Soon, he got used to getting drunk once or twice a week and stumbling to his room to sleep it off. It made getting in trouble with teachers and his uncle tolerable. It made him forget that his mother never bothered to contact him after he moved in with his uncle. He and his uncle were fighting a lot then. Sometimes his uncle would try so hard to show he wasn’t angry all the time. He’d buy him a nice T-shirt, or make him his favorite breakfast—bacon and cheese melt sandwiches. They’d rent videos and watch them together. Anything with spies or espionage. Those were the best. Then they’d spend the evening picking apart the plot holes.
But it wasn’t enough to stop the fighting. So he took the bottles and more from the fridge, guzzling them to forget. He’d forget about Korea. He’d pretend he’d never tasted the sweet cakes of tteok stuffed with red bean paste, or heard his mother laughing while he’d clumsily bow to her on New Year’s Day. He’d forget about his dad. In his dreams, he’d burn the letters that promised everything and delivered nothing.
And then one day, he woke up in bed on a Saturday at noon. His body ached like he’d had the flu. His brain pounded like gravel had tumbled within, scraping the insides of his skull. There was dried blood inside his pants, and there was pain, the worst pain he’d ever had. He figured he’d hurt himself by accident, somehow, while he was out of it.
Two weeks later, it happened again. No memory of anything, but the pain and the blood, again. Terrified, he thought maybe he had some sort of cancer. Could someone his age get cancer like this? He stopped drinking the leftover beer. But the blackouts happened anyway. Again and again. His suspicions went in a different direction, darker still. Until he finally stopped eating any food or drinks in the house, unless he’d brought it home himself, saved from the lunch he’d bought at school. But then he started losing weight.
His uncle fussed at him, worried over Hector’s disappearing appetite. He gave him antacids when the vomiting started, too. Coaxed him with a new pair of sneakers if he’d just start eating again. Life got a little better.
And the blackouts came back.
Every morning after he had awoken, confused and nauseated, his uncle would be kind. So kind. So forgiving, and generous, and there would be gifts. A new video game, a new coat. And then inevitably, he’d stop being kind. The rage would return. And then the next blackout.
The last one was two nights before he’d left for Isle Royale. This time, he wouldn’t be found. This time, he wouldn’t go back.
My mind is murky with thoughts as he tells me this. I don’t understand what happened. I open my mouth to ask a simple question, then don’t. Does it matter? Does it matter beyond that it agonizes me, knowing there was pain and a violation of trust and an evil that’s so awful that Hector won’t say exactly what he thinks happened? So instead, I ask another question.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone, Hector?” I whisper.
“Because I couldn’t remember anything. I had no proof. And I was…” He tries to control his breathing, which is coming low and jagged. His hands are shaking so hard that he’s an earthquake against my skin. “Anda. I was so ashamed.”
“But it wasn’t your fault.”
Hector is far taller than I am. Heavier, too. But he starts to wither away from me, pushing me off his lap. I turn and capture him before he can flee, and he crumples into my lap and soaks my nightgown as his angular shoulders shake. I know what he would say. That nothing I can do matters, because I can’t change the past. I can’t make any of it go away.
So this is why he ran. He ran away from terror, and I run toward it, every November. How can two such people belong together? How will we survive?
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he finally says, pulling himself up and messily mopping his face and nose. “We don’t have much time. I want to know more about you. I want to know everything. How you do it. When. I want…” He takes a deep breath, about to burst.
I understand. He wants to fill up with anything else, so full that there isn’t room for nightmares. This is how I know he’s so fractured inside, that even a nightmare like me is a relief in comparison. If I can banish the viciousness of his memories, I’ll try. Because I can’t make them not real.
You could. You could take him down to the depths. And then there would be no more pain. There would be no more feeling.
I turn and hiss. “Ssss…I won’t!”
“Why not?” Hector asks, visibly hurt.
I turn back, and remorse melts the anger in my face. “Oh, Hector, no. No, no. I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Who, then?” Hector wipes his eyes. Then understanding lights his face. “Oh. You’re talking to her, aren’t you? Your mother?”
“Yes,” I admit, extending my hand out and sweeping it around us. “She’s everywhere. The sky. The clouds. The water. The storm.”
“What is she saying?” His curiosity is pushing away his sadness. It’s already working.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes. Everything.”
“But it’s not pleasant.”
He laughs ruefully. “You know my secrets now. Tell me yours. I don’t care how awful. I want to know.”
“You won’t like me anymore.”
“That’s not possible.”
I try again. “You’ll be afraid of me.”
“I already am.”
This time, it’s my turn to be hurt by words. “You are?”
“Well, wait. Not afraid. But I respect what you are. What you can do.” He thinks for a moment. “And what you haven’t done.”
He’s thinking about Agatha, and himself. I am capable of restraint. Or at least I was, once.
I stand up and offer my hands to pull him up, which he allows, gamely. He doesn’t need me to stand. We look westward, where a low cloud is coming quickly to meet us, so drooping that it almost seems like a fog falling from the sky. Already, heavy drops are pelting us and splattering the dry rocks around our feet. Hector hunches his shoulders and looks ready to bolt back to the lighthouse.
“Rain’s here,” I say. Not so much to announce the obvious, but more as an introduction.
And this is Hector, I would say. So please be nice.
He is owed to me, and to you. You know this.
I ignore her words. She’s been saying and hinting at such since the first day he went into the water.
“Should we go back? Do you want to listen to the weather radio?” he asks.
“No.” I turn to him. “I don’t need it to tell me what’s here, or what’s coming. This won’t be bad.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ll make sure it’s not bad,” I say firmly, speaking more to Mother than to Hector. Usually I’d come out to the shore and welcome it with mouth open to the sky, ready to drink it in. But I don’t want it. Not now, not yet. “Don’t touch me for a minute or so, okay?”
Hector nods and steps away, his face replete with careful fascination.
“Oh, and don’t touch anything metal,” I advise him. “And don’t touch the lake water.”
“Okay.”