by Ania Ahlborn
He looked down at his hands and gave her a faint shrug. He thought a lot about the places on his postcards—Honolulu and New York City and San Diego. He wanted to see them in person, stare up at the lights of Times Square and feel the sand between his toes. But the idea of leaving Misty Dawn behind tied his stomach in knots.
“I don’t know how to ride horses, Miss,” he said, rising to his feet. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m okay,” she told him. “Always am.”
Michael turned to slip out the door, but Misty stopped him short.
“I don’t think you should be so scared of Ray,” she said. “Even if he did try to leave you somewhere, I don’t think Wade would let him.”
Michael tried to smile through a sudden pang of anxiety, his heart tripping over itself.
“I’ll see you later, Miss,” he murmured beneath his breath.
“See you,” she echoed back.
But when Michael ducked into the hallway, he froze in mid-step.
Rebel was leaning against the wall at the far end of the hall, staring at him.
• • •
Michael was surprised at how quickly he and Reb reached their destination. Typically, their marks were a good twenty to thirty miles from home, but this one seemed half that distance. Before Michael knew it, his brother was pulling the Delta onto the side of the road. It was a lonely stretch, twisting and flanked by trees. Rebel grabbed a pair of binoculars out of the glove box. Leaving the car behind, they climbed a hill that seemed to lead them deep into nowhere. Michael nearly asked if Reb was sure they were heading in the right direction, but Reb looked like he knew where he was going. Michael kept silent and stayed close to his brother.
When they reached the crest of the hill, Rebel motioned for Michael to get down. They sank to the ground like a pair of soldiers, slinking across the dirt and leaves until they could see over the top of the hill. A house came into view. It was simple, one story, what folks called a “charmer,” not at all like the Morrows’ ancient farmhouse. Theirs had faded clapboards and dirty windows that stared sorrowfully into the trees. This house was tidy, set back a good distance from the road. Its green shutters winked happily in the sunshine. A round bistro table and matching metal chair sat in the shade of a giant pine.
Rebel put the binoculars up to his eyes and fiddled with the focus wheel while Michael rested his chin atop his hands. It was a nice change of pace, lying there with the sun dappling through the canopy of trees. There was something serene about this little house. It was secluded out there, with no neighbors to be seen, but it still looked joyful. The chirping of birds and the glint of sunshine made him feel dreamy as he studied it. Bushes flanked the walkway up to the front door. Tiny hot-pink flowers dotted waxy green leaves. Someone had left an axe embedded into a tree stump near the driveway, its handle jutting upward at an easy angle. A small birdhouse swayed from the branch of a tree just beyond the front door. There was even a ceramic garden gnome perched on the front doorstep.
That house filled his chest with secret optimism. Clumsy thoughts of his own future home and the leisure that would come with it filled his head. One day he’d spend lazy afternoons painting his own shutters that same perfect hue of green, then watch the birds while sipping a cold glass of lemonade. The future would be filled with birdsong and the whisper of an easy breeze. There would be no more screaming. No hard whack of a leather strap.
Reb was so quiet beside him that Michael allowed his eyes to drift shut. The sun was warm on his back. The twitter of birds made him feel safe. When Reb nudged him awake, the look on his brother’s face suggested that Michael had been out for quite some time. He could fantasize all he wanted, but Rebel was still at his elbow and Momma was still waiting back at the house.
A woman emerged from the cottage. Michael reached for the binoculars and peered through them at her. She was pretty, but definitely not Momma’s type. Momma liked her girls young. The woman who was crossing the front yard to the bistro table appeared to be in her early fifties. If she was any younger, time hadn’t treated her well. She had tied her hair back in a tight ponytail, but the color looked fake—a reddish-gold straight out of the box. Her faded green T-shirt had a picture of a cartoon owl in the center, the slogan GIVE A HOOT, DON’T POLLUTE stamped in soft white letters. It looked strange on her, too junior, possibly stolen out of a daughter’s closet. Her shorts were dumpy and unflattering, as though she had lost weight but hadn’t bought any new clothes to celebrate. Her feet were shoved into a pair of brown leather sandals. Her knees drooped like frowning twins.
