The ice-blue mellowed then and pooled. She blinked rapidly and turned away, walking down the sidewalk. When James touched her elbow, pointed toward his car, she resisted for just a moment more. She looked away, toward the line of houses that stood on the other side of the school. Then she dropped her backpack from her shoulder and threw it into his back seat.
Her house looked normal enough from the outside. It was just a plain ranch, white with black shutters, black metal mailbox with a fancy silver scroll spelling out Dander. James thought of his mother’s house, the little cottage he grew up in. James drove out there once, a few years after his mother died. The new family gave it a new paint job, pale green with a bright red door, but otherwise, it was just the same. There was smoke curling up from the chimney and at the time, James thought, Quaint. It’s quaint. It’s quiet and cozy and quaint. He wondered what that family thought when they went down in the root cellar and found the dog cage, the leftover leashes and chains and collars.
“Look,” the man probably said. “She must have kept a poor dog chained down here.”
“How awful,” the woman would say and they would both shiver in the dampness. Maybe they used it now to store potatoes and onions, the way it was supposed to be.
Cooley looked at James and he nodded. When they went up the steps, he thought he heard something. Tilting his head, he heard it again and he felt the vibration through his feet. Cooley’s mother must have the stereo on. James felt and heard the thrum of the bass.
They went into the living room and he saw her, sprawled on the couch, one leg up, the other stretched to the floor. One arm was over her eyes and James thought she was asleep until he saw her mouth open and moving. She was singing along with whatever was on the stereo. There were several empty beer bottles carefully shaped into a triangle on the coffee table. They reminded James of pool balls, all racked up, and he couldn’t help but notice how neat they were. They were the neatest thing in the room. Everything else needed a good scrubbing.
But James went cold when he saw the ashtray on the floor by the couch. Several cigarette butts were mashed there and one half-finished cigarette smoked steadily. As he watched, she reached down without opening her eyes, picked it up and took a long drag.
Cooley glanced at James, then crossed the room and switched off the stereo. The thrum left James’ ears and it was silent again. His feet stopped buzzing. Cooley’s mother hurled to a sitting position, her mouth moving wide, already yelling. Cooley motioned to James and her mother looked. She stopped talking and stood up. She crossed her arms and cocked one hip.
“Mrs. Dander, my name is James Elgin. I run the Home for Wayward Clocks, where Cooley’s been working.”
She nodded. James noticed Cooley slowly sinking herself into a corner of the room. When James spoke next, she slid down the wall and pulled her knees to her forehead, her arms, hidden in long black sleeves, curling tightly around. She wanted to disappear.
James squarely planted both his feet to make sure he wouldn’t disappear with her and he hoped his voice sounded deep and strong. “I know what you do to Cooley, Mrs. Dander. I’m taking her away. She’s going to live with me now.”
Mrs. Dander looked at Cooley and the smile she gave was closer to simply baring her teeth. She began to throw words at Cooley and James saw Cooley’s grip tighten on her knees. Her head sunk even lower. When Mrs. Dander moved toward Cooley, James saw her mouth widen and he knew Mrs. Dander was shouting. Her hands moved rapidly and one of them still held her cigarette.
James stepped between them. “Stop it!” he yelled and out of nowhere, his voice broke through his ears and he heard “it,” bitten off and sharp. But when he spoke again, his voice was gone. “You have a choice, Mrs. Dander. Plain and simple. Either Cooley comes to live with me, or I take her down to Social Services and show them this.” James reached behind him, pulled Cooley to her feet and yanked her shirt sleeve back. Cooley leaned against James, her head pressed into his shoulder. But she held her arm out straight, like a bizarre third arm of his own sprouting from beneath his armpit, her palm up, the scars bare and violent in their color across her skin. James noticed a new one since the day before, a simple black hole burned into the bend in her elbow, the skin around it ringed in red. He thought of a bulls-eye.
Mrs. Dander stepped back. She looked at James and the venom made him shake. But he controlled his panic, stopped it as it rose from the floor toward his knees, and he shoved it down. He kept his face stiff and firm, his eyes steady. He wouldn’t allow her to see him afraid, not even for a second. A moment of fear was all animals needed to move in for the kill. She turned and left the room.
