The From-Aways

by CJ Hauser

  “You have to get her to a hospital,” he says, and holds his arms out like I should take her but I can’t because I can’t move. I just stare at his face. His eyes refuse to settle on any single person in this crowd.

  Billy is standing beside Jethro, crying like a kid. Joseph comes running through everyone and he slams into Billy like a collision. And then he’s squeezing him. He’s squashing Billy against him, and I’ve never seen Joseph move that fast, or touch someone this way before.

  “Are you fucking crying, Billy?” I say. I can see part of his sooty face underneath the cage of his father’s arms.

  “Quinn,” Leah says.

  “Take her,” Jethro says again.

  And I say, “Rosie, hey, Rosie.” I want to show Jethro there’s no reason for him to be touching her at all. That he should just put her down on her feet. She can hold her liquor fine.

  Leah says, “Here.” She is so tall, Leah. Her arms are long enough that when she extends them, open to receive, and Jethro pours Rosie into her arms, it’s no problem. Rosie is so much smaller than she was before, so light now, it looks easy when Leah cradles her. She puts her face close to Rosie’s hot sleeping face, her ear near Rosie’s mouth. She nods.

  “Joseph,” Leah says. “Can you drive?”

  “What’s wrong with her, Jethro?” I say. I can’t move. “Jethro! What the fuck did you do to her?” And Jethro looks at me, his arms still half out where he’s let go of Rosie, and then he starts walking away. Away from the awful glowing, through the western bank of trees, and then he’s gone.

  I take two steps to follow him but Leah says, “Quinn, get in the car. Come on.” It’s me and Rosie and Leah in the backseat and now I’m holding Rosie, who is sleeping, who is wearing my red number nine shirt, who is bleeding on both of our shirts, who reeks of gasoline. She’s breathing against my neck so slowly. Too slowly. I feel the air go in and out of her and it does not seem like enough.

  “Hey, Rosie,” I say. I say “Rosalind” loudly, but she doesn’t wake up.

  In the front seat Billy is all hunched over, just crying and crying. I think he’d crawl into the driver’s seat, into Joseph’s lap, if he could.

  Joseph says, “Mercy General is closer but they might not have power. I think we should go to Saint John’s.”

  41

  Leah

  This is the news:

  Late this past Sunday evening Miss Rosalind Salem and a local boy (not named due to his status as a legal minor) assisted Mr. Jethro Newkirk in setting fire to the Dorian estate, formerly known as the properties of Penobscot Road. They used gasoline or possibly, further investigation suggests, boat diesel, to soak the perimeter and infrastructure of the house. The structure was midconstruction and largely composed of exposed timber and insulation, which burned quickly, soon spreading to the surrounding wooded area. The fire spread through the tree line to the local power substation, where a minor explosion shorted out power on the east side of town, which has remained in blackout for the past twenty-four hours. Miss Rosalind Salem of Menamon sustained fatal injuries after being struck by a piece of collapsing wreckage subsequent to the explosion at the substation. According to the male accomplice, who at this time is not being charged, Mr. Newkirk convinced the children to assist him in the arson. Their plans were related to but not sanctioned by a small group of residents intending to stage a protest of the construction of the Dorian property the next day, Mr. Carter Marks being the most vocal member of said group. The boy has stated that Marks had no knowledge of the arsonists’ actions and indeed had instructed him and Miss Salem not to participate in a demonstration slated for Monday afternoon. Mr. Newkirk is awaiting trial and is expected to receive the maximum ten years for felony arson.

  42

  Quinn

  All over town the lights are out. I wander around Carter’s house, room to room, flicking the little plastic switches up and down, each one clicking uselessly in its tracks. No matter how many times I do it, nothing happens. But that can’t last forever. Soon I’ll flick a switch and Rosie will walk into the room, yawning. She’ll give me a hard time for staying up all night, worrying about nothing.

  It’s four. Carter is sleeping.

