The First Stone

by Don Aker

  “Not at all,” Leeza’s mother said as she stood up. “I’m sure you know best.” She moved to Leeza’s bed and leaned down to kiss her. “I’ll be back this evening, okay?”

  It wasn’t okay. Maybe it was hearing about all she’d be going through in the weeks and months ahead. Maybe it was the look of apprehension she’d seen in her mother’s eyes. Or maybe it was just the ominous sound of the words “the first day.” But Leeza noddedanyway, hoping her mother wouldn’t see the fear in her own.

  “So,” the physiotherapist said when Leeza’s mother had left, “are you ready for day one?”

  Chapter 11

  “Everybody, this is Reef. Saaaay hiiiiiiii!” Alex’s voice fluttered up and down with his hands, which gestured like those of a game-show girl revealing the prize behind curtain number one. Standing in the kitchen doorway, Reef felt like anything but a prize. More like a contestant who’d wandered into a freak show by mistake and couldn’t get out without answering a skill-testing question. The only problem was that nobody knew what the question was, just the penalty for losing: The Next Twelve Months Of Your Life.

  “Hi, Reef.” The combined greetings from the four other people in the kitchen sounded false, like the singsongy welcome a bunch of preschoolers might give someone new at daycare. Three had barely glanced up, while a short kid, who looked like he belonged in daycare himself, ignored him completely. He sat at the kitchen counter staring at the back of a Cheerios box while slowly shoveling spoonful after spoonful of the soggy circles into his mouth, milk dribbling down his chin.

  Before coming back downstairs. Reef had unpackedwhile Alex had filled him in about the staff—there were two part-timers who came on alternate days—and the other residents, who had already begun heading down to breakfast.

  “Don’t you mean inmates?” Reef had asked as he’d shoved socks and underwear into the top drawer of a dresser, then put his three T-shirts and two pairs of jeans in the drawers below. He’d hung his jean jacket in the closet and left his toothbrush, comb and razor sitting on the dresser top. He had nothing else.

  “Reef honey, you don’t ever want Frank to catch you using that word.”

  Reef gritted his teeth to keep from shoving Alex’s “honey” down his goddamn throat. Once he got the lay of the land, though, he’d be putting that little faggot in his place fast, along with anyone else who thought they could say what they wanted to Reef Kennedy without paying the price.

  “Why? Colville have a problem with the truth?”

  Alex looked at him and grinned. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Frank’s story.”

  Reef scowled. “I’ve had more social workers than I can remember, and every one of ‘em had a story. Spare me the bleeding-heart bullshit.”

  But Alex didn’t. He told Reef how Colville had a rap sheet as long as his arm. Disturbing the peace, assault, breaking and entering, theft, possession of illegalsubstances. “You name it,” Alex said, “Frank did it, and most of it before he was twenty. He did some time in Dorchester.”

  “So how d’you know all this?”

  “They did a write-up on him a while back in some magazine. About how he cleaned himself up, kicked the drug monkey, stuff like that. When he got out of prison, he began an outreach program for kids in trouble, then got together enough money to buy this place. I think he got funding from somewhere to help with fixing it up.”

  Reef was unimpressed. “Thinks he’s the original bad boy, huh?” He snorted, thinking of Rowdy Brewster and his crew. “I know guys who’d eat him for breakfast. Colville don’t scare me.”

  Alex stared at him for a moment. Then, grinning, he struck a classic Hollywood diva pose and breathed, “Hold onto your hats, boys, ‘cause it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”

  Reef smiled in spite of himself. Yeah, it’d be a bumpy ride all right. Until Frank Colville finally figured out who the driver was around here.

  Coming downstairs. Alex had given Reef thumbnail sketches of the other guys currently living at North Hills: Gordy Towers, seventeen, multiple substance abuser: Owen White, sixteen, glue-sniffer and chronic runaway; Keith Benjamin, also sixteen, shoplifter extraordinaire; and Jimmy Franz, fourteen, pyromaniac with anger management issues. There hadbeen two other residents until the previous week, but one had broken his contract and got sent back to Riverview, and the other, as Alex put it, had graduated.

