He takes a sip of coffee without breaking eye contact.
“I know why,” I whisper.
I don’t know what’s going to happen to me an hour, a day, a week from now, once I tell him. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Folks don’t do the right thing because it’s easy. They do it because it’s right.
“I figured as much,” he says, his tone even. “I was hoping you’d tell me when you were ready.”
He tilts his head and studies me, and in that gesture, I feel his genuine respect for our time in the Hundred Acre Wood. I let the strange feeling wash over me, enjoying it while I can.
I’m too old to act like a child. I know it now. Too old to play hide-and-seek with what’s important. It’s like the girl I’m going to be finally catches up with the girl I am, right there in Doc Samuels’s waiting room.
I owe it to that girl.
The door busts open, followed by a wave of cold air. Melissa and Jenessa stomp snow from their boots as Nessa turns to me, her eyes red and swollen.
“Where’s Shorty? Is he going to be okay?”
I go to her and hold her close, her body shaking in my arms.
I untangle myself and drop to my knees.
“Look at me,” I say, taking her tear-stained face in my hands. “Shorty’s going to be good as new. They’re keeping him warm and letting him rest after cleaning and sewing his wounds. They have him sedated.”
She looks at me blankly.
“Sedated means ‘calmed down with medicine.’ Like he’s slow and sleepy.”
Nessa laughs, squeezing me so hard, the breath escapes me. Then she runs to our father, who lifts her in his arms and spins her in a circle before sitting back down with her on his lap.
I get up and turn to Melissa, smiling shyly.
“We were thinking you two could take Shorty home. Doc Samuels said he’s ready,” I tell her.
She looks at my father curiously, then back to me. “We could do that.”
I watch her search the office, knowing her well enough by now to know what she needs.
“Coffee is fresh, over there on the table,” I say. I walk over, fill a cup, and take it to her.
“Thank you, Carey.”
I can see Melissa’s SUV out the window, a ribbon of exhaust weaving like a kite tail behind it.
“You left your car on,” I tell her.
“I know. Delaney’s in there. She was worried about Jenessa and wanted to come with us.”
We both look outside. I see Delaney’s foot propped up against the passenger-side window.
“She’s not an early bird.” Melissa laughs, shaking her head. “She’s probably asleep.”
Melissa remembers the coat folded over her arm.
“Here,” she says to my father. “I thought you’d need this.”
It’s his heavy work coat, the one he wears in the barn when he’s tending to the animals at night. It’s perfect, actually, for where we’re going.
Melissa pulls my father’s scarf and hat from inside her coat and hands them to me. They’re both warm and smell like her, like Beautiful, the perfume she wears and had bought for me, too, that day at the mall.
Once my father’s coat is on, I hand him the scarf and hat. Melissa takes the bloodstained coat, the smears dried into rust.
“Where are you two off to?”
I can’t believe the words leave my lips so easily.
“Back to the woods. I left something important behind. We’re going back to get it.”
She looks at my father and he smiles at her, a special smile she sails back to him. It’s a language that reminds me of sisterly braille, or the unspoken bond between Jenessa and Shorty.
“We’ll be back after supper,” he assures her.
Jenessa slides from my father’s lap and shuffles over, her eyes full of question marks.
“Are you sure, Carey? I’d never tell.”
She whispers her words, dry as the rattle of winter leaves, and I ache at the sound of her retreat.
“I’m sure. It’s time,” I reassure her, managing to keep my voice steady. “You stay with Melissa and wait for Shorty. Make sure he stays warm on the drive home.”
Nessa takes my hand in both of hers.
“Are you coming back?”
My heart breaks into new pieces, and her clasp tightens.
“I hope so. I mean, I plan to.”
“Will you play me Brahms’s Lullaby tonight? Instead of Pooh?”
I think of the violin shoved to the back of the closet shelf, how the parting scooped out a piece of my heart, like Melissa’s melon-ball scooper. I’d shunned the violin because music is its own truth; there’s no lying in the playing. Mama is woven into the notes, as are the woods. But I’d overlooked the bigger picture: It’s the best part of Mama. The best part of the woods. The music transcended the dreariness, the hunger, the cold. Just like the truth transcends.
