“Are you happy?” he asked.
“Why?” She eyed him closely, trying to read his thoughts. “What’s wrong?”
Finton shrugged.
She seemed about to snap at him, but, instead, closed her eyes, opened them and reset. “I’m not miserable.” She looked away, into the shadows of the farthest corner. Her pupils dilated as if she’d found something solid on which to focus. “Some things will never change as much as we want them to. Even if we think we deserve better.”
“Do you deserve better than Dad?”
She looked at him sharply, then softened her expression as if suddenly remembering. “Sometimes, I s’pose. Maybe I do.”
“Do you love him?”
She opened her eyes wide. “Why would you even ask such a thing?”
“You never say it to each other. And you’re always arguing.” It was probably asking for too much, but he hoped she would confide in him, wanted to be someone she would trust.
“Look around you, b’y. We don’t argue no more than any other married couple,” she said. “And I s’pose I do love him, in spite of his ways.” She laid a hand on his wrist. Her fingers were cold. “How are you doing?”
He sighed and stared at the window, wondering if she was lying because, that way, it was easier to get by. “Don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Did you mind the funeral?”
“No.” But that wasn’t what he wanted to discuss. He steeled his nerve, gazed at her and tried to make himself spill what was on his mind. He could keep it to himself, but that wasn’t really an option.
He suspected that Miss Bridie had told him the truth about how he was taken from her, but he needed to hear it from the woman who’d been pretending all along to be his mother—the one who, all these years, had made his breakfast and supper, forced him to say rosaries and go to mass. The one who’d carried the burden of the masquerade and bore it so well. She was looking at him with expectation, as if she knew that what was coming would not be easy to escape.
Finally, the silence between them became too much. The words welled up inside until he thought his head would burst. So he blurted it out: “Miss Bridie told me something before she died.”
“What did she say?”
His tongue faltered. “She said I was took from her. She said—”
“Your father and I have always done our best—”
“Is it true?”
“Did you even for one second think we weren’t really your flesh and blood?”
“No,” he said, and while the relief was still fresh on her face, he added, “For many seconds. Lots of times, I’ve wondered.”
The slap from her right hand stung his cheek, and yet he didn’t raise a hand in self-defense. He wouldn’t satisfy her.
“How dare you say that after all we done for you? How bloody dare you?”
Already, the sting had dissipated. But he could feel his soul hardening, some essential element escaping the core of his very being. “She said I was took right after she had me, and that Dad warned her not to say anything about it to anyone, especially me.”
His mother stood up, striking her head on the ladder that led to the top bunk. As she rubbed her crown, testing for blood, he could see the brightness of her eyes and the glistening on her cheeks. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“The truth. I just want the truth, for once.”
Sighing once more, she seemed to give in to the inevitability of the moment. She resumed her seat on the bed, clasped her hands on her lap, and stared at her fingers. “I knew we couldn’t keep it a secret forever.”
“Who else knows?”
“Just a few,” she said with a trembling voice. Again, she rubbed her head and checked for bleeding. “Believe it or not.”
“But whose son am I?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “You’re my son. I raised you.”
“But those stories about me being born—was it all just lies?”
“It was mostly true,” she said. He could see by the rise and fall of her chest that she was struggling to maintain both her breath and composure. Still, he couldn’t help but admire the strength it took to sit there and have one of the hardest conversations she would ever have. “You fell on your head, but it wasn’t the nurse. It was me. I felt awful. And you did cry a lot when he brought you into the house. We thought you’d never stop. Everyone tried singing to you, but your father found the perfect song. Or maybe it was the fact that he was your father.” She shook her head, obviously close to tears.
“I had a miscarriage after nearly full term,” she said. “It would have been a girl.”
He was shocked, yet relieved, to hear her say it aloud. In fact, it made him feel slightly better to know some of the details were drawn from fact and that it wasn’t all lies.
“I was beside meself, b’y. I can’t tell you how hard it was. And the worst part…” She spoke in a flat tone, as if already distanced from the cruel reality she was describing. “The worst was being told I couldn’t have no more.” Pause. “Here I was with just two boys. Two! I was hardly even a woman, sure, if that’s all I was good for. As far as I was concerned, my life was over. What was the point of a marriage? What was the point of anything? I was so young. Back in those days, Nanny Moon was always lookin’ at me like it was all my fault, like she hated my guts. It was all bad enough.
“Don’t you dare breathe a word of this to no one—I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I guess I have to.” She swallowed hard and drew a deep breath. “Your father and I got married because I was pregnant.” She laughed bitterly as if remembering the details of that thorny decision. “Imagine the irony of that. Pregnant too young. Married too young. And now I couldn’t have any more. It was like being trapped with people expecting too much from me. I’ve always felt that way, really—thank God you’re not old enough to know that feeling.”
“Wasn’t two boys enough for you?”
“For me? I s’pose so… if that’s all I could have. For everyone else?
Definitely not. You can’t even imagine the pressure, b’y—pregnant one minute and neither child to show for it the next. I guess, at some point, the wheels got to turnin’—that somehow it would be okay if I could just have one more. And I prayed for it. I really, really did. I prayed for a boy just like you.”
