The three of us head toward the family room. Kath grabs a remote and turns down the volume on the cartoons. The white-haired Children of the Corn turn around with wide, brown eyes and slink up to the sofa next to her. Their stares freak me out. They look damn near identical, but one’s clearly a girl and the other a boy.
“Gretchen, Gideon,” Kath says, slipping her arms behind their backs, “this is your big brother, Jensen. Can you say hello to him before you go wash up for bed?”
The kids say nothing. They’re small. Maybe five or six. Kath titters, twisting the gold cross around her neck. I don’t give a fuck. They don’t have to say hi. The girl can’t stop staring at my swollen eyes. I imagine I look scary as hell.
“It’s all right.” I’d wink, but I can’t.
Mercy and Kath make some kind of small talk. I tune them out, scanning my perimeter. This is my new home. There are doilies on the backs of the armchairs and a big, oak table in the dining room. I count twelve chairs. Why the fuck would she need twelve chairs?
“Shall we go see Jensen’s room?” Mercy stands up, clutching her clipboard and clicking her pen.
“Well,” Kath says. Her gaze shifts from mine to Mercy’s and back. “This was all short notice… a-and while it’s certainly a wonderful blessing… we… I’m not quite prepared…”
Mercy nods. “Understandable. Does he have a bed? A place to sleep?”
Kath leads us down a hall and up a set of stairs to the second level. “There’s an extra bed in Gideon’s room he can use for now… until we figure things out.”
I don’t want to bunk with a six-year-old, but Mercy doesn’t pry, and it’s not like I have a choice.
I check my reflection in a nearby mirror, cringing, and grip the railing as we file upstairs. A moment later, we’re standing in the middle of a kindergartener’s room, complete with dinosaur wallpaper and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Two twin beds rest opposite one another: one outfitted with dinosaur bedding and the other with a white comforter and a single, flat pillow. I assume that one’s for me.
“I always wanted a room like this,” I say, monotone. It’s a dig at Kath, reminding her of the childhood I never had, but I don’t think she picks up on it. She’s flighty and oblivious, like a hummingbird. I wonder if my father made her that way.
Mercy laughs. “This will do fine for now. This okay with you, Jensen?”
I offer a tightlipped nod, favoring the side of me that doesn’t currently have a row of bruised ribs.
The second we leave Dinosaurland, Kath points me toward a hall bathroom and shows me how the light switch is on the outside of the door, and then she mentions the linen closet is at the end of the hall. When we’re all downstairs again, Kath and Mercy linger at the door, talking like old friends. I’ve known Mercy a whopping twenty-four hours, but I’ve seen how she’s good with people like that. She has a way of making anyone comfortable, and I suppose that’s why she does what she does.
Mercy, with her cotton-candy voice, chubby mom hands, and warm smile, reminds me not everyone is filled with darkness.
“I better get going,” she says before sighing, as if she regrets having to leave. The smallest sliver of me doesn’t want her to go because now shit’s about to get real.
Real awkward.
“Feelings make you weak, boy.” My father’s words echo in my head. He raised me on toughened quotes mixed with scripture, which he conveniently twisted and turned to suit his lectures.
Kath shows Mercy out and shuts the door. She turns and our eyes meet. The two kids have disappeared upstairs. It’s just us. No social worker. No bullshit niceties required. I expect her to let her guard down and morph into someone else entirely, but she doesn’t. She stands there, shifting from one foot to the other, her fingers intertwined like she’s knitting a goddamned sweater with her hands.
“I remind you of him, don’t I?” I place a hand on my hip and cock my head, studying a face that hardly resembles mine. Her features are soft and bland, not hard and angled like Josiah’s and mine. Josiah’s hair is as dark as his heart, and I take after him in that regard as well. We’re built of muscle and brute, though I’m bigger than him. We wear our strength like a second skin.
She brushes past me, heading toward the kitchen where she fills a teakettle with water and nestles it on the stove.
“Tea?” she asks. She must want to talk. I’m not in the mood to hear her bullshit excuses as to why she abandoned me and walked away from her own flesh and blood. I’m not interested in hearing how sorry she is.