Innocence

Because I understood the pain that I caused her, the very sight of me an offense, I was anguished, as well. She could have aborted me, but she didn’t. She had given birth to me. And when she saw what she had brought into the world… even then she defended me against the midwife who would have smothered me. I could not but love her and wish that she could love a thing like me.

Beyond the window at her back, the October sky lowered gray and bleak. Autumn had stripped most of the foliage from an old sycamore, but in the fitful wind, the remaining leaves shivered like brown bats about to fling themselves into flight. This wasn’t a day for leaving home, or a world in which to be alone.

She had told me to put on my hooded jacket, and I had done so. She had prepared for me a backpack of food and first-aid items, and I had strapped it on.

Now Mother indicated a wad of cash on the table. “Take that—for what little good it’ll do you. It’s stolen, but you didn’t steal it. I do all the stealing in this family. To you, it’s just a gift, and clean.”

I knew she never lacked for money. I took the gift and stuffed it in a pocket of my jeans.

The tears that had been pent up in her eyes spilled now, but she did not make a single sound of grief. I sensed that she had been rehearsing this scene for a long time, intent on seeing it through without allowing me a chance to improvise a change to the script that she had written.

My vision blurred, and I tried to express my love for her and my regret that I caused her such despair, but the few words that escaped me were distorted, pathetic. I was physically and emotionally strong for a mere boy of eight, and wiser than a child, but still a child if only chronologically.

After crushing her cigarette in an ashtray, she wet the fingers of both hands with the condensation on the glass of iced Scotch. She closed her eyes, pressed her fingertips to her eyelids, and took a few long, deep breaths.

My heart felt swollen, pressing against breastbone and ribs and spine, so it seemed that it would be punctured.

When she looked at me again, she said, “Live by night, if you can stay alive at all. Keep the hood up. Keep your head down. Hide your face. A mask will draw attention, but bandages might work. Above all, never let them see your eyes. Those eyes will betray you in an instant.”

“I’ll be okay,” I assured her.

“You will not be okay,” she said sharply. “And you shouldn’t delude yourself into thinking that you will.”

I nodded.

After draining half the glass of whiskey in a long swallow, she said, “I wouldn’t send you away if it hadn’t been for the hunter.”

The hunter had seen me in the woods that morning. I ran, and he pursued. He shot at me more than once and missed by inches.

“He’ll be back,” Mother said. “He’ll be back again and again and again until he finds you. He’ll never leave those woods for good until you’re dead. And then I’ll be dragged into it. They’ll want to know about me, every little thing about me, and I damn well can’t afford that kind of scrutiny.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head. Whether she meant that an apology wasn’t necessary or that it was inadequate, I can’t say. She picked up the pack of cigarettes and extracted one.

I already wore knitted gloves, for my hands might also betray me to others. I pulled up the hood of my jacket.

At the door, as I put my hand on the knob, I heard Mother say, “I lied, Addison.”

I turned to look at her.

Her elegant hands were trembling so violently that she could not match the cigarette to the flame of the butane lighter. She dropped the lighter and threw the cigarette aside.

“I lied when I said I wouldn’t send you away if it wasn’t for the hunter. I’d send you away no matter what, hunter or no hunter. I can’t stand this. Not anymore. I’m a selfish bitch.”

“You aren’t,” I said, taking a step toward her. “You’re scared, that’s all. Scared not just of me but of… of so many things.”

Then she was beautiful in a different way, like some pagan goddess of storms, highly charged and full of wrath. “You just shut up and believe what you’re told, boy. I’m selfish and vain and greedy and worse, and I like me that way. I thrive the way I am.”

“No, you’re not those things, you’re—”

“You shut your freakin’ mouth, you just SHUT UP! You don’t know me better than I know myself. I am what I am, and there’s nothing here for you, never was and never will be. You go and live however you can, in farther woods or wherever, and don’t you dare think of coming back here because there’s nothing here for you, nothing but death here for you. Now get out!”

She threw the Scotch glass at me, but I’m sure she didn’t mean to hit me. Her aim was too wide, and the glass shattered against the refrigerator.

Every moment that I lingered was another wound to her. Nothing I could say or do would help her. Life is hard in a world gone wrong.