Finton felt himself go a little more dead inside. If he were hearing this story from anyone else, he would have had empathy for the young woman’s plight. But this was his mother… or the mother he’d thought was his. And the child was himself. That made all the difference, and he couldn’t help but disapprove of her awful choice.
“When your father told me about Bridie Battenhatch being pregnant, I nearly went mental—the likes of that having a baby! Not even a husband, sure, and the daughter she had showing signs of wildness, and her brother Jacob, well… I really shouldn’t be telling you this.” She drew a deep breath. “To some people, the most immoral things aren’t wrong, and that’s all I’ll say about it.” She seemed to lose her breath momentarily, but Finton was unmoved. He was afraid of disrupting the flow of honesty.
“I coulda killed someone,” she continued in a calm, even tone. “But your father had an idea. He said, ‘She’s not stable, you know. Look at poor Morgan. Sure, she seems fine. But sometimes the things she does give me shivers. Miss Bridie’s on her own and she’s talking about doin’ away with it!’ I’ll never forget how he leaned in, with such hope in his eyes, and whispered, ‘We could take this one, Elsie. We could love it like our own. It would be our own.’”
“Something in the way he said it made me wonder. I’d wondered before, but now I had to know. ‘Where is this idea coming from?’ I asked him. ‘You didn’t just haul that rabbit out of a hat.’ I’ll spare you the details. It took some doing, and a lot of yelling and crying on my part and his, I tell ya, but I finally got him to admit it.”
“Admit what?”
“That you were his. That he and Miss Bridie… had a… th
ing. One drunken night.”
“A thing.”
“I don’t want to say it, Finton. Jesus. You’re my son. And that’s all that matters.”
“I can’t imagine,” said Finton. “What it took for you to tell me that.” She smiled gratefully, but he wasn’t finished. “But I don’t understand how you could do that to her.”
“She was incompetent, Finton. You should have seen her. She wasn’t fit. She would’ve done away with you and probably herself too.”
“She was my mother.”
“I’m your mother.”
“No, you’re not,” he said. “You should’ve told me.”
“Don’t act like that,” she said. “You’re my boy!”
“I’m nobody’s boy.”
“Finton!”
“Get out!” he shouted. He turned towards the wall and kicked it with all his might, punching a small hole in the drywall. “Just leave me alone!”
“How dare you!”
“Morgan’s my…”
As she left, she pulled the door shut, leaving Finton alone in the dark.
“…half sister—isn’t she?” he said, in a voice that grew smaller with each word, as if he were vanishing right along with them.
The next afternoon, the boys were gone out, Nanny Moon was in her room, and Elsie was at work. Tom was on the couch, the television muted, and Finton saw his chance.
“I know what happened between you and Miss Bridie—and I know you took me from her when I was born.”
Tom looked at Finton, shoulders slouched and a worn expression. “Your mother said you knew. But I never thought Miss Bridie would tell you.”
“Did you love her?”
“I loves your mother. What ’n hell do ya think?”
“But did you love Miss Bridie?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because it does.”
“Yes,” Tom said, his hands clasped in front of him. “In a way, I did.”
“Why?”
“You don’t want to hear this, Finton. This is adult stuff.”
“I’m old enough,” he said. “This is the only time I’ll ask.”
“All right.” His father wouldn’t look at him, just stared at the TV. Another World. “I won’t say everything, but I’ll tell you some. But just remember, you’re my son.”
“I want to know why you went to her. Wasn’t your wife enough?”
“I never went lookin’. We were playing cards and gettin’ drunk. Morgan was young, but she was gone babysittin’ or something. And we were talkin’ about how shitty our lives were. I mean, she wasn’t half bad lookin’ back then. But I s’pose also… I wasn’t the pickiest at times… about anything. I mean…” He laughed bitterly and shook his head. “…look at my life. Not exactly the fruit of good choices, is it?” Finton gave no reaction. “It was one time, and how was I to know what would come of it?”
Finton figured he should have known, but then he considered his own occasions having sex with Morgan without protection—to think… no, he couldn’t think about that. It would drive him insane.
You were only twelve, he reminded himself. Nobody told you that stuff.
“One more thing,” he said when he figured his father was losing his motivation to keep talking and the pauses had become lengthy.
“One more,” Tom said warily.
“Once and for all, did you kill Sawyer Moon?”
“I told you—”
“We’re all telling the truth today for the first time ever. So tell me…”
“No,” said Tom. “I told you before: I’m never answering that question again.”
Lost
On the afternoon of the second last day of October, snow plummeted from the sky and blanketed the countryside. He’d stayed home from school, saying he didn’t feel well. But everyone had scattered yet again, and, especially with his father taking Nanny Moon to the grocery store, he saw an opportunity to leave unnoticed. Through an opening he’d cleared on the sweaty windowpane, Finton watched in silent wonder and realized—it has to be now.
