Henry Franks Read online

  “You asked?”

  He smiled. “Why not, it’s my dream.” Then the smile died. “I think.”

  “You think?”

  “I asked her what my name was.”

  “And?”

  “She called me Daddy again.”

  “That’s progress.”

  “I asked her what Mommy called me.”

  Dr. Saville’s pen stopped its steady march across the paper and she looked up at him. Her brown hair, lighter in the summer months, was plastered to her scalp and didn’t move with the motion. “‘Mommy’?”

  “She started to cry.”

  “Did you wake up?” Dr. Saville asked.

  “‘Victor,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Mommy called you Victor before she died.’”

  Henry pushed himself up so hard that the heavy couch actually moved across the wooden floor. He walked to the window, watching the heat radiating in waves off the white stone pathway beyond the palm tree. The path wandered into the bushes and stopped. It was, he thought, symbolic of something; this meaningless walkway behind a psychologist’s office, boldly going nowhere. Like his life.

  “Ready for school?” Dr. Saville asked after too long a silence.

  He didn’t look at her. “It’s school.”

  “New year, new opportunities.”

  “Joy,” he said, hiding his smile from her.

  “Your father asked me to speak to you about the future, Henry. You’re a junior now, only two years until college.”

  “I know.”

  “And?”

  “And?” he asked.

  “The future?”

  “I have enough problems with the past.” Then he laughed, the sound thin and weak.

  “Henry,” she said.

  “Maybe in the future, I have a daughter.” He looked at her. “I think I’ll call her Elizabeth.”

  “That’s not quite what your father meant, but we can talk about that if you’d like.”

  “Is this my last session?”

  “Do you want it to be?” she asked. “My understanding is you’ll continue to come after school, the way you did last year.”

  Henry looked back out the window. “Will it help?”

  “I’d like to think so.”

  Henry walked back to the couch and sat down, pressing his palms into his thighs. Closed his eyes and counted to ten.

  “Did Elizabeth say anything else?” Dr. Saville asked.

  He opened his eyes, looking at her through the fall of his hair. “I had to protect her,” he said, his voice harsh. “She’s my daughter.”

  “You’re not Victor,” Dr. Saville said, her pen still and silent above the paper.

  “I had to.” He rested his head back, exposing his neck. He swallowed and the scar writhed. “I couldn’t let her die like that.”

  “Tell me what happened, Henry.”

  “I killed her.”

  “Who?” she said, the single word barely spoken out loud.

  “I killed them all.”

  “Henry?”

  “Then I woke up.” He smiled. “I killed my mother.”

  “What happened to Elizabeth?”

  “I held her while she died.”

  Discovery of Bodies

  Closes Popular Beach

  Jekyll Island, GA—August 6, 2009: The bodies of two missing boaters washed ashore on Jekyll Island early Wednesday morning. Missing since late Monday night, they were discovered caught in the driftwood by Darius Martin, a local fisherman.

  Nancy Woods, of the Jekyll Island Parks Services, said that preliminary information was still being gathered but that their boat, which has yet to be located, might answer further questions.

  The two boaters, Crayton Mission, 52, and his nephew Paul Wislon, 24, were reported missing late Saturday night by Wanda Mission, wife of Crayton.

  As of this time, foul play is not suspected.

  five

  The piece of paper hidden beneath his pillbox had two words on it: Victor, Elizabeth. Out of curiosity, he’d Googled the names, but there were too many hits to realistically count. Henry dry-swallowed his medications, took a single look at the names, then folded the paper back up before sliding it into place beneath the plastic box.

  “Victor,” he said. The word seemed weightless, without meaning. A stranger’s name. It felt wrong when said out loud, unreal.

  His father had left for work by the time he ventured downstairs, and he rushed through breakfast even though he had nothing else to do all day long other than sweat and eat.

  He stood on the front porch, watching Justine’s brother jumping through a sprinkler, and briefly considered mowing the lawn just to see if his father would notice.

