Henry Franks (3 page)

four

From where Henry lay on his bed, he watched the sunlight cast shadows on the wall. It was already hot, despite central air and the ceiling fan, and even in boxers and a T-shirt, he'd woken up drenched in sweat. Scars like railroad tracks leading nowhere circled around his legs and itched in the heat.

Out his window he had a view of a corner of Justine's front yard where her younger brother was bouncing a ball against their house. Justine was nowhere to be seen. He closed the blinds, dry-swallowed his pills, and walked downstairs in the empty house. A bowl sat on the table next to a box of cereal, waiting for him, but his father had long since left for work. A piece of paper fluttered to the ground when he pulled his chair out.

Henry
, he read as he poured the milk,
Sorry about the card
.

From the street, a car blew its horn, and Henry walked to the front door to look outside. A pickup truck, overloaded with cheerleaders, sat in front of Justine's house. As he watched, she jumped into the back and then they were gone. Her brother continued bouncing his ball as Henry went back to breakfast.

He pulled the card out of his backpack and leaned it against the base of his monitor. One year. He rested the tip of his finger on one of the pushpins, staring at the patchwork flesh of his hand. The more he stared at it, the stranger it looked. The scar interrupted the lines on his palm, no longer telling any future he could imagine. Only the past interested him anymore. His own past. Even his name seemed to weigh strangely on him and the more he repeated it to himself, the less it seemed like a real word at all.

The scrapbook lay where he'd left it, open to the picture of his mother, but no matter how long he studied her face, he couldn't remember her; it was as if a stranger held his hand. Even his own face was alien to him, and he'd spent hours one night looking at his reflection trying to remember himself. He'd cried himself to sleep that night, face buried in the pillow, afraid his father would hear his sobs.

Beneath the picture, his father had written
Mommy, Daddy, Henry
with a ballpoint pen. The pages were falling out of the book due to how often he flipped through it; the flimsy photo album was in danger of falling apart completely. Henry ran his finger over the words but couldn't feel a thing, and suddenly realized he didn't even know his mother's name.

He took the stairs two at a time, jumping down them and calling for his father. “Dad!” echoed through the empty house. Where the hallway to the master bedroom began, Henry stopped. A wooden door stood at the end of the short hallway, a deadbolt lock above the knob. Henry took a deep breath, stepped forward, and knocked.

The house was silent save for the constant hum of the air-conditioner.

His hand rested on the doorknob; he closed his eyes as he tried to open it and failed.

Hours later, when he heard his father return home, Henry started downstairs. The question of his mother's name was on the tip of his tongue but would remain unasked. When his father's voice drifted up the stairs, Henry stopped in the shadows halfway down, trying to see the person his father was talking to.

“C6, C7,” his father said while emptying three bags of fast food out on the table. “Carbamazepine and phenobarbitol; maybe divalproex. C6, C7. So close, sweetheart, almost there, I promise.” But as far as Henry could see, there was no one else in the room.

Dr. Franks piled the hamburgers up on the counter, then filled one bag back up and started walking to the dining room with it, grabbing a handful of ketchup packets on the way.

Henry watched, barely able to breathe, as his father placed the burgers on the table.

“Dinner,” his father said, calling up to him.

He tiptoed back up to his room and then walked downstairs. By the time he reached the kitchen, the remaining pile of burgers on the counter was gone. On the dining room table there were only enough for their dinner. His father was already eating.

As Henry looked at him, for just a moment, he thought he was staring at a stranger.

After dinner, his father cleaned the table and then left the room. The deadbolt clicking into place on his father's door was loud in the silence. Henry sat at the empty table, the question of his mother's name still unspoken and barely more than a memory.

Wind brushed leaves against the windows in the humid summer evening as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. In the kitchen, Henry searched for the rest of the food his father had brought home, but there was only one bag in the garbage can and no evidence remained that there had been any other hamburgers in the house. Somewhere, a dog barked. Then, with a crash of a branch against the side of the house, the wind hissed right outside the window.

Henry pushed the mini-blinds to the side and peered out into the backyard. A light from Justine's house sent hazy shadows across the summer-scorched grass. Barely visible from where he was standing, there was a bag of fast food on the back stoop.

Henry dropped the blinds, staring at nothing while the image of that bag flashed across his vision every time he blinked. He took a deep breath before walking to the back door and flipping the light switch for the backyard.

The single halogen flooded the area with light. A weak breeze stirred as Henry opened the door. He picked the fast food bag up. Aside from crumpled wrappers, it was empty. He dropped it to the ground and took another look around the yard.

