by Jeff Zentner
Dr. Blankenship hired a private grief counselor to come to their house to meet with Lydia and Dill. After one of their meetings, Lydia and Dill set out the few blocks to Riverbank Books. It was warm, and the sickly sweet rot from winter’s thaw and a coming storm perfumed the air.
“Are these meetings helping you?” Lydia asked. Dill looked gutted and spectral. Sleep-deprived. His eyes had retreated into his skull. He seemed much, much older than he was.
“A little bit. More than if we weren’t having them, I guess.”
They walked for a while in silence.
“Lydia?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I’m the reason Travis is dead? Like my name is so poisonous that bad stuff happens to anyone who gets close to it?”
“No, Dill. I do not think that. Not even a little bit. I take it you do?”
“Sometimes.”
“I want you to stop, then. Right now.”
They passed budding trees shading lush green lawns behind black wrought-iron fences. Crocuses, daffodils, pansies, and hyacinths sprouted from beds. Whirring, humming life everywhere.
Lydia tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “How’s…the darkness?”
On cue, the faraway peal of thunder.
“You planned that,” Dill said, with a faint smile.
Even that cheered her heart for a moment. “You overestimate my abilities, but only slightly. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“It’s there.”
“You remember your promise?”
“Yes.”
They got to Riverbank and entered, the doorbell jangling. Mr. Burson didn’t look up from his book as he stroked a cat.
“Welcome, welcome, make yourself at home, browse at your leisure. We’re not a library, but feel free to pull up a chair and read as if we are.”
Then he saw Lydia and Dill. His face fell. “Oh. Oh dear,” he murmured, putting down his book. “I’m—I’m so sorry. I was devastated to hear of Travis’s passing. He was a wonderful young man.”
“Yes, he was,” Lydia said.
“How could anyone do what those men did? To kill a boy over money.” He stared off. His jowls quivered as he shook his head. “We are a fallen species, spitting on the gift of salvation. Humanity is irredeemable.”
“We came to pick up Travis’s special order of Deathstorm,” Dill said.
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Mr. Burson sounded hollow and distant. He got off his stool and waddled to his stock room. He returned a moment later, hefting the thick book. “I wish he’d gotten to read this. I don’t have anyone left anymore to talk about Bloodfall with.”
Lydia pulled her wallet out of her bag. Mr. Burson raised his hand. “Are you doing with this what I think you’ll be doing?”
“Yes,” Lydia said.
“Then take it. It’s on me. I hate that I missed Travis’s funeral. I was on a book-buying trip to Johnson City.”
“That’s sweet,” Lydia said. “But Travis loved this store and would have wanted to support it. So please let him support it this last time.”
Mr. Burson sat still for a moment, contemplating. “I suppose, then,” he said finally.
They paid for the book and went to leave.
“I’m tired of many things,” Mr. Burson said, fighting for composure. They turned. “I’m tired of watching children perish. I’m tired of watching the world grind up gentle people. I’m tired of outliving those I shouldn’t be outliving. I’ve made books my life because they let me escape this world of cruelty and savagery. I needed to say that out loud to somebody other than my cats. Please take care of yourselves, my young friends.”
“We will,” Lydia said. Or at least we’ll try. The world sometimes has different ideas. And they left.
Outside, Dill appeared even more wan and pale than usual under the blackening sky. Something about him seemed ethereal. As if he were disappearing right in front of her. Declining. Diminishing. Eroding. And she was watching it happen—bound and impotent.
They walked to the cemetery to leave Travis his book. The warm wind from the gathering storm blew white blossoms onto the road, where they lay, fallen and lovely.
The grief counselor suggested that he try to channel his grief through writing songs. So he tried. He sat on the couch, with an almost-blank page in front of him. The music felt buried in him. He strummed listlessly. The same chord over and over. He banged away in frustration, as though he could knock the music in him loose. As though he could disinter it by force.
One of his strings snapped with a scraping, rattling sproink. He hadn’t changed them since the talent competition. He stared at the broken string blankly for a moment before tossing his guitar onto the couch beside him. He leaned back and stared out the window at the darkening twilit sky. He thought about texting Lydia but it seemed like too much work. Plus, I guess I need to get used to her not being around on nights like this.
Instead he sat and tried to visualize his life in a year. He tried to envision being happy or hopeful about anything. He tried to imagine feeling any color but muted gray. He did this for a while before he decided he might as well go to bed, where he at least stood a chance of not dreaming about anything.
As he stood, he saw a car pull up to his house. It was Travis’s mom’s Ford. He watched as Mrs. Bohannon got out and walked unsteadily up to the house, clutching her coat around her, looking from side to side.
Dill couldn’t remember Mrs. Bohannon ever coming by. This was strange.
He turned on the porch light and opened the door before she had a chance to knock. She stood in the open doorway, her mouth slightly agape, as though Dill had robbed her of the last few seconds she needed to figure out what she’d say.
“Dill.”
“Hey, Mrs. Bohannon. Do you…wanna come in?”
She smiled awkwardly. Unconvincingly. She looked like she was wearing a lot of makeup—more than usual—and her eyes were red. “Could I? Is your mom here?”
