Three Rivers Read online

Melody nodded, confused. Why couldn’t they just take her to Bobby? What did this woman want from her?

  “I have some questions about your mother. Do you mind?”

  “Mama? Oh, she’s fine,” Melody assured the woman. “She’s just a touch dramatic.”

  The social worker laughed but didn’t seem amused. “I think it’s a bit more serious than that, don’t you? She seems to think that she saved your brother’s life with some kind of chanting spell. She seems to believe that she’s some sort of magical being, a witch or something.”

  “She’s not a witch,” Melody said, though she often thought of her mother as a witch or actually as a bitch, but she was still too young to allow herself that word. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I’d like to hear about how things are at your home. Are you happy? Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

  Melody yanked her hand from the woman’s grip, balled it into a hard fist that she held stiffly at her side. She imagined sending the fist into the woman’s fat face. “Things at my home are none of your business.” She wanted to squash the woman beneath her shoes the way she had squashed the roly-poly bugs. “I’d like to see my brother now. Can someone please take me to see Bobby?”

  The doctor nodded. The social worker reached out and touched Melody’s arm. “I just want you to know that I’m here. Nothing you could tell me would shock me. If you want to talk about anything at all, you call me.” She pressed a small card into Melody’s hand. Melody crumpled the card and let it fall to the ground between them. She smirked at the round woman, aware that she was acting like a brat. She didn’t care.

  “Take me to Bobby.” The doctor and the social worker exchanged a look. These women thought they were better than her, better than her mother. Maybe they were, but Melody wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of acknowledging their superiority. She lifted her chin and raised her voice. “Take me to see my brother this instant.”

  Melody’s father was in Bobby’s room. She buried her face in his chest like a child. Her anger at the women and her mother melted. He hadn’t abandoned her, after all. God might be a mirage, but her father was real.

  He rubbed her back. Her father smelled of tobacco, stale alcohol, and leather. “I tried to call you.” Melody sniffed, but did not cry. She wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

  “What in the hell happened?”

  The doctor spoke up, explained again about Bobby’s fluttering heart.

  “Mr. Mahaffey,” the doctor said. “May I have a word with you about your wife?”

  “My wife?” Daddy planted a kiss on the crown of Melody’s head and pushed her down into a chair at Bobby’s bedside. “I’ll handle this.” Melody knew then that she didn’t need God and she sure as hell didn’t need her mother. Daddy would take care of everything.

  The doctor explained about the chanting and the delusions. She recommended a mental health evaluation. She spoke in the soft, caring tones of a grandmother, but her soothing bedside manner did not impress Melody’s father one bit.

  “You think my wife is crazy, is that it?”

  “We don’t like to use the word ‘crazy,’ Mr. Mahaffey.”

  “You don’t? What word do you use? I just want to make sure I’m using the right goddamned terminology when talking about my wife. My wife.”

  “Mr. Mahaffey, I just think that this kind of unusual behavior warrants some attention. We can help her.”

  “Are you a religious woman?”

  “I’m a scientist, but I’m not without faith.”

  “Do you pray?”

  The doctor nodded. “I do. I do pray. When they brought your son in this morning, I said a prayer for him.”

  “Then maybe you should be evaluated by your mental health professionals. Talking to some invisible man in the sky? That’s not crazy?”

  “But, Mr. Mahaffey—” The doctor’s voice rose.

  Daddy cut her off. “How the hell is your prayer any different from my wife saying a few words over her own son? Because the words are different? Because she has the guts to say ’em out loud instead of being ashamed and whispering them in her head? What makes you so almighty goddamned superior?”

  The doctor’s chin wobbled. She hugged the clipboard to her chest. “I didn’t intend to offend you, Mr. Mahaffey. I was trying to help.”

  “You want to help?” His voice boomed off the cold tile. “You work on getting my boy out of this hospital and back home. I’ll worry about my wife.”

