These Gentle Wounds

by Helene Dunbar

  He puts his milk down and opens a pack of Oreos. He twists the top off a cookie and eats the cream out. I thought only kids ate them that way. Funny how you can live with someone for five years and they can still do things that surprise you.

  He dips the rest of his cookie in his milk and stares at me for the longest time. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? The stupid things adults do to screw their kids up?”

  His words surprise me even more than his cookie-eating. One, he usually doesn’t talk to me much. And two, when he does, he always seems a little nervous, like I’m going to flip out or something. I don’t remember a time when he’s talked to me like he talks to Kevin.

  I guess he doesn’t expect a response, because he keeps talking. “Your mom … ” He smiles like he’s picturing her in his head. “Your mom was so pretty when I met her. She had eyes the same color as yours. That same green. She was sitting in the park with a book on her lap and this big old Labrador she had before you were born. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”

  This is uncharted territory, the equivalent of those parts of old maps that say “Here there be dragons.” Jim has never talked to me about my mom like she was a person, or anything other than just my mom. Like Kevin, he never mentions her much at all.

  I don’t move. I don’t even breathe. I’m afraid if I say anything or distract him he’ll stop, and I want to hear this so, so, so badly.

  “She always wanted to be a mother,” he continues. “That was what she wanted more than anything. No one was happier when your brother was born. But for me—nothing against Kevin, I adore that kid—I just had other plans.” He looks embarrassed, like he’s suddenly remembering who he’s talking to. “I’m sorry. Do you even want to hear this?”

  I nod hard. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to hear anything as much as this.

  “Anyhow, I wanted to travel, see the world. I was thinking about joining the Peace Corps or teaching in Japan. I already had plans to go backpacking through the Smokies when I found out Ava was pregnant. She said I should go, that she didn’t want to hold me back. So I took off and left her to it, and she met your father. And then they had you.”

  Jim runs his finger around on the edge of his glass. I wait for the sound glass makes when you do that, but there’s only silence. “He’s a hard man, your father. I don’t really understand him. At one point I tried … ” He stops himself. “Never mind, that isn’t your problem. But in the eyes of the law, he’s still your dad, and maybe you should give him a chance.”

  I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold. I open my mouth, wondering if I can tell Jim about The Night Before, hoping that maybe he’ll get it just like Kevin did. But I can’t get a sound out. What chance would I ever have of staying with him if he knew what I was really like?

  “Anyhow,” he continues, “I’d taken this job to save up for a trip, but after everything that happened, well … ” He crumbles a cookie in his hands. “You’re a good kid, Gordie. A real good kid. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.”

  My eyes well up. He wouldn’t be saying that if he knew. Kevin promised he wouldn’t tell, but what if he does? Would I get shipped off somewhere?

  “I didn’t do so well at keeping your mom safe from him. But I’m going to try to do better with you. I want you to know that.”

  It takes a minute for his words to hit. For them to really fight their way through the cobwebs of my brain and get to a place where they make sense. Once they’re there, they do something to me, inside, that I don’t understand.

  Before I know it, I’m on the other side of the table with my arms around Jim, hugging him, and he’s hugging me back.

  It’s so odd. It’s like a dream I’m sure I’m going to wake up from. All this time, I thought Kevin would hate me if he ever knew what I’d done. I was wrong. All this time, I thought Jim didn’t give a shit about me. Maybe I was wrong about that, too.

  I guess everyone felt like they’d failed to keep Mom safe. You’d have thought that between Jim, and Kevin, and me, one of us would have gotten it right.

  I manage to get “thanks” out of my throat, which feels sore from all the talking I’ve done today. I pull away just as Kevin comes down the stairs. His hair is standing straight up and he looks like he’s only half awake.

  “Did someone decide to have a party and not invite me?” he asks, yawning.

  “Nope.” Jim gets up with a sad smile on his face. “Just having a glass of milk and a chat with your brother here.” He winks at me and heads up the stairs.

  “What was that about?” Kevin asks, his voice still filled with sleep.

  “Just … stuff.” I push past him and head toward the stairs.

  “Stuff? What stuff?” Kevin asks. He isn’t used to being the one left out of things.

  I don’t answer. I’ve done enough talking for one day.

  Besides, it feels kind of good to be the one who knows stuff for a change.

  Fifteen

  “You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet,” Kevin says. “Sit down. You’ve got ten minutes to go, anyhow.”

  He’s right, but waiting for Luke to pick me up is making me edgy. I’ve packed and unpacked so many times, I don’t even know what’s in my bag. I wish Kevin could drive me to the campsite, but the idea of needing my brother to drop me off makes me feel like a little kid.

  I look out the window. “What’re you doing tonight?”

  “Enjoying having the house to myself for a change,” he answers as he flips channels on the TV. He only stops when he lands on a show where some chef is setting something covered in sugar on fire.

  “Maybe I should stay here,” I mumble. I can already picture the house going up in flames with the smoldering remains of some burnt dessert fossilized in the oven.

  “I’ll be here if you need to call or anything,” Kevin says, completely missing my meaning.

  “Call? On what?” Not like I have a cell phone or anything. I pull the dusty green curtains apart and check the driveway again. “Besides, what could possibly go wrong?”