Michael shook his head, then gave Rebel a sidelong glance. “She’s old.”
“She ain’t that old.”
“Too old for Momma,” Michael assured him, squinting at the woman. She had a tattered paperback novel in one hand and a can of TaB in the other. Taking a seat at the table beneath the pine tree, she took a sip, then flipped to where a bookmark jutted out from between the pages of what he assumed was some girlie romance. Misty Dawn was crazy for that stuff. She had a whole collection of Harlequin books with racy covers—women with giant breasts clinging to half-naked men. Michael had seen girls with big breasts before, but they hadn’t ever struck him as all that attractive. Fear did strange things to a person’s face.
Rebel snatched the binoculars from Michael’s hands.
“Like you’re the expert.” He scoffed. “What do you know about what Claudine wants, anyway?”
Michael didn’t know much about anything, but he knew the type of girls they’d hauled back to the house over the years fit a certain profile. None of them had been as old as the lady they were looking at now.
“You sure this is the right house?” The question tumbled from Michael’s lips before he could cut himself off.
Reb lowered the binoculars and slowly turned his head. Their eyes met momentarily before Michael looked away.
“You got any more stupid questions,” Reb asked, “or you wanna shut up?”
“Sorry,” Michael muttered, ducking his head into his shoulders.
Reb continued to watch the woman for a while, as if admiring her just as much as Michael had the house. Eventually, his brother said, “She’s perfect,” beneath his breath, and the longing in his voice gave Michael the creeps.
“Perfect for what?” Michael asked, staring down at the dead leaves beneath him. He half-expected Rebel to smack him upside the head for talking out of turn. But rather than hitting him, Reb slid back from the crest of the hill, sat up, and dusted himself off. He gave Michael a weird sort of smile and shrugged.
5
* * *
THE FIRST DAY they had him, all Michael did was cry.
They didn’t even know his name until Lauralynn took him outside to look at the rabbits and somehow got him to talk.
“His name is Merrell,” she said. “But Raybee . . . he says he’s only four.”
“What difference does that make?” Ray asked, his arms crossed defensively over his chest. He had expected Lauralynn to be over the moon when he presented her with his gift, but all she had done was gape like an openmouthed catfish.
“He’s scared,” she continued. “We gotta take him back.”
“Take him back?” Momma had stepped onto the back porch mid-conversation. She eyed her two eldest children while Misty Dawn tended to Merrell in the yard. “There ain’t no takin’ him back,” she announced. “This ain’t a dog.” Her hard gaze stopped on Ray’s eight-year-old face. “You stole ’im—now you got ’im for the rest of your life.”
Ray and Lauralynn went silent as Momma whipped a rug against the banister of the back porch. Merrell started crying again, and Misty tried to calm him down. When Momma went back inside, Lauralynn turned to her brother and hissed out a whisper. “We gotta take him back, Ray, no matter what she says.”
Ray narrowed his eyes. He had gone to the trouble of getting Lauralynn what she wanted, and now she was throwing it back in his face?
>
“You heard what Momma said. We can’t,” Ray told her. “If you don’t want ’im, I’ll keep ’im for myself.”
“Keep him for what? He’s already got a family.”
“That’s right. He’s got us.” He turned away from Lauralynn, marched across the yard, snatched the kid up by the arm, and turned his new little brother toward the house. “Your name ain’t Merrell anymore,” he told the kid. “Your name is Michael. We’re your family now, so quit your bawlin’.”
• • •
The newly christened Michael kept right on crying, kept asking for his mom and dad, kept begging Ray to take him home.
He went on for so long and so hard that Ray felt as though his ears were about ready to bleed. No matter how much Ray tried to engage him, Michael turned away, faced the wall, and wept. Finally having had enough, he grabbed Michael by the arms and shoved him across the room.
“Don’t you get it?!” he said. “Your family don’t want you anymore! Why do you think they left you out in the front yard to get picked up the way you did? Now I know why they did it. You don’t shut up!”