Dill stepped aside and motioned for her to enter. “She’s still at work. She won’t be home for a half hour or so. Did you want to see her?”
Mrs. Bohannon stepped inside and smoothed her hair as Dill closed the door behind her. “No—no, actually it was you I came to see.”
“Oh. Okay. You wanna sit down?” Dill hurried to the couch and moved his guitar.
“Maybe just for a minute. I really can’t stay long.” She sat down and took a deep breath. “How are you, Dill?”
“I’m…” Dill started to say that he was okay. But he couldn’t. There was something in Mrs. Bohannon’s eyes that was too raw and wounded to lie to. “I’m not okay. I’m not good. I haven’t been good for…since Travis.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She gazed off while she blinked fast. She looked back at Dill. “Me neither. I just needed to talk to someone tonight who knew him. And I wanted to see how you were. And I wanted to thank you again for being such a good friend to him. I know he didn’t have very many friends. Children are cruel to people who are different, and he was different. I’m rambling. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Dill began to choke up.
Mrs. Bohannon let out an involuntary sob and covered her mouth. “I did the best I could to be a good mother to him.”
“I know. He said you were a good mother.”
She bowed her head and covered her eyes with her hand while she gathered herself. When she lifted her head, mascara ran in inky streaks down her face. “One time—Travis must have been about six—we drove to visit my sister in Louisville. And we passed a shoe lying on the highway. Travis goes ‘Mama, won’t that shoe be lonely?’ He got himself so worked up about it, he started to cry. Well, of course Clint and Matt thought that was just the funniest thing they’d ever heard. They laughed and laughed. Not in an ugly way. Clint was nicer then. They just didn’t understand. But that was my Travis. I have so many stories like that living in me.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped her eyes.
; “That sounds like Travis.”
“I always thought Matt was the brave and strong one and Travis was the sweet and gentle one. In the end, it turned out that Travis was sweet, gentle, brave, and strong.” She paused. “But they’re both gone now. I’m not a mother anymore.”
Dill and Mrs. Bohannon gazed at each other silently. Then they hugged for what seemed like an hour while they both cried some more.
Mrs. Bohannon took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. She glanced at her watch. “I’d better go. Thank you, Dill. For tonight. And for everything. I figure this is where Travis stayed for the time that—”
Dill nodded. “You’re welcome.” He walked her to the door.
Mrs. Bohannon started down the front walk. In the porch light, Dill noticed that her car was filled haphazardly with bags, clothes, and belongings. And he understood.
“Mrs. Bohannon?”
She turned, tears streaming down her face.
“I’m not going to see you again, am I?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Then there’s something you need.” Dill went back inside, went to his room, and grabbed Travis’s staff.
Mrs. Bohannon was still wiping away tears when he got back outside. Enough of her makeup had smeared away that he could see the bruises.
He handed her Travis’s staff. She hefted it and smiled through her tears. She tried to thank him, but she couldn’t speak. She touched his face and then put her hand over her heart.
“Good luck, Mrs. Bohannon.”
“Thank you, Dill,” she whispered. “Good luck to you too.” She carefully laid the staff across the front passenger seat, got in, and drove away.
Dill lay awake that night, thinking about exits and escape from pain. He envied Mrs. Bohannon.
The next morning, Dill couldn’t get out of bed. Not that he tried.
He heard the knock at his door, but he couldn’t summon the energy to speak. A moment or two later, his mother pushed her way in.
“Dillard?”
“What?”
“Why aren’t you up yet? You have school.”
“I’m not going today.”
“Are you sick?”
“I just don’t feel like going.”
“You should go.”
“Why? What do you care? You didn’t even want me to go this year.” He rolled onto his side, facing away from her.
She came and sat on the edge of his bed. “No, I didn’t. But you insisted. You committed. So I want you to honor your commitment. We honor commitments in this house. We’re not rich but we have our word.”
“Not today. Today’s a bad day for honoring anything.”
Her voice became uncharacteristically gentle. “Is this about Travis?”
Dill rolled onto his back to look up at her. “No, it’s about my life. And Travis is part of that sad story. People leave me. It’s what they do.”
“Not Jesus. He’s always with you. We’re too blessed to be depressed.”
Dill laughed bitterly. “Oh yeah. Blessed is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of our life.”
“I know. We have trials. Don’t think I haven’t asked God, ‘Why me?’ But the answer is always the same. Why not me? Why should my life be free from pain and suffering when Christ suffered all things for us?”
“I’m glad that works for you.”
“I’m worried about you, Dillard. More than I’ve ever been. I’ve never seen you like this, even when your father got taken from us.”
Dill said nothing in response.
“Imagine how things’d be for us if I just decided not to get out of bed one day,” his mother said.
“I wouldn’t blame you. Maybe neither of us has much reason to get out of bed.”
His mother was quiet for a moment. “I get out of bed every day because I never know where I’ll meet with one of God’s small graces. Maybe I’ll be cleaning a room and find a dollar bill. Maybe I’ll be at the gas station on a slow night, and I’ll get to sit and be paid to watch the sun set. Or maybe I just won’t hurt much that day. What a miracle each day is. To see the spirit of God move across the face of our lives like he did the waters in the darkness of creation.”
