Raising Wrecker

CHAPTER FOUR





They all sat around the kitchen table with the letter planted in the middle like a ticking bomb.

“Well,” Willow began. “It could be worse.”

“How?” Melody’s eyes were rimmed with red. She struggled to get a grip in spite of the tears that kept streaming down her face.

Ruth shot a worried glance at Johnny Appleseed. He’d been home for a week and was still wild-eyed with the look of the woods. It would take time for him to remember how to function like a human. Time they didn’t have.

Len could barely stand to look the others in the face. It was his fault the news arrived so late. The letter had come the week before, preceded by a slip in the mailbox that informed him he had certified mail and must appear at the Mattole Post Office between the hours of 8:00 and 4:30 to sign for it. Len quit work early and washed up before he drove to town. The postmistress showed him where to sign and he deposited the envelope in the chest pocket of his twill shirt. He stopped at the Mercantile and went around back to the feed store and dropped his laundry at the Wash’n’Fold on his way out of town. Back home, he cooked pork chops and scalloped potatoes while he rambled to Meg about his day, and then he washed the dishes, ran the water in the tub, undressed Meg and settled her in the bath, and began to undress and climb in with her—until he saw the green certified tag attached to the envelope in the pocket of his shirt. He hesitated. The return address was Children’s Protective Services. Meg was splashing happily, humming with gusto. He stepped out of his shorts and socks and slid in behind her. It was the only way she would allow him to wash her hair, and now it was the rare night they didn’t bathe together. He wet the washcloth and squeezed the water down her back. She squealed with delight. He dampened her hair, poured some shampoo into his palm, and began to rub it into her scalp. She melted against him. He would deal with the letter tomorrow. He gently scrubbed behind her ears and used the suds to soap under her arms and his own.

The next day he forgot the letter. It wasn’t until the following week—until today—when he brought the next load of dirty clothes to the Wash’n’Fold that the envelope slid out from between his work clothes and Meg’s rumpled blouses. He slid his thick nail under the flap to open it. He hunched slightly to read the small print and then he straightened up and ran the heel of his hand across his brow. He ignored the laundry he had just lifted onto the counter and he got in his truck and drove directly to Bow Farm.

“Len.”

He looked up at the sound of Willow’s voice.

“Come on. This was the idea, wasn’t it?” She shifted her gaze from his face to consider each of the others in turn. “We’d look after him for a few days, or weeks, or a month? Until Len got something settled with the state?” Willow lifted the letter and read it through again. “It’s not like he’s going to an orphanage or anything. They sound like nice people.”

“What makes you think that?” Ruth wasn’t buying any of it. She eased out of her chair and started bustling about the kitchen, giving the clean counters another vigorous wipe. “A husband and wife who live up in Eureka. They could be ax murderers.” The idea spawned a flare of fear and a sudden headache. She straightened up, pinched the bridge of her nose. “For all we know, they could have forty other children they’ve adopted this way. We don’t know a thing about them.”

Willow arched an eyebrow. She didn’t suppose the agency would give out children without doing a background check, she said.

“They didn’t check Len.” Johnny Appleseed squatted in the corner with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped pensively under his chin. Len looked over, startled. “Sorry, man,” Johnny told him. “No offense. But they didn’t exactly make sure everything was copacetic before they shipped Wrecker up to you.”

Len was confused. He wasn’t sure if he was being accused of something specific or if the tree planter was just making a point.

He felt terrible about all this. He couldn’t take care of the boy. The first day had proved that, and nothing had changed on that front. But the girls could, and they’d proved that, too. He’d just forgotten about the state. He’d thought—if he thought about it at all—that they’d forgotten about him, too. He was fraying at the edges. He wondered what else he might have forgotten. What if he forgot something Meg needed? What if, one day, he forgot Meg? He flicked his gaze toward Willow but quickly dropped his eyes.

“What did you tell them, Len?” Melody’s eyes searched his face. “Did you tell them Wrecker wasn’t doing well? Did you say he needed something better?”

“Leave him alone,” Willow warned. Her voice sharpened with irritation. “He took the boy because he was the only kin Wrecker had, and he believed it was his duty. You all know that.” She looked around at them; waited for someone to challenge her. “Look,” she said, and breathed out. She laid her hands flat on the table before her. “Len’s been trying to work out the best thing for Wrecker. The boy needs a solid, reliable home.”

