Right Behind You

  “Only a little bit,” I hedge. “Just stuff I pick up over dinner.”

  “I know what I’ve read in books. Looking for anyone, police start with the known associates. But I don’t have any. So maybe they’d talk to my probation officer, Aly. And of course they’d have to talk to Henry. And”—he glances at me—“you.”

  “But I don’t know anything.” The “not after eight years” part goes unsaid.

  “Exactly,” he replies, and keeps on hoofing.

  “I didn’t know what had happened,” I say at last, having to work now to keep up. At seventeen, Telly has grown up up up. Whereas I’m still a mess of arms and legs, he’s turned into a real person. Tall, strong, maybe good-looking, but I can’t tell with that paint all over his face. I wonder if he looks like our father. Another thing I wouldn’t know as I don’t really remember our parents. My childhood, my younger years, they’re all about Telly. The older brother who took care of me. The older brother I thought would never leave.

  “When I got out of the hospital, the lady brought me to the first foster home,” I continue now. “I thought you’d be there. I walked right in. So excited to see you. But . . . you weren’t.”

  Telly doesn’t say anything.

  “They sent you to a different home?” I guess now.

  “It doesn’t matter. Jesus, Sharlah, that was so long ago . . .”

  My eyes are burning again. I will myself not to cry. This is what I wanted. To find my brother, to be with him. To see for myself who he’s become. Well, here I am. For once in my life, I’ve actually succeeded in a plan. I will not cry now.

  “I told the police, that doctor lady, you’d protected us. Dad had the knife. He attacked first. The last day I was in the hospital . . . the doctor lady told me you’d be okay. You weren’t in any trouble.”

  Telly stops. The movement so sudden, I bolt by him three steps before I can rein in my own movement.

  “Let it go,” he says. “I’m not that boy anymore. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Says the teenager with the rifle!”

  “This isn’t about that!”

  “Then what’s it about? You killed your foster parents. Good people, Rainie and Quincy said. You shot them in their bed.”

  “That’s what you think?”

  “That’s what they said—”

  “Why are you here?”

  “What?” The change in topic confuses me.

  “Why are you here? Gonna save me? Like you did last time?” The sneer in his voice cuts me to the quick. I start shaking, can’t seem to stop myself. “You wanna know what happens to a nine-year-old boy who beats his parents to death, who breaks his little sister’s arm? They have homes for everything, these foster care people. Even homes for monsters like me. And that’s where I went, and that’s where I served my time. Alone. Isolated. Falling asleep every night so I could dream about our dear old dad again. And Mom. Except sometimes, in my dreams, he gets it right. We’re the ones who go down, he’s the one who wins. Other times it’s Mom who grabs the knife, and around and around . . . One thing always stayed the same. You screaming. And that’s what I’ve woken up to every night for years and years. My baby sister screaming as I cracked open her arm with a baseball bat.”

  He’s breathing hard. Me too.

  “Go home, Sharlah. Whatever you want . . . It’s too late for both of us.”

  He doesn’t sound angry anymore. He sounds defeated. Just like that I’m crying again. “I miss you,” I whisper.

  “Why? There’s no point.”

  “I didn’t know who to call. Who to ask. That first home. It wasn’t a good place for me.” Nor the second or the third or the fourth, but I having a feeling Telly knows all that. He has his own list.

  “You ended up someplace good.”

  “Too much time had passed. I didn’t know how to ask about you anymore.”

  “You know what, Sharlah? I ended up someplace good, too.”

  “Where?”

  “The Duvalls’.”

  “But you—”

  “You heard right. They’re good people. They didn’t deserve what happened to them.”

  “Then why did you—”

  “Frank wanted me to find you. He thought if I could see that you were okay, had gotten on with your life, then I could get on with mine.”

  I don’t have any words.

  Telly turns, stares at me point-blank. “Are you doing good, Sharlah? Have you gotten on with your life?”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you dream of our parents? Do you wake up screaming at night?”

