CHAPTER THIRTY

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

—William Shakespeare

Seventeen Years Ago

Patient Number 0022

The world brightened another shade, and Jett looked around, the bus station shimmering and wavering, like a desert mirage that wasn’t really there.

Is he you?

Jett swallowed. He felt the lump move down his throat, felt the breath grow thin in his lungs. Feathers caressed his cheek. Back, forth, back, forth. He was him, and the boy was a different boy, and he felt scared and sad and guilt ridden and shameful. He wanted to run, but he wanted to stay, and he knew the boy, but he didn’t want to say his name. No, he’s not me. He’s someone else. He’s my ... friend.

Shall we stay? Or shall we board that bus? It’s up to you. It’s always up to you, his guide said. But now her voice didn’t come from a distance. It was right beside him, and it had breath that was minty, and the wings that tickled his cheek and comforted him smelled like flowers and coconuts. The world grew a shade brighter, and he felt something against his back. A chair, or a couch. Soft. It was soft. More scents invaded his nostrils. Something sweet, something bitter. There were sounds outside him, too, but he wasn’t sure what they were. Movement, whispers, the whirring of a machine.

“If I stay, it will be bad,” he said, and he heard his own voice, he felt it as he pushed it from his mouth. No monster crushed it. He was free to speak if he wanted. He took in a mouthful of air, and his lungs expanded. Full.

There are bad parts of stories, his guide said. Bad things make up stories too.

Yes, but it was ... it was his story, and he could tell it. But he’d also lived it, and it hurt to know that. He felt wetness on his cheeks, and he felt the flowery coconut feathers too. Back, forth, back, forth. “I’ll have to go back there to tell it,” he told her.

“That’s okay. I’ll be with you. I’ll be there to hear your story.”

“Will you still like me when you know?” Would anyone like him? How could they?

He felt her release a gust of minty air, and that feathery caress on his cheek never halted, not even for a moment. Back, forth, back, forth. “I will love you. No matter what.”

He felt his lids fluttering, but he didn’t want to open his eyes. They were so heavy, and he was tired, and he could travel without opening his eyes. And so he did, back through town to the road that would bring him to the farm where his story had begun. Back to find the boy. Even though he was scared, and he didn’t want to return, he knew he had to.

His story had a beginning, and it had a middle, but it didn’t yet have an end.

The sky grew darker as he walked, the low rumble of thunder sounding in the misty air. The rain began to fall in steady streams. It was salty and bitter, and it stung his skin like acid. The little boy peeked out from behind a tree, his red shirt the only color in the dull landscape. He’d been laughter and joy, and he’d been Jett’s only friend. The boy gestured with his hand. “Come on.” Jett followed, his feet trudging along behind the boy, watching as he darted here and there, hiding, laughing. He was playing a game, a long-ago game with the boy Jett had been, who was now wrapped in the safety of his grown-up body.

He leaned around the tree and tapped the boy on his shoulder, and the boy startled and laughed. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember you,” Jett said. He was so sad. God, he was so sad. The rain drenched him, falling in sheets.

“You did remember,” the boy told him. “You never forgot. And you came back for me.”

“Yes, but . . .”

With a burst of laughter, the boy ran off through the rain. The one who’d come from the farm a few miles away to play with him. Milo. The name stabbed at his underbelly, wounding him. He saw where Milo was running, alarm ringing through him. “No!”

Jett ran, sprinting through the rain where Milo had disappeared into the fog, running toward that shed that had been his prison and his torture chamber. Nonono. Oh God, no. The flutter of white feathers sounded next to him, his guide easily keeping pace.

Breathless, Jett skidded to a stop in front of the shed, going down on his knees as he sobbed. Nonono. “Open the door. I’m right here with you.”

His shoulders shook, his whole body trembled as he reached his fingers through the rain that now felt thick and sludgy, clutching the door handle and pulling it open, inch by slow inch. And when it was open, the sight stopped his heart, razors ripping down his throat, his muscles seizing. His grandfather was doing what he’d done to Jett. His pants were down around his ankles, and Milo was bent over the bench, facing away. Agony. Milo’s agony ripped through him. Jett’s mouth opened wide, and he yelled, a thousand swarming flies swelling from his lips. He threw himself toward his grandfather, to make him stop . Oh God, please no, stop. His grandfather raised his arm and smacked him. Jett’s body hit the wood wall of the shed with a sharp thud, ears ringing, those flies continuing to buzz buzz buzz BUZZ BUZZ. Milo had been yelling, but now he stopped. The only sound in Jett’s head was the incessant drone. The world spun, and when the hissing black insects cleared, he saw that his grandfather’s hands were around Milo’s neck and he was squeezing.

