by J. D. Palmer
I guess we are more comfortable on the edge. This is foreign land. Terrifying. If you’re stuck in a den of snakes, at least you get to see the snakes.
Sometimes I see one of us cry, for no reason.
After everything, kindness is one of the hardest things for us to face.
Josey’s toe ordeal helped. A bloodletting for us, a bit of gruesomeness to ease the transition. A limp and pain and a place to channel our protectiveness. To allow the flame of full-fledged survival mode to still burn.
And after a month I see us slowly start to relax. The tension in shoulders easing bit by bit. And the transition would be quicker if it wasn’t for Harlan. He prowls from room to room, window to window, watching the snow pile up, each foot another day, or week, or month… lost. Who knows if, or when, we will be able to leave. And his stress keeps the rest of us from fully embracing the respite.
He seeks me out occasionally. Not that he needs to, the tether between us keeps us in sync, allows us to feel where the other is in the house. But he’ll make a point to sit with me by the fire, to take a moment to be still even though I know he is ready to burst.
And I savor this extra time with him. With my family. Time to heal. Time to grow.
Time.
The bathrooms inside are off limits to everyone but CD. He is too feeble to make it to the outhouse that resides fifty feet from the house, sheltered from the stormy weather in the lee of the trees that surround the property. The snow piles in drifts, shaped by the wind into a small chain of mountains we are forced to slog through. Theo goes with me, powerful legs forming a trail that will be gone within the hour. He went with me without asking, an escort through snow, and security when I’m at my most vulnerable.
I appreciate it, the drifts are thick enough that I could see myself wading out into them and being buried before I reach the other side.
At first this kindness caused some whispering. As if Theo were taking the choice from me. I ignore it, and since then some of the other women have asked Theo for his help in this matter. There is laughter as someone dubs him the “potty plow.” Felicia glares and refuses to ask for his help. I notice she goes out shortly after someone else has returned, though.
These people are eccentric, and silent, and loud, and every shade of nice. They have taken us in because they can. And I don’t know if it will make the winter harder on them, but it’s a touching gesture.
There isn’t a lot to do. Or, I should say, there are far too many people to make it a big deal. There is maintenance, and cooking, and keeping the fire going. Heating snow into water and stacking wood. But after being on the move for so long, scavenging each day, searching for a place to spend the night…
This feels easy.
When you are raised, like I was, time is different. The outside world, for most people was a mix of work and play, school and homework. Routine. A comfort in knowing what your day holds for you, even if you bitch about it over a beer in the evening.
Not for me. A secret I have. Another one, I guess, that isn’t important anymore. I was so miserable, so lost in a whirlwind of home to home to fucking home, that I didn’t get to have a routine. I wasn’t allowed to become complacent. And it shrunk my world into tiny moments. Tiny, flimsy, whimsical moments always gone too soon. So I hoarded them. And I cherished them. And I think I lived an altogether fuller life.
Because of my misery.
That’s something to think about.
I didn’t need to do the crossword. Or dust the plant leaves every day. Or make three meals for three people who didn’t want to be there. I didn’t foster a child to fill a void in a marriage. A process that, if everyone is honest, simply disrupted the routine that everyone was comfortable with.
I said yes to sneaking out late for nothing more than a walk. I said yes to skipping class. I said yes to going to the movies instead of going home. And I said yes to most boys. I wanted to belong, to be loved. I didn’t want to be kept.
There is a difference.
What is the most truthful thing I know? I know that emotions are relative. I know that what we feel is often the counterpoint to our condition. Anger is often a frustration with our own inadequacies or failures. Jealousy a symptom of an undiscovered insecurity. And love… Love is most often a lifesaver thrown from a ship barely afloat. But we clutch to it, and draw ourselves in, and climb aboard wondering how we lucked upon such a yacht.
I say that because people can’t usually tell the difference between miserable and slightly less miserable. But we all see true love. We see the couple that inspires the rest of us to try, try again.
I’m pretty sure I have something special with Harlan. But there is a “but.” But… He has a child. But… He has a woman he loves. But… We’re traveling thousands of miles to see if they’re still alive. But……… I’m…. Me.
I don’t drink with him because I’m afraid, not of what I might say. God, I spend nights fantasizing about the moment my tongue breaks free of its prison. No, I don’t drink because I don’t trust my hand to stop holding his. I don’t trust myself because… After everything… I want to be held closer than what he dares.
Should that happen, well… Maybe I’m misguided. I know the chances of his woman, his family being alive are pretty slim. But I know HIM. I know that part of what drives him is his honor, however misguided. I know that he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself should he have to step in as a father and cast me aside. So I content myself with fingers that find each other for an all too brief a time. Fingers that speak more words that I have in all the years I have been alive. Hands clasped and the callous of his index finger caressing my knuckle before he jogs off to do whatever job he has assigned himself. Before he makes himself be alone.
I don’t know if I’m in love with him. But I do know I wouldn’t love him if he wasn’t doing the asinine things he’s doing.
What is the most truthful thing I know?
I know I’m no good for him. But I’m trying.
I stare into the fire as Harlan moves away, the warmth somehow carried with him and the sounds in the room fading away.
