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Gone

Roaring Brook Press

"Are your parents here yet?"

Startled, Connor turned to find Ms. Timms, his history teacher, standing beside him in the doorway to the gym, a white carnation pinned to the lapel of her fitted bright blue jacket. A deafening roar peeled off the crowd gathered in the bleachers. She laughed, turning to wave at a kid rushing past and calling her name.

Connor's mouth went dry. Dressed in his burgundy gown, his cap tucked under his arm, he felt like an idiot. Why wasn't he taller? She had him by at least an inch. He'd put off getting in the line with the other soon-to-be graduates assembling for their big entrance. If he'd been where he was supposed to be ...

He blushed furiously, sweat running down the back of his neck.

Zach, the one friend he had made since moving here a few months ago, called Ms. Timms serious babe material — too bad she was their teacher. Connor called her, just to himself, beautiful. Half of his time in her class had been spent trying not to stare at her, then, failing his resolve, ducking his head when she turned around from the blackboard and caught him.

For the nanosecond that their eyes locked — what?

Nothing, that's what.

Except ...

The shrieks from the bleachers quieted, and he realized she was looking at him again. "My parents, um, couldn't come. Just my aunt."

She smiled, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "I see. Well, I'm glad somebody's here for you." She held out her hand. "And I'm so happy I spotted you. I've been wanting to tell you how much I enjoyed having you as a student this year." She laughed lightly. "Half year, I mean."

Her hand in his was cool despite the heat of the day, despite his own heat.

"Um, yes, it's been great." He coughed. "I mean, was great." Her eyes were an impossible blue, the same color as her jacket, the same color as the stones that blazed in his grandmother's favorite pin. The one sealed in a plastic bag in the small brown cardboard box in his dresser drawer.

She squeezed his hand slightly, the coolness of her skin turning electric — his skin singing from the shock.

"Keep up your woodworking, okay? You're really very good. More than good." She laughed, glancing away. Then she looked at him again. "Tom — I mean, Mr. McDaniel — thinks you really have a future. Handcrafted furniture is truly an art."

She and Mr. McDaniel, his shop instructor, and his wife were friends. On his way in to work at the Chow Line, Connor had once seen the three of them walking into a restaurant together.

He could barely speak. "Thanks. I mean, that's nice to hear."

"Well." She looked at their still-linked hands, then back at his face. "Good luck, then. I'd better go find Tom and Annie. We're supposed to sit together." Her hand slipped from his grasp and she turned to walk away, glancing back just once, biting her lip, her deep blue eyes intense with — what?

Connor sucked in his breath.

Longing.

* * *

Jolted awake, Connor gasped, desperate for air. Then a breeze touched his face, and he opened his lips, taking it in, breathing deeply.

It was just a bad dream. The darkness of nothing filling his lungs.

Aside from the rotating whir of the fan, his small room was silent, utterly still, the scent of the night, heavy with dew and midsummer heat, pressing in through the screen. He lay tangled in sheets, in bed at his great-aunt's house. He'd lived here for months.

Disturbed from her sleep, Furr, his aunt's middle-aged, fat gray cat, stood heavily on Connor's left foot and stretched, then curled up once more on his ankle, purring hard, anchoring him fast. Nothing ruined her slumber for long.

Connor smiled in the dark, flopping his arm over his face. Deliberately pushing the dream away, he thought daytime, sunlit, practical thoughts.

He'd graduated over a month ago. He could leave anytime. And would, as soon as he made a little more money. He owed his Aunt Syl for taking him in. Though she wanted him to save his paychecks for school. So — go to college? Or just go?

Connor pushed those thoughts aside.

He'd finished cutting the lawn. Aunt Syl's yard, a good half hour beyond Holland, a Maryland out-burb of DC, was so big it took forever to mow. Getting it done was always an event.

Connor gave himself a thumbs-up.

Tomorrow was his father's birthday. Zach was coming along, meeting him for the first time, so that would help.

Two thumbs.

His car needed an oil change. First thing in the morning. He'd change the oil in his aunt's car, too, early next week on her day off. Her boyfriend, Walter, had offered to do it, but he didn't enjoy getting his hands full of grease, so he'd like that.

Connor grinned, knowing he was in serious Brownie-point territory.

He pictured the new table he was making, still unformed, the pieces of wood sitting pale and silent and naked in his aunt's garage. They required only time and attention to become whole, to become the image he saw in his head.

When you got right down to it, most things just needed to be looked at.

He relaxed into his pillow, finally letting himself savor his favorite subject, his most private fantasy, letting it surface, warm and tease his body, ripen him toward pleasure.

Ms. Timms.

"This kind of sucks, you know?" Zach paused in the doorway before heading down the hall beside Connor.

Connor nodded. His gut had lost its happy hum about fifteen minutes ago, beginning to contract repeatedly and painfully the closer they got to the nursing home. Just like it always did. Maybe recruiting Zach to join him wouldn't really help.