Melody’s eyes flared. “This isn’t home?”

“This is summer camp.” Willow’s tone matched hers. “And all of us”—she moved her hand wearily to indicate them all—“we’re all just camp counselors.”

“Speak for yourself,” Melody said, her voice low and angry.

“Melody.” Willow shook her head when the young woman wouldn’t meet her eye. “I know you’ve grown fond of him,” she said. “We all have. It’s hard to let him go.” She softened her voice. “But you’re not his mother.”

Melody stood up abruptly. “And she is?” She jabbed a finger at the letter. “She is? She doesn’t know a thing about him. She probably picked his picture out of a catalog. And you, Willow. You don’t know him, either.” Ruth lifted her chin in warning, but Melody blundered forward. “No wonder you’re willing to let him go so easily.”

Len wanted to cry. It was his fault alone that Wrecker was leaving. He opened his mouth to defend Willow but the look on her face made him clamp his jaw shut.

Willow paused several beats before answering. “It’s possible that I know a bit more about children than anyone here,” she said, her voice clipped, her face a shade darker with emotion. “But that’s not the point. The point is Len is required to bring Wrecker to the CPS office in Eureka tomorrow. If he doesn’t appear he’ll be held in contempt of a court order. If he doesn’t respond at all they’ll send someone down to take Wrecker and they’ll likely arrest Len.” She took in each of them with her measured gaze. Those were fairly high stakes for a man with the responsibilities Len had, she said. Perhaps they could tell her who else stood to lose as much?

Melody swiveled toward Len. “Listen,” she said, her voice breaking slightly. “Tell them you’ll keep him. That you made a mistake.” She stilled her hands from their reflexive action and, gawky but deliberate, brought them together in appeal. “I promise you we’ll take care of him.” She looked at Willow and then back at Len. “Not just for a day or a week or a month. We’ll stick with him. I swear.”

Len felt her appeal slice at his heart. Yes; if only. But his throat was too swollen to let the words pass.

There was a long pause. When Willow broke it, her voice was softer than before. “Melody? Don’t make this hard for him.”

“I’m making this very easy.” Melody leaned forward and addressed Len. “I’ll take total responsibility. If you adopt him, I promise you we’ll raise him. Ruth? Johnny Appleseed? Tell him. Please, Len.”

“I don’t mean for Len,” Willow said quietly. She tilted her head toward the doorframe. “I mean for Wrecker.”

The boy stood there and looked from face to face. They gaped at him as though they were rabbits startled in their warren by a sudden light. “What?”

Ruth asked, “Are you hungry, pal?”

Melody tipped the chair over in her rush out the door.

Len watched her go. All he wanted was to lay his head on the table and leave it there, but he had to get home to Meg.

It fell to Ruth to get the boy ready the next morning. She sent him out to play after breakfast and then called him in when she’d filled the metal tub in the kitchen for his bath. He squeaked and squalled as she ran the washcloth inside his ears, yipped and shivered when she lifted him out of the water and toweled him dry, dodged about naked as she chased after him with clothes. Wrecker was old enough to dress himself but she helped him pull on his best outfit, a pair of dungarees and a striped cotton shirt they had salvaged from the free box. The pants had fit him perfectly six weeks before but already showed an inch of sock. Ruthie hated to send him off this way. She turned aside so he wouldn’t see her face. She hated to send him off at all.

Wrecker caught the frown and squinted at her, unsure, and Ruth made herself beam back hard. “Look at you, buddy,” she growled, drinking in the sight of him. His damp hair stood askew in random cowlicks. “Handsome as a bug!” She squatted down to tie his shoes, and Wrecker reached for the doorknob. “Stay in for now,” she ordered. If he went outside his sneakers, his pants, his shirt, his face, would attract dirt in thirty seconds. In a minute and a half he’d be filthy, and it meant something to her that at least he go clean. She gathered his army figures from a shelf and set them on the floor. He looked at the toys and back at her, surprised. “You’re going to town.” It was as much as she would say. Either Willow or Melody would have to break the news.

Neither woman had appeared. Out in the garden, Johnny Appleseed kept his own counsel. Ruth watched him through the kitchen window as he sifted the dark soil through his fingers, gathering the last of the harvest. He brushed the dirt from the golden bodies of the squash, stripped the yellow outside leaves from the kale, and neatly placed it all—one melon, the late peas and tomatoes, a last bouquet of marigolds—into a brown paper sack. He carried it into the kitchen and glanced at Ruth and the boy.

