Stranger Son

by Jim Nelson

  She tapped the horn to get Henry's attention. When he saw her, he brightened and ran for the truck. He climbed in beside her without a word and buckled his safety belt.

  "Thought I'd pick you up today." She waved through the windshield at Dr. Forrester, the school principal, who waved in return. And earn a few parenting brownie points on the side. "What do you say to ice cream?" she asked him.

  He shrugged. "That sounds good."

  It sounded good to her too. The day-in, day-out of caring for Kyle and Henry wore on her. She'd ruined as many Betty Crocker recipes as she'd succeeded at. A sugary treat was a welcome reward for managing to make it this far.

  She needed directions to the ice cream parlor. Henry called out "turn left here" and "turn right at the stop" until they reached the downtown establishment. The parlor was ice-cold inside. Heavenly vanilla from the hot fresh waffle cones wafted here. He ordered a cup, she a sugar cone. They took their treats to a small marble-topped table with wire curlicue chairs.

  They ate in silence for a minute. She could practically hear his flat wood spoon cutting through the ice cream. All she could manage to come up with for an icebreaker was, "How was school today?"

  "Ok," he said.

  "I'll sit down with you after taking care of your father," she said. "We can go over your homework together."

  He shrugged, eyes on his ice cream.

  "I want to help you keep on top of all your schoolwork," she said, stumbling.

  "Can I ask something?"

  "Of course."

  "Why are you talking to my principal? And helping with my homework?"

  "With your father's condition," she said, improvising, "it's easy for you and your schoolwork to be overlooked. I'm more than a nurse," she added quickly. "I'm here to make sure the entire family is taken care of. It's…holistic nursing." It sounded as ridiculous she thought it would sound when she improvised it.

  "You're a nun," he said, echoing what his father told him.

  "Not exactly. I'm a…" She reached across and held his hand. "I'm a friend of the family. Your welfare and the welfare of your father is so important to me."

  He worked his hand free. "Do you like my father?"

  "Of course." She sensed his drift. "But not like that," she added. "I respect him. I sympathize with his situation."

  "You don't sound like a Christian sometimes."

  "I'm not." It came out reflexively. "I mean, the order I'm a part of, we're not the kind of Christians you would normally think of."

  His face held a quizzical expression. "What kind are you?"

  "Let's just say I'm here to help see you through this."

  "It doesn't sound like you respect his job."

  "What's important is he loves you, and I love you too."

  She'd crossed a line. He grimaced and squirmed. He focused on his bulb of ice cream, shaving off curls of Rocky Road with the edge of his flat spoon.

  "You know, if you want to have some of your friends over to the house, that's okay."

  He shrugged. "I just see them at school," he said. "Mostly."

  "Are you afraid of them seeing your father?" She sensed a possibility. "Your father didn't tell you your friends couldn't come over, did he?"

  "No," Henry said. "Why would you think that?"

  "He's a proud man."

  He shrugged. "He's not so proud to send people away. It is what it is."

  That sounded like something Kyle would say.

  "I saw there's a school dance coming up—"

  "I don't like dances."

  "Isn't there a girl you'd like to ask—?"

  He squirmed and shook his head, digging deeper into his ice cream.

  After another quiet moment, he said, "We don't have any money, you know."

  "I know," she said. "I see every bill and bank statement that comes in the mail."

  "I mean, there's no secret money," he said.

  "Okay," she said, confused. "Why would you say that?"

  He shrugged, digging around in his cup. "A few times, people have come onto the property looking to talk to my father," he said, eyes on his ice cream. "They're always asking about his fortune."

  "What fortune?" She started to laugh at the notion Kyle sat on some kind of treasure chest—and then she caught himself. Maybe they figured out Henry was related to the Abneys.

  "You seem honest and all, and I'm not saying you're trying to cheat us out of anything," he said. "You work about as hard as anyone I've ever known, except my father. But…"

  She ventured, "Did a man named Emeril ever come to your house?"