My eyes close.
I’m in a bookstore. I can’t afford these books, but I come here and I sit in the middle of an empty aisle and I read and the employees don’t care. I sit and read and get to imagine myself in a life better than the one I live.
Not this one…
A man peruses the books overhead and I shuffle backwards to give him space.
“You like fantasy? Or science fiction?”
And he smiles at me. And I don’t say a word. But I see him again. And he reads the same things I do.
And then comes the day he offers to give me a ride…
At least Harlan had the end of the world to blame for illicit trust. I was just lonely. And I paid dear for it.
“Why are you holding your knife?”
Theo’s gentle voice. Theo. My brother. And I open my eyes and look at him. Let him know I’m home, I guess.
“Just…”
He stops me before I can finish though I don’t know what I was going to say. Just thinking? Just remembering? Just…
“My Momma used to read Tarot.”
I smile in spite of myself. Theo always speaks as if you should understand his mind without knowing the backstory. As if a sentence can explain a constellation.
“Okay.”
“Nah, for real though. She could read cards. She’d always tell me I was a protector and a healer. Not something you want to hear as a man, ya know?”
He scratches his patchy beard, eying the knife I still hold.
“I was a linebacker in football. Only job was to stop the run or get the quarterback. I loved it.” He pauses. “I didn’t really think about it until now. But… I was so used to thinking I wanted to hurt somebody that it took killing to teach me that it sucks. Jesus, that’s a poor way of putting it.”
He shakes his head and steps forward and somehow, gently and gracefully for a big man, takes t
he knife from me.
“My momma told me I was a new soul. She said I had to pay attention to those who’d been around longer.”
He flips the knife and unceremoniously puts it back in my right boot, right where I keep it. “I’m paying attention, my friend. Just talk to me.”
I close my eyes and I’m in a room above a garage. Alone. A pair of manacles keeps me confined to a bed. Every wall is white but for the wall directly in front of me. That has chains. And blood. And—
“Time to go, guys.”
Sheila stands at the door and I take in a deep breath, bring myself back. I force my eyes open, a habit I’m used to now. Theo doesn’t look up. He doesn’t move. He just gives me a smile.
“I’m here for you warrior woman.”
I love words. I think had he said “Beryl,” or “sister,” it wouldn’t have meant anything. But he reminds me that I’m fighting, and winning, and he sees it. Small things. Small things. Small strides every day.
HARLAN | 26
JESSICA LIKED CATS. Growing up on a ranch she was around her fair share of animals; horses, cattle, pigs, dogs. And she loved them all. But the cat, Leonard, was her favorite. An orange ball of fur that was absolutely fearless. The dogs knew not to mess with him. Birds learned that this stretch of land was not to be nested on.
I remember watching him wait on a fencepost until a horse wandered near. He would leap onto their back and survey the field, a general in command, until he got too sleepy. And then he would curl up and take a snooze, a sunbathing passenger that the horses never seemed to mind.
Leonard had a habit of bringing bloody little gifts of birds and mice and leaving them in Jessica’s bed. An offering, of sorts. Or a way to remind me who was the provider in this particular relationship.
I loathed him.
He wouldn’t bother Jessica’s dad, who tolerated him. He didn’t bother any of her friends, who usually wanted to pet him or play with him. No, as only cats do, he sought out the one person in the room who wanted nothing to do with him, and then would display an affection that bordered on violent. Purrs and head-butts followed by an attack to the hand. Every time I visited that ranch, he tracked me down. I tolerated him, partly because I honestly couldn’t think of anything, short of hurting him, that would keep him away. And because it made Jessica laugh so hard to see her cat crawling all over me. It was worth it for her laugh. But dammit if that feline didn’t dog my steps.
Brody seems to have a similar habit.
I do not dislike him. How could I? I barely know him. But I do not want to be around a child. I do not wish to go outside and make snowmen, or read him a story, or listen to him tell me about his toy trucks.
I don’t want to, in any way shape or form, be a dad for someone. Not a male figure of any kind. Not an uncle, brother, or even a friend. Not while I’m not there for my own. Not after I…
But the more I pull away, the more I ignore him, the more important it becomes, it seems, for him to get my attention.
Everyone tries to run interference. And for awhile he’s content being tossed around in the snow by Theo. Even Sheila offered to read to him after his second attempt to climb onto my lap was rebuffed. That lasted until she said, “this is what kids fucking read?”
Only Momma Kay has no sympathy for me.
“To distrust people is one thing. To distrust a child is another.”
“I don’t distrust him.”
She levels me with a stare over her teacup. “Perhaps that’s the wrong word. But you hide yourself from him. I think that’s worse. Whatever you’ve seen, or done, or look ahead to…” She trailed off, as if afraid to say it. “You’re not a bad person, Har, anyone can see that. But hiding the good parts of yourself, that I take exception to.”
A good talk. But I’m too ensconced in my own darkness. Locked into the winter of my choice.
I’m all too happy to work. To take sentry duty when I can. Though volunteering for others apparently means, at least to Felicia, that I am disdainful of their abilities. The women who let me take their turn were given a lecture the next day, so I stopped.
