by Summer Wood
“I don’t mean for Len,” Willow said quietly. She tilted her head toward the doorframe. “I mean for Wrecker.”
The boy stood there and looked from face to face. They gaped at him as though they were rabbits startled in their warren by a sudden light. “What?”
Ruth asked, “Are you hungry, pal?”
Melody tipped the chair over in her rush out the door.
Len watched her go. All he wanted was to lay his head on the table and leave it there, but he had to get home to Meg.
It fell to Ruth to get the boy ready the next morning. She sent him out to play after breakfast and then called him in when she’d filled the metal tub in the kitchen for his bath. He squeaked and squalled as she ran the washcloth inside his ears, yipped and shivered when she lifted him out of the water and toweled him dry, dodged about naked as she chased after him with clothes. Wrecker was old enough to dress himself but she helped him pull on his best outfit, a pair of dungarees and a striped cotton shirt they had salvaged from the free box. The pants had fit him perfectly six weeks before but already showed an inch of sock. Ruthie hated to send him off this way. She turned aside so he wouldn’t see her face. She hated to send him off at all.
Wrecker caught the frown and squinted at her, unsure, and Ruth made herself beam back hard. “Look at you, buddy,” she growled, drinking in the sight of him. His damp hair stood askew in random cowlicks. “Handsome as a bug!” She squatted down to tie his shoes, and Wrecker reached for the doorknob. “Stay in for now,” she ordered. If he went outside his sneakers, his pants, his shirt, his face, would attract dirt in thirty seconds. In a minute and a half he’d be filthy, and it meant something to her that at least he go clean. She gathered his army figures from a shelf and set them on the floor. He looked at the toys and back at her, surprised. “You’re going to town.” It was as much as she would say. Either Willow or Melody would have to break the news.
Neither woman had appeared. Out in the garden, Johnny Appleseed kept his own counsel. Ruth watched him through the kitchen window as he sifted the dark soil through his fingers, gathering the last of the harvest. He brushed the dirt from the golden bodies of the squash, stripped the yellow outside leaves from the kale, and neatly placed it all—one melon, the late peas and tomatoes, a last bouquet of marigolds—into a brown paper sack. He carried it into the kitchen and glanced at Ruth and the boy.
“Good morning,” he said formally.
The boy hummed and Ruthie grunted. She stood at the sink and scrubbed the morning’s dishes.
Johnny set the bag on the table and sat beside it and began to draft a note.
Ruth spied over his shoulder. Dear … he began. His pen hovered over the scrap of paper. She waited for him to continue, but he crumpled the page and began again. Enjoy the vegetables, he wrote. Wrecker helped grow them. He lifted his head. Wrecker was busy on the floor with his plastic GI Joes. Johnny hunched to write again. If you’ll let Wrecker have a dog, tell Len. He will bring him one he knows and loves. He glanced over his shoulder at Ruth. She shrugged. He frowned and started to crumple that sheet as well but Ruth laid a hand gently over his. “It’s fine.” She lowered herself into a chair next to his. “Len will be here in a bit.” She lifted an eyebrow and tipped her head toward the boy.
A vein pulsed in Johnny Appleseed’s neck. His lips tightened and he nodded. “Wrecker?”
The boy twisted his head to glance at him.
Johnny Appleseed squatted on the floor beside him. “Listen, kid.” There was no decent way to say this. “Len is coming to pick you up soon. He’s going to take you to an office, and you’re going to meet some people. They’re going to be your new par—” Johnny stuttered and winced. Ruthie felt green, as though she’d eaten something that was going to have to come back out, one way or the other. “They’ll be your new parents.” It sounded stupid, the way it came out of his mouth, stupid and emphatic and wrong, but Johnny was in the middle now and couldn’t very well stop. “You’re going to live with them, Wrecker.” He forced himself to slow down. “They’ll be your family. Everything will be good. You’ll see.”
Wrecker’s expression didn’t change. He kept his eyes on Johnny’s face for a lengthy period and then slowly his gaze drifted back to his toys. He reached a hand out to rearrange them. He devoted a sizable amount of attention to aligning the figures in battle position, and when he was done he had positioned himself so that his back shielded both the toys and himself from Johnny’s view.
