by Ike Hamill
Table of Contents
Title Page
1972 Eric
1974 Lily
Nicky
Eric
Reynold
Home
1975 Jessie
Nicky
Eric
Jessie
Wendell
Reynold
Zinnia
1976 Eric
Reynold
Zinnia
Eric
Jessie
Zinnia
Eric
Zinnia
Reynold
Zinnia
Lily
1977 Lily
Eric
Lily
Nicky
Jessie
Eric
Lily
Eric
Jessie
Lily
Eric
Lily
Wendell
Eric
Lily
Nicky
Eric
Lily
Nicky
Brett
Letters June 2
June 8
June 12
June 19
June 30
June 24
August 1
August 20
August 27
STAY AWAY
BY
IKE HAMILL
WWW.IKEHAMILL.COM
Special Thanks:
Thanks to Lynne, as always, for her edits.
Cover by BelleDesign [BelleDesign.org]
Copyright © 2019 Ike Hamill
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events have been fabricated only to entertain. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of Ike Hamill.
1972
ERIC
“I LOVE THE WAY the wind runs through the leaves at night,” Nicky said. When she exhaled, she slumped over until her chin was on top of her knees and her knuckles hung all the way down to the porch step. She could fold herself in to any position.
Eric glanced back over his shoulder, thinking that he had heard the bell on the front door of the store. It was probably just one of the wind chimes on Mrs. Riday’s porch.
Without thinking, Eric said what was on his mind.
“I think I’m going to go.”
“Go where? There’s nowhere to go,” she moaned. Nicky always said things like that, even though she had money from her job and she had a car. Of all the people Eric knew, she was the most capable of actually taking off any time she wanted. Yet she was the one who complained the most about being trapped.
“To Ohio—to live with my mother,” Eric said.
“I thought you hated her.”
“I’m starting to think that maybe I shouldn’t.” His uncle, Reynold, always told him that it was okay to hate her, but he should always remember that hating someone was a choice that had to be made every day. It didn’t feel like a choice. It felt like a decision that had been made for him. He was sick of living with other people’s decisions.
“Why?” Nicky asked.
“Why, what?”
“Why shouldn’t you hate her?”
“Because maybe she’ll hate me back.”
“So?” Nicky asked.
Eric shook his head. Nicky was being intentionally dense. He hated when she did that. She would make him explain something down to the smallest detail and then claim that she had known what he meant the whole time. There was something about questioning reality that really seemed to make her happy.
“I’m not going to explain to you why I don’t want my own mother to hate me,” Eric said.
The wind blew again.
Mrs. Riday’s wind chimes rang through the evening. Somewhere in his house, Mr. Caswell was probably losing his mind. He hated those chimes. Eric’s aunt, Zinnia, said that every time Mr. Caswell complained, Mrs. Riday put up another set of chimes.
“You want everyone to like you,” Nicky said. “That is your problem. You’re so worried about what people think of you that you never bother to decide if you even like them.”
Eric decided to tuck that piece of wisdom away for later analysis. It was occurring to him that Nicky might be, as the French say, “Plein de merde.” He was fed up enough that he actually told her so.
“They don’t say that though,” Nicky said. “You can’t just transliterate an idiom like that.”
“Whatever. I only came here so I could say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” she asked with a little laugh. “Goodbye? Are you taking the red eye?”
“No, I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m supposed to take the bus in the morning. If I get the first one down to Portland, I’ll be in Ohio on Monday. I only miss one day of school.”
Nicky sat straight up and took in a deep breath. Her eyes were light, light brown, almost the color of her hair. There was just enough illumination coming through the back door of the convenience store that Eric could see how serious she was.
“You shouldn’t do it,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Your Aunt and Uncle and all of your cousins love you, Eric. They really do. They didn’t take you in because they had to—they wanted to take you in. You don’t have a single thing to prove. Don’t you go to running off and make yourself miserable just so you can try to make your mom care about you half as much as they already do.”
“I didn’t understand half of that,” he said.
“Then stick around until you figure it out.”
“But I have to take the bus tomorrow.”
“No, you don’t. There’s no law that says you have to start and end a school year in the same school. Take some time and think about it.”
“I have thought about it.”
“Since when? This morning?”
He opened his mouth to object and then closed it again.
This time, when he heard the bell, it wasn’t the wind chimes. It was the bell mounted on the front door of the convenience store. Nicky worked there all by herself sometimes, now that they didn’t sell beer anymore. The store barely had enough customers to warrant staying open. If Nicky hadn’t worked for minimum wage, it probably would have closed the year before when the gas pumps were removed.
“I gotta work. Don’t you move,” she said.
When she ran inside, the back door banged shut behind her.