  He thought for a moment, digging in dirt bare-handed to retrieve something he'd buried there long before. "There was a lawyer. He said he was representing a man named Emeril. He visited us right after my mother's funeral. He was there about money too."

  "What did your father say to him?"

  "Well, I got sent to my room, so I don't know everything said between them."

  "But…?"

  "He told that lawyer to go to Hell and get off his property."

  Ruby grinned.

  "What?" he asked.

  "I'm glad he said that." She wished Emeril Abney himself had come to Angels Camp. She imagined none of the Abneys were accustomed to being talked to that way.

  "Every few years, someone comes to the house sniffing around about money we don't have," he said. "That's what I thought you and that doctor were here for."

  People on the Internet who obsessed over the Abney bloodline, perhaps a few of them figured out Henry's parentage, learned where he lived, and worked up the nerve to trespass Kyle's property.

  She'd had so few chances to talk to Henry in private. Every time they spoke, Kyle was in the room, or when they worked on his homework in the kitchen, in the next room. Henry, like his father, was a young man of few words. She assumed it was partly due to Kyle being a kind of role model, and partly due to the accident with his mother, as Dr. Forrester had suggested.

  He didn't talk like he was sixteen, though. He spoke more like a thirteen-year-old, except when he said Hell. He walked like a sixteen-year-old, he carried himself with a kind of stoicism that reminded her of Kyle, but he did not reason like a young man. The world still seemed a little too big for him to comprehend. For a sixteen-year-old, far too much of the adult world remained beyond his comprehension.

  A commotion erupted outside the parlor. Henry raised in his seat to peer over her shoulder. Ruby twisted in the curlicue-backed chair to look beyond the bubblegum-stripes of the parlor's plate glass front.

  A laundromat did business on the opposite side of Highway 4 running through the heart of Angels Camp. A black truck with oversized tires and a caged rear bed was parked in the highway. Its cherry lights flashed to warn traffic. Two armed men in camouflage and baseball caps and military boots stood aside the truck. Both had mustaches and unshaven jowls and the paunch of a beer gut. From the other side of the truck came shouts and warnings.

  Ruby went to the door and pushed it open. "Stay there," she told Henry, but he rose and joined her.

  "Keep inside, missy," called the proprietor who'd scooped their ice cream. "Best just to leave it alone."

  She stepped outside, motioning again for Henry to stay put. She checked the highway both directions for traffic. A sedan was gently easing around the truck to pass.

  Two more of the wolf pack emerged from the laundromat. They pushed forward a woman in handcuffs, her wrists pinned behind her back. She shouted profanities at them and struggled against the cuffs. One of the wolf pack yelled she was only making it worse for herself. The other three grinned and shook their heads at the display.

  Hand out to warn oncoming traffic, Ruby hurried across Highway 4. One of the wolf pack anticipated her approach with a hand up of his own to warn her back.

  "What the hell's going on?" she shouted over the woman's din.

  Closer now, she realized the fullness of the situation. The woman appeared well in her forties, hair graying and wrinkle
d in the corners of her lips and sags beneath her eyes. She wasn't even thirty, though. Angry, animated to the edge of being vicious, her eyes blazed. Ruby recognized a look of frailty within this woman, a frailty she recognized in herself.

  "This is a Hagar." He spoke the word like it was technical Latin. "We're taking her in for processing."

  The Hagar stared back at Ruby. Her resistance against the handcuffs weakened. She stopped yelling. Ruby's headstrong impulses were now tempered by reality. She said nothing more and backed off. The wolf pack lifted the Hagar up into the truck's cage and locked her cuffs to one of its rails. Two joined her, both wearing holsters. The other two climbed into the truck cab and slammed the doors shut. Cherry lights flashing, the truck whipped a U-turn and sped southbound, leaving Ruby alone and helpless and confused on the meridian of Highway 4.

