Page 31 of Bent Heavens

“I think right this second is the nicest I’ve ever felt about our military,” Bruno said.

Liv laughed. “Yeah. Major Dawkins was good. The last barbecue was right between when Dad said he was abducted and when he disappeared for good.”

“When he was sick.”

“So sick,” Liv replied, grateful that he remembered. “And the major pulled him aside and it was…” She exhaled loudly. “I guess because the major was so big and strong, Dad just looked … I mean, the major had to hold him up. I don’t know if I ever saw two friends more…”

Bruno gestured at the school. “That’s what I’m saying. Those girls. How hard is it to be supported? If you were my friend…”

Liv met his brown eyes, several shades lighter in direct sun. It was the second time she’d caught him off guard, and the fact that she could be amused by it made her feel human, no matter what was going on in the alternate world of her backyard. She gazed at the football practice field, the sun turning the goalposts into bars of gold, the tufts of sod into gold nuggets.

“I couldn’t hear what the major was saying,” she said, “but whatever it was, my dad was crying and nodding his head, and then I heard one thing: Be the tallest you can. The major told him that. I’ve always thought it was a lovely thing to say.”

“It is,” Bruno said.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Bruno paused. “I feel six feet tall just hearing it.”

Something in her chest fluttered, gentle and grateful. She felt tingling relief in her fingers and toes. Not every second had to be lived at a blade’s edge. The first-class warning bell rang, and, the spell broken, both she and Bruno looked down at their bag straps, which required sudden adjustment.

Bruno extended an arm for her to go first, some chivalrous instinct, and she went ahead, with him following, an inch too close this time as well, though again she didn’t mind it.

“There’s Doug,” he said.

Liv stopped, her hand automatically gripping the railing hard enough for her palms to gauge the layers of chipped paint. Trained to identify Doug’s slouch, the antithesis of Bruno’s perpendicular posture, Liv spotted him at once, a sweatshirted, shorts-clad smudge trundling beetlelike across the lot.

Doug, in turn, knew her shape. She could tell he was watching her. It was in his diagonal trajectory, how he slid in her direction while leaning in the opposite, the same way he always edged closer to her on school grounds despite knowing that she was a different Liv Fleming here, one who hung out with different people.

Except right now she was not with those people, but rather a boy Doug wouldn’t even recognize. Even at this distance, Doug would file away Bruno’s height, body type, clothing, and hair. Doug was, above all things, observant, and just under that, canny about knowing when to use those observations. His leaning lope scolded her. Wasn’t this a dangerous time, Liv, to be befriending new people?

“You want to wait for him?” Bruno asked.

Liv turned back to the school. She had to hold on to the version of herself that Bruno inspired, whatever scraps might survive this.

“No,” she said.

15.

They settled upon a methodology. Or Doug settled on one, and Liv agreed, because she could not think clearly, not when she looked at the thing that had, one way or the other, been party to her father’s eradication from earth. Their stated goal was to get the skinner, through pain, to express tangible information about what had happened to Lee. If he was still alive, if he was definitely dead. Unstated was the catharsis of simply doing something about Lee, no matter what shape it took, after years of just taking the hurt like punches.

At Doug’s direction, they gathered what objects existed that might still smell of Lee Fleming. Aggie had gotten rid of a lot, but she’d done it as she did everything—in fickle, fitful impulses. Lee’s gardening gear still hung from a garage hook. His winter hats, gloves, and scarves remained in the hall closet. A box in the bathroom was a veritable time capsule: his last-used bar of deodorant, his razor, his toothbrush. What could smell more like him than those?

They also gathered pictures. Most family photographs, Liv came to realize, focused on her. She had to dig out albums curated from before she was born, filled with photos shot on actual film. There was Lee Fleming at grad school graduation, pretending to weep in joy. Further back: Lee on the beach, looking up from a book at the photographer, his wife—or maybe, back then, only his girlfriend. Further back: Lee, impossibly sharp-boned, his hair full and whipped by wind, wearing a jean jacket, atop a picnic table, happy. The blessing of ignorance, Liv thought, remembering when she had it.

They entered the Armory with a shopping bag of these items. The skinner had had days to improve. Raised welts had lowered. Scratches had sealed over with crystalline crust. Wounds on exposed organs had faded from furious, red blemishes to dimmer blots. None of these improvements would last.

Doug spread Lee’s personal items around the skinner in a half circle. While the skinner goggled in instinctive fright, Doug donned a pair of work gloves and Liv her mother’s studded gardening gloves. Doug picked up a hollow metal leg he’d broken off one of the worktables. It was as hard and lightweight as a police baton. He tested several grips, then looked at Liv.

“Ready?”

No, she’d never be ready, not for this. She nodded.

He nodded back, blasted out a breath, inhaled quick, and whacked the skinner’s left hip with the baton. It made a loud clucking noise, metal on bone. The skinner’s strangely jointed legs scrabbled away to move its hips as far from Doug as possible, which, because of the zip ties, wasn’t far.

Liv knew what to do. They’d discussed it. She picked up the razor, a dull thing spotted with rust but still clinging to Lee’s hair and particles of his skin. Hunched by the skinner’s opposite hip, Liv held the safety razor in front of its face.

“Closer, Liv,” Doug said.