CHAPTER TWO
POISONOUS TOWNS & brOKEN PROMISES
AGE EIGHT
It’d felt like forever before Dad came out of that house two years ago.
I had stood on that crumbling stoop, covered in puke and afraid to do anything but blink, unseeing, toward his truck, waiting for him to finally emerge.
And when he did, he didn’t utter a single word to me.
He couldn’t even look at me. He just grabbed my shoulder and led me back to the truck, my feet dragging all the way.
There was no bag in his hand.
He didn't have the gun either.
He told me not to tell anyone about what had happened, not Mom or Grandma. Not even Grandpa—and I told Grandpa everything. He said he'd hurt me if I did, he said he'd hurt Mom—although I wasn’t sure it really made a difference because he hurt Mom every single time he saw her.
But still, I had listened.
I never told anyone about what had happened that night.
But he couldn't stop me from thinking about it, and I thought about it a lot.
I knew my dad wasn't one of the good guys.
He was mean, he hurt people, and he did bad things.
But I told myself he hadn't shot anyone that night, not really.
I told myself I had imagined the whole thing.
I told myself he hadn't killed anyone because that would've made him a murderer, and that was worse than anything.
Although nothing felt worse to me than when he hurt Mom. Not even the idea of him shooting a kid who had tried to strangle me seemed worse than when he hurt her.
But it wasn't okay to kill him.
He didn't kill him.
I closed my eyes to the lines painted on the road as they zipped by and wished I could just stop thinking about it.
I had been six when that happened. That was two years ago.
Two whole years, and I still couldn't go through a single day without hearing the volume of the shot ringing through the night.
Mom always knew something was wrong. She had known something had happened.
She knew I was different the second Dad finally brought me home.
She wouldn't stop asking me what was wrong, and when I wouldn't tell her, Grandma and Grandpa asked me too.
But I kept telling them nothing, nothing, nothing had happened, but no matter how many times I said it, no matter how many times I lied, they kept on asking.
Then, when I wouldn't tell any of them, Mom made me talk to someone else. He was a doctor, she said, except he didn't look like a doctor. His name was Mark, and he wore jeans and T-shirts and called me pal.
He said he liked me, and I liked him, too, but I wouldn't tell him anything either because what if Dad found out? What if he hurt Mark? What if he killed him because of me?
But I did tell Mark some things. Not about that. But … things.
About the kids at school and how they teased me.
How they told me my dad was bad, even though I already knew.
How they knew Mom had been really young when she had me.
They called her a slut.
They said their parents called her a slut too.
I didn't even know what that word meant until they told me.
Mark talked to Mom. They thought I couldn't hear them talking through his office door, but I could.
He thought I needed to transfer to a new school. He thought it was a good idea for us—me and her—to have a fresh start. He thought we'd be better off getting away from our town—the only one I had ever really known in my entire life—away from Grandma and Grandpa, to find a new life somewhere else.
I’d really liked Mark at first, but I started to hate him after that.
I didn't want to move away from Grandma and Grandpa.
I would say I didn't want to move away from Aunt Stormy either, but she had moved away a while ago.
Actually, I didn't think I would mind if we moved to Salem to be with her, but no.
Mom had to pick some stupid town called River Canyon or something dumb like that.
She said we'd have our own little house.
She said I'd have my own room instead of sharing one with her.
But I didn't care about sharing one with her.
I was okay with that, and besides, now that Aunt Stormy lived somewhere else, Grandma had said I could move into her room anyway.
I didn't need to find a room in another town.
But Mom made me leave anyway.
I wanted to hate her the way I hated Mark. But no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't sure I could really hate Mom. Still, as we drove down the highway in her noisy, old car, I wished I could.
At least I'm not thinking about Dad, I thought.
Wait. Now I'm thinking about him again.
I groaned and slumped deeper into my seat. I missed Grandma. I missed Grandpa. I missed their stupid old bird even though he always tried to bite me.
“Hey,” Mom said, glancing into the backseat as she pulled up to a red light. “You okay?”
“No,” I muttered, shaking my head.
She tried to smile. “I know. I'm not either.”
“Then why are we moving?”
“Because we need this, baby.”
I scrunched my nose up and shook my head. “No, we don't.”
The light turned green, and we started to drive.
