He was a shit. A selfish, whiny brat. I will never understand why my parents loved him so much.
His death didn’t change their love, didn’t make them start to love me more.
No, they still celebrated every birthday with an elaborate cake shaped like a dinosaur, because he loved dinosaurs.
Except he didn’t. By the time he was six he’d forgotten all about dinosaurs and moved on to pirates. By the time he died it was all about superheroes, especially Batman. If my parents love him so much, why can’t they remember that?
One year they had a cake made in the shape of a soccer ball because he’d played soccer. But they’d forgotten that he only played it for half a year and he’d played it badly. Very badly.
There was always cake, whether we could afford it or not. I had to wish my dead brother happy birthday, eat his stupid cake, and pretend to like it.
The anniversary of his death is worse.
They don’t wear black. Mom says it would make Jordan too sad. Like Jordan ever noticed what anyone wore. Instead they dress in bright, happy clothing. They make me do the same. Push me into one of Mom’s summer dresses, which are too short and too loose on me. We eat his favorite food: hot dogs, which, at least, are cheap. Then we share our memories of beloved Jordan. Talk about how much we miss him. What we miss most.
I don’t miss a single thing, so every year I make up something new. They watch me closely to make sure I mean it. But trust me, I don’t lie as outrageously as they do. He did not sing like a bird, he could not play piano or speak French. There was nothing precocious or talented about him.
They love him more dead than they’ve ever loved me, even if I am the living child.
I know they wish it was the other way around.
AFTER
I go in through the back of the house. “Grandmother,” I say as I barge into the living room, “you can’t kill him.”
“Can’t kill who?” Grandmother says, dragging her gaze from the fireplace to me.
“Where are my parents?” I ask. They’re not there. It’s just Grandmother, Great-Aunt, and Hilliard curled up in front of the fire.
“Can’t kill who?” Grandmother repeats her question.
“The boy. His life is miserable,” I say, standing between them and the fire. I pace as I talk. “He didn’t know what he was doing when he killed Zach. He didn’t even know he was a wolf. If it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t have changed. I did it to him when I forgot my pill. He’s got no family. So no one’s ever told him anything. He’s a stupid, ignorant kid. You can keep him on the farm, can’t you? Teach how to be a wolf? He won’t kill anyone up here.”
“Lupus non mordet lupum,” Great-Aunt Dorothy says. She’s smiling. She looks like a Hallmark grandmother. White hair in a bun, rosy cheeks. She doesn’t have the evil witchy look of Grandmother, but she’s just the same.
“I know,” I say. “You won’t bite him—you’ll put him down. But he’s not a danger up here. Truly. He loves it here. I mean, he was excited about seeing horses. If you can believe that.”
“We don’t kill other wolves,” Great-Aunt says. “We’ve never killed other wolves. Not unless they’re rabid, or too sick, or the like.”
“Only when there’s no other way,” Grandmother says.
“There’s another way for the boy,” I say. “Just being up here will change him. He’s never had any—”
“Stupid girl,” Grandmother interrupts. “We never said we were going to kill him. Because we’re not going to kill him. We need him.”
“Wait,” I say, stopping mid-stride. “What?”
“He’s breeding stock,” Great-Aunt says. “A new bloodline. A new wolf bloodline. He’s gold, Micah. We won’t be touching a hair on his head.”
“But you said that you’d kill him. You told me you would.”
“Didn’t say that,” Grandmother says.
“Yes, you did!” I can’t believe she’s lying so brazenly about it. “I asked if you’d kill him and you said yes.”
“No, I didn’t,” Grandmother says. “I’m craftier than that. I just moved my head a little. Coulda been yes, coulda been no. Never said word one ’bout killing the boy. Said we’d take care of him and that we will.”
“You lied to me.” I don’t know why I’m surprised. Not like I haven’t seen them lie before. But it was a nod. I saw it clearly. Just because she didn’t open her mouth doesn’t make it less of a lie. How could they lie to me? If I’d known all along I wouldn’t have gone through hell trying to decide what to do. How could they mess with me like that?
But: they’re not going to kill him. The white boy gets to live, gets to be a wolf. I’m so relieved I sink to the floor next to Hilliard. I pat his head. His fur is hot from the fire. He shifts, resting his snout on my knee. I scratch behind his ears.
“Supper soon,” Great-Aunt says. She gets up, heading for the kitchen.
“We said we’d make sure he never killed a human again,” Grandmother tells me. “He won’t. Not livestock neither. We’ll teach the boy well. Like we taught you and your cousins.”
“Do my parents know?” I ask, before remembering that they’d never known the Greats were going to kill him. I never repeated the Greats’ lie. “Where are they?”
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Back to the city.”
I freeze, my hand on Hilliard’s head. My parents left without me? They couldn’t have. “Why?”
“You’ll be living here now,” Grandmother says. “You’ll be—”
I dash out the front of the house, down the steps to where the car was parked, but now there’s only tire tracks in mud. I run down the road as fast as I can. The car’s gone. I run until the house is out of sight behind me, and throw myself down on the ground, landing on mud and the mulch of fallen leaves.
