Scratch, page 18
“I don’t know what I’d do without her,” Adam said. “I can’t believe just how much I love that child.”
“Well,” Jack said, “I’ve learned it doesn’t pay to underestimate how much a man can come to love something that wasn’t meant to be his. She’s yours now, though. Enjoy it before she grows up and leaves.”
“I hope to,” Adam said. “But I’m afraid. That sonofabitch, Billy, came back recently. After all this time he suddenly decided he wants Michaela, and seems to be willing to do anything to get her.”
“Don’t you think a man has a right to know his child,” Jack asked. “Even if that child was made under less than perfect circumstances?”
“In most cases I would have to say yes. There are too many kids out there who never get to know their father. God knows I’ve worked with a lot of them, and the emptiness they feel is huge. But Billy gave up those rights a long time ago, and I’m not just talking about the legal ones. He gave up the right to have anything to do with Holly the moment he raped her. I don’t want a man like that around Mike, either, but he doesn’t seem to be taking no for an answer.”
“Started legal trouble for you?”
“Worse. Tried to just grab her and run.” Adam told the story of Billy’s kidnap attempt. The anger rose up his throat as he talked, and his hands gripped the chair with white-knuckled fierceness.
“He sounds desperate,” Jack said when Adam had finished.
“He’s bugfuck crazy is what he is,” Adam said. “We should be safe out here, though. He has no idea where we are right now.”
“You hope,” Jack said. “Don’t underestimate him, though. A man like that can be driven to do all sorts of evil to get his way. Hell, a normal man can be driven to do all kinds of evil, trying to protect something he loves, or something he don’t want anyone else to know about. The question you need to ask yourself, is what are you willing to do to protect them?”
“What am I willing to sacrifice?” Adam said as the words from his dream came back to him.
“Hmm?” Jack said.
“Whatever it takes,” Adam responded.
“You remind me of Harv,” Jack said suddenly. “He wasn’t as talkative as you, but then I guess most men weren’t back then. But there’s something. He kept a lot of himself hidden from the world, but I always knew there was a lot of depth to that man.”
He rocked for a while, silently chewing the stem of his pipe. Adam watched him and sensed that Jack sat mired in a great sadness of some kind.
“We used to sit out here,” Jack finally said. He wasn’t looking at Adam. His eyes seemed focused on something far away, or long ago. There was a tone to his voice that Adam hadn’t heard, a tone that said that he was speaking Truth from deep inside.
“Sat right here under this roof,” Jack said. “Rocking and chewing the fat. We used to come up here to play when we were kids, and to drink when we got a little older. Tried to talk some girls into coming up here with us a few times, but those were different days, and none of them did. I’m not sure either Harv or I would have known what to do if they had.
“He was different after the War. I reckon most men who lived through that were. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell that part of him judged me for not going, for not living through what he had to endure, for staying behind and having a life while he went away and risked his. It would get quiet between us. That wasn’t that unusual, but it was a different kind of quiet, the kind that has hard feelings just under the surface. We both knew things had changed, but neither of us said much, afraid to stir that quiet up too much and see what was lying under it.”
Jack sat still then, and the quiet enveloped him. It seemed incredibly still to Adam, and each tiny sound was amplified: the small creak of the chair as Jack rocked, the occasional grunt and snore as Blue chased dream animals, the faraway screech of a hawk.
“What happened to Harv?” Adam finally asked.
Jack remained silent, though a look of pain deepened the wrinkles on his face, making him appear older. Adam watched, and gradually began to fear that he had asked a wrong question, one that dredged a dark part of Jack’s past up from the depths. Jack didn’t look at him for a while, and appeared to be weighing his words carefully. When he did speak, it was in a calm, almost inflectionless voice, as if he were speaking lines that had been written a long time ago, lines he no longer believed, if he ever had.
“He came up missing,” Jack said with his eyes locked on Adam. “Went into the woods and never came back. We searched for days, but he was never found.”
