Dear Reader,
This work of fiction is loosely based on a true story.
What does that mean?
Some of it is real and some of it isn’t.
What parts are real?
Here are three:
1.                 Marc and Angie exist. So do Frona, Georgie, Mother Brady, and the cast of characters. Even Ticker is real, though I think old age would have taken him by now. It’s been many years and time is rarely a friend.
2.                 The locations, including the clubhouse, did exist. Progress and nature covered some of them over the decades, but I bet hard evidence could still be found. It would be a bit like an excavation at a forgotten site from history. There would be broken tools and charred pottery, remnants of a life spent there…but the ghosts probably wouldn’t just leave our shoulders when we finished digging up those old bones. In so many ways, it is cursed ground.
3.                 The events are documented facts. I have taken liberties with the dates. That prevents it from being historical fiction, along with it not being 50 years or more in the past. As a result, it made picking a category difficult for this title. I’ve chosen ‘coming of age’ because that’s what happened in the grand scheme of things. During all of those wonderful, awful moments, Marc and Angie grew up.
What isn’t real?
You’ll have to decide that for yourself, but personally, I still believe in magic. It swirls around every word I put onto paper, carrying the potential to be amazing or terrible. If I can’t see something, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there and I’m wise enough to accept that fact, even if I don’t like it. The world is scarier without my glasses.
Anything else a reader should know?
This story is told from multiple, shifting POVs. If you don’t like first-person writing, you won’t like this book. Do us both a favor and skip it. Also, if you haven’t read my Life After War series, you may not understand what is going on. This is a backstory, written to satisfy the fan demand (It’s my honor!) and there is NOT a happy ending. Please don’t expect one.
Do Marc and Angie–
No more questions. I’ll be on the other side to offer comfort when you finish this journey. Hang on to me tightly while I bring the winds of change to take us into the past. We’re searching for Marcus Brady and Angela White…

Prologue 
POV: Marc
I think you should know a few things about me before we get into the meetings and moments you came for. The first is that I’m lonely. Growing up, I spent almost every second that way. Existing in a home where there was only indifference and coldness caused me to long for someone who could brighten my life before I was even old enough to recognize friendship as a need. Isolated and forced to deny who I was, I lived a very different life from the other kids in our small-town, Ohio neighborhood.
The second thing you should be aware of is how badly my mother crushed my faith with her rabid hatred of our heathen roots. Despite being the grandson of Roma immigrants, I was raised Christian. Everything changed after my dad abandoned us, from clothes and furnishings, to our regular attendance of every choir meeting, prayer chain, and baptism that we were invited to. Instead of the wild freedom to explore the world that I’d had for the first years of life, there were now crosses and plaques, and so many scripture lessons that I got lost in them. Some of it made sense, but most of it went against the beliefs that I had already been learning. My constant companion during the adjustment years was confusion. Why had my life flipped? Where had my mom gone? Even her name had changed. She’d once been Rosemary, but now, I had to call her Mary or Mother Brady. Why had she been replaced with this hateful matriarch? Why had my dad left? Instead of love and family, I now had the new business of selling things to anticipate for my future. We had to be respectable, not heathen trash, and I struggled with it for a decade.
Left without a choice, I said the words and went through the motions, but I didn’t care about our roots the way my mother did. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in a higher power. I just didn’t know which one to pick–our natural heritage or the new lifestyle that didn’t fit me. I loved our forbidden culture, (the small bits I’d been able to keep learning behind her strict back) but I didn’t cross my mother openly. I knew who the boss was.
As I grew older, it was impossible not to think that I was being tested with temptation by both sides of my life–religion and love. If that was the case, then I failed more of the trials than I won, but some things are a fire in your blood and nothing can ever change that.
The last thing you need to know about me is that I was determined to escape. I had decided that I would have a different future than those around me. I would be a Marine, a hero who helped people and was respected for it. My determination to get out saw me through the early mornings that began on my knees, praying to a deity that I hadn’t even heard of until my dad left.
The rest of our clan seemed to love the new system, especially the men. They were sent away to learn the business, which allowed for months of unsupervised exploration of the world. It was Mother’s way of convincing the males who were too old to be cowed like I was, and it succeeded. How to sell things and be respectable, that’s what the Brady’s became known for. Not for being gypsy spawn, as my mother referred to those who refused to hide our heritage.
Mary Brady hated anything that reminded her of our caravan history. For one of the family to flaunt it openly was a sin never forgiven. We had relatives that were missing from the holiday gatherings for years over breaches of her rules. Some were never allowed to return and others, like me, simply refused to go back under her thumb. Her own parents had been killed by an angry mob after an immigrant couple had robbed a bank and murdered a clerk in town. My grandparents had been in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and it had given my mother a fear that had grown when my dad wiped out the accounts and abandoned us. From that moment on, she and everyone under her reign had to conform or they were driven out. Considering that she inherited all the family loan notices and property deeds in the divorce, there wasn’t much argument. In fanatical defense, my remaining parent grew into a cold person afraid to love or show emotion, even to her own children. Appearances were all that mattered. As a result, we didn’t have many feelings for her either, other than fear.
A house with no love was all that I’d ever known, and I didn’t understand the power of the warmth that I was missing. I just accepted that my elder brothers and sister held value, while I was a potential embarrassment waiting to happen. I stayed out of trouble as best a boy can, and kept grades and friends that were approved of. The neighborhood kids, I rarely spent time around. They danced on the sidewalks in front of their parent’s gaudy shops. My mother would cross the street to avoid these reminders of her past and she fully expected us to do the same.
The only person I ever knew to challenge her and win was her brother. Georgie married without her approval, to a businesswoman who ran a rustic fortune telling shop as her cover for taking in male clients. It was exactly the type of person that my cold-as-ice parent hated. It shocked everyone when Georgie’s wife was officially allowed to enter our family and attend the gatherings and services. I never understood why my mother gave in, but I’ll always be grateful to her for that one thing. Because Georgie’s new bride had a little girl that I instantly felt something for. It wasn’t love at first sight, not at those ages, but it was just as powerful.
My time with Angie has been recorded in my mind under years and holidays. That’s how I view our past and every second is burnt into my brain. When you only get to see your reason for breathing a few times each year, you imprint every moment of it to hold you through those hundreds of other lonely days. It was like that for me from almost our first meeting. I gave Angie a part of my soul and I never really felt like it was enough to reward her properly for loving me back.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that life is full of terrible irony. Lying undetected on the fringes of our day-to-day schedules, it’s everywhere, but we rarely recognize it at that moment–like with the love that blindsided me. I had spent years waiting and longing for the time to come when I would be allowed to leave home, to finally escape my tyrannical mother. Then Angie filled my heart with her love and I hated it each time that I had to leave. Life is often splashed with irony, but it’s always streaked with pain.

 
POV: Angie
There are things you need to understand about me, before my Brady takes us any deeper into hell. The most important is that I’m older than my age at any given time. I always have been. People might say it’s because of what I’ve been through during my life, but it’s really because of who I am, deep on the inside. I know things, even when I don’t want to. I guess I’ve had a lot of excitement, but I don’t mean the kind you giggle about with friends. I mean the kind of things you carry your whole life in shame–like my mom being a whore.
Don’t frown. It’s only the truth. I’ve been hearing it since I can remember. I can’t tell you how many of her friends patted my curls on the way out our door. That’s how I ended up with a stepfather and my first awful secret.
