as low rumbles came across the fields, Nicky jumped up as if he craved the storm. I craved it too. Nothing was more important now than to be outside with Nicky, our faces against the air while the storm whirled around us.
On the final day of the thunderstorms, I woke early, my skin cool. Outside was silent. I got up and moved as if through heavy air, my hands relying on the walls and furniture edges, all of my senses cottoned up. I walked down the stairs, fingertips on the clock wallpaper, instinctively stepping as close to the inside as possible to avoid creaks. At the bottom I paused, my hand on the newel post, and listened to my father’s snores warble through the half-open bedroom door. I checked the living room couch out of habit and was glad to see Sylvia not there. A few more steps, through the kitchen and the mud room, and I was in the back yard.
Outside, I folded myself into a chaise longue under the pear tree, the morning heat already enough to warm me, and gazed past the house. The slightest curve of sun was rising. Behind a pink film of clouds peered the concrete sky I’d grown used to all week, but the sun was there now and that was all I needed to know.
I fell asleep and dreamed and woke with my mouth hanging open, a clear stream of drool joining my lip to my red nightie. I was unsure where I was.
The chaise longue creaked as I got up, and an earwig skittered across the canvas. I walked through the long grass in the back yard and down the hill into the town in the sunshine, past all the familiar houses, cutting through the fallen branches along Mrs. Brant’s stream, over the tracks, past Hoppy’s Wrecking Yard and across the road to the ballpark. The park was full of activity: a fair with livestock and rides by the river and a baseball tournament. Sam was playing and so was Sylvia, who stood in right field wearing an oversized catcher’s mitt. I wanted to be in the game but I couldn’t make myself go over.
Instead, I headed toward the Stevens’ house. Their front door was open, so I entered, passing through Mrs. Stevens’ dining room with its rows of plates along the tops of the walls, into the long, skinny kitchen and out through the back yard where the Stevens were having a family party. They glanced up without acknowledging me. I continued until their voices and the umpire’s shouts and the Ferris wheel music had faded into a low insect hum and I was in the grass alone. The field grass was much shorter now. It gleamed deep emerald. All sound disappeared. I heard only a roar like the inner folds of a conch shell pressed to my ear.
When I looked up, I was in a graveyard. I could see no houses or people in any direction, even though the Stevens’ house wasn’t that far behind me and the river was somewhere up ahead.
I looked around again. The field had filled with intricate bushes: lilacs, wild rose, sumac, honeysuckle, peony — and wilder things too: nettles, thistles, milkweed, golden rod, burdock. The field invited me to explore, to crawl between the branches on the dirt and grass floor. The bushes parted and receded as I made my way between the slim gravestones, many of which had upheaved themselves, exposing raw earth. The ground was spongy, lumpy. Water seeped into the edges of my footprints. The gravestones wore such mottled faces that even when I wet my fingers and rubbed the surface of the engraved letters I couldn’t read the names of the buried. A secret wanted to reveal itself but no matter how deeply I went into the graveyard, I was unable to expose it.
I squatted and discovered pieces of blue and green glass and washed white china, the edges rubbed smooth as though by water. I folded my fingers over them, their sleekness calming me, flowing into my body. I had never heard of this cemetery before: to the best of my knowledge, Apple Ford had no burial sites for its citizens. I must have been the only one who knew about it. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed a graveyard before.
Seconds later I was awake, really awake in the chaise longue, my skin gummy. I knew now what to do with the lightning wood. I would fashion a man from it and when the storms were over I would walk through town, find the graveyard and bury him there. This man would be my charm against Sylvia. Only his burial would protect me.
It happened in the kitchen the day after the storms broke, the sky a blue so bright it ached to look at it.
I woke to the crunch of gravel. Through the maple leaves outside my window, I saw the corner of the green Impala as Sam turned south out of the driveway. The house was silent. Outside was a cacophony: birds, squirrels, shrieks of children, cars, chainsaws, lawnmowers, hoses. It wouldn’t thunder that day. Sylvia was sitting in the kitchen. I could tell it in my bones. I could almost smell the smoke sidling under my door, coming for me.
The storms had been a buffer against Sylvia all week. Now the skies were clear and there was nothing to protect me from my mother’s rawness. Sylvia’s presence, the force of her will, urged me to come downstairs to see for myself that all was clear, that the storms had made my mother fine if only I would see for myself. If I went down though it wouldn’t be alright; it would be worse than ever. There was nothing I could say to my mother. The words sank into me, building on the mountain of hurt. The more Sylvia tried to make things look alright, the more obvious it became that they weren’t.
Instead I sat on my bed. Sylvia no longer cared when I woke up — or if she even saw me all day. I’d swiped Sam’s Swiss Army knife and I whittled and shaped the wood I’d collected with the spear blade and nail file. I glued white circles with numbers inside them on the sides, the brown mucilage coming from a bottle with a red rubber top. The end result would be a man. It would be big and it would have some charm. If I worked hard and fast enough, it might alter what was fermenting downstairs.
By the time the sky had darkened down to navy and June bugs were battering my screens, I was only half-finished, if that. The smell of burning meat, barbecue sauce and charcoal briquettes drifted in and made my stomach growl. I cut the numbers faster, no longer varying the sizes, just getting the job done. My fingers were gummed and I had to peel glue off my skin with my fingernails. Wood shavings and scraps of paper stuck in the holes of my afghan. I’d added pale yellow cocoon husks and praying mantis carcasses and maple keys and a Centennial penny flattened by the steam train. An old Latin textbook of Sam’s formed the base.
Downstairs a door slammed. I heard Nicky’s familiar stomp. Sylvia’s voice rose sharply: “Where have you been?”
I picked at the crust of glue on the red rubber bottle top.
Sylvia spoke again, her voice quavering: “You can’t just do what you want to. You have rules.”
Something metal crashed and Sylvia pleaded: “Nicky, why can’t you be nice? Why don’t you say something? Answer me. Please answer me.”
I picked up the scissors and nipped at the skin around my fingernails. Lately I hadn’t heard much more than a guttural command from my mother.
Sylvia’s pleas continued, picking up momentum, slicing through the thick, smoky evening air and pressing my fingers to move faster, the glue clotting on my skin.
“You’re such a good-looking boy. You could make yourself look so good. I bet girls really like you. You have my dark hair and skin. You’re going to be a beautiful man someday.”
I imagined Sylvia drawing Nicky to her, twining her fingers through his hair, the way she did when she used to comb mine in the mornings. Nicky’s hair was smooth with no knots to catch her fingers. My hair was frizzy and light brown, my skin pale. How strange to have a brother more beautiful than you. I strained to hear Nicky’s voice, but Sylvia’s loud singsong blotted everything out. Nicky must be standing still, leaning into her, lulled. She would pull his hair enough to make his scalp feel good. Nicky could never see what was really going on.
Then Nicky exploded.
“Fucking bitch!” he screeched, his voice higher than a girl’s.
His
