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People. And the brutal things we do to one another.
The fence shakes against my cheek and I turn, careful to keep my gaze lifted. I don’t have it in me to look at her again. Bishop is grasping the chain-link with both hands, knuckles white, his eyes closed. His whole body is wound tight as a spring, like if I reached for him he would simply break apart at the joints, splinter into a hundred pieces. I don’t try to touch him.
He lets out a yell and then another and another, loud and wild and out of control. He shakes the fence hard with both hands. His anger and frustration are more potent somehow because they are unexpected. When his scream fades into silence, he rests his forehead against the metal. “Sometimes,” he says, voice raw, “I hate this place. ” He twists his neck and looks at me, hands still hooked in the fence above his head.
“I know,” I say, barely a whisper. “Me, too. ”
It takes every ounce of energy I have to make the return walk home. The day has taken something from me that I know a shower or a nap or a good meal will never replace. I haven’t felt innocent in years, but maybe there was still some left down deep inside of me that is now forever gone. The space it left behind filled with the image of a dead girl I never even knew.
As we are dragging up the walk to our front door, Dylan appears from the side of his house. He has a tool belt around his waist that is threatening to pull down his pants, and he looks so ridiculous I want to laugh. “Hey,” he says, giving us a wave. “I was just looking for you, Bishop. ”
“Yeah?” Bishop asks. He runs a hand through his hair, exhaustion written on every inch of him.
“I’ve got some loose shingles. ” Dylan looks over his shoulder at their second-floor dormer. “Thought maybe you could give me a hand. ”
Bishop glances at me, then back to Dylan. “Sure. Give me a minute, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, no problem,” Dylan says with a smile. Every time he smiles it’s disconcerting. His open grin doesn’t fit at all with what I know lurks underneath.
We go inside and I kick off my shoes, harder than I intended because one hits the living room wall with a clatter. Bishop raises his eyebrows at me.
“I can’t believe you’re helping him,” I say.
“It’s just some shingles. ”
I hate how casual he’s being, like he’s already forgotten what Dylan did to Meredith. “So what?” I fire back. “We shouldn’t be helping him at all. ”
Bishop doesn’t respond other than to grab a jug of water from the icebox. I glare at his back for a second, then stomp to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.
I take a long, cool shower, water stained brown with dust swirling over my toes and down the drain. When I step out, the house is quiet and I can hear the faint sound of hammering from next door. Maybe the universe will dispense some justice for once and Dylan will hammer a nail through his hand.
I wrap myself in a towel and stand in front of the mirror. My face is sunburned, freckles popping out on my nose and along my cheekbones. I still look like the same girl I’ve always been, but I don’t feel like her anymore or at least not entirely. I am my father’s daughter. And Callie’s sister. And I always will be. The biggest parts of me are theirs. But as much as I don’t want it to be true, I know there’s a space inside me, however small, that belongs to Bishop now. I’m not even sure how it happened or what I could have done to stop it.
I slide down the bathroom wall and rest my forehead on my upturned knees. If Callie had been the one to marry him, she would never have let this happen. Her loyalty to the cause would have been unwavering. I don’t know what it is about me that is so easily bent. Why when I look at Bishop’s face I see a boy who gives water to the dying and encourages me to think my own thoughts instead of all the ways his father has wronged us and how his death can help set us free.
I sit until my skin grows cold, my back aching from being pressed into the unforgiving wall. My damp hair leaves a wet streak on the paint when I stand, and I wipe it away with my towel. I throw on clean shorts and a T-shirt and pile my wet hair on top of my head. I’m not sure what we have to eat, but I figure it’s probably my turn to make dinner. From the kitchen I can still hear hammering, the muffled sound of Bishop’s and Dylan’s voices through the open back door.
As I lean in to the icebox to peruse my options, there is a crash from outside, followed by a scream. The sound is piercing, the kind of scream that means pain and blood and torn flesh. I leave the icebox door swinging and run out through the screened porch, pushing the screen door open with both palms as I pound down the steps.
Dylan is on the ground in his backyard, upper body on the grass, his legs lying twisted on the concrete patio. He is not moving. I glance up at Bishop, who is standing on the edge of the roof, looking down at Dylan. The sun is behind him, and I cannot see the expression on his face, but something in his stance stops my forward movement. I stand at the fence, not sure what’s happening, and watch as Bishop swings himself onto the ladder, moves down to the ground in seconds. Dylan has blood on his face and one of his legs is bent in a way nature never intended, a flash of white bone peeking through a rip in his pants.
“I need to get help,” I call to Bishop. Meredith is nowhere in sight.
“Wait,” Bishop says, eyes on Dylan, who is beginning to stir on the ground. Bishop sounds as calm as I’ve ever heard him. Too calm for the situation, and my blood turns to ice in my veins.
Dylan lifts his head and pushes himself up on one bloody elbow. He’s groaning, his free hand hovering over his shattered leg. Bishop takes a step toward him, and Dylan looks up, then tries to scoot backward on his elbows, making frantic mewing sounds in his throat. Bishop ignores him, squats down near his head, and puts a hand on Dylan’s chest to keep him in place. I can’t hear what Bishop says, only the low murmur of his voice, but Dylan’s eyes go wide. He shakes his head and Bishop’s hand pushes harder against his chest. There’s a breathless moment where no one speaks, even the birds in the trees go silent, and then Dylan nods.
“I think Dylan needs help, Ivy,” Bishop says without turning around. “His leg is broken. ”
“Okay,” I say. I turn and run, through the gate, out onto the sidewalk and down the street. My bare feet slap against the hot pavement, but I don’t feel the sting. I don’t slow down and I don’t stop until I’m at the hospital and have paramedics on their way back to Dylan’s house with a bicycle-pulled stretcher cart.
By the time we return, Meredith is sitting next to Dylan in the grass, his head cradled on her lap. His face is as white as the bone protruding from his leg, and Meredith is weeping without sound, murmuring nonsense as she runs a hand over his hair. Bishop is sitting on the picnic table, his long legs balanced on the bench in front of him. His face is carefully blank.
I stand next to him while the paramedics work to stabilize Dylan’s leg. He screams as he’s lifted onto the stretcher, and Meredith’s hands flutter uselessly above him like injured birds.
“It might be easier on him if he passed out,” Bishop says flatly.
“Maybe he will,” I say. “It’s bound to be a bumpy ride. ” I surprise myself with how little sympathy I have, even knowing how much pain Dylan is in.
