Page 2 of Carry Me Home
It was something bad. I could tell by the look on his face. Now I wasn’t even a little sorry about the lizard. Between here and moseying river were several rocks where snakes liked to hide. I bet I could find a skin. Mrs. O’Keefe would hate that more than the lizard.
“She call you that?” Jack asked. “Don’t you pay her no mind. It’s better to be a hussy than a mean old bitch who’s jealous of anyone who isn’t as miserable as she is. Anyway, you’re too young to be a hussy.”
I set my chin. “I’ll be a hussy when I’m older. Just to spite her.”
Jack’s mouth didn’t laugh, but his eyes did and that was even better. He sat down on the biggest boulder and linked his arms around his bent knees. “I didn’t think anyone would be here, but I guess I don’t mind that it’s you.”
“I guess I don’t mind that you’re here, either, even though you’re a boy,” I said.
“Oh, you think boys have cooties?” he asked.
“No. They’re just annoying.”
“Well,” he allowed, “that’s fair.”
He watched the river and I watched him, sneaking peeks while I looked for the prettiest pebbles. I couldn’t say what drew my attention to him time and time again. I just liked looking at him.
“My dad said he’s going to visit today.” Jack kept his gaze on the river as he talked. “He won’t, though. He never shows up when he says he will. He’ll surprise us in a week or two when we’re not expecting it. Try to pull us out of school or something.”
I nibbled my lip. I would love someone to surprise me by getting me out of school. Jack didn’t look like he felt the same way.
“Essie’s gonna cry about it.” He heaved a beleaguered sigh. “I hate it when Essie cries.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Crying is for babies.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that. She’s my twin, you know? When she cries, I have to make it better somehow. I have to fix it. But our dad…I don’t know how to fix that.”
I nudged a rock with my toe and chewed my lip again. I wasn’t great at solving problems. I was better at making them. Anyway, this seemed like a grownup problem and I was just a kid. So was Jack, though. But fourteen was almost a grownup, right? Maybe that was why he had to fix adult problems.
The crinkle of a plastic wrapper in my pocket reminded me that I had swiped a snack from the secret stash I shared with our housekeeper, Maria. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the packet of M&Ms. “Here. You can give it to Essie. Maybe it will make her feel better.”
He looked from me to the candy and back to my face. “Okay. Thank you.”
I nodded. “I have to go now. My parents will worry.”
“Wait.” He tilted his head. “Did you get your bad out?”
“I did my best.” I wrinkled my nose. It wasn’t like I evertriedto ruin everything. It just…happened.
“Goodbye, Janie. Thanks for the candy.”
“Bye, Jack.”
Shortly after that, Mrs. O’Keefe had a string of unfortunate incidents. It wasn’t me that slid a dead fish through her car window while she was in the grocery store. I didn’t leave a clump of horse manure on her front porch for her to step in, either.
Jack Price didn’t do things like that. He was the kid everyone pointed to and said,that’s a good one. He’s going places. He would never prank someone.
But still…I wondered if maybe Jack sometimes had to get his bad out, too.
1
JACK
“Welcome home,”the robot voice said as warmly as a robot could.
I had crossed an ocean to hear those words. Let doctors poke and prod me overseas and then again at Walter Reed, just for them to tell me I wasfinebut somehow not good enough for anything but a medical discharge, which in my opinion wasn’t fucking fine at all. Four airplanes just to get me to the United States, followed by a 1700-mile drive from Virginia to Colorado born of some sentimental desire to see something of this country I had sacrificed for. To prove it had all been worth it.
It hadn’t proved shit.
