Then his father lunged at him. All at once and without warning.
Pete dodged away and avoided the tackle, and his father pitched forward and lost his balance, landing on his belly and chin with a bellowing grunt.
His father’s body blocked the front door, so Pete ran out the back.
He was halfway across the backyard when his father caught him. He grabbed Pete by the back of the shirt, swung him around, and sank one enormous fist into Pete’s belly.
Pete smacked down on his back in the rocky dirt, unable to breathe.
His father landed on him, straddling him, and punched him in the temple. Then he punched Pete again. And again. And again. And then again.
In that moment, in the disconnected land that was Pete’s brain, a thought ran through. No, it didn’t even run through, exactly. It just existed there. Just held perfectly still.
This is it for me.
He knew his father would just keep hitting him in the head until the older man was so exhausted he collapsed on his own. And Pete assumed, from the force of the blows, that he would not survive that long. And still it was a better option than not confronting his dad over what he’d done to Justin. For the first time in his short life, Pete had found a thing worth dying for.
Then, just that suddenly, the great wall of his father was gone. Light poured in where the curtain of man had been, and Pete saw a flurry of motion and heard a rush of sound he could not understand. At least, not for a moment. But there was snarling involved. And fur. A great deal of fur.
Pete sat halfway up, still struggling to breathe, and saw two strong paws placed in the dirt on either side of his hips. He was being straddled. By a wolf-dog.
“What the hell?” his father cried out, halfway to the house and backing up fast.
Prince dropped his head and showed his teeth. He let loose a rolling growl that shook even Pete to his core. And Pete knew the wolf-dog was on his side.
Pete pulled out from under the animal and staggered to his feet. He teetered behind the wolf-dog, keeping Prince between him and his father.
“What the hell!” his father said again. But, this time, more as though he knew. “You know this beast? You sicced this monster on me?”
He’s my bodyguard, a voice in Pete’s head said. Quite clearly. So clearly that he thought he had said it out loud, but in truth he was unable to speak. He placed one hand on the wolf-dog’s shoulders, both out of pride and a need to secure his balance.
“Well, that’s all I can take, boy. That’s your line, right there. You just snapped this bond between us like a dry stick. You think you’re such a big man? Fine. Go be a big man. On your own. You come back here one time and one time only. To get your things. They’ll be out on the front stoop. That’s it for us. I disown you.”
And with that he backed into the house and closed the door behind him.
Pete dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around Prince’s neck, and held the animal for a time. Then he struggled to his feet and began to place one foot in front of the other.
He stumbled around the side yard of the house, down the street. In the direction of the liquor store. Just walking unsteadily. Not thinking.
Now and then he looked over his shoulder, careful not to lose his balance. Sometimes he saw Prince and other times he didn’t. But when he didn’t, if he looked again a minute later he would see the wolf-dog’s eyes peering out at him from behind a fence or a hedge or a garage.
Cars passed him by, and the drivers slowed and stared at his face, which Pete figured must look a sight. Two older male drivers stopped to ask him if he was okay, or if he needed help. He shook his head and kept walking.
As the adrenaline drained from his body, Pete began to feel the pain of his injuries. And he could feel his knees shaking. And tears running down his face.
He crossed through light traffic at the liquor store parking lot. Prince waited and watched him from across the street as he made the call.
“Dr. Lucy?” he asked when she answered, not even trying to hide his sobs.
“Pete?”
“Can you come pick me up, please? I need you. It’s kind of a two-dime situation.”
Chapter Twenty-Five: Dr. Lucy
She opened her passenger side door for him. Pete climbed in and sat quietly. Didn’t try to talk. Didn’t look at her. Well, that would have been hard—to look at her. He didn’t seem to be able to open his left eye, which was the one facing her. The side of his head had begun to swell and discolor.
She had expected something bad. She had known from his call that it would be bad. And in response to that knowing, she had shut herself off to inevitable reactions to bad news on her drive over. Sometimes doctors can do that. Sometimes they have to.
She waited, not driving away, but still he said nothing. He seemed to have retreated into himself in a way that made him cowed and small.
“Turn your face to me, honey,” she said.
He didn’t answer or comply so she gently held his chin in her fingers and turned it for him.
“Could you open that eye if you tried?”
“No, ma’am. It’s swelled shut.”
“Okay. Well. We’ll take you home and I’ll give you a neurological exam—”
The Pete she had known burst out of hiding. The talky one.
“You can’t take me home! I can’t go home!”
“Pete,” she said, trying to sound calming. “My home.”
“Oh. Your home. Yeah. Thanks. I want to go to your house. I always feel safe at your house.”
That’s because you always are, she thought but did not say.
“Did he do this to you with his fist, or some kind of object?”
“Fist,” he said, staring straight through the windshield again.
“How many times did he hit you?”
“I’m not sure. I lost count. Four maybe, or five. Or six, I don’t know.”
“And then he stopped on his own, or you were able to defend yourself?”
“Pretty much neither, ma’am. He was never going to stop. I think he might’ve killed me. Prince stopped him. Prince broke up the fight.”
