“Bertram, I need you to do me a favor.”
He came around the bed, sat in the chair, and leaned forward. “I told you, I owe you. Anything you want, Del. Anything.”
“This is a big one,” I said.
I told him what I wanted. He blanched, but he stayed in the chair; he hung with me. He asked a dozen questions, most of which I couldn’t answer. But he agreed.
In half an hour he was packed. I heard him saying his good-byes to Del’s mother, their words indistinct. I’d told him what to say if she questioned him, but she didn’t seem to put up much of a fight. The taxi must have arrived then. The front door opened and closed, and Bertram was gone.
Lew and Amra arrived a short while later. They talked for a long time in the kitchen, and then they were coming up the stairs. I put my hands under the blanket, where I could clench my fists unseen. Del pitched against the inside of my head. I’d done this to myself, I realized. I’d let him out, and I didn’t have the will to shove him back in. Del’s mother opened my door. “Are you awake?” she said. She looked years older than last night.
Lew and Amra came in behind her. Amra leaned over the bed and hugged me gently. I inhaled, memorizing her perfume. Lew still limped, his knee gripped in a complicated brace. He looked much better than he had in the hospital, but his color was still a little gray, and he seemed thinner. He carefully sat in the chair, and patted my shin through the blanket.
“We both look like shit,” he said.
My face heated and my throat closed, the body’s response to signals for guilt, shame. I’d almost killed him that night at the lake. Killed him without thinking.
Lew said, “Hey man, don’t—don’t sweat it. I’m fine. The doctors say I’ll be fine. I don’t look that bad, do I?”
The three of them stood around my bed for a few minutes. Amra tried to make small talk, but conversation proved too awkward, too full of silences. Under the covers I dug my fingernails into my palms. Finally Amra said, “Why don’t we let you two catch up.”
Lew watched the women leave. “Mom’s been telling us some wild stuff,” he said.
“It’s all true,” I said.
He grimaced. “Maybe not. You’ve had some crazy shit go down, and it’s easy to get confused, to jump to conclusions.”
“Yeah.” I coughed, cleared my throat.
A minute passed. “Shit,” Lew said.
“He’s still here,” I said. “The little kid.”
Lew nodded. “That’s what Mom said.”
“You’re going to have to start all over,” I said. “Dad’s gone now, and Mom’s too old to do this on her own. You and Amra are going to have to help.”
Lew looked stricken. “What are you talking about?”
“I can’t stay, Lew. I’m barely holding on here.”
“Oh Jesus.” He pushed himself to his feet. “You can’t just . . .” He walked to the window.
“The last time, he woke up screaming. He was freaked out, that’s all. He was surrounded by strangers. Just hold him down, keep talking. He’ll recognize you. I know he’ll recognize you.”
“This is bullshit,” he said. “This is total bullshit.”
“Lew.” He finally looked at me. “Come here. Come on.” He walked toward me. “Put your hands on my shoulders. That’s it.”
He leaned over me. His hands gripped my biceps. “Like this?” he said.
“Harder.”
“I don’t think I can do this,” he said. His tears were running into his beard. “You’re a lot bigger than you used to be. I just had a heart attack a couple weeks ago.”
“You big baby,” I said through gritted teeth. “You’re saying I can take you now?” Del threw himself against my skull. I grunted, closed my eyes.
The Black Well blossomed above me. Bobby Noon was dead, but the network of souls, the well’s myriad tunnels, remained. I’d been born somewhere in that dark.
At the bottom of Harmonia Lake I’d relearned the secret of jumping. All you have to do is break this habit of breath and blood. Take everything and everyone you love, and throw them away. All you have to do is die.
Lew yelled, “Mom! Amra! We need you!”
“Shut up,” I said. “And hold on.”
THE HELLION
MT. PROSPECT, ILLINOIS, TODAY
There were six candles on the cake. The boy scrunched himself tighter into his seat at the patio table, hugging himself to contain his excitement. He held his breath as his mother used the big grill igniter to light the candles one by one. It was windy, and she had to light some of the candles twice. They sang to him: his mother, his big brother, and his brother’s wife. The boy, whose body was that of a grown man with a baritone voice to match, didn’t sing along. He had trouble with words. He could say “Mom”
and “Lew” and “no.” His doctor, Dr. Aaron, said that more words would come back in time. She was sure the temper tantrums would settle down too. They’d learned some of the things that could set him off: he didn’t like small spaces; he couldn’t stand tight clothes; he didn’t like the dark. He slept with the lights on, and once when the fuses blew during a thunderstorm and the house went black he screamed and screamed.
“Go for it, my man,” Lew said. The boy blew out all the candles at once, and they all clapped.
The boy pushed his chair back from the glass table, scraping metal legs along the cement. He drew up his long knees and sat squinting in the sunlight. He wore blue shorts and a Spider-Man T-shirt. His mother cut the cake—an ice cream cake, vanilla and chocolate both—and levered thick wedges onto paper plates.
“The big one’s for you,” Lew said. The boy gripped the white plastic fork and pushed it against the cake. It was hot and humid, nearly 90 degrees, but the cake had been in the freezer all night and was rock solid. Amra leaned over him. “Do you want me to cut it into pieces for you?”
He shook his head. He adjusted his grip on the fork and jabbed it in, breaking a tine. He frowned. “Go easy, Del,” Amra said. “I’ll go get some silverware.”
The boy picked the plastic out of the cake, then licked the ice cream from his fingers. Lew said to his mother, “I thought later we’d go miniature golfing? I’ve got some time before we have to get back.”
The boy jabbed again, shaking the table. He’d smeared ice cream up his hand and forearm. His mother put a hand on his shoulder. “Del, that’s not—”
He swung down. The fork snapped in half and his fist smashed into the cake, splattering ice cream. His mother said, “That’s enough!”
The boy angrily threw himself back in the chair, legs kicking. He didn’t know his own strength. His foot caught the underside of the glass table, flipped it up, sending cake and plates and cups flying. The edge of the table struck the cement and cracked, loud as a gunshot. The boy’s chair tipped over backward, onto the grass. The boy jumped up, already crying. He ran pell-mell for the back of the yard, toward the wooden fence that shouldn’t have been there. He jumped, reached with his too-long arms over the top, and swung one oversized leg over. He rolled over, scraping his chest on the fence posts, and fell to the other side. He lay sprawled on a strip of grass at the edge of a two-lane road. Beyond the road, the field he used to play in was gone. Low brick buildings and parking lots and tidy lawns covered everything. A paved bicycle path wound between the buildings, leading toward the line of trees where the creek used to be. He got to his feet and plunged into the street. A car came out of nowhere. Brakes squealed. He kept going, too scared to look back.