Connor hated coming here. The smells, mostly. Piss. Shit. Air freshener that didn't freshen anything. He tried to time his visits for late afternoon, after lunch and snacks but before dinner. The food was the worst smell of all.

A tiny, ancient woman in a wheelchair waved and gave them a toothless smile. Zach, tall and skinny, his hair a crazy rat's nest of reddish brown curls, leaned down to wave back, a wide grin plastered to his face, but Connor hurried on. His father's room was just around the corner.

It wasn't the world's greatest nursing home, but the nurses and aides did a pretty good job, he supposed. Connor tried to remember their names, but it seemed like every time he came, the faces had changed. Still, he knew the women gave his father extra attention. He not only was decades younger than most of the other residents, he was, despite his partially addled brain, still handsome. Something Connor hadn't quite inherited.

"That's why I married your father," his mother had once told him, holding her third vodka, her voice slurring. "Damned good-looking man." She'd taken another sip of her drink, chuckling. "And a damned good-looking drunk." She divorced him when Connor was six. His grandmother, who adored her charming son-in-law, had wept.

Connor turned abruptly into his father's room. "Whoa," Zach said, almost continuing past. "This it?"

Connor stood in the doorway, bracing himself. The afternoon sun reaching in through the blinds on the window had bleached the pale walls a passive, serene white. For a moment, standing in the silence, Connor pictured a beach, warm sand lapped by clear blue water, a beautiful woman lying on a beach towel, smiling up at him, her dark hair damp —

Embarrassed, he shook the image out of his head, turning toward his father.

Lucky enough to win the side of the room with a view, he sat facing the window. Slumped in his wheelchair, asleep.

The accident — he'd been drunk, of course, stumbling out of a bar in the middle of the night, wheeling directly into the path of an oncoming car — had crippled his body. Stripped of alcohol, his liver had regrouped, but his brain ...

Even before the accident Connor had sensed something was wrong. The occasional missing words when they spoke, as if a pair of scissors had snipped them right out of his father's head. The sometimes blank looks. The fumbled wit. The dull pallor of his face.

They said alcohol was a poison. If so, his father was living proof.

Proof. Ha-ha.

Zach cleared his throat. "That him?"

Connor walked past his father's roommate, asleep in his bed — all his father's roommates died sooner rather than later, there was no point in getting to know them — and stood in front of his father. Someone else had sent a card. Who? He leaned over to read the card propped on the small table beside his bed. Beth, it read. Connor's mother. Surprised, Connor leaned down and gently touched his father's arm.

"Hey, Dad."

His father's eyes opened slowly.

"It's me. Connor. Your son."

His father lifted his head, a smile blossoming on his face. "Connor! How are —?" He laughed. "Hey, I know who you are." He wiped the spittle off the corner of his mouth, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. The same gleam that always made Connor believe, just for an instant, that his father was still okay, was perfectly fine.

"Who's your friend?" His father tilted his head toward Zachary.

"Zach."

"Zach," his father repeated, chuckling.

A wide grin once more spackled on his face, Zach leaned forward to shake his hand. "How's it going, Mr. Donoghue?"

"Fine! Just fine." Connor's father smiled, falling silent, staring at the floor.

"Well, then." Connor handed him the card he'd brought. "Happy birthday."

"Oh." His father, pleased, took the bright blue envelope, studying it as if it was a work of art. Then he looked up at Connor. "Is it your birthday?"

Connor glanced at Zach, who grimaced. Taking a deep breath, Connor pulled out the single straight-backed chair on his father's side of the room and sat down. Zach, hesitant, gingerly sat on the edge of the bed.

"Here." Connor reached into his pocket. "I brought you a present."

His father took the tiny object, turning it over with his fingers. "What is it?"

"A four-leaf clover," Connor answered. Fixed under glass, it used to hang on a thin chain, as a woman's necklace. He'd pulled it from the small brown cardboard box stashed in his dresser drawer. The same box he'd stolen when he'd fled his mother's apartment for the last time. The box that held his grandmother's jewelry. It was all junk, but ...

"It's for luck," he said.

"Luck!" His father laughed, his hair shining in the sunlight. Closing his eyes, he let the summer sun bathe his face.

As silence filled the room once more, Zach leaned back on his elbows and studied the ceiling tiles. Connor stared out the window, waiting as his father fell asleep, the locket falling from his hand.

Connor stood in the opened side door of his aunt's garage, looking out. The sky, passing from a rosy lilac to a smoldering purple, had begun to turn black. Except for a final twittering of restless birds, quiet settled over the area.

His aunt had lived here for years, since long before her husband died, five years ago.

Using the toe of his sneaker, Connor pushed a lacing of sawdust into the shape of a crescent. He was glad his aunt let him use the garage for his woodworking. He finally had enough space to spread out, to properly use all his tools.