Georgie wants me…like a man wants a woman! He said I’m his prize for being a good man, but I don’t understand that. Georgie is big and loud, and likes to have me sit on his lap and wrestle. I don’t like him, but at least he doesn’t beat on me like he sometimes does my mom. I figured out if I don’t tell him no, he doesn’t get mad at me. I still get scared, though. He’s waiting for me to grow up and I have to pretend that I don’t know what he’s thinking. But I do.
That’s the second thing I’m hiding. I can hear people’s thoughts…yes, even yours. I talk to ghosts. Well, one ghost. The witch inside has been whispering to me for as long as I can remember. The neighborhood lady, Patty, told me my gift will get stronger as I get older. That’s scary, ‘cause it’s pretty strong now. It’s as if I have two rooms in my brain and both of them are constantly racing, questioning, or discovering. It lets me think twice as hard, for twice as long, without actually spending twice the time. But it can’t protect me.
My stepfather targeted me right away and as long as my mom doesn’t have to do anything but read her trashy books, she doesn’t interfere. I didn’t know if there was a deal between them, but as I got older and Georgie became more open about what he wanted, I suspected that she’d sold me out. I know she hates me. When your parent wishes you hadn’t been born, it’s kind of hard to miss.
I try not to listen to her and Georgie’s thoughts. People don’t like it when you can get into their head and I’ve learned to be very careful around them. I know how delighted Georgie would be. I would never get any peace from him. In my entire childhood, only a few people ever discovered that secret.
Being at home was a bad thing for me and I spent my time out exploring. Sometimes, when I was bored or upset, I would follow thoughts. I liked to track people down. On one of those adventures, I found a boy sitting in the rows of corn that lined one side of our trailer park. I’d followed his thoughts because they were a mirror of how I was feeling. This was someone like me. I’d never known that before.
The boy was scared and ashamed because he had to pretend that he wasn’t gypsy and because his family was so cold to him. He had all sorts of hard rules and he had to be around the right kind of people. Even at six, I knew that wasn’t me.
He stayed in the corn all day, sometimes muttering, but mostly quiet and thinking, trying to find an escape. It was how I spent most of my own time and the urge to come out was strong. It forged a bond that was unbreakable.
When he got up to leave, I was careful to stay still, but my heart called out to his. I didn’t want him to go.
And he looked at me! Or at least it felt that way and I realized I knew him. I’d noticed his picture on the wall of my new stepfather’s hallway. The boy was my family, a forbidden side of it that I hadn’t met yet. Despair, thick and smothering, settled over me.
The boy peered through the corn, trying to find me. His thoughts weren’t ugly, but when he came toward where I was, I left, not wanting him to know anyone had been there. What would I say to him?
 
Less than a week after first spotting Marc, I was trailing him around the neighborhood. I couldn’t resist whenever I picked up one of his thoughts. His mind was so soothing! It didn’t matter that he didn’t know I existed, or that his mother loathed gypsy kids or that my new stepfather had put his hands up my dress yesterday. As long as I got to see my Brady, I was okay.
He quickly became my unknowing light in the darkness. I would linger behind the bushes and watch him read on his porch or hang out with his approved friends in empty, weed-covered lots. In church, he would stare out the windows with an expression that I longed to ease with the comfort of my little arms. To say I was obsessed would be an understatement.
So, those were my burdens, my secrets. It was as if all nine planets had collided at my birth, creating an inescapable horror that followed me most of my life. Can you guess which secret I would have given up the quickest? My gift. The very thing that made me who I was.
Why?!
Because hearing into people hurts! I get up and pass my mom’s door, hear her jealousy of my youth and my looks. Then I sit across from her husband and try to choke down a meal while he thinks of his plans to spy on me in the shower later or peak under the blankets while I sleep. To start every day that way! If I hadn’t known, I could have at least stolen a few hours of happiness without worrying over what was coming later.
As it was, I spent the years between four and eight in a blur of fear and loneliness, praying for someone to be my friend. When I finally found it, I couldn’t let go. I needed Marc and when I realized that he also needed me, I never looked back in my quest to make him mine. It’s a choice that I’ve never regretted.

 
1989
Chapter One
Late October
 
 
Marc
“This is your uncle’s new wife. Frona.”
My mother’s tone told me she didn’t like the loudly dressed woman filling her doorway.
I kept my voice cool when I said, “Nice to meet you.”
The woman wasn’t large, but the colors of her skirt and top were confusing to me. We never had red or purple clothes in our house. Mother barely tolerated blue jeans.
“You must be Marcus.”
I knew not to put my hand out to her, but the fortuneteller didn’t notice the insult. Her greasy hair hung over her face, covering pasty skin that rarely encountered sunlight. I wondered if she was ill.
“Maybe you can help me?” the woman asked.
I felt the matriarch beside me tense and kept my mouth closed. I wasn’t sure why this strange woman was here or why my mother wasn’t throwing her out, and it made me uneasy.
“Angie needs the bathroom. Can you take her?”
“Humph!”
That one snort from my mother told me I shouldn’t agree. I opened my mouth to give directions instead, but a stunning little girl stepped from behind my new aunt and I gaped in fascination.
The girl was paler than paper, with tangled black curls that hung to her tiny waist and wide, blue eyes that glowed. I instantly knew she was my own kind, but I didn’t know how or why. At the time, I wasn’t sure what it was that drew me so strongly. It could have been how she looked at me, as if I was already hers or maybe how cute that little face was, but I’ve always suspected it was the warmth in her expression. I was helpless against it.
“Please?”
Her angelic voice snapped me into the cold reality of my world, where I felt the waves of disapproval filling the hall. Mother wasn’t happy.
“Come on.” I disobeyed the unspoken rules, knowing that I’d pay for it.
Mary watched us all the way down the long corridor, sharp gaze no doubt filled with surprised speculation. I’m almost certain that she began laying plans right then. I think that maybe she knew, observing that beautiful gypsy girl lead her least wanted child down the hall, that later, when we were older, there could be trouble. That’s the kind of parent she was–sharp, merciless.
“In there.”
I waited outside the door, wondering if I could escape my coming punishment until later. Mother wouldn’t let it go, but I could for a while. I wanted to be outside, away from here.
Standing there daydreaming, I’d almost forgotten why I was in trouble at all. When the bathroom door opened, I jumped.
She giggled and the sound of it drew a rare grin from me. She was a cute kid. Too cute for this family.
“S’okay.” I started to take her back.
“Do we have to? She doesn’t like me.”
I had been thinking about escaping for a while. Did this matter? I shrugged. “Probably not.”
That made her smile, a burst of happiness that no boy would have been able to resist, let alone one as isolated and lonely as I was.
“Where can we go?” she asked.
I was running through the options when her stomach growled. “The kitchen. Come on.”
I looked over to find her studying me with those odd eyes. What was it about them, besides the fact that they were violet?
“How do you like being a Brady?”
She shrugged, but didn’t answer me and I felt a kinship that I couldn’t find a reason for with her so close. I figured out later that it was something we had in common. I didn’t care much for being a Brady either.
“You go to school yet?”
She nodded, little hands shoved into the pockets of her white dress as if she was afraid to touch anything, even by accident.
“Crosby.”
