“Did Sawyer ever touch you in a certain way, Finton?”
“Once,” he said. “In the woods by the school. Nothin’ serious.”
Suddenly, he recalled the exact moment. Coming upon Sawyer sitting on a stump. The crazed look in his eyes. The crow cawing. He remembered going to the Planet of Solitude, a detail he kept to himself. Then Skeet had come back for him, but Sawyer was gone.
“Did your father know?”
“I never told him.”
“What about either of your brothers?” Finton shrugged. Kieran cleared his throat and seemed a little edgy, squirming his backside on the concrete until he was good and settled. “What I mean is, did either of them start acting different at some point?”
He immediately thought of Homer that summer when he, all of a sudden, seemed to be spending more time on his own, barring himself in his bedroom and turning the music up loud. He wondered if it would get Homer in trouble if he told. It occurred to him that Kieran knew the same thing he did—that motives for killing Sawyer Moon were so plentiful they practically grew on trees.
But Kieran spared his dilemma. “I already talked to Homer.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Well, now, I can’t tell you that. But if you can think of anything else…”
With a shake of his head, Finton drew a curtain of silence between them. He stared straight ahead, trying to convey that it was time to move on.
Mary’s seat on the bus remained empty. The ride to school was long and boring, for there were no other girls he loved nearly as much. There were a few whom he considered good-looking, but they weren’t reachable like Mary, or nearly as pretty. They had looser morals and ways he didn’t approve of.
He had learned from his teachers and parents that women weren’t supposed to smoke, drink, or say bad words. They didn’t talk back to anyone, and they didn’t make loud or rude noises. They didn’t romp in the grass with boys or play boys’ games. And they always went to mass, carried a prayer book and recited every word of the priest’s service. They certainly did well in school while they waited for a boy their own age to ask them to the school dances, then later the prom, and then finally to be engaged and married. Although it was fine if they wanted to be teachers, nurses, and secretaries to earn extra money for the household, they didn’t need to aspire to careers and would certainly give up working as soon as the first baby was coming. That was the woman’s main job—to stay pure for her husband until she could bear his children.
Mary could be all that and more. Even though she was smart, she was traditional in ways that he liked. Finton wanted an old-fashioned girl and, while Darwin had quite a few of those, it also had more than its share of skanks and streels.
So he focused on a girl he would be proud to have.
When the weekend came, however, he still hadn’t seen her.
“Jesus, your girlfriend’s not here again today,” Skeet pointed out to him on Friday. “She must really be dyin’ or something.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” But Finton was beginning to wonder just how sick Mary was. His worst fears were confirmed when Miss Woolfred started out the morning prayer by asking everyone to remember Mary Connelly because she was sick and her mother requested that they pray for her.
Sunday morning, she wasn’t in church, nor was her family. When Father Power dedicated the mass to “the Connelly’s dear little girl, Mary,” Finton felt a lump in his throat and a ball of gunk at the pit of his stomach.
He went home after mass and went straight to the bedroom to pray. Kneeling on his bed and looking up at the crucified Jesus, he repeatedly asked God to save her. He was still kneeling when Homer and Clancy crashed into the room, laughing and roughhousing.
“Didn’t you get enough o’ that in mass?” Clancy asked.
Homer asked if he’d heard about Mary Connelly. Finton stopped praying and looked at his brother, who actually appeared sombre. “I can’t believe she’s that sick. I mean, she’s only your age, isn’t she?”
“She’s in my class.”
“She’s cute too,” said Clancy. “I’m surprised you’re not after her.”
He felt his heart grow tight in his chest. “Me and Mary are friends.”
“Better her than that Dredge streel.” Homer chuckled. “Anyway, it don’t look like you’ll be friends for much longer.”
Finton launched himself towards Homer’s throat, knocking his brother onto Clancy’s bed. “Shut up!” he yelled. “Just shut your goddamn mouth!”
Homer was able to fend him off, and it didn’t take long before Clancy managed to peel the younger away from the elder. By then,
Nanny Moon and both parents had come rushing in to demand an explanation.
“He’s pissed at me because his friggin’ girlfriend is sick.” Homer straightened himself up and sniffed, touching a couple of fingers to his nose. Then he smirked at Finton. “You swore.”
“Never.”
“I heard you.” Homer looked to their mother. “Finton said the g-d word.”
“Finton, you didn’t.” The disappointment in his mother’s eyes hurt him as much as any words or hitting could do. But Finton locked his lips tight, for fear he might incriminate himself—advice he’d gotten from watching Perry Mason.
“Jesus, you’re bleedin’,” said Elsie, frowning in Homer’s direction. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” Before whisking Homer to the bathroom for repairs, she turned back to Finton. “And you, I’d suggest, better get your act together. Good boys don’t hit their brothers and make them bleed. And they certainly don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“He started it,” Finton yelled.
But his mother was clearly frustrated. “Don’t you think we got enough to worry about around here without the likes of you actin’ up and startin’ rackets?”