Saying good-bye to his father this time had been easy enough. Connor had put both the card and the four-leaf clover locket on the table, then bent down and kissed his sleeping father on the forehead, not caring that Zach saw. Stealing out, relief had washed over him.

The ride home had been silent, Zach withdrawn into himself. Connor, though, had felt fine, his muscles relaxing more and more with each passing mile.

Connor scattered the sawdust again with his toe. The night, with no city lights to disturb it, began to chip and whir with bugs. An early sliver of moon sat over the wide lawn. He could just make out the covered stand-alone glider, faintly outlined with light, that his uncle had bought as an anniversary gift for his wife, just before he died. The abandoned goat shed, by the back fence, stood empty. Behind him, the long driveway, lined with maple trees, disappeared into darkness.

The only thing Connor possessed that was recognizably his was — himself. And maybe the few things he'd crafted in wood. The early, bad pieces — a lopsided, shellacked CD holder, a spice rack for his mother that hung crooked, a rickety birdhouse. And then the gradual improvement: a series of book ends; squat, square stools; bookcases and simple tables; a desk, even a chair — each piece better than the last. Wood had finally begun to take the shape he saw in his mind, achieving, if not quite beauty, at least a dignified order. And his hands, always, itched to do more.

People said he had a gift. Maybe. But to work seriously in wood, he'd pretty much have to stay in one place, and he'd already done that, and done it enough.

There were plenty of other things to do.

Sensing movement, Connor glanced upward, a bat flickering in and out of the dark sky — black on black. He frowned. What was the thing about bats? Rabies? No, they were good, they ate mosquitoes or something.

Maybe both.

He looked back into the garage, the dangling bulb casting a bleak, pale light, the corners of the room black, forbidding. He needed a lathe to shape the legs of this newest table. Maybe the one at school. His shop teacher, Mr. McDaniel, was working over the summer on new shelving for the art class, so he'd be there, at least some of the time.

Connor wanted to finish this piece up. Wanted to be done with it.

When you worked with wood, though, there was always another step to undertake, to complete. Planning, cutting, sawing, shaping, sanding, fitting, nailing, applying the first coat of stain, waiting till it dried, brushing on a second ...

It took time and patience, from beginning to end. Which was an odd choice of activity for someone who wanted to push on and keep going.

He flicked out the light.

* * *

The sweet, plaintive tune stopped him just inside the kitchen door.

"O the moon will turn silver when I find my true love," his aunt sang as she worked at the counter, making her lunch for the next day. "And the oceans turn to gold when he's in my arms again."

Andy and Boo-Boo, her two mutts, sat behind her on the floor, hoping for treats. Their heads turned and their dark eyes welcomed him, but they refused to give up their post.

Sensing Connor's presence, his aunt stopped singing and smiled. "An old folk song," she explained, slipping a hard-boiled egg into a lunch bag. She had the morning shift at Mounds, a big-box store in Holland, where she worked to supplement her retirement — it's where she'd met Walter — and had to be up and out early. She tossed Andy and Boo-Boo each a crust of bread, which they eagerly caught and chomped. "From back in the day."

"It's nice," Connor said.

"Actually," she chuckled, "I just made it up."

Wearing her hair in a long, gray-streaked braid down her back, Aunt Syl veered toward a relaxed, old-time hippieness, in sharp contrast to Walter, who, with his neatly trimmed, short white hair and crisp, tidy shirts, was a former businessman. But who knew what happened once you got old, Connor thought. Maybe your choices were limited. Walter, an occasional overnight guest, would probably move in permanently as soon as Connor moved out.

He blew air out through his lips. Should he play cupid, take off now and help their romance along?

He watched her pop a couple of oatmeal cookies into a plastic bag and add it to her lunch, breaking one in half for the "boys." She shook the cookie box at Connor. "Want one?"

He reached to take it.

"Oh, your mother called," she added.

Connor pulled back his hand.

"She wants you to give her a call." Aunt Syl opened the box and handed him a cookie. "She sounded pretty good, actually. Maybe this time she can do it. That new job in Baltimore, a new apartment ..." She shrugged. "Who knows?"

Connor turned the cookie over and over in his hands, then noticed Aunt Syl watching him. He dutifully bit it in half.

His aunt wiped the counter with a sponge. "You don't have to call, you know. I only told her I'd give you the message."

Connor saluted her with what remained of his cookie and left the room. He knew he didn't have to call back. He also knew, despite the tightening in his throat, that he would.

If only for one reason.

Guilt.

* * *

"You sent Dad a card." Sitting at the desk in his tiny upstairs bedroom, the fan on his dresser whirring back and forth, he cradled the phone receiver in the crook of his neck. Furr, parked Buddha-like in front of him on the desk, stretched her gray nose to touch his. The catnut! He turned his head, pushing her gently away.

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Excerpted from Gone by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson. Copyright © 2007 Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson. Excerpted by permission of Roaring Brook Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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