Henry Franks A Novel

thirty four





The funeral was larger than he’d expected. Police officers coming to pay their respects, a sizable contingent of journalists following behind local politicians, and numerous strangers coming together as a community after the storm. Relatives of other victims attended; most left without saying a word but some approached, resting a hand on the casket or offering Henry a tentative hug.

He stood with Justine and her parents as William Franks was laid to rest. Bandages still covered Justine’s arms, but her fingers were soft and warm and never far away.

As the casket sank into the welcoming earth, Henry looked around, shading his eyes from the sun. September’s heat burned down, erasing the memories of the storm despite the broken trees and the blue tarps covering homes that had lost roofs. In the distance, a lone woman leaned against a grave until long after the other mourners had left.

They found her sitting in the freshly turned dirt, facing the space where a tombstone would be someday. The sun was low in the west and his elongated shadow fell across her as Justine’s fingers slipped out of his hand.

A twig or two was caught in her hair, the dirty brown strands hanging limply against her shoulders as she rocked back and forth on the ground.

“Mom?” he said, the word soft and quiet in the stillness of the empty cemetery.

Her rocking stopped and her head jerked up. The scar around her neck caught the fading sunlight as she turned to look at him. A smile spread across her face and her eyes, almost a match of his own, glistened, but try as he might, he couldn’t remember anything more than what the photos in his scrapbook told him.

“Henry,” she said, the word broken and harsh.

Next to him, Justine wrapped her fingers around his arm and gently pushed him forward. He stumbled with the first step, then ran to close the distance. Christine’s arms, wrapped protectively around him, held him in a fierce hug as she whispered his name into his hair.

His mother lifted her head to look at him as the sun set behind them. She rested dirty fingers on either side of his face and smiled. Releasing him, she reached an arm out to Justine and pulled her closer, placing Henry’s hand into Justine’s with another smile.

“Henry,” his mother said.

Through his tears, he watched as the moon lit her face. She touched the dirt and looked back at Henry. “I’m sorry,” she said, mouthing the words since few sounds would come through her damaged vocal cords.

From behind the fall of his hair, he studied her face, the pale skin and its necklace of scars.

“Remember me,” his mother whispered before dropping to the ground.

“Mom!” Henry said, but she was beyond hearing him. He pulled her up to rest against his shoulder and brushed his hands through her tangled hair. Blood dripped from his nose to land in the dirt of the grave as his mother died in his arms.

In his bedroom, he flipped through the scrapbook without speaking; one picture of his mother, smiling as she looked at him, kept his attention.

“I’m sorry,” Justine said.

“Not your fault.”

“You always say that.” She took his hand. A single photograph, of Henry caught between his parents. On the monitor, another picture, of Henry gaunt and losing his battle with cancer.

“When will you leave?” she asked.

“For Birmingham?”

She nodded but didn’t speak.

“Someone from Children’s Services stopped by. Not really sure what’s going to happen. Besides, what would I say? What would I do? I don’t remember anyone.”

“You have friends there,” Justine said.

“I have you, here.” He looked at her and ran his finger down her cheek. A tiny scar was all the evidence remaining on her face of the storm. “I’d rather stay.”

“Henry.”

“Justine,” he said before kissing her, wrapping his arms around her and holding tight. He broke the kiss and looked down at her, so close he could feel her breath warm on his skin. “I’m dying.”

She tried to push him away but he wouldn’t let her go.

“Again,” he said, soft and gentle.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” she asked.

“The pills. Look.” He pointed his chin at the desk. A plastic tray rested next to his laptop; over half the compartments were empty.

“Get more,” she said.

“I can’t. My father made them. He mixed them himself.”

“Henry.”

“I tore his room apart, trying to find notes, but there was nothing. He must have gotten rid of everything with those old photographs. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” She squeezed her eyes shut, clutching her fists into his shirt, burying her head into his shoulder.

He could feel her tears soaking through the fabric. She sobbed against him and he rubbed her back, pulling her still closer.

“When?” she said.

He shrugged against her. “Soon? I don’t know. Eventually, my body will reject the transplants. I think that’s what happened to my mother.”

“You’re still you, Henry,” Justine said.

“Am I?” he asked, running a hand through his hair so that it was no longer covering his eyes. “Which part of me is me?”

She kissed him, once, short and fierce. “Did you feel that?”

Henry nodded.

Justine ran her fingers across his face. “Feel that?” she said, so quietly the words were little more than a breath in his ear.

“Yes.”

“Don’t give up,” she said. “Don’t you dare. There are doctors; they’ll help you.”

“What can I tell them?” he asked. “‘My father put my head on someone else’s body’? Even I don’t believe that and it happened to me.”

“Tell them anything,” she said. “Tell them nothing or everything or something in between. Just try. Please, for me, try.”

He nodded.

“You could give them the pills—can’t they analyze them or something?”

“You talk too much, you know that?” he said, brushing a kiss across her forehead.

“I’m sorry.” Justine smiled, then lifted her lips to his.