Silence. Still she did not put the car into drive and pull away.
In time he turned his face to look at her, which wasn’t easy. He had to crane his neck to see her with his right eye. When he did, his face fell with disappointment.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I don’t for a moment think you’re lying to me, Pete. I know you would never purposely do that. But if you hit somebody in the head hard enough and enough times, it’s not unusual for them to see things that aren’t . . .”
“He’s right over there by that house,” Pete said, pointing across the street. “You can see that, right?”
She followed the direction of his pointed finger, and was surprised to see that the wolf-dog was no hallucination. He was sitting on the pavement, crouched over from his shoulders as if imitating a vulture, peering out from behind a bush. His small golden eyes never left her car.
“I’ll be damned,” she said. She rolled down her window. “Good boy, Prince,” she called. She opened her car door and stepped out into the street. Opened the back door and swung it wide. “You coming with us?” she called to the wolf-dog. “Come on, boy.”
Prince rose and backed up two steps. Then he turned sharply, trotted away through a yard, and disappeared.
Dr. Lucy watched him go, then slammed the back door and sank into the driver’s seat.
“He doesn’t want to come with us,” she said.
“No, ma’am. He never does. He was keeping an eye on me all right, just like you said. But he doesn’t want to come in and be tame.”
“That’s a good friend you have in him.”
“He’s my bodyguard,” Pete said, his voice small but proud.
She put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot.
“Thank you for coming for me,” Pete added. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if
you hadn’t given me those dimes. And if you weren’t . . . you know. There. If you weren’t you. I don’t know where else I could’ve gone.”
“You can never go back there with him again,” she said as she drove. “You know that, right? I don’t know how we’ll manage that, but we’ll have to find a way.”
“Shouldn’t be hard, ma’am. He disowned me. I don’t know what that means exactly, but from everything he said around it I figure it means he never wants me back.”
“Oh,” she said. And then nursed her own surprise in silence for a moment. “I guess that simplifies things.”
She turned the thing over in her mind for a few moments, but it still didn’t make much sense. To simply pull the plug on parenthood. Then again, if the man had been properly plugged into parenthood it would have been safe to send Pete home.
“So. I have to ask you, ma’am . . . but I can’t even bring myself to ask. But I guess I have to. Can I . . . Will you . . .”
Then he stalled. Ran out of words. Or courage.
“Yes,” she said. “You can. I will.”
“I didn’t even finish the question yet.”
“You can stay with me. And I’ll take care of you.”
“That’s a big relief, ma’am.”
She waited.
She had expected more. Though perhaps ignoble, she had anticipated some outpouring of gratitude. Instead the boy had gone silent. Disappeared inside himself again.
They were turning onto her street when he finally spoke up.
“But . . . how long?”
“How long what? How long will I take care of you?”
“Yes, ma’am. That.”
“How about until you’re old enough to take care of yourself?”
“That’s a good deal, ma’am. Thanks. I owe you a debt. But, then again, I guess I already did.”
He was smiling slightly when she pulled into her driveway.
They stepped out of the car and walked toward the back door. Pete was a little wobbly but she steadied him by the shoulders. He stopped suddenly and blocked her way. She assumed he was in some sort of distress. Until he threw his arms around her.
She stood awkwardly for a moment, knowing she should hug him back, but not doing so. She felt a wave of guilt, remembering she had overcome her physical distance with Justin. Managed a kiss on the forehead and a few other miscellaneous gestures of affection. But Justin was tiny and vulnerable and dear. Pete was hulking and big and shy, and made her feel shy.
She took a deep breath and held him in return. Pushed herself over that edge.
Satisfied, he let go and followed her inside.
“You know,” he said, “before I let Prince go, I told him I wanted him to be my bodyguard. You think he understood me?”
“Do I think he understood the sentence? No. I’m sure he didn’t. I wouldn’t put it past him to understand by feel that you were scared and wanting help. But I think the even simpler explanation is that it’s natural to want to protect the people who’ve been good to us. And it’s not unique to humans. Now come into my examining room. We need to make sure you’re okay. And you can tell me how all this started.”
It was close to six p.m. when she looked out the living room window because the dogs had set up a racket. There she saw Calvin and Justin walking up her driveway. Calvin was wheeling her bicycle.
She opened the front door wide, feeling the smile bloom across her face. The one he kept noticing.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said when he was close enough to hear. “I would have driven over to get it after dark tonight.”
He stopped in front of her door, and Justin stopped, and she and Calvin just stood there smiling at each other. Meanwhile she couldn’t help remembering that soon he would no longer be standing in front of her. And she couldn’t help wondering if she would still smile then.
She noticed he was carrying a burlap sack with something not very large but seemingly heavy inside. But she didn’t stop to think much about it, caught up as she was in the smiles.
“I figured you’d come around for it sooner or later,” he said. “Thing is, when Pete dropped it by, I said we’d be in town for a couple of days. But now we’re leaving in the morning.”
