Darkly (Follow Me)

by HELEN HARDT

“It’s Brady and Benji!” someone always said, handing us each a Dum Dum sucker.

  We lived for those sweets each week.

  I have happy memories of this place. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized we came here because Mom and Dad couldn’t afford to feed us.

  This Benji has light-brown hair and blue eyes. “And how are you today, Benji?” I hold out my hand to him.

  He looks away.

  “I’m sorry,” his mother says. “He’s shy.”

  “Not a problem. I was a shy kid myself. This is Skye.”

  “Hi.” She holds out her hand to Elise. “Nice to meet you.”

  Elise shakes her hand weakly. She’s a pretty young woman wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Benji’s hair is combed and his face is clean. Elise takes pride in her little family, like my mother always did.

  “You’ll need some powdered milk for Benji,” I say. “We’ll have fresh milk soon, once the new refrigeration unit is installed. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. Refrigeration is down during installation.”

  “Benji doesn’t like milk,” Elise says. “I wish he’d drink it.”

  “Not a problem. We can give you some sugar-free chocolate flavoring to put in the milk. Guaranteed to please.” I should know. I hated milk, too, as a kid. Strawberry Quik was its own food group as far as I was concerned.

  I lead the way down the first aisle. Skye follows, walking next to Elise.

  I don’t wonder about Elise and Benji’s story. I already know. Life is tough sometimes. I don’t ask questions because people don’t want to talk about these circumstances. Benji’s father may be in the picture or he may not be. It’s not our business at the shelter to ask. We simply supply food and let our patrons keep their dignity. That second part means more than most people know.

  Skye smiles at Benji, and he smiles back. He’s an adorable kid.

  “What do you like to do, Benji?” Skye asks.

  He looks away then.

  “He’s not talking much yet,” Elise says. “Benji, you should speak to the nice lady.”

  “Oh, no. That’s okay. He’s a beautiful child.”

  “Thank you.” Elise smiles.

  I pull items off the pantry shelves and put them in the cart. Powdered milk, canned fruits and vegetables, sliced bread, peanut butter and jelly. Pasta and sauce, boxed macaroni and cheese, and some apple juice. Down another aisle I find cereal, oatmeal, and instant coffee.

  “Is Benji potty-trained?” I ask Elise.

  “Yes and no. He still wears a diaper at night.”

  I turn down a new aisle and pull a pack of toddler-size diapers off the shelf. “Anything else you need from this aisle?”

  Elise shakes her head.

  “Is there anything special that you’d like today?”

  “No, I don’t need anything,” Elise says. “Just the food is fine.”

  I’d be very happy to write Elise a big fat check, but I don’t push. Pride and dignity are important to her, as they are to most. I help her bag her groceries, and then Skye and I pack them in the little red wagon she left outside the pantry.

  “Do you live near here?” Skye asks.

  “About twenty blocks away,” she says. “It’s a nice walk.”

  “There’s a bus stop right there.” Skye nods. “Let me give you—”

  “No, thank you,” Elise says. “Benji and I enjoy the walk. Thank you very much for the food.”

  “You’re very welcome,” I say. “You come back anytime.”

  Elise smiles and nods and then places Benji in the wagon among the bags of food and begins the walk home. Skye watches them for a moment. Benji pulls a loaf of bread out of the bag and squeezes it. I shift back in time once more, remembering my own Benji squeezing the day-old loaves we got at the food pantry. Mom admonished him every time. He promised never to do it again. Until the next time we got a loaf of bread. My little brother couldn’t resist.

  Skye smiles. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

  “No need to thank me.”

  She looks over my shoulder. Cheryl is leading another woman with a small girl hanging on her hand into the panty. Another volunteer takes a young man from the line.

  “Why this place, Braden? You could volunteer anywhere.”

  “Because,” I say, “my mother used to bring Ben and me here when we were little to get food.”

  Skye’s mouth drops open.

  “Apparently I’m full of surprises today,” I say.

  She doesn’t know the truth of those words. She’s the first person I’ve said them to in a long time. But I’ve opened something up inside me, and now I want something in return.

  Skye touches my arm lightly. “I think it’s wonderful that you volunteer here and also support the pantry financially.”

  “It’s the least I can do. Never forget where you came from, Skye. It’s a part of you. Always.”

  We head to the Mercedes where Christopher waits. I open the door for her.

  I slide in next to Skye in the back seat. “I showed you a part of my past today. Now I’d like to know something about you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “What do you want to know?” she asks.

  “Something that had an impact on you. Helped define who you are.”

  “Okay. But I want to say something first.” She drops her gaze a moment.

  “Go ahead.”

  She doesn’t look at me. “I didn’t know you ever went hungry.”

  “Did you give it a second thought?” The words come out in monotone. I’m not trying to make her feel bad. I just know most people never give food a second thought because they’ve always had it.

  “No, I didn’t,” she says, finally bringing her head up to meet my gaze. “I’ve never gone hungry, and I never realized how lucky I am. I’m going to try not to take things like that for granted anymore.”

  I trail a finger over her cheek. “Good. You should never take anything for granted. It can all be gone in a minute.”