  Forty-three

  Mornings came too soon. Six hours of sleep were the rule. She often got less. But when mornings did arrive, Ruby cherished moving through the house turning on lights, throwing open curtains, starting the coffee pot, waking up sleepyheads. She hugged Lea's old terrycloth robe around her as she shivered barefoot from room to room. The cold mountain nights left the house chilly and fresh. The morning routine was delicious.

  On a Saturday morning, Kyle ordered Ruby to help him out of the bed. The pain of rolling on his side to change his bandages was excruciating. She could not imagine the torture of rising from the bed, which involved sitting up and twisting his body around in an effort to get his feet to the floor. Standing on his right leg would involve a terrific amount of pain.

  "I'm going to walk today," he told her. "One Sunday soon, I'm going to walk into that church and take the body and blood as I've done all my life."

  "You're going back to that church?" she said. "After what they did to you?"

  "'They' didn't do anything," he said. "It was an accident made by one man. A stupid mistake, I'll grant you that. But I will return to worship, and when I return, I'll be walking on my two feet."

  "Well, that's not going to happen any time soon," she said. "You can't even make it to the kitchen, Mr. Weymouth."

  "Then that's my goal," he said. "The kitchen door."

  "All right," she said, only half-believing him. "We'll start tomorrow."

  "We start today," he said. "No time like now."

  Alice had not trained her for this. Her hands had invaded his body when changing his bandages. She'd squeezed his feces from his colostomy bag like squeezing toothpaste from a tube. This she had no preparation for.

  She lowered the bed rail and helped him roll on his side. He groaned and cussed every step of the way. When he was sitting up, feet dangling near the floor, she felt they'd traveled a journey together. She considered suggesting they call it a success and try again tomorrow. Kyle kept going.

  It required several attempts to position herself to receive his weight. He was much taller than her, and with his broad frame and physique, he weighed who knew how much more. She stooped and put her head under his chin, with one ear to his sternum. He threw his arm over her back and heaved his legs off the bed and got his feet to the floor. He groaned mightily from the pain and staggered forward. She heard his heart leap and his lungs deflate like a punctured ball. He stumbled backward. His weight was unexpected. Ruby managed to steady him—if he fell, it would be a disaster. Breathing hard and groaning with pain, he steadied himself with one hand on the wall. She went to the far side of the room where a pair of hospital crutches were leaned into the corner. She returned with one for him, just as he'd asked. Perspiration covered his forehead. A bead ran down his cheek.

  Again it required several attempts to position herself. He leaned on her arm and he leaned on the crutch. He managed one hobbled step toward the kitchen door. After a moment to breathe, he followed it up with another.

  "Keep going," she said. "Take your time." His weight was a strain on her, but her own adrenaline focused her on his progress.

  Miraculously, they reached the kitchen door twelve feet from the bed. Ruby was stunned he could do it, and she congratulated him.

  "I have to sit down," he said.

  "You can sit down on the bed," she said as way of encouragement.

  "I have to sit right now." He spoke frantically, as though about to collapse.

  Ruby panicked. She rushed away, then realized she'd left him standing on his own, perhaps leaving him in a worse position than before. He was leaning against the wall with his free arm across his forehead. She hurried back to the bed and picked up the chair she used when she sat with him.

  When she returned to him, he was upright, chin up and dignified. His hand was balled on the handle of the crutch, knuckles white. His jaw was clenched. He did not look at her. He peered silently across the room toward the foot of the staircase.

  Henry had come down from his bedroom. He stared at his father with wide, absorbing eyes. He was pale. His mouth hung slightly open, as though confused as to what he was seeing.

  "Help me back to the bed," he muttered to Ruby, quivering to remain erect.

  "You can sit here," she said, offering the chair.

  "I'm walking back to that bed," he said.

  Grappling the wall one-handed, he turned himself around. He staggered forward with one arm out and swinging around. Ruby set aside the chair and came to him with hands out. He pushed her away, not violently, but with a flailing of his free hand. Breathing like a runner, sweat matting his hair and dripping down to the neckline of his bed gown, he hobbled for the bed, the rubber foot of the crutch going clomp…clomp…clomp. As he passed the Jefferson flag, his outstretched hand clenched a loose corner like a toddler holding the hem of his mother's dress.

