“Will you go back to Philadelphia?” she asked after a time.
“Yes.”
“But they didn’t even give you a chance to work long enough to earn a paycheck.”
“My cousin in Ohio is going to wire me a small loan.”
“How long before you go?”
“We’ll leave as soon as we can. It might take us two or three days to get our situation together.”
She nodded a few times, lost in thought.
“We never did know each other all that well,” she said. Almost as though talking to herself. “It’s not like we knew how things would have turned out between us anyway. I mean, even without all the outside pressure. But, just out of curiosity . . . just so I have that to hold on to . . . what do you think we could have been?”
“Lucy,” he said.
Then he stopped, and slid his hand across the table again. And waited. Waited and did not speak until she broke down and took his hand again and held it. Only then did he share his thinking.
“I think this: I think our lives aren’t over yet, Lucy. Just because Justin and I are going to be in another city doesn’t mean you and I stop knowing each other on the day we leave. There are telephones. There’s the US mail. We still don’t know the end to our story because it hasn’t ended yet. I just need to get my son somewhere he’ll be safe. But to answer your question, I think we could have been something wonderful. And I don’t yet accept that we never will be.”
He gave her hand a squeeze and she smiled again in spite of herself.
“Funny,” she said, “but this is also similar to the conversation I had with Pete yesterday. He had to say goodbye to his wolf-dog, and I told him he didn’t know whether Prince would stay away forever. I told him he should just say goodbye for now.”
“Exactly,” Calvin said. “This is just goodbye for now.”
A few minutes after Calvin left for home with his son, Pete joined her in the kitchen. Almost as though he’d been waiting for what he deemed the more important matters to blow over. Waiting his turn.
“Nice that he’s back, huh?” Pete said.
“Very.”
“I hate it that they have to move. That’s my best friend I’m about to lose.”
“I know exactly how you feel,” she said.
He sat down at the table with her. For a long time he didn’t speak—which was unlike Pete—and neither did she.
“I never see you smoke anymore,” he said after a time.
“I gave it up.”
“Oh. That’s good. What made you decide?”
She opened her mouth to give an explanation that glossed over the surface of things. Links between smoking and cancer. That sort of answer. What came out was more honest than she had intended.
“I wanted Calvin to be proud of me. And also . . . since I met him, I guess it started meaning more, the idea of being healthy and living a long time.”
She expected Pete to ask questions. Dig into the bond between Calvin and herself. He didn’t. Maybe it was more evident than all that. Maybe it went without saying.
“Prince was in my yard last night,” he said.
“Really? That’s interesting. Are you sure it was him?”
“Positive. I went right up to him. He wasn’t in the yard exactly. Kind of out in the field behind the yard. We don’t have a fence. But I went to him and he licked my hand. But he wouldn’t come any closer to the house with me.”
“He must have followed you home.”
“That’s what I was thinking. But why would he follow me home if he still wants to be wild?”
“Maybe he’s keeping an eye on you to make sure you’re okay.”
“I thought of that. But then I figured it was one of those things you think, but really it’s too good to be true. I mean, of course I want to think that . . .”
A long silence. Pete had something else on his mind. She could tell. But she didn’t ask about it, out of respect for him. She let him offer it on his own timing.
“Dr. Lucy? If I didn’t have my job anymore, or I couldn’t give you the money from it anymore, would you be okay?”
“Of course. I’ll get by.”
“Even with all the animals to take care of?”
“I’ll manage.”
“Good. Because my dad wants to know where I’ve been going. And once I have to tell him I’m working a job, or if he finds it out for himself . . . that’ll be it for the money.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Just do what’s right for you. Whatever makes you safe with him.”
Pete squirmed uncomfortably in his chair.
“That’s just the thing, though,” he said. “I don’t think there is such a thing as safe with him. He’s been laying off me almost all summer, but I don’t think that’s going to last much longer. I don’t know why he’s been laying back on the punishment. But I have a really bad feeling about the way things are going. I can’t even say exactly why I feel the way I do. But something about it doesn’t seem right.”
Dr. Lucy dug around in the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a small handful of change.
“Here,” she said, separating out two dimes. “You know where I am if you need me.”
“Two dimes, ma’am? Why two?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just in case it’s a two-dime situation, I suppose.”
Chapter Twenty-Four: Pete
Pete stashed the bike in the garage and let himself into the house. His dad was sitting in his chair with those half reading glasses on. Reading the morning paper. Which Pete vaguely registered as odd, because his dad didn’t take the morning paper. He’d always said it was too expensive. So someone must have brought him this, or . . . would he have taken somebody else’s?
He looked up at Pete. Right into his eyes. And though Pete had been unable to explain his dread to the doctor, and couldn’t define the look on his father’s face now, the older man’s eyes were a road map of everything Pete feared. Everything that was souring and festering between them.
“Ticktock, Petey boy.”
“Ticktock, sir?”
“It’s a clock.”
“Yeah, I got that much.”