James pulled Cooley from behind him, pushed her toward the stairs. “Go up to your room and pack everything you can. Even if you have to carry it down in armfuls. Put it in my car. Get everything, Cooley. I don’t want to have to come back here.”
She pulled her sleeve back down, flexed her fingers, then ran up the steps.
James stood in the entryway to the kitchen and watched Cooley’s mother make herself a cup of coffee. With every motion, he saw how her hands shook. Finally, she sat down and wrapped her fingers around her mug. She didn’t drink. She just sat there and stared. James wondered if she would cry, but there was nothing. He was glad. If she cried, it would be harder for him to hold firm. He remembered his own mother crying sometimes. He always wanted to make the tears stop. It didn’t matter how many times she made James cry; for him, there was nothing worse than watching his mother sink to the floor, placing her face flat against the carpet, and hearing her racking, retching sounds as her hair went from blonde to mud-brown with her tears. James never knew what to do. On those days, he locked himself in the root cellar, volunteered himself to the dark and the damp. Away from the noise. Away from her face and wet hair.
“I’ll take good care of Cooley,” James said. “She’s a good worker. She’ll have her own room, she’ll be well fed, she’ll have a job to put away money for college. Whatever she can’t handle, I will. You can come see her all you want. But for now, I don’t want her coming here, unless someone is with her.” He stopped for a moment, swallowed. “I need to make sure she’s safe.”
Mrs. Dander glanced up then, just a fast shifting of the eyes, and James saw more hate there than he’d seen in a long time. He remembered looks like that. If he walked by too loudly on his way to the bathroom or school or bed. If he cried when she put him down the root cellar or when she hit him. If he said anything while they ate supper at night. It got so James tiptoed everywhere and he clenched his teeth to keep from making any sound. But the looks were always there.
Now, James clenched his teeth again. It wouldn’t work to have them chatter. He would lose Cooley.
He didn’t know how many trips Cooley made, he never heard her going up and down the stairs. They just stayed there, the two of them, Mrs. Dander and James, her sitting, staring, not drinking, James leaning against the wall. He locked his knees to keep them from shaking and he tried very hard not to blink. He couldn’t let Cooley’s mother know how scared he was. That all she’d have to do is raise a hand and he might shrink away. He was so glad he couldn’t hear her voice.
Eventually, Cooley came into the room. She looked at James and nodded. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion and he thought he saw a spark of excitement in her eyes. She stood at the opposite end of the table from her mother and said something. Mrs. Dander didn’t answer and Cooley said something again, raising her hands up, holding them out. But then, she shrugged and turned, motioning with her head toward the door. The excitement James caught in her eyes was gone. There was nothing there now and he recognized that too. The curtain that comes down, the shield, blocking off everything. He tried to meet her glance, tried to smile, to bring some life back into those eyes.
And that was his mistake, pulling himself away from Mrs. Dander. James never saw her grip her coffee mug, draw back her arm and throw it as hard as she could at Cooley. It crashed into the side of Cooley’s face, hot coffee spilling everywhere, and Cooley went down.
But she scrabbled to a corner, so James knew she would be all right, she was conscious. In a breath, he flung Cooley’s mother out of her chair and up against the wall. She slid down, but he grabbed her by her shoulders and smacked her against the wall again. Then he drew back his own fist. The river inside was raging, the blood in his parallel veins roaring in his ears. He felt the blackness of pure and rich anger descend down, leaving no sound, leaving no sight, nothing but the feel of power in his fists and the delight and righteousness he would feel when he smashed her face. When he smashed her again. When he left her black and blue and with nothing left to do but howl at a useless moon that allowed the pain to continue and continue and continue.
But in that blackness, James froze. As the dark turned to gray, he saw that Mrs. Dander’s eyes were closed, her face squinted shut. Her entire body was braced. A thin line of tears slid between her eyelids.
James was now the stronger one, the bigger one, bearing down on someone much smaller. Someone weaker. Someone he hated with the full force of his heart. All he wanted to do was hurt her. Make her scream in pain. Kill her. As his mother wanted to do with him. As Cooley’s mother wanted to do with her.
