In the hallway, Ike ran into Ralph, who had finished unclogging the drain and was now carrying hedge clippers outside.
“Get out of my way,” Ike growled. He had no use for Ralph.
The custodian stepped aside.
“Hey,” Ralph said as the man passed. Ike stopped.
“Someone was in my utility closet,” Ralph said. “Any idea who that would have been?”
There was no expression on Ike’s face except for annoyance.
“Do I look like a fucking custodian? Why would I be in your dumb closet?”
Winter arrived in a fury, battering the area with storms. So many trees fell in the forest, they sounded like gunshots echoing through the center. Boys hid under their blankets and cried, and Ike Tressler made fun of those who did. He called them sissies. Sissies and pansies.
Dennis turned nine. Reggie was thirteen.
Martha said nothing. She had stopped having trainings. She no longer cared about the fake flowers on the dining room tables, and when the cook tried to interest her in a more nutritious meal plan—suggesting that maybe they could even start a vegetable garden with the boys—the director was silent, and then walked away.
Maybe she didn’t like it at the coast, the cook thought. Not everyone did. It was cold and wet.
“It’s almost spring,” the cook said, following the woman down the hall. “If we plan now, I can buy some seed at the feed store in Wheel Stone.”
“I’ll consider it,” Martha said, closing her office door.
She closed her door a lot now, the cook thought. For hours, days, and even weeks, it felt, the director disappeared with boys into the treatment room. She left the rest of the staff to take care of things. It was okay. They had been doing it before she came. Still, the cook was disappointed. She’d had such high hopes for the place when Martha King arrived.
Day after day, week after week, month after month, boys were taken to the holding time room. Sometimes it was Reggie; other times, other boys. Martha was picking on them, Ralph decided. There were certain ones she seemed fixated on. The homosexual boys, for sure. But also boys like him and Dennis. Boys with a tender side, and a fighting one too. There was something about that combination—like the rabbit—that she found intolerable.
For some boys, there never would be a cure, he realized. No matter how much they gave in, it would never be enough for Martha.
The latest boy was named Angel. Sure enough, a few months after his intensive treatment began, Angel, too, went missing.
“Another runaway,” the cook said.
Ralph was in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, and a sense of déjà vu swept over him so strongly that he felt weak at the knees and wanted to sit down.
The cook was boiling a ham. She’d wanted to start it early for lunch. Breakfast this morning was a big pot of old-fashioned cornmeal mush boiling at the back of the stove, slowly turning into a thick golden soup. The boys would be given brown sugar and milk to pour over it at the table. The next morning, the cook would make patties out of the leftovers and fry them in margarine, which was even better.
Ralph liked cornmeal mush, but this morning he wanted nothing.
“That’s three,” he said, drinking his coffee.
“You okay?” She looked over from where she was poking the ham with a large fork.
“You ever think anything of this place?” he asked.
“Not sure what you mean,” she said. She put a lid on the simmering ham. “It’s a job, and we both care about the boys.”
“What about Martha King?”
The cook set the fork down and leaned against the counter. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her now. Maybe she feels bad about the boys getting out. It’s not her to blame, though.”
“No. I’m sure it’s not.” Ralph poured his coffee into the empty sink. He didn’t want it anymore.
“You off to work?”
“Gonna go check my shovel.”
