by Summer Wood
“Hello?” Melody shouted, and waited until Willow opened the door, stepped onto the deck, pushed her reading glasses onto her forehead and waved in response before she crossed the strip of meadow and climbed the deck to sit in the sun beside her.
“Nice day,” Willow ventured. She lifted her face to take in the sky.
“Nice enough, I guess.”
“You guess?”
Melody shrugged. “It’s autumn. Autumn always makes me want to be someplace else.” She crossed her legs and harassed an ant that had climbed onto her shoelaces. “Mozambique. Michigan. I don’t care. Siberia.” She flashed Willow a glance. “I’m thinking of traveling.”
“Copenhagen’s nice in the fall,” Willow said. And on her way back, could she pick up a roll of stamps and the pair of pinking shears Willow had special-ordered through the Mercantile?
“Maybe I won’t come back,” Melody said.
Willow gave herself time to read the unfamiliar note in Melody’s voice. Maybe it was a challenge piggybacking on a silent insult. But maybe it was grief, plain and simple, squeezed out through the one hole poked in the held breath.
“You miss him,” Willow said.
Melody made a sound. “I just wonder what he’s doing now.”
So it was grief. Willow laid her hand on Melody’s ankle, but Melody looked up sharply. “You think it was right to let him go.”
Ah. There was the challenge. There was the insult.
“Right?” Willow gave a little laugh. “Do you think I know what is right?”
“You’re supposed to.”
There was a long silence. Finally Willow stood up. “Well,” she said. “You wouldn’t be the first to question my judgment regarding children.”
Melody looked out at the shadows that were growing in the meadow. “Kathmandu,” she said, the tightness closing in on her voice. “Sri Lanka. Detroit, Michigan, home of the Lions.”
“The pinking shears,” Willow said, and Melody nodded and got up and walked back to the barn.
Len’s work suffered under the new conditions of his life. He had to be home before dark to feed and bathe and care for Meg, but the weather was turning and more people than ever had left orders for cordwood at the Mercantile where he picked up his messages. He split and delivered whatever he could of the rounds he had stockpiled, drying. He took people’s money and tucked it in the glove box of the truck and forgot about it. He let the millwork go to hell. Unless he got into the woods and cut more green logs he would suffer next year. And he made the three-hour round trip to Eureka each week to check on the boy.
If he had a telephone, the social worker advised him, he could save himself the trouble. He nodded and grinned. He could have called from the pay phone outside the Merc. He didn’t trust them to tell him the truth on the phone.
The truth was, the boy was adjusting. (Week One.) He was doing just fine. (Week Two.) He was fitting in with the other children. (Week Three.) He was enrolling in preschool. (Week Four.) He was being placed in the orphanage in Red Bluff. (Week Five.)
“Whoa,” Len said. “Hold on just a minute. I thought he was adjusting. Fitting in? Doing fine?”
The social worker gave him a look of pained forbearance. “Children adjust in different ways,” she said. “This boy adjusted by walking out of his preschool and causing a forty-hour intensive police and rescue unit search that found him twenty-two miles away, sleeping under a bridge and eating trash. He adjusted by biting the ear of his adoptive mother. He refused to have his hair combed. He would not sleep in a bed.”
“Oh,” Len said. “That.”
She looked at him oddly. “That,” she said, “was the least of it. This child would be better served in a group home with professionals who have been trained to treat the kind of behavior he presents.”
“He’s not a bad boy,” Len protested. His voice was so soft the social worker had to lean closer to hear him.
“I’m sure he’s not,” she said. And added, her voice lowered to his pitch, “But he’s not a good boy, either.”
Len said he’d take him.
The social worker blinked. She removed her glasses and slowly wiped each lens before replacing them. She said, “I don’t need to remind you that you already gave him back.”
Len said, “Let me have him.”
That decision, the social worker said, was not up to her. It was up to the judge. Len went to see the judge. The judge rustled the papers and cleared his throat. You are asking to foster this troubled boy? he wanted to know.