  Only when he reached the side of the bed did he wave over Ruby for assistance. Ear to his chest, Ruby took in all of Kyle at that moment—his beating heart, his pumping lungs, the dry swallow, the dried blood outlining his bandages. Up close, she smelled the sour-milk aroma of the medical gauze and tape, and the ever-present tang of feces and gas that lingered about him. He sat up on the bed and let the crutch fall to the floor. His limp legs shook when she hauled them up on the bed. She pulled the blankets up to his chin. He was flushed, damp, and exhausted.

  He spoke to Henry. "What say you?"

  Henry stared back at the question. He'd witnessed the entire display. After a moment, he shook his head once. He mounted the staircase.

  Ruby went to the foot of the stairs to call him back down, but the finality of his bedroom door closing silenced her.

  Forty-four

  The first three days, he could only make one round-trip to the kitchen door. After a week, he could manage four, two trips in the morning, two after lunch.

  "How far do you want to go?"

  "I want to make it to the front yard."

  There was no yard in front of the house, at least, no yard like the manicured putting greens before the homes in Southern California. A square concrete stoop had been poured at the foot of the front door. Settling and age had left it cracked in two. Beyond the stoop lay tan hard-packed dirt and opportunistic weeds all the way down the hill to Highway 4. But she knew what he meant: His next goal was to walk outside, to reach the fresh air beyond the stifling inertness within the manufactured house, and she would help him do it.

  "One day, I'll make it up that hill," he told her. That hill was the snow-capped mountain behind the house.

  The crutch was a necessity the first two weeks. Soon it became a bulky impediment to his progress. At the medical supply store across the street from the Angels Camp hospital, she shopped for a replacement. Once again, she felt the staring eyes on her back and on her neck, and she hurried through the store looking for what she sought. She was first drawn to the medical-style walkers, adjustable metal poles with rubber cup feet and curved ergonomic grips. They did not seem Kyle's style. In a corner, she found a barrel of wood-carved walking sticks, gnarled and crooked, the California black oak polished to a high sheen. Burned into the side was
the maker's family name and Proudly Made in El Dorado County, Free State of Jefferson. Once again, the magic credit card came through at the register.

  When she presented the walking stick to him, his first words disappointed her.

  "How much did this cost?" he demanded. "I don't need this."

  "You said you didn't want my help," she said. "You'll need something to help you."

  "It looks pricey." He leaned it against the bed. "Come on, I want to walk."

  She helped him to his feet. They had developed a routine. It was far easier now than the first time. The hardest part remained getting him up from bed. His weight was still painful as he pressed down on her weak frame. She was twenty-nine, but her Hagar genetics made her feel fifty.

  Once up from the bed, he did not need her full support. She walked beside him with his hand in hers, providing him balance and continued assurance. They reached the kitchen door together. He pushed it open with the end of the crooked stick. Onward they progressed.

  She did not grow lightheaded when changing his bandages anymore. She applied more pressure when pushing them into the wounds, and she sealed them down tight with the tape she snipped in small squares before starting. His wounds closed a bit more each day, little by little. The largest gouge taken out of his backside, she could no longer reach her fingers all the way inside. Fleshy matter filled in the holes. The fissures were sealing shut.

  They were long, exhausting days. Caring for Kyle—urging Henry through his studies—cooking meals for the three of them—at eleven at night, she fell into the upstairs bed still in her clothes, knowing she would have to wake before dawn.

  One night, just before nodding off, she wearily thought, Healing may just be a different kind of hurting. And then she slept.

  Forty-five

  Sitting at the kitchen table with Henry each evening was a daily pleasure she looked forward to. Her bridge education was nothing compared to the schooling a real child received. When Henry had a question, she could do little but urge Henry to try harder, or to search the textbook for answers. She sat beside him with dinner cooking on the stove and went over every class assignment.