“I know you don't get it right now. And, believe me, I know how hard this is. I don't want to leave Grandma and Grandpa either,” Mom said, and it sounded like she was going to cry. “I love their house. It was my house too—way longer than it was yours. But that town, Noah … it's poison.”
“Says who?” I asked, and I thought about that kid. I heard his voice in my head, and I swallowed hard, trying to chase him far, far, far away.
“You'll get it one day.”
“No, I won't,” I argued.
“I promise you, you will.”
Mom had made promises before, like when she promised I'd like school.
She promised I'd have fun. She promised I’d make friends.
I guessed it wasn't her fault that none of those things had happened, but she had promised.
And when I hadn't liked school or made friends, somehow, it’d felt like it was her letting me down.
So, why should I believe her now, when she said that, one day, I would understand why she had ripped me away from everything I had ever known?
What if the new town was full of poison too?
***
“There you are!”
A lady ran over to us as soon as we climbed out of Mom's car. Her body was big and round, but her legs were short and skinny, like a ball balancing on sticks. She reminded me of The Penguin in Batman Returns, and I knew laughing at someone's body wasn't nice, but I almost couldn't help it.
“Hi, Mayor Fischer,” Mom said, reaching out to shake the lady's hand.
Her bright red lips stretched into a smile as she replied, “Oh, please, honey, call me Connie.”
Mom seemed nervous as she laughed and nodded. “Okay, Connie.”
Connie held Mom's hand between both of hers. She was short, shorter than Mom, and she looked up into Mom's eyes with a huge smile on her face.
It was weird.
Then, abruptly, she turned to me, dropped both of Mom's hands, and reached her arms out to me.
“And this must be Noah!” She placed both hands on my shoulders and squeezed. “What a handsome young man you are. What grade are you in?”
I dropped my eyes so I didn't have to look at her smiling red lips. “Uh …”
“He's in second grade,” Mom said, helping me out when my brain obviously wasn't working.
“Oh, so that makes you, what? Eight? Nine?”
“E-eight,” I answered. “My birthday is in June.”
“A summer birthday!” Connie exclaimed with so much excitement. “Oh, I bet that's great for parties, huh?”
I didn’t say anything. Because the truth was, I’d never had a birthday party. Not really anyway.
I’d never been invited to one either.
I looked at Mom instead, hoping she’d make this lady stop talking to me—and she did.
“Um, so you said rent is due the first Monday of every month?” Mom asked, turning to look at the little house we stood in front of.
And that was when I looked at it for the first time. Like, really looked.
It was small, almost rectangular in shape. There was a tiny porch in front and a little garden next to the stairs. It was painted an ugly gray color, but the house itself wasn’t ugly.
It actually looked kind of nice.
Not as nice as Grandma and Grandpa’s. Not as big. But … nice.
Friendly. Like it wanted me to come inside.
The total opposite of that house Dad had taken me to two years ago. Tommy’s house.
That house had felt evil, and every step toward it had felt like a warning I was forced to ignore. But this house …
It felt like home.
And maybe that made me feel a little sad too—that home could be so, so far away from everything and everyone I had ever known.
But maybe … if Mom could do it, then maybe I could too.
Maybe this was one promise she was going to keep.
And maybe we were far enough away that Dad would never find us.
Maybe he was gone for good, and I'd never have to think about him or Tommy or what had happened in that house ever again.
***
AGE NINE
“Hey!”
I was standing outside River Canyon Elementary School, waiting for Mom to pick me up, when a voice from behind grabbed my attention. I turned and saw a boy from my class approaching. His name was Jason, and he squinted at me through the lenses of his thick, dark blue-framed glasses.
“Hi,” I said, lifting my hand in a little wave.
“Whatcha doing over here?” He gripped the straps of his backpack and looked over to the row of school buses and the kids piling into them. “You don't take the bus?”
I shook my head. “My mom picks me up after work.”
“Oh, cool. Why does she do that?”
I licked my lips and tried to come up with an answer when, honestly, I didn't really know.
That was just how it always was, even at our old house with Grandma and Grandpa.
She would come to get me after school, and if she couldn't make it for some reason, Grandma would be there.
Someone was always waiting for me—always.
In fact, this was the first time I had ever had to wait, and I was struggling to think of a reason for that too.
Where is she?