“I…” Adam stammered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up old wounds.” Jack stared at him for a moment, then visibly relaxed.
“It’s okay,” Jack said. “Not your fault. It was a long time ago. Seems some things just won’t stay buried.
“Say,” Jack said in a much lighter tone of voice and stood up from the rocker. “You want some of my hooch to take home with you? Good for what ails you.”
“I think I’m fine.” Adam stood as well. “But I know where to find you if I change my mind.”
“Good.” Jack clapped Adam affectionately on the back. “It’ll be getting dark soon. You better hurry so that pretty lady of yours doesn’t think you got lost. If you follow me back to my house you can just walk back down the road to Dora’s. It’ll be quicker than going back through the woods.”
“That sounds good,” Adam said. “I think I could find my way back, but this sounds easier. Thanks for everything.”
“Don’t mention it.” Jack grabbed his staff and walked away from the shed. Blue leapt up and pattered along after him. The path led through the trees and up over another rise. Adam could see the dirt road cutting across the hill, and a small house, Jack’s he assumed, sitting on the other side.
“You plan on doing a lot of hiking in these hills?” Jack asked as they neared the road.
“I think so, yeah,” Adam said. “I grew up in the city, so this is pretty new to me. Any recommendations of where to go?”
“Not really. Just follow your feet. One thing I would recommend, though.”
“What’s that?”
“There’s old mine shafts all over the place,” Jack said. “Some of them are boarded over, and a lot of them are just standing wide open. I wouldn’t go into any of them. They’re not safe. Cave-ins, animals, that sort of thing.”
“Bears?”
“Maybe,” Jack said. “I haven’t seen one in a lot of years, but they used to wander through here. But if you got hurt in one of the shafts, I don’t think anyone would ever find you.”
“You think maybe that’s what happened to Harv?”
“Maybe,” Jack said after a long uncomfortable pause. “Your house is about two miles straight down the road here. You better get a move on.”
“Thanks again.” Adam shook Jack’s hand, then turned and started his trek on the hard packed road. He had gone only a few yards when he heard Jack’s voice.
“Adam,” the old man warned, “remember what I said about the shafts. Be careful what you decide to walk into.”
CHAPTER NINE
So, Adam thought to himself, what comes next? He leaned back in his swivel chair and stared at the computer screen. The cursor flashed at the end of a paragraph, impatiently marking time and the emptiness that stretched before it. This writing thing was harder than he had imagined.
Telling stories to Michaela seemed to just happen spontaneously. She was an easy audience to please, not very concerned with inconsistencies in plot and character. Somehow, all of those things mattered more when set down in stark letters on the page. Adam gave the words too much weight, struggling with the importance of using just the right expression, thinking too hard about his audience and what they would be able to understand. He didn’t trust the flow of his thoughts when they were made tangible like this.
The first story came easily. He had told one to Mike when she went to bed the night of Adam’s walk, almost a week ago. It featured the giant frog he had envisioned at the quarry. Once Mike was asleep he had gone straight to the computer and transcribed from memory what he had said. It was a nice little story. Holly had already started doing thumbnails for the illustrations she wanted to do. But, they both agreed that it didn’t work as a first story in a series. Adam needed to write something as an establishing piece, something to introduce the characters and set up their world so that all the other stories would follow naturally. That was proving difficult.
He clicked the “save” icon, then closed the document. A walk would clear his head, and he thought a walk to the kitchen would be just the thing. The house was filled with the delicious smells of cooking.
They had invited several of their new neighbors for dinner this evening as a way of not only repaying them for all their help, but in order to get to know them better as well. Holly had been preparing food all day, and Adam had been summarily banished from the kitchen after tasting everything and just generally being in the way. He had foraged a sandwich for himself and Mike at lunch, but that had been a while ago. At least it felt like it had been ages; time passes slowly in front of an empty computer screen.
Adam left his den and strolled downstairs, sniffing the scent of turkey that perfumed the air. His mouth watered and there was a slight rumbling in his stomach. As he stepped into the kitchen he heard Holly snap at Michaela.