“Time is running out on your honesty problem.”
Pete shifted from foot to foot and entwined his fingers in front of himself the way he might fold his hands on a school desk to show politeness and cooperation. Only a moment later did he realize he was also instinctively protecting his most vulnerable organs.
“Yes, sir. I know that. That’s what I came back to talk to you about.”
A silence. It felt eerie.
“So talk.”
“I been working a job.”
Pete watched his father and waited for him to respond, with a little of the energy of a wild horse who knows he’s about to be quite literally broken. At first the only response was a visible working of his father’s jaw. Those bulgy veins began to show in his temple, which was not a good sign.
“And the money went where?” His father was clearly struggling to keep his voice steady.
Pete had rehearsed his answer. It wasn’t a hundred percent true. It wasn’t the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as they said on those court TV shows, but it was true enough that Pete felt comfortable with it.
“I owed a lot for patching up that dog I found.”
“So you worked a job all summer. And you gave the money to a stray mutt instead of me. Am I hearing that right?”
“Yes, sir. That’s about the size of it.”
Pete’s father moved suddenly. Forward and partway into a standing position, as if about to come after Pete, who flew back a few steps. Then his dad froze. Half sitting and half standing.
“Did a stray mutt raise you and put a roof over your head and food in your mouth for twelve years?”
“No, sir.”
“Then I would say your priorities leave a lot to be desired, boy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re gonna pay me back a
ll that. Every dollar of it. All that money you stole from this family while I was down injured and you were young and strong and able to work and not even willing to help out in your own household.”
Pete eyed his exits. Charted the path to both the front and back doors, ready to go for either if his dad blocked the other route to safety. His dad seemed to notice.
“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do that, sir.”
“We’re gonna start by selling that nice bike you got stashed out in the garage. You think you got a right to pedal around in style like some kind of royalty while I struggle to put food on the table?”
Somewhere around the word “royalty” his dad lost a measure of control with his words. What began as a tightly modulated sentence ended in a roar of anger.
“I can’t do that, sir. It’s not even mine. I only borrowed it.”
“Well, I can. And you can just owe a debt to whoever you’re borrowing from, but you’re not going to owe a debt to me. I won’t have it. I’ll get what’s coming to me.”
Pete sprinted for the back door, hoping his dad was still not well enough to catch him. But the old man was fast. He grabbed at the back of Pete’s shirt as Pete stopped to turn the knob, but Pete pulled free and ran into the garage. He grabbed hold of the bike, turned it toward the door, then saw the doorway fill up with angry father.
Pete mounted the bike, pushed off, and attempted to ride right through his dad. It didn’t work out at all. The older man simply grabbed the handlebars and wrenched the bike sideways. Pete had to lever one leg against the concrete garage floor for balance. Meanwhile his father attempted to wrestle the bike away from him. Worse yet, he was about to succeed.
Without any forethought, only knowing in his gut that he could not let such a disaster happen, Pete swung his fist. It connected smartly with his father’s nose. The old man let go of the bike and teetered backward, bright blood running freely down his upper lip.
Pete righted the bike, stepped hard on the pedals, and squirted through the open door before his father could catch him.
As he stood pressing the pedals, desperately racing for the street, Pete had a flash of a memory. A conversation he’d had with Justin. It came into his head, all of a sudden, unbidden. Pete had claimed he’d never hit anyone and he never would. And now, if you counted head-butting Jack out by the lake, he had already broken his vow twice. If you went on to count what he would have done if Boomer hadn’t been inside the truck when he said what he said, three times. Did life conspire to force you to do the very thing you said you would never do? And, if so, why?
“When I catch you, boy, you’re gonna be sorry you were ever born!”
Pete looked over his shoulder to see his father doing a surprisingly good job of keeping up with the bike. When had he gotten so completely healed? Why was he suddenly so fast?
Pete pedaled harder and more desperately, and opened up a better lead. The shouting behind him continued. It deteriorated into plain cussing, and grew angrier and more desperate with every foot of lead Pete gained. He looked over as he raced by Justin’s house, and saw his friend’s face in the window. Justin must have come to see what all the yelling was about.
Pete sped up even more on sheer adrenaline, then shot around a corner. It was a good move. It presented him with a series of driveways. About six, from the look of it, in close succession.
He chose the fourth. Made a sharp turn. He prayed there would be no fence around the house he had chosen. Life was on his side for a change. There was no fence. Pete pedaled through the yard, jumped off the bike at the end of the garage, and hunkered down just behind it, invisible from the street in every direction.
There he crouched. And listened.
He listened to his dad yelling. Swearing. Insulting Pete. Threatening Pete. Verbally removing every last piece of worth from Pete’s very existence. The voice reached him from slightly different directions as Pete listened. Clearly his dad was walking up and down the street trying to see where Pete had gone.
He could hear front doors opening as neighbors turned out to see what all the fuss was about. They must have been hearing all the terrible words flung at Pete as a weapon.