Old oak trees, gnarled roots poking out of the ground, were draped with Spanish moss. An ancient iron fence, more rusted than not, in some places ran right into the trees in its circuit of the yard. A gate swung open on broken hinges. Even at night, the heat brought beads of sweat out on his skin, catching in the scars.

A branch snapped in two as it clawed against the house and he hurried inside, locking the door behind him. He took another deep breath, counting to ten as he leaned against the wall, staring out between the miniblinds as the Spanish moss hung motionless in the still night air.

Margaret Saville, PhD
St. Simons Island, Glynn County, GA
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Patient: Henry Franks
(DOB: November 19, 1992)

“I'm alive,” he said. “I breathe.”

“And the dream?” Dr. Saville asked.

“I'm living the wrong life.” He sat up, hair falling into his face, and he tensed his fingers, stretching them as far as they would go. Then, with a shrug, he slumped back down, melting into the cushion. “Or something like that. It's me but it's not me. Then I wake up.”

“This is part of the process, Henry.”

“Waking up is good.”

“Then what?”

He looked at her, then closed his eyes. “Nothing. No dreams during the day. You need memories for that, don't you?”

“What do you do during the day?”

“I'm not exactly the beach type,” he said. “Sat out back last week where no one could see. Only part of me tanned.”

“Hang out with friends? Justine?”

He looked toward the window, where the palm tree brushed along the glass, and then shrugged. “She always says hi, I guess.”

“Do you talk to her when she talks to you?” Dr. Saville asked.

“She has her own friends.” He shook his head. “I have … ”

“You have?” she asked, when he didn't continue.

“Was going to say my father, but he's usually MIA, so it's just me.”

“Do you think you have any friends?”

“I have pictures of friends in the scrapbook he put together. And nightmares. But I don't recognize anyone from the photographs.”

“Has anyone from the album appeared in a dream?” she asked.

He stared back out the window past the palms to the sliver of the Atlantic visible between the other buildings. The distant horizon shimmered in the haze.

“Mom.”

“She's the only person you recognize?”

“No.” He shook his head, once more hiding behind his hair.

“Who?”

“The little girl. Calling me Daddy, over and over again.”

“She's in your scrapbook?” Dr. Saville asked.

“No, but I always think I know her.”

“Do you?”

He shrugged. “Her name's Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth?”

“She told me.”

“You asked?”

He smiled. “Why not, it's my dream.” Then the smile died. “I think.”

“You think?”

“I asked her what my name was.”

“And?”

“She called me Daddy again.”

“That's progress.”

“I asked her what Mommy called me.”

Dr. Saville's pen stopped its steady march across the paper and she looked up at him. Her brown hair, lighter in the summer months, was plastered to her scalp and didn't move with the motion. “‘Mommy'?”

“She started to cry.”

“Did you wake up?” Dr. Saville asked.

“‘Victor,' Elizabeth said. ‘Mommy called you Victor before she died.'”

Henry pushed himself up so hard that the heavy couch actually moved across the wooden floor. He walked to the window, watching the heat radiating in waves off the white stone pathway beyond the palm tree. The path wandered into the bushes and stopped. It was, he thought, symbolic of something; this meaningless walkway behind a psychologist's office, boldly going nowhere. Like his life.

“Ready for school?” Dr. Saville asked after too long a silence.

He didn't look at her. “It's school.”

“New year, new opportunities.”

“Joy,” he said, hiding his smile from her.

“Your father asked me to speak to you about the future, Henry. You're a junior now, only two years until college.”

“I know.”

“And?”

“And?” he asked.

“The future?”

“I have enough problems with the past.” Then he laughed, the sound thin and weak.

“Henry,” she said.

“Maybe in the future, I have a daughter.” He looked at her. “I think I'll call her Elizabeth.”

“That's not quite what your father meant, but we can talk about that if you'd like.”

“Is this my last session?”

“Do you want it to be?” she asked. “My understanding is you'll continue to come after school, the way you did last year.”

Henry looked back out the window. “Will it help?”

“I'd like to think so.”

Henry walked back to the couch and sat down, pressing his palms into his thighs. Closed his eyes and counted to ten.

“Did Elizabeth say anything else?” Dr. Saville asked.

He opened his eyes, looking at her through the fall of his hair. “I had to protect her,” he said, his voice harsh. “She's my daughter.”

“You're not Victor,” Dr. Saville said, her pen still and silent above the paper.

“I had to.” He rested his head back, exposing his neck. He swallowed and the scar writhed. “I couldn't let her die like that.”

“Tell me what happened, Henry.”

“I killed her.”

“Who?” she said, the single word barely spoken out loud.

“I killed them all.”

“Henry?”

“Then I woke up.” He smiled. “I killed my mother.”