  “Graduated?”

  “You know, came out the other end. Turned citizen.”

  Reef had no idea what any of that meant, nor did he care. “So what’s your story?” he asked as they reached the foyer. He could have guessed, but he was curious what the homo would tell him.

  Alex slid a long-sleeved arm around the carved pineapple newel post and batted his eyelashes. “Oh, honey, there’s just soooo much to tell. You’re gonna have to wait for the movie.”

  Standing in the kitchen now, Reef put faces to the names Alex had given him earlier. It wasn’t hard to tell which one was Gordy. The tallest of the group, he looked ghoulish: skin so white it was almost transparent, the blue veins on his arm writhing like snakes as he poured himself a glass of orange juice. The Cheerios kid, the shortest, was obviously Jimmy, and Reef tried to imagine what would motivate someone who couldn’t bother to wipe the milk off his mouth to go to the trouble of starting fires. He got the other two wrong. Owen, the glue-sniffer, wasn’t the overweight, acne-faced guy with the ring in his nose who was buttering what looked to be a whole loaf of bread. That was Keith. Owen, slicing up a banana, was the most normal-looking one of the bunch—slim, athletic type with short dark hair, square jaw. perfect teeth. The kind of guy you’d expect to see wearing Hilfiger sweats shooting hoops with his buddies while his cheerleader girlfriend watched from her daddy’s BMW. Go figure.

  Just then, Frank Colville came into the kitchen. “Morning, fellas.”

  “Morning, Frank,” they all chorused, and Reef noticed even Jimmy looked up for that greeting.

  “I see everyone’s met Reef. Thanks, Alex.”

  “My pleasure, Frank,” Alex said, flashing Reef a Colgate smile. Keith turned toward the pair and whistled, and Gordy made loud kissing noises.

  Reef felt his neck and cheeks burn. He’d have given anything to knock Alex’s smile clear into next year, followed immediately by Keith and Gordy’s shit-eating grins.

  “Guys, does that sound respectful to you?”

  Sudden silence.

  Then, “Sorry, Frank,” said Keith.

  “Me, too,” Gordy mumbled.

  “I’m not the person you should be apologizing to.”

  The two turned to Reef and Alex. “Sorry.”

  Reef shrugged. Their apology meant nothing—he was Just surprised they’d given in so quickly. They didn’t look like pussies.

  “You get anything to eat, Reef?” Frank asked.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “If you change your mind, Just help yourself.” Frank turned to Owen. “You’re on kitchen detail this week, right?”

  Owen nodded.

  “I’m putting Reef on with you.”

  “No problem,” Owen said.

  “Everybody doubles up on jobs here, Reef. There’s a list on the wall in my office, and you’ll rotate through different duties. You and Owen will be partnered up for the next few days.”

  Like I fucking care. Reef thought. But he realized Colville was waiting for a response, so he nodded. Noncommittally.

  “Part of being accountable involves letting me know where you are at all times. You don’t leave without my say-so, and where you go must be approved by me. You call to let me know you got there, and if something comes up and you’re going to be late getting back, you call and let me know that, too.”

  “Right.” Like that’ll happen. “Anything else?”

  “Just that I want you to feel free to come talk about anything at any time.”

  “Right.” That’ll happen, too.

  Colville studi
ed him for a moment, then nodded toward the back door that opened onto the deck. “Come with me for a minute, okay?”

  He led Reef outside, across the deck and through the back yard toward the greenhouse. Close up, Reef could see a number of glass panels were cracked, and here and there some were missing. Colville stopped and turned to Reef. “You’re giving me lip service right now. Most new residents do. I expect that.”

  Reef said nothing.

  Colville seemed to expect that, too. “Sooner or later, though, you and I are going to have to come to an understanding. It’d save us both a lot of headaches if it was sooner.”

  Reef Just looked at him.

  “See this greenhouse, Reef?”

  “I’m not blind.”

  “It’s your responsibility now.”

  “So what’s that mean? I dust every Thursday?”