Johnny rocked back onto his heels. He stood up. He caught Ruth’s eye to make sure she understood to send the note and the bag along, and he stepped outside.
Ruthie chewed her lip. Once they lost Wrecker, she knew, it wouldn’t be long before Johnny moved on.
The windup clock in the kitchen ticked loudly, marking the minutes until Len arrived. Ruth had emptied the few items from her blue cloth suitcase and neatly packed it with Wrecker’s clothes and toys. She tucked the rawhide cord with the elk tooth into an elastic pocket on the side. The army figures would be the last to go. Ruth was hoping he would be content to play with them until Len came to get him. The door to the kitchen opened and Willow stepped in. “Oh!” she said. “You’re here!” Where, Ruthie wondered, did she think they would be? Willow’s face adopted a more serious look. “Wrecker?” she said. “Put your toys away. There’s something we need to talk about.”
“He knows,” Ruth said. Her voice was dry. “Johnny Appleseed told him.” She bit her tongue before adding, Somebody had to.
Willow caught the undertone in Ruth’s voice and looked up quickly. She opened her mouth to speak but the sound of Len’s truck rumbling up the drive made them all start. Willow turned to Ruth. “I’ll be outside,” she said, and dropped her gaze.
Ruth felt a pang of regret. It wasn’t fair to be hard on Willow. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Len’s and it wasn’t Melody’s and it wasn’t her own and it sure as hell wasn’t Johnny Appleseed’s. It was something that happened; it was life—and she hated it. She hated this about life, the leaving. Huffing and creaking, Ruth folded down onto the linoleum beside Wrecker.
He glanced at her. A flicker of recognition chased across his face but he retreated again behind a stony gaze.
It wasn’t anybody’s fault, Ruth thought, but wouldn’t he be the one to pay for it?
She’d done her own leaving, once. Walked into the ocean with Liz’s ashes in a small box in her hands and laid herself beside them on the waves. But the sea had coughed her back out, her tattered heart preserved in her chest like a cheese sandwich in the dented chassis of a lunch box—and now she felt her heart squeeze tight again.
“Wrecker,” she said gruffly, and waited for him to meet her gaze. “Pay attention, now. I want you to remember this.” She raised her eyebrows and flared her nostrils and watched as his chin lifted and he looked at her sideways. “This is the secret weapon.” She glanced about furtively and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Never use this unless your life is in danger.”
Ruth paused a moment to take it in: the slopes and curves of his small face, curiosity flaring brighter than anger across it, as he tilted his gaze toward her. She let her eyes linger there. And then she cupped her hands to her mouth and trumpeted the most graceful, elongated, musical Bronx cheer in the history of mankind.
“The story of my life, boy,” she said soberly, and watched the smile spread across his face.
The door squeaked open. Len thrust his ruined face inside. “Son,” he said. “It’s time.”
Ruth gathered his soldiers in a plastic bread bag. She tucked them into the suitcase, grasped it by the handle, and headed outside. Len and Willow stood talking to the boy. Wrecker’s left leg was muddy up to the knee. They put him in the cab of the truck and he suffered their kisses and Len drove away.
Melody had parked the van several blocks away from the CPS office in Eureka. She had walked the neighborhood in successive loops, located a café, sat down for a plate of bacon and eggs, been unable
to eat, paid her bill, left a tip, and continued to walk. There was a little park within view of the office and she stationed herself there to wait. A few young mothers watched their children play on the slides and swings of the playground. They provided camouflage, Melody hoped, for her stealth operation. She didn’t want anything to interfere with what she planned to do.
Melody had dressed as conservatively as possible for her mission. She wore a simple navy dress and a cardigan and flats. She had styled her hair to fall in a French braid down her back. The day had turned out to be beastly hot. She couldn’t remove the cardigan or it would be evident to everyone that she was not wearing a bra. She had meant to; she owned several, but none of them had surfaced that morning as she struggled to get ready. The sweat streamed from her armpits. She kept her arms clamped to her sides. It was hardly the effect she had aimed for but it was the best she could do given the circumstances.