My parents have left me here. They know I didn’t kill Zach. I found the white boy. I proved it was him, not me. They still left me here.
This isn’t about Zach. This is about Jordan.
My parents have destroyed my entire life. Without saying good-bye.
I howl. I weep and wail and scream. Throw mud and golden leaves in the air.
How could they?
HISTORY OF ME
I think maybe lying to you about Jordan was one lie too many. (Ten lies too many? A thousand?)
But there was a reason for it.
I wanted all that pain to go away. If I made you believe that he’d never existed, then maybe I could believe it, too. Forget about him. Forget how he died.
It would be easy. We never talk about him, you see. Except for his birthday and the anniversary of his death. But other than those two days it’s like Jordan never existed.
I wish he never had. I wish I had invented him. I’d rather Pete was my brother than Jordan. Inventing Pete would be easier than inventing Jordan. He makes more sense.
Not that I invented Pete.
You know what I mean.
Making myself believe that Jordan was imaginary didn’t work. I don’t think I ever stood a chance. Even dead, he’s there all the time. In the way my parents look at me. In the way they don’t look at me. In the way they don’t trust me.
Or love me.
It was an accident.
Why don’t they believe that?
Why don’t you?
AFTER
I must have fallen asleep. Up all night, and grief wearing me into exhaustion. I wake to the white boy patting my cheek. “Don’t cry,” he’s telling me. “Why are you crying?”
“Because they fucking left me.” I wipe my cheeks. I have cried in my sleep. I’m crying still. “Because Zach’s dead,” I whisper.
“But it’s good here.”
The boy’s cross-legged in the mud beside me. It’s dark but I can’t tell if that’s the dense tree coverage or because the sun has set. Either way it’s late in the day and there’s no electricity. Not that I care. My life is over. No city, no college, no future. I’ll n
ever see Sarah or Tayshawn again. I might as well be in prison.
If I go home will Mom and Dad take me in?
I don’t think so. If I go back to the city I’ll have no money, no shelter, no nothing. I’ll be a street kid like Pete.
My parents have taken everything away.
“We can be happy here,” the boy says. He’s patting the top of my head as if I was a dog.
“We?” I ask the boy, wishing my eyes would quit leaking.
“You and me. This is why I found you and you rescued me. This is the happy part. We belong here.”
He’s not just stupid, he’s insane. I belong here the way a homeless kid like him belongs at the Ritz-Carlton. Not at all.
“I like it here. I like the horses and the other animals. And your cousins. Even though they poke. But when they knock me down they help me back up. They don’t hit as hard as you do. There’s lots of food. I picked an apple off a tree. Not just one apple. Lots. Ate them, too.”
“You’re brain damaged.”
“When I’m a wolf they’re going to teach me how to hunt. I want to be a wolf.”
“Don’t talk about that. I’ve seen the results of your hunting.”
I sit up. It’s cold. The chill runs through my whole body. I am never cold.
“They’re going to teach me to ride a horse. How to make fences and fix them. No one’s taught me how to do anything before. Not anything good. I like it here.”
“You said.” I bring my knees up, hug them to my chest. Every part of me is frozen but I don’t care.
He leans his head against my shoulder. I almost stroke his hair. I pull my hand away just in time. He killed Zach.
“I’m glad you wolfed me,” he says, still leaning on me.
“I told you, I didn’t. It’s the way you are. Like having brown hair, or big feet, or being tall. It’s in your genes.”
“I never thought I was people,” the boy says. “I didn’t belong in the city.”
“Not you, too,” I say, but he’s not listening, he’s telling.
“The city’s mean. It’s people pushing you around. Telling you where you can’t go. Fall asleep on a stoop and people yell at you to get off. They yell at you for taking the food they threw away in the trash. Yell at you for being on the same subway car as them. People are all yelling and pushing and worse. Lots worse. It’s not like that here because it’s not real people—it’s wolf people.”
“They’re not all wolves. Not even half.”
“I like it here.”
“Yay for you.”
“Why don’t you like it here? You’re a wolf person.” He angles his head to look up at me. Even in the murky light I can see that the black eye has gotten more lurid.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to be. I belong in the city. It’s my home. I want to finish high school,” I say, though I know he’ll never understand. “I want to go to college. I’ve studied so hard. I sent off my college applications. I want to study biology. Figure out what I am, how it works. Map my DNA. These genes we have, you and me. What are they? What are we? How are we? I want to be the one to find out. I’m not going to find out anything stuck here, am I? With a bunch of morons who haven’t made it past the seventh grade. None of my cousins have been to preschool, let alone college. Half of them can’t even read!” I’m crying again.
“I can’t read,” says the boy. “Why does a wolf need to read?”
I don’t know what to say to that. I’m still crying. If I stay on the farm I will lose my mind. I will lose who I am. “I can’t imagine what your life was like.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the boy says. “It’s good now. I’m not going to think about how it was.”
“Just like that?” I say. “You’re going to forget the rest of your life?”
He nods. “I never remember the bad stuff. But now it’s going to be all good stuff. I can remember everything from now on. Everything from when I first saw you.”
I try not to be angry with him. I substitute despair. He killed Zach after he first saw me. That’s one of his treasured memories. I don’t ask him about it. I don’t want to punch him again.