That meant my mother hadn’t really accepted her or she’d be going to private classes with the rest of us. It also meant that I would hardly ever get to see her and even then, the sense of loss was there for me.
We moved quietly down another huge hall, surrounded by saints and dark colors, but neither of us paid attention to these things yet. There would be time for guilt later. Right now, talking to females was hard for me and I’d promised to try harder. My mother expected me to date Jeanie Hornsteader in the next couple of years. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I was a dutiful son. I decided this little girl wouldn’t be so intimidating to have a conversation with, to practice on. The females at school were another matter entirely, even the teachers who I sometimes caught staring at me in longing. My mind said desire was another word for it. I wasn’t sure exactly what desire was, but it sounded like trouble and I’d been raised to avoid that.
“You’re quiet for a girl.”
That pleased her, but didn’t draw the reaction I’d been looking for. I prepared to try again.
“Momma said to be quiet and...Mother Brady scares me some.”
She blew me away with the emotions that brought. For the first time in my life, I felt the urge to protect someone other than myself. It was a world away from the boy who simply got by, so that he could get out.
I grinned uneasily. “She likes bigger food. You’re too small.”
That friendly face frosted over and her small chin formed a stiff V. She didn’t tell me she hated those words or not to ever say it again, but I felt both as if she had.
Her age is a touchy subject, I thought, not knowing it would become one for me, as well.
“I won’t say it again. Sorry.”
Our gazes locked and when she stopped, so did I, very confused as to how she seemed so much older than her real age. Her power held me and outside, thunder crashed heavily, making the ground shake. We only stood there for a few seconds, but it felt like forever. In those stunning blue eyes, I could view so much! There was another world in there, one that I desperately wanted to be a part of. In there, I would always be wanted.
Angie looked away (let go of me) and I yawned, instantly tired and more confused. What happened? Her eyes were blue again. How was that possible?
“I’m sorry.” She hesitated, sounding miserable. “You can take me back now.”
Her hair was lit up like a city skyline and her skin glowed like a jewel. No way was I letting her go yet. I wanted answers first.
I shook off that sleepy feeling as best I could and got us moving. The last minute was already blurring and I struggled to remember all of it. Later, when I was alone, I would figure out what it meant. I was positive that it was important. It had been too strong to ignore.
I could feel Angie stealing looks at me as we walked, some of those heated, and I realized she was keeping secrets. It was easy for me to recognize that since I saw it in the mirror each morning. That was where I put on the mask my mother insisted we all wear.
The cook looked as shocked as I felt to be leading that little girl into his perfectly polished kitchen, and I didn’t ask him to do anything that might get him fired.  I led Angie by the steaming pots of chicken soup that were destined for the small town shelter, fighting the urge to ask what she thought of the grand house that my parent had put together over the years. Was she impressed? Jealous? I was ashamed.
I waved a hand at the table where a large plate of cookies and two baskets of fruit sat with perfectly matched precision. “Whatever you want.”
The words had a ring of familiarity that made my insides twist. Did I know her already?
Angie pulled an apple free with nervous caution and I handed her a napkin to hold under it. The cook approved of her choice, but it made me uneasy. Who turned down cookies for apples?
I watched her, unable to look away as she bit into the fruit. Years later, I recognized it as an Adam and Eve moment, but right then, all I could see was future Angie. I wanted to dismiss it as a daydream, but that pull tightened around me, drowning me in the ebbs and flows. When she grew up, I wanted to be there.
I pulled out of the daze with a groggy scowl. I had hair under my arms, a moustache starting, a playboy under my mattress, and a duplicate on the top shelf of my closet. I considered myself nearly grown. What did I want with a baby?
“I won’t always be this little!” Angie shouted furiously.
The cook smiled at what he assumed was baby talk, but I froze again. She heard my thought!
“Of course not, child,” the cook tried to soothe. “You will grow and be even prettier.”
We ignored him, lost in that first discovery. I opened my mouth without knowing what was coming out…
“Marcus Brady!”
Very glad of which way I was facing, I snapped my mouth shut and cleared my expression before rotating to face both of the parents in the doorway. Their clothes clashed in a vivid warning to be careful.
“Yes, mother?” My tone was perfectly normal, but my pulse had tripled.
Two sets of narrowed eyes swept us and then went over the cook, who flinched back against the table, terrified.
“What are you doing?”
Mary’s voice was like stone, but before I could dig the hole, Angie saved us.
“He gaves me apples!”
The little girl let out a different giggle, this one so annoying that I took a step back.
“Gave me one apple,” she corrected herself, sounding exactly her age.
I hoped she knew I didn’t mean it as I rolled my eyes. “Can I go now?”
It sounded like I couldn’t wait to escape.
I left under my mother’s curt nod, but I could feel the weight of the little girl’s pain.
That was my first meeting with Angie and I was already craving more before she was out of our mausoleum. Instead of slipping down to the rope swing over the cornfield as I usually did on a Saturday, I hid in the front tree and stayed there, waiting and studying these new emotions.
When she and her loud parent stepped from our house, her gaze came straight to mine, as if to say it was the same for her. Even across the distance, there was a spark, a sense of us being connected. It said there were things coming that we weren’t ready for, but I didn’t look away, even after mother found my hiding place with her stern glare. That little girl was someone I wanted to know and I set my mind to it right then that I would.
What I didn’t count on was how determined my parent was to keep us apart. With her years of being in charge, I stood little chance against her manipulations. In fact, many of them, I didn’t recognize for what they were until it was too late.
Angie slipped from our ungracious steps with dainty, careful movements that didn’t fit the age of the girl I’d spoken to. Angie hung back from her parents, waiting until they told her what to do. Timid. That was a new vocabulary word I had learned this week. Fearful and hesitant: problems that call for bold, not timid, responses.
Yes, that fit us both, but why did I care? I spent my time reading and playing sports. I had a girl I was supposed to start dating. Why was I drawn to a baby? Because we were both alone in our minds? Because she was special? Did I want her power?
That thought scared me. I’d watched enough movies to understand that I could use her to get what I wanted. Was that something else we would have to be careful of? Was she in danger from me?
My wording instantly bothered me. Would have to be careful of… I already planned to do this, no matter the risk. Was it for her gifts?
No, I realized. I didn’t need anything she could give me. I already knew what people around me were thinking. I’d learned that skill at home.
“People will think what they see, Marcus. If you always look and act like a proper Christian boy, they’ll always see one.”
“But… What if I don’t feel it? On the inside?”
“You will. In time, the other life will fade into a vague, shifting picture without sound. Then it will be gone for good and you’ll forget.”
Those words had hurt me then and they still did years later. The idea that I could forget my dad or Angie, the notion that I could ever be as callous as my family, was utterly crushing. I would never do that. My mother would try to keep us apart, but I wasn’t going to let my first taste of wonder, of happiness, be stolen.
Already dripping sweat from the humidity, I watched Angie climb into the old wagon, brain thudding with new emotions and ideas. I was flooded with hurt and pain, and an aching loneliness that I couldn’t ease as the engine fired up. I don’t want her to leave.
As if she heard me, she spun around in the seat and waved.
My Brady.
I don’t know if she said it or I thought it, but from that moment on, my heart belonged solely to her and was never even brushed by another woman. It was only ten minutes in time, but it set the path for everything that came later. It was the beginning of us, of Marc and Angie.