  A muscle twitched in Colville’s lower jaw, but he showed no other reaction to Reef’s sarcasm. “Those cracked and missing panels need to be replaced. There’s a tape measure in the tool drawer in the kitchen. Just ask one of the guys to show you. And there’s usually paper and pencils on the counter.” He turned and headed back toward the house.

  “And those would be for …?” Reef trailed off.

  Colville never broke his stride. “You’re a smart guy,” he called over his shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out for yourself.” When he got to the door, he turned. “Oh, and don’t forget you’re on kitchen detail with Owen.” He went inside.

  Reef stood looking at the door, anger scrabbling up his throat, its sharp taste souring his mouth. “You prick,” he muttered, and his eyes scoured the loose soil around the greenhouse. It took him only seconds to find what he was searching for. He bent down and pried it loose from the ground, brushed the dirt fromits rough surface, took several steps back, then threw the rock as hard as he could, shattering one of the greenhouse panels. Reef smiled, suddenly feeling better than he’d felt in weeks.

  “One more thing.”

  He turned to see Colville standing in the open kitchen doorway.

  “The other part of being accountable is paying for your mistakes. The money to fix that panel you just broke comes out of your own pocket.”

  “Fuck you!” Reef said, but Colville had already gone back inside. Reef’s face twisted and he ground his teeth, felt a sudden coppery taste in his mouth as he bit the inside of his cheek. He raised his hand to his lips, brought it away red, made fists that clenched and unclenched uselessly there in the back yard.

  Chapter 12

  No one could have prepared Leeza for the agony she experienced that first day. Lying in bed focusing on the top left sprinkler and waiting for her next shot of morphine was one thing. Being forced to get out of that bed was another entirely. She’d been astonished when Val had told her she’d be going down to the fourth floor to meet “the team.”

  “What team?” Leeza asked. The morphine in her system made her tongue thick and lethargic and she had to concentrate to form her words.

  “The specialists assigned to assist in your recovery. Along with Carly and me, there’s your doctor, an occupational therapist, a vocational counselor and a social worker.”

  “Why so many?” Leeza couldn’t have cared less if there’d been two hundred people assigned to her. She was just stalling, hoping Carly would return to explain that clearly a mistake had been made, that there was no way she could be expected to get out of that bed, let alone into a wheelchair. She suddenly realized why Val had asked her mother to leave. Now Carly was Leeza’s only hope.

  But when the nurse entered the room moments later, it was only to assist Val in getting her patient up.

  “Each person on the team has a different function. You’ve only heard mine,” Val explained, slowly raising the head of Leeza’s bed to its maximum incline. The gradual shift in Leeza’s center of gravity put new weight on different areas of her body, the flesh around her pin-sites tugging at the fixators and producing brand-new degrees of pain.

  “I can’t—” Leeza gasped, “—do this!” Even with the morphine in her system, the spasms that accompanied this upright position were unbearable.

  “Yes, you can, Leeza.”

  It took Leeza a moment to realize it was Brett who had said this. She hadn’t even been aware her roommate was still in the room. “No! I can’t!” she hissed. Her body was trembling uncontrollably, and for a moment she was sure she’d split right down the middle and whatever wasn’t pinned or stapled or riveted together would spill out onto the bed. “Make them stop!”

  “Leeza,” said Brett, “everybody goes through this. I did, too. It’s the worst part. But you have to do it.”

  “No! I don’t!” Leeza panted as she spoke, the words coming in short puffs through clenched teeth. “If they need to see me, make them come here!”

  “Leeza, take a minute and breathe slowly.” Val’svoice was low and even, a soothing contrast to the ratcheting in Leeza’s chest. “I want you to listen to me. Focus on the sound of my voice.”

  Tears slid down Leeza’s face. Ashamed, she tried to turn away, but this movement only produced new spasms, and she choked back sobs.

  “Leeza, honey,” said Val, “you can do this. Just focus on my voice. I want you to picture a place in your head.”

  Leeza sobbed again. “I can’t!”

  Val gently took Leeza’s hand and put herself directly in the girl’s line of vision. “We’re going to do something called imaging. It’ll help. Picture a safe place. It can be real or one you imagine. It’s a place you can go to in your head when the pain gets too great.”