Still, he felt far more worthy than he would have if he’d returned to the doctor’s house with a sad story instead of her bicycle.
Pete had no way of knowing how long he crouched behind the neighbor’s garage with the precious bike. It felt like more than an hour, but time is a funny thing. It plays tricks, and Pete knew it.
When all had been silent for a staggering length of time, Pete looked carefully before dashing through open ground to the next garage, wheeling the bike beside him. Then the next garage. And the next. In just a matter of a minute or two he found his way to Justin’s back door.
He knocked.
Mr. Bell answered.
“Pete,” Mr. Bell said, his voice brimming with concern. “What was all that? We were worried about you.”
“I think probably you were right to worry, sir. He pretty much wants to kill me. Can I come in?”
Mr. Bell stepped out of the doorway, and Pete walked the bike into the tiny living room and leaned it against the wall.
“Will you look after this for me? Until I can get it back safe to Dr. Lucy?”
Pete looked up and saw Justin standing in the bedroom doorway, his eyes brimming with fear, tears running down his face.
Before Pete could even ask what was so terribly wrong, Mr. Bell spoke.
“Pete, is that your father who was chasing you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Pete watched Mr. Bell and Justin exchange looks, speaking with their eyes. It was a language Pete could not understand. But something grave was happening just beyond Pete’s mental reach.
“What? Why?”
“Tell him, Justin,” Mr. Bell said.
“Could you tell him, please?” Justin asked in his smallest voice.
“Pete is your friend, Justin. Tell him what you told me.”
A long silence. Justin refused to meet Pete’s eyes. He stared at the floor carefully. Thoroughly, as though studying a map on the wooden boards. Something that would help him find his way.
“That was one of the men.”
At first Pete didn’t get it. But in the silence that followed, he worried that he did.
“My dad? Was one of the men who beat you up?”
A nose wipe from Justin. Then a barely perceptible nod.
“What did he do? Did he actually hit you?”
“He was the one who broke that bottle on my head,” Justin said.
Pete realized he wasn’t breathing. Or was hardly breathing, anyway. He pulled a huge gasp of air and tried to steady his balance, which was suddenly less than assured.
“Justin, are you sure?”
“Positive. I’ll never forget that face as long as I live.”
Pete felt his way over to the couch and sat. He placed his head in his hands for a moment. Then he rubbed his face briskly. He looked up at Justin and Mr. Bell. If called upon to say what he had been thinking in that moment, he could not have guessed. It’s possible that he was not thinking at all.
“Okay, I’m going to leave the bike here and go back and have it out with him.”
“No, Pete,” Mr. Bell said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You said yourself he wants to kill you.”
“I didn’t mean literally.”
“I heard the things he was shouting at you. I don’t think it’s safe to go back there. I don’t want you to go.”
“You’re right,” Pete said. He sat in perfect stillness for a moment, knowing what he would do without even thinking it out in his head. “You’re right,” he said again, as though he had not just said it. “I’ll go to Dr. Lucy’s.”
“Much better plan,” Mr. Bell said.
“Hold on to the bike for now, please. Okay? I don’t want to ride it over to her house until I know he’s not out looking for me.”
“Yes, of course. But we’ll
only be here another two days or so.”
“Okay,” Pete said. “That’s okay. That’s long enough.” He walked to the door. Looked back at his two friends. “I sure will miss you when you go away,” he said. “Both of you.”
Then he walked out the door without waiting for a reply.
He turned in the direction of Dr. Lucy’s house and jogged down the street. About three blocks later, when he knew he was well out of view of the Bells’ house, he turned a corner and headed back toward home.
Pete swung the front door open so hard it slammed back against the living room wall. His father, who had been holding a handkerchief to his nose and looking out the window onto the street, jumped visibly.
“You’ve got some nerve coming back here without that bike, Petey boy.” His voice was a nasally whine. At any other time Pete might have been tempted to laugh.
Pete said what he’d come to say, and his voice sounded strangely steady to his own ears.
“I asked you straight out if you had anything to do with what happened to my friend Justin. And you looked me right in the face and lied to me. And that was when your back was so bad you said you could hardly walk to the front stoop to get the mail. Did you lie to me about that, too?”
As he spoke, Pete watched his father’s back straighten.
Pete’s body surged with so much adrenaline that he had no way of knowing if he was scared or not. A kind of electric whiteness in his brain reminded him that he might be about to die, or something close to it. But he couldn’t get in touch with how he felt about that. Nor did he want to.
“And I told you,” his father said in a voice of gathering rage, “that if you ever came back into my house again talking like I got to answer to you for what I do, you could expect to find your clothes out on the front dirt. You’re only my son as long as I say I want you to be.”
“Fine,” Pete said. “Put ’em out there. I don’t want to be your son.”
In a perfect silence, in a complete suspension of activity or intention, the moment stretched on. And where there should have been something akin to a world war in Pete’s small world, there was nothing.
Say Goodbye for Now Page 23