Angie
That was the first time I’d been in Mother Brady’s home, and it made me feel out of place among the perfection, as it was meant to. Those paintings and suffering idols were right to be so stiff, foreboding. I was the aberration here, not them.
That was also the first time I’d spoken to my Brady. I’d always thought of Marc that way. He didn’t belong with those awful people any more than I did. We were different.
Standing there, eating the apple (a rare treat), I could hear his thoughts clearly and it wasn’t an accident that he discovered my secret. Marc was nice to everyone else. Why not me?
I did wonder if I scared him, but as we left, I realized that I’d made him curious.
I was satisfied that he knew who I was, which was more than I’d had when we arrived. I didn’t listen to my mom and Georgie trash-talk him and his siblings on the way home, but I did notice that not one bad word was said about Mother Brady.
Georgie flipped on the radio and Welcome to the Jungle blared from the speakers. It was perfect timing for my mood. I always felt like a small cat in a gigantic jungle, but more now than usual because I wanted to be at that awful house with my Brady, not trapped in this car. I rolled down the window to escape the heat and the noise.
When we got to our trailer, I slipped away while Georgie tried to explain what a promissory note was. My mom wasn’t bright and such conversations often ended with a fist and a grunt of annoyance at the tears. I didn’t want to hang around for that.
I wandered down into the humid cornfields instead of hitting the local area where most of the neighborhood kids played. They didn’t like me and I was afraid of them, of what I sensed they could push me into doing. I wasn’t always a quiet, little gypsy girl. Sometimes, I was dangerous.
Today however, I was excited and a bit sad that I hadn’t gotten more time with Marc. He had no idea that I’d been following him around for years while dreaming of the time when I would be old enough to prove the things that I needed to say. Lost in my desperate thoughts, I sat on the edge of the cornfield, watching the old tire swing move in the breeze. Large bees and wasps flew in and out of the rows, and the drone of insects in the ten-foot corn was hypnotizing. Maybe that’s why I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me. I was usually extremely observant about things like that.
I spun around to find Marc standing there.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly.
I lowered my head instead of answering, busy saying thank you to the spirits for sending him.
“Angie?”
My name coming from him in concern was already more acceptance than I was used to having, and a tear spilled down my cheek. I wiped it away angrily. The hormones of my body were difficult on a good day, and this one had been stressful. I’d been certain Mary Brady would know I had the family curse. But she hadn’t. That scared me, too.
Marc knelt down, and I was glad he didn’t do more. If anyone saw him touch me, his mother would ground him forever or maybe something worse. His older cousins, Rodney and Scot, were vocal about Mary’s lack of goodwill toward her own kin. I’d even heard that she sent some people away, but I didn’t know if it was over the curse or breaking her rules. I suddenly didn’t want to take the chance on her discovering my secrets now that Marc finally knew I was alive.
“Can I do anything for you?”
I didn’t know what to say. He didn’t understand that I wasn’t just a cute kid who had put a spell on him. I would be his wife someday. I’d already dreamed of it. That future was set. How could I explain the visions of us in my room and in some sort of hut, where we crossed adult lines and sealed our souls? How did I try to tell him all that?! There was no way he would believe me yet, but the witch was never wrong, and it was terrifying to know that this boy would come to mean so much to me.
I choked. I didn’t say anything. I watched him scowl and listened to him mutter about having no babysitting experience. It was heaven and it was hell.

 
Marc
I understood she was shy and I thought that maybe she was a little scared of me because we were alone. I figured silliness would help and started speaking super-fast, covering what could be wrong in a goofy blur.
“Shoes too tight, hair too flappy, dress too snappy, nose too full…”
Angie laughed.
I stopped as the sunlight faded into a dark, smoky sky and my body shuddered with needs that I didn’t want to acknowledge. The sound of her pleasure sank into my guts and made me shift uneasily. I liked it way too much.
Our eyes met and I forgot to breathe as the world shifted. I read things in those sparkling orbs, things that I wasn’t ready for yet. I could see both of us, older and so in love that nothing else mattered. I stared in horror at my future, frightened of the pain.
I stood to go.
Angie reached out to take my wrist and I stared down at her, at the girl I’d just seen in a wedding gown and a shroud that combined to create a desolate widow. She was cursed.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Angie muttered, clenching her lids shut. “Forget it. Let it go.”
Drowsiness settled over me and I began to doubt that I’d witnessed anything.
“Just the heat.” Angie looked back up with a shy smile, once again adorable. “Stay?”
Even then, there wasn’t a choice when she begged. I dropped down next to her with tingling skin, the place where she’d touched me covered in goose bumps.
Then the odd moment was over as if it didn’t matter. I didn’t stare at her, but I was aware of every shift, every sigh. She sounded happy in those moments and it confused me because I felt the same even though we weren’t doing anything but sitting here. Why?
“You need a friend.”
I gaped at her and she gave me a half-excited, half-wary look. “I can do other things…”
“Like what?” I asked slowly.
Angie held out her hand and I felt like I was sitting next to an engine as the ground rumbled with life. I saw a tiny blue spark at her fingertip and then the corn stalk by her began to get bigger. It didn’t grow much, but it was enough to convince me that it was all true. I also had enough child left in me to ignore the chills on my skin and the sense of danger that it had produced.
“Cool.”
She beamed at my acceptance, blinding my heart. Angie showing true happiness was another moment that I never recovered from. It sent a wave of longing into my soul that still echoed twenty years later.
“Why do your eyes change color?” I had to know.
“I get…tired,” she answered defensively, hands clenching. “It’s not weird.
“It’s pretty,” I answered honestly. It was also fascinating.
Her fists relaxed and she gave a curt nod, as if she had made a choice.
“I’ll be your friend,” Angie stated suddenly, putting a hand up to shield the glare as the sun moved directly over us. “But you can’t tell anyone.”
That suited me fine, except for the slight nagging of my conscience. “Okay. Maybe we need a code?”
She studied the dusty ground in concentration and I knew she had an answer when she straightened.
“Hand signals, like on shows.”
“Like the soldiers use?”
“Yes, but easier so the adults don’t recognize them.”
Impressed, I leaned on my elbows. “I’ll come up with a set for us. What should we cover first?”
Her pale cheeks turned pink. “When and where to meet?”
I swallowed a lump of excitement. I never willingly broke mother’s rules, even in the spur of the moment, and here I was planning it.
Angie glanced toward the tire swing. “You can show me how to have fun.”
I knew instinctively that it wasn’t something she was allowed much of.
I agreed that we could be friends.
Angie was quiet for a minute or so, and then asked, “Can we start today? We might not be here tomorrow.”
Wise, I thought, nodding. “Sure. What’s first?”
We spent the rest of that first afternoon swinging and joking, and pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist. Except it did, and eventually, I had to go home. My curfew was earlier than hers, I assumed, because she hadn’t once mentioned going home, even when it began to get dark.
“I have to go.”
Angie’s lower lip actually quivered, like I’d seen in the movies, but she controlled it to flash me a bright smile.
‘Thank you. For today.”
I grinned, relieved and touched. “Sure. We’ll do it again as soon as I can.”
“How will we know?”
Her question couldn’t be answered to our satisfaction. I shrugged. “Between the family gossiping and your…listening skills, we’ll figure it out. I’ll get the code ready.”
