A few scraps of fence slats made fine ladder rungs, and James took them to the tree. He nailed them into the trunk and used the ladder to help drop some of his wood onto the stage. His arms felt as if they’d been coated with lead sleeves. He pulled himself onto the platform awkwardly, flopping onto his back. The corner of a two-by-four dug into his spine.
He sat up, near tears. His face was sweating, and he felt a headache coming on. He had no help. He was all alone. His knees were bruised, and he’d smacked his thumb twice with the hammer. His thumb was white with dead and chafed skin, but under his nail the blood had formed a black pool. He was getting dizzy, and his temples throbbed. He could hardly move. He knew he needed water, and he regretted that he wasn’t doing this with Felix’s help, and that Felix was just over the other side of the fence, but didn’t seem to care.
The stage had been built; wasn’t that enough? But he knew that it wasn’t enough—that a good fort needs walls, and a window to see approaching enemies. It needed a strong roof to shelter from rain and snow. It needed to hide him in plain sight.
A piece of plywood that was balancing on the edge of the stage teetered. It rose upward and began its cruel descent back to the ground below.
It was Ivan who caught the end of it, and used his other hand to catch the loose two-by-four falling along with it. James saw the wood slide down and had lunged forward when he noticed his father standing there, glancing up at him.
“Could hear you from all the way home,” Ivan said. “Looks like you’re having some trouble here.”
James almost started crying, but suddenly everything seemed possible.
Ivan told James to stand back. He did so, and with one hand, Ivan shoved the wood back onto the stage. James pulled it the rest of the way up while his father tried to retrace his youthful steps. He took hold of the stage’s support beam and heaved himself onto the second rung James had nailed to the trunk. Ivan noted that the beam held his weight.
“Built this thing pretty sturdy, son,” he said.
“I don’t know how to build the rest,” James said. His voice cracked and some tears followed. It bothered him that his weeping couldn’t be helped. He had no energy left to fight it.
“We’ll get this built in a couple hours,” Ivan responded, looking at his watch. “Plenty of daytime left.” The words caused more tears. Ivan grew nervous. He glanced around at the pile of wood and stomped on the stage. It didn’t budge. His back was turned. James was still crying, wiping his face with his shirt, and Ivan wanted a drink. It was not a feeling he had planned, and he’d not felt the urge in his mind this strongly in weeks. “If the foundation is strong, which it is,” Ivan said, to distract himself, “then we’re cooking with grease.”
As Ivan pulled the plywood out from under the two-by-four, it made a great deal of noise, which Ivan had hoped for. He only heard a last sniffle before James rose to his feet beside him to help. The boy picked up a two-by-four. The tightness in Ivan’s mind, the urges that made his hands shake so often before, faded.
“This’ll be our corner,” Ivan said. “Now ordinarily you need three studs, but one’ll do just fine.” He set the board in place. “Now nail her home, son.”
James swung the hammer with both hands and soon had the bottom nailed in place.
“Now we’ve got the beginning of a solid corner,” Ivan said. “We’ll join the other piece of plywood to this and we’ll have the walls up in no time.”
His excitement renewed, James scrambled back to the ground and raised the second piece of plywood up to his father.
“Get those shorter scraps of two-by-fours, James,” Ivan shouted from above, “we’ll make the window with that!”
James obeyed, and the two of them built the window frame on the east side of the fort, just like he’d seen in the dream.
Ivan climbed down and gathered up the rest of the planks and two-by-fours. “The key to a solid wall, James, is plenty of support studs along the plywood. We’ll nail these planks every two feet or so, and pretty soon this fort will withstand the surge of Achilles.” Ivan laughed and wiped sweat from his forehead, leaving behind a dark trail of dirt. It was a different kind of sweat than he was used to.
James hammered away at the studs as Ivan stood them up.
“Now, you don’t want the window too big,” Ivan warned. “Otherwise the archers can get their flame-tipped arrows into your fort and capture your king.”
James laughed. “Who’s my king?”
“For the moment, you’re your own king . . . Here. Same principle. When our corners are solid, our roof will never fall on us.”
