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Excuse after excuse for leaving Jakob behind, scrawled in spidery black ink across the blotchy page.
Remembered the hollow look in Frank’s eyes when he turned to stare at Jakob, looking as lost and uncomprehending as Jakob felt.
"Sheleft?" Frank's words were loud in the quietness of the room, his voice unmistakably angry.
Jakob winced at the noise, scrabbling to scrunch himself further back under the bed until he'd practically plastered himself against the wall the headboard rested against.
Because… Because he had been so sure at the time that anger had been directed athim.
He'd stared flatly back at a bewildered Frank, his eyes hot and blurry after so many hours spent crying under the bed. His whole body felt wrung out, unequal to the weight the world had abruptly placed upon it. Like it was all he could do to just lie there now and accept his fate.
Frank frowned then, and swallowed.
"I'm… I'm sorry, boy. I ain't mad at you, I swear. Ain't your fault. You, uh… You want to come out from under there? It's suppertime. We can… We can find ourselves a bite to eat."
His voice had been gentle as he'd said the words; the same way he had shown Jakob how to speak to the horses; to talk them into doing things they didn't want to, like wear a halter or stand still to be saddled
"I could… make you a PB & J?" Frank had asked. "They're your favorite, right?"
Jakob just limply shook his head no, uninterested. He didn't feel the least bit hungry. In fact, he didn't think he could bear the smell of peanut butter ever again.
Frank glanced away towards the hallway, the muscles of his cheek twitching as his jaw clenched.
"We'll sort this out, boy," he said then in a low tone, his eyes hard as they searched out Jakob's. "I won't lie to you and tell you I know how exactly just yet, but… somehow we'll — we'll make this right."
But there had been a tremor in Frank's voice as he'd said it, a note of determination when he had told Jakob — when he'dpromised, though Jakob hadn't recognized it as such at the time — that they would sort this out.
He still remembered how soft Frank's old flannel shirt had been against his cheek, all sun faded and worn thin with age. Clinging tightly to the man as Frank held him; his whole body shaking with sobs he’d been absolutely sure at the time would never, everstop.
Remembered that feeling too, when — months later — Frank had sat Jakob down at the same battered little kitchen table, telling him they needed to talk.
Jakob had felt his heart dropping into his sneakers as he’d huddled there, instantly that sullen kid once more. Scratching at the top of the table with his thumbnail and waiting for Frank to tell Jakob he was kicking him out; that at any minute someone would arrive to put him in foster care, making him leave the only place that had… that had ever been anything like a home.
"I found her," Frank had finally said into the silence.
And it had been so far from what Jakob had been expecting, that he hadn't quite been sure he had heard him right; his mind not even fully comprehending the words.
"What?" he had managed to choke out, the word coming out in a high squeak as his voice broke on it.
"Your momma. Tracked her down to some commune a few states over," Frank explained, his eyes sharp as that pair of red-tailed hawks that nested nearby as he watched Jakob's response. "She was up to her elbows in mud planting something and happy as a clam."
Jakob scowled, hunching forward so his hair fell in his face, hiding his expression. He had been growing it out ever since she disappeared, refusing to let Frank or anyone else cut it. By that point, it almost reached his shoulders.
"Why are you telling me this?" he tried to growl, scowling when it came out more like a squawk thanks to the vagaries of puberty.
"Because the way I see it, she's left us with two choices," Frank said, his chair squeaking as he leaned back, crossing his arms across his chest.
Jakob snorted, glaring at the tabletop. He knew the chances ofhimgetting any say in these so-called 'choices'.
"One," Frank continued, undeterred, "is we can figure out how you go live with her, if you want. You would be the only kid in the place, and they aren't set up in the way of schooling — or running water or electricity or much of anything, really. But you would be with your momma, if you chose to be; that’s the important thing."
Jakob glanced up, unable to conceal his surprise at the idea that… that Frank might be serious about him having a say in all this after all.
"And… and what's the other choice?" he asked quietly, unsure.
Frank pulled a folded-up wad of papers from his shirt pocket and pushed them in front of Jakob.
Jakob watched him, hesitating a long while before finally unfolding them. Carefully, he smoothed out the paper as he tried to make sense of the letters on the page.