Eric stayed put for two full inhales and the exhale between them. He got to his feet. One summer, on a brief visit, his mother had told him that there were hardly any bugs in Ohio compared to Maine. He slapped a mosquito that was drawing blood from his neck and hoped it was true. Before Nicky could come back out, he ran down the steps and crossed the dirt yard. The dumpster had been emptied that morning, but it still had that dumpster smell. Eric tried not to breathe as he climbed the fence and dropped down into Mr. Caswell’s yard. He darted between the bushes, hoping that the old man wouldn’t spot him.
Eric cringed and gritted his teeth as he raised the latch on the back gate. Half the time, it sang like a railway brake when it was opened. This was one of those times. As soon as he let himself out, Eric ran down the dark alley towards his house.
Every light was on.
He wondered if he would still think of it as his house when he came back to visit. He wondered if his Aunt and Uncle would still treat him the same after he rejected them to go live with a person who had already given him up once. Uncle Reynold always said that loyalty, once earned, could only be betrayed by mutual agreement. Eric had no idea what that meant, although Uncle Reynold had indeed agreed that Eric was free to leave if he saw fit.
He paused at the back gate of his yard. They would all be in the kitchen. Jessie and Wendell would both be swinging their feet under the table, full of nervous
energy. His younger cousins absolutely loved school. They couldn’t wait for summer to be over so they could get back to the stuffy classrooms and books. Lily was probably still out with her boyfriend. She was squeezing every minute out of her curfew lately.
Eric pushed away from the gate and decided to go the long way around to the front door. If he snuck in through the front, he could go up the front stairs and disappear into his room, with any luck. The lights were off in the houses at the end of the block. Eric had to feel his way to the corner and then he crossed the street to get away from the stone wall on the east side of the street. There was no sidewalk there. Walking next to that stone wall, it always felt like passing cars might get a little too close and mash him against the rocks.
Of course, it wasn’t much better on the other side of the street. There, he had to walk along the margin of the pavement or else he had to walk on the grass of the cemetery. Eric wasn’t superstitious, but there was no reason to walk on the grass of the cemetery if he didn’t have to.
He was about to cross back over and head up his own street when an idea occurred to him. There was still time, as long as he was quick. Picking up his pace, just shy of a jog, Eric headed down the hill towards the river. There were streetlights on the River Walk. With that light, he managed to identify the tree he was looking for.
Nicky’s older brother, Alex, had shown them the tree.
“It was here before this town was even settled,” Alex had said. “The bear hunters came down from up north and waited by this tree for the boats that would come up the river. This is where they would trade.”
“So?” Nicky had asked. Eric had tried to hush her, but that only made her more likely to interrupt. This had been one of those situations where Alex legitimately had useful information, and Eric wanted to hear it.
“That’s why they call it the Trading Tree?” Eric had asked.
Miraculously, Alex continued. “No, not really. The bear hunters and the merchants didn’t call it the Trading Tree. It was the wives of the captains who settled here. They would trade with the local women at this same tree because it was where the deer would come to lick the blood.”
“What?” Nicky asked. “Your story doesn’t make sense. What blood?”
“The blood from the bear skins, stupid,” Alex had said. He had made to hit his sister and gave her a smug smile when she flinched. “Anyways, the deer would come here and that made the native women believe that they could trust the wives, so they would trade. They traded meat for herbs and seeds. That’s how it became known as the Trading Tree. But then there was a war with the Indians and the trading stopped. That’s when the wives figured out that they could still come and trade for information about the future. They would come down to the tree and offer coins in exchange for advice about what they should do.”
“Do about what?” Eric had asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Alex had said. “They would just trade. It’s easy. You put a coin in that hollow part, ask your question, and you get an answer within the next day. It’s easy. My friend Steve asked it if he should buy that motorcycle and it said no. He bought it anyway and he crashed it the next day.”
“Anyone could have told him that. Steve crashed his brother’s motorcycle the year before,” Nicky had said.
“Who asked you?” Alex had said.
Eric had wanted to ask more questions about how the tree worked, but Alex had taken off.
Now, the evening before he was supposed to leave, Eric found himself in front of the Trading Tree again. He dug in his pocket and only came up with a dime. Alex hadn’t specified the fee—only that it was supposed to be a coin.
He reached up, standing on his toes, and was about to put it in the hollow.
“You looking to trade?” a voice asked.
Eric spun and nearly fell over. He stuffed the dime back into his pocket.
“No,” he said.
“Good thing,” the man said with a smile. He was wearing church clothes, even though it wasn’t yet Sunday. Over his round midsection, only the top button was buttoned. It didn’t look like the bottom two would stay buttoned even if he tried. “Save your money.”
Eric nodded. He glanced around the man. He was going to have to move past him to get home. The man noticed that he was in the way and he stepped aside with a flourish of his hand to grant Eric passage.
Eric was nearly by him when the man spoke again.
“What was it you were going to ask?”