“Good morning,” he said formally.

The boy hummed and Ruthie grunted. She stood at the sink and scrubbed the morning’s dishes.

Johnny set the bag on the table and sat beside it and began to draft a note.

Ruth spied over his shoulder. Dear … he began. His pen hovered over the scrap of paper. She waited for him to continue, but he crumpled the page and began again. Enjoy the vegetables, he wrote. Wrecker helped grow them. He lifted his head. Wrecker was busy on the floor with his plastic GI Joes. Johnny hunched to write again. If you’ll let Wrecker have a dog, tell Len. He will bring him one he knows and loves. He glanced over his shoulder at Ruth. She shrugged. He frowned and started to crumple that sheet as well but Ruth laid a hand gently over his. “It’s fine.” She lowered herself into a chair next to his. “Len will be here in a bit.” She lifted an eyebrow and tipped her head toward the boy.

A vein pulsed in Johnny Appleseed’s neck. His lips tightened and he nodded. “Wrecker?”

The boy twisted his head to glance at him.

Johnny Appleseed squatted on the floor beside him. “Listen, kid.” There was no decent way to say this. “Len is coming to pick you up soon. He’s going to take you to an office, and you’re going to meet some people. They’re going to be your new par—” Johnny stuttered and winced. Ruthie felt green, as though she’d eaten something that was going to have to come back out, one way or the other. “They’ll be your new parents.” It sounded stupid, the way it came out of his mouth, stupid and emphatic and wrong, but Johnny was in the middle now and couldn’t very well stop. “You’re going to live with them, Wrecker.” He forced himself to slow down. “They’ll be your family. Everything will be good. You’ll see.”

Wrecker’s expression didn’t change. He kept his eyes on Johnny’s face for a lengthy period and then slowly his gaze drifted back to his toys. He reached a hand out to rearrange them. He devoted a sizable amount of attention to aligning the figures in battle position, and when he was done he had positioned himself so that his back shielded both the toys and himself from Johnny’s view.

Johnny rocked back onto his heels. He stood up. He caught Ruth’s eye to make sure she understood to send the note and the bag along, and he stepped outside.

Ruthie chewed her lip. Once they lost Wrecker, she knew, it wouldn’t be long before Johnny moved on.

The windup clock in the kitchen ticked loudly, marking the minutes until Len arrived. Ruth had emptied the few items from her blue cloth suitcase and neatly packed it with Wrecker’s clothes and toys. She tucked the rawhide cord with the elk tooth into an elastic pocket on the side. The army figures would be the last to go. Ruth was hoping he would be content to play with them until Len came to get him. The door to the kitchen opened and Willow stepped in. “Oh!” she said. “You’re here!” Where, Ruthie wondered, did she think they would be? Willow’s face adopted a more serious look. “Wrecker?” she said. “Put your toys away. There’s something we need to talk about.”

“He knows,” Ruth said. Her voice was dry. “Johnny Appleseed told him.” She bit her tongue before adding, Somebody had to.

Willow caught the undertone in Ruth’s voice and looked up quickly. She opened her mouth to speak but the sound of Len’s truck rumbling up the drive made them all start. Willow turned to Ruth. “I’ll be outside,” she said, and dropped her gaze.

Ruth felt a pang of regret. It wasn’t fair to be hard on Willow. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Len’s and it wasn’t Melody’s and it wasn’t her own and it sure as hell wasn’t Johnny Appleseed’s. It was something that happened; it was life—and she hated it. She hated this about life, the leaving. Huffing and creaking, Ruth folded down onto the linoleum beside Wrecker.

He glanced at her. A flicker of recognition chased across his face but he retreated again behind a stony gaze.

It wasn’t anybody’s fault, Ruth thought, but wouldn’t he be the one to pay for it?

She’d done her own leaving, once. Walked into the ocean with Liz’s ashes in a small box in her hands and laid herself beside them on the waves. But the sea had coughed her back out, her tattered heart preserved in her chest like a cheese sandwich in the dented chassis of a lunch box—and now she felt her heart squeeze tight again.

“Wrecker,” she said gruffly, and waited for him to meet her gaze. “Pay attention, now. I want you to remember this.” She raised her eyebrows and flared her nostrils and watched as his chin lifted and he looked at her sideways. “This is the secret weapon.” She glanced about furtively and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Never use this unless your life is in danger.”

