by Beth Vrabel
“It’s okay,” I whispered to it, because it hopped toward me again as I stood to leave. “Your family is here.” This time I knew I wasn’t imagining the rustle of wings I heard in the tree above me. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to them, too. “I’m sorry.”
I bolted down the narrow trail to the stream. This time I didn’t fall as I rushed across the ankle-deep water. At the other side, I sprinted toward my house. How much time had passed? A glance at the time on my phone told me it was less than ten minutes. Could that be true?
Outside my bedroom, I realized pulling myself into a window was going to be much harder than crawling out. I tried to lift myself up to the window’s ledge but I never could do a pull-up. I scrambled, my feet hitting the house as I tried to find traction to kick up and over the stupid ledge. Just when I slipped backward, an arm darted out, the hand wrapping just behind my elbow and yanking me into my bedroom, where I fell with a thud onto the carpet.
I jumped to my feet to see Derek standing in front of me. Derek flashed a quick grim smile and his eyes dropped down to my bare, wet feet. Then he stepped aside and I saw Mom standing in the doorway, the bobby pin she had used to pop open the door in her hand.
“Where in the world have you been, Caleb?” Mom yelled. Her face was scary red except for her tight white lips. “The vest machine ran for more than ten straight minutes without you stopping to cough. I knocked on the door—no answer. Turned the handle on a locked door. Caleb!” She rushed forward, grabbing me by fistfuls of T-shirt. Her eyes were wet and huge. “Do you know what I thought? Do you have any idea what I thought happened in here, to you alone while I’m out there laughing?” Mom shook so hard her hands ricocheted off my collarbone like a heartbeat. She crushed me against her, releasing her grip on my shirt and pulling me against her, tears scalding my neck. “Don’t you leave like that, Caleb. Don’t you ever leave like that!”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
Mom dropped her arms just as quickly as she had grabbed hold of me. Now she pushed me back to stare at my face. “Where were you? What were you doing? What were you thinking?”
My throat dried up. I couldn’t make a single sound, not a single explanation could come to the surface.
Behind me, Derek shuffled. “I’m—I’m going to head out. ’Night, Steph. Caleb.” I didn’t look away from Mom and she didn’t glance over at Derek as he stepped around us to the door. “’Night, Patrick,” he said as he passed my brother lurking just outside the door.
“Answer me, Caleb!” Mom kind of shook my shoulders. “Where were you?”
I stared down at my dirty toes.
“He was outside,” Patrick said from the hallway. “I saw him crawling out of his window from my bedroom.”
I glared over at my perfect brother. But my death stare had nothing on Mom’s. “You saw him,” she repeated, “but you didn’t say anything to me? Patrick!”
Patrick didn’t look at me or Mom. “You’re making too big a deal out of it, Mom. He was just out there, throwing marshmallow pieces to bats.”
I gulped, fighting to keep my face smooth. Did my brother just cover for me? My voice shook with the lie when I said, “I wanted to try feeding them, but I didn’t want you guys to make fun of me.”
Mom stared hard at my face for a full minute. I tried not to squirm. At last, she let go of my shoulders. “You can’t lie to me, Caleb. We don’t do that. We don’t lie to each other in this house.” Anymore. I could read the words she left unsaid in the thick air between us. Not since Dad left.
Mom got to her feet, smoothed her hands along her pants, and sighed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to call Derek and apologize for my son’s rudeness. It’s becoming a bit of a habit, actually. One that stops today.”
I stopped Patrick as he walked back to his room. “Why’d you cover for me?” I asked.
Patrick stared at me, his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t actually see you leave. I would’ve told on you if I had. I’m not sure why I’m covering for you now, to tell you the truth. But don’t make me regret it.” He crossed his arms. “Whatever’s going on—whatever you’re lying about or hiding—you better stop. It’s not just the lying, either. You skipped out on a treatment.”
He glanced over to where Mom and I had been a moment earlier. Maybe he felt some of the slap from her stinging words, too.