She had arrived in plenty of time to intercept Len and the boy, and she came armed with a strategy. It was not sophisticated and she was not remotely convinced that it would work. She had plan B in case it didn’t. Plan B was even less developed. But she was desperate, and willing to entertain desperate measures.
“Excuse me?”
Melody had been resting her eyes while she waited. She opened them to find a young woman blocking the horizon. Melody craned her neck to see around her.
The woman didn’t move. “Could you help me out?” Her skin was wan in spite of too much makeup. “I’ve got this splitting headache? I need to run across the street to the pharmacy for some aspirin, but my kids”—she shot a sidelong look at a boy and a girl hanging upside down on the monkey bars—“they won’t leave? Do me a favor and watch them while I run over there?”
Out of the corner of her eye Melody caught sight of Len’s truck turning onto the block. “Oh!” she said. She shifted to keep it in her field of vision, but the young mother kept moving in ways that blocked the street. She heard two car doors slam and tried to edge toward the sound. “What?” Melody said, growing frantic.
The young woman spoke slower and louder. “I need you to—”
There was Len, crossing the street, clutching Ruth’s blue suitcase in one hand and balancing a brown paper bag on the opposite hip. There was Wrecker. Her heart leapt. He came up to Len’s elbow, now. He’d grown so much. How had she failed to notice? “I’ll go for you,” Melody said quickly. She had to reach Len before he got inside. “What kind?”
The woman reached into her purse and pulled out a dollar. “Any kind,” she said brusquely, jabbing the bill toward Melody.
Melody hurtled down the hill toward the office but the door snapped shut behind Len and the boy before she arrived. She pulled up short. She couldn’t very well burst in there looking for them. For her plan to work, she needed to make a strong impression of competence. It was important that she appear normal. Competent, normal—Christ. The heel of her dress shoe had come loose.
Melody limped across the street to the pharmacy, keeping her eye on the office door. Even inside she could keep track through the plate glass. She located the aspirin and chose the least expensive brand. Then she walked the aisles until she came across deodorant. She chose the spray can with pastel flowers. It advertised fresh scent. She needed industrial strength, but this was probably as close as she could come.
The woman in line ahead of her nodded sympathetically toward the aspirin. She was older than Melody—thirty, maybe, or a little past—and had a pleasant, open face. “Headache?”
“It’s for somebody else,” Melody said. But come to think of it, she did have the start of a dull tightness that wrapped itself around her skull. Maybe she should pick some up for herself. She glanced down at the box in the woman’s arms.
“Humidifier,” the woman volunteered. “My husband gets asthma occasionally. The doctors thought this might help.”
“I used to get asthma when I was a kid. It went away when I got older,” Melody said, scanning the street. “And moved out of my parents’ house.”
The woman looked up quickly and they shared a brief grin. “Sometimes that solves more than you think.” She handed the box to the clerk and turned back to Melody. “Our kids will probably say the same thing about us.”
“If we’re lucky,” Melody said, and blinked hard.
The sun hit Melody square in the face when she stepped back onto the sidewalk and crossed the street to the park. The children eyed her suspiciously. Melody handed their mother the aspirin and a bottle of orange Fanta she had thought, at the last minute, to buy. The woman tossed back two tablets, took a swig of the soda, and grudgingly thanked her. The children clamored for the rest of the drink. Melody wanted to smack them. She should have bought them a bottle, too. She should have bought herself aspirin. She should have stayed home. Why did anyone ever have children, she wondered, when they could turn out like this?
The door to Children’s Protective Services swung open and Len appeared on the sidewalk. He looked dazed. Melody looked closer. No, he had always looked like that. Life had clubbed him between the eyes, and he was reeling from its continuous aftershocks.