  “You can join us.” Her voice came from behind him and he gripped the rusted metal railing to keep from jumping out his skin. “Not dressed like that, of course, but you’re welcome to jump in. The water’s, well, not hot, at least.”

  Justine walked up to the side of the porch and when he turned his head, she was closer than he’d expected her to be. Her hair was tied up and the sun glinted off the tiny gold hoops in her ears and for a moment he forgot to breathe.

  “You do know it’s summer, right?” she asked. “You know, heat, humidity. Did I mention heat?”

  Henry brushed the hair out of his eyes and tried, but failed, not to stare. Cut-offs left long tan legs glowing in the morning sun. A pink bikini top was visible through her white T-shirt. Honey-brown eyes and a welcoming smile. He couldn’t figure out where to look, so he let the hair fall back down.

  “I’m familiar with the concept,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not really a summer person.”

  “You’re in blue jeans and a T-shirt,” she said. “In August. As far as I can tell, you’re a mammal.”

  He laughed. “I’m usually inside, where it’s air-conditioned.”

  Justine looked around, taking in the entire porch. “I know, you’re part hermit. But you do realize that you’re actually outside at the moment?”

  He mimicked her motions of looking around. “My dad took me to Jekyll last week. That was outside.”

  “Did you actually go on the beach?”

  “Drove past it. Does that count?”

  She smiled. “No.” Sunlight glistened on pink lips and white teeth and golden skin.

  He breathed, counted to ten in silence, and tried to return her smile.

  “Want to join us in the sprinkler?” she asked again, turning to walk back to her yard. With one motion, she took her T-shirt off and dropped it to the ground. “Coming, Henry?” she said over her shoulder.

  He went down the steps two at a time, and then stopped on the sidewalk, watching Justine jump through the sprinkler in her wet denim cut-offs and pink bikini top. He picked up her T-shirt as he walked into the water, holding it in his hand as he let the water rain down on him, soaking his jeans. His hair plastered itself to his face, hanging down his neck, and he brushed it back and looked up at the sun, burning down on his pale skin.

  He smiled.

  “If I wanted my shirt wet, I’d have left it on,” she said, pulling it out of his grasp.

  Henry looked at it and shrugged. “You dropped it.”

  She laughed. “Not that I’m complaining. You’ve been inside all summer and I finally got you in the sprinkler. My vacation is a success.”

  “You always could have knocked,” he said.

  Justine threw her wet shirt at him. “I don’t knock.”

  The shirt landed on his face and, for a moment, all he saw was white. So faintly it might have been his imagination, he could smell her on the fabric.

  “Why not?” he asked, through her shirt, before taking it off.

  “Well, one, my mom might kill me. Or at least ground me for what little remains of vacation if I did anything, anything at all, that she would consider to be even remotely improper.” She smiled, holding her hand out for her shirt. “Two, I obviously didn’t have to; you’re here.”

  “Improper?” H
enry held her shirt up, looking at her wet hair hanging on her bare shoulders.

  “Well, her definition and mine aren’t quite the same thing.”

  He threw the shirt back, jumped through the sprinkler one more time, and then started walking back to his house.

  “Henry?” she called out to him.

  When he turned around, she was sliding back into her T-shirt. It clung to her skin and he could still see the pink bikini top through the wet fabric.

  “Just because I don’t knock doesn’t mean you can’t,” she said, before smiling one more time and then running inside her house.

  six

  His shirt glued itself to his skin within moments of leaving the house, and he was sure his deodorant had failed before the school bus even arrived. After standing on the sidewalk too long, the bottoms of his sneakers seemed to adhere to the concrete and the first step onto the bus was sticky.

  Justine melted into the seat in front him. She fought with the window and gave up with it open almost an entire inch. The August breeze through the opening was hot against his face. Her brown hair was up, as always, exposing a great deal of tan neck all the way down to the straps of her tank top. One thin river of sweat began with a single bead at the base of her hair and disappeared down her back.