Michael’s eyes went wide, Ray’s monologue distracting him just long enough to stifle his tears.
“You’re lucky, you know,” Ray said. “Some kids don’t get a second family. Some kids get taken to the woods and left for the wolves and the bears. You rather that happen to you? You want me to take you into them trees?”
Michael shook his head hard, his breath coming in post-sob hitches.
“Well, I will if you don’t listen to what I say. Nobody wants you here but me. I decided to save you, you got it? That makes me your boss. You know what a boss is?”
Michael nodded reluctantly and wiped his snotty nose on his arm. At least the kid stopped blubbering.
The next day was better. Michael was still weepy, but Ray could tell his little speech had brought the kid around. And now that he wasn’t screaming his head off, Lauralynn started to warm up to him too. She knew they couldn’t take him back, just like Momma had said. She was smart enough to know that the police were already looking for Michael, or Merrell, or whatever his name was. The second they tried to take the kid home, the cops would be on them like flies on dog shit. And since Momma wanted nothing to do with Ray’s new pet, Lauralynn had no choice but to play house. Ray watched Michael and Lauralynn from his bedroom window as they chased one of the bunnies around the yard. When Lauralynn pointed Ray out to Michael in the upstairs window, they both waved at their brother from below. Ray held up a hand and managed a smile. He did it not because Lauralynn was happy, but because now she had someone directly dependent on her.
There was no way she could leave. Not with a clear conscience. Not anymore.
6
* * *
AFTER ABANDONING THEIR perch on the hill, Rebel seemed in a particularly good mood. Rather than heading straight home, he guided the Delta into the town of Dahlia proper and eased it into a parking lot. There, in front of them, was a tie-dyed building with THE DERVISH written across the front in psychedelic bubble lettering.
“What’re we doing?” Michael asked, marveling at the bright colors in front of him. The building looked like an ice cream sundae—orange, raspberry, lemon, and lime.
“I want to pick up some music,” Reb said.
Michael furrowed his eyebrows. The Dervish didn’t look like the type of place to stock a lot of KISS or Styx. It seemed more Misty Dawn’s speed. The kind of store that was crammed with dusty vinyl from the sixties, blasted Bob Marley—who Rebel hated—and sold weird Vietnam-era curios.
“Here?” Michael asked.
“What’s with you questioning every goddamn thing today?” Reb snapped. “Something crawl up your ass while you were napping on that hill?”
Michael slouched while Reb hauled himself up and out of his seat. It was hot, and Michael didn’t much feel like sitting in the car, but that was part of the deal. Michael didn’t accompany his brother around Dahlia unless he was invited to do so.
Reb turned off the car. Michael hung out the open window, grimacing as a warm breeze blew across his face. The heat was stifling today.
Reb gave Michael a look—What are you, stupid?—“You comin’ in or what?”
“I didn’t know that you wanted me to.” Michael blinked, surprised at the invitation.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Reb told him. “It makes you look dumber than you actually are. Roll the window up if you’re comin’ in. We ain’t in the sticks no more.”
Michael watched Reb turn and disappear inside the brightly colored building, then rolled up the window and slid out of the car. He let his gaze drift across the parking lot to the buildings beyond the road, his stomach growling at the sight of a pair of golden arches. The McDonald’s “two all-beef patties” jingle immediately singsonged inside his head—that tune had been all over the place a few years back. The TV. The radio. Its catchiness had bored right into his skull. If he carried money, he’d have run across the street and bought himself a Big Mac. He’d had one only once in his life, during a particularly long stakeout, and only because Reb had sworn he was dying of starvation. It had been the best thing Michael had ever tasted—nothing like Momma’s meat-and-potato meals. Maybe if he stopped asking so many stupid questions, Reb would let them grab a bite there before they headed home. Not like Momma had to know.
