Life and Other Inconveniences(128)

“Sheppard?” he whispered. His brother didn’t answer.

Clark didn’t remember getting down to him.

But he did remember that when he got to his brother, Sheppard’s eyes were a little bit open but not blinking. Clark nudged him with his foot, hoping Sheppard would jump and say, “Boo! Got you!”

But he didn’t. His almost-closed eyes didn’t flicker.

Clark remembered the bird that had flown into the window last week, then fallen to the grass right when they were eating breakfast.

“Poor thing broke its neck,” Daddy had said. Its eyes had been the same way.

His breath hitched out of him. He couldn’t tell on himself. He was very cold now. Very cold.

Maybe the water would revive Sheppard. Maybe he had fainted, or bumped his head really hard. It was easy to roll him into the water. Clark was a big boy and strong. He would make a great football player.

Sheppard sank, his white skin shining in the water like the belly of the dead sunfish. The water was deep.

Clark waited, but Sheppard didn’t come up again.

Then he went back to the car. His shin hurt. The rest of him was somewhere else. He was shivering harder now.

“Where were you?” Daddy said as he came to the car. “Did you go poop?”

Clark shook his head. He couldn’t speak.

“Get in the car, honey. You’re shaking! We’re on our way home, don’t worry. Here, put this towel around you. It’s dry. Sheppard! Come on, son! Time to go!”

Things went gray after that. He heard his father’s voice drift in and out of his head, sometimes loud, sometimes not, getting more and more afraid. When Daddy jumped in the car and beeped the horn, Clark didn’t twitch. When he ran up and down the path, Clark just sat there. When Daddy drove like a maniac, as Mama said, down the dirt road to the nearest house, Clark didn’t say a word. When the police came, when Mama came, when Daddy finally remembered that Clark was sick and a policeman put him in the car, and more and more people came to the lake, he still never said a word.

At some point, he fell asleep. He woke up in his own bed, but he was still gritty and sticky from the lake. It was morning now. He listened from the top of the stairs.

Sheppard was gone. No one could find him.

Clark knew that he’d get in trouble if he told. Mama would hate him. Even Daddy would hate him.

He padded back to his room and took a bath. He didn’t play with Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny, and when the bath was over, he took the big scissors from his desk and cut off their heads and put them in the trash.

Later that day, when the police asked where he last saw his brother, he said, “Packing up the car,” and added, “with Daddy.”

They asked if he’d seen anyone in the woods, and he said he’d been scared, but he hadn’t seen anyone. But maybe he had heard someone. He asked if there were Tree People out there who ate children, and meaningful glances were exchanged. “Why do you think there are Tree People?” the policeman asked, and Clark shook his head.

They asked if he knew where Sheppard had gone, and he said no. Then he started to cry, and his crying got out of control so he couldn’t breathe, and his mother told the police to stop asking him things. A doctor had to give Clark a shot, and he went right to sleep.

He had nightmares that Sheppard came out of the lake, accusing and furious, his eyes missing because the fish had eaten them. He woke up screaming. He dreamed that Sheppard was sitting on his bed, smiling, saying it was okay, he’d swum to shore, did Clark want to play?

He knew they were looking in the lake for his brother. He wanted them to find him. He prayed they wouldn’t.

As the days passed, and then the weeks, Clark missed his brother so much. Was this really how life was going to be now? Was Sheppard gone forever? Had Clark really done this bad, bad thing? It was so hard not to tell Daddy, because Daddy was still nice to him. Instead, he cried against Daddy’s chest, and Daddy cried, too, and told him he was a good boy, and how could Clark say anything then?

Mama didn’t seem to be herself anymore. She was here, but not here. People talked a lot about how nice Sheppard was, how perfect, how smart and kind, and eventually, a resentment started to grow in Clark. He remembered how Sheppard showed off that day. How he called him a baby and Piggy and didn’t help him on the rock when he was slipping. How he wouldn’t share the feather. What if Clark had been the one to fall? He almost had, and . . .

. . . and Sheppard had helped him.

No. Clark could never tell. What everyone said was right. Sheppard was better, and Clark was just . . . leftover.

People told Clark to be brave. They told him he was a good boy, and a good brother. He must miss Sheppard a lot, they said.

As the months trickled past, Clark got tired of how things were now. His parents didn’t get happy again. They cried and whispered a lot, and it was always Sheppard they talked about. Everything was about Sheppard, even more than it had been before. Finding Sheppard. Looking for Sheppard. Remembering Sheppard. It was as if Clark had gone away, too, except when his father tried to be nice, and even then, his father was forgetful and sad and not fun anymore.

This was really Sheppard’s fault. If Sheppard had been nicer, Clark wouldn’t have shoved him. If Sheppard had cared more about his stomachache—and he had had a stomachache, sort of—he wouldn’t be dead. If Sheppard hadn’t told him the story of the Tree People, Clark maybe would’ve loved camping. Maybe, just maybe, Sheppard deserved that shove. Not to go away forever, but to be shoved. Clark hadn’t meant for his brother to disappear. He’d just wanted him to shut up.