Saturday morning, Mom woke me way too early. It had taken me forever to fall asleep—my mind was full of winged girls morphing into wolves, birds with sharpened talons and beaks, stream water pouring over my nose. “Come on, Caleb,” she said, her voice brisk as the shake she gave my shoulder. “Wake up.”
I groaned into my pillow. “Why?” I yelled, even as I sat up and shrugged on the vest. I clicked on the movie, picking back up where Captain America watches Bucky fall from the train.
Mom checked the machine and tossed a tissue box next to me. “As soon as you’re done, I want you in the living room. Do you understand?”
“Why?” I grumbled through the nebulizer mask. “Can’t I just go back to sleep?”
“No,” Mom said. She stepped toward the door, started to close it, then seemed to change her mind. She opened it wider instead. “We’re having a family meeting.”
“What?” I moaned.
At the same time, I heard another, deeper voice drift down the hall from the kitchen. “Where the heck is the sugar?” Awesome. Dad was here, too.
I stretched out the vest treatment as long as I could, huffing for a full five minutes after the machine ran for five, then doing it again. I went an extra five after that, too. When I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer, I brushed my teeth and ventured down the hall to where Mom and Dad waited. Both sat in armchairs on either side of the couch. When Dad left, he took the chairs we had. These were new ones, covered in flowers and stiff material. Mom looked like she perched on the edge of a throne. Dad just looked uncomfortable and annoyed.
“Your father and I have been discussing some recent issues we’ve had with you,” Mom began the moment I sat down on the couch between them. “We’ve seen a tremendous shift in your attitude and behavior since school let out this year.”
My head pounded. I let it fall back to the top of the couch as Mom continued. “You’re short-tempered and rude, mean to your brother, and I heard that you were unkind to Kristie.”
“Unkind?” Dad snorted. “He hacked in her face. She threw up for an hour afterward!”
I glanced at Mom, whose mouth was awfully twitchy. She looked away and when she turned back, her face was stern again. “Right, and that stunt you pulled last night—sneaking out of your window—we can’t let this continue.” She took a deep breath. “Is there something you’d like to talk about? There have been a lot of… changes recently.” She glanced at Dad.
I rolled my eyes. Of course they’d want to blame Kristie’s baby or Derek, to make it about them. “Believe it or not, Mom, I do what I want.”
Mom’s eyes narrowed. “This. This right here. This is the attitude to which I’m referring.”
“Pull yourself together, kid,” Dad said, and he leaned forward so his elbows were on his knees. “Life’s not going to go the way you want, but you can’t go around making everyone else miserable!”
This time I was the one who snorted.
“What?” Dad barked.
“Life isn’t going to go the way I want? Really. That’s one way to put CF.”
Dad threw his arms up, waving them out like he was fanning away smoke. “I can’t handle the drama with this one.”
Mom’s lips twisted. “Caleb, I feel”—she cleared her throat—“we feel something must’ve happened to trigger this.”
“But it’s time to grow up!” Dad crossed his arms.
“That would be nice,” I snapped without thinking. Mom reared back as if shoved.
“Caleb!” she gasped while Dad groaned. “Caleb, do you need someone to talk with? Between the divorce, the new”—she swallowed as if the next word was a piece of
taffy lodged in her throat—“baby, we understand you might need help sorting your feelings.”
Dad rolled his eyes. “What he needs is to toughen up. Deal with what’s around him and stop making everyone else cater to him.”
Mom scooted to the edge of her chair, making me focus on her instead of him. “We can discuss having you see a therapist if you think that’d help, honey.”
“Sure, my health insurance isn’t saddled enough,” Dad muttered. He, too, scooted forward. “Caleb, listen to me. You’re old enough to understand that you are not the center of the universe. Man up. Your brother never had any trouble being a decent human being. Time for you to do the same.”
Mom crossed her arms. “What your father is trying to say, I think, is that we love you. We’re worried about you. But we can’t allow you to continue being unkind and deceitful. Things like sneaking outside. Like mouthing off. Like lying. These things have to stop. How can we help you?”