Ivan noticed their wood supply was running low. The dropping sun cast a cool shadow across the trees and for the first time, they worked without wiping their faces.
“The western wall will have to be where our day ends, son. Not enough wood to finish our roof.”
James nodded. “It was all I could get,” he said.
Ivan put his hand around the back of his son’s neck. “King John’s Castle took years to build, James, you’ve done fine. Let’s get this wall up and box ourselves in.”
James built the western wall alone, while his father coached him. When he finished Ivan took a deep breath. “I haven’t been this tired in a long time,” he said, climbing down.
James heard a loud pop coming from outside the east wall, where the small window had been framed. Then another noise echoed, and something soared through the trees. It was a rock, James could tell by its sound.
He went to the window and saw Felix standing a few feet from his house. He was serving himself rocks, lobbing them into the air and smacking them with a stick. One after another, he did this, serving himself from a pile at his feet. Expressionless. Blankly focused on his hands. James watched him swing away, until he heard his mother call out for him.
“Jeez, is that what she sounds like?” Ivan asked from below.
Felix also heard Mrs. Illworth cry out, and he stopped swinging. He locked eyes with James. The stick was propped at his side. The two boys stared at each other until Janet cried out again, and Felix held his arms out.
“Come on, James, before she loses a lung,” Ivan said. James frowned and headed down the ladder.
* * *
James waited until evening. When he stopped hearing the crack of wood and the rocks tearing through the leaves, he went back. He didn’t have enough lumber to complete the roof, but he had those two beams. He stood at the base of his fort and closed his eyes. Felt his mind drifting to sleep. He stood there for a moment, as if napping. There was no wind. The katydids were only just beginning to rub their wings. He opened his eyes, climbed the ladder, and pulled himself to the deck.
Felix’s backyard was empty. James could see the stick leaning against the side of the house; a pile of rocks was stacked a few feet away. James kept looking into their kitchen window. He watched the soft yellow light shudder when someone passed the window, like old home movie frames. Mrs. Cassidy.
Then he saw Bob. He’s fuckin’ dead, James thought, suddenly. At the hospital. When everyone was standing in the hallway, just outside his room, and he heard the name David. It was David something—the kid that did this to Dallas. And James remembered every vile thing that spewed from Bob’s mouth. “He’s fuckin’ dead!” he remembered hearing, and James feeling like he needed to lie still again and not move. There were some pounding noises on the wall. He could hear Bob’s mother trying to soothe him quiet. Even when he saw Bob pass the window again in the dim evening light, he thought that all he’d ever think of when he saw Bob from now on would be his voice barking just outside the hospital room: “He’s fuckin’ dead!” Fuckin’ dead. It echoed.
James climbed the eastern wall. Through the bright kitchen window, he saw Mr. Cassidy at the sink. He wasn’t speaking, but it didn’t look like he was listening either. Bob came into view to reach for paper towels, which hung just above Mr. Cassidy’s bald head. James grabbed a nail and drove it into one end of a plank.
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When he looked through the trees he saw Mr. Darwin standing near his fence. He was wearing a thin pink robe with white trimming, presumably his wife’s. It was untied at the front. Underneath he wore boxer shorts with black socks and a soiled white T-shirt. He held a drink in his left hand, which he swirled around so the ice cubes clinked against the glass like dull wind chimes. To James it looked like iced tea.
“It’s you,” Mr. Darwin said, resting both forearms atop his fence. James said nothing. Michael observed the structure. “Good-looking fort.”
“I’m building it,” said James. He stopped short of saying more.
Mr. Darwin nodded and took a sip. He lowered the glass and the ice swished back into the liquid. His eyes rose up to the treetops and he nodded again. James nervously looked up as well, as if down here they were missing out on a conversation. Michael gestured to James’s chest. “That’s Dallas’s shirt,” he said.
James looked down. It was. Dallas had given it to him when they went to raid the neighbor’s fort. It was green, and Dallas wanted all of them to blend in with the leaves. James couldn’t speak.
