Reluctantly, I nodded, and a darkness swept through me as I remembered that day.
Atticus placed his index finger underneath my chin and raised my face to his. His eyes were so intense, full of compassion and heartache and understanding. I knew he wanted me to tell him about my mother, but I couldn’t. I had admitted that she had taken her life, and that was enough. I could never tell Atticus why she did it: she had been attacked by men in the woods; I’d overheard her telling my father. I could never tell Atticus the things my mother told me and Sosie before she died, about letting no man take from us what wasn’t theirs. I could never tell Atticus these things, because then he might’ve known. He might’ve figured out that I had never been with a man before, and it frightened me to think he might turn out to be like all the rest, and want from me what any man would want from a virgin.
I moved to stand beside Atticus near the kitchen window. We looked out together at the darkening horizon looming over the open field.
“Do you think they’re looking for us?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “They wouldn’t waste time or resources sending out a big party just to find two people, but they’ve sent someone—I have a feeling Marion probably volunteered.”
I sighed.
“I hope that other man, Edgar, was telling the truth. I really hope that, more than anything.” There was a nervous tenor in my voice; I glanced at Atticus at my side, his tall form a strange comfort next to me.
“Do you regret leaving?” I asked him.
“No. I regret many things, Thais Fenwick, but leaving that city isn’t one of them.”
I peered at him, surprised. “You remembered my last name.”
“I have a good memory,” he said. “Make sure the backpacks are ready; we need to leave soon.”
We watched the sky darken over the field.
Hours before the sun rose, Atticus, seemingly in a lot of pain from so much walking, stopped to rest before crossing another highway. A blue-black haze lingered in the expanse of sky, the moonlight making it easy to see everything for many miles in every direction. Out ahead, a barn engulfed by a sprawling backdrop of trees was to be our safe haven for the night.
We hurried across the highway and came to a barbwire fence separating the road from the land. Digging in the small backpack, Atticus retrieved a pair of wire cutters. I stood with the horse as Atticus cut the wire away so the horse could go through it. He pulled the wire back, bent it around a post. He grabbed my hand, took the horse’s reins in the other, and we went through the opening in the fence.
Atticus did a quick sweep of the barn.
“We’ll rest here for a few hours, then we’ll set out again.”
He tied the horse’s reins around a wooden beam inside the barn. The moonlight dimmed when he closed the tall wooden doors, the sound of rusted hinges creaked through the space. I looked around for the best place to lie down, but decided there wasn’t a best place: the floor was made entirely of dirt, and there wasn’t enough hay to gather into a soft bed; an old car had been parked near the far wall, but its doors and hood and even the seats had been stripped from it. Opposite the car, a pile of tires sat in a messy heap of rubber, perfect for all things creepy and crawly; and the upstairs loft had been stuffed from back to front with wooden pallets.
Atticus took the quilt from the horse’s back and tossed it over his shoulder. He pulled his jacket from the small backpack, and then went past me toward the back wall.
“You sleep here,” he said, after making a bed with both items on the ground.
“What about you?”
Atticus laid down on his back against the dirt next to me. He set the gun on the ground, crossed his arms over his chest, his booted feet at the ankles, and he looked up at the tall ceiling where shards of moonlight beamed in through uneven cracks.
“I’ll sleep here,” he said, and then raised his head. “Unless you want me to move farther away.” He started to do just that, but I stopped him as I lowered myself on the quilt, my bare knees pressed into the fabric.
“No,” I said, gesturing for him to lie back down. “Please stay close; I don’t like to be alone. Not out here. Like this.”
I hadn’t told him this in the days before because I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, but I wanted him near because he made me feel safe. Every house and building we’d slept in, Atticus always chose a spot far away from me: on a chair on the opposite side of the room; on a mattress next to a door; downstairs on a sofa while I slept in a bed in an upstairs room—the lengths Atticus went to just to make me feel comfortable did not go unnoticed.
With pain-filled movements, Atticus laid back down against the dirt.
Deciding the quilt was big enough for me, I held the jacket out to him.
“You should use this,” I said, urging him to take it.
He shook his head and kept his arms crossed.
I chewed on the inside of my mouth thoughtfully, then set the jacket down between us and stood.
“What are you doing?”
“What you should’ve done days ago.”
I went toward the horse.
ATTICUS
I raised up, propped my weight on my elbows, forearms pressed against the ground beneath me, and I watched Thais dig inside the large backpack. She came back with our only bottle of water and sat down beside me.
“Hold them out,” she instructed maternally, pointing at my hands.
I shook my head with faint amusement. “I cleaned them yesterday in the stream. They’re fine. I’m fine.”
A scowl appeared on her face, and she just sat there, staring at me with narrowed eyes and a stiff upper lip. This, too, was amusing. I nearly smiled.
Finally, when I realized she wasn’t going to budge this time, I surrendered with a sigh, raised my body into a full upright sitting position, and then held out my hands to her if only to get her off my case about it.
“You can’t just clean them once,” she said, pouring the water over the wounds. “You have to keep them clean. It’s not like we have antibiotics lying around if they get infected.” She peered in closer at my hands.
I watched her, letting her do what seemed important to her, and strangely enough I found myself comforted by it. It was different than the comfort I felt when with Evelyn Bouchard. With Evelyn, I was a man not only confiding in a friend, but also one who could fulfill my needs as a man. With Evelyn, I could let off steam, confess my secrets and my desires; I could talk about my family, but most of all, I could confront the darkness that consumed my heart every day. I never had to keep my feelings of rage bottled up inside with Evelyn. I could tell her anything, inflict upon her any pain I needed to release. Because Evelyn found her absolution in taking on my agony, my sins. Evelyn was my only means of escape, just as I was to her.