Angie let another sad smile spread, then dropped her head so that I couldn’t read her expression anymore. She was letting me go because she didn’t want me to get in trouble. That made me like her even more, and leaving that little girl was incredibly hard. I could actually feel her wishing we were older and right at that moment I wasn’t as scared of it. Spending the afternoon with Angie had affected me deeply, given me new and terrible ideas that simmered as I trudged home. I would have to face my mother when I got there and I needed to be ready for that, but it was hard to concentrate with Angie’s laughter still ringing in my guts.
I didn’t sneak into the family house, but tossed my bike down outside the door, and left my ball glove on the front stoop where mother would trip over it. Hopefully, she would assume I had spent the day with the other preteens on the hill behind the four-street trailer park. I knew I had to be clever and I went straight to my room to face whatever judgment had been chosen. I was only there long enough to kick off my muddy boots and brush the corn silks from my hair, before…
“I saw the way you were leering at her, Marcus.”
I flinched as if I hadn’t heard my mother’s sensible shoes outside my door.
“I always make you jump.” Mary moved into the room, an imposing figure in her black and white pantsuit. “I wonder why you’re so easy to scare.”
Right now, it was because her cold gaze had gone first to my bed and then to my closet.
“Sorry, mother.”
She was silent for a short pause and I tried not to tense.
“Do you like her?”
“Sure.” I added nothing for her to build on, no lie to be trapped in, and her eyes narrowed under those thick glasses.
“You’ll stay away from her.”
I will not! My thoughts were often the opposite of the words forced to come through my lips. “Okay.”
I continued to comb my hair, trying not to look at her. Did she know about my magazines?
I barely heard her move before my mother appeared behind me in the mirror, cold gaze trying to dig into my heart to discover what evil I might have allowed into our lives.
“It’s a sin. Lusting for your family is incest and I’ll not stand for it.”
I didn’t try to tell her that it wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t have understood and by the time it was over, she would have twisted my words into a confession.
“You’ll be punished.”
I tried to ease the damage I was about to take. “I am sorry, mother. They were so bright!”
Her lined face softened a bit, thinking I hadn’t liked that either. “Yes, but temptation is everywhere. You must be strong enough to resist. How can I send such a weak boy out to train?”
That was hitting below the belt, but with her studying me, I hung my head and pretended a shame that I did feel. It was for allowing her to treat me this way. Eventually, the day would come when she couldn’t keep me here.
“You’ll spend this year laboring for your aunt Judy. Maybe longer”
I looked up in surprise. I’d been asking to go since I was ten and the decision threw me off, distracted me. “What?”
“You’ve been a good son, an obedient son, and I’m being lenient with you this one time. It’s still punishment.”
Her expression never changed, but her tone was as warm as I’d heard in a long time.
“There are cows to be branded, hay to be baled, and pigs to be cared for. You’ll work, but you’ll also have fun with your cousins. Soon, you’ll enter the family training. Best get those other silly notions out of your mind now.”
“Yes, mother.”
She drifted from my room a few minutes later, with plans set for me to leave in two days.
 
My mother kept me running the entire time. She wasn’t taking any chances that I might steal a few minutes with that strange little girl.
Not wise enough to recognize how I’d been tricked, I was vaguely unhappy to be leaving Angie so soon after meeting her, but I was overjoyed at getting to go to Judy’s farm. Being set free meant everything to me.
I was played like a banjo around a campfire. Clever, simple, it began a pattern of hurt that repeated throughout all of our years together. I was always being ripped out of Angie’s life. My mother saw to that, devotedly.

 
Chapter Two
November
 
Marc
Working on my aunt’s farm wasn’t exactly fun.
My cousins were wild. I wasn’t and we didn’t mix well. My first encounter with them on the farm didn’t help. Upon my arrival, all the cousins (male and female) flooded from the house to drag me into the sweltering barn where they tore my clothes off. It was their way of telling me that my jeans and nice shirt weren’t acceptable here.
They dressed me in a pair of scratchy blue trousers and a stained black shirt, and then sniggered while I figured out how to use the suspenders to hold it all together. The clothes were too big, as were the shoes and farming hat that I was forced to wear. I looked like I was a Beverly Hillbilly, except there was no black gold to make me rich. I wasn’t even going to be paid for this work and I mourned my favorite pair of jeans.
The farm was a sprawling ten acres of woods and flat grassland that was bordered by two other farms and a main road that was still dirt instead of pavement. Cows, pigs, chickens, horses, and many other animals called this area home, but it was nothing like what I was used to. The house here was big, but that’s where the similarities ended. This one was falling down, had peeling paint, and carried a very…used odor. Our home was neat and clean, pristine in places, and smelled like cleaning supplies. I shuddered to think of what the barn would be like in the height of summer. I guessed shoveling shit wasn’t done very often. I couldn’t blame them for that, but the entire farm had the feel of owners who only cared enough to do the basics. The attraction was being away from my mother’s relentless control.
The cousins were so wild because they were unsupervised for most of their day. Chores on the farm were doled out in the mornings and people labored on their own–even the kids. Everyone gathered at the house for the evening meal. After that, they were on their own again for getting themselves to bed. I had been denied that lifestyle of freedom and personal choices since my dad left. My mother controlled all my waking moments, and I figured that hard work and ill-fitting clothes were a small price to pay for not having to censor my every thought and action to fit what she thought was appropriate.
Once I was properly dressed, I had to be given a tour of the farm so that I didn’t get lost. This meant being run from one building to another until I was pouring sweat and confused. Intentional? I became certain of that when I was told the garden was the place to milk the cows and the barn was where they were supposed to shit. I knew better of course, but it was also suggested that I play with the animals instead of doing my chore list, and at least goof off a little so that the rest of them didn’t get in trouble. They knew the work ethic my mother insisted on. They didn’t want me to show them up. As someone who’d come to relearn to be wild, that wasn’t in my plans.
After taking a shot at milking the cows and shoveling the crap that I’d been so surprised by upon arrival, the need to cool off was nearly overwhelming. We all took off running for the swimming hole when I insisted on viewing it, but their words of caution flew right by me. The swimming hole was actually a wide creek that the family used for fishing and laundry. They couldn’t tell me how deep it was when I asked and I didn’t care. I was going in.
I quickly outdistanced the farm kids, despite them being stockier and having more muscles. I had regular meals, medical care, and a determination they were lacking.
“Come on!”
I ran faster as we hit the edge of the swimming hole that my escorts had been boasting about all morning. Despite the November month being here, it still felt like September and I couldn’t wait to cool off. They’d sworn the hole wasn’t safe now, that the currents had changed even if the temperatures hadn’t, but I was determined to prove who I was. I didn’t fear the water at any time. I swam through it like a dolphin, thanks to lessons at the private school I attended.
“Wait!”
I ran for the edge as hard as I could to be certain I would clear any rocks below.
“No, don’t!”
I flew off the edge with a scream of freedom that I was sure my mother could hear in our home, thirty miles away.
I hit the chilly water and plunged under with a huge splash. I had gone in feet-first to protect myself from unknown objects on the bottom, but I realized my mistake as soon as I hit the nets. I shouldn’t have jumped at all.
My feet tangled in the ropes and I sank like a stone as I twisted and kicked. The cold water closed over my head, pulling me down with my own weight, and I opened my eyes so that I could work on getting free. Those lessons had included an emergency course that had included something like this.