“I’m not just gonna let him—”
“That’s enough out of you,” said Tom. “One more word, and you’ll be grounded to your bed for the rest of this day of Our Lord.”
“I don’t care.” Even as he said the words, Finton felt the anger welling up inside him, and all eyes turned to him. “You won’t even listen to me.”
His father had no choice. He knew that.
“That’s it,” Tom said. “Stay here till you rot. Clancy, leave him alone.”
They all filed out of the bedroom, one at a time.
“I hate you,” Finton said. His father halted and wheeled around, simultaneously removing his belt.
“Just say it again,” he warned as he twisted the belt into a weapon and wrung it tight until the leather creaked.
Finton squared his shoulders and glared into his father’s eyes. “I hate you.”
Tom pulled off and slapped Finton’s face with the belt. The boy fell backward and smacked his right ear against the wall as he felt the thin leather belt strike his ribs. He knew by the burning sensation on the flesh of his stomach that the belt had raised a welt.
“Say it again, ya little bastard. Say it again and I’ll strike ya down!” His father was panting, eyes blazing with anger, the belt poised and ready to relaunch.
Finton knew he should stop talking, if only for his own preservation, but he couldn’t help himself. He had to stand up for what was right or no one ever would. His father had become the enemy of truth. “I hate you… goddamn you.”
Tom lashed out again and walloped him in the stomach, engraving his skin with a deep, red mark. Over and over, they replayed the same scene as Finton uttered the words he knew would hurt his father the most—and the father, with his leather belt, meted out justice. Several blows later, panting harder, Tom’s tone shifted from angry to pleading. “Say you’re sorry, and I can stop hurting you.” The hand that gripped the belt was quivering. The eyes that glared at him were deep set and red.
“No,” he said softly but as firmly as the first time.
The belt hit him again. And every time his father asked, Finton refused, and Tom would wallop him. “Had enough
?” Tom arched the belt, prepared to strike another blow.
Finton could hear no other voices. Everyone must have left. He’d closed his eyes, but he wouldn’t cry. Wouldn’t allow him the satisfaction. His entire body sang with the sting of the many lashes, but the words that could save him would not rise to his throat. “I said, did you have enough, or do I have to hit you again?” Tom sounded tired—if not quite defeated—as if he, too, had had enough of the senseless torture.
Finton was tempted to just give in, to just say the required words that would signal his repentance, but also his insufficiency. Finally, he managed to open his eyes and look up at his father, tears on the brink of falling forward. He knew his father would show no mercy. But mercy was neither what he wanted, nor needed.
“I love you,” Finton said.
For a moment, Tom stood and stared at his youngest son. Then he wrapped the belt around his trembling palm and left without a word, shutting the door behind him.
At first, Finton just lay on his bed, dazed, damaged, and confused, wondering how everything had spun out of control so fast. While Tom waited for some word about a police investigation in which he was the only suspect, he was under extreme duress. So Finton already forgave him. Nonetheless, Tom seemed to be afraid of his own son and, while demonstrations of emotion had never been his father’s specialty, lately something had driven a wedge between them.
Finton nearly wore out his brain thinking about it, but his thoughts eventually turned to Mary Connelly, lying on her own bed in her house up the road, barely able to breathe. Sad and afraid, he closed his eyes and the room fell dark. Ripples of colour quivered like sound waves—radiant splashes of orange and violet, inflected by occasional ink-blot splashes of candy apple red and blueberry blue. His soul soared upward, rocketed through the air and thrust forward, up and away, until the heavens turned black, then suddenly exploded in an infinite plethora of colours. All around him danced ten thousand points of light—stars and planets of every shade, both subtle and vibrant. Round and colossal, they were so close he could almost touch them. He soared upward slowly, purposefully. Looking down, he realized he was gravitating towards a hunter-green surface, alive with tendrils of waving grass—at last, his Planet of Solitude. Before him the universe lay apocalyptically bare—extravagant, exposed and divine. Stars zoomed past and exploded in the dark midair, crashing into nothingness, while manifold comets roared arbitrarily overhead.
At last, his feet conquered the luxuriant surface of the planet, and he found himself sitting beneath his tree. He’d sat here before on this same patch of grass with his back against the towering apple tree, which sprouted red fruit hanging low.
He channeled his thoughts towards Mary, how sick she was. How congested her chest was. She coughed now and then, but it hurt so much that she forcibly held back. Her skin was pale, her face rashed. All around her people gathered to pray while her mother sat beside her, holding her hand, and her father stood by the window, looking out. Above the bed hung a large crucifix. Mary was speaking, but he couldn’t hear the words. He focused hard, leaning towards her, nearly touching her.
But her lips didn’t move.
What are you trying to say?
I’m ready to let go.
But you can’t.
Don’t wanna be sick no more. Just wanna feel better.
I can help you. I can come to you.
He tried to imagine her with him beneath the tree. But he could no more conjure her there in his lap than he could invoke himself into her bedroom.
Understanding what he needed to do, he opened his eyes, startled by the shift into mundane reality. He concentrated on the bedroom window, but the light hurt his eyes. He wondered how long he’d been gone.