Ruth paused a moment to take it in: the slopes and curves of his small face, curiosity flaring brighter than anger across it, as he tilted his gaze toward her. She let her eyes linger there. And then she cupped her hands to her mouth and trumpeted the most graceful, elongated, musical Bronx cheer in the history of mankind.

“The story of my life, boy,” she said soberly, and watched the smile spread across his face.

The door squeaked open. Len thrust his ruined face inside. “Son,” he said. “It’s time.”

Ruth gathered his soldiers in a plastic bread bag. She tucked them into the suitcase, grasped it by the handle, and headed outside. Len and Willow stood talking to the boy. Wrecker’s left leg was muddy up to the knee. They put him in the cab of the truck and he suffered their kisses and Len drove away.

Melody had parked the van several blocks away from the CPS office in Eureka. She had walked the neighborhood in successive loops, located a café, sat down for a plate of bacon and eggs, been unable to eat, paid her bill, left a tip, and continued to walk. There was a little park within view of the office and she stationed herself there to wait. A few young mothers watched their children play on the slides and swings of the playground. They provided camouflage, Melody hoped, for her stealth operation. She didn’t want anything to interfere with what she planned to do.

Melody had dressed as conservatively as possible for her mission. She wore a simple navy dress and a cardigan and flats. She had styled her hair to fall in a French braid down her back. The day had turned out to be beastly hot. She couldn’t remove the cardigan or it would be evident to everyone that she was not wearing a bra. She had meant to; she owned several, but none of them had surfaced that morning as she struggled to get ready. The sweat streamed from her armpits. She kept her arms clamped to her sides. It was hardly the effect she had aimed for but it was the best she could do given the circumstances.

She had arrived in plenty of time to intercept Len and the boy, and she came armed with a strategy. It was not sophisticated and she was not remotely convinced that it would work. She had plan B in case it didn’t. Plan B was even less developed. But she was desperate, and willing to entertain desperate measures.

“Excuse me?”

Melody had been resting her eyes while she waited. She opened them to find a young woman blocking the horizon. Melody craned her neck to see around her.

The woman didn’t move. “Could you help me out?” Her skin was wan in spite of too much makeup. “I’ve got this splitting headache? I need to run across the street to the pharmacy for some aspirin, but my kids”—she shot a sidelong look at a boy and a girl hanging upside down on the monkey bars—“they won’t leave? Do me a favor and watch them while I run over there?”

Out of the corner of her eye Melody caught sight of Len’s truck turning onto the block. “Oh!” she said. She shifted to keep it in her field of vision, but the young mother kept moving in ways that blocked the street. She heard two car doors slam and tried to edge toward the sound. “What?” Melody said, growing frantic.

The young woman spoke slower and louder. “I need you to—”

There was Len, crossing the street, clutching Ruth’s blue suitcase in one hand and balancing a brown paper bag on the opposite hip. There was Wrecker. Her heart leapt. He came up to Len’s elbow, now. He’d grown so much. How had she failed to notice? “I’ll go for you,” Melody said quickly. She had to reach Len before he got inside. “What kind?”

The woman reached into her purse and pulled out a dollar. “Any kind,” she said brusquely, jabbing the bill toward Melody.

Melody hurtled down the hill toward the office but the door snapped shut behind Len and the boy before she arrived. She pulled up short. She couldn’t very well burst in there looking for them. For her plan to work, she needed to make a strong impression of competence. It was important that she appear normal. Competent, normal—Christ. The heel of her dress shoe had come loose.

Melody limped across the street to the pharmacy, keeping her eye on the office door. Even inside she could keep track through the plate glass. She located the aspirin and chose the least expensive brand. Then she walked the aisles until she came across deodorant. She chose the spray can with pastel flowers. It advertised fresh scent. She needed industrial strength, but this was probably as close as she could come.

The woman in line ahead of her nodded sympathetically toward the aspirin. She was older than Melody—thirty, maybe, or a little past—and had a pleasant, open face. “Headache?”

“It’s for somebody else,” Melody said. But come to think of it, she did have the start of a dull tightness that wrapped itself around her skull. Maybe she should pick some up for herself. She glanced down at the box in the woman’s arms.

“Humidifier,” the woman volunteered. “My husband gets asthma occasionally. The doctors thought this might help.”