  Two weeks later, Bobby was released from the hospital. His fluttering heart had stabilized and begun to beat in a normal, healthy rhythm. The only visible damage was a purple burn on his right hand and forearm. His face was beautiful as ever, and his body, grown thinner, worked as it was supposed to work. Bobby could walk and eat and talk and live, but something was missing. Bobby was changed. When he talked, his words twisted and fell flat. His eyes, still beautiful, had lost their shine. Bobby, Melody knew, had left something vital behind in the cool, blue baptismal waters.

  The scientific explanation was this: anoxia-based brain damage. Bobby’s brain was starved for oxygen for several long minutes, and some of his brain cells did not survive. The lack of these cells left him confused, impatient, and irritable. He struggled with simple concepts, confused common words. It became clear in the months and years following the baptism that Melody’s brother was never going to fully recover. Melody’s mother would not discuss Bobby’s shortcomings, preferred to pretend that her favorite child was just fine. If Bobby, clumsy and slow, broke a plate or a mug, Mama blamed Melody for not watching him more closely or helping him or just doing the chores herself. Melody’s father was on her side, though. He wouldn’t stand up to her mother. No one would do that. But he treated Melody more gently, as if she, too, were damaged by the events of that terrible day.

  * * *

  She was damaged. So was he. Melody would not force her father to go to a hospital now. She would do what it took to keep her dying father at home. She’d change his diapers and wipe the drool off his chin. She’d deal with being spit on when he grew sick of his nutrition drinks. She’d let him curse and fuss and whimper, and moon after Melody’s mother, who’d left him there to die. She’d shop and clean and cook. On that spooky ride to the train station, George Walter told her everything was a choice, that no one had to do anything in this world. Fine. She chose to care for her father. She chose to be nice to Maurice. She chose to deal with Bobby. She chose to do all of it, but then she would do one more thing. The very minute her mother returned, Melody planned to stage a good old-fashioned come-to-Jesus soul-cleansing confrontation. It was, she thought, the only choice.

  Chapter Eleven

  Obi left his mother’s house with a box packed full of sweet preserves, homemade bread, herbal tea, peanut butter, and a plastic container full of spice cookies. Obi and Liam each wore a braided necklace woven with herbs that smelled of clove and sage and sulfur. It was not necessarily a pleasant scent, but neither did it stink. Pisa said they would get used to it soon and smell nothing at all. The necklaces were supposed to provide protection. Obi retrieved the old Winchester from behind the seat of his truck anyway. He appreciated his mother’s gifts, but he didn’t intend to rely on her. He’d managed to pack their tent and most of their supplies in the car. They left behind some clothing. It would be too hot for long sleeves or coats for quite a while. He struggled to adjust to the car, to its unfamiliar musty scent, to the brakes that responded with the slightest tap of his foot. He felt cramped and low to the ground and he longed for his truck. His cheek, sliced open by the same knife that slid into the boy’s throat, throbbed underneath the poultice his mother had applied. The map she’d drawn for him lay unfolded on one knee. It was simple and would take no more than two hours, even staying to the farm roads and off the main highway.

  “Daddy,” Liam said.

  “What is it?”

  “Are we in trouble?”

  Obi didn’t lik
e to lie to Liam, but he said, “No, we’re not in trouble at all.”

  “Did you hurt that man?”

  “No.” Obi’s stomach ached. “Of course not.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” Liam told him. “Grandma will take care of us.”

  It was the worst thing Liam could say. That his own son should look to someone else to keep him safe made Obi feel small and useless.

  During the dark time after Eileen left, Obi tried to do the right thing. He bathed Liam for the first time and shopped for diapers and clothes. He read to him at night and told him stories about his ancestors. He came to understand how hard it was to take care of another human being, but also how important. Liam began to respond to Obi in new ways. He smiled when Obi came into a room. He laughed at Obi’s stories, and Obi understood Liam might not speak much, but he understood plenty. It was hard to work all day and come home and do all the housework at night, but it was better than fighting with Eileen.

  When Eileen first disappeared, Obi called in sick for a few days and realized he would have to make some arrangement for Liam while he worked. There were hundreds of day care centers to choose from, and Obi found one he could afford. Soon after entering day care, Liam began to walk. Then he began to talk. He never babbled or chattered like some of the other children, but he said just enough to get what he needed. Obi discovered that Liam was right on track with the other children when it came to potty training. Eileen had been pushing him to learn too much too soon.

