’t meant to be.
That was why, when her mother’s death finally came, Mary did not cry. She turned from the grave strengthened by an inner knowledge, a truth the others didn’t have. She felt their eyes on her; she knew what they were thinking. Her face was too radiant; her eyes were too clear. They thought her Madonna smile was insensitive. But she thought they were hypocrites. They claimed to believe in an afterlife, but mourned the entrance into it. They had no contact with God, or they would have been happy that He had released her mother from the imprisonment of her weak and sickly body and made her angelic.
She could remember walking independently while the others gathered around her father. She was so strong then. Why didn’t Faith have that same spiritual strength? Would she ever have it, God? She listened for His response; she closed her eyes; she let herself relax even more, and she waited. God would help her. Upstairs the room was ready. It was only a matter of time.
What was it her mother had said … if only they had left Uncle Billy in a form of solitary confinement so he could be alone with the voice of God and his own conscience.
She wiped some tears from her cheeks and she hummed the tune of a hymn her mother and she had sung together often. Then she began to sing it, certain that there was another voice in the room. It filled her with renewed spiritual joy. She was ready for whatever was to come.
“Hi,” Bobby said, moving over quickly to make room for Faith on his bus seat. She had boarded the bus slowly, still moving in a daze, confused and frightened by her discovery of the rabbit in the garbage can. What did it mean? she wondered. Who put it there? Bobby misinterpreted her pensive look. “Got into trouble last night?” he asked sadly.
“What?”
“When you got back into your room?”
“Oh. No, no, that was all right. No problem.” She sat down and smoothed the front of her skirt before placing her books on her lap.
“You look really upset.”
She nodded, still thinking. Then she turned to him. In the back of the bus, the Cooper kids were throwing paper balls at each other. Willie Rosen chastised them, but they didn’t seem concerned. He shifted into gear and pulled away, occasionally looking at them angrily through his rearview mirror.
“Before I came down for the bus,” she began, “I had to fix our garbage cans. Once in a while, skunks or stray dogs get into the bags and pull the cans over, spilling everything around.”
“Oh, yeah,” Bobby said, thinking that was the whole problem, “we have that trouble, too, sometimes. My father thinks Captain does it, but now that he’s tied up …”
“One of the cans was still covered, but its garbage obviously had been spilled. I scooped it up, but when I took off the lid to put some of it back inside, I found a rabbit.”
“Dead?”
“No, a living, breathing rabbit with a collar and a leash.”
“A live rabbit?”
“Someone’s pet.”
“And it was in your garbage can with the lid over it?”
“Uh huh.”
“Someone’s idiotic idea of a prank,” he said.
“Think so?”
“What else could it be? Wait a minute,” he added quickly and turned around. “Excuse me.” He stood up and moved past her. She watched him go to the back of the bus, where the Cooper kids continued to horse around. He grabbed both of them by the back of their necks and both began to howl. Willie Rosen laughed.
“That’s it, quiet ’em down,” he called. Bobby sat them down on the long, rear seat, still holding on to both of them securely. He spoke to them in low, but threatening, tones. Faith waited with interest, now that she understood his purpose. Before the bus reached the village, where they would pick up most of the remaining students who rode this run to school, Bobby returned to his seat.
“Was it them?”
He didn’t reply right away. She could see he was in deep thought, and that made her more uneasy.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I had them pretty scared. They’ve done some wild things, but…”
“Then who?”
“It could have been anyone, I suppose. You know, just snuck up there and did it,” he added, but he didn’t sound very convincing. “What did you do with it?”
“I didn’t want my mother to find out. She gets very upset when she thinks people have been around our property doing things. We had a lot of trouble last Halloween, if you remember.”
“Um. So what did you do?”
“I just turned it loose in the bushes.”
“Maybe someone was riding by and decided to get rid of it.”
“But we’re well off the road.”
“Yeah. Jes … I mean, heck, I don’t know. It’s weird. I’d question my brat brother about it, if it weren’t for the fact that I know he’s terrified of going out alone now. He won’t wander from our property.”
“Because of the raccoon?”
“I guess so,” he said. He sounded very indecisive and suddenly looked as pensive as she did when she first came on the bus.
“What do you mean?”
“He keeps telling me it wasn’t a raccoon.”
“What does he call it?” she asked, as the bus stopped at the corner to take on the town kids. There was a surge of noise and excitement, and for the moment, Bobby’s attention was pulled away from her by other students who greeted him. After things got settled and the bus started away again, he leaned close to her, practically touching her ear with his lips.
“He still calls it an E.T., a little creature that looks human but…”
“But what?”
“But doesn’t. I don’t know. He’s a kid. Forget about it. Whoever put the rabbit in the can is a nut. What if you hadn’t seen it? It would have been emptied into the garbage truck and you wouldn’t have known about it. So I don’t know what the point of the prank is.”