  “No.”

  “You know, when I first got to the Duvalls’, after a bit . . . I had this dream. Fantasy, really. That I’d turn eighteen. Actually get my life together, the way they talked about. And then I’d come for you, Sharlah. Big brother, once more sweeping in to save the day. You’d be in some hellhole home—we both know about those, right?”

  I nod.

  “But I’d come. Take you away. We’d be a family again. This time, I’d get it right.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “But you’re okay, aren’t you? Good parents, that’s what Frank said. Gonna adopt you. Make you real family.”

  I bow my head, ashamed, though I don’t know why.

  “That’s good, Sharlah. It’s great that you’re doing great. That you’re gonna be okay without me.”

  “Telly,” I try, but I don’t really know what to say.

  “Go,” he tells me now. “Keep your dog close. New parents, too. If you love me at all, find your happily-ever-after. Live it. Then I’ll know at least one of us got it right.”

  He turns, starts walking again, his strides so long, so quick, there’s no way I’ll ever be able to catch up. His last words float over his shoulder to me.

  “Sorry, Sharlah. You got the law enforcement parents. Me . . . I have at least one more person I gotta kill.”

  I can’t keep up. My brother leaves me. Disappears into the woods, a lone figure with a rifle.

  I stand there for a long time, Luka at my side, still on guard. My throat is closed up. My chest too tight.

  I have this feeling I just can’t shake. That this is the last time I’ll ever speak to my brother.

  That I will never see him again.

  My shoulder throbs.

  I don’t care. I would give up my other shoulder, I would give up anything, I think. . . .

  But it doesn’t matter. Because he’s gone, and I’m still too little to follow.

  Minute passes into minute, the woods quiet.

  Finally, I reach into my pocket. I get out my cell phone. Power it up. I say what I should’ve said hours ago.

  “Rainie. It’s Sharlah. Please . . . I just wanna come home.”

  Chapter 31

  FRANK DECIDED WE SHOULD GO HUNTING.

  “It’ll be great,” he explained to me. “I have this perfect campsite. Found it when I was about your age. But it’s not on any maps. Just this little clearing surrounded by nothing but woods. We’ll set up a tent. Cook dinner over the campfire. Count the stars in the sky. You’ll love it.”

  I was less convinced. Camping. Sure. Whatever. But hunting implied shooting something. I was still figuring out the rifle. Last thing I wanted in my crosshairs was something people were dependent upon for dinner.

  But once Frank had an idea in his head . . .

  We were going hunting.

  Thursday night we started with the preparations. Turned out, camping overnight involved a lot of gear. Like, half of Frank’s garage. My job, Frank explained to me, was to master tent setup before we were in the great outdoors, tired from a day of hiking the woods, maybe soaking wet from the elements—

  “The elements?” I asked.

  “You know, like rain.”

&nbs
p; “It’s supposed to rain? We’re camping in the rain?”

  Frank laughed at me. “What? You think Lewis and Clark only went out in good weather?”

  “I think if Lewis and Clark had had Google Maps, they never would’ve gone out at all.”

  “You know what the best part of camping is?”

  “No.”

  “Some kids think it’s the s’mores—”

  “I’m not six.”

  “Some guys think it’s staying up all night drinking beers around a campfire.”

  “I’m not some guys.”

  “It’s the silence, Telly. For people like you and me, it’s the one place, one time, we can find peace.”

  So tent. Practice setting it up. Practice tearing it down. Whatever. Setup turned out to be pretty simple. Frank liked his toys and the top-of-the-line L.L.Bean dome tent made sense. Thread rods through seams A, B, and C; secure corners; and boom, blue ripstop polyester shelter. Not bad if I did say so myself.

  Tent up: check. Next, tent broken back down and rolled into its stuff sack . . . Impossible. Couldn’t be done. I tried folding it this way. I tried that way. Damn thing . . .

