In Her Skin(47)

“Suit yourself. I don’t have a destination, you know. I’m just out here to think.”

“Your destination doesn’t concern me,” Gerry says.

The park on a Wednesday morning has some nannies with strollers and tourists, but it’s mostly empty in the way Boston clears out once the college students leave for the summer. I find a spot on a bench near the Ether Monument, a tall fountain-sculpture of a doctor holding a limp, nearly naked man and a cloth coated in ether, which is a pretty miraculous invention when you consider having your appendix out without it, for example. Anyway. I rarely look up at the naked guy: I prefer the carvings hidden under the arches below, especially the one I’m sitting in front of now, where an angel descends to an injured man.

“Neither shall there be any more pain,” I call to Gerry.

His eyes squeeze slightly, considering the inscription’s truth. Or doubting it.

I pat the bench next to me. “Come read it yourself.”

Gerry plants his feet. “I’ll stand here. For your safety.”

“You aren’t here for my safety. You’re here so I don’t run away.”

Gerry looks on passively. He will not reveal what he knows; he is good at this.

“Suit yourself,” I say.

The gurgling lion-faced fountains feed water to the basin. It’s a pleasant noise. Gerry is a pleasant—if awkwardly distant—companion, and it feels good to get away from you and my future adoptive parents for a while. It’s almost a relief to be with a stranger. To think. I try to make myself feel that Vivi is actually gone. My rational self says, Jo, you are safe now. No more worrying that the real Vivienne Weir might actually show up. I should be liking this more than I am. So why won’t the darkness lift?

I look toward Gerry and call out, “Is it hard?”

Gerry folds his arms tightly. It’s impossible to imagine him folding them any other way.

“Is what hard?”

“Is it hard to feel safe, after everything you’ve been through? When you were a kid?” I ask.

He looks out the sides of his eyes, as though someone is eavesdropping. Slowly, he walks toward me. Though his gaze fixes on the angel, he is seeing something else.

“When I was abducted from my father, I was still wearing my school shorts. I was a respectful child who prayed and listened to my teacher and my parents. When they took me, they told me they were going to write my name. I thought they would take out a pen. Instead, four teenagers beat me with sticks. They said if I cried out, they would kill me.”

“That’s awful. That’s—”

“That was the beginning. They make you a soldier by three tricks. First, they make you lose hope that you will ever see your parents again.”

“Did you try to run back to them? Your parents, I mean.”

“If I did I would not be here talking to you.”

“Right.” I feel my face turn pink. “I’m sorry.”

“Second, they make you kill.”

I swallow. “Does it get easier, every time you kill?”

“Yes,” he says.

I cock my head. I did not expect yes, I expected no. I expected a lesson. “Because you get used to killing?”

“You do not get used to killing. The first time you kill, you change inside. You think this is a good change, because it brings you respect from the ones who control you. But it is not a good change. You can never go back to not having killed.”

I breathe hard. “What’s the third trick?”

“They use the rage you have built inside you. Always, a rage so wide that you cannot cross it to get back to yourself.”

I picture the insects building inside me until I tilt my head and open my mouth, crossing lakes and mountains, a traveling whorl the length of a football field, then two, whole states and continents. My rage against the Last One could circle the earth twice, a buzzing comet fueled by the million indistinguishable things he did. The humiliations. The frightening near misses in the hotel rooms. The pains he inflicted on Momma.

Behind closed eyes, I remember every violation to my own body.

I picture myself using that rage to kill if I needed to.

“Do you think there’s such a thing as a natural-born killer?”

“I know there is not. Killers are made. I have just told you how.”

I feel the blood drain from my face, sweet relief. I smile weakly. Gerry registers my gratitude, but does not smile back.

“In answer to your question, Miss Vivienne: I would have to be a fool to feel safe ever again, in my lifetime. I am not a fool. And neither are you.”





PART III

JO





The adoption ceremony is held two days later at the Boston Municipal Courthouse, a bustling place. I am dressed up and supposed to be happy, but mainly I’m nervous. The judge is slack-faced and resentful. The Lovecraft name got this done faster or with less paperwork than is typical and the judge knows it, and he is spiteful. I should be happy, but a bitter, contrary thing keeps welling up. Mr. and Mrs. Lovecraft beam. They touch each other constantly, and you roll your eyes, and they talk a lot about how there are families you are born into and families that come together through fate, and that the sadness of the last seven years is 100 percent over, as though something can be 97 percent over, and I want to scream the very definition of over is over. Mrs. Lovecraft says there’s something magical about the number seven, and I also want to scream no, that’s wrong, it’s three, three times makes things so. It’s getting hard to hide how opposite I feel, and yet they are so kind, bathing me in love, and it gets even stranger as we walk down the courthouse steps.