“You were wearing it yesterday too,” Mr. Darwin said.
James clutched at the tail of the shirt, smoothing it out with both hands. He’d never looked at Mr. Darwin all that much. Never realized how closely his eyebrows matched the light color of his hair, or the boniness of his sharp nose. Mr. Darwin had a look in his eyes since he’d noticed the shirt—like he was about to toss his drink, hop the fence, and wrestle it off him. James was tired. He didn’t want to think about how to escape, or worry over whether or not the man could reach him. He glimpsed the roof peak of his own house, just beyond the Darwins’. He wished Felix was with him. Anyone. Mr. Darwin wasn’t blinking. His glassy eyes, like a crocodile’s eyes, were perfectly still.
“You don’t say much,” the man finally said.
James didn’t know what to say. He feared that anything he said would be the wrong answer. The crocodile would snap. It was enough to just keep Mr. Darwin in front of him, glaring up at him. It looked to James like the man was now staring at nothing. Past, or through, James’s stomach. He started to make a strange whirling sound with his mouth. Then he clucked his tongue a few times. It was as if his brain had climbed down to the hand that swirled his drink. Left the eyes fixed where they had last consciously looked.
Then, just as abruptly, Michael Darwin came alive again. Sipped his drink. He tapped the top of his fence hard enough to make the links rattle.
“Probably a good thing,” he said.
James had already forgotten what Mr. Darwin was responding to.
Michael ran his hand gently across the fence top and started to back away. He looked up at James once more. “Putting a roof on it?” he asked. When he got no response, he nodded. He’d almost smiled. Then he focused on James’s shirt again and the grin faded. He raised the glass to his mouth and drained it. The ice cubes crashed against his lips. He swallowed and lowered the glass to his waist.
“I wish you wouldn’t wear that shirt anymore,” he said to James. “I keep thinking it’s him.” Michael turned his glass upside down. Watched the ice cubes slide out and spatter in the leaves at his feet.
James noticed he was wearing slippers. And when Mr. Darwin tucked one hand into the pocket of his wife’s robe and wandered to the front of his house, out of sight, James felt his lungs exhale. It seemed to him like the first time he’d breathed all day.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“GOT A LETTER FROM THE SCHOOL YESTERDAY. Says due to the outpouring of support from the community—no, the overwhelming outpouring of support—they’re looking forward to me returning next year.” Rebecca Darwin laughed bitterly as she rubbed a bowl over her towel-draped hand. “They called it a difficult summer and would like to see the new school year as a fresh start.”
A sink full of dishes floated in bright suds. She placed the dried bowl to her left and stared down at the water, bit her bottom lip, and held a palm to her head. “Apparently, my job was under more of a threat than I thought. So they’re doing me the favor of holding open a job they had no right to threaten to take away in the first place—isn’t that nice of them?”
She always had headaches now. Dull ones. And sharp ones that poked just behind an ear, or an eye. She steadied herself at the sink. This was a dull one.
“They’re going to pity me? Welcome me back and then pass me those looks?”
Rebecca reached into the sink as though it was a magic hat and pulled out a glass. She could count the seconds between any household chore and her next thought of Dallas. The boy emerged from the darkening sink water. He formed in the dust on the end tables. He wafted from the heat of the oven. His voice rattled in baritone thuds with the submerged dishes, settling down after she removed the glass.
“There was this time when . . . this one time Dallas wanted to go see a movie that was coming out and he was begging me and begging me, and I said I couldn’t let him because I hadn’t passed it by you or Minister Roberts yet. I told him I didn’t even know where it was playing. So he sulked into his room and he must have seen the ad for the movie, because he came running out all excited and he said, It’s coming to a theater near us, Mom! It’s at a theater near us! Never made me laugh so hard before then. He was full of all those little lines that he thought were serious. But that’s what made it funnier. And I want to tell that story. I never thought to tell it before, and now I want to.”
Reaching blindly into the sink, she drew out a plate.
“But I can’t because the moment I tell it, I’m going to get that pitiful look and it’s going to ruin the whole point. I want to tell it, but I can’t, and it pisses me off that I can’t tell it . . . Michael, are you listening?”
