CHAPTER TWENTY

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

—Kahlil Gibran

Seventeen Years Ago

Patient Number 0022

The sun grew dim, the warmth abated, but still Jett walked, following that elegant bird as it dipped and rose, its head turning now and again to make sure he wasn’t lost.

Don’t be afraid, it told him, speaking in some way he didn’t know how to explain, delivering messages straight into his head.

The scent of pine increased, and then something else met his nose, mixed with the smells of the earth and the air. Animals.

Sheep. Pigs. Goats.

He moaned and gripped his head as acid fear rained down, penetrating his skin and melting his bones.

Feathers. He felt feathers on his cheek, ruffling over his neck, and he gasped, turning slightly to see the dove sitting on his shoulder. The dove let out a cooing sound, tilting her head and rubbing it on Jett’s jaw. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. Thud, thud, thud. His hammering heart slowed; air filled his hollow lungs.

Feel your feet on the ground. Feel the air on your skin. Feel the beating of your heart within your chest.

The dove flapped her wings, and he felt the press of her feet as she pushed off his shoulder and flew into the air, swooping and soaring. Free.

Come with me.

I don’t want to.

But you must. If you want to be free like me, you must. Your story is here, and we’re going to find it. Together.

I don’t want to find it. It’s not a good story.

Even bad stories must be told. Especially those.

Why?

Because once it’s over, a story is only something with a beginning and a middle and also an end. You’ll see it as a whole, and there will be no need to live it anymore.

But he wasn’t living it, was he? How could he be, when the memories of it only came in punching flashes of red light and shrieking pain? Jett watched his dove fly for a moment, flapping and gliding, soaring, above and away. The forest around him dimmed, and he knew the beginning of his story was up ahead, the one he didn’t know but couldn’t forget. He had no desire to find it, but he also didn’t want his dove—his guide—to leave him behind.

A child darted from behind a tree, startling him so that he leaped back. The little boy was laughing, and his laughter both echoed sharply and was somehow muffled, as if two separate times had collided right in front of him. The boy was here, and he was there, or maybe the other way around. The boy didn’t turn his head, so Jett couldn’t see his face before he disappeared behind a different tree on the opposite side of the path.

Follow.

I don’t want to.

Follow.

Jett lifted his foot. It felt like it was stuck in quicksand. But he put it in front of him and then lifted the other, moving forward into that dark wood where the little boy had run.

The animal smells came again. But still he clomped forward, his guide never flying out of sight, only dipping and rising and soaring so that he could keep his eyes on her as she led the way.

A farm. He’d come from a farm, and though he’d vowed never to return, he was returning there now. A feeling rose inside him, a prickly mass that was flavored with salt and acid. It tasted like his tears and his pain, and it felt like a boulder that might crush his inner organs into a bloody, soupy mess.

When he wept, he felt her feathers on his cheek. Back, forth, back, forth. And he felt his feet on the ground and the beating of his heart. And then he continued on because there was nowhere else to go.

The house came into sight first, a two-story farmhouse with peeling white paint and a dilapidated porch, sitting in front of a mournful mountain that rose into the sky. He saw the old tractor sitting in the field, its seat empty. The pewter sky yawned wide, stirring up the wind that blew the tall grass so that it bent sideways and stayed that way.

Where is he?

Where is who?

My grandfather.

I don’t know.

Where are you?

Where am I?

The boy darted out from behind the tractor, running through the field. Running toward the small shed at the back of the property that throbbed with darkness and despair.

I’m there. I’m inside that shed.

Show me.

Jett didn’t want to show his guide what was in that shed, but his feet moved anyway, the soft, gentle rustling of his dove’s wings luring him along.

Again, his legs felt leaden, his steps so heavy each one made his muscles ache. A goat ran up to the fence on his right, sticking its small nose through the rails. Grief trembled. Fear. Sorrow. He recognized that goat. It was the one his grandfather had butchered because he’d stupidly shown a fondness for it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

The goat made a sound and then turned and ran away, leaping and twisting, the way happy goats do.