“What happened to Elizabeth?”

“I held her while she died.”

Discovery of Bodies
Closes Popular Beach

Jekyll Island, GA—August 6, 2009:
The bodies of two missing boaters washed ashore on Jekyll Island early Wednesday morning. Missing since late Monday night, they were discovered caught in the driftwood by Darius Martin, a local fisherman.

Nancy Woods, of the Jekyll Island Parks Services, said that preliminary information was still being gathered but that their boat, which has yet to be located, might answer further questions.

The two boaters, Crayton Mission, 52, and his nephew Paul Wislon, 24, were reported missing late Saturday night by Wanda Mission, wife of Crayton.

As of this time, foul play is not suspected.

five

The piece of paper hidden beneath his pillbox had two words on it:
Victor, Elizabeth
. Out of curiosity, he'd Googled the names, but there were too many hits to realistically count. Henry dry-swallowed his medications, took a single look at the names, then folded the paper back up before sliding it into place beneath the plastic box.

“Victor,” he said. The word seemed weightless, without meaning. A stranger's name. It felt wrong when said out loud, unreal.

His father had left for work by the time he ventured downstairs, and he rushed through breakfast even though he had nothing else to do all day long other than sweat and eat.

He stood on the front porch, watching Justine's brother jumping through a sprinkler, and briefly considered mowing the lawn just to see if his father would notice.

“You can join us.” Her voice came from behind him and he gripped the rusted metal railing to keep from jumping out his skin. “Not dressed like that, of course, but you're welcome to jump in. The water's, well, not hot, at least.”

Justine walked up to the side of the porch and when he turned his head, she was closer than he'd expected her to be. Her hair was tied up and the sun glinted off the tiny gold hoops in her ears and for a moment he forgot to breathe.

“You do know it's summer, right?” she asked. “You know, heat, humidity. Did I mention heat?”

Henry brushed the hair out of his eyes and tried, but failed, not to stare. Cut-offs left long tan legs glowing in the morning sun. A pink bikini top was visible through her white T-shirt. Honey-brown eyes and a welcoming smile. He couldn't figure out where to look, so he let the hair fall back down.

“I'm familiar with the concept,” he said with a shrug. “I'm not really a summer person.”

“You're in blue jeans and a T-shirt,” she said. “In August. As far as I can tell, you're a mammal.”

He laughed. “I'm usually inside, where it's air-conditioned.”

Justine looked around, taking in the entire porch. “I know, you're part hermit. But you do realize that you're actually outside at the moment?”

He mimicked her motions of looking around. “My dad took me to Jekyll last week. That was outside.”

“Did you actually go on the beach?”

“Drove past it. Does that count?”

She smiled. “No.” Sunlight glistened on pink lips and white teeth and golden skin.

He breathed, counted to ten in silence, and tried to return her smile.

“Want to join us in the sprinkler?” she asked again, turning to walk back to her yard. With one motion, she took her T-shirt off and dropped it to the ground. “Coming, Henry?” she said over her shoulder.

He went down the steps two at a time, and then stopped on the sidewalk, watching Justine jump through the sprinkler in her wet denim cut-offs and pink bikini top. He picked up her T-shirt as he walked into the water, holding it in his hand as he let the water rain down on him, soaking his jeans. His hair plastered itself to his face, hanging down his neck, and he brushed it back and looked up at the sun, burning down on his pale skin.

He smiled.

“If I wanted my shirt wet, I'd have left it on,” she said, pulling it out of his grasp.

Henry looked at it and shrugged. “You dropped it.”

She laughed. “Not that I'm complaining. You've been inside all summer and I finally got you in the sprinkler. My vacation is a success.”

“You always could have knocked,” he said.

Justine threw her wet shirt at him. “I don't knock.”

The shirt landed on his face and, for a moment, all he saw was white. So faintly it might have been his imagination, he could smell her on the fabric.

“Why not?” he asked, through her shirt, before taking it off.

“Well, one, my mom might kill me. Or at least ground me for what little remains of vacation if I did anything, anything at all, that she would consider to be even remotely improper.” She smiled, holding her hand out for her shirt. “Two, I obviously didn't have to; you're here.”

“Improper?” Henry held her shirt up, looking at her wet hair hanging on her bare shoulders.

“Well, her definition and mine aren't quite the same thing.”

He threw the shirt back, jumped through the sprinkler one more time, and then started walking back to his house.

“Henry?” she called out to him.

When he turned around, she was sliding back into her T-shirt. It clung to her skin and he could still see the pink bikini top through the wet fabric.

“Just because I don't knock doesn't mean you can't,” she said, before smiling one more time and then running inside her house.