“I want to adopt him,” Len said. He felt the sweat bead on the leathered skin of his neck. He felt it behind his ears.
“This child is related to you?”
“He’s my nephew. My wife’s sister’s son.”
The judge was a handsome young man with a baby face he attempted to dignify with a very bushy mustache. He twirled the ends. “Sir,” he said, and paused. “You must understand. If you adopt this child it will be a binding decision. There will be no trial period. He lived with you and your wife for”—he rustled through the mountain of papers—“for—”
They had Wrecker for eight months, Len confirmed; and yes, he understood the decision was binding.
“That means,” the judge said, making his voice as low as he could, “you may not give him back.”
Len swallowed hard. He opened his mouth and he said, “I understand.”
The man and boy rode together in the truck and the shadows lengthened. Len didn’t know what to say. He stole looks at the boy. Wrecker seemed smaller and paler than when he had left. He looked out the window or at his lap or straight ahead, and he fell asleep for a short time but jolted awake when Len threw the blinker lever. They were silent all the way back.
Len pulled onto the dirt road toward Bow Farm. He got out to open the first gate. He glanced at Wrecker. The boy sat impassive in the seat. Len got in and drove on. At the second gate he joked, “Before long I’m going to make you get down and open these, son. Too much trouble for an old man like me.”
Wrecker faced him. He said, “I’m not your son.”
Well, Len thought, tell that to the judge. He drove past the parking area and stopped the truck at the farmhouse. “Want to get down?”
Wrecker shrugged. Len walked around and opened the door and unbuckled the boy. Wrecker slid down and walked ahead. It was the only time Len neither honked nor shouted first to announce his presence. They simply walked in.
The four of them were seated around the table, eating dinner. Len heard the sharp intake of breath when they saw the boy. He stood behind Wrecker and saw the boy pause; saw his shoulders give the slightest shudder.
Len said, “Wrecker’s home.” And he lifted his hand in a vague gesture to let them know to go easy.
Ruth stood up and crossed the room. She took his small hand and cupped it in hers. “Well, it’s about time. Hungry, pal?” And she led him to a spot at the table, pulled up a chair, and laid him a heaping plate.
Len watched Melody. It rested on her.
He turned for home when he saw her face. Meg would be waiting. It was late, already. “See you tomorrow, Wrecker,” he said, but the boy was oblivious to him.
They ate the meal slowly and talked softly about small matters, about things of no consequence, and then they moved together into the next room. Wrecker lay on the big chair with his head in Melody’s lap and his eyes closed, though she knew he wasn’t sleeping. The others clustered near enough to each other that any of them could lay a hand close to him. On the edge of the chair, or on its high back. On the soft down of his cheek. He had come with his shoulders high and his chin jutting forward, his every muscle on alert, but the plank of his body gradually softened as Melody smoothed the hair behind his ears. They let the flow of their voices surround him. No one said a word about the next day. Or the day after that. Or the long days to come, the string of days that swam like fish waiting to be caught.
When his breaths lengthened and he let go at last of the
weight of himself, Melody lifted Wrecker onto her hip and carried his slumped body over the moonlit path to the barn. She woke him just long enough to let him pee outside and to climb the ladder to the loft, and then she helped him shed his shoes and socks and jeans, tug his shirt over his head, wrestle his inert body into a soft clean shirt of her own to sleep in. She pulled the covers up to his chin and she sat on the bed beside him with her knees up to her chin and, for a long time, she watched him breathe.
She would call in sick to work the next day. She would drive to Eureka and get him his own bed. A permanent one. For tonight he could have this half and she would sleep with one eye open to make sure he did not disappear again. A pulse in his temple beat like a butterfly trapped beneath his skin. There were dark circles under his eyes. Melody felt her own fear mount with each breath she took. If there were no one else to raise him up, if it were Melody alone rising to stand beside him, then God help him. She had never been enough at anything. If she failed at this—
“Melody?” Willow’s voice filtered up from the darkness below.