“Oh.” She took a moment to digest that news. “Still, your last night here. You must have packing to do. Or some sort of preparations. Something better than wheeling that darn thing all the way across town.”
“We didn’t wheel it. We rode it. I rode Justin on the handlebars. It was fun.”
“It was fun,” Justin said, his voice bright with emotion.
“Well, bring it in,” she said. “Thanks.” She stood out of their way to allow them by. “Truth of the matter is, it’s not as important to me as Pete thinks it is. It’s just a thing. It can be replaced. But now that he’s practically gotten himself killed to get it back to me, the least I can do is act like I appreciate it.”
She knew immediately from their faces that they hadn’t known.
“What happened to Pete?” Justin asked, before his father could.
She motioned for them to follow her into her examining room, where Pete sat up on the edge of the table, holding an ice bag to the side of his head. His face fell when he saw them. He seemed to shrink into himself with shame.
“Go ahead and show them,” Dr. Lucy said.
“Do I have to?”
“They’re your friends.”
Pete lowered the ice bag. His eye was so swollen now that the lashes had flipped inside and disappeared. And the color on that side of his face had turned a bright, deep purple.
A long silence fell.
Then Pete said, “I guess you figured out that I went home. I’m sorry, Mr. Bell. I know you told me not to, but I had to. And I knew if you couldn’t talk me out of going home you’d feel guilty for whatever happened to me there. So that’s why I didn’t tell you. I figured you’d be happier if you didn’t know.”
“I’ll get you some fresh ice for that,” she said, and Pete handed her back the ice bag. “How’s your pain level, honey? Do you need another pill?”
“No, ma’am, but thanks. The one you gave me is doing fine. Nobody ever gave me a pill to make me hurt less before. I like it.”
Justin stayed with Pete while she and Calvin walked into the kitchen. He still had that burlap sack hanging from one hand, and she was growing more curious. But he didn’t offer and she didn’t pry.
Calvin spoke first.
“I don’t think Pete made assumptions about how important your bicycle is to you. I think it’s more about how important it is to Pete not to be the one to lose your bicycle when you trusted him with it.”
“You’re getting to know him pretty well.”
“Tell me he didn’t drag into his job today in spite of everything.”
“He didn’t. I didn’t give him any choice. I called him in sick. The people he works for seem nice. They were concerned about him.”
“Good. He deserves that. What are you going to do?”
“About what? Or . . . well, I guess I mean about which? I’m not suggesting there are no issues here that have to be dealt with. I’m just not sure which one you mean.”
“I can’t imagine sending him back there.”
“Oddly, that part more or less resolved itself.” She opened the freezer as she spoke. Cracked open a tray of ice cubes in the sink. “His dad threw him out.”
“So where will he be?”
She didn’t answer in words. Just pointed at the floor by her feet as a way of indicating “here.”
“Really,” he said, though not as a question. “That’s quite generous of you.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.” She swung her arms wide to encompass her surroundings. “Look around you. It’s what I do. I take in the wounded ones. Nurse them back to health. And then if there are no better places for them to be, they stay here with me. I’m sorry, but I can’t hold myself back from asking this another minute. What are you carrying aroun
d in that sack?”
“Oh, this.” He set it down carefully on her kitchen table. “I hope you won’t think it’s silly.”
He reached in and took out a potted plant. It looked healthy and strong, with round, scalloped dark-green leaves trailing down around all sides of its terra-cotta planter. It looked like the one she’d seen in his living room, only much smaller.
“It’s something that’s been in the family for a long time. It used to grow outside at my grandmother’s house. When I got married, my wife really liked it, so my grandmother took some cuttings and rooted them and gave us a plant of our own. Rebecca planted it outside at our new house, and it got huge. Practically took over half the front yard. Of course it was a small yard. After she died Justin and I moved away from there, so I rooted a few new plants from cuttings and took them with me. It’s just something that’s been with me for so long. I wanted to leave part of it with you.”
“I don’t think that’s silly at all,” she said. “I think it’s lovely. I just hope I can keep it growing.”
“Please don’t feel a sense of pressure, because I can always root you another one if it fails for some reason. Getting it to you would be the tricky bit. Still, I’m telling you, Lucy . . . this is not it for us. Mark my words.”
“I so hope you’re right,” she said.
“I feel it in my bones.”
“Let me just give this ice to poor Pete. And then come sit out back and talk to me. When it gets dark I’ll drive you two home. But we have a little time left, anyway. And I want to enjoy it while I can.”
They sat outside in lawn chairs in the dusky evening, respectfully apart. Even their hands managed to stay away from each other. Dr. Lucy wondered if it was a form of self-protection. Not wanting to come together just before coming apart.
Well, it was. For her. She only wondered if it might be mutually true.
“I guess it would be foolish,” she said, “to start thinking about moving to Philadelphia. Especially since we’re probably illegal there, too. And since you didn’t invite me.”
“Actually . . . there used to be laws all over. But some states have repealed them. I think Pennsylvania might not have that law anymore. But I’d have to check. When I lived there I had no cause to wonder.”
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