  Kevin opens his mouth but then closes it without saying anything, smiling like a cat gorging on a mouse.

  “Yeah, fine.” I glare at him.

  “It’ll be good. Really. Just … don’t feel pressured about anything.”

  “Pressured about what? What are you talking about?”

  He puts the remote down and gives me a look like he wishes he hadn’t said anything. “I mean, just don’t feel like you have to do anything you don’t want to.”

  His words stop me. For a minute I think he means fishing or something, but then I recognize the expression on his face and feel a wave of heat rise all the way through my body.

  “Don’t be a dick. Sarah and I are just friends. She’s just being nice.”

  He laughs as I hear Luke’s muscle car pull up. The bass from the car’s stereo is cranked so high, it’s beating through the floor.

  I look back at Kevin. Suddenly, I feel like I’m being thrown into the deep end of a pool while my life ring is on dry land making incendiary desserts. Sweaty and shaky, I wish I could go back upstairs and hide under the covers.

  “Seriously, I mean … ” My stomach feels like it’s in my throat.

  “Just go,” he says, throwing my backpack at me. He puts his hand on my neck and pushes me toward the door, and not gently either.

  So here’s the thing. It isn’t that I don’t want a girlfriend, whatever “girlfriend” really means. It’s more that Kevin is right. I’m not sure either of us really knows how to do it. And at the same time, I mean, come on. What girl is ever going to like me that way? Sarah probably just feels sorry for me, or, like Luke says, she’s bored when she goes camping just with them.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and try to block out all my questions. I’m pretty sure Luke must have filled her in about me by now and she’s regr
etting ever asking me.

  With a quick push from Kevin, I’m out the door. I steal a quick glance back at the house and propel myself toward the car. Luke has, thankfully, turned the music down. Not enough to have a conversation, but at least enough that it isn’t making my teeth shake. Sarah leans over and opens one of the back doors for me, a look of anticipation on her face.

  It was one thing to think about going camping with this strange girl and her perfect brother and his equally perfect girlfriend. It’s another to be standing here, faced with the reality of actually doing it.

  The way she’s leaning, half out the door, Sarah’s dark hair makes her look elfin, like something from a storybook. The bright blue of her top sparkles against her skin. For a minute I’m blinded by the color and the strange possibilities that seem to stretch in front of me where before there was just empty road.

  Part of me wants to run back into the house and forget about this whole thing. But the other part of me, the part that’s stupid enough to want to step off the widow’s walk and fly, makes me slide in next to her. I feel like Alice down the rabbit hole, like I’ve stepped into someone else’s life.

  She’s wearing her bird necklace again. And even though we did our presentation in class yesterday, me standing next to her while she explained my photos, that was just school. Sitting next to her now, pretending I belong here, is a different thing.

  The campsite isn’t that far away, only fifteen miles or so. But suddenly I’m glad for the loud music, because it means I can stay quiet and watch the unfamiliar scenery go by. I look out the window and listen to Luke and Jessie talking in the front seat. Luke is used to me being quiet, I guess. I’m not sure Jessie really cares whether I’m here or not.

  A few times, I screw up my courage and catch Sarah’s eye. Each time I do, she’s watching me, smiling.

  When we get to the site, Luke goes to the trunk and starts pulling stuff out. Poles. Tents. A gas stove. As I watch him, Sarah comes over and loops her arm through mine.

  “I’ve learned the hard way to wait until he screws it up and asks me to help. Otherwise he just gets all upset and tells me I’m doing it wrong,” she says.

  The complicated pile of pieces that Luke and Jessie are standing over look like big metal pick-up sticks. I can’t imagine how they’d fit together. “I’m not sure how much help I’d be anyhow,” I admit.

  “How are you at collecting firewood?” she asks, pointing toward a dense group of trees. She has a way of asking things that makes it sound like there are other questions beneath the surface. This time, it sounds like she’s asking something about me letting her lead me into the woods, about her teaching me another new thing.

  I nod. “Okay, I guess.” My voice breaks as I answer the question I think she’s asking as well as the one she actually said out loud.

  She calls out to Luke that we’re going to gather wood. He waves us off and turns back to the puzzle pieces of the tents while Jessie reads him directions.

  We’re both quiet as we pick up branches and twigs. Sarah shows me how the bark of a white birch can be pulled off in strips to use as kindling.

  I should be telling her a story or something. She invited me here, and now I should be entertaining her. But I’m not good at stories, and the ones that fill my head don’t make for easy conversation, so I stay quiet.

  When we get back, Luke and Jessie are finishing off the second tent and I get a little sick thinking about how this is all going to work. I mean, Luke is cool and all, but the thought of sharing a tent with him and having to talk about whatever normal guys talk about when they’re holed up in a tent together is intimidating as hell.

  Better—or worse, I’m not sure which—is when watching Luke and Jessie together makes me realize that I have to at least consider that the person I’ll be sharing a tent with won’t be Luke. But I try to force the thought out of my head the minute it announces itself, because I can feel the muscles in my hand tighten. I so badly don’t want to lose it here.