Melody rubbed her nose and pressed her hands against her eyes. She took a deep breath. Then she rearranged the blankets so Wrecker would stay covered, and she quietly descended the ladder.
They stood outside and talked softly. Their voices made clouds of mist in the moonlit air. The light pooled in the hollows of Willow’s cheeks and splashed in her eyes and Melody thought, Just because you’re beautiful and charming does not mean you are always right. Sometimes you are plain wrong. “I didn’t plan this, Willow. This is as much a surprise to me as it is to you.”
“A surprise? Yes. Definitely a surprise.”
“I won’t let go of him again.”
The briefest smile lifted the corner of Willow’s mouth. “Don’t you think that’s a decision we should make together? Not just the two of us, but Ruth and Johnny, too?”
“Ruth and Johnny want him.”
“Ruth and Johnny love him,” Willow said quickly. “But they’re not foolish enough to think they know anything about raising a child.” Melody scowled but Willow reached to take hold of her arm. “I do, Melody. I do know. And you know what? It’s no walk in the park.”
“I don’t expect it to be easy.”
“Easy?” Willow gave a little laugh. “Easy’s not even on the spectrum. Try all-consuming. Try heartbreaking. You might start by giving up everything you ever wanted just to do this one thing, and you might as well recognize that you’re as apt to fail at it as you are to succeed.”
“I won’t fail.” Melody said this softly, through clenched teeth, but it marched out and stood in the air between them.
Willow’s face went through a painful transformation. “Have a little humility,” she said.
Melody shied back and shut her eyes. Humility? That was the one thing she had in spades. She had a supernatural excess of it. She thought so poorly of herself, in fact, that she would have to climb several rungs up the ladder just to get to the elevated position of humility. Whereas Willow—
Melody opened her eyes, ready to fire away. But there was something terrible there.
“Willow,” she said softly.
Willow shook her head and waved her hand dismissively. “I’m fine,” she said. “Disregard this.”
Melody looked away and felt a wave of guilt prickle her scalp and rest in the pit of her stomach. “I didn’t mean—”
“Of course not,” Willow said. She blotted her face with her hands and made an effort to smile. “Melody,” she said, her voice dropping a notch. “He’s a tough kid. You don’t know what he’s been through. You don’t know what he’ll—”
“I know that. I know it.”
“I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“I know you don’t.” Melody studied her hands. Her face folded with the weight of her thought, and when she started again her voice was small. “I want him, Willow. I don’t know if that’s enough. But I’m asking you to let him start over. Let him start fresh, start now, and be welcome here.”
“Melody,” Willow murmured. “He has a mother.”
“She let go of him.”
“She lost him,” Willow said sharply.
“All right! But it amounts to the same thing for Wrecker, doesn’t it?” Melody struggled with her voice. There was a word for what she planned to do, but it would take fearlessness to use it. She was consumed with fear. Still, she brought her hands together and said, her words barely more than a squeak, “I’m his mother now.”
“You’re what?” Willow laughed.
Melody turned to face Willow directly. She might never have the guts to be able to say it again, and she needed Willow to hear.
“That woman? She had him, she raised him—but she let go of him. And the only way he’s going to make it through is if there’s somebody who stands up and says, I’m all in. I’m not just looking after you, I’m for you. You’re mine.” She hesitated. “From here on out? He’s my son.” There was a long pause. Melody could hear her own teeth rattle as she shivered. She knew Willow thought she was making a big mistake, and maybe she was. But she was making it, and she would go on making it with every breath she had.
Willow’s fingers were awkward as she buttoned her sweater. She kept her head down. “I see,” she said, nodding, studying something on the ground beneath her. Her voice was muted and she worked her jaw as though trying to exorcise an old pain. A shadow covered her face, but did not obscure the grief that stumbled across it. What happened to you, Willow? Melody almost asked.
But she did not. And when Willow raised her head again, it was the friend Melody knew; the Willow who could do anything, who conveyed flint and grace and attitude in every move she made. “Okay,” Willow said. She cleared her throat and willed her voice to come out smoother. “All right, then. I’ll help you however I can.”