  Liam learned to tell Obi when he was hungry or thirsty or hot or cold. Soon he asked to “go potty.” He imitated the other children and he went from being a baby to being a human being in a matter of months. How surprised, how happy Eileen would be if she could see Liam walking and talking and out of his diaper, but Eileen did not return, and the woman who came from the government seemed to care more about the state of the house and what was or wasn’t in the refrigerator than she did about Liam’s progress. She left warnings and written instructions about nutritious food programs, court dates where he needed to appear, proper clothing for a boy Liam’s age. Obi tried to explain that he couldn’t do it all. He couldn’t work and shop and clean and go to court all at the same time. “You have to find a way,” the woman told him. “Or we’ll find someone who does have the resources to care for your son.” Obi knew a threat when he heard one. They began living along the river shortly after Liam’s third birthday.

  The sound of rushing water and the smell of a dying campfire became Liam’s lullaby, the juicy smash of wild berries and freshly shot game were breakfast, lunch, and supper. They played games, collected bugs, and bathed in the fresh spring waters of a dozen lakes. Obi never touched the boy in anger, never raised his voice or allowed even the smallest hint of frustration to creep into his interactions with Liam. His whole life was devoted to raising the boy to be a man, a man of dignity and honor and instinct.

  Now Obi feared he’d jeopardized everything. If it was “standard procedure” to look into a boy who’d had his arm broken, what was the penalty for knifing a man in front of him? If they caught him, he would go to jail and they would take Liam away. Obi resolved to stay free at any cost.

  The road beneath him was rutted and bumpy. In the truck, Obi would not worry about it, but the car rattled as if it would fall apart, and so he drove slowly, easing the car past the farms and the wide-open spaces of the Delta.

  Pisa had assured Obi there was plenty of land where they were headed, but what he hoped for was water, some creek or stream he could cast a line for fish and a place to wash up. Living off the land was no hardship so long as there was fresh water.

  “When will we get there, Daddy?”

  Obi looked at the map, traced one finger along a line that represented the road they were on, and glanced at the speedometer. “In about an hour and a half, I think.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “What’s what like?”

  “The safe place.”

  That’s what Pisa called it, but Obi doubted there were any safe places left for him. He knew his mother would persuade the woman to let them camp on the land. His mother could sell anything to anyone at any time. She’d made a living selling gullible women words and herbs. Still, it would be a safe place only if they could somehow live undetected. The woman would have to keep her mouth shut and, in Obi’s experience, most women weren’t great at keeping secrets.

  “I don’t know what it’s like,” Obi said. “I think it’ll be like most of the other places we’ve stayed. There will be trees and grass and probably squirrel and rabbit.”

  “And a house?”

  “Yes,” Obi said. “But we won’t be living in the house. We’ll live just like we always have. You and me and no one else.”

  Obi reached into the backseat and found one of the cookie tins Pisa had packed for them. He set the tin between them and pried off the lid. The scent of ginger and cloves filled the car. Liam dipped his hand in and brought one of the cookies to his mouth.

  Obi pushed the gas pedal. He hoped the car was as sturdy as his mother had promised. The sooner they got to this new place, the sooner it would stop being a mystery. He grabbed one of the cookies for himself and took a big bite of the chewy, spicy sweetness. Then he lied to his son again.

  “Nothing’s changed,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  * * *

  Obi found the place easily enough, though when he’d first turned on the dirt road, he thought his mother’s directions were wrong. He drove slowly on the rutted, gravel-strewn road, through a long, dark stretch of pine forest without seeing any sign of habitation. Finally he came around a curve and saw the house. It had once been a fine house; he could see that. It rose up from the land, two stories of cedar plank beams and a huge porch that wrapped all the way around. There were oak trees and a line of fragrant magnolias out front. The lawn was grown wild, full of thorny weeds and grass as tall as Liam. He bypassed the gravel driveway and stayed on the long dirt road that wove around behind the house. He passed an old blue pickup truck that looked as if it hadn’t been driven in years, an aluminum johnboat, and a three-wheeler that was missing a wheel. The dirt road ran out at an old tin shed behind the house. He drove on across the open field, toward a line of pine trees. The field was littered with sharp objects, and Obi swerved to avoid them. He wanted to settle far enough away from the house to avoid being spotted from those large windows, but close enough to keep an eye on things.

