Bone Deep (10 page)

After bathing away the
muddy
pond water, Sarah cooked potatoes a
nd pork chops for their dinner, while
Tom prepared a salad under her instruction. They ate and
once more
retired to the living room and listened to the news followed by Harold Raimer’s Music Hour.

Sarah had given Tom his library book to look through and he
pored
over the pages, examining each picture carefully as though trying to figure out the stories.

She closed her plumbing tutorial after she realized she wasn’t going to be able to fix her pipe
problem without a professional.
“
I
f you’d like, I could teach you how to read.”

Tom look
ed up from his book and smiled
. “Yes.”

She could see the change in him from the tense
man
she
’
d met only
a couple of
days before. He was relaxed and completely at ease with her now.

“Let me get some things together and we can begin.” She gathered paper and pencil, figuring she’d start with the basics of the alphabet unless he demonstrated that he was beyond that. She sat cross-legged on the floor next to h
im
. Smoothing the paper against the hard surface of a book she drew a capital ‘A’ then glanced at him.

He lips parted
as if
he wanted to say something.

She smiled encouragingly. “What?”

“I already have one thing I can read. Bernard taught me the words.” Tom reached in his pocket,
took
out the magazine page she
’
d found the day before and carefully unfolded it. Without looking at the words he recited, “Doesn’t your family deserve the perfect holiday?
Virginia Beach
.
Paradise
at half the price. Virginia Tourism Board.”

“That’s good.” Sarah’s smile widened
at h
is earnest recitation.

He stared at the picture. “I made up a story about the family.”

She leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees. “Tell me.”

Again he recited as though it was something he
’
d memorized
well
. “The family is on their holiday at the beach. The children play in the water and go out farther and farther. The brother gets washed away by a wave and his sister screams but the father runs into the water and saves him.”

He smoothed the crease down the center of the page with one finger, stopping where it crossed the woman’s face. “After their vacation the family goes back home. They have a house with lots of windows. Each of the children has a bedroom with a window that looks out at the sky and they each have a bed to sleep in and no one is allowed to come into their room to look at them or touch them. The father goes to work to make money to take care of the family and the mother cooks food. They eat three times a day and sometimes even more. When the children wake up in the morning they eat breakfast and go to school. They have a lot of friends and no one looks at them because they look just like everybody else. They go outside whenever they want and eat whenever they want. They have a dog too.” He stopped abruptly and looked up from the picture to her face.

Sarah’s throat was so
tight
she could hardly swallow. Tom had spoken more words
telling the story of his dream life
than he had in the past two days.
He’d also hinted at more about the conditions of his captivity than she wanted to know.
She cleared her throat. “Go on. It’s a nice story.”

He looked at the magazine page. “The father and mother touch each other but it’s good. They
lay
together at night, and in the morning, when he has to go to work they kiss goodbye. Together they will make another baby for their family.” He fell silent for a second then added, “That’s all.”

Sarah drew a deep breath and released it slowly, waiting for her voice to steady before she spoke. “It’s a very good story. Are those the things you want for yourself?”

He began folding the advertisement. “But I can’t have them,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Why not?”

He shrugged as if it was obvious and she remembered
his earlier declaration
,
I’m
not
normal
. She had to admit it was hard to picture this strange man living a normal family life in an average community. His differences were stamped all over his body as well as hidden deep inside him.

Sarah chose her next words carefully. “So, Mr. Reed let people come to your room and ... touch you sometimes?”

“When they paid extra.”

“Since you were young?”

“Yes.” He returned the advertisement to his pocket.

Sarah was shocked. She had heard suggestions of such perversions, but her knowledge of sex outside of the marital bed was limited. Her mother had given her brief, vague instructions before her wedding night and John had taught her the rest of what she knew.

Tom picked up the pencil and neatly copied an ‘A’ beside hers. “When I had visitors I got extra food,” he added casually.

Sarah felt sick. She didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He glanced up with a puzzled frown. “Why?”

Her eyes welled with tears and she fought them back. She would not help him by making him feel pathetic. “For what happened to you.
For e
verything you had to live with.”
And that I came to gape at you like everyone else, as though you were a
sideshow attraction rather than
a person.

He
offered the pencil to her. “Show me more.”

Sarah understood. He was finished talking about his past. She tried to put the terrible things
he’d told her out
of her mind and turn her attention to teaching him the alphabet, but his words haunted her.
When they paid extra.

She shuddered but took the pencil and wrote ‘B,’ both in uppercase and lowercase. By the end of an hour she was writing simple sentences like “The cat ate the rat” and Tom was reading them aloud. His mother must have
long ago
taught him the basics and he only needed a refresher to awaken
that knowledge
.