  I knock around in Carter’s drawers and find the butts of several candles. I stick them on the kitchen table and I light them up. I’m going to wait this out. I’m not a patient person but what else can I do but sit here and wait for it to be over. I find a book on one of Carter’s shelves, one with pictures in it. I put it down on the table. I flip the pages, fast fast fast.

  I need a drink. I get a glass, and then I open the freezer drawer and a cool breeze puffs out at me. The ice tray is full of puddles. Right, of course: the electricity is the refrigerator too.

  The unstable ones are always the ones I like, but to black out the whole town? Let me tell you, Rosie, you win. We get it. You are the bravest girl, the biggest girl. We believe you. You can play with the big kids. Just come on out now. Please.

  Soon the lights will come back on.

  But when we left the hospital this morning at two, they didn’t say to come back. They didn’t tell us about visiting hours. They just kept saying, We’re so sorry, is there family you’d like to call?

  I said, Carter Marks, and they said, What’s his number?, and I said, J42.

  I think they mean Rosie’s family, Quinn, Joseph said. Someone else will take care of that. We’ll take you home.

  No, I said. I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t think of a single place I wanted to go. A person I could call. But then I knew. I didn’t like it, but there was no one else.

  Where is Carter? I said.

  We’ll take you over there, Leah said.

  I get up, flick the lights again. Incredible, that she did this.

  I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed.

  They dropped me off and I went inside. I sat on the sofa with a camping lantern while Carter talked to Joseph. I heard him close the door and I looked up. He was half slumped in the frame, leaning on the door like a felled tree, not quite fallen yet.

  The lights are off, I said.

  He didn’t move.

  So I got up and I went over to him, tapped him on the shoulder that was hunched up half covering his face. Hey, Carter, I said. It’s dark in here. You got any more candles?

  Carter unhunched himself, but his face was all wrong. It was crying, his face.

  Quinn, he said, and I said, I wish everyone would stop calling my name. Because that’s not a normal thing, you know? To call a person by their name, directly, all the time? The only person who ever does that is Rosie.

  I’m very tired, I told Carter. I leaned up against him.

  I have a room for you, Carter said. He stood up and started walking and I tried to do the same but there was something about that wall. The door. The idea of before that was outside it. I didn’t move.

  I can just sleep here, I said. I don’t want to put you out.

  Carter watched me from across the room and then he came back. Would you stop talking that way to me? he said. I can’t take it if you’re going to keep on talking to me that way. Something terrible has happened and I’m your goddamn father and you’re going to sleep in a bed and you’re never putting me out. Got it?

  I shrugged, and slumped a little. I was crying then too. Because once Carter said it, I knew it was true: Something terrible had happened. Something that couldn’t be fixed. I felt that too-familiar black nothingness pluming inside me. Everything seemed very far away. It was different, but it was the same, and I couldn’t do it. Not again. I kept thinking, I have just crawled out of here. I have just clawed my way halfway out of this pit, you can’t possibly think I can do it again. So soon.

  Carter reached down then and picked me up, like I was nothing. He carried me into a little room down the hall.

  There was a single bed and paintings of colors on the walls. Just shapes and colors. There were books on the shelves about all sorts of things. Georgia O’Keeffe. Amelia
Earhart. A child’s guide to camping and woodland survival. There was a jar of moon shells on the bookcase and a plastic horse figurine. There was a small replica ship, and what looked like a taxidermied turtle. What the hell are you doing with a little room like this? I said to him.

  He put me down in the bed and pulled the covers over me. He got on his knees by the bed and he put his big hand on my head, pressing it gently against the pillow. I am so sorry, he said. I am so goddamn sorry. If I hadn’t told them to do flyers. Or if I had—

  You’re so stupid, Carter, I said, and I closed my eyes, which is actually a lousy way to stop yourself from crying. You didn’t do anything. The only thing you have to be sorry for is being so stupid you think any of this is your fault.