  He hoped there would be a vegetable garden on the land, but nothing useful grew here. He could tell just by the rich, fecund smell and by the patches of wild blackberries and raspberries he spotted as he drove that the dirt beneath them was fertile. There was plenty of room for summer squash and tomatoes, pole beans and peas, corn and a peanut patch. What was land for if not to provide sustenance?

  “Who lives here?” Liam rubbed his eyes. He’d napped for the last twenty minutes, and his hair stuck to his forehead in a damp mass.

  “Crazy people,” Obi told him. “People who don’t know what they have.”

  “Bad crazy or good crazy?”

  “We’ll see.” Obi tried to teach Liam the difference between people who were harmless but chose to live outside the norms of society as they did, and people who might bring danger to them regardless of how normal they seemed to the rest of the world. “Everyone’s crazy in some way,” he said. “Until we know for sure, though, I think we’ll just keep to ourselves.”

  “I wish we could have stayed with Grandma.”

  “Really?” Obi studied his son. It was unlike him to express a connection to another person, to express any desire for a home. “Why?”

  Liam pulled something from his pocket and worked his hand around it.

  “Whatcha got there?”

  Liam opened his hand and Obi saw the fish eye, a milky gelatinous orb flecked with lint from Liam’s pocket.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Mr. Sam.”

  That dinner with the deer and
the bucket of fresh fish seemed like something that had happened in another lifetime, but of course, it was just last night.

  “Do you think we’ll ever live inside?” Liam asked.

  “Do you want to?”

  Liam shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  “But you like our life now, right? Because I remember when we lived inside and we weren’t as happy as we are now.”

  “How do we know we’re happy?”

  Obi reached the line of pine trees and saw that it would be easy to pitch the tent in the shade, that the trees would provide good cover for them. They wouldn’t be invisible, but so long as no one ventured too close, Obi thought they’d be well camouflaged. He looked back toward the house, figured they were about half a mile from the back porch, though it was difficult to gauge distances on this flat land. If it weren’t for trees or buildings, he could see forever. “Well, I guess if we aren’t sad, then we’re happy, right?” He stepped out of the car. A creek burbled nearby. It was a good sign. “And water. Clean water makes me happy. Just listen to that.”

  With the deer jerky he’d smoked and cured, the bread and cookies and peanut butter and preserves from his mother, and his own supply of cornmeal, flour, sugar, maple syrup, and powdered milk, they would live just fine. Liam tumbled out of the car and ran into the trees, following the sound of the creek. Obi followed. Liam knelt down to scoop water to his mouth. There would be squirrel in these woods and probably deer. There might be wild turkey. He could hunt for meat just as he had along the river.

  He pulled the old canvas tent from the trunk and assembled the poles, stretching the fabric across the metal rods and pounding the stakes into the ground under a shady circle of trees. Clouds were rolling in, dark clouds that would bring rain. The air smelled like smoldering steel, a big storm brewing.

  “I don’t think I’m sad,” Liam said. “But I don’t think I’m happy either.”

  “Let’s explore a little.” Obi said. “Before it starts raining. Can you smell the rain?”

  Liam sniffed and nodded. He placed his fish eye on the dashboard of the car and climbed onto Obi’s back, peered over his shoulder. Obi strode out toward the house, but not in a direct line. He stopped by a pair of sage bushes near the shed and dropped Liam to the ground. Liam plucked wild berries from the vines grown up alongside the shed and popped them in his mouth one by one. In moments, his hands and lips stained dark purple. Obi rubbed his son’s red curls. He noticed a cloud of dust rising up in the distance, a vehicle on the road to the house. Obi waited until the dust settled and walked on, forging a crooked path to stay behind the rusted tractor and old vehicles and out of the line of sight of anyone who might be watching from the house.