Now and then, he would glance outside to ensure that the snow was still falling. Then he pulled on his clothes and double-wrapped his long, red scarf around his neck so that it hung like vestments. He soon shut the door behind him, trundled out into the meadow and up the hill towards the woods.
The world was shockingly white, a land without edges or sharp distinctions. On the snow-laden ground, patches of brown grass and brambles poked up through the white carpet, reaching skyward against the rushing, white flakes.
In awe of how quickly the world had changed, Finton trudged the ghostly path. Where once the landscape was brown and drab, all had now turned bright. It was as if he’d breached the forbidden border and emerged into a land enshrouded by snow, where everything blended with everything else. Oblivious to the flakes on his cheeks and bare head, he forged a path into the waiting woods. Twenty minutes later, he stopped on the home side of the cold, dark river, peering into the thicket. Clouds billowed from his mouth. Over there would be darker, colder. The babbling brook seemed to call: “Step over. Hurry up. Don’t waste time.”
At the edge of the stream, he bent down and slid flat onto his belly. He leaned forward, leveraging himself with his arms, and drank from the river. Every time he thought he was done, he thrust his lips and nose back into the cool water, and gulped until he’d had his fill. Satisfied, he stood upright and sniffed the wind that smelled of spruce, pine, and birch, and the rot of half-frozen bog and damp peat moss.
For a long time now, he’d had the feeling of being watched, and he’d expected to see his observer when he’d lifted his head.
With the back of his hand, he wiped his mouth, tugged both ends of his snow-stippled scarf, then launched himself across the brook, landing with a thud on the other side. The river’s song was unexpectedly different—deeper, resonant—reverberating in his heart. Hundreds of times he had crossed that river and never noticed the variance. But the thought was fleeting as the sun skittered behind a cloud, and he plodded towards the ominous thicket.
Except for the shimmering, white flakes that continued to fall, the woods were dark. A brown-coated rabbit hopped across the phantom path, paused to face the traveler, then quickly disappeared into the underbrush. Finton paused to notice the imprints of feathery paws and a furry belly that formed a divergent trail. He expected something magical to happen like in Alice in Wonderland, for someone to speak to him, tell him to go back home—or perhaps welcome him back to this place where he once belonged. He hoped not to be scolded, but that wouldn’t have surprised him.
He stared at the branches of a snow-laden pine and thought how majestic it was. He marveled at the moment’s silent perfection, frozen in time. Then, all at once, the branch bowed down, flicked upwards and dropped its load. The accompanying sound was like a gas stove igniting, jolting and abrupt. As a fine white mist sprayed the air around the tree, he gazed in wonder, blinked, and trudged onward.
At last, he came to the foxhole, where he sat on the rim, dangling his feet, and caught his breath. The snow was falling thicker now, as if it might go on forever. If he lay on his back, they’d probably never find him here—at least not until the spring, and then it would be too late.
He climbed into the hole and lay back, closed his eyes and listened to his own breathing rising and falling. Then he heard a sound—a light, quick intake of breath. His eyes snapped open, alert for an oncoming bear or a circling wolf. He swallowed hard and scanned the woods.
But he heard the sound only once and, after a while, his breathing slowed, and his senses attuned themselves to the woodland scene. The north wind whistled through the tops of the snow-covered evergreens, and a lonesome chill enveloped him. Already, the damp cold had seeped through his corduroy pants, and he wished he’d worn his snowsuit. He wondered how long he’d had his eyes closed, and whether he’d dozed. He kept his eyes shut, despite the cold and the truculent snowflakes that slowly buried him.
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He knew how it should end. Jesus had to die for the sins of mankind. The world wouldn’t take him back once he’d gone so far and shown them all how badly they’d behaved. Galilee was no place for such an enlightened soul.
All Finton had to do was to lie there and he’d be dead within hours. He was just exhausted. So much much.
No one was looking for him—they were all too busy. No rescue party was coming, at least not until it was too late. But it was some cold. Starting to shiver, he was tempted to wipe the snow from his cheeks and eyelids. But the snow felt so right. The foxhole was welcoming.
“Finton?”
Go away.
“What are you doing?”
“God? Is that you? I’m not answering until you explain some things.”
“It’s not God.”
He felt like that fisherman in The Old Man and the Sea. How much had he hated that book? Skeet actually threw his copy into the garbage can outside school and set it on fire. A few other guys threw theirs in too. But it stayed in Finton’s mind how the old man used to have these conversations with the big fish and the teacher said he was really talking to God. Bunch of baloney, he’d thought. He wanted to open his eyes, but couldn’t. Something not quite like sleep had overtaken him and resisted his attempts to animate himself. His lips were frozen, but he managed to ask, “Who’s talking?”
“It’s me, b’y. What the hell are you doin’?” she asked, and he knew her now. “You can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
“Snap out of it, b’y. Get yerself up or you’ll freeze to death.”
Warm hands caressed his face; soft lips pressed themselves to his frozen mouth. He considered resisting. But it was too late. No one could save him. He felt two fingers pinch his nose and cut off his breath. Sputtering and coughing, he bolted upright. “Jesus, girl—tryin’ to kill me.”
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