  Leeza gulped, ground her teeth, tried to focus.

  “Think of somewhere you went when you were younger that made you feel good, made you feel happy. Or picture a place you’ve always dreamed of going, a place where everything is warm and soft and soothing.”

  Leeza again tried to focus, tried to empty her head and think of places she had been or wanted to go. Nothing. Another wave of pain surged through her, this one a breaker complete with jagged whitecap, and she cried out.

  “Keep trying,” Val said. “It’ll come.” She continued to speak, her tone low and soothing as she urged Leeza to concentrate, to open her mind and allow the images to form.

  Leeza let the waves of Val’s words wash over her and, in doing this, she remembered a place from her early childhood, a place where she and Ellen had gone with their mother one summer on Nova Scotia’s Northumberland Shore. It was the summer of their parents’ divorce, and their mother had taken the girls away to give their father time to pack and move out. Diane had rented a cottage at Pictou Lodge, and, soon after they’d unpacked, she’d driven west along the coast looking for a place where the girls could swim. By accident, she’d stumbled on Skinner’s Cove, a tiny fishing community that wrapped around a secluded harbor, a sea-grayed wharf separating half a dozen boats on one side from a deserted stretch of sand on the other.

  Diane had parked the car and urged the girls out, and they’d trudged after her, listlessly carrying the blanket, water toys and picnic basket over the dune and down to the sea. The previous weeks had been difficult for the girls, the first time they’d come to understand that nothing was forever. They hadn’t wanted this trip, had wanted only to stay home, to hold on to whatever fragile permanence they could still find there.

  Diane had nearly had to drag them into the water, but once in, all three had delighted in its bath-like temperature. Accustomed to the icy waters of the beaches near Halifax, they later learned that the water of the shallower Northumberland Strait was easily warmedby the sun-heated sand over which it ebbed and flowed. They’d reveled in being able to walk out dozens of yards and still stand only waist-deep in the water. Diane had brought them back to that tiny cove every day of their stay—it was as though the warm waves had a healing effect on all three of them, caressing, rocking, lifting them out of themselves and teaching them how to smile again.

  It was the water of S
kinner’s Cove that Leeza pictured now, imagined herself and Ellen floating in, suspended weightless above the warm sand. Gulls floated lazily above them, their cries distant and muted, much like the pain that ebbed from Leeza now.

  “When you think you’re ready,” Val said softly, “let me know.”

  A minute passed, then another. Leeza knew she would never be ready, never wanted to leave the moment she’d made in her head, but finally she whispered, “Okay.”

  Carly positioned a piece of plywood between Leeza’s body and a wheelchair by the bed. Varnished to a high gloss, the wood was nearly frictionless as the nurse and physiotherapist eased her down the board and into the chair. The teenager gasped and clenched her teeth during the procedure, but she managed to keep from crying out, focusing instead on the warmth of the water and the sand in her mind. When she was at last sitting in the chair, she glanced up and smiled. It was a fleeting expression, but Val and Carly couldsee the triumph behind it. So could Brett, who cheered loudly from across the room. “You go, girl!” Brett put her fingers between her lips and blew, producing a shrill whistle that echoed down the hallway beyond their room. “You’ll be racin’ with us wheelers in no time!”

  Carly raised her eyes heavenward. “Oh, Lord,” she sighed, “what have we done now?”

  This time, Leeza’s smile lasted longer, and she gave Brett a feeble thumbs-up.

  “All set?” Val asked her.

  “Never better,” she lied.

  The rest of the day was no less arduous, and pain was the constant companion who shared Leeza’s wheelchair.

  The meeting with the specialists was more a chance for Leeza to meet them than an opportunity for any formal assessment of her condition. That would take place in the days ahead as they monitored her progress and responded to her needs, both physical and emotional. Their names were a blur of syllables, and the only one she remembered that morning was the physician assigned to her case. His last name was at least a dozen letters long—Dandenshefsky or Danderhelsky (and quite possibly something entirely different)—but he’d apparently taken pity on patients and staff and now told everyone to call him Dr. Dan.