Melody, wary, waited for the but.
Willow gazed at her tenderly. She nodded once more, and then she stepped into the night.
CHAPTER FIVE
And then Wrecker was eight. He climbed atop a stack of produce crates in the back room of the Mercantile and ate dried apricots one sticky fruit at a time. He was waiting for Melody to finish work. The knees of his jeans were white with wear but as yet unbreached, and he was wearing red Keds whose rubber heels bounced impatiently off the wooden sides of the crates. It was always One more thing, Wrecker, just let me finish this and Are you ready? Where’s your jacket?—and then someone else would poke his head through the stockroom door and call her name. Wrecker tapped his head against the wall behind him to the beat of the song on the radio. He sat chewing and tapping and bouncing his sneaker against the crate when DF Al the stock boy burst in.
“Sport!” Al said. He could make his face physically larger with his expressions, as though his skin had a special expansiveness that spread his hairline back and his ears farther to the sides. He stopped, stared diffusely, listened for the tune. Then he picked up a head of celery and played air guitar, mouthing the words.
Wrecker liked Al. Al walked with verve and carried food. “I have apricots,” Wrecker told him. He extended a sticky hand with two flat fruits. “Want to trade?” The apricots looked like dried ears. Wrecker would not have thought of this on his own, but Al had taped two to the sides of his head over his own ears and walked around like that for one whole day.
Al lifted the dried disks carefully from Wrecker’s grimy palm and sniffed them, ogled them, reached out the tip of his tongue to taste them. He squinted suspiciously at the boy. “Genuine?” Before Wrecker could answer Al popped them both in his mouth and glanced around furtively. Then he shut his eyes and faced beatifically toward the ceiling. Al was weird. Melody thought he smoked too much dope but Wrecker just figured he was probably born this way. He chewed and winked at Wrecker and reached into his pocket. He passed the boy a small handful of the cinnamon redhots they both liked. “You going to school?”
“Soon as Deedee’s ready.” Wednesdays he had the
morning off and spent it helping Melody at the Mercantile. Wrecker slid down off the crates and crouched to extract the dry sponge they used as a soccer ball from between the wheels of the shopping cart. “Want to play?”
“I have to work.”
“Yeah.” Wrecker laughed. “Right.” He faked to the left. Then he tapped the sponge forward with the toe of his sneaker, dribbled past the mop bucket, advanced toward the opposing defender, and slapped it with the inside of his left foot toward the goal. DF Al shot his leg out to block and deflected it into the open carton of soaps he was supposed to be pricing. Wrecker lunged for the sponge just as Al flung his foot out to bar his path and the boy was knocked off his feet while propelling forward toward the brooms that lay in a tangled mess in the corner.
The door flapped open and Melody entered. She was jotting something on a clipboard and didn’t look up. “Wrecker,” she said absently, “Got your jacket? We should go,” checked a note she had pinned to the corkboard by the clock, registered the information, and swung back out.
Wrecker extracted himself from the brooms. He glanced at DF Al, who had snatched up the pricing gun and was waving it in front of himself. His black glasses sat crooked on his face and his hair was wild. “Easy, now, boy,” Wrecker said. “Don’t shoot.”
DF Al leaned over, clicked the trigger, and rubbed the tag onto the sleeve of Wrecker’s shirt. “Seventy-nine cents,” he said. “This week only. Limit one per customer.”
Melody poked her head through the door again. She had tied her blonde hair up in a bun but half of the strands had already defected. “You ready, son?” she said. She looked at Al. “You done pricing those soaps yet? Jesus, Al. Get a move on. I need you on the register while I’m gone.” She let her gaze stray around the stockroom. “This place is a mess.” She squinted at them. “What the hell’s been going on back here?”
“Monsters,” Al replied, and nodded his head solemnly. “Intergalactic. Had to fend ’em off with my long range hypno-gamma ray tommy gun. They won’t give you no more trouble, ma’am,” and he blew on the business end of his price tagger and made to reholster it.