  Frank wouldn’t lift a finger to assist. He had out the biggest backpack I’d ever seen. Metal framed. With padded straps around the hips and shoulders, and clips . . . everywhere.

  “You don’t carry a pack with your back,” he explained to me as I finally paused, breathing hard, half the tent jammed into the pack, the other half exploded out like a mushroom. “That’s a good way to wear yourself out, if not cause injury. Instead, you want the weight secured around your hips—carrying it with your pelvis, the way we’re naturally designed to operate. So first, you tighten the hip girdle. Then, of course, the straps around your shoulders, keeping the weight close to your body. Final adjustment, the strap across your chest. Trust me, make the effort to adjust the pack right in the beginning, and you’ll be able to hike for miles, barely noticing it’s there.”

  I eyed the metal-framed monster doubtfully. It already looked to be a good twenty pounds, and that was before adding the frigging tent, sleeping rolls, maps, food, supplies, blah, blah, blah.

  “Maybe we should leave the tent behind,” I said now. “In fact, maybe you should leave me behind. I like beds. And indoor plumbing, and a roof over my head that doesn’t pop open or blow away like an oversized balloon.”

  “It’s gonna be a great weekend,” Frank told me. “I just know it.”

  I set up the tent again. Broke it down again. Over and over. Till it stopped being such a pain in the ass and became almost possible.

  Which turned out to be step one of my outdoor training. Here is how you set up a tent. Here is how you load a backpack. Here are the basic supplies for survival—Swiss Army knife, matches, first-aid kit, water-purification tablets. Even a magnet and a string, which could be turned into some kind of mad scientist’s compass.

  I had to give Frank credit. He really did love his job.

  Besides, given how well I was doing at school, living in a tent might have been my future someday soon.

  Of course, after mastering the equipment, it was Sandra’s turn.

  “Just in case,” she informed me, “the hunting part doesn’t work out.”

  She gave me a small smile, and I could tell from her expression she understood everything I couldn’t say to happy, excited Frank. He could be so childlike in his joy, it seemed cruel to be the one to bring him down.

  “You ever go camping with Frank?” I asked now.

  We were in the kitchen. First hiking snack: gorp. Or something like that. Sandra had out boxes of cereal, a bag of chocolate chips, and various containers of dried fruit. Basically, I was to mix them all together. So far, this seemed more manageable than the tent.

  “Oh yes. When we were first married, we went camping many weekends.”

  “Let me guess—you can prepare an entire chicken Parm over a campfire?”

  She laughed. “Chicken Parm, no. But take a triangle of Pillsbury crescent roll dough, wrap it around a hot dog, then cover it in foil and rotate it on a skewer above the campfire . . .”

  “Wow, you really do have a recipe for anything. Henry says you’re a great shot, too. Even better than Frank.”

  Did I sound casual? I was trying to sound casual, but ever since Henry had made that comment, I’d been dying to know more. Sandra, happy homemaker by day, super sniper by night? Or something like that?

  Now she merely shrugged, inspected my gallon-size freezer bag of gorp, added in more dried coconut.

  “Ever wonder why we never have moles in the yard? Now you know.”

  “Frank teach you how to shoot?” I asked.

  “No.” She turned and bustled to the refrigerator, and I understood from her tone that that subject was closed. Of course. Because if Frank hadn’t taught her, that left only one other person I could think of: her father. The mysterious criminal mastermind who Sandra said enjoyed being cruel and Frank said I should kill on sight.

  I’d been keeping my eye out ever since the conversation with Henry and Frank in the woods. Not because I thought some old geezer dude was magically gonna turn up and cause trouble. But mostly because I desperately wanted to check out the geezer dude for myself.

  Sandra’s father. Sandra, who wore bright flowered skirts and loved a good Crock-Pot recipe, and yet was also, somehow, the devil’s spawn? I’d always assumed I’d cornered the son-of-Satan market. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Sandra said abruptly.

