Hush

________________________________
Hush
by Mark Nykanen

________________________________
St. Martin's Press
New York

Hush
Copyright © 1998
by Mark Nykanen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any

manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief

quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.

10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nykanen, Mark.
Hush / Mark Nykanen.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-20722-0
I. Title.
PS3564.Y52H87 199897-37120
813'.54— dc21
CIP
Electronic format made
available by arrangement with
St. Martin's Press
peanutpress.com, Inc.
www.peanutpress.com
FOR LUCINDA SUZANNE TAYLOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Monique McClean, MAAT, ATR, who spent many hours sharing her expertise

in art therapy; and Catherine Zangar, Dale Dauten, Mark Feldstein, and Lucinda

Suzanne Taylor, who provided ongoing criticism and counsel.
I'm also grateful to the following readers for their thoughts: Deanna Foster-Joyer,

John Joyer, Bud Murphy, Peggy Dills Kelter, Sally LaVenture, Eric Bucy, Steve

Saylor, Kevin Donald, Aina Josefsson, and Deborah Phillips.
Special thanks to my agent, Theron Raines, and to my editor, Jennifer Weis.
HUSH
Davy Boyce climbed on top of another gray stump and fired again. Each time he

shot his imaginary pistol he used both hands, just like a real detective; and

each time he pulled the trigger he said, "Pow-pow, you're dead," just like a

little boy.
As he jumped down to the dusty ground, ready to shoot anything that moved, he

heard his mother calling him.
"Davy, come here. Your daddy's going to be home in a few minutes."
"He's not my daddy," Davy muttered, but his mom couldn't hear him because she

was folding laundry by the old silver trailer a good acre away.
Davy aimed toward the road and fired one more time. A moment later, "You're

dead" unsettled the still air.
He headed back to his mom through a sea of stumps and the long shadows thrown by

the setting sun. She waited for him with the laundry basket propped on her hip,

a plain-faced woman as worn and faded as her washed-out dress. She smiled at

him, then shaded her eyes as she peered down the dirt road at her new husband

rolling along in his old pickup. A dark cloud rose in his wake. October had come

but summer had never ended, and the drought-stricken land of Idaho appeared as

parched and brown as sunburned leather.
Davy slouched by his mother's side and listened to the distant rumble of Chet's

truck. He didn't look up. He didn't need to. He could always sense the comings

and goings of his stepfather. One he greeted with terror, the other with relief.
"I want my real daddy."
His mother put the laundry basket on a folding chair and crouched beside him.

She rested her hands on his bony shoulders.
"Davy, you know your daddy's in heaven and you're not going to get to see him

for a long, long time. But he's watching over you, and he wants you to be happy

with your new daddy. He wants you to play with him and have fun."
She ran her hand over his crew cut as she stood back up. They could now hear the

rattle of the chain saw that huddled in the bed of the pickup among the wood

chips and bark, like some dirty animal that makes its nest wherever it can.
"I don't like to play with him. He hurts me." Davy spoke with his eyes still on

the ground, the earth that would shake whenever Chet walked by.
"You just don't like to be tickled, that's all. I'll talk to him about that."
"No, Mom, it's not the tickling. I told you and told you, he hurts me. He hurts

me bad."
He tugged on her dress to turn her away from the truck, which had started up the

short stretch of logging road that ended at their trailer. Davy pointed to the

front of his pants.
"He hurts me right here. Inside. He does. And also my—" The boy froze when the

pickup braked and the door flew open. Chet sauntered up.
His mother turned to him, and the skin around her eyes wrinkled, like the sun

might have been too bright all of a sudden; but there was no sun in her eyes,

just the shadow of her husband with his hard handsome features.
He smiled and gave them a big hello.
"Hey, how's my guy?"
He patted Davy's butt, and she pulled the boy aside.
"Wait a second." She put up her hand to stop him. "He just told me that you've

been hurting him. He pointed to the front of his pants. What's going on?"
"Don't be silly." Chet spoke gently and his smile never strayed as he patted

Davy's rear again.
"No, please, stop that." She pushed his hand away. "I'm not being silly. I want

to know what's going on."
Chet looked up at her slowly, and his words came out soft as dust.
"You do, do you?"
She nodded, and Davy clung to her dress.
"We'd better go inside and talk." He shook his head sadly, but when he spoke

again his voice stiffened, like a steel spine now ran through every word: "Yeah,

you better get inside, both of you."
She backed away, but he grabbed her elbow and rammed her through the door. He

jerked Davy up the steps so fast the boy stumbled into the dim, narrow room.

Chet pushed him onto the couch, and turned around slowly. Her furious voice

filled the momentary hush that followed.
"Don't you dare treat my son like that!"
Chet never replied. He glanced down as he made a fist, and she lunged for the

door handle; but as she reached for it he grabbed the back of her dress so hard

the fabric tore. Davy heard the seams explode— pop-pop-pop-pop-pop— and the way

she cried Chet's name, like that might make him stop. But it didn't.
He spun her around and gripped her shoulders tightly, and Davy thought maybe he

was going to give her a good talking-to. But Chet hissed in her face, "It's all

over, don't you see?" and jerked down the front of her dress. This time the boy

didn't hear any popping sounds, just saw the blue-and-white fabric rushing away

from her skin.
Chet turned from the sight of her breasts and fixed his eyes on Davy, who was

hugging his knees on the battered couch. He warned him not to move. Davy

couldn't move, not anymore. When Chet grabbed his mom and ripped her dress, the

boy lost his breath. His daddy had told him that a man never hurts a woman.

