but in all the uphill and downhill and veering around corners he never, ever bumps Brent, not even accidentally.
He is aware of a hand waving in front of his closed eyes. A pinch. He wants to play dead but he can’t stop himself from flinching. The needle bites. The world goes away again. He can’t be sure about the days or the nights, which they are or how many.
Happy sleeps and he wakes up, then he sleeps again and in the hours they drive he can never be certain which is which, or whether the woman is touching him by accident or because she intends it.
At last the car crunches uphill and stops for the last time. Happy’s head comes up. The smells when Brent hustles him out of the car and hauls him to his feet on the hard, hard street are terrible and familiar. They are climbing steps to a wooden … porch. Happy knows almost all the words now. Brent slaps the door and a remote bell rings. Footsteps come.
Terrified, he begins to struggle.
“Brent, he’s waking up!”
“Not for long.”
Happy yips as the needle goes into his butt. What they do and say when the door opens is forever lost to him.
When he wakes everything is as it was and nothing is the same. Will his life always be like this? Happy is curled up in his room. He knows it is his room because it used to be his room in the old life, and he knows from the sights and smells that nothing has changed here. It feels good and bad, lying in the old place. From here he can see the pretend bearskin rug in the center of the room with its plastic fangs and empty glass eyes, and lodged in the corner, the faded pink volleyball that he remembers from his very first time on the floor in this room and his very last day here.
When wolves quit the lair they stalk away leaving it untouched because they are done with it forever; they do not expect to come this way again. Is this what not-wolf mothers do?
Not-wolf mothers leave the lost son’s room exactly as it was in hopes he will come back, but there is no way Happy can know this. He has no idea who he is or why he feels both good and bad about being back here, although he is a little frightened. He doesn’t know why all this makes him miss Sonia so terribly or why, on that night so long ago, his hateful big brother slammed the door to the family car and let them drive away without him.
Brother. That’s what Brent is.
Oh.
Happy would throw back his head and howl for Sonia but his hideout is constricted, the woods are lost to him and Sonia is dead now. He could howl for this other mother but before, when he was small and crying out lonely, she was a long time coming and when she did … There are things you don’t remember and things you don’t want to know.
Can you want to belong in two places at once and know you don’t belong in either?
At least Happy is safe. When he came to, instinct sent him off the bed where they’d dumped him and under here, where they won’t see him before he sees them. Holed up, he counts the cobwebs hanging from rusting springs. He wants to weep for the blue dogs and pink teddies cavorting on the plastic mattress cover. He is under his old crib.
When you can’t go back to being what you used to be, you go back to what you were in the beginning. You were safe because she loved you, and Happy does not know whether he means the old mother, or Sonia.
The sounds in the house are so different from the crackle and whisper of the woods that it takes time to name them. The hum of the refrigerator, the washing machine grinding because—Happy looks down—they have changed hishospital rags for gray stuff like the clothes—clothes!—he used to wear when he was a … The bark of the furnace kicking in. A telephone ringing, ringing, ringing and soft voices: women talking, a strange man’s voice downstairs in the hall. Brent is arguing with the other.
The smells in this house at this moment in his life are enough to break Happy’s heart. He can smell mold in the foundations, laundry
He is aware of a hand waving in front of his closed eyes. A pinch. He wants to play dead but he can’t stop himself from flinching. The needle bites. The world goes away again. He can’t be sure about the days or the nights, which they are or how many.
Happy sleeps and he wakes up, then he sleeps again and in the hours they drive he can never be certain which is which, or whether the woman is touching him by accident or because she intends it.
At last the car crunches uphill and stops for the last time. Happy’s head comes up. The smells when Brent hustles him out of the car and hauls him to his feet on the hard, hard street are terrible and familiar. They are climbing steps to a wooden … porch. Happy knows almost all the words now. Brent slaps the door and a remote bell rings. Footsteps come.
Terrified, he begins to struggle.
“Brent, he’s waking up!”
“Not for long.”
Happy yips as the needle goes into his butt. What they do and say when the door opens is forever lost to him.
When he wakes everything is as it was and nothing is the same. Will his life always be like this? Happy is curled up in his room. He knows it is his room because it used to be his room in the old life, and he knows from the sights and smells that nothing has changed here. It feels good and bad, lying in the old place. From here he can see the pretend bearskin rug in the center of the room with its plastic fangs and empty glass eyes, and lodged in the corner, the faded pink volleyball that he remembers from his very first time on the floor in this room and his very last day here.
When wolves quit the lair they stalk away leaving it untouched because they are done with it forever; they do not expect to come this way again. Is this what not-wolf mothers do?
Not-wolf mothers leave the lost son’s room exactly as it was in hopes he will come back, but there is no way Happy can know this. He has no idea who he is or why he feels both good and bad about being back here, although he is a little frightened. He doesn’t know why all this makes him miss Sonia so terribly or why, on that night so long ago, his hateful big brother slammed the door to the family car and let them drive away without him.
Brother. That’s what Brent is.
Oh.
Happy would throw back his head and howl for Sonia but his hideout is constricted, the woods are lost to him and Sonia is dead now. He could howl for this other mother but before, when he was small and crying out lonely, she was a long time coming and when she did … There are things you don’t remember and things you don’t want to know.
Can you want to belong in two places at once and know you don’t belong in either?
At least Happy is safe. When he came to, instinct sent him off the bed where they’d dumped him and under here, where they won’t see him before he sees them. Holed up, he counts the cobwebs hanging from rusting springs. He wants to weep for the blue dogs and pink teddies cavorting on the plastic mattress cover. He is under his old crib.
When you can’t go back to being what you used to be, you go back to what you were in the beginning. You were safe because she loved you, and Happy does not know whether he means the old mother, or Sonia.
The sounds in the house are so different from the crackle and whisper of the woods that it takes time to name them. The hum of the refrigerator, the washing machine grinding because—Happy looks down—they have changed hishospital rags for gray stuff like the clothes—clothes!—he used to wear when he was a … The bark of the furnace kicking in. A telephone ringing, ringing, ringing and soft voices: women talking, a strange man’s voice downstairs in the hall. Brent is arguing with the other.
The smells in this house at this moment in his life are enough to break Happy’s heart. He can smell mold in the foundations, laundry
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