“I used to get asthma when I was a kid. It went away when I got older,” Melody said, scanning the street. “And moved out of my parents’ house.”

The woman looked up quickly and they shared a brief grin. “Sometimes that solves more than you think.” She handed the box to the clerk and turned back to Melody. “Our kids will probably say the same thing about us.”

“If we’re lucky,” Melody said, and blinked hard.

The sun hit Melody square in the face when she stepped back onto the sidewalk and crossed the street to the park. The children eyed her suspiciously. Melody handed their mother the aspirin and a bottle of orange Fanta she had thought, at the last minute, to buy. The woman tossed back two tablets, took a swig of the soda, and grudgingly thanked her. The children clamored for the rest of the drink. Melody wanted to smack them. She should have bought them a bottle, too. She should have bought herself aspirin. She should have stayed home. Why did anyone ever have children, she wondered, when they could turn out like this?

The door to Children’s Protective Services swung open and Len appeared on the sidewalk. He looked dazed. Melody looked closer. No, he had always looked like that. Life had clubbed him between the eyes, and he was reeling from its continuous aftershocks.

The door swung shut behind him, and Melody waited two beats before she realized the boy wasn’t with him. The force of that simple fact squeezed the air from her lungs. The plan? Was there a plan? She sat down hard in the grass. There was a noise in her head, a growing roar competing with the isolated fragments of ideas and observations that passed for thought. The small family watched her. Melody looked up at them and at the leaves of the trees and at the clouds behind the trees and at the sky behind the clouds. Everything seemed to hold itself at a distance. Far, far away, Len put his hat back on his head and crossed the street to his truck. The plan called for Melody to run to him, to force him to return to the office and beg for Wrecker back, but she couldn’t suck in enough air even to sit up.

It wouldn’t do any good to beg. Len didn’t want the boy. Willow didn’t want him. Johnny Appleseed was too extreme and Ruth too tentative in their own lives to be able to raise a kid. And Melody?

She could hear her father’s laughter pulsing in the tight spot in her throat.

Len pulled open the driver’s door and climbed in. The sun glared, blinding, off the windshield. He started the engine and pulled into traffic.

Melody turned her head away from the small family. Her gaze settled on the boy’s striped ball pinned under the framework of the park bench. She felt the roar in her head diminish and she desperately wished for it back. The roar masked the silence that filled the place where her heart had been.

She lay back on the grass, caught sight of the clouds swirling high in the blue sky, and reached under the bench to grasp the ball and pull it out.

“Here,” she said, her voice flat and small, and rolled it toward the boy.

It was quiet at the farm. Ruth didn’t bother to cook for days and Johnny Appleseed made himself busy in the garden, tilling under the old plants and digging sheep manure into the damp soil; Willow stayed in her cupcake house and read, or rethreaded the delicate carpets, or cataloged her library; Melody went to the barn and stayed there. On the days she wasn’t scheduled to work she slept, letting her slumber sop up the hours so she wouldn’t have to decide how to use them. An awkward stiffness arose between the four of them when they bumped into each other, crossing to the outhouse or rustling for simple meals in the kitchen. But they exchanged a few words. They laughed a little. And gradually they came together again. Ruth made occasional dinners, they stayed longer after eating, they told stories. Still it seemed quiet. No one mentioned why. No one talked about him at all.

Melody thought about him every day. Not just about the things he had done but the things he would do. The kind of man he would become. She thought about the way his face opened and closed like a shutter when sorrow or anger or happiness ran across it. About the way his body twisted and stretched to reach the far apples on the tree before the branch broke. She thought about the way his hair smelled. She thought about the sudden strength and flare of fury when she’d crossed him; how she’d stepped back, startled by the fever. He could be ugly and she loved him then, too. He could be beautiful. He could be a manipulative little sonofabitch and he could remind her that the world was composed of absurd and humorous coincidences. It seemed obscene, somehow, to send him off. It seemed obscene to wish him well. She made herself wish him well. She made herself pray for this new family to love him. She made herself pray for him to love them back. She hoped, she wished, that he would not forget her. She would not pray for that. She knew it was foolish.

The meadow was golden with October’s honey light when Melody followed the path to Willow’s house. She’d been out walking the perimeter of the farm, reminding herself she was home, fighting the nasty nagging thoughts she’d felt arise again lately to flee, to change the scenery and start fresh somewhere new. Sure, there was no new. There was just the same old thing repackaged in a different wrapping, blah blah—but the thing was? Sometimes that shiny paper, those loopy bows, were just the things to distract you from the burden of tightness that had taken up permanent lodging in your throat.