“I.. I wasn’t,” Eric said. He turned towards the man to address him. Now that his house was at his back—a clear shot if he ran up the hill—Eric felt a little more bold. It was courteous to square his shoulders with an elder when he addressed them. Uncle Reynold always said so.
The man smiled and tilted his head. “I was a boy once, you know. I remember what everyone used to say about the Trading Tree. You were going to give a coin to the tree and ask a question, isn’t that right? Were you asking something specific, or simply inquiring about your fortune?”
Eric thought about it. There was really no reason not to tell, but he had the urge to lie to the man. What had nearly transpired between him and the tree was his own business. This man didn’t need to know.
His own mouth betrayed him. “I was going to ask if I should move to Ohio and live with my mom.”
The man gave him a thoughtful frown and a nod.
“Do you want to go?”
“Kinda. I guess.”
“Take my advice, young man, a bridge can only be mended when the water is low.”
Eric nodded. He had no idea what the man was trying to say.
The man’s smile suggested that he knew that Eric was confused.
“If you have the chance to repair your relationship with your mother, take it,” the man said.
“Oh.”
With one more smile, the man turned and began to walk away.
“If you take my advice, you owe me,” the man said, waving his hand over his shoulder without turning.
Eric didn’t waste any time. He spun on his heels and began to run up the hill towards his Aunt and Uncle’s house. Before he got to the sidewalk, where the River Walk dumped out and the streetlights ended, Eric turned to see where the man had gone. There was no sign of him.
Eric smiled to himself, deciding that when he told the story to Nicky, he would say that the man disappeared into the cemetery.
But he didn’t tell the story to Nicky—he didn’t get the chance. In the morning, at breakfast, he told Uncle Reynold that he wanted to grab the bus down to Portland after all. The next time he spoke to Nicky was more than two years later, and he had forgotten all about the man by then.
1974
LILY
“LILY! YOU’RE GOING TO be late for work,” Zinnia called up the stairs. She paused in front of the hall mirror and tilted her head to the side to work on her earring. Scrunching up her face, she pushed the stud through the hole that had been trying to close up. The pain translated into frustration in her next yell. “Lily!”
The young woman pounded down the stairs, muttering under her breath and then sighing when she saw that her mother was blocking the hall.
“You’re going to be late again. I don’t have to tell you that you can’t afford to lose this job,” Zinnia said.
“You’re shitless,” Jessie called from the living room.
“It’s shiftless, and she’s not,” Zinnia said.
Lily rolled her eyes as her mother probed around, trying to insert her earring. Giving up on waiting, she threw up her hands and went the long way, through the living room. On the way, she smacked the schoolbook out of Jessie’s hands.
“Hey,” he whined.
Lily kept going. She went to the kitchen, found the wheat bread on top of the fridge, and put two slices in the toaster.
Her father lowered his newspaper. “Can you give your brother a ride to school?”
“No,” Lily said. She leaned against the counter and lifted a foot so
she could tie her shoe.
“With the use of the car comes the occasional responsibility,” Reynold said.
“I thought it was a gift,” Lily said.
Wendell, the brother in need of the ride, sat at the table turned his head back and forth, watching the conversation carefully. He would probably work himself into another ulcer while he worried about who would take him.
“Eat your eggs, Wen,” Reynold said. “Lily, gifts often come with strings attached. For instance, the gift of you continuing to live here has the string of a curfew, if you’ll remember.”
“Yeah,” she said, raising her eyebrows and nodding emphatically. “I remember it like it was yesterday. You said, ‘When you graduate, you can move into Eric’s old room and have a year to decide what you’re going to do next.’ I accepted that deal—very generous, by the way—before any mention of the curfew or the valet service for Mr. Smarty Pants.”
Wendell looked hurt by her use of the moniker. Lily refused to feel bad about it.
“That’s interesting,” Reynold said. “The way I remember it, I told you that you had to obey the house rules, and you said, ‘Yes, Daddy. Of course, Daddy.’”
“Gross,” Lily said. Her toast popped up and she snatched it, deciding it would do fine without butter.
“Please,” Reynold said.
“I’m leaving this very moment,” Lily said. “If Mr. You Know Who is in my car when I pull out, I will slow down next to his precious school so he can leap out.”
Before she pushed away from the counter, Wendell had jumped up from his seat and started to pile his books and papers into his backpack. He was actually through the door before she was. He waited by the car, dancing nervously from foot to foot until she unlocked the doors.
“You have to use the bathroom?” she asked, sliding behind the wheel. She took a bite of toast and then balanced the rest on the dash so she could throw her purse in back.
“No. Why?” Wendell asked. He jumped in the back seat, pushing her purse over to the side.
Lily cranked the engine and coaxed the gas pedal with her foot until the engine caught. She revved it hard until the idle evened out and then she slipped it into reverse.