  She fanned herself with her hand and then turned around to face him. “Think of ice,” she said. “Milk shakes, chocolate ice cream, snow. Have you ever seen snow?”

  “No.” Henry shook his head.

  “Really? We go up north to see family for Thanksgiving and it snows sometimes. Whose bright idea was it, do you think, to put plastic seats on a bus in Georgia? I’m sticking to the seat, here. Is that why you’re in jeans again?”

  Henry shrugged and Justine, as usual, continued her monologue.

  “I’m pretty sure I’ll be in shorts through November at least. Then we’ll get a few weeks of fall, a week or two of winter, and then it’s summer again. So you’ve never seen snow?”

  He shook his head.

  “You weren’t on the bus yesterday afternoon.”

  “It was Thursday.”

  “I know. Tuesday, Thursday, Henry’s not on the bus home; same as last year. Why not?”

  She rode half-turned in her seat, one arm curled around the backrest, the plastic piping on the vinyl biting into her skin. Her white bra strap slipped out from the white shirt. He couldn’t meet her eyes and kept looking at the strap.

  “Doctor,” he said to her shoulder. His wrist itched as the medicinal mint smell of the ointment lingered on his fingers and around his neck.

  “For your scars?” she asked. “I thought I should ask, but then, no, I figured, if you wanted to talk about it, you would. Of course, I told myself, ‘Justine, he doesn’t actually talk all that much. You should probably ask.’”

  He tilted his head to the side, the way a dog looks at a human when spoken to, then covered his mouth to try not to laugh. It didn’t work.

  “It’s a curse, my mom says.” Justine smiled. “There’s even a term for it.”

  “There is?” he asked.

  “It’s called a sense of humor.”

  Henry shook his head and laughed, then went back to studying the way her white bra strap seemed to glow against her tan skin.

  “So,” she said, “the scars?”

  “I don’t remember,” he said, the words barely spoken out loud.

  “What?”

  “The accident.”

  “Accident?” she asked, reaching her arm out, but she let it fall short without touching him.

  He shrugged and turned to look out the window. “So they tell me.”

  “I have a scar too,” she said as they pulled into the parking lot, pointing at her stomach, hidden by her tank top. “Appendix, when I was five. I don’t really remember it.”

  “Might be better not to remember,” he said.

  He looked at where her fingers lingered on her own wrist, right about where his own scars were. When he glanced back up, she was watching him.

  “They’re only scars, Henry,” she said. “They don’t change who you are.”

  With a shriek of brakes, the bus shuddered to a stop. One of her friends called her name and she jumped up and ran off the bus. Henry waited until almost everyone had left before standing up. It was sweat, he thought, not tears he was wiping from his eyes.

  Just sweat.

  Murder on Jekyll Island Has

  Not Impacted Tourist Season

  Jekyll Island, GA—August 14, 2009: Preliminary autopsy reports on the two boaters, Crayton Mission, 52, and his nephew Paul Wislon, 24, found on Jekyll Island on August 5 have, according to Brunswick Police Department spokesperson Carmella Rawls, ruled out drowning as the cause of death.

  “We have opened up an investigation into the murder of Mr. Mission and Mr. Wislon,” Rawls stated in an impromptu press conference.

  Assistant District Attorney Brian Winters gave a brusque “No comment” when asked if there were any leads.

  FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, located in Brunswick, has provided logistical and material support to the investigation in order to locate the boat that Mission and Wislon were supposed to be on.

  Wanda Mission and her brother, Jerome Craw, were questioned for background but neither is considered a suspect in the deaths at this time, according to sources close to the investigation.

  seven

  Justine bounced into the seat in front of him, the plastic bench squeaking in protest at the early morning activity. Her tank top, pink today, slipped down as always, exposing a matching pink bra strap.