I look into those eyes I know as well as my own—better, even— and once again, I’m tearing up.
“I swear to Saint Joseph—”
“On a hill of beans,” Jenessa says, finishing for me.
“Will you sing if I play?”
My voice breaks, and I “smile through diamonds,” as Jenessa calls it. I think of how, in one day, because of one dog, our whole world has changed. It’s been years since she’s sung for me. I’m not even sure she remembers.
“I remember,” she assures me, her eyes solemn. “I will.”
I walk her over to Melissa, and they stand side by side, watching us leave. My father holds the door open, and with one last look at Jenessa, I walk through it. The leather strip of sleigh bells rings from the door handle, quite merry for the moment at hand.
Ness leans against Melissa’s body, encircled by her arms.
I wave at them through the glass and Ness waves back tentatively, but like I told her, and more sure than I’ve ever been about anything, it’s time.
We walk past the SUV. My father sees Delaney and pantomimes writing, mouthing the words lit test to her. She scowls at him. I catch and hold her gaze through the window glass. Her eyes are still worried, and not just for Shorty.
But I gave my word. Pinkie promise. Anyway, I don’t want to be the kind of person associated with fear. I know fear too well, and I know its power. I don’t want that kind of power. Not over Delaney or anyone else.
As I pass, I make a motion of locking my lips and throwing away the key—throwing her the key. We’re sisters, whether she likes it or not.
I climb into the truck, with her eyes still on me. She flicks me a smile—the same smile from last night as she admired the photograph Ryan took of me.
I can only imagine those same eyes tonight, once she, like everyone else, knows the truth.
Part III
THE BEGINNING
You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them, sometimes.
—PIGLET, FROM POOHS LITTLE INSTRUCTION BOOK
15
It’s been close to three months, and yet it seems like only yesterday that my father showed up in the Hundred Acre Wood. I never thought about going back to the woods together. I mean, during the tougher days at school I’d think of going back myself—running away is the term for it, I know now—and although I might not have known what to call it, that’s exactly what it felt like: running away from everything in the civilized world that’s oh-so-unbearably emotional.
I sneak a glance at my father, at the dead-ringer profile that looks like mine, and marvel how I used to worry that I was all Mama, in the ways that do and don’t count. We couldn’t be more different, it seems, and yet I belong to him. All those years in the woods and I belonged to him, too.
My stomach slips sideways like skeeters across the creek, and it’s more than the truth coming out. The woods may as well be Mars now, despite my longing for them. I’m afraid to see what it used to be like—the way we used to live, what we’d accepted and settled for—from this
civilized perspective. Just thinking of the cat-pee coat causes my ears to burn.
As we get closer, I start to remember the oddest snippets, like patchwork quilt squares tellin’ me their stories.
Mama blows meth clouds at Nessa and me, laughin’ so hard, she pees her pants. I scoop up my sister and tote her outside, proppin her on a log by the campfire, the flames jump-started with a few handfuls of kindlin.
Ness keeps almost fallin over, catchin herself with a jerk. It’s two in the mornin, after all. I’m flat-out annoyed, cold and tired myself. Only, annoyed at Mama. Never at Nessa.
I rest my face against the window glass, cool and smooth, and watch the signs go by, the trees growing thicker, the road older, other cars fewer. I think of that night, the one haunting me every day since, no matter how hard I’ve tried to exterminate the memory. When we left the woods, that night came with us as sure as our breath, our shadows, our eyelashes.
“It’s gettin dark, Ness. No more fairy huntin’ for tonight, okay? Nessa?”
“Okay,” she says with a long sigh. “I’m comin’.”
I’ve spent the last half hour buildin up the fire, not just to keep us warm, but to cook over. My mind is elsewhere, itchin to get back to the violin. Mama’s been gone for five weeks; I started markin’ the days with notches carved into the dyin walnut tree at the edge of the clearin’.
“What we havin’for dinner?”
“Food,” I tell her. The point isn’t lost on my smarty-pants sister.