“You’re telling it now, Rebecca,” Michael said absently. He’d been sitting at the dining room table ever since he’d drifted in through the front door wearing Rebecca’s robe and carrying an empty glass.
“Yeah. Maybe.” She turned back to her dishes. But who’s listening? she thought. He’d not been making much sense lately. He’d developed a habit of sitting up all night in the living room. The past three or four days had been the worst; as soon as he stopped vomiting every morning he’d start to mix his drinks. Then he’d scrutinize the wallpaper in the living room and take out sheets of paper and draw a new pattern. He kept insisting it was their ticket out.
Rebecca remembered Michael’s boss telling him to take all the time he needed before returning to work. But that was awhile ago. Now Michael’s boss would call and she’d hear Michael repeating Yes continuously. Capitulating. A lot of Yes, I knows and Yes, we’ll sees. Meanwhile, the checks had stopped arriving in the mail, but every time she’d try to rouse him to action, he’d say something meaningless and gloomy and it would infuriate her. Even news of David Westwood’s trial wouldn’t stir him to get dressed, or raise his voice.
He’d been so right about so much in their marriage. And trouble had its way of shaking out with the passage of time.
That’s what he’d said about the whole incident with the hallway fight. Her mind, so vividly filled with violence now, cast back effortlessly to the boy walking out of the nurse’s office with his parents. The hem of his skirt sweeping the dusty floor. Had she judged him? She had. She’d judged his parents. But when it came time to cover for Mr. Ragone’s son, she couldn’t do it.
The day she had resolved to lie for the bully, she’d seen the fragile boy coming down the hall. Odin. Strange name for a strange boy with a strange look, but when she saw him that day he looked nothing like the boy she’d rescued.
His black skirt was replaced with brand-new jeans. His hair was shorter, and his nails were washed clean. If not for the fading cut beneath his right eye, and the scab formed at his bottom lip, she may have never recognized him. And when he saw her, when he looked up from watching the floor, he stopped in his tracks. He stared at her a good while, and she gave him a familiar smile and waved. But he didn�
�t return the gesture. In fact, he turned around and retreated back down the hallway in the other direction. Her gaze remained fixed on the empty space he’d once filled in the hallway and somehow she sensed that it was not the bruises that had made him feel ashamed to face her.
In that instant, she resolved to push forward and tell the truth. The sight of Odin disappearing around the corner steeled her nerves. It would all have to lead wherever it led. Man plans. God laughs.
Michael hadn’t even questioned why she changed her mind and she loved that about him. Not everything had to be said. He just promised that in the spiritual timeline of an ordered universe, all paths lead to justice.
Now was just a matter of waiting. Waiting for him. Waiting for his eyes to blink on. Was the way to rescue him to not come to his rescue? That kind of rationalization was just convenient. The truth: she was exhausted.
The phone rang. Rebecca watched it while she dried a glass. Finally it stopped. She looked through the kitchen doorway at her husband. He’d gone to pour himself another drink, but she noticed that he turned the glass upside down and covered the mouth of the bottle. She looked away. She’d become more self-conscious about watching him.
“The phone rings all the time,” Rebecca said. “If it’s not that reporter from the Turnbull Times, it’s someone from work. I have nothing to say. There are no words to make them understand, but I can’t say that, because then they say, I know, I know.
“Is there anything I can do? That one’s the worst. What do they think they can do? And it will only get worse when I go back to work in September, that’s for sure. I’ll get into the building and the lounge will be filled with baskets and flowers from people I don’t know, and every person I see will drop their eyes and mumble something. And to see all those kids passing by and goofing off, and kissing in the hallways? Some of them were probably friends with those animals.
“And the worst part of it will be watching them all slowly forget. Watching every one around me start to laugh again, and tell their Easter stories, and forget to hide pictures of their grandchildren. Not that hiding them would be any less painful. They’ll all start to move away from it and forget about it. People have short attention spans for other people’s suffering, they’ll move on.”
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