I was only under the water for about twenty seconds, untangling my ankles as I slowly let out my breath, but when I surfaced, all of my cousins were on the bank, shouting frantically.
I swam to the side of the swimming hole and hefted my water-logged weight from the muddy liquid. “That was great!”
I walked by my stunned cousins with pride, but I knew I wouldn’t do it again until they said it was safe. If those ropes had tangled any worse, I might not have been able to get loose before my air ran out. I’d been lucky.
My cousins thought I had a death wish after that and studied me like a bug under a jar. I couldn’t go anywhere without them tagging along or spying for my aunt, but I adjusted to the audience without too much trouble. I was used to being checked up on. Occasionally, I evaded them and explored on my own, but I always completed the chores on time so that my mother wouldn’t bring me home early. I assumed Judy would tell her if I didn’t do my share.
The only time I saw my aunt Judy was during the evening meal, when twenty-two of us crowded around a long table that was set with the same three dishes in the center, night after night. On my first evening, still slightly damp and beginning to chafe, it was meatloaf, with mashed potatoes and gravy. We drank tepid water from the well, and it was the one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. Mary Brady hated any type of loaf made from meat.
After the meal, the adult males ambled out to the barn to smoke (and to drink moonshine), while the adult females cleaned the table and took the younger kids for their baths. The rest of us were supposed to wash up and get into bed. I lingered at the table, studying the content kids, the lightly chatting adults, the happy postures that were surreal. I wondered who was right. My aunt Judy ran things one way and though mother disliked it, she’d recognized the need for a place like this. It kept the public out of our affairs, and allowed the adults in our family to ship their kids off for months of peace. It didn’t seem bad or wrong, but it also wasn’t right to me. I wasn’t going to be happy here. It would be better than home, but that was it. This wasn’t where my heart could belong.
As darkness fell, I followed the other kids to the stairs and climbed into a chaotic room with pallets on the floor, lining both walls. There was a small bathroom at both ends, marked for each sex by the clothes tossed onto the floor around them. The bathrooms were filthy and I wondered if crapping outdoors would add to my wild image or diminish it in favor of a reputation for being gross.
My cousin Scot pointed at a pallet that wasn’t taken and I dropped down on it without washing up. So did Scot and his older brother Rodney, one on either side of me. Across the hot, narrow room, the younger boys were playing a dice game and I wondered what the stakes were. Judy barely got by, according to the financial reports. It couldn’t be cash. I found out a few minutes later, when the loser whined about the extra chores.
In the corner, two oil lamps burned from hangers in thick ceiling beams and I noticed the lack of widows. There was one. Was it because glass was expensive or was it because of kids like me, who came here to leap before they thought?
I shrugged off the unease and tried to get comfortable on the scratchy blanket. I didn’t want to know what the beds were made of, but from the feel, I was guessing a wooden frame and chicken feathers.
The lamps were dimmed after the rest of the kids came up and I listened to the house settle down around me. It wasn’t fully quiet yet when Scot and Rodney got out of bed.
“You coming?”
Both cousins were staring at me and I felt that Brady pride rise. Rod and Scot were both big, hulking boys, but I wasn’t scared of them like I was their father. Larry carried his weight as if he knew how to throw it around upon command. I respected that as much as I feared it.
 “Where?”
“We like to take in a show before bed,” Rodney joked mysteriously.
I didn’t answer. It wasn’t a good idea.
“He’s scared of his mommy,” Scot teased.
I followed them down the rear stairs and out into the warm air without another word. I wasn’t scared of anything.
We took a path that I found eerie because of the lack of light and I think my cousins felt it too because their customary jokes and quips were absent. No one said a word until we reached the end of the field.
A large farmhouse with no barns or sheds came into view and Scot pointed toward the rear of the home. “Dogs there. Be quiet.”
The boys trotted toward the opposite side of the house and I followed, suddenly wishing I’d stayed in the bed.
We emerged behind a row of short bushes and I ducked with them as a small bathing area came into view. Set up outside, the wooden stalls were in use and I gaped at the naked women. I’d never viewed one, let alone five. My magazines had black bars over all the best parts. The guy in town said it was the only ones he could sell without my mother having him removed.
Next to me, the cousins were staring too, but they were also getting set to enjoy the view in another way and my stomach flipped.
For a moment, I held my ground, not wanting to seem like I was afraid. But I was. I knew deep down that if I did this, it would break something inside of me that I wouldn’t be able to fix.
I left.
The cool wind blew the images and the taunts from my mind and I enjoyed the trek back alone. It was easy to imagine that I was older in that moment, that I was making one of those hard choices my mother was forever warning me about.
Reality set in before I reached my aunt’s farm. I wasn’t always going to be able to do the right thing, and Angie would be one of those issues. If I were smart, I would avoid her like my mother wanted me to and hope this need went away. I would escape and become a Marine. From there, I wouldn’t need anyone. I would be able to take care of myself and I would have a code to live by that I considered worthy. If I were smart, I would refuse the future I saw with Angie.
You’ll be alone forever! a voice in my mind growled. She is destiny.
That voice terrified me and I squeezed my lids shut in concentration. “Go away!”
There was an awful shudder and I swayed on my feet as silence fell in my thoughts and from the crickets. I didn’t like hearing voices. If my mother found out, who knew what she’d do? Maybe have me locked up somewhere like she did aunt Peggy.
Ahead of me, the road narrowed into that patch of almost complete darkness…and a shadow emerged, staggering toward me.
I stiffened in fear for a moment like a girl and as I recognized my uncle Larry, I vowed to work harder on that. No one wanted a Marine who was spooked by every shadow he saw. I needed to have nerves of steel in dangerous situations.
“Who is thats?” Larry slurred.
“Marcus,” I answered, spotting the bottle in his hand.
Around me, the crickets began to chirp again and my heart settled into a normal rhythm.
Larry came closer and then stopped, peering at me with bloodshot orbs.
I waited respectfully, wondering what type of punishment I would get for being caught out of bed and half a mile away. Anything but being sent home, I begged silently.
Larry wiped a hand across his nose and scratched at his cheek. “Been out with my boys?”
“No, sir.” I wasn’t about to rat them out to their father. I hoped they would do the same for me with my parent.
Larry chuckled, frown easing. “Widow Morgan has some pretty sisters. They’ve been staying with her this year to help on their farm. Husband got the cancer, you know, from working in that feed plant.”
I nodded as if I did. Larry was tall and dark, with a pointed nose and green eyes that were always bloodshot. He made me nervous.
Larry leaned in, breath coating me in whiskey fumes.
“Why are you here, boy?”
“To work and help,” I answered quickly.
“And to spy?”
“No, sir!” I protested a bit louder than I’d meant to.
Larry belched in my face, making me backup to avoid gagging.
“Good. Your mother…”
I waited, but he didn’t finish and I didn’t ask him to. If he said something awful, I might have to do something about it, but I was too young to cross her yet.
“Did you leave? Where are the boys?”
“I left,” I answered, but didn’t give him more.
Larry tried to smile at me and it came out in a grotesque mask that sent chills over my sweaty skin.
“You’re a good son, Marcus. You do exactly what Mary tells you. As long as you never step out of line, you’ll have this life.”