I haul up buckets of snow to be melted for water. I clean. I help in the kitchen. I bring in firewood and I burn it. But everywhere I go I catch a glimpse of a boy trailing behind me.
There’s not enough work in the world for me to do.
Today I am upstairs in bed. Alone. I have been able to nap in spots during the day. Times when there isn’t too much darkness, and there isn’t a deep silence. When I can hear the others speaking below, the clatter of dishes, the slam of doors. When the wind howls through the walls. When there isn’t a stillness… Then I can relax. For the house is too alive for me to drift off into a sleep deep enough for dreams.
Beryl was talking with CD when I slipped off upstairs, and she let him hold her hand, and I was happy for her. I was happy that she was lowering her walls, somewhat. And I couldn’t be mad that she wasn’t with me because she always gives me a look when I come up here, the question in her eyes. And I shook my head no, I wanted to be alone.
I don’t know if that’s what I want or not. I don’t need more time in my head. But I also can’t stand to pretend that I’m okay.
Jessica used to take me down to the lake when we were bored, or hot and tired after a long day of work. Or just because. I think the lake was something that united us. Always, always, that was the place I knew I could find her, and vice versa.
“You know how to slit the devil’s throat?” She asked me once. I had never heard of it. “It’s when you take a smooth, thin rock, and if you throw it in the air, just perfectly, it doesn’t make any sound when it enters the water.” She tossed a rock, it slowly rotating into the air before it sliced into the water with barely any sound. “It doesn’t splash, either. That’s slitting the devil’s throat.”
A splash was made. But no one here saw it. Only I know the sharp stone that drifts slowly downwards into the deep regions of my heart. Only I know of the throat that was cut.
“Do you want to see what Sam made me?”
I hadn’t heard the boy. He is sitting in the corner, clutching a wooden figurine daubed with simple paints. He doesn’t seem to care that I’m in bed. Or that I had been trying to sleep. As soon as I turn he holds it out to me. “It’s me when I grow up.”
I don’t take it until it becomes clear that he won’t stop holding it out to me until I examine it. I grip it, turning it over in my hands. A blue coat and grey pants and black shoes. It looks more like a union soldier from the Civil War than anything, but I don’t tell him that. I hand it back to him.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
“You can play with it if you want?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to, thank you.”
“I have other toys. Do you like tigers?”
Yes.
“I don’t… I don’t wanna play.”
He nods as if he understands. He walks the figurine across the floor, then makes him jump up onto his crossed knees, shuffling him forward with some sort of swagger.
“What’s wrong?”
The question catches me by surprise. “What do you mean?”
“You’re sad.”
I don’t know how to respond. I can’t, at the moment. I can’t because suddenly I see myself through this little boy’s eyes and it’s… horrible.
There are steps on the stairs and then Jane’s head peeks around the corner of my door. She blushes when she sees me in the bed, her hands finding piercings on her face to adjust, rings on her fingers to twist. “Sorry, I was… Brody!”
He grins up at her and keeps playing with his soldier. “It took you a really long time.”
“Get out here! Now!”
He smiles up at her, shaking his doll as if it too is laughing. She reddens more as she enters the room, an attempt to bodily usher Brody out failing as he thinks she’s playing. She casts me a rueful look. “I’m sorry. We were playing hide and seek.”
&
nbsp; “I’m the best looker,” Brody proclaims, suddenly serious. “I find everyone. I’ve even found tools Uncle Sam has lost.”
Jane heaves a sigh. “You didn’t win this one, you cheated. You know you’re not supposed to be…” A guilty glance thrown my way.
“Supped what?” he asks, all seriousness.
“You aren’t supposed to use this room when Harlan is in here. He is trying to sleep,” she finishes lamely.
“I still don’t unnerstan’ why.”
She grabs him by the hand and drags him out, desperate to keep the situation from getting more awkward.
The boy is a rock thrown into my lake. No one can see the splash, but I feel as if my throat has been cut.
BERYL | 27
THE ORDEAL AT the compound did something to Harlan. Which was to be expected, I suppose. And at first I thought his silence, his distance, was also a by-product of the extreme exhaustion we suffered from just getting to the ranch. Coupled with a new environment in which he was commanded to exist in the background, to follow orders… I thought he was doing his best to play nicely.
But there are the nightmares.
I don’t think the others are aware of them. Nothing loud, not a thrashing of sheets or the spasms of someone in a fight. Quiet terror, in which his body curls up, hands clasped white-knuckle tight in front of his chest as if he were begging.
When awake he is still our Harlan. At least overtly. Helping with jobs, quietly checking in on his people. Our people. Asking Karen questions about the logistics of the ranch. Sharing small stories from his own part of Montana.
But the bags are there beneath his eyes.
Perhaps, I thought, it was guilt that was haunting him. The closer we get to his home the more he hates himself for the bond forged between us. That plays far too well into my own nightmares. So I have indulged in this self-pity, for far too long, and I didn’t notice just how poorly he was doing.
He has taken to staying up late, the witching hour sentry duty belongs to him, and him only. That Momma Kay often keeps him company, their mugs of tea left out on the table each morning, does little to ease my concern.