“Why do you want to go back there?” he asks. “At your school if they knew you was a wolf would they still like you? I bet they don’t like you. Not how you are. If you stay here you don’t have to be a person. Everyone here knows what you are—a wolf. Like them. They like you because you’re a wolf. Here’s better.”
How could this moron street kid know that? I stare at him. He blinks but doesn’t look away. I’m grateful it’s getting too dark to see the full glory of the black eye I gave him.
What if he’s right? I am a wolf. Back in the city I have to fight what I am every single day. Take pills to keep it at bay. I have to tamp down all my impulses. Not leap at enemies’ throats, not jump on the people I desire, not run when I want, not eat when and how I want.
Here I don’t have to lie to anyone. I can be the wolf that I am.
I stand up. The boy does, too. He puts his hand in mine. His is smaller and all bones, but his squeeze is firm.
“Promise me you’ll stay,” the boy says.
I laugh. “They’ll look out for you better than I will.” I’m tempted to tell him that he’s breeding stock. “I hate you, remember?”
“Stay.”
“Fine,” I say, feeling something break inside me. “I’ll stay.” I don’t have anywhere else to go.
“You promise?”
“Sure,” I say. “Why not?”
We head back to the house. It really is dark now. But our night vision is good—we’re wolves, after all. Most everyone is in bed already. Here on the farm they go to bed early and rise earlier. Not much else to do once the light’s gone.
Grandmother and Great-Aunt Dorothy are still awake. Great-Aunt leads the boy away.
Grandmother stands up and stares at me for what feels like minutes and then, for the first time in my life, she pulls me into her arms, mud and all, hugging me hard before pushing me away and kissing my cheeks. “We love you, child,” she says.
She’s never said that either. Maybe I do belong here.
It occurs to me that it was not the white boy who was the puppy being abandoned in the woods, it was me.
AFTER
I wash the mud off in a metal tub in the kitchen. Grandmother heats the water over the wood-and-coal-fueled stove. She doesn’t say anything. Hands me soap and a washcloth. Then a towel to dry me and a coarse nightgown that’s probably a hundred years old. She dumps my muddy clothes into the tub and starts washing them.
She pats my cheek with her wrinkled, scarred fingers. “We’re glad to have you here at last,” she says.
“Thank you.”
I climb the stairs to the bed I share in the summer. I slide under the covers, pushing the nearest cousin farther in so there’s room. She stirs but doesn’t wake. I curl inward, holding my knees and resisting the impulse to suck my thumb. Instead I cry as quietly as I can.
I wake up aching and swollen-eyed. I’ve never cried that much before. I vow never to do it again.
When I crawled into the bed there were two girl cousins in it. Now there’s light streaming in through the window and just me. They’re all up and working already, but this city girl has slept past dawn. I wonder how long they’ll let me get away with that.
My chest feels tight and sore. Like my heart is broken.
My heart is broken.
I dress in the clothes I arrived in even though they’re still damp. There’s a suitcase full of my things but I haven’t touched it. It’s proof that my parents knew from the outset they were dumping me with the Greats.
They packed that suitcase.
It’s their biggest one. They probably crammed everything I own into it. I’m not opening it. I don’t want to see what they thought I would want. I’m not wearing any of those clothes. I don’t want to see more evidence of how much they do not love or understand me. I’ll wear the clothes I came in till they disintegr
ate.
I don’t care that the suitcase is my last link to the city, that Zach’s sweater might be in it, his jersey.
My resolution holds until I realize I have to take a pill.
I open the case, relieved to find several months’ worth stashed at the bottom. I take one and put the rest of the pill packets in my pockets. I don’t trust Grandmother not to find them and get rid of them. It’s a miracle she hasn’t already. I have no idea how I’m going to get hold of more. In a few months I’ll change with the rest of them.
All control of my own body gone.
HISTORY OF ME
I’m not sure where I start and where I end. Is the human the real me? Or the wolf?
Every time I change from one to the other I lose bits of myself.
Or all of myself.
I don’t know if the cells I start with are the same ones I end up with when I return to being human. Does the wolf-me destroy the human-me? And then does the new human-me destroy the wolf-me? How many Micahs have there been?
How can I know if I’m the same me I was back when I first started changing?
There are very few organs of the same size and dimension in both wolf and human. As I go from one to the other and back again my liver, kidney, eyes, ears change. Everything changes. What happens to the human cells when I’m a wolf? Are they hidden or are they gone?
If they’re gone, then every time I change I lose more.
I become less me.
I am afraid of changing.
I am afraid of changing back.
AFTER
The breakfast is made up of farm produce: eggs, butter, milk, bacon, bread. This is a working farm. Even my littlest cousins lend a hand at churning butter, pulling weevils out of flour. There’s wool to be spun, animals to be fed, canning and pickling, meats to be salted. Cleaning, washing, baking. Repairs to be made. I learn over breakfast that two of the barns need their roofs fixed before the first snows hit.
I try to be interested. This is my life now.
The eggs taste like slimy dirt. The bread is heavy and scratchy. It’s the worst breakfast I’ve ever had.
Liar Page 22