“Michaela Sue Evans-Mansfield!”
As every child knows, the use of your full name means you’ve finally stepped over the line. Mike stood by the counter, covered in flour. She looked penitent and frightened. Holly stood, hands on her hips, also covered in flour, glowering at her daughter.
“Like I don’t have enough to do today without you making more of a mess than I am,” she said, and then saw Adam in the doorway.
“Adam,” she pleaded, and blew a wisp of hair away from her face. “Could you clean her up, then, I dunno, take her for a walk or something? Go play? I’m too frazzled to deal with her right now, and I’m afraid I’ll say something really stupid.”
“Unh… sure,” Adam said. “Wanna go down to the store, sweetie?”
Michaela shook her head uncertainly, still afraid but welcoming the reprieve.
“Okay,” Adam said, and picked her up. He smudged the flour around her face. “Wow, with some red lipstick we could make you look like a clown.” Michaela smiled a little. “Okay, lets wash this off and get out of here before your Mom stuffs us both like the turkey.” Michaela giggled against his shoulder.
“You okay?” he asked Holly.
“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry, I’m just too stressed out. I want everything to go perfect, but I think I’m doing too much.”
“It’ll be fine,” Adam reassured.
“I hope,” Holly said. “I wanted to make a batch of homemade noodles with the turkey broth, but I can’t remember how for the life of me. I tried to call Mom, but she wasn’t home yet.”
“Anything you need while I’m out?” Adam asked as he ran water over a washcloth in the sink. He scrubbed at Mike’s face as she tried to squirm away from the rough fabric.
“Maybe get another couple two-liters of pop,” Holly said. “We probably have enough, but…”
“Just to be sure.”
“Right.”
“I’ll set the table when we get back,” Adam said. “So don’t worry about that.”
“Thanks. Use the good silverware and Gran’ma’s china. We need settings for…” Holly began to tick off the guests on her fingers, “Jack, Raz and April. I don’t know if Shelley is coming or not, but you better set a place just in case. Jim said he wasn’t going to make it, and Abby said that Ed doesn’t go for this kind of thing, so that just leaves her and Stephanie, though I want to sit the kids at a smaller table of their own.”
“Take a breath, honey,” Adam said through a smile. Holly stuck her tongue out at him.
“Come over here and say that,” he said. She laughed then gave him a quick kiss, which made Mike giggle.
“Go,” Holly said, then snapped at his butt with a hand towel. “Don’t come back for awhile.”
“Gone,” Adam said, and scooted out of the kitchen.
After a trip to the bathroom to clean up, and a change of clothes, Adam and Mike were ready to go. He grabbed a light jacket for her from the coat rack in the foyer. It was getting warmer as the days marched into late spring, but it had been overcast all day, and there was a hint of rain in the air. Adam grabbed his own jacket and threw it on, just in case, then picked Mike up again.
He carried her off the porch and into the yard. He took Buggly from her and stuffed him his back pocket, then lifted her onto his shoulders and shouted “Hold on!” He ran down the hill toward the road. Mike broke out in peals of laughter as her hair fluttered behind her.
“I’m a little airplane!” she squealed as she grabbed handfuls of Adam’s hair and clenched her legs tight around his neck. They reached the bottom of the yard and Adam jumped onto the dirt road with a thud, jarring both of them. He lifted her off his shoulders and swung her around twice before setting her on the ground.
“Again!” she said and grabbed his hand.
“Later,” Adam said, slightly out of breath. “We need to get to the store for Mom.” She made a pouty face, but it went away quickly. Adam took her hand and looked own the road.
If he had been alone he would have made the trip on foot, but he realized Michaela would never walk the whole distance, and would be too much to carry on the way back, especially with the pop. Of course Adam hadn’t thought of this until now, and realized the car keys were still in the house. He hiked back up the hill, repressing the urge to mutter minor obscenities at himself, and got them. Then, to Mike’s delight, lifted her back on his shoulders and flew down the hill once more.