Never, he'd repeated. But Chet did. It left Davy all hollow inside, like a thing

that can't eat, that gets eaten instead.
"Cover up!" Chet roared at her. "The boy, damn it."
She hesitated, and Davy thought, Hurry, hurry; but she didn't, and that's when

Chet punched her head so hard it sank into the wall like she'd hit a cushion or

a pillow. Davy saw her drop to her knees and pitch forward, and the hole in his

belly grew as large as the world.
"Get up!" Chet yelled.
She raised her face off the floor, but when she looked down and saw the red

drips on the linoleum, she paused.
"Up!" he screamed.
Again she hesitated, and once more Davy thought, Hurry, hurry; but she didn't,

and that's when Chet grabbed her hair and dragged her to her feet.
She looked at her son as Chet forced her over to the sink, and spoke to him in a

strangled voice. "Davy, go on, get out of here."
Chet bellowed, "Don't you move!" as he dragged her over to the door and locked

it with his free hand.
"He doesn't need to see this." It was a voice Davy had never heard before, like

she was hurt and scared and angry all at the same time.
"Yeah, he does. He needs to see exactly what happens when he opens his big

mouth."
Davy stared at the lock as he heard those words. There was no way out. Not for

her, not for him. Not ever.
When he looked at his mom again, Chet had her back at the sink with a razor

pressed against her neck. He whispered fiercely in her ear, like a man who

doesn't want to be heard one moment but couldn't care less the next.
"I'm going to tell you a secret. It's the last one you'll ever hear. You

listening? 'Cause it's a good one."
She nodded, as if to humor him and buy time; but each movement brushed her neck

against the blade and left fine lines of blood on her pale skin.
As he started to speak Chet leaned even closer to her and his hips twitched back

and forth, like his whole body was working up to something.
"I married you...for the boy." He looked over at Davy. "You watching? You

watching?" His voice cracked with excitement as she struggled to break free.

"You're old and ugly, but he's smooth." Chet tried to draw out that last

syllable— s-m-o-o-t-h— but his voice betrayed him and trembled, and his body

continued to quake.
He tightened his grip and steadied himself, "I've had a whole string of you and

Davys. What do you think of that?"
She started to say something, then stopped. Frantically, and for the last time,

Davy thought Hurry, hurry; but she didn't say anything at all, and that's when

the razor finally moved.
"No!" Davy screamed, "no, no, no!" He screamed it over and over, until his words

fell to whispers and his whispers to silence and his hands clasped his mouth and

he heard only her body dropping heavily to the trailer floor.
Davy's hands collapsed to his legs. His lips still moved— no, no, no— but their

sounds had slipped away.
Chet's head swung slowly toward him, and he locked his dark eyes on the boy.

Right then Davy knew Chet would always be there watching him, never letting go.
1
Celia took off her smock and draped it over a chair, happy to shed the extra

layer. The heat was starting to get to her, and she knew she'd better quit. Her

Sunday-morning session at her easel had ended. As she walked out of her studio

she glanced at the wall to her left, which was covered with children's art, and

smiled at her growing collection.
Jack was no longer in the living room where she'd left him with the newspaper,

what, two hours ago? That long, really? She wandered out the front door and

found it just as stifling outside as it was in the house, then walked around the

corner of the deck to the bathroom window. Last weekend he'd painted the inside

trim, but hadn't taken the time to scrape the splatters off the glass. He said

he'd clean them up today, and it looked as if he'd finished the job, but where

was he? She had trouble seeing in because of the sunlight on the screen.
"Jack?"
She heard him quickly fold up the paper. "Yeah?"
"We better get moving on this. I'm going to go on down to the tank."
"Okay, I'll be right there."
They had put off the fire drill for months, and she wanted to inspect the

equipment and check the water supply before the temperature topped one hundred.

The sun already burned directly overhead, and the trees offered little shade.

The day was turning into a real scorcher. Smoky, too. Half of Oregon seemed to

be in flames. Nothing but forest fires and drought from one end of the state to

the other. Land as dry as a biscuit.
Celia and Jack Griswold lived on an exposed ridge twenty minutes from Bentman,

far outside the reach of the town's modest fire department. But they thought the

inconveniences— even the dangers— were worth the solitude and the view. The

Bentman River Valley spread out almost two thousand feet below them, and

wherever they looked they saw irrigated orchards, mountains, streams, and

rivers.
But they could also see thousands of acres of clear-cuts— more of them every

year— and even on a hazy day big brown gaping holes appeared in the green fabric

of the land, dead spaces, like abandoned buildings, where nothing much lived.
Celia walked down their well-rutted driveway, lined on her right by brittle

grass and growths of scraggly scrub oak, and on her left by a row of young firs

that looked like neatly trimmed Christmas trees. But when she stopped and rubbed

the needles, they crumbled in her hand.
She looked up at the gray pall that hung over the valley.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire." Jack caught up to her. "That's from the big

forest fire near Portland. Seven thousand acres so far."
Celia nodded. "Seems like half the state is burning. Let's make sure everything

is still working."
They brushed past the branches of one of the young firs and made their way

around bushes and trees to a large wooden cover that seemed to hover inches

above the dry grass. It capped a round tank that had been sunk deep into the

ground. The tank measured eight feet across and could store enough water to

fight a serious blaze. A short weathered wooden shelter stood nearby. It housed