Stepped off the porch.
And went to my truck.
I climbed inside and closed the door behind me.
I stared up at the house.
I imagined Kelly was with me, sitting in the passenger seat.
He said, “Hold on to me.”
He said, “As tightly as you can.”
He said, “I know it hurts.”
He said, “I know what it feels like.”
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I know you do.”
I sighed and reached over to my bag. I unzipped a small pocket on the side and pulled out a photograph. I touched the frozen, smiling faces of my brothers before putting it on the dashboard behind the steering wheel.
And then I left.
AS SOON AS I’D GOTTEN FAR ENOUGH AWAY, I stopped.
I gathered the last of my strength.
I found the bonds within me, bright and alive and strong.
Could I do this?
I found out I could.
It was easier than I expected, slicing through them. At least at first. It wasn’t until the end that I opened the door of the truck and vomited onto the ground, my face slick with sweat.
I gagged as the bonds faded.
My mouth was sour. I spit onto the ground.
“Kelly,” I muttered. “Kelly, Kelly, Kelly.”
It was enough.
The tether.
It was enough.
I pulled myself back up and looked into the rearview mirror. The stranger stared back. I flashed my eyes.
Orange.
Still orange.
I closed the door.
Took a breath.
I looked at the road ahead.
There wasn’t another car for as far as I could see.
I pulled back onto the road.
A few minutes later I passed a sign telling me I was leaving Green Creek, Oregon, and to come back soon!
I would.
That was a promise.
like this/got you
It went like this:
I was born.
I didn’t remember.
I was one.
I didn’t remember.
I was two.
I didn’t remember.
And then I did.
Because my mother was there, and she was sitting in a chair. She was tired but smiling. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and her skin looked soft.
She said, “Carter, would you like to meet your brother?”
He had been in her stomach. And now he was here.
My father stood in the doorway, watching us.
I didn’t remember anything else. How I’d gotten into the room. Where I’d been before. What I’d been doing. It didn’t matter. This was big.
Big big.
My father said, “Be careful.”
There was a wrinkled pink thing in my mother’s arms. It had a nose and a mouth and squinty eyes. It yawned.
“Mine?” I asked.
“Yes,” my mother said. “Yours. Ours.”
“Mine,” I said again, and I tried to take the pink thing from her. I wanted to take it away, to hide it so no one else could touch what was mine.
My father said, “No, Carter, no. You’re too little. You could hurt him.”
“No hurt,” I said. “No hurt.”
“Yes,” my mother said. “That’s right. No hurt. We don’t hurt him. We don’t hurt Kelly.”
“Kelly,” I said for the first time.
“Your brother,” my father said.
“Kelly, Kelly, Kelly.”
He looked up at me.
He reached for me.
“Mine,” I whispered.
IT WENT LIKE THIS:
There was yelling.
Gordo was yelling.
My father was yelling.
My mother was crying.
Kelly was in his crib, and his arms were waving.
“Kelly,” I said. I pushed a chair toward the crib. It was hard. I was little. I climbed on top of the chair as Kelly began to wail. I climbed over the bars of the crib. My father said I was a good climber.
I was careful.
I wouldn’t hurt my brother.
I climbed into the crib and lowered myself next to him.
I lay down beside him and put my hands over his ears because I was a wolf, and he was a wolf, and we heard things others could not. It was very loud.
Gordo was screaming.
My father was begging.
My mother sounded like she was choking.
“Kelly,” I said, and he punched me in the head. It was an accident. It didn’t hurt.
I remembered what my mother did when he was like this. “There, there,” I said, petting his cheek. “There, there.”
He stopped crying.
He looked at me with wet eyes.
I kissed his nose.
He smiled.
IT WENT LIKE THIS:
Boxes.
So many boxes.
Everything packed up.
“We’re leaving,” my father said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we have to.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it’s what we must do.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Why?” I asked.
That was the day I learned even my father could cry.
IT WENT LIKE THIS:
“Gordo?”
He looked at me. He wasn’t like he was before. He didn’t talk. He didn’t smile. I stuck my tongue out at him because it always made him laugh.
He didn’t.
He said, “You can’t forget me.”
I said, “Forget?”
He said, “You can’t.”
I didn’t understand.
IT WENT LIKE THIS:
I was watching through the window.
Uncle Mark and Gordo were on the porch.
“Please,” Mark said.
“Fuck you,” Gordo said.
“I don’t want this.”
“Yet here you are.”
“I’ll come back for you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
That was the day I learned I could taste what I smelled.
It was like the entire forest was on fire.
IT WENT LIKE THIS:
There were skips and jumps. Holes in memory, the edges frayed and ragged. I was two and three and then I was six, six, six, and Kelly said, “Carter!”
We were sitting in the grass in front of a house. There was a lake behind us. Mom said we couldn’t go to the lake without her because we could drown. She was on the porch, her hand on her stomach. Mom and Dad told me there was another baby in there. I didn’t know why. They already had me and Kelly.
Mark was gone, hiding in the woods. He was always in the woods. Dad said he was brooding. Mom said they made Mark that way. My father never said he was brooding again after that.
I didn’t know what brooding meant, but it didn’t sound good.
“Carter,” Kelly said again, and I looked up at him.
He was wearing shorts. It was summer. His face was sticky, and his hair was messy, and he was grinning at me. There was a hole in the dirt in front of him where he’d been digging. I told him it was the biggest hole I’d ever seen.
He looked down at it, then back up at me. “Biggest?”
“Yes. You’re a good digger.”
“Good digger,” he agreed.