  Because I didn’t have any time to spend worrying about him. It was Jethro’s fault, maybe. Or I could blame Billy for helping or Leah for not wanting to go look for Rosie, but really, when you get down to it, no one ever made Rosie Salem do a single thing she didn’t want to do. I can see her pouring gasoline, that girl. I see the red plastic drum with the skuzzy spout, and I see how the drum started off too heavy for her to hold right, her pouring erratically trying to manage the weight, and then, once it got half empty, her adjusting it in her arms. I can see her moving around with it, pouring the gasoline out in circles and figure eights, tracing the fucking infinity symbol in gasoline on the floor of what should have been the Dorians’ living room. I can see her doing all of this, very pleased with herself. Panting a little but humming. I can see her putting down the drum and wiping her gasoline-smelling hands off on her shirt. On my fucking T-shirt.

  It would be easier if I could blame someone.

  Carter shook his head and squeezed my arm. Try to sleep, he said, and then he left.

  I thought Rosie was safe to love. She and I were going to be the cozy kind of normal family I always wanted. But now she’s gone and done it. She’s as bad as blood, breaking my heart like this. Bad as any Winters. Any Marks. It doesn’t matter if they’re blood or not—if you let a person in, make them family, they’ll wind up breaking your heart one way or another. Good ways and bad ways both.

  I should have stayed in the bed. But I couldn’t. So here I am.

  I close the book of pictures. I put my head down on the kitchen table and stare at the dark part in the middle of the candle flame. The dark part of the candle makes me see spots, so I close my eyes. I still see spots. I keep them closed.

  When I wake up, the candles are hard puddles and there are still no lights on. There’s blue-gray light coming in the windows and it’s morning.

  I can hear Carter strumming his guitar quietly in the next room. He’s playing the song. The one about how I’m mighty.

  43

  Leah

  I find Henry in his boyhood room upstairs. He is lying in bed, a T-shirt wrapped around his eyes.

  “Henry?” I say.

  “The moon is too bright,” he says.

  “The house,” I say. “Did someone—”

  “The soil is water repellent,” Henry says. It is strange to see his mouth move while his eyes are covered by the shirt. “The fire will have made the soil water repellent. And now that everything’s burned, there are no roots to hold it together, so it’s unstable. It will erode. Just blow away.” He lifts his hands as he says this, to show how the soil will leave. The one thing that is supposed to stay put.

  “So you can’t grow anything there?” I ask. I ask him this because it is easier than asking him if he knows about Rosie because of course he does not know about Rosie. If he did he would not be talking about the soil. And then I realize that maybe no one knows and so many people will have to be told. Who is going to tell all those people?

  Henry sighs and takes the T-shirt from his eyes. “Nothing will be able to grow there for at least a year.” His face bunches up, then releases. “Maybe longer, depending on the building materials that burned. Not that they would want to live there now anyway.” He’s looking at me. It’s dark except for the moonlight. Henry squints. He says, “Are you dirty?”

  “Henry,” I say.

  He says, “Do you smell like gasoline?”

  I kneel on the floor next to the bed and I tell him the news.

  Henry sits up. “No,” he says.

  “It’s true,” I say. I am dirty, from carrying her.

  Henry shakes his head. He looks at me again. He draws his knees to his chest. He sits there like that, squeezing his own strong legs.

  “I wish I didn’t always hear the news from you,” Henry says.

  I SHOWER MYSELF scalded pink. I am congested from crying and I am breathing through my mouth. I was the one who told Quinn to let Rosie do her thing. I cannot unsay it now.

  I tie my hair back tight. It is slicked against my head like a seal’s. I put on a dark blue sweatshirt inside out, the fuzz showing. I don’t bother to flip it around.

  In the little room, Henry is still lying there on the bed, not sleeping. He is watching the mobile circle around. I lie down with him. We stay there for what feels like hours. Eventually, Henry extricates himself from our tangle. He stands up and goes to the window. I kneel on the bed so I can see what’s out there too. The moon is big and the sky weird, from the smoke maybe.

  “Once,” Henry says, “when I was a kid, I woke up in the middle of the night and looked out there. The snow in the yard had frozen over and the way the moon was shining, it cast this long reflection across the ice, just like it does on the ocean when it comes up. And I thought it was the ocean. That the tide had come all the way up and that was just how it was going to be from then on. Ocean everywhere. That’s how it felt most of the time anyway, with my dad.”