“Me neither,” she said. “But that’s what worries me,” she added, barely loud enough for him to hear.
He tried to get her mind off it. They talked about many other things. They made all sorts of plans for different rendezvous to be made throughout the school day—meeting at his locker between these two periods; meeting at her locker between those. They knew they’d meet at lunch and decided where they would sit in the cafeteria.
All of this excited her and changed the face of the world for her. Passing through the halls, meeting him for even a moment, seeing him across the corridors—every moment of it turned the usually mundane day into an event. Each little thing they did together, no matter how small, carried great significance. Her ordinary locker, with its dull orange color and its scratched surface, sudde
nly became wonderful to touch and be near. Instead of walking with her head down, her mind lost in her own deep thoughts, she looked up, stood straight, her eyes bright and alive, her ears attuned to every sound. She could see that other students noticed the changes in her. Some of them looked at her in puzzlement; others smiled and nodded. She finally felt noticed, accepted, even resurrected.
But when she entered her classes and there was no possibility of her seeing him or him seeing her, she retreated to quieter, more pensive thoughts. Invariably, during each class, her mind turned back to the events of the morning. She thought about the rabbit and she thought about her conversation with Bobby concerning it. Something was trying to make its way to the forefront of her consciousness all morning. Memories and images came back to her; words, isolated and apparently insignificant, were heard again. What did it all mean? What was the theory that was trying to be born? She sensed there were real clues, clues in words, clues in sights and sounds. Clues to what?
It wasn’t until English class, when Mr. Baker started a discussion about modern-day heroes, that something Bobby had said repeated itself in her thoughts. In the course of his lecture-discussion, Mr. Baker mentioned E.T.
She thought about Bobby’s little brother, and when she recalled the way Bobby described his little brother’s monster attacker, she suddenly saw a frightening possibility. It came to her with such a shock, she nearly stood up at her desk. She was sure she uttered a subdued groan, because some of the students around her turned her way and Mr. Baker said, “What’s that, Faith?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. She must have looked terrible, because he and most of the class stared at her. It was only for a long moment, but to her it seemed as though they would never turn away. They finally did and Mr. Baker went on. She was left to follow the thread of her thoughts.
After that period’s bell rang, she got up slowly. It was time to go to lunch to meet Bobby, but her new surge of energy and excitement had waned. She looked like her old self again, moving in a trancelike manner, ignoring everyone around her, looking through people instead of at them, hearing nothing but the sounds of her own thoughts. She was in such a daze that she actually sat down at the wrong table in the cafeteria, leaving Bobby alone and perplexed in the corner. He had to come up to her.
“Hey,” he said.
“What?”
“What are you doing? I thought we were going to sit back there where we could be more alone.”
“Oh. Oh, I forgot.”
“Forgot?” His half smile of confusion widened and he shook his head. “Talk about dizzy dames. You wanna sit here?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Let’s go back there.” She picked up her tray and followed him back.
“You all right?” he asked.
She looked at him. Her heart began to pound. For the first time in her life she wondered if she could trust another human being beside her mother. The very thought of it made her flush with fear. Bobby’s face reflected his sincere concern. He took her hand quickly.
“God, you feel ice cold.”
“I’m all right,” she said.
“Says who? What is it?”
She looked at him again, studied his warm, concerned eyes, looked at his soft, inviting lips, and wondered what it would be like to throw herself into his strong arms, to rely on and confide in someone else, someone her own age. He could see her hesitation, but he could sense her longing as well.
“Come on,” he said. “Something’s really wrong. I want to help. Does it have anything to do with that rabbit you found this morning? You’re still thinking about that, aren’t you?”
“I …”
“Yeah?”
She turned away and looked down at her tray. Some of his friends called to him, but he ignored them. She felt his closeness, the demand of his eyes, but her warm feelings for him were suddenly clouded by images of her mother and the memories of their prayer sessions, especially that first ritual when they had sworn secrecy to each other and prayed for God’s guidance. How could she turn away from all that now? Yet she felt a need to and she wanted to; she wanted to be exposed, in someone else’s hands. What she wanted was relief, relief from responsibility. It was so confusing.
“I’ve got to think,” she said. She turned away again, shaking her head. Other students came to their table. Bobby was as cordial as he could be, but Faith ignored them. Their appearance sobered her, however. She caught her breath and regained her composure.
“Faith.”
“It’s all right,” she said, sounding more like her stronger self again.
He turned his body toward her, blocking the others from her view and her from theirs. His face was so close, his eyes so intent. She felt the excitement again; she had to resist the temptation to draw closer to him.
“If you can’t trust me, you can’t love me,” he said. “Ever.” He sounded so sad about it that she felt like crying.
“Give me a chance. Things are happening so fast.”
