As we move from place to place, I see that Norman and Franky were right. We need each other. The Homestead is just barely hanging on. If it wasn’t for Crystal, I could easily imagine that everyone would just wander away on their own, in some kind of daze, and the place I grew up in would be no more. I used to think that the Homestead was unbreakable, something as unshakeable as a rock, but now I see it as it probably always was—fragile and precarious. It’s another revelation to me. Like most of the others, it’s discomfiting.
All day Franky is like the old Franky. He’s kind and gentle and helpful. He walks from house to house and person to person with his tool box in his hand, as if it was like the old days, as if he was coming to ask about some broken hinges and not to make sure you weren’t in the process of hanging yourself or guzzling rat poison. I feel most of my rancor toward him dissipate. Most of it. Sometimes, when we are alone, I can see him looking at me with distrust. And maybe something else, something dark and intense. Although I know the Homestead needs him badly, it’s dangerous for me to stay here. I can feel it. I am more certain than ever that if Franky found Eric, it would be the end of Eric’s life. I have no doubt.
All day I plan out the evening. I think about Eric up in the Land Rover. I know that I have to leave, and I have to leave tonight. If I stay much longer, I may find it too difficult to leave. I know it’s going to hurt people when I vanish. It will be yet another blow to the Homestead. It’s not really that I am necessary here, but that I am, like Franky and Norman said, a reminder of Eric. I’m like a walking memory of more secure times, like a promise it can be that way again. I’m sorry I can’t be that for them, but I won’t let Eric die. If I stay, someone will eventually find him and, “for the good of the community,” they will kill him.
They will have to find their own hope.
I will have to find mine.
41
When I leave Franky’s side for the day, he looks at me meaningfully and says, “See you tomorrow.” I get the gist. This is supposed to be my new job, following him around like his new puppy dog. If I wasn’t planning on leaving, I’d have to think about a way out of this, but since I’m already opting for a good old fashioned skedaddle, I nod and give him a hesitant smile, like I’m still missing Eric, but following him around is giving me hope. That’s what I go for anyway. Franky turns away before I can figure if my little game seemed to work on him. But I feel like it does. I can kind of sense him thinking that he’s got things under control. He has that air about him as he walks back toward his house. I don’t stand there and watch him though, that would be creepy, so I turn away and stride back to our house.
I feel almost good when I shut the door. All day I’ve had eyes on me. Franky, Norman, Pest, Crystal, all of them. Some with concern, some with interest, some with a kind of desperate, pathetic hope, like just by being around, I can make it better that half of us just got killed by the Vaca B. I try not to think of that. I smiled at everyone, or at least tried to, but it’s a lot of pressure. It felt like lying. So getting inside a nice, dark space that is all mine feels damn good, to put it bluntly. I put the bar across the door to keep anyone from barging in and take a deep, wonderful breath of exquisite privacy. I just want to close my eyes and rest for like a week, but I shake that feeling away.
Okay, Birdie, time to plan.
I have two backpacks: one is very large and the other is much more modest. The big one is for Eric. I figure he can carry a lot, even in his state. A backpack will make him look less suspicious from a distance, and it might even disguise the janky way he walks. I feel a little guilty for thinking of Eric like some kind of pack mule, but I brush this away. It’s for his own good, after all. I have to think about food and clothes. I start stuffing in the backpack whatever I can find. Plastic bags of dried venison, jars of vegetables and pickled eggs, apples, carrots, anything we have around. Then a tent (everyone around here has tents) and some sleeping bags (we have a lot of those too), and then another bag filled with first aid stuff and whatever else I can think of taking with us, like some old, gnarled fishing line that I see. The backpack is big but not that big. It fills up depressingly fast. I unpack and start again. This goes on and on for a few hours. It’s terrible what I have to sacrifice.
Then I begin putting on layers of clothes, several of them. I feel like a stuffed turkey when I’m finished, but we’ll need these clothes. Some of these are Eric’s clothes, so I can take them off when I get to him, but for now, I have to walk around like this. I grab all of the matches I can find. There’s a lot of them, but there have to be. They don’t always work. Every year that goes by, less of them work. They’re wrapped in three or four tight layers of plastic, because if they come into contact with moisture, they deteriorate fast. I grab a couple more jackknifes too, because there’s never enough of those.
Then I realize I’m done. I’m standing in the middle of the only home I’ve ever known, or at least the only one I remember, and I realize that I’m leaving. I don’t even know if I’m coming back. My heart is suddenly wrenched, like someone grabbed it and twisted. I almost fall to my knees it hurts so bad. I don’t want to go. With my whole being, I don’t want to leave. I never realized what this house meant to me until that moment, all those nights eating at the table with Eric, playing cards with Eric, talking with him about everything, reading books to each other. All we suffered here, all we laughed. I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again. It’s another loss after everything else, and I feel myself begin to tremble and the tears start to well up in my eyes.
That’s when the door shudders. Someone tried to come in without knocking. I stand up, my tears forgotten, my heart throbbing with anxiety.
The door shudders again, this time more violently.
It must be Franky. Fear grips me. I’m standing in the middle of the house with all my belongings packed. I’m wearing so many clothes, I’m swollen up like a tick. There won’t be any way of explaining this. He’ll want to know where I’m going. And why. And nothing I say, no elaborate lie is going to hide this.
“Hey, Kestrel, you in there?!” a voice calls out, followed by a couple bangs on the door.
It’s Pest. I’m relieved, but not happy to hear his voice.
“What do you want?” I cry out toward the door. I didn’t have to pretend to be annoyed. “I’m washing up in here!”
Maybe that would have caused some shame in most people. Not Pest. “Franky wants to know if you’re coming to the Lodge for supper.”
“What are you, his messenger or something?”
“Something like that,” Pest says. He kicks the door softly. “You coming or what?”
“What,” I answer. Maybe I should be a little smarter about this, but something about Pest gets to me.
“So you’re not coming to eat?” he asks. “You don’t want to eat?” He sounds doubtful.
“I can eat here, you know,” I say. But my own tone sounds more belligerent than it should, even to me. So I continue. “Listen, I’m tired and dirty. I just want to clean up and have some bread and go to bed.”
“You using boiled water to clean?” Pest says through the door. “Norman says boiled water from now on, even to clean.”
“Yes, I’m using boiled water to scrub my armpits, all right? Any more questions or can I finish what I’m doing?”
“All right, all right! Don’t lose your shit, for crying out loud,” Pest answers. That really irritates me for some reason.
“I’ll lose my shit if I think my shit needs losing!” I cry out. “If I need someone to tell me when and when not to lose my shit, I’ll let you know. You can be my official finder of shit, how’s that? If I lose my shit, you’ll be the first shit sniffer I call. How’s that?”