I wondered if he knew those words instantly made me want to break every rule that my mother had set down.
Larry regarded me knowingly and took a long swig of his bottle.
I struggled to keep quiet, not positive that I could trust this drunken, angry man.
Larry wiped his mouth on his hand and let out a loud belch. “Yep, a good kid. She’ll use you right up.”
Larry staggered away from the farm where his sons were openly doing the things that I had only started experimenting with this year. The thought of doing it while standing next to them had been horrifying.
“Hey, good kid,” Larry called, stopping a bit away.
“Yes, sir?”
Larry chuckled bitterly at the politeness. “Don’t tell your mother about tonight, huh? She’ll give the wife hell and that’ll trickle down.”
“No, sir. I won’t,” I answered. I hadn’t been planning to.
“Good,” Larry approved, glancing over his shoulder. “Don’t go in the way you came out. The hens are listening for creaking floorboards.”
I suddenly decided to try to like this uncle, despite his miserable behavior. “Thanks.”
“Need all the help you can get in this family,” Larry grunted. “Good luck.”
 
Sneaking back in without using the front stairs meant either climbing to the window or using the backdoor to get to the narrow fire steps. I chose to climb. I was good at that and I didn’t care for cramped spaces.
The warped wood gave me plenty of hand and footholds, (and splinters) but I was only halfway to the single second floor window when I heard voices. Glad of the shadows, I held still and hoped whoever it was kept going without noticing the boy clinging to the side of the farmhouse.
“Where did Larry go?”
“Chasin’ down those wild sons of his, guess.”
“Hope he gets the still fixed.”
“Shh! You know the wifie don’t like that.”
The two drunken men were also my uncles, but I couldn’t pull up their names right then.
I waited until the men were out of sight and began climbing again. The window wasn’t far above me now, but it was in an alcove without footholds. I would have to leap.
As I got set, planning where my hands would land, I heard more voices, but it was too late to stop. I lunged.
“Look at that!”
Scot sounded shocked and I wanted to glance down, but I’d barely caught the hold and was struggling to keep it.
“He is crazy!” Rodney commented in awe.
I hefted myself up and into the open window, glad that my aunt was too poor to afford a screen. As I thumped to the floor next to a sleeping form that came awake with a soft shriek, Rod and Scot cheered. I winced as the noise echoed upward.
The adults in the room below went outside while I hurried to my pallet, hoping Rodney and Scot didn’t tell on me.
I listened to my cousins lie their way out of trouble by saying they’d been going to the bathroom and weren’t feeling well. The adult females fell for it and heavy steps tromped up to the sleeping area a few minutes later.
Rod and Scot dropped down on either side of me, exclaiming about my bravery, but I didn’t feel that way. I’d been shaking the entire time and grateful to make it in without falling.
“You’re all right, Brady,” Scot stated. “We’ll take you around while you’re here. Let you meet the skanks.”
“The skanks?” I repeated, frowning. I didn’t know what that was.
“There’s a big dance once a year,” Rodney explained, crawling under his blanket. “The girls you can have stand on one side, and the girl who won’t are on the other.”
“The girls who won’t what?” I asked in confusion.
“He doesn’t know!”
“I told you he was a virgin!”
My cousins snickered cruelly and I felt my cheeks flame. The teasing continued, but with that one word, I understood and didn’t care. I wasn’t obsessed with girls.
My thoughts flashed to Angie and I rolled onto my side, pulling the blanket up. Was she thinking about me? Had anyone told her I left?
As I lay there listening to the others shift, fart, moan and mutter, it occurred to me that I’d expected to be greeted by my aunt, but I hadn’t even spoken to her. Mother would ask if I’d delivered her messages and made my manners. I hadn’t and she would punish me.
I got up and took the rickety stairs to the first floor, ignoring the surprise of the sweaty kids around me.
I was noticed by the single adult in the room as soon as I hit the bottom floor.
“Go to bed.”
I spotted my uncle Larry on the sofa, beer in hand now, and said, “I forgot to give you mother’s messages and thank you for–”
“Give them to your aunt tomorrow. Go to bed.”
I climbed the stairs in a hurry, wondering if Larry was always so surly. For a moment outside tonight, I’d liked him. Before coming, I hadn’t thought to ask what my uncle was like or even what he did on the farm. It was clear that Judy was in charge, but her husband was intimidating.
The other kids gaped at me again when I returned and I shrugged when Scot asked me if I was indeed crazy. I hadn’t been trying to impress them further, but I had.  Why? Were the rules here stricter than I’d thought? I would have to ask some careful questions. Mother did want some details on the setup, and now, so did I. I’d been led to believe this was where boys were sent to become men, but so far, it had fallen short in every way.
I fell asleep pondering the differences between perception and reality.
 
I dreamed of Angie. We were in my mother’s spotless hall and her violet eyes held blue lasers that cut through the distance. She stared at me in longing, but she couldn’t hear me no matter how loud I shouted. It was unsettling and I snapped awake as just the rooster began to crow.
It wasn’t a good start to my day as shouts echoed from people trying to quiet the big bird. I’d viewed it in the front yard upon arrival and gawked at the size. Even the barn cats wouldn’t come near the chickens with that big boy on guard and it sucked to find out that he had a mouth to match.
I groaned at the stiffness of sleeping on nearly nothing and slowly sat up, aware of sweat coating my skin. The other kids were also complaining, but it was from being woken so early. I understood how they felt, but I was anxious to begin my free life here on the farm and I got up.
Waiting in line for the disgusting bathroom made my mood worse and I vowed to do something different tomorrow morning. As it was, I had no choice today and used the facility without touching anything more than I had to. Then I spent a long time washing up, causing the other kids to wait, which they paid me back for by tripping me as I went down the stairs.
I told them the bruise didn’t hurt.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs, biscuits with gravy, and an apple. The same three big bowls as last night graced the center of the long table, and I assumed they ate this way all the time. The warped marks on the wooden surface were the proof. They were in the shape of those dishes, and I swept the people at the table. Was everyone here, except me, poor? Were they also here for training and punishment, or was this a normal life for them? I had more questions than answers.
I went outside after I finished eating, scanning for another bathroom that I could sneak into when I needed to do more than pee. As I did, I spotted my Uncle Larry lying in the hammock behind the house. Hoping he wouldn’t mind, I strolled that way.
Larry inspected me blearily as I joined him, taking a seat on the nearby stump. When I didn’t speak, he leaned his head back and let the silence drag out.
As I scanned this overgrown area, I found an old outhouse and relaxed a bit. Anything was better than that upstairs horror. I’d never known anyone to do that with curtains, but I assumed my aunt never went in there. If she had, her screams would be loud. It was disgusting.
“That’s my private space, boy,” Larry said without raising his head. “You leave it like you find it.”
I grinned. “I will, sir. Thank you.”
“Uh-huh.”
We stayed quiet for the next ten minutes, listening to the noises of the house grow louder. It was chaotic, but in a good way. No one ever said good morning or asked how you slept at my house. No one cared.
The insects flew through the tall grass and the sun came out, warming my face. I inhaled deeply, sensing I was about to learn something important. I didn’t know where it was going to come from, but I hoped it wasn’t gross. I didn’t have a strong stomach in the morning.
“Why did she send you to the farm early?”
I was unprepared for the question and stammered, “Uh, I don’t... I mean, I’m not…”
I flushed when he glanced over with a brow lifted.