“Steph, we don’t need to help him. He needs to do it.”
“George,” Mom said, mimicking Dad’s tone, “he is a child. It’s our job to help him.”
“And he’s always going to be a child if he never has to do anything on his own.” Dad’s face flushed. He lounged back on the stiff chair. If a mic had been in his hand, I was sure he would’ve dropped it.
“Yes, he’s always going to be my child, and I’ll parent him as I see fit.” Mom stood. “You may leave now. I’m sure Kristie is in need of some of your stellar parenting insight.” Mic drop, Mom.
But Dad didn’t go, of course—too busy trying to come up with a better one-liner. This could go on for hours. I slunk down the hall and fell back asleep before they realized I had left.
Okay. Here’s the truth.
I never saved the first baby bird.
I left it on the sidewalk.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sunday morning, Mom woke me up early. Again.
“Why?” I bellowed into my pillow. “Why?”
“We’re going to church,” she said. I opened my eyes at that. My family, we’re not church-going people. Mom prayed a lot—Hail, Marys mostly, and usually when she’s driving on four-lane highways or through snowstorms—and I have pictures from my baptism, but other than that, we just didn’t go to church much.
“Why?” I asked again, this time sitting up in the bed.
Mom pushed clothes around in my closet. “Do you have any pants with a zipper?” she asked.
“No,” I replied. I tended to go for elastic waist. “Comfort trumps fashion any day of the week.”
“Not on Sundays. Not at church,” Mom replied. “I’ll find something of Patrick’s for you to borrow.”
“Awesome.” I snapped my vest into place.
A half hour later, I shoveled scrambled eggs into my mouth with a paper towel shoved around my too-loose collared shirt and baggy khakis. Patrick’s clothes, even the ones from when he was my age, were enormous. “I look like a little kid playing dress-up,” I muttered around the eggs while Mom told me to hurry, hurry, hurry.
“We’re going to be late!”
“Then let’s not go.” I unbuttoned the first button on the shirt.
“We’re going.” Mom took the plate from me and handed me a banana. “You can eat this in the car.”
“Let me grab my sneakers.” I groaned. And then I remembered: My sneakers! I was so stupid! My sneakers were still by the stream. I had spent all day Saturday lying around, never putting on shoes or even looking for them. But I had left my shoes—the only shoes that fit me—on the shore of the stream when I had run away to Kit’s house on Friday night!
“You are not wearing sneakers to church.” Mom crossed her arms.
“Okay,” I said. Her mouth popped open. She closed it. It popped open again.
“Okay,” she said back.
“Does Patrick have an old pair of shoes I can borrow, too? My sneakers are the only shoes that fit.”
Mom nodded. Two minutes later, she was shoving newspaper into the toes of Patrick’s old oxfords, ones he had to wear for his orchestra concerts, and my clown costume was complete. I put on the shoes without pointing out that they slipped off my ankles every time I took a step despite the newspaper. “Glad to see our discussion yesterday has had an impact,” Mom said when we loaded into the car.
I didn’t answer.
We didn’t talk too much after church. Derek was there; it was his church, apparently. I tried not to let that annoy me too much. I stood next to him in the pew, taking cues from him on when to sit and stand. At one point, we even had to kneel with our hands clasped in front of us. It was like I was acting out a role in a skit. I played the part of a contrite kid learning to pray.
Derek leaned toward me and whispered, “My mom used to tell me angels danced on the tips of my fingers when I held them like that.”
“That’s kind of creepy,” I said without thinking.
Derek laughed into his clasped hands, his big shoulders quaking with the silent chuckles. “That’s what I always thought, too.” He lowered his voice further when the person in front of us turned around with raised eyebrows. “I used to sit so stiff, not wanting an angel to trip and fall because I couldn’t be still. Wasn’t until I was a teenager that I figured out that had been Ma’s intent all along.”
“She told you that so you’d sit still?” I whispered back.
