The door was closed. He pushed the handle, let the thick wooden door creak open. The lights were dim inside. Agnes lay on her side, machines beeping softly around her.
She turned at the sound of the door, saw Desmond. A smile crossed her lips, and tears filled her eyes.
“You shouldn’t be here, Desmond.”
He couldn’t think of anything to say. He just walked into the room, up to her bed, and held out his small hand, which she took.
“Why didn’t you…” He didn’t complete the sentence, because he had no idea what he intended to ask. He hadn’t thought this part out. In his mind, he had never accepted what the postman had said. He’d expected to arrive and learn that it had all been a mistake.
She exhaled. “I was going to tell you I was moving away. I didn’t want you to know I was sick, didn’t want this to be your last memory of me.”
Desmond studied his feet.
“Did your uncle bring you?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Surely you didn’t ride your bike.”
She apparently took his silence for confirmation.
“Desmond,” she said slowly. “That was very dangerous. Where’s your uncle?”
“On the rigs. Won’t be back for a few days.”
A nurse appeared in the open doorway.
“Do you need anything, Miss Andrews?”
“Yes, dear. Some blankets for my nephew. He’ll be spending the night. And, this may be a tall order, but I wonder if there are any children’s books in the hospital?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll bring some.”
That night, Agnes read to Desmond for the last time. It was two a.m. when he drifted off to sleep in the reclining chair by the window.
In the morning, Agnes made him promise never to return, that it was too dangerous and that she would only grow sicker.
“Those are my wishes, Desmond. Will you respect them?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He pedaled his bike slower on the return, the wind no longer in his sails. Why did everyone he cared about die? And the people he hated—meaning his uncle—live? Life was unfair. The world was cruel.
It was midday when Desmond got home. His mouth went dry when he saw his uncle drinking on the porch.
“Pretty bike, Des. Where’d you get it?”
Desmond tried to swallow, but it felt like he had a mouth full of sawdust. “Found it,” he said with a cough.
“So you stole.”
“No. I found it—”
“If you found it, then it belongs to someone—someone you stole it from. Put it on the back of the truck. I’ll take it to town and return it to its rightful owner tomorrow.”
“I own it,” Desmond said, anger overtaking his fear. “I bought it.”
“Bought it,” his uncle said, acting impressed. “With what money?” he spat.
Desmond looked away.
“You answer me when I ask you a question, boy. What money?”
“The money I saved.”
“Saved?” His uncle was mad now. “No. You bought it with money you stole—from me. I gave you that money to put food in your ungrateful little mouth. You were supposed to give me back whatever was left. You kept it for yourself and bought a little play toy.”
Desmond grew quiet, let his uncle go on about how soft and useless he was. The tirade lasted nearly two weeks, until his uncle was set to go back to work. Instead of placing some money on the counter, he told Desmond to pack a bag.
“Time to show you the real world.”
The real world Orville Hughes intended to show him was a camp outside a rig just north of the Oklahoma-Texas border. He put Desmond to work: cleaning outhouses, washing clothes, peeling potatoes, and doing anything the roughnecks didn’t want to do. It was hard work, but it wasn’t dangerous work. His uncle said he was too weak to be a real roughneck. He’d probably always be too soft, the man told him.
The workers were shaped like barrels, with muscular arms that hung at an angle, never straight down. They reminded him of the robot on Lost in Space, a program Desmond watched when his uncle was away. But unlike the robot, these men were constantly covered with oil. Their every other word was an obscenity. The stories about prostitutes and their lewd jokes never ended. They worked twelve hours on, twelve hours off, constantly drank coffee when they were awake, and never smoked near the rigs. There was a small TV with bunny ears covered in foil, and they fought about it after every shift. Baseball was usually on, and there was always a card game in one of the tents.
Exactly one man out of the entire group read in his off-hours. Desmond befriended him, and he was nice enough to pass Desmond the book he had been reading, which he recommended highly.
Try as he might, Desmond couldn’t get into the novel, which was about people hunting for a Russian submarine.
Strangely, spending time at the rigs actually helped his relationship with his uncle, such as it was. The man paid him less attention, even gave him some of the money he earned, and allowed him to keep the bike. Desmond had little desire to venture out, however. He was dead tired when they returned home from the camp.
Before they were to leave again, he did ride to the library. It had reopened, and a younger woman sat behind the desk, reading a textbook, scribbling notes. Desmond avoided her.
He checked out five books, which he read during the next tour.
A few days after they returned home again, a man wearing a clip-on tie and a short-sleeved button-up shirt drove out to the house, a wake of dust rising behind his Cutlass sedan.
“Mr. Hughes,” he called from the porch.
Desmond watched as his uncle walked out, half-drunk, and argued with the man.
The visitor put up much more fight than Desmond had expected. Finally, he shook his head, walked down the steps, and turned one last time.
“If that boy of yours isn’t in school next month, you won’t be seeing me again. Social services will come next. Then the sheriff. Good day, Mr. Hughes.”