“Again!” Mike said when he set her down.
“I don’t think so, honey,” he said between deep breaths as he pulled the keys from his pocket. Holly made fun of him for locking the car way out here in the country, but the habits of a lifetime of city dwelling were hard to break. He opened the back door and lifted Mike into the car, then fastened her seatbelt. He slid into the drivers seat, sitting on the stuffed bear in his back pocket. He leaned sideways and pulled Buggly out and handed it to Michaela. He started the car and pulled away from the barn onto the road.
He beeped the horn as they drove past the Molnar’s. Stephanie looked up from the rusty swing set she sat on and waved. Abby was collecting sheets from the clothesline, and gave a quick wave, then glanced toward the garage to see if Ed had seen. Ed was wiping oil off some engine part with a dirty rag. He nodded without looking up.
“Stephanie’s coming to play with me,” Mike announced.
“That’s right,” Adam said. “She’s coming to dinner with her mommy.”
“I don’t like her daddy,” Mike explained.
“Why not?” Adam asked. Holly had visited Abby a couple of times in the last week so that the kids could play. She had confided to Adam that she was appalled at the squalor they lived in. Abby tried the best she could to keep everything clean, but she didn’t have much to work with. The trailer was falling apart, and everything in it seemed to have traces of grease from the garage.
“Just don’t,” Michaela said. Adam didn’t press her, realizing that it was probably just a feeling that Mike didn’t have words for. Adam had only had one brief encounter with Ed a few days ago when he was introduced to him at the store, but his own intuitions matched Michaela’s. He just didn’t like the man.
Ed wore his negative qualities like an ugly coat, out in the open where everyone could see it. Adam supposed that was better than hiding your true nature; at least he knew what Ed was. That wasn’t true of everyone in Canaan. Jim was friendly and pleasant on the surface, a big old teddy bear. But Adam couldn’t shake the feeling that Jim was truly dangerous.
Adam wondered if, as the new guy and an admitted city boy, he was reading too much into the whole community. He knew he was on the defensive with everyone here, wrestling with his own mixed feelings of superiority and wanting to fit in. As a trained therapist with a remarkable intuition he thought he had already stumbled onto a lot of secrets in this town. He had no doubts that Ed beat Abigail. The bruises and excuses followed the classic pattern he had seen so many times in his work. It was so apparent he couldn’t believe that everyone didn’t know. They probably did, and just didn’t get involved. It may be that the standards were different out here in the boonies, except Adam knew that spousal abuse was ignored wherever it occurred. Fear and shame were the ugly twin sisters that kept the secrets. Even Holly avoided the topic when he had asked her about Abby. Holly had her own issues with abuse, and the social contract of non-interference in other people’s home lives kept her from discussing it. Adam hadn’t seen any evidence that Stephanie was being victimized, yet. That would end it for him. If that child were being abused he would interfere, social contract or not.
That wasn’t the only secret in town. It was obvious to him, based on a few encounters, that Jim was sleeping with April. The looks they exchanged when they thought no one was around told the whole story. Raz was clearly oblivious, but Adam was pretty sure Shelley knew. She always looked angry, and jealous when her sister was around. Holly had allowed Shelley to watch Mike for a couple of hours a few days ago, just give her a try in case they really needed a baby-sitter sometime. It went pretty well, but Shelley was short on patience, and Adam felt sure she had been smoking near Mike.
Even Jack, who had been by far the friendliest, most welcoming person here, was hiding something. Adam respected people’s privacy, and knew everyone had things in their past they weren’t proud of. He hadn’t told anyone about smacking his boss in the face, after all. But it seemed bigger here. Secrets hung in this valley like the morning fog.
The whole community seemed to be hiding something, some secret they all shared that the outsiders couldn’t be privy to. Adam knew that small areas like this became insular and inbred in their ideas and way of living. People tended to become very protective of their way of life, no matter how strange it seemed to others.