Melody gazed across the meadow at the yurt. Willow was the only one of them all to build fresh. She had planted her new home on the far edge of the property, its back up against the dark wood and its face opening onto the meadow. Her house had the sloped walls and the round, domed roof of an oversized cupcake. It was a fairy house; an elegant mushroom that seemed to sprout organically from its setting. In fact it had been shipped in pieces from a yurt manufacturer in Dayton, Ohio. A crew of skilled yurt-raisers accompanied the numbered crates and in two days assembled the finished structure on the wooden deck Willow had commissioned from an itinerant carpenter who had, in a gesture toward world peace, carved thoughtful prayers in Sanskrit into the perimeter floorboards. It was a work of art strung together with steel cables and advanced engineering. It was a wisp, a dream, guaranteed to remain standing under thirty pounds of snow load and in winds up to eighty miles an hour.

“Hello?” Melody shouted, and waited until Willow opened the door, stepped onto the deck, pushed her reading glasses onto her forehead and waved in response before she crossed the strip of meadow and climbed the deck to sit in the sun beside her.

“Nice day,” Willow ventured. She lifted her face to take in the sky.

“Nice enough, I guess.”

“You guess?”

Melody shrugged. “It’s autumn. Autumn always makes me want to be someplace else.” She crossed her legs and harassed an ant that had climbed onto her shoelaces. “Mozambique. Michigan. I don’t care. Siberia.” She flashed Willow a glance. “I’m thinking of traveling.”

“Copenhagen’s nice in the fall,” Willow said. And on her way back, could she pick up a roll of stamps and the pair of pinking shears Willow had special-ordered through the Mercantile?

“Maybe I won’t come back,” Melody said.

Willow gave herself time to read the unfamiliar note in Melody’s voice. Maybe it was a challenge piggybacking on a silent insult. But maybe it was grief, plain and simple, squeezed out through the one hole poked in the held breath.

“You miss him,” Willow said.

Melody made a sound. “I just wonder what he’s doing now.”

So it was grief. Willow laid her hand on Melody’s ankle, but Melody looked up sharply. “You think it was right to let him go.”

Ah. There was the challenge. There was the insult.

“Right?” Willow gave a little laugh. “Do you think I know what is right?”

“You’re supposed to.”

There was a long silence. Finally Willow stood up. “Well,” she said. “You wouldn’t be the first to question my judgment regarding children.”

Melody looked out at the shadows that were growing in the meadow. “Kathmandu,” she said, the tightness closing in on her voice. “Sri Lanka. Detroit, Michigan, home of the Lions.”

“The pinking shears,” Willow said, and Melody nodded and got up and walked back to the barn.

Len’s work suffered under the new conditions of his life. He had to be home before dark to feed and bathe and care for Meg, but the weather was turning and more people than ever had left orders for cordwood at the Mercantile where he picked up his messages. He split and delivered whatever he could of the rounds he had stockpiled, drying. He took people’s money and tucked it in the glove box of the truck and forgot about it. He let the millwork go to hell. Unless he got into the woods and cut more green logs he would suffer next year. And he made the three-hour round trip to Eureka each week to check on the boy.

If he had a telephone, the social worker advised him, he could save himself the trouble. He nodded and grinned. He could have called from the pay phone outside the Merc. He didn’t trust them to tell him the truth on the phone.

The truth was, the boy was adjusting. (Week One.) He was doing just fine. (Week Two.) He was fitting in with the other children. (Week Three.) He was enrolling in preschool. (Week Four.) He was being placed in the orphanage in Red Bluff. (Week Five.)

“Whoa,” Len said. “Hold on just a minute. I thought he was adjusting. Fitting in? Doing fine?”

The social worker gave him a look of pained forbearance. “Children adjust in different ways,” she said. “This boy adjusted by walking out of his preschool and causing a forty-hour intensive police and rescue unit search that found him twenty-two miles away, sleeping under a bridge and eating trash. He adjusted by biting the ear of his adoptive mother. He refused to have his hair combed. He would not sleep in a bed.”

“Oh,” Len said. “That.”

She looked at him oddly. “That,” she said, “was the least of it. This child would be better served in a group home with professionals who have been trained to treat the kind of behavior he presents.”