“I didn’t do what she wanted.”
Larry grunted, clearly expecting more details, but I wasn’t going to spill my guts to a stranger. Angie already meant more to me than that.
“You gonna do it again and get sent back?” Larry asked. “Most of the boys do. They like it here.”
I shrugged, but didn’t answer. He was trying to pull details from me that I wasn’t willing to give.
After another minute of silence, Larry sat up and faced me with a grim expression. “I’m gonna take a chance with you, boy. Mostly because you didn’t stay and join the circle jerk last night. You’re smarter than the others and I admire that. But you’ll lose it before long. This family uses a man up until he’s nothing but a rooster crowing for no good reason.”
I didn’t understand what he was trying to tell me, but at the same time, I did. “I’m leaving as soon as I can.”
I didn’t mean to say that!
“Good,” Larry stated, surprising me again. “I thought you were smart. Nice to know I’m right.”
He didn’t say anything else, just went back to snoozing in his hammock, and I returned to the house, wondering if all the uncles hated their lives. Larry clearly did–enough to risk mother’s wrath by warning me. If I hadn’t already been positive that leaving the family was the right thing to do, the short conversation with Larry would have convinced me. I didn’t want to end up a bitter drunk hiding behind his house to avoid his life. I wanted a happy, loving family…with Angie.
That morning set a routine for me on the farm. I avoided my uncles during the evening, when they were most likely to be drinking, and rose early to spend time with them in the mornings, before the rest of the family was out and about. The second morning, I’d found all five of my uncles gathered around Larry’s hammock, each of them bloodshot, unshaven, and grouchy. It was great. I learned more about life and women during that hour than I ever had from school or my magazines. These men weren’t afraid to talk in front of me if I was careful to keep my mouth shut. I had a million questions, and I sensed that if I listened, I would be able to glean enough to make up my own mind.
During one of these mornings, when the chill had finally arrived to coat the ground with frost, the uncles were discussing spring branding and breeding. My face stayed red at the conversation and jokes, but I finally discovered a reason for my attraction to Angie.
“Men always want what they can’t have,” Jerry stated. “Gets us in trouble, but there’s no fighting it.”
“Like Georgie,” Larry agreed. “He’s got that hot one about to grow up.”
“Think he’ll hurt her like the one before?” Bobby asked.
“Hard to tell. He might be better now.”
The conversation drifted to other things, but I stayed on the image of wanting what I couldn’t have. Was that why I needed to spend time with Angie? To rebel against my parent? If so, that was okay. I wasn’t a sick boy who would grow up to do sick things. I was a normal teenager fighting the control of his parent.
In that moment of revelation, I decided it was okay for me to have a friendship with Angie and later, maybe more, because I didn’t want her for bad reasons. It wasn’t her power or how cute she was. I didn’t want her for branding and breeding. I hated Mary and I wanted to strike out. That was fine.
I had expected to be toiling all the time while on my aunt’s farm, but I quickly discovered they had a laidback approach. They often let the big chores build up all week and then spent the weekends knocking it out. I was lost. My mother would never tolerate that and through the week, I had no idea what to do with myself once the basics were covered. Many of the other kids didn’t even have to go to classes. It was called homeschooling and I was shocked by it. There were no teachers to slap your hand with a ruler, no bullies or clubs, or girls that followed you to gym class. In fact, there was no gym class. These kids got exercise on the weekends, where everyone worked until they dropped. The rest of the time was free after feeding and watering the animals, and I was jealous of them at first. The things I wanted to do would take years and I couldn’t imagine getting bored like the older boys complained of.
That was the first few weeks. After a month, I’d gotten tired of the talks and walks, of the smells, of that rooster crowing for no reason. I wanted to accomplish something during my time here, something more important than baling hale until midnight. So, I explored the area for people who were more like me.
Daniel Glass was the boy from the trailer park where Angie lived. I knew him on sight because he rode his dirt bike everywhere he went, even to school. I’d witnessed the short, stocky boy practicing tricks up on the hill behind the trailers and thought he was determined to kill himself. I also admired his courage. There wasn’t a ramp that he wouldn’t shoot across, a space between the boards he wouldn’t try to jump. Daniel was fearless.
I’d also witnessed one of his wipeouts. It had been ugly, sending the boy sprawling in painful positions as he slid across the gravel, but Daniel had picked himself up and returned to the ramp. On his second run, where he got more speed, he made the jump, dripping blood from his arm all the way up the wooden ramp.
On this morning, we hadn’t officially met yet and I hung back as I came across him riding through the unplanted field by my aunt’s farm. Daniel was quiet and smart, with brown hair and sun-darkened skin that caused the girls to stare. They liked my dark hair and pale skin, but they were drawn to Daniel’s adventurous spirit and I was glad. I didn’t have any interest in girls–something I was tired of telling my cousins. I also didn’t have any interest in boys, though they both liked to call me queer whenever I did something right and got praised for it. I knew jealousy when I heard it and never responded. I didn’t care what they thought anymore.
Daniel sped across the dirt, throwing dusty clumps in scattered piles and I wondered again if Angie had a bike. I could take her down to the creek for our time together. Adults never went there.
I frowned. Normal adults didn’t go there. Sometimes the homeless wandered by, but I’d never had problems with them. For some reason, I was suddenly sure that Angie would.
“You wanna ride?” Daniel called out, stopping nearby.
I was startled at the friendly voice and the offer. I’d been considering Angie in danger and not liking the feeling.
“I’ll watch.”
Daniel shrugged, twisting the throttle. “Whatever.”
I hung out for hours, watching from the shade of a nearby tree, and was joined a while later by a few other kids that I hadn’t met yet. I didn’t think they were from my aunt’s farm, but I wasn’t certain. There had been more than a dozen teenagers at the dinner table last night.
The boys who found a spot near my seat on the wooden fence were tall and thin, with shaggy yellow hair and bright green eyes. Like Daniel, their clothes were K-Mart at best and their shoes were probably Goodwill or Salvation Army. I suspected my mother wouldn’t approve and immediately chose to make friends if possible. I certainly didn’t have much in common with Rodney and Scot, who were ‘acceptable’.
After that first month, I had a full routine. In the morning, I listened to my uncles talk about bitterness, beer, and broads–in that order. In the afternoon, I joined Daniel and our small group at the flat field. Most of the time, we watched Daniel practice his tricks and talked about life–much like with my uncles. We also swam, fished, and hunted small game, though I was the only one who knew how to do that last item. My mother had insisted I learn and help keep our larders stocked during deer season. It gave me a slight advantage, but mostly, it allowed me to fit into the group as a much-needed member. Daniel was our entertainment and we were his audience. I was the teacher and they were my students. It quickly became common for the other kids to ask me to help with their projects. I taught Dennis to skin a rabbit so that he could make the hat his mom couldn’t afford to buy him for his birthday. I showed three of our gang how to hunt for worms to hide in their sister’s beds. I even helped little Tony get his father a job, by telling him what my mother would want to hear during the interview. She often recommended people for work in the town shops and businesses that owed her money.
In the evenings, I labored on the hand code, ignoring the taunts of the older boys as they left to peep at the widow and her sisters. I created another life on the farm, one that was the opposite of what my mother had planned for me.
And I dreamed of Angie every nearly night.

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