A sound arose from outside his bedroom door. “Hello?” he asked.
The door opened a crack. “I just came in to see if you were all right.”
“I’m okay.”
“I was in my room, and to be honest, I didn’t want to get in the way of your father’s wrath.”
He watched Nanny Moon step inside and close the bedroom door behind her. She perched on the edge of the bed, her back turned partially towards him. “I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, Finton. But you’re going to have to be more careful around him. Your father is under an awful strain. Don’t talk back so much.” She looked at him as if guessing his thoughts. Her eyes were softer, moister than he’d ever seen them. But then, Nanny Moon wasn’t usually the effusive type. “I know it’s hard for you.” She chuckled. “You’re the one they said was going to take on the world some day.”
He blinked, shocked at this reference to his first days. “Who said?”
“We all said. You came in through the front door practically ready for a battle. For hours, you did nothing but cry, and we all wondered if you were gonna bawl yourself—or us—to death. We were ready to kill either you or ourselves. But I thought you were crying for the state of the world you’d found yourself in. It was like you didn’t belong here, and the next thing you knew, here you were.”
Finton suddenly felt embarrassed for the tears he’d almost cried earlier. “Nanny Moon?”
“What is it?”
“Are the stories true?”
“Most stories are lies, but I s’pose they’re true just the same.”
“The ones about when I was born.” Finton drew a deep breath and wondered if he dared to ask. “Did it really happen the way they said?”
“Well, I s’pose that depends on who’s doin’ the telling.” She paused, then seemed to sober as if realizing she wouldn’t get off so easily. “I could tell you not to mind any of it. It don’t really matter, ya know.”
“But…”
“But the fact is, you were born. Isn’t that all that matters?”
“But it feels like everyone is just making stuff up.”
“Yes, b’y. I s’pose it does. But the truth is, your mother and father loves you very much, and if there’s anything you needs to know, then they’re the ones who should be sayin’ it—certainly not the likes o’ me.”
He wasn’t comforted by her words. In fact, they made him more confident that his past was a door which he needed to open and walk through. Someday.
“Don’t worry,” Nanny Moon said, patting his ankle. “You’ve always been the toughest of the Moons. I think they’re afraid of what you can do.”
“What can I do?” he asked, his heart thrumming. “I’m the smallest one.”
“The smallest, but the biggest.” She smiled weakly.
“I don’t understand.”
His grandmother sighed and patted his leg. As she got to her feet, she groaned as though she were lifting a thousand pounds. Finton was suddenly aware of how old she was. Turning towards her, he noted the lines on her face, the bend in her back.
“You don’t have to understand, darlin’. Just believe.”
“Believe what?”
She smiled wistfully and leaned down to kiss him on the cheek with her soft, cold lips. “You’ll know when the time comes. Meanwhile, be careful. No matter what you think, you’re not invincible. Do what you think is right and the world will come to you.”
She asked if there was anything she could get for him. But, as there was nothing he wanted, she departed, shutting the door and leaving him alone.
She was no sooner gone than he stood up and dashed to the window. Then he pushed back the curtains, forced open the latch, hoisted the window and clambered out.
The Turning
The Connelly driveway was crammed with cars, which made him wonder if he was too late. Even as he strode up the front step and rapped on the wooden door, he fought the urge to barge in and bolt past everyone, fly up the stairs and find her.
He didn’t recognize the person who opened the door—probably some relative—so he asked if he could see Mary.
“It’s not a good time.” The young woman’s voice quavered. “Mary’s not well.”
“I need to see
her.”
“I’m sorry. Come back another time.” Her eyes were distant, brimming with tears, as she started to close the door.
“I can help her.”
“Only God can help Mary now.” The door was shut in his face, and Finton found himself on the outside, looking up at the brass knocker.
He grabbed hold of it and again banged on the door. There was only one entrance, and it was the one he needed to go through.
“I’ve got to see her,” he demanded, more forcefully than he thought himself capable of.
“Well, you can’t. Now please go away.” The young woman, whom he’d thought pretty, was becoming less attractive.
“No one can help Mary the way I can.”
She’d been about to slam the door again, but she paused, appraising him with her big, sad eyes. “What can you do? You’re just a boy. And an ignorant one at that.”
“I can—” He hesitated, unsure of what to tell her that wouldn’t sound naïve or insane.
“You can what?”
“I can comfort her. I’m her friend, Finton Moon, from down the road. We’re in the same class. Can I just see her? It won’t take long. She’d want to see me.”
Something softened in the young woman’s face, and she glanced behind her. “Just a minute.” She left the door ajar as she turned to talk with someone. Finton was tempted to sneak inside, but he remembered what that kind of brashness had earned him from his father. One false word or move, and the whole enterprise would be jeopardized. He had to do it right, for Mary’s sake. Be calm and be careful, Nanny Moon had said.
At last, the young woman came back to the door, shaking her head. “Mary can’t see anyone. And her mother said for me not to let anyone in, especially a Moon.”
Finton Moon Page 15