“He’s not a bad boy,” Len protested. His voice was so soft the social worker had to lean closer to hear him.

“I’m sure he’s not,” she said. And added, her voice lowered to his pitch, “But he’s not a good boy, either.”

Len said he’d take him.

The social worker blinked. She removed her glasses and slowly wiped each lens before replacing them. She said, “I don’t need to remind you that you already gave him back.”

Len said, “Let me have him.”

That decision, the social worker said, was not up to her. It was up to the judge. Len went to see the judge. The judge rustled the papers and cleared his throat. You are asking to foster this troubled boy? he wanted to know.

“I want to adopt him,” Len said. He felt the sweat bead on the leathered skin of his neck. He felt it behind his ears.

“This child is related to you?”

“He’s my nephew. My wife’s sister’s son.”

The judge was a handsome young man with a baby face he attempted to dignify with a very bushy mustache. He twirled the ends. “Sir,” he said, and paused. “You must understand. If you adopt this child it will be a binding decision. There will be no trial period. He lived with you and your wife for”—he rustled through the mountain of papers—“for—”

They had Wrecker for eight months, Len confirmed; and yes, he understood the decision was binding.

“That means,” the judge said, making his voice as low as he could, “you may not give him back.”

Len swallowed hard. He opened his mouth and he said, “I understand.”

The man and boy rode together in the truck and the shadows lengthened. Len didn’t know what to say. He stole looks at the boy. Wrecker seemed smaller and paler than when he had left. He looked out the window or at his lap or straight ahead, and he fell asleep for a short time but jolted awake when Len threw the blinker lever. They were silent all the way back.

Len pulled onto the dirt road toward Bow Farm. He got out to open the first gate. He glanced at Wrecker. The boy sat impassive in the seat. Len got in and drove on. At the second gate he joked, “Before long I’m going to make you get down and open these, son. Too much trouble for an old man like me.”

Wrecker faced him. He said, “I’m not your son.”

Well, Len thought, tell that to the judge. He drove past the parking area and stopped the truck at the farmhouse. “Want to get down?”

Wrecker shrugged. Len walked around and opened the door and unbuckled the boy. Wrecker slid down and walked ahead. It was the only time Len neither honked nor shouted first to announce his presence. They simply walked in.

The four of them were seated around the table, eating dinner. Len heard the sharp intake of breath when they saw the boy. He stood behind Wrecker and saw the boy pause; saw his shoulders give the slightest shudder.

Len said, “Wrecker’s home.” And he lifted his hand in a vague gesture to let them know to go easy.

Ruth stood up and crossed the room. She took his small hand and cupped it in hers. “Well, it’s about time. Hungry, pal?” And she led him to a spot at the table, pulled up a chair, and laid him a heaping plate.

Len watched Melody. It rested on her.

He turned for home when he saw her face. Meg would be waiting. It was late, already. “See you tomorrow, Wrecker,” he said, but the boy was oblivious to him.

They ate the meal slowly and talked softly about small matters, about things of no consequence, and then they moved together into the next room. Wrecker lay on the big chair with his head in Melody’s lap and his eyes closed, though she knew he wasn’t sleeping. The others clustered near enough to each other that any of them could lay a hand close to him. On the edge of the chair, or on its high back. On the soft down of his cheek. He had come with his shoulders high and his chin jutting forward, his every muscle on alert, but the plank of his body gradually softened as Melody smoothed the hair behind his ears. They let the flow of their voices surround him. No one said a word about the next day. Or the day after that. Or the long days to come, the string of days that swam like fish waiting to be caught.

When his breaths lengthened and he let go at last of the weight of himself, Melody lifted Wrecker onto her hip and carried his slumped body over the moonlit path to the barn. She woke him just long enough to let him pee outside and to climb the ladder to the loft, and then she helped him shed his shoes and socks and jeans, tug his shirt over his head, wrestle his inert body into a soft clean shirt of her own to sleep in. She pulled the covers up to his chin and she sat on the bed beside him with her knees up to her chin and, for a long time, she watched him breathe.

She would call in sick to work the next day. She would drive to Eureka and get him his own bed. A permanent one. For tonight he could have this half and she would sleep with one eye open to make sure he did not disappear again. A pulse in his temple beat like a butterfly trapped beneath his skin. There were dark circles under his eyes. Melody felt her own fear mount with each breath she took. If there were no one else to raise him up, if it were Melody alone rising to stand beside him, then God help him. She had never been enough at anything. If she failed at this—

“Melody?” Willow’s voice filtered up from the darkness below.