  I get up and go to him, because I think that this is the truest story Henry has ever told me. I clutch at his T-shirt and I kiss him. “I love you,” I tell him. Because I do.

  “Hey,” Henry says. “I love you too.” He squeezes me. Then he picks up all the blankets and quilts from the bed and gathers them in his arms. “Come on,” he says, and I follow him out the door and down the stairs.

  Henry does not stop when we get downstairs. He keeps walking till we get to the back door. And then he opens it. He does not stop when we are in the middle of our yard. I hold on to Henry’s elbow and I go with him, out to the beach.

  Our house dinghy is tied up to the dock, covered in a green tarp. Henry pulls it in by the rope. He flips the tarp and lays it down in the dinghy’s hull. He lays one of the quilts on top. He tosses the other blankets in.

  “There,” he says. “Get in.” I look at him, but he’s waiting for me to go first, so I lower myself down into the hull. I wobble, standing for a moment before I drop down fast, crouched in the blankets.

  Henry gets in next, and the whole thing rocks like it might capsize. Henry’s arms go out to his sides, like he’s taking off, but then he balances, and lowers himself into the hull.

  He rolls a quilt up for a two-person pillow. We lie down and pull the blankets over us. I slide up next to him and put my head on his chest. The dinghy rocks back and forth. We have made it. We are safe. Above the sides of the boat we see a dark slice of trees and sky. There are still many stars, the same ones I saw earlier. I think I can smell the burning but mostly I smell the ocean. I hear the waves rolling up on shore then sinking back. We rock there and soon I fall asleep.

  IN THE MORNING, when we get out of the boat, the Menamon Star is there on the doorstep, its plastic sleeve covered in droplets.

  HENRY IS SITTING at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, his eyes wide open and staring at some kind of nothing between him and the wall. I shell the paper from its sleeve and put it down on the table. Our story is the front page. Here it is, straight off the presses, and already it’s old news.

  “It ran today?” Henry says.

  “Yes,” I say.

  Henry picks up the paper, glancing at the byline with my missing name. He’s on the third paragraph when he looks up at me and I know he knows.

/>   Henry says, “I seem to remember once reading a Gazette article about an ‘Unprecedented Culture Shift’ in Bed-Stuy.”

  “Henry—” I say.

  “Eight-foot fences, it says here,” Henry says. “Interesting that they’d have known how tall the fences were gonna be.”

  “I was going to tell you,” I say. “But then—”

  “Obviously you weren’t. Obviously you left your name off the byline and were hoping I was dumb enough not to recognize your copy when I read it.”

  “Yes,” I say, because I am busted and what can I do? “Not like that, but yes.”

  A muscle in Henry’s cheek twitches. He holds the paper out in front of him, like evidence, but does not read it. I shouldn’t have done it but I just wanted to so badly. It seems so stupid now, after what’s happened. Me making so much fuss over words. One article.

  “I’ve been thinking I might go away for a while,” Henry says, still looking at the paper.

  “Away?” I say. I think: Don’t go. It is all too terrible and you cannot leave me alone now even if I deserve it.

  “Back to New York. Just for a week or two. Get my head straight.”

  “Because of this?” I say. “Henry, I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.” Outside, a siren whines.

  “Not just this,” Henry says. “You could say this doesn’t even matter anymore, in light of everything.” He flicks his wrist, cracks the paper straight.

  “Would you say that?” I ask, and I hope, somehow, that this will have gotten me off the hook. Then I realize how disgustingly awful that is. I don’t want to be let off the hook like that. Not by Rosie.

  “I don’t know,” Henry says.

  “Henry, don’t go away. Not now,” I say.

  He looks up at me, lifting the newspaper. “Do you want this?” he asks. He has asked me this so many times. In New York, on sleepy mornings, he would have finished the current events and sports pages, and he would hold up the paper in this exact same way to see if I was done. Did I still need the arts? The books? The world news and politics?