Jenessa wrinkles her nose, her eyes accusin. “Beans again? Ain’t there other things in those cans?”
“You ate rabbit for breakfast and the last can of ravioli for lunch. If we don’t eat the beans, there’ll be nothin’ left but beans, and then you’ll be eatin ’em three times a day.”
Ness huffs and puffs her way over to the two-by-four swing. It took scalin a hickory like a flyin squirrel and loopin’ and tyin thick rope around the crotch of the fattest branches to make it work . . . to give her a piece of childhood.
Ness had watched the process from the leafmeal below, her eyes shinin. By the time I was through, I had her believin Saint Joseph had left the rope and plank in the forest just for her.
Little kids need to somethin’ to believe in. For them, it’s as important as breathin. And when Mama never fit the bill, Saint Joseph made a right good substitute.
“Here.” I hand her a bowl with water and give her the rag from the table. “Clean your hands and wipe your face.”
“Why do I have to? No one sees.”
“I see. Just because we live in the Hundred Acre Wood don’t mean we have to live like savages.”
“Rowr!” Jenessa growls.
I watch her wipe herself down, face, neck, and hands, while I clear the foldin’ table for dinner. I pile up my poetry books, our schoolbooks, and her Pooh books into a jagged tower; a tower I carry into the camper and spill onto the flimsy table that folds out from the wall, all the size of a doll’s ironin’ board, as Mama said. I yell to Ness through the open door.
“Get those other two rags and fold them on the table. You know how to set the table. You’re no baby, right?”
I scold her gently. She’s just turned five, after all. But that’s no excuse to be useless.
Back at the fire, I load up our bowls with baked beans, the kind floatin’ in a sweet brown sugar sauce. Into Ness’s bowl, I ladle the three chubby squares of pork fat I find in the mixture.
I know Jenessa’s too skinny. We’re both too skinny, and although our mama is also skinny, and perhaps it’s partly genetic, I know it has to do with our nutrition; with the careful rationin’ of canned goods and the slim pickins of bird, rabbit, and squirrel I’m lucky to shoot. I constantly salivate over the thought of wild turkey, but trackin’ those noisy birds leads me too far from the camper and Nessa.
We sit at the table and eat quietly. The truth is, we’re both ravenous, no matter the complainin’ we do or what food we’re sick of. We’re luckier than some, Mama says. I reckon she’s right. We have a bed, roof, clothes, food. I reckon we’re crazy luck. It’s hard to imagine not havin’ the essentials.
Finishin quickly, I pick up my violin, gettin bean sauce on the neck, but that won’t hurt it none. I play in spurts, the notes clunky, determined to git it right.
Crack!
There’s a feelin that comes before danger falls. You can see it in the eyes of the deer or pheasant moments before the shot. Synapses firin’ the instincts on, I reckon. Knowin your life is about to snuff out, moments before the inevitable bang. I don’t even remember settin my violin and bow on the empty chair next to me.
Jenessa jumps up and freezes, her eyes widenin’ until the whites show, her forgotten spoon drippin beans onto the front of her patched pink dress. I place my index finger to my lips. Immediately, two fat tears pop from her eyes. We both watch the urine run down her legs, fillin’ her sneaks and coatin’ the leaves. We don’t have time to hide before he stumbles into the clearin’, his heavy boots makin suckin’ sounds as he tramps through the mud to our table.
I wrinkle my nose. From a few feet away, I can smell the moonshine, and lookin’ into his eyes, bloodshot and unfocused, I feel goose bumps colonize up and down my arms.
“Where’s Joelle?”
The tears flow fast and furious down Ness’s face. I watch her spoon in free fall, bouncin against the leaves.
“She went into town for supplies” I stammer at his feet, my stomach gathered up in one huge cramp.
“Don’t you look away, girl. Only liars look away!”
I look into his eyes, and it’s all I can do to hold his gaze.
“Do you know our mama, sir?”
I’m buyin time, time to think of somethin’. I’m in charge. My steady voice fools even myself. My mind whirs a mile a minute.