  I’m happy Skye has never known hunger. I don’t wish for her to know anything that feels so hopeless. Hunger did do something very profound for me, though. It gave me drive. It gave me passion. It taught me to never turn my back on any opportunity, no matter how small.

  And it taught me to never give up. To never lose the drive to be better. Because…it can all be gone in a minute.

  I know.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “The thought of you going to bed hungry makes me so sad.”

  “Don’t be sorry, and please don’t be sad. Everything in my past has contributed to what I’ve become. Just as it has for you. Maybe you don’t have one thing you can pinpoint. But tell me something about your past. Something that helped shape who you are today.”

  “Do I really have to go into this?” She bites on her lower lip.

  I’m so close to letting her off the hook, but I lob a softball at her. One I’m pretty sure she won’t resist. “No. I’ll never force you to tell me anything.”

  “Thanks.”

  Silence for a few minutes. Then she speaks.

  “When I was seven, I was playing by myself in our cornfields.”

  She closes her eyes for a moment, while I imagine a carefree little girl, long hair flying, amusing herself among the tall stalks.

  “By yourself?” I ask.

  “Yeah. I’m an only child, and none of my friends lived close by. I saw them only at school until I got older. Anyway, I got lost.”

  “In the cornfield?” I raise my eyebrows.

  “Don’t look so surprised. Our cornfields are huge. We have more than two hundred acres. I was only allowed to play at the very edge of the field where someone could keep an eye on me. Anyway, I got caught up chasing a praying mantis.”

  “Somehow, I never took you for an e
ntomophile.”

  “I was seven, Braden, with the attention span of a praying mantis myself. They’re green, as you know, and it was a challenge to see it as it hopped from one stalk to another. I followed it with my camera I’d gotten for my birthday. I wanted to take its picture.”

  I smile. “You were having fun.”

  “I was. There wasn’t much else to do.”

  “Except outrun tornadoes.”

  She gives me a good-natured smack on my upper arm. “I won’t deny taking shelter from a few in my day, but you can’t outrun a tornado. You shouldn’t try.”

  “Dorothy did.”

  “You watch too much TV.”

  “I don’t watch any TV.” Did she notice I have only one television in my entire penthouse? Probably not, since she hasn’t seen my entire penthouse.

  “That was a clear Wizard of Oz reference.”

  “I read books, Skye.” Actually my mother read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to Ben and me at bedtime. The word “wonderful” was dropped for the movie.

  “Anyway,” she continues, “it hopped away from me again and again, and it was great fun to follow it, until I realized I had no idea where I was. I was shorter than the corn, and all around me was more corn. I freaked out. I can still feel my little heart pounding against my chest. It was like my whole body became my heartbeat. I started running in no particular direction and kept tripping over roots and stalks.”

  She’s clearly agitated just telling the story. Part of me wants to stop her. Her discomfort makes me feel uncomfortable myself. She stops talking for a moment, inhales slowly. Exhales. Then—

  “I started screaming bloody murder, and eventually I ran into a scarecrow and knocked myself out. The next thing I remember is waking up in my bed with my mother next to me holding a clammy washcloth on my forehead.”

  “So they found you.”

  “They did. I wasn’t very far from the yard. It just seemed far to a frightened little girl.”

  I understand better than she realizes, and I’m moved—moved that she shared something that obviously still frightens her to this day. She went out of her comfort zone to tell me this story, and she’ll be rewarded. I think about telling her how much her little story means to me. I think about grabbing her and kissing her senseless. I think about the feelings flowing through me, how they’re new and vibrant and all linked to her. I think about all of this, and then I say, simply, “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  …

  I’m back in the office by three thirty, and I have a rare couple of hours without meetings. I tell Claire that I don’t want to be disturbed, and I close the door and sit behind my desk.

  After returning a couple of phone calls that can’t wait, I sit back and put my feet up on my desk. I rarely relax in the office, but Skye’s story of the cornfield haunts me.

  It haunts me as much as my own childhood, which I don’t let myself think about often. Ben tries to talk to me about it once in a while, but I always tell him to shut up.

  He does.

  The older-brother card still works when it comes to discussing the past.

  Seeing my brother and father every day has become as natural to me as air. I’d take a bullet for my brother. As for Dad? He wasn’t a perfect father. Far from it. But I’ve moved past his shortcomings as a parent and husband. He’s an asset to the company. He’s more than proven his worth.

  Still…

  Skye’s story…

  And little Benji at the food bank.

  Though I finance the place and volunteer, I rarely let myself think about those days when Ben and I would walk in there with our mother, each of us holding one of her hands, part of her lovely face always hidden by a scarf. Most of the time the volunteers were kind.

  Except for once.

  …

  “Come on, Brady,” Momma said, urging me along.

  I’d stopped to watch a teenage girl with a new puppy. The puppy was wriggling out of her arms and wagging its tail. It had brown fur and striking blue eyes. I couldn’t stop looking at it.

  “The puppy, Momma,” I said.

  “You know we can’t have a puppy. Now, come on.”

  Momma always said we couldn’t afford a dog, but dogs were free. You could go to the pound and get one. I didn’t understand.