After their lesson, Sarah read another chapter of
Tom Sawyer
.

Outside the storm was
getting closer
.
A
rumble of distant thunder grew steadily louder. Flashes of lightning shone briefly through the window. At about ten thirty the storm finally broke. Thunder
crashed
almost overhead and gusts of wind billowed the curtains inward bringing
damp
fresh air into the room.

Sarah
and Tom went around the house
shutt
ing windows,
enclosing
the house in stuffy humidity once more.

“Let’s sit out on the front porch. It’s too hot inside,” she suggested. She poured them each a glass of lemonade and they
sat
on the porch swing, watching the wind-driven rain wash across the yard. The rain smelled cool and a misty spray dampened their faces even in the shelter of the porch.

The
proximity
of Tom sitting beside her
made the hair on her arm
s
prickle.
She felt his presence, so vital and masculine and alive, in her very cells. Her body yearned for him. She longed to reach out for him and let nature guide them to what felt like an inevitable conclusion.

Being near him made her nervous, edgy, uncomfortable
, yet
at the same time, it seemed natural to sit
with
him in comfortable silence watching the storm.
After
about a half-hour the wind and rain slowly died down and drifted away.

“I think that’s the end of the hot weather,” Sarah said as the temperature perceptibly dropped with the passing of the storm. “Fall is here.”

Tom swirled the ice in his empty glass and looked at the muddy yard. “The show will be traveling south for the winter soon.”

“
Reed
won’t be back looking for you again, will he?”

“I don’t think so.”

She put her hand on his arm and
tingles vibrated through it
. “You can stay here as long as you like.”

He looked at her hand then
into
her face. His eyes were only deep shadows in the darkness, but Sarah knew
how blue they were as he gazed
intently at her.

“Thank you
,
” he said.

“We should probably go in now.” She
rose
and took his empty glass.

He followed her inside where they opened the windows to let fresh
air back
in the house.

Upstairs in
the hall, they
stood
for a moment
, facing one another,
a sliver of time that seemed to stretch and pull
as elastic as
taffy.

With every fiber of her being Sarah
wanted to take a step toward
To
m
,
hold out her hand
and
invite him to her room.

“
G
ood night,” she said
at last
, heading into her bedroom and closing
the door
behind her.

She wasn’t ready. She
couldn’t
open her windows wide and let rain
pour
into her house
,
and she wasn’t ready to invite th
is
complicated stranger into her bed.

Chapter F
ive

Tom set his foot in the stirrup and swung his other leg over
Edison
’s back, sliding into the saddle. He gathered the reins and
looked
at Sarah with a pleased smile.

S
he
was perched on the corral fence shouting instructions. “Good. Now don’t hold the reins too tight or too slack. Give him a tap with your heels and he’ll start
walk
ing.”

Tom nudged the horse, but
Edison
continued to stand and stare off into the distance.

“A little harder. He’s old and lazy and doesn’t want to move.”

Tom obeyed and the bay horse wheezed wearily
but
plodded forward. He circled the corral twice slowly. Tom rode awkwardly but
continued to grin
.
His delight was delightful to see.

“Good
. Dig in your heels a little
and he’ll trot.”

Tom followed her directions and
Edison
reluctantly
increased his speed
. Tom jounced up and down with each step.

“Let your legs take the impact
. Brace your feet and rise
up in the stirrups so you’re not quite seated. Then you won’t bounce.”

He followed her directions and improved almost immediately.

“Good job. You’re a natural!”

After trotting around the corral a few times, Edison slowed then stopped completely,
panting
as though he’d run a racecourse instead of made a couple of circuits of the corral.

Sarah shifted her bottom on the hard board of the fence. “Keep him moving. You have to let him know you’re in charge. Give him another kick
and a slap with the reins
.”

Tom complied and
Edison
walked then trotted again. Rising smoothly up and down, Tom looked
as if
he’d been riding his whole life.

Sarah smiled at the
pure
enjoyment on his face. She knew he loved animals. He
’
d told her that one of his jobs in the carnival was to care for the livestock
, but he’d never been allowed to ride
.
So s
he
’
d decided it was time to give
Edison
a workout.

Edison
was a retired horse who served no function on the farm and didn’t care to be ridden. Like the dog
Sheba
, he had been on the Cassidy farm much longer than Sarah had. He’d earned the right to enjoy the twilight of his life with a warm stall, plenty of food and no more physical exertion than was necessary to crop grass.