  Henry glanced up, but only for a moment before returning his gaze to her shoulder, unable, unwilling, to meet her warm honey eyes.

  “Seriously, did you think to yourself, ‘Henry, it’s hotter than hell out there; today’s menu choices are black with varying shades of black in some sort of gothic monochromatic thing or well, damn, black it is.’”

  She smiled; little white teeth, the very tip of a small pink tongue were surrounded by lips colored just a shade different from her shirt. His gaze returned to her shoulder, maybe her neck, anywhere but to those welcoming eyes and too-long lashes and that smile.

  “Gothic?” he asked.

  “That’s not the look you’re going for?”

  “I’ve got a look?”

  She smiled again. Most amazing of all, he smiled back. In his lap, his off-colored finger scratched along the scar on his left wrist; mint and shame wiped the smile off his face.

  The bus pulled to a stop on Gloucester to pick up more students, and Justine turned to the window.

  “Henry?” she asked, pointing toward one of the small tables in front of the sidewalk cafes. “Isn’t that your dad?”

  The bus started pulling away and Henry pressed up to the glass for a better view, but all he saw was the woman the man was sitting with. He blinked and the bus turned the corner. Dr. Saville?

  “Kind of looked like him, but … ” Justine shrugged.

  Henry stared out the window, trying to count to ten, the numbers running together until he lost count. He took a deep breath. Another. His fingers ran over his scars and Justine reached her hand out almost far enough to touch his arm.

  “Do they hurt?”

  He froze, then raised his hand to rest upon the scar around his neck. He pulled his collar up to cover the line. Still, she smiled at him. He tried, but failed, to smile back.

  “They itch,” he said. “Sometimes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “‘He jests at scars that never felt a wound.’”

  “Wait, I know that,” she said, her hand in his face to keep him from speaking. “No … ” She lowered her fingers. “Can’t remember.”

  “Story of my life. It’s Romeo and Juliet.”

  “The story of your life is a suicidal tragedy we were forced to study in English last year?”

  “Not remembering is,” he said.

  “You remember Shakespe
are.”

  “No, only one line; there’s a difference.” He smiled. “It’s everything else I forget.”

  “You remember me, right?” she asked.

  “You’re from after.” He turned away, looking out the window as they entered the parking lot of Brunswick High. “I don’t remember before.”

  Justine was one of the first students to stand up when they finally reached the high school, but she stopped a few feet down the aisle. She turned around to look back at him where he sat, still staring out the window.

  “Are you joining us for school today, Henry?” she asked when he didn’t stand up.

  He shrugged. “I was thinking about it.”

  “Don’t take too long.” She waved and walked away.

  He waved back, but she was long gone. His answering smile melted away when he reached the school, and even the air-conditioning didn’t seem to help.

  eight

  The house was too quiet when Henry opened the door after school, missing the steady thrum of the central air fighting the good fight against August. No lights illuminated the dark foyer, only weak sunlight struggling through the lead-glass windows high in the walls. The air, thick, heavy, and wet, was difficult to breathe in the heat.

  “Dad?” Henry said, still standing in the doorway, though it was hours too early for his father to be home.

  Silence.

  Henry closed the door, and the light was cut in half while the temperature spiked. The curtains, tattered and torn green fabric that might once have been serviceable, let in slanted rays of weak sunlight, bringing heat more than illumination.

  He flipped the switch at the kitchen door. Nothing. He flipped it back and forth once more. Still nothing.

  “Again?” he said, his voice quiet in the stillness of the house. He sighed. “Crappy fuse.”

  In the kitchen he pulled open the drawers, rifling through the random contents—dead batteries and a collection of broken pencils, empty pill bottles. One drawer held hundreds of plastic forks and a single packet of ketchup; another held nothing but pink ribbon tied into miniature bows. Next to an old bag of syringes on top of the fridge, Henry found the flashlight he was looking for, though the batteries were weak when he tested it.