  I looked up to find her studying me. “What?”

  “Everything will work out,” she continued. “One day, you will make your own family, and you will be the father you never had. You will give your children the childhood you never experienced. And the hole, that hollow place inside you, it will go away. You won’t need to look backward anymore. You’ll have a future.”

  “That’s what you did.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re happy?” I asked curiously.

  “Absolutely.”

  “But you miss Henry.”

  “Of course. Someday, I’ll miss you, too.”

  “You’ll take in another kid.”

  “You’ll build your own life. It’ll be good. I see that in you, Telly. You’re stronger than you think, plus you have a big heart. Even when you pretend not to, you do. At least enough to spend a weekend in the pouring rain with my husband.”

  “That’s not caring; that’s craziness.”

  Sandra smiled. Pulled a package of hot dogs out of the fridge. “You’re gonna find your happily-ever-after, Telly. I look forward to seeing it with you.”

  —

  IT RAINED. From the moment we left after school on Friday, it poured. I got to wear the pack first. Given my strong, young back, Frank said. Which meant the rain pooled on the top of the frame and during unexpected moments, careered down my neck.

  I was wearing one of Frank’s old raincoats. Turns out, raincoats have ratings. Whatever mine was, it wasn’t enough to stay dry. Within an hour, I started to feel damp. By the time we finished a scenic hike in the woods—“Look at that clearing, look at that stream, look at the moss on those trees!” Seriously, Frank?—I was soaked.

  Finally, Frank led me to the infamous campsite. Good news was it had some wooden pallets, apparently brought by Frank years ago, to keep us out of the mud.

  “So what you want to do,” Frank explained to me, “is set up the tent on the pallet. Now, as you can imagine, wooden pallets aren’t the most comfortable sleeping surface. So you can cover it with a layer of pine needles, ferns for matting, or just keep things simple.”

  I gave him a look. Kept things simple. And quickly became grateful for the previous night’s practice, because there was no way I would’ve been able to sort out the miles of tent for the first
time under such conditions.

  I got our shelter up. Which led to the next question. How the hell did you get a campfire going in the pouring rain?

  Answer was, you didn’t.

  Frank had fashioned a small lean-to from downed limbs. Now he had the camp stove going. Just enough heat to cook up four of the hot dogs and not much else.

  We sat in the rain, eating barely cooked wieners and passing the bag of gorp back and forth. Frank was grinning. Like, actually happy.

  “There aren’t any stars,” I told him, staring pointedly at the heavy cloud cover.

  “Ah, but there is silence. Plenty of silence.”

  Not much to do, camping in the rain. Needless to say, we retired to the tent early, hanging up our raincoats under the relative cover of some trees, wearing the rest of our clothes for warmth. I’d never been so grateful to crawl into a sleeping bag before. And yeah, our thin sleep rolls didn’t provide the best cushion against the hard wooden pallet, but at least I was getting some feeling back in my toes.

  We didn’t talk. Just as well. I was never the type who knew what to say.

  Eventually, Frank must’ve drifted off, because the tent was filled with the sound of his snores. Deep and rumbly. Like a bear. I was tempted to hit him, jab him with a finger, something. Instead, I just lay there listening. I wondered how many times he’d brought Henry here. I wondered why it bothered me so much.

  Then, finally, I drifted off to sleep.

  Eventually the snoring stopped. Best I can explain it, that’s what woke me up.

  The silence.

  —

  FRANK WAS GONE. I didn’t need to turn on my little headlamp to see. I could feel his absence in the small space. Maybe he’d gone out to pee.

  Rain had stopped. Took me another moment to realize that. The drip, drip, drip of rain off the door awning had finally relented. Then I realized the dark outside was starting to turn to gray. I glanced at my watch. Six A.M. I’d actually made it through the night. Just like that.

  Made some sense. Frank was an early riser. Maybe he’d gone out to fix breakfast. More hot dogs? More gorp?