The door swung shut behind him, and Melody waited two beats before she realized the boy wasn’t with him. The force of that simple fact squeezed the air from her lungs. The plan? Was there a plan? She sat down hard in the grass. There was a noise in her head, a growing roar competing with the isolated fragments of ideas and observations that passed for thought. The small family watched her. Melody looked up at them and at the leaves of the trees and at the clouds behind the trees and at the sky behind the clouds. Everything seemed to hold itself at a distance. Far, far away, Len put his hat back on his head and crossed the street to his truck. The plan called for Melody to run to him, to force him to return to the office and beg for Wrecker back, but she couldn’t suck in enough air even to sit up.
It wouldn’t do any good to beg. Len didn’t want the boy. Willow didn’t want him. Johnny Appleseed was too extreme and Ruth too tentative in their own lives to be able to raise a kid. And Melody?
She could hear her father’s laughter pulsing in the tight spot in her throat.
Len pulled open the driver’s door and climbed in. The sun glared, blinding, off the windshield. He started the engine and pulled into traffic.
Melody turned her head away from the small family. Her gaze settled on the boy’s striped ball pinned under the framework of the park bench. She felt the roar in her head diminish and she desperately wished for it back. The roar masked the silence that filled the place where her heart had been.
She lay back on the grass, caught sight of the clouds swirling high in the blue sky, and reached under the bench to grasp the ball and pull it out.
“Here,” she said, her voice flat and small, and rolled it toward the boy.
It was quiet at the farm. Ruth didn’t bother to cook for days and Johnny Appleseed made himself busy in the garden, tilling under the old plants and digging sheep manure into the damp soil; Willow stayed in her cupcake house and read, or rethreaded the delicate carpets, or cataloged her library; Melody went to the barn and stayed there. On the days she wasn’t scheduled to work she slept, letting her slumber sop up the hours so she wouldn’t have to decide how to use them. An awkward stiffness arose between the four of them when they bumped into each other, crossing to the outhouse or rustling for simple meals in the kitchen. But they exchanged a few words. They laughed a little. And gradually they came together again. Ruth made occasional dinners, they stayed longer after eating, they told stories. Still it seemed quiet. No one mentioned why. No one talked about him at all.
Melody thought about him every day. Not just about the things he had done but the things he would do. The kind of man he would become. She thought about the way his face opened and closed like a shutter when sorrow or anger or happiness ran across it. About the way his body twisted and stretched to reach the far apples on the tree before the branch broke. She thought about the way his hair smell
ed. She thought about the sudden strength and flare of fury when she’d crossed him; how she’d stepped back, startled by the fever. He could be ugly and she loved him then, too. He could be beautiful. He could be a manipulative little sonofabitch and he could remind her that the world was composed of absurd and humorous coincidences. It seemed obscene, somehow, to send him off. It seemed obscene to wish him well. She made herself wish him well. She made herself pray for this new family to love him. She made herself pray for him to love them back. She hoped, she wished, that he would not forget her. She would not pray for that. She knew it was foolish.
The meadow was golden with October’s honey light when Melody followed the path to Willow’s house. She’d been out walking the perimeter of the farm, reminding herself she was home, fighting the nasty nagging thoughts she’d felt arise again lately to flee, to change the scenery and start fresh somewhere new. Sure, there was no new. There was just the same old thing repackaged in a different wrapping, blah blah—but the thing was? Sometimes that shiny paper, those loopy bows, were just the things to distract you from the burden of tightness that had taken up permanent lodging in your throat.
Melody gazed across the meadow at the yurt. Willow was the only one of them all to build fresh. She had planted her new home on the far edge of the property, its back up against the dark wood and its face opening onto the meadow. Her house had the sloped walls and the round, domed roof of an oversized cupcake. It was a fairy house; an elegant mushroom that seemed to sprout organically from its setting. In fact it had been shipped in pieces from a yurt manufacturer in Dayton, Ohio. A crew of skilled yurt-raisers accompanied the numbered crates and in two days assembled the finished structure on the wooden deck Willow had commissioned from an itinerant carpenter who had, in a gesture toward world peace, carved thoughtful prayers in Sanskrit into the perimeter floorboards. It was a work of art strung together with steel cables and advanced engineering. It was a wisp, a dream, guaranteed to remain standing under thirty pounds of snow load and in winds up to eighty miles an hour.