“God’s abandoned me.”
“He hasn’t. I promise.”
“Today he has.”
“Will you pray with me, Dillard?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll pray for both of us.”
“You do that.”
“Jesus knows our sorrows. He tasted them. He drank from the bitter cup.”
“Then he knows already that I’m not getting out of bed today.”
Lydia sat in her car and tried calling Dill again. It was her fifth unsuccessful attempt. She shook her head and stared at Dill’s ramshackle house, looking for movement inside. Nothing. His mother’s car was gone. But the house didn’t feel empty to her. She looked at her watch. School started in fifteen minutes.
Where are you, Dill? Somehow I doubt you decided to get up bright and early and walk to school.
She sighed, started her car, and went to put it in gear. Then she abruptly stopped.
Maybe another time. Maybe I’d just drive away. Catch up with Dill tomorrow. Maybe chew his ass out for making me come to his house for nothing. But these aren’t normal times. You were oblivious while Travis’s dad was knocking his front teeth out. You’re not going to let Dill bleed to death or choke on his own vomit in there.
Her heart beating fast, she got out and walked quickly to Dill’s front door. She knocked and listened for some sign of life. Nothing. She pounded again, louder. Still nothing. She turned and started to walk back to her car.
These aren’t normal times. These aren’t normal times.
Her heart pulsed. She steeled herself and turned back. She looked from side to side at the neighbors’ unfortunate, decaying houses. It seemed unlikely that their inhabitants would care much if someone waltzed uninvited into the Early home.
She tried the loose, rattling doorknob. It turned and the front door creaked open. A puff of air smelling of mildewed carpet and stale bread hit her nostrils.
This is what despair smells like. She had never been inside Dill’s house. He’d never invited her in. In fact, he’d always taken great pains to ensure that she never even saw inside. It was easy to understand why. It was worse than she imagined—not that she ever particularly enjoyed imagining how Dill lived.
“Dill?” she called. Her voice died, muffled in the closeness of Dill’s sagging, dusty living room. She stepped inside, picking her way along in the gray light, as though the floor might collapse beneath her feet.
“Dill?” She looked into a spartan bedroom with a neatly made bed, a cross-stitch with a Bible verse above the bed, a Bible on the nightstand, and almost nothing else.
She turned to the closed door behind her, the floor creaking. She heard a buzzing in her ears. Her insides burned with adrenaline. She felt acid fear in the back of her throat. Cold panic rising.
She reached out, hesitated, and knocked softly. “Dill? Hey, dude. School. Dill?” Silence. She tried to sound casual and brave. “Hey, Dill, if you’re in there cranking it, you better stop, because I’m coming in. And that would be very awkward for both of us.” Silence.
Please. Please. Please. Just be okay in there. Please. You cannot die in this awful place.
She turned the doorknob and pushed. The door fell on its broken hinge and caught on the carpet. “Dill?” Lydia pushed a couple of times before she figured out that she needed to lift the door by the knob while pushing.
She looked around in the gloom. A bit of light crept in around the edges of the closed blinds, illuminating the shape in the bed. Dill lay shirtless and still, his back to the door. Lydia could see every bone in his back. He looked so small. Lydia’s heart rate slowed a bit when she saw him breathe.
“Dill?” She slowly approached, catching herself as she almost tripped on one of Dill’s boots. She sat on a corner of the bed bes
ide him, reached out, and gingerly touched his shoulder. He felt warm. That was good.
“What,” Dill said. His voice was stony and lackluster.
“I was worried about you. I am worried about you. You okay?”
Dill kept staring at the opposite wall. “Never better.”
Lydia forced a laugh. “Ask a dumb question, right?”
“Yeah.”
Lydia looked around the room as her eyes adjusted to the dark. Dill’s few clothes—the ones she had helped pick out—lay strewn on the floor and hanging from half-open dresser drawers. A layer of wadded-up balls of paper, maybe torn from one of Dill’s songwriting notebooks, covered the floor. His guitar leaned haphazardly in the corner, one of the strings broken and dangling.
Step one: get Dill to leave this room, because it’s making me want to kill myself and I’m only moderately depressed.
Lydia touched his shoulder again and shook him slightly. “Hey. Hey. Let’s go somewhere. Doesn’t have to be school. Let’s ditch and go watch trains or go to the Column or something.”
“No.”
“Let’s go on a road trip somewhere. Where do you wanna go? Nashville? Atlanta? Let’s go to Memphis and go see Graceland.”
“No.”
“Okay, you suggest something.”
“Lay here.”
“That’s kind of a bummer of a party.”
“Yeah, probably.”
This isn’t going anywhere. Lydia rested her hand on Dill’s shoulder while she considered her next move.
“I saw Travis’s mom last night,” Dill said.
“How’s she holding up?”
“Not good. She was leaving.”
“Like…leaving leaving?”
“Yeah.”
“But not with Travis’s gross dad.”
“Nope.”
“Wow. Good for her. Did she say where she was going?”
“Nope. And I didn’t ask. I sent Travis’s staff with her.”
“Good.”
Another long silence while the house creaked and popped around them.