“I’m Carey. This is my sister, Jenessa.”
“Pretty little things, aren’t ya?”
My heart drops when he laughs, a soulless sound if ever there was one, capped off by a cobwebbed meth cough, a sound we know all too well. Jenessa leans over and empties her stomach on the ground.
In four lightnin steps, he covers the leafmeal between us, his hand dartin’ out to wrap around my throat.
“You don’t know what you’re doin’,” I say. “You’re makin a big mistake.”
“I asked you, where’s your mama, girl? She owes me money and I’m not leavin without it.”
My fingers encircle his fingers, desperate to loosen the hold, my flesh burnin, his grip a vise. I cry out in pain.
“Mama should be back any minute, sir. If you want to wait, you can have some food and—”
“Where does she keep the money?”
I listen to my voice, small and placatin, like I’m talkin’ to someone rational. Tears flow down my cheeks, but he don’t let go.
“I... I—we don’t have no money, sir. But if you wait for Mama—”
“When’s the last time she’s been here? And don’t lie to me, bitch.”
“Five weeks ago.”
I tell him the truth. Maybe he’ll let me go and go lookin’ somewhere else. But he leans in, breathin on me, and my one mistake is turnin’ my head to escape his breath.
“You look at me, girl, when I’m talkin’ to ya!”
My head jerks to the right under the crack of his hand, and white stars dance in the air. Beyond, there’s a lake of blackness. I fight it with all my bein’.
In the Hundred Acre Wood, I could always see them comin before they appeared. Nessa, a pink peekaboo through breathless greenery. Mama, a lemon yellow zing of insulted bushes and low-hangin’ branches whippin across her store-bought ski jacket.
Between the white stars, the lemon yellow flashes, but it don’t zing. It sneaks off in the direction it came, at a quick but silent clip.
“Mama!”
But the scream lodges itself deep in my throat like a rabbit’s knucklebone.
With one sweepin’ gesture, our dinner flies
to the forest floor, and he uses his free hand to rip off my jeans and undergarments. He hauls me by my ponytail backward onto the table, the metal edge digging into my calf. As the white stars fade, I see him fumblin with his zipper. He forces my legs apart, his breath quickenin’, his weight crushin’. I feel white light-nin rip through my stomach.
That’s the last thing I remember before goin dark.
It’s Jenessa’s screams that rouse me. The leaves are a sea, rockin’ me. I grab hold of a low-hangin’ branch and scramble to my feet.
He has Nessa on the table O She’s naked from the waist down, her dress pushed up to her chin.
In the dyin firelight, he don’t see me crawl to the camper. I should’ve had it on me all along. An ember pops in the background. Two or three ticks on a watch pass, if that, and that fast, I know what I have to do.
I pull my shotgun from its pegs and inch back down the camper’s rickety wooden steps, my mind animal keen.
He struggles with Nessa, his hand clamped over her mouth, swearin at the thing hangin limply between his legs like a tree limb struck by lightnin.
I give him no warnin’, my finger cocked and the trigger pulled by a hatred floodin’ me bigger than the creek swollen with ten spring rains.
I aim for the heart.
At the last minute, he turns toward me, and I blow a hole through his upper arm. The slug passes clear through his hide, thunkin into the hickory behind him.
“Stay down, Nessa!”
“You fuckin’ bitch!”
He shoves Jenessa away and she crashes to the ground. I hear my voice, clear and true, betrayin’ nothin’ of my intentions. But boy, do I have me some intentions.
“Go in the camper, Jenessa, and lock the door behind you. Don’t you dare come out until I come get you myself, you hear?”
She’s a frozen heap on the ground, but I know she can hear me. I have no choice but to yell at her.
“GO! Get your skinny ass in that camper NOW!”
In that moment, it’s like I’ve prodded her with a white-hot poker. She scrambles to her feet, wailin’, but she don’t make a sound. I stand in front of them, half-naked, but I don’t feel shame. I’m a mountain lion landin’ on the back of a whitetail buck. I’m the rapids rippin the river to shreds, pretty to watch but able to kill.
If You Find Me Page 20