  After a round of hot dogs that I manage to swallow without choking, we spend a little time sitting around the fire. Luke catches me up on how we won our final game and the three of them talk about school. Then it starts to drizzle. Luke and Jessie huddle under a tarp in a way that makes it clear that their only plans for tent-sharing are with each other. Leaving Sarah and me together.

  If it’s possible to be excited and petrified at the same time, that’s me. Luke and Jessie are already off together, and Sarah is waiting inside her tent. All I can do is stand in the cold rain and stare at the door.

  For a strange moment I wonder if Mom had the same feeling I’m having before she drove her car into the water; like she was putting something into motion that couldn’t be taken back. I know that once I go in there, everything is going to change and there won’t be anything I can do about it.

  My stomach is so tied up in knots that I think I’m going to be sick. I stand there weighing my options. Puking doesn’t sound like much fun. I could tell her Kevin needs me to come home, but of course I don’t have a phone so that would be stupid. Maybe I can make up some weird allergic reaction to birch trees.

  Sarah’s head pops out of the tent. “Why are you standing out there in the rain?”

  “I’m … ” I look up at the sky and a raindrop lands right in my eye. No matter how scared I am, even I know that being in a tent with a beautiful girl is better than standing outside getting soaked. So I take a deep breath and head in.

  Rain is bouncing off the outside of the tent. It sounds like Ping-Pong balls. I guess you aren’t supposed to want rain when you’re camping, but the sound is relaxing and once I get inside, I realize it’s nice to sit next to Sarah in the tent.

  We crank up the heater, spread out our sleeping bags, open a bag of chips and some cans of pop, and play Scrabble. She’s good, but I’m better, which seems to surprise her and make her happy at the same time.

  I’m not spinning, but I’m not sure where the time goes, either. Again, I notice that being with her is easy in a way I haven’t felt before. Kevin knows almost everything there is to know about me, which is great and all, but I’m kind of a clean slate with Sarah. I guess she didn’t ask Luke about me after all. She doesn’t seem to expect me to screw up, and so I haven’t. Not yet anyway.

  After the games, I lie back on the crinkly fabric of the sleeping bag and watch the shadows of the trees outside play on the sides of the tent. Far off, I can hear Luke and Jessie laughing. I listen to the crickets and birds and sounds from animals I can’t recognize. It would be nice to capture the noises of the campground and the smell of wood smoke, and the lilac scent that seems to follow Sarah like it wants to be as close to her as possible.

  She stretches out on her own bag, next to mine. Like most of the clothes I’ve seen her in, her bag is black; it sits on top of the tent floor looking like a giant hole. She’s lying stomach-down on it, propped up on her arms, which are freckled like some connect-the-dots game, and I have to link my fingers together to keep from reaching out and doing just that.

  “I’m glad you were able to come,” she says.

  “Me too.” Then I ask something I’ve wondered about, because it isn’t like I have any real experience with things like a normal family or rules. “Do your parents always let you do stuff like this without them?”

  She looks toward the door of the tent and everything in her seems to stiffen. “Yeah. Well.” Then she flips over and sits up, her legs crossed in front of her. “It’s all about Luke.” She looks down and plays with the hem of her jeans.

  “Luke?” Now I sit up too.

  “They never say no to him. Haven’t you noticed that my perfect brother pretty much gets to do whatever he wants?”

  I think about Luke and his movie star looks, and his trophies, and Jessie on his arm. He’s like the star other planets rotate around. I guess it would be different to be his br
other than to be Kevin’s, since Kevin is always looking out for me and giving stuff up to make sure he’s around.

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” I admit.

  “There’s no reason you should. But it gets old. It’s like I’m lost in the shadows when Luke’s around. On the other hand … ” She shrugs. “Sometimes it’s good not to be noticed.”

  “Sorry,” I say, and I am. I get what she’s saying. I spend so much time trying to fade into the woodwork and not be noticed, but everyone is always watching me, waiting for me to fall apart. It’s strange to hear someone talk about things being reversed for them.

  “It’s fine,” she says. “I mean, really, there are a million ways it could be worse. It’s not like I’m immune to him either. I’d like him even if he weren’t my brother. And I get to tag along when he gets it into his head to do something like this.”

  She pauses. One of those big pauses that lets you know that whatever comes next is important.

  “I ran away from boarding school,” she says in a voice that’s trying to be casual. But the way she looks at the tent door gives her away.

  “Boarding school?” The words come out of my mouth as a hundred other things fall into place in my brain.

  She smiles and kicks my foot. “Yeah. You mean, you didn’t wonder why I was never around before this semester?”

  “Yeah, but … ” I can tell I’m blushing again by the fact that my cheeks feel like they’re on fire. I lean my chin into my hands, hoping to hide most of it. “I thought I just missed seeing you or something.”

  Sarah bursts out laughing and shakes her head. “Right. No, I used to go to Fairlane.”

  Oh.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she says, but she’s still smiling so I know she isn’t really upset with me. At least I hope she isn’t. Fairlane is a school for smart kids who get into trouble a lot. Kevin and I could have ended up there if not for the really expensive tuition, but I can’t imagine what would have landed Sarah there.