Derek nodded, his eyes still laughing at the corners. “Worked, too. Most stories we tell kids, it’s just because we want them to do something. Not wander off in the woods, never take the easy way out, don’t trust strangers.”
“Sit still in church,” I added.
Derek nodded. “She might’ve believed it, though. I was pretty bummed when I figured it out. Still hope it’s true.” He bumped into my shoulder, making my knee slip off the cushion and my hands dip. “There goes Gabriel!”
I snorted into my hands, both of us cracking up harder when Mom turned her death glare on us.
Even though most of the time I was just going through the motions, the actual being there in church was kind of nice, I guessed. I didn’t point out to Mom that we were, by far, the nicest dressed people there. Most of them, including Derek, wore jeans and T-shirts. The minister, a tall white-haired woman with huge chunky earrings and a soft voice, put her hand over her heart during her sermon. She read a bit by some guy named John and then spoke a lot about peace, about how the path to it is following the quiet voice inside. “This voice will guide you, shake you from the inside out when it knows you’re ignoring it. Follow it, follow this divine instrument, and you will find peace.”
It sounded nice and all, but what if that voice was telling you to do something different all the time? What if you had a couple voices, all lobbying for their own path? A narrow one through the woods or a sidewalk to the park. What did you do then?
I do what I want.
Near the end of the service, you were supposed to shake hands with the people around you and say, “Peace be with you.” But this church was small, so everyone shook hands with everyone. “Peace be with you.” “Peace be with you.” My mind twisted it a couple times into “Piece be with you” and I imagined each person getting a piece of something pressed into their palms. Maybe a piece of a cookie or something. “Piece be with you.”
Maybe a piece of something else, though, too.
I had wanted to go to camp on Monday. Just because it was time, you know? I had to make appearances or this whole gig was up, right? Not because I didn’t want to see Kit. Not because of the crows. Not because of the baby bird or the wild dog or the blue eyes that didn’t mean anything at all.
But my shoes were by the side of the stream.
One more day. One more day with Kit and then I’d do what I promised Patrick—I’d go to camp and follow the rules.
Mom and Patrick rushed to get ready while I tried to hide my bare feet under the table.
“Caleb,” Mom said, “are you okay to get yourself out of the house a
nd off to camp today? I’m going to give Patrick a lift to Dr. Edwards’s office.”
I nodded, trying hard not to smile into my Apple Jacks. “No problem.”
Mom paused in front of the television, which was turned to the local news. “Hey, it’s Mr. McDaniel!”
“Who’s that?” I asked, midbite.
“One of my clients. He was just in for a cleaning last week. Quirky old man, collects everything you can imagine—pens with business logos, toy trucks, pencil sharpeners. He’s most proud of his antique bottle collection, though.”
My head jerked toward the television so fast something popped in my neck. “What?”
“Oh, this is terrible!” Mom clicked up the volume.
The newscaster, the same pretty lady who had talked about the dog, held a microphone under the mouth of an elderly man in a seersucker suit. They stood outside a falling-apart barn that looked horribly familiar. The old man was midsentence: “… store boxes of the old bottles out here, out of the way, like. I came in to get some of my favorites—old green and blue glass—all smashed. Boxes of ’em, just thrown here against the wall.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes from the screen. The newscaster pulled the mic back. “Do you have any idea who would do such a thing—any break-ins in the past?”
The old man shook his head. “No, never. I gotta think whoever done this ain’t all right in the head.”
“What makes you say that, Mr. McDaniel?” the newscaster asked.
“Well, they took a giant dump in the corner, didn’t they?”
Patrick choked on his laugh, Mom gasped, and the newscaster pulled back the mic. “Back to you in the studio, Ron!” Mom clicked off the television.
“How bizarre,” she said, and pulled her purse up her shoulder. No one looked at me. No one suspected me. I forced myself to breathe in and out. “I’ll pick you both up here at about two o’clock—so keep an eye on the time and head home early, Caleb,” Mom said. “Then I’ll take you to get your tux fittings.”