“OK. When?”
“Tonight. Come back to me tonight. My balcony,” she added and smiled. It brought a smile to his face, too, and for the moment, her crisis was over.
Eddie Morris had put the rabbit beside him on the front seat and driven directly to Cy Baum’s house. Of course, the little girl was ecstatic. Cy was surprised because he had written the animal off. Even Hilda was happy about it, despite her disapproval of the whole thing. Eddie felt good about bringing some sunlight back into their home. Hilda and Cy invited him in for coffee and he sat at their kitchen table to explain how he found the rabbit.
Eddie was eager to relax here for a while. The Baums’ kitchen reminded him of his own when he was young. The delicious and tempting aromas of food in preparation filled the air. Regardless of the great use of and the activity in the kitchen, it looked immaculate. The old stove was as shiny as the day Cy Baum had it installed. There was a homey warmth to the room, a sense of family. He couldn’t describe it in exact terms, but he sensed an air of something real here. Prepackaged, push-buttoned dinners to be eaten in front of a television set while the family consumed in silence just didn’t exist for these old-timers. What’s more, Hilda’s friendly, warm smile brightened by her grandmother eyes was a welcome contrast to the cold, deathlike stare of the pale Mary Oaks.
“So what did she tell you?” Cy asked, after Eddie explained how he had gone to the front door of The Oaks.
“She said she saw no one, heard no one. Claimed she hadn’t been victimized in any way by pranks or the like. Made me feel stupid for asking her.”
“I hardly see her nowadays,” Hilda said. She put a plate of freshly baked soft rolls on the table. Eddie eyed them almost lustfully. Next to them was a jar of the homemade jam Hilda had made from the blueberries last year.
“My wife says if I don’t lose some weight…”
“Never mind,” Hilda said, “you need your strength, too.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Eddie said, smiling. He reached for a roll and stabbed the jam with a butter knife.
“Strange, though,” Cy said. He was slumped down in his seat and looked as though he were talking to himself. He leaned his head against his hand and stared ahead at the shelves of spices hung on the wall above the counter. “I can see a rabbit makin’ its way over there, maybe; but I can’t figure how it got out of that basement.”
“Gina must’ve not seen it go out, Cy,” Hilda said.
“And it made a beeline right over to The Oaks? Naw, it got out last night.”
“What else can we think?” Eddie said. “Why would anyone just bring it over there and leave it?”
“No sense to it. Yet,” Cy said, sitting up straighter, “we do have the problem of the other two rabbits, don’t we? The one didn’t unlatch itself, and the other didn’t break its own neck.”
Eddie chewed thoughtfully and drank some coffee. They heard Gina giggle in the living room.
“If that animal messes in this house, Cy Baum …”
<
br /> “I know, I know. Gina,” he called, “you’d better take him down to the basement.”
“All right, Grandpa.”
“What’s Mary’s daughter like?” Eddie asked. “I don’t think I’d recognize her if I saw her.”
“We haven’t seen her much ourselves,” Hilda said. “Keeps to herself in that big house.”
“What Hilda means is Mary keeps her in that big house. I can’t help but think that somehow that woman’s responsible for all this.”
“Cy!”
“Well maybe she thinks it’s some kind of a sin to own a rabbit. How do I know? He found the animal over there, didn’t he?”
“That’s no proof.”
Eddie thought about another roll, but forced himself to consider Barbara’s warnings about his weight. She had gotten him to give up smoking last year, and she hounded him continually about his bad eating habits.
“Why don’t you take a few with you, Eddie?” Hilda said, seeing where his attention had gone.
“Thank you, but no, Hilda. If I took them into the car with me, they’d be eaten before I reached the station.” Cy laughed and for a few minutes they talked about other things. Cy related the tale of the time Eddie’s grandfather ate woodchuck.
“Did it by accident. It was his own darn fault. We had been over to Sam Cohen’s playin’ a game of hearts, you know, and he had this black fella, Henry, who worked on his chicken farm. Maybe you remember him—a big, bulky man, strong as an ox.”
“I think I do.”
“The woodchuck was Henry’s. He had killed it and prepared it and left it in Sam’s refrigerator that afternoon. Anyway, Sam steps out to do something and Pete goes and rips off a chunk, thinking it was some kind of roast. He had eaten a good portion of it by the time Sam returned. What a laugh that was. Good beef, your grandfather says. Hot damn, Sam says, you’re eatin’ Henry’s woodchuck. I went into hysterics and your grandfather nearly heaved up all he ate.”
“Wait a minute,” Hilda said, her expression turning serious, “do you suppose somebody wanted to eat the rabbits?”
“Mary Oaks?” Eddie offered.
“Naw,” Cy said. Then his skeptical look strengthened. “I don’t think they’re hard up at all. Heard she was left a bundle when Tom died.”
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