Henry Franks(14)

“It’s all right, Henry,” she said. “Are you feeling better now?”

“I miss Elizabeth.”

“Why?”

“We talked.”

“About?”

“I can’t remember. Just stuff.”

“Is there anyone else you talk to?”

“You.” Henry sat up, brushing the hair away, trying to forget the brief image of her eating breakfast with his father. He wanted to ask her about it but the words caught inside his throat and all that came out was a hiss.

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

“Don’t you talk with Justine?” she asked.

“On the bus.”

“That’s someone.”

He shrugged. “She does most of the talking.”

“Do you know that you smile when you talk about her?”

Henry pulled his hair in front of his face and then turned away. “So?”

“You don’t smile when you talk about Elizabeth.”

“So?” He took a deep breath, held it and counted to ten on his fingers, then released it.

“So, Henry,” she said. “Better?”

Who’s Henry? But like all the others, that question was silent as well.

“Maybe,” he said.





nine




The door opened up to the heat, and where the outside met the air-conditioning inside was a weather system unto itself; moist, hot, and too thick to inhale. The bright sun burned off the blacktop and his sunglasses did little to dull the impact. A headache started almost immediately.

His father waited in the parking lot, engine running to keep cool, and Henry slid in as quickly as possible.

“How’d it go?” his father asked as he pulled onto Demere Road.

Henry turned up the air-conditioning and then rested his head back on the seat, eyes closed. “Fine.”

“Henry?”

He opened one eye, peering at his father through the hair falling in front of his face. He sighed. “It’s a process.”

“Did Dr. Saville say anything?”

“About?”

“You?” his father asked.

“No.”

Henry pulled at the collar of his shirt, closed his eyes, and looked away.

His father turned the car into Harrison Pointe and parked in front of the house. “I’ll be working late again. Don’t forget to do your homework.”

“Fine,” Henry said before grabbing his backpack and opening the door.

Inside, he waited until his father drove away before rushing down the fragile wooden stairs into the basement, stepping carefully to avoid the splinters that were poking out of the old lumber.

He pulled the cord but the weak light failed to reach the corners. The mess he’d left the day before was gone. Stacks of cardboard boxes lined the room, with well-swept and cobweb-free aisles between them.

Henry ran to the circuit box.

The SCRAPBOOK SUPPLIES box sat nearby, but when he lifted the box on top, it was far too light to still be filled with ancient photographs. A few scraps of archival paper and stickers rattled around, but there were no pictures.

One by one, he searched through the rest of the boxes. It took him hours, but by the time he was done he’d failed to find the photographs in any of them.

Drenched in sweat, he climbed up the stairs, put the cart back in place, and collapsed into a chair, resting his head on the kitchen table next to his backpack. A branch scraped across the side of the house like fingernails on a blackboard. Henry jumped up and crossed to the sink to look into the backyard. Light filtered through the leaves, casting fluid shadows that seemed to move with the breeze. Spanish moss hung, still and silent, from the towering oaks, not moving, and when he looked closer there was no wind at all.

Henry walked down the hallway, to the door to the master bedroom. He put his ear to the wood, trying to hear something from the other side, but there was nothing but the hum of the air-conditioning. Just to be safe, he knocked. The sound was loud and seemed to linger in the too-warm air. The knob was cool in his hand but, even though it turned, it didn’t open the door.

“Damn,” he said, before slapping his palm into the door. It tingled, but just a little, and there was no pain from hitting the wood.

In his father’s office across the hall, Henry pulled out drawers, looking for the photographs of Frank, but the drawers were empty. Dust coated the top of the desk and the shelves were bare. When he rolled the desk chair out to look underneath, the metal wheels squealed in protest and left tracks through the dust on the floor. Behind him, his own footprints stood out in stark relief, and only when he was in the hallway again did he relax enough to breathe.



Henry ate dinner alone in the empty house and then went upstairs to his room. He surfed around the Internet but gave up after only a minute or two. The sun was still bright in the August sky and he watched it crawl toward the horizon. In his lap, his dark index finger idly scratched at the scar on his wrist.

He took a deep breath and then unfolded the piece of paper hidden beneath his pillbox. When he grasped the pen, it slipped out of his fingers and, try as he might, he couldn’t get his mismatched index finger to hold on to it. With it squeezed in his fist, he added Frank to the list of names.