And from the way Cooley’s mother looked now, there was someone else who hated her this way too. Cooley’s father? Her own mother?
And as the gray turned to the light of a late afternoon in a kitchen in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of What Cheer, Iowa, James stepped back. There was a choke collar wrapped around his heart, its links running through his blood and through Cooley’s too. He knew he had to break it for them both. He had to get her out of there. And he had to leave Mrs. Dander unharmed.
“I changed my mind,” James said and he felt his voice shake. Mrs. Dander’s eyes flew open and Cooley suddenly appeared at his feet, grabbing onto his shirt, looking up at him, grief deeper than the bruise purpling her face. James shook his head at her and quickly pulled her up, hugging her close. “Not that, Cooley, not that. You’re still coming with me.” She went limp and James held her up. He turned back to her mother. “I meant I changed my mind about you being able to see her whenever you want. You can’t. You can only see her when Cooley wants. It has to come from Cooley. Do you understand?”
Mrs. Dander slid back down the wall. It was her turn now to wrap her arms around her knees, hide her face. James half-carried, half-walked Cooley out to the car. It was loaded with her stuff, filling the trunk and the back seat and the floor. He settled her in the front, carefully buckling her seatbelt, and they took off for home. Their home.
Cooley cried the whole way. She lifted her face to the roof and she wailed. Sounds of it broke through James’ ears. Not all of it. But some. And with each broken sound, James became more convinced that he’d done the right thing.
D
oc came over to look at Cooley’s face. James wanted to make sure that her cheekbone wasn’t broken or that the gash from the coffee mug didn’t require stitches. Doc settled Cooley in James’ recliner and put a cold compress on her cheek. He said a few words to her and she nodded. Doc’s voice came to James’ ears like a crackle, a static he couldn’t clear. Cooley just kept staring at the fire that James built in the fireplace. She shook so when they got home that James thought she’d need some extra warmth. Ione bundled her in a blanket and gave her a glass of milk and a plate of cookies. The whole house smelled like cookies; James didn’t even know Ione could bake.
“Show Doc your arms, Cooley,” James said. When she didn’t respond, he pulled back her sleeves himself, but carefully. She kept her arms limp.
Doc winced as he looked. He tugged her sleeves back down and patted her hands. She smiled, but just for a moment. Then he motioned for James to follow him to the kitchen. They sat at the table and Doc rested his face in his hands for a few moments before writing in the notebook.
“I’ll send over some salve for her burns,” he said. “I can’t do anything about the scars. But she’s out of harm’s way now.”
James nodded. Doc wrote some more.
“I’m going to bill the girl’s parents. I’ve seen them before, they have insurance. Whatever that doesn’t pay and whatever they don’t pay, I’ll cover.”
“I can handle it,” James said, but Doc held up his hand. Something in his face made James stop. Cooley was being looked after by a lot of people. There was a lot of good in that and James wasn’t going to fight it.
Ione bustled into the kitchen and she happily displayed the empty plate and glass. James realized he’d been looked after by a lot of people too. Ione pulled more cookies out of the oven and set a steaming plateful on the table, along with two mugs of coffee, before she took some more to Cooley.
Cookies suddenly looked like the most wonderful thing on earth. James and Doc both dove in and ate like they were starving. Then Doc tapped James’ elbow and pushed over another note. “Did she hurt you too?” he asked.
James shook his head. “No. She wanted to, but she didn’t.” He paused. “We came to an understanding, I guess, though I didn’t talk to Cooley’s father.”
Doc rolled his eyes and waved his hand and James understood that he wouldn’t be talking to the father. It made him wonder about fathers, about how they could just stand by and watch. Or leave and never come back. Even if their intentions were good, even if they didn’t want a little boy to have to walk the miles necessary to escape. Even if what kept them away was death.
At least James’ mother stayed.
For a moment, he wondered which was worse. To beat a boy, collar him, lock him up in a root cellar, or stand by and do nothing.
I know what happens, son.
James began to think that maybe he hated the wrong person. Or maybe he was just one short.
Imagine.
He felt a poke in his ear and realized that Doc was beside him, otoscope in hand. Holding still, James heard the echo of the instrument moving around and thought he heard Doc’s breath. Doc sat down and nodded. All was well.