Page 79 of Only the Small Bones
“I’m sure your mom is looking for you,” I said after some time had passed. “Between your mom, my mom and my grandpa, and those other girls’ parents, we’ll be found in no time.” I bit my lip to keep it from trembling, and slid inside my sleeping bag too. There wasn’t any noise outside our door. The silence on the ship didn’t match the chaos happening inside of me. I tried to tell myself the bad guys were gone, and that we’d wake up tomorrow, open the door and be free.
“I live in a home for boys,” Asher said, his voice scratchy from all the crying. “My family died in a fire when I was five. I’ve had a few foster moms since then, but no one ever keeps me.” Asher rolled over to face me, then tucked his hands under his cheek. He looked so fragile beneath his big curls and wide eyes. I moved the lantern over an inch so I could see him better, then tucked my hands under my cheek too.
“They’ll think I ran away, because all the boys run away sometimes. But I just wanted to go home. To see if maybe it was fixed. Maybe my mom hadn’t died and she was waiting there forme to come back because she didn’t know where to find me. I would’ve gone back to St. Joseph’s if she wasn’t there. I would’ve had nowhere else to go.” His eyes flooded with tears again. That strange heaviness I sometimes felt when hearing a sad story made it hard to breathe. Asher reached his tiny hand out to me, and I untucked one of mine to take it. His nails were chipped, and he hadn’t gotten all the dirt out from underneath them.
“Are you scared, Malcolm?”
“No.” The need to make him feel safe was bigger than my need to be honest.
“I’m scared too,” he said, seeing right through me. His eyes lids gradually lowered, and his breathing slowed down.
“Hey, Asher,” I whispered in case he’d fully fallen asleep.
“Yeah?” he opened his eyes halfway, his hold on my hand tightening again.
“When we make it out of this, you can come home with me. I’ll keep you.”
Malcolm
Asher turned paler and paler every day, and he slept longer too. One of the guys in charge of us tossed a wristband in the room and ordered him to put it on after I’d pounded on the door yelling for a doctor. It helped a little, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was wrong with him.
They fed us oatmeal and water for breakfast every day. The nasty kind with no flavor that my grandpa liked. I made sure Asher ate all his and a small portion of mine. He complained about it, but listened when I told him it would make him feel better.
I set Asher on his feet, rubbing the shoulder I’d banged on the floor of that basement. It didn’t hurt much anymore, but holding him up to the porthole every day aggravated it.
“Am I darker now?” he asked, feeling around his face.
“Not really, but how do you feel?”
“Better?” He said it with a question mark at the end. I hoped the vitamin D from the sun would help. Other than sunlight, the only other things I had handy were the food they brought us, and the cold pails of water they refilled a couple of times a day. I’d wet a washcloth and lay it across his forehead while he napped.
“How does your stomach feel?”
“Better.” He sounded more confident this time. “I don’t think I’m gonna throw up again.”
“Good.” Voices trickled in from outside our door. I crept over to it, pressing my ear against it. As always, I couldn’t make anything out. The steel was too thick.
The bolt on the door groaned, and I rushed over to where Asher stood, shoving him behind me. He peeked around me when the door opened, and I pushed him back again.
The man with the grim face stepped in, scrunching up his nose as he removed our bathroom, switching it with a clean bucket. I was sure the room had an odor Asher and I could no longer smell ourselves. You got used to stench when forced to live in it. My grandpa used to say that about our neighborhood.
He refreshed our pails of water and dropped another stack of clothes onto the floor before removing the pile of dirty clothes from yesterday. Asher had vomited all over them. Next he brought in the bowls of oatmeal and bottled water. He was always alone.
“When can we go home?” I asked. He wouldn’t answer. He never did. The door slammed shut again, the bolt sliding into place. I waited a whole minute to be sure he wasn’t coming back before allowing Asher to step from behind me.
“I’m not hungry,” he said, flopping down on his sleeping bag. Neither was I, and I didn’t have the strength to force either one of us to eat right then. I laid down next to him, staring at the brown water stain on the ceiling.
“How many days now?” Asher asked.
“Four.” We’d been using the sunrises to keep track of the days we’d been on board. Asher had a hard time remembering, and I didn’t know if it had anything to do with him not feeling good, or him being six.
“Your mom should be close to finding us then, right?”
I’d told him she would do whatever it took to find me. “Yeah, she should be.” I had to keep hope alive for one of us, because mine was steadily slipping.
“And you really think she’ll let me live with you?” He sounded excited but also unsure.
I rolled toward him, the purple smudges beneath his eyes worrying me.