Melody rubbed her nose and pressed her hands against her eyes. She took a deep breath. Then she rearranged the blankets so Wrecker would stay covered, and she quietly descended the ladder.

They stood outside and talked softly. Their voices made clouds of mist in the moonlit air. The light pooled in the hollows of Willow’s cheeks and splashed in her eyes and Melody thought, Just because you’re beautiful and charming does not mean you are always right. Sometimes you are plain wrong. “I didn’t plan this, Willow. This is as much a surprise to me as it is to you.”

“A surprise? Yes. Definitely a surprise.”

“I won’t let go of him again.”

The briefest smile lifted the corner of Willow’s mouth. “Don’t you think that’s a decision we should make together? Not just the two of us, but Ruth and Johnny, too?”

“Ruth and Johnny want him.”

“Ruth and Johnny love him,” Willow said quickly. “But they’re not foolish enough to think they know anything about raising a child.” Melody scowled but Willow reached to take hold of her arm. “I do, Melody. I do know. And you know what? It’s no walk in the park.”

“I don’t expect it to be easy.”

“Easy?” Willow gave a little laugh. “Easy’s not even on the spectrum. Try all-consuming. Try heartbreaking. You might start by giving up everything you ever wanted just to do this one thing, and you might as well recognize that you’re as apt to fail at it as you are to succeed.”

“I won’t fail.” Melody said this softly, through clenched teeth, but it marched out and stood in the air between them.

Willow’s face went through a painful transformation. “Have a little humility,” she said.

Melody shied back and shut her eyes. Humility? That was the one thing she had in spades. She had a supernatural excess of it. She thought so poorly of herself, in fact, that she would have to climb several rungs up the ladder just to get to the elevated position of humility. Whereas Willow—

Melody opened her eyes, ready to fire away. But there was something terrible there.

“Willow,” she said softly.

Willow shook her head and waved her hand dismissively. “I’m fine,” she said. “Disregard this.”

Melody looked away and felt a wave of guilt prickle her scalp and rest in the pit of her stomach. “I didn’t mean—”

“Of course not,” Willow said. She blotted her face with her hands and made an effort to smile. “Melody,” she said, her voice dropping a notch. “He’s a tough kid. You don’t know what he’s been through. You don’t know what he’ll—”

“I know that. I know it.”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I know you don’t.” Melody studied her hands. Her face folded with the weight of her thought, and when she started again her voice was small. “I want him, Willow. I don’t know if that’s enough. But I’m asking you to let him start over. Let him start fresh, start now, and be welcome here.”

“Melody,” Willow murmured. “He has a mother.”

“She let go of him.”

“She lost him,” Willow said sharply.

“All right! But it amounts to the same thing for Wrecker, doesn’t it?” Melody struggled with her voice. There was a word for what she planned to do, but it would take fearlessness to use it. She was consumed with fear. Still, she brought her hands together and said, her words barely more than a squeak, “I’m his mother now.”

“You’re what?” Willow laughed.

Melody turned to face Willow directly. She might never have the guts to be able to say it again, and she needed Willow to hear.

“That woman? She had him, she raised him—but she let go of him. And the only way he’s going to make it through is if there’s somebody who stands up and says, I’m all in. I’m not just looking after you, I’m for you. You’re mine.” She hesitated. “From here on out? He’s my son.” There was a long pause. Melody could hear her own teeth rattle as she shivered. She knew Willow thought she was making a big mistake, and maybe she was. But she was making it, and she would go on making it with every breath she had.

Willow’s fingers were awkward as she buttoned her sweater. She kept her head down. “I see,” she said, nodding, studying something on the ground beneath her. Her voice was muted and she worked her jaw as though trying to exorcise an old pain. A shadow covered her face, but did not obscure the grief that stumbled across it. What happened to you, Willow? Melody almost asked.

But she did not. And when Willow raised her head again, it was the friend Melody knew; the Willow who could do anything, who conveyed flint and grace and attitude in every move she made. “Okay,” Willow said. She cleared her throat and willed her voice to come out smoother. “All right, then. I’ll help you however I can.”

Melody, wary, waited for the but.

Willow gazed at her tenderly. She nodded once more, and then she stepped into the night.