Michael followed Rebel inside. The interior of the record store smelled funny—like sweet smoke and faraway places. If the walls inside the shop were as colorful as those outside, he couldn’t tell. There were too many posters tacked up, creating an intricate patchwork of smiling musicians and Day-Glo flowers. The Beatles greeted him in fluorescent suits of yellow, pink, and blue. The quartet stood in front of a huge crowd of people, flowers spelling out the name of the band at their feet. It was the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Misty Dawn owned it. Michael’s favorite track was “When I’m Sixty-Four.” As expected, Bob Marley—another face he recognized from Misty’s collection—grinned at him from various corners of the shop. Bob’s head was thrown back in ecstatic joy, dreadlocks slithering across his shoulders like snakes. Janis Joplin gave a wicked smile courtesy of an old concert poster advertising a show at a place called the Alexandria Arena. Michael liked Bob and Janis all right, but not as much as he liked the Beatles. And while Misty Dawn would have preferred more pop than rock in her record collection, she didn’t ever complain. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Misty was certainly the former. All those albums had been stolen. When Michael had managed to stick ABBA under his arm, she’d screamed with delight. She’d played that album on a loop for what felt like a solid month. It seemed like the stylus should have cut that vinyl record right in half.
What looked like a black-and-white mug shot of Jimi Hendrix stared at Michael from the back wall. The poster was so massive that he couldn’t help but imagine Misty going gaga over it. It wasn’t Swedish pop, but Misty had eclectic tastes. Some of the stuff she listened to, even Wade liked. Sometimes Wade would go up to her room and listen to bluesy rock on her record player. Creedence Clearwater Revival would twang through the wall that separated Michael’s and Misty’s rooms. Michael would close his eyes and try to imagine himself in the stories Wade loved to tell. The jungle. Crawling through swamps. A rifle in one hand and a Lucky Strike tucked between his lips. Charlie just around the corner. Death only a few steps behind. And then there was Misty’s other stuff—the Bee Gees and Peaches & Herb, Bonnie Tyler, and Rod Stewart. That was the stuff Rebel would yell for her to turn off because it was giving him a headache. That was the music Wade muttered about being “behind all the trouble with those fags in DC.”
Michael looked across the expanse of wooden crates on top of what looked like homemade tables. The crates were packed full of record sleeves. Handwritten signs separated the tables into decades. Decades were portioned out by letters of the alphabet, and the most popular artists got their own tabs. Rebel stood close to the f
ront window on the left side of the store, the sun shining on his back. He was leaning against the front counter, grinning at a strawberry blonde who was laughing too freely for the two of them to have only just met. Then again, Reb had a way with girls.
Rebel turned his head and regarded Michael with a nod. He was smiling, but as soon as their eyes met, his expression went hard. Don’t screw this up, it said, and for a moment Michael didn’t get what that could have meant. But then he saw the way Reb was looking at the girl. She was twisting a lock of hair around one of her fingers, snapping her gum between giggles. He supposed not screwing up meant not robbing the place. He was tempted to steal a whole armload of records and make Misty Dawn’s day, but that wouldn’t go over too well with the employees.
Michael looked away and stepped up to the nearest crate, flipping through record sleeves while the girl chuckled at something Reb had said. He kept his head down and his eyes diverted as he slowly moved from the front of the store toward the back. He was trying to place the song that buzzed through a speaker mounted in the top corner of the room, thinking about how Misty would have known it after the first few bars. It seemed like she knew every song on the radio—lyrics, title, artist, everything. Every time they caught Name That Tune on TV, she’d have a higher score than any of the contestants.
The song playing overhead was loud and rollicking with a fast beat and horn accompaniment. It was bouncy and buoyant despite its rough edge, as exotic as the smoke that curled up his nostrils and filled his lungs. Michael cast a glance at the speaker, waiting for it to reveal its secret as he listened, only to hear the slap of record sleeves against linoleum a few feet behind him. Sure that he’d nudged something in passing, he twisted around to see what damage he had done. But instead of finding an overturned crate at his heels—Thank God, because Reb would have been pissed—a girl was crouching there, collecting a few spilled records into her arms.