Suddenly, the field was behind him, and he stood at the door to the small building, staring at the rough grain of the wood. The moan of the wind melded with his own, and despite his fear, despite the sick roiling of his guts, he reached for the door and pushed. It squeaked on its rusted hinges, opening slowly, the light trickling in to join that which filtered through the one dusty window covered in cobwebs.

His eyes tracked slowly over the contents of the shed, moving from the space beside the door toward the back. A three-wheeled wagon, a pile of scrap wood, four broken pots, one with faded yellow daisies on it. He wondered who’d chosen that pot when it was new, sitting on a store shelf. My grandmother? Did she think it pretty? Did it make her smile? Did she know what that pot would come to see when it was a broken heap of shards on a dirt floor in an old shed?

That wind again, moaning, shaking the drafty walls of the shed so that Jett wondered if it might blow over. It should. It had no right to stand.

His dove was on his shoulder again, caressing his cheek with her wing, cooing and humming, her voice so sweet. He raised his eyes from those broken pots and looked into the dim corner at the back.

There I am. I’m alone.

Snowflakes hit his cheeks, and he didn’t know when it had started snowing, but he was shaking from the cold.

He was there, and he was here, both in that dark corner curled into a ball and standing at the door.

There you are. But you’re not alone.

He gasped, his teeth chattering. “I’m not alone now, but I was ... then. He put me here. He left me in the cold.”

Why did he put you here alone? his guide asked.

To punish me. He walked toward the child, curled up on a burlap sack against the back wall. He stood over him, looking down. He felt his tremors, and his misery. His deep shame. He felt his utter aloneness. To make me suffer.

What does he need?

A blanket. Some food.

Let’s get him some, and then you can tell me more.

Where do I get a blanket or some food? I’m helpless.

You’re no such thing. And you have me. Just ask and I’ll provide.

She was gone for a blink, and by the time Jett went down on his knees next to the small child that was him, his dove was back with a blanket and a warm piece of buttered toast.

He covered the little boy with the warm blanket, and the child’s eyes fluttered open. He stared at Jett, who held the toast to his mouth and coaxed him to eat.

Tell me what he suffers, his dove said. Tell me what he feels.

So Jett told his guide about the frost and the hurt and the loneliness and the hunger. He told her about the door that clattered open to show the staggering man outlined by the moon. He felt hot wax dripping down his cheeks, because he was melting into the earth, dissolving like the candle his grandmother burned in the window of the house where he wasn’t allowed. And yet he wasn’t dissolving, because he felt the child who was him in his arms and the whisper-soft feathers of his dove just under his chin. Back, forth, back, forth. He smelled the cold and the pine and the dirt and the grease, but he also smelled the toasted bread slathered with creamy butter, and he tasted it on his tongue as he fed it to the child in his arms.

You’re protecting him now, do you see that? Do you see how he looks at you? His rescuer. How do you feel about the child in your arms?

Jett looked down at the little boy. He saw the dirty tear tracks on his small face. He knew his pain and his fear. He felt the places in his body where he hurt, even the shameful ones. He knew his hopes, the ones he kept so small because thinking about them caused an agony deeper than his physical aches to rise up inside him so suddenly that he felt strangled by the pain. He knew nothing else to do but to rock the boy. And so he did. Back, forth, back, forth.

What else does he need, other than the blanket and the food? his guide asked.

Crystal tears shimmered on the boy’s dark lashes, and Jett felt a light begin to glow in his heart that was both his and the boy’s. It shocked him. He’d never felt it before, but now he did, and there was no question of what it was. Love. It came alive. It melded and mixed, a shimmering rainbow, the colors bright and sparkling, creating yet other colors that blossomed and burst and beat. Thud, thud, thud. The growing mix of twinkling colors pulsated in the air around him, enveloping him in the warmth, and he felt it, on his skin and in his soul. Love. He needs love.

Well, good, because you’re loving him. He heard the smile in his guide’s voice that wasn’t a voice. Hold him closer. Hold him tight.

And Jett did, until there was only one of them sitting in that cold, dim shed.

Is there any reason to stay here?

His arms lowered. It was only him there, and a ray of sun had found its way through the single grimy window. Jett turned his face toward it and felt its warmth. The space brightened so intensely that Jett had to close his eyes from the glare.

No, there’s nothing here now. I’m ready to go.