  Frowning, I left the puppy with its new owner, wishing I could feel the love of a puppy’s kisses on my face. Wishing I could throw a ball and have it bring it back to me and then wag its little tail.

  We walked into the shelter. The line was short today. That was a good thing. Until—

  “Hurry up, lady!” a gray-haired woman said to Momma. “We ain’t got all day here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Momma said. “Come on, Brady, Benji.”

  Benji and I were used to the nice ladies at the food bank who gave us Dum Dums. Where were they today?

  The mean lady with stringy gray hair yanked a shopping cart and moved toward the first aisle. Momma followed, dragging us along to keep up with Meanie, as I had named the gray-haired lady.

  “I suppose you’ll need diapers?” Meanie said, shaking her head.

  “No. My boys are toilet-trained.”

  I’d been using the potty for years, and Benji hardly ever had an accident anymore. We were big boys. Why did Meanie think we needed diapers?

  “Milk, I suppose, for the kids.”

  “Yes, please, and some Strawberry Quik.”

  Meanie scoffed. “You’ll get milk. Strawberry Quik is a luxury.”

  “But we’ve gotten it here the last several times,” Momma says, still using her polite voice.

  I wanted her to yell at Meanie. Meanie deserved to be yelled at. Momma should give her a time-out.

  “We don’t have any. This is a food pantry, not a convenience store.”

  Momma said nothing, just followed Meanie to the next aisle to get a couple of loaves of bread. “Peanut butter or jelly?” Meanie asked.

  “Both, please.”

  “You get one or the other. Like I said—”

  “Yes, this isn’t a convenience store,” Momma finished for her. “I get it. We’ll take the peanut butter, please.”

  “I want jelly!” Benji cried out.

  “Peanut butter is more nutritious, Benji,” Momma said. “We’ll get jelly next time.”

  We walked through aisle after aisle, Meanie snarling at Momma as she filled up the grocery cart with cereal, spaghetti noodles, cans of food, tissues, toilet paper, and finally, a package of raw hamburger. That meant beef stew. Yum.

  “You’re done,” Meanie said. “Get on out of here. We got more people to deal with.”

  Momma smiled at Meanie. “Thank you very much. We appreciate your hospitality.”

  “Where’s my Dum Dum?” Benji said sadly, his eyes wide.

  “What’s he talking about?” Meanie demanded.

  “The volunteers always give the boys a sucker,” Momma said. “Don’t be rude, Benji.”

  “Candy?” Meanie said. “To rot their teeth so you’ll have to take them to a dentist you can’t afford? I don’t think so. Go on, now.”

  Momma held her head high. “Come along, boys.”

  We took the cart outside, and Momma loaded up our old car. She called it a station wagon. But she didn’t get in the driver’s seat. Instead, she grabbed our hands once again, and we walked back to the door of the food pantry.

  “Brady, hold Benji’s hand,” she said to me. “You can see me through the glass. Stay here, and I’ll be right back, okay?”

  As long as I could see Momma, it would be okay. She walked back into the food pantry and talked to a different volunteer. I held tight to Benji and waited. Soon a man walked up to Momma. They talked for a few minutes, but of course I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The man left for a minute, and then he c
ame back and handed something to Momma. They shook hands.

  Momma returned to us. “Were you good, boys?” she asked.

  “Yes, Momma,” we both said.

  “Good.” She held up a whole bag of Dum Dums! “You can each have one every night after supper until they run out.”

  I went home happy that night. I might not have a dog, but I had a smiling momma and a Dum Dum every night.

  And we never saw Meanie at the food pantry again.

  Chapter Thirty

  I leave for the day at six p.m., earlier than normal, but I want to see Skye. I’ve been thinking about her and the cornfield and the food pantry the better part of the afternoon. Plus, I want to fuck her. I really want to fuck her.

  As Christopher drives me to her place, I absently pull up Instagram.

  Skye has apparently taken my advice and turned her profile to public.

  And it’s taken off.

  She responded to a comment asking about her lip color on the post I’d tagged her in at the gala.

  @krissmith4009: @stormyskye15 your lip color is gorgeous!

  @krissmith4009 Glad you like it. It’s Susanne lip stain in Cherry Russet.

  The selfie of Skye and Tessa has also exploded.

  You look gorgeous! Beautiful ladies.

  Wowza!

  Who’s your friend? You’re both hot as hell.

  And then—

  You’re so lucky to be Braden Black’s girlfriend! #envious

  I go rigid.

  Apparently, Instagram thinks that Skye Manning is my girlfriend.

  Oddly, I don’t hate the idea.

  Christopher pulls in front of Skye’s building, and I call her.

  “Hi, Tess,” she says into the phone.

  “It’s not Tess.”

  “Hi,” she says, her voice a bit breathless.

  “I see you’re gaining quite a following,” I say.

  “Yeah. It’s pretty weird.”

  “Get used to it.”

  “I’ll try. I can always put my account back to private.”

  “You can,” I say, “but you won’t.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  I could go into detail, but that’s for another time. “Just trust me. Do you want to get dinner?”