“You think you can let someone on my property without my permission, boy?” his grandfather yelled as he shook Milo’s body like a rag doll. The child was limp, his face purple.

Jett was frozen with fear, with horror, his head fuzzy, everything spinning and buzzing and swelling and receding. Jett dragged himself to his feet, using his hand to brace himself on the wall, reaching for Milo even though he knew he was already dead. Tar dripped from Jett’s eyes and into his mouth, trapping his tongue as it dried and hardened. “Look what you made me do!” his grandfather yelled. “Get out!”

And so Jett did, tripping over the threshold, slamming the door, shutting out the sight, another mass of flies rising in his body, scratching and biting the underside of his flesh.

A gust of wind sprang up, and Jett was whipped around, and he saw the little boy that was him running away, away, away. He couldn’t help Milo, not now, and he hadn’t then. He hadn’t then. Oh God, he hadn’t then. And so he ran after the little boy that was him, the one that had been wrapped in the safety of his body but had fled at that long-ago sight burrowed into the recesses of his twisted mind.

He ran and he ran and he ran, the rain coming harder and harder. Soaking. Pounding. Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud. His fingers caught on the little boy’s shirt, and he grabbed him and pulled, wrapping him in his arms, both of them falling to their knees in the mud and the rain, sobbing and clawing and finally dissolving into one another. He landed on the soft earth, his arms wrapped around nothing, drawing himself into a ball, the soft brush of feathers drying his tears. Back, forth, back, forth.

“There you go. There you go. You’re okay, now. You’re okay. I’m here. I’m here. And so are you. So are you.”

Yes, he was here, not there. There was fabric beneath him, and the whisper of voices around him and the whir of a machine, and the scents of flowers and coconut and mint and coffee too. This was now, and that was then, and oh God, that was then. He felt the tears sliding down his cheeks, and he remembered the then. He remembered Milo.

He lifted his heavy lids, the watercolor now clearing, the faces around him taking shape. Concerned. Smiling. “Hello, sweetness,” the woman said. Her name was Maisie. He’d met her in the before.

A man approached. Dr. Sweeton. He knew Dr. Sweeton. He was the man who’d tested him, and evaluated him, and asked him question after question after question. The doctor smiled and took his hand. “How are you feeling?”

How are you feeling? He took in a breath and let it out slowly. “Tired,” he said. His voice cracked. His muscles felt weak, like he’d just run a marathon.

“I imagine you do.” The doctor took out a small light and shone it in his eyes. It was bright and caused him to squint and look away. “Do you know what today’s date is?”

He thought about that. He’d signed the forms, and he’d sat in the reclining chair where they’d put a sticker on his skin with a wire that led to a machine that monitored his heart. He’d said he was ready even though he didn’t know for sure if that was true or not. He couldn’t really remember what he’d been thinking then. It seemed blurry and unclear, another life. But it wasn’t. It was ... what had the doctor told him? The therapy would take seven days. So that would make it ... “April seventeenth,” he said.

The doctor smiled. “That’s right. And what is your name?”

Jett.

But that wasn’t right. That was just a word a prostitute named Maria had called him when he’d rebuffed her advances for what must have been the tenth time and turned away. Always running off, she’d insisted. Jettin’ here, jettin’ there. Can’t stand still enough for a ten-dollar, three-minute blow, she’d said with a mucous-filled laugh. I’m gonna call you Jett!

The thing was, she’d been right. He couldn’t sit still. He wished he could. Not that that would have made him take her up on the ten-dollar blow. He’d turned back toward her and tossed her the last of a pack of cigarettes for some reason he couldn’t explain, because he usually didn’t give things away. Her eyes had lit up like she’d won the lottery, and she’d held that pack of cigarettes in the air and let out a whoop. And when he’d jetted out of the hotel, she’d opened the door behind him and shouted to all the drug addicts and pimps and prostitutes milling about the street, “That’s Jett right there. I call him Jett cuz he’s always jettin’ off somewhere. But he’s all right! That dude is all right.” And someone had remembered that and called him Jett later—or, less often, J.D.—and it’d stuck, and so that’s who he’d become. But Jett wasn’t his name—not his real one, anyway. “Ambrose,” he said. “My name is Ambrose DeMarce.”