Читать книгу Born in Syn - Beth Kander - Страница 16

“Poor thing, do you miss your Daddy?”

The woman asking Nathan the question had a stupid face, saggy, with lipstick drawn way past the real line of her lips, and pathetically sympathetic eyes. She was standing in line behind them at the post office making small talk with Nathan’s mother, who had accidentally let slip she was a widow. This cued the dumb woman to speak to Nathan.

“No,” Nathan said, realizing it was true, though he’d never really thought about it before.

He looked at his mother, but she wasn’t listening to him or to the stupid stranger. One of the two blue-shirted postal clerks had motioned her up to the counter, and she was asking for stamps, handing over a crumpled bill and some pre-addressed envelopes.

“Oh,” the moron woman said, not knowing how to respond to the tiny child’s confession that he did not miss his dead father. Then the other postal worker motioned for her to come up to the counter, and she looked relieved to scurry away from the disconcerting toddler.

Nathan unsettled people even when he wasn’t giving the wrong answer to obvious questions. He was small for his age, and quiet. One might mistake his demeanor for good manners, since he truly embodied old idioms like children should be seen and not heard and do not speak unless spoken to—but really, he just found most people beneath his attention.

Nathan rarely spoke. But he was constantly assessing, observing, and thinking. From early on he was building schemas far beyond red ball and the stove burns. His mind whirled constantly, in stark contrast to his physicality. He moved slowly, deliberately, like he was carrying something hot. Perhaps his body feared spilling the crammed contents of his mind.

I don’t miss my father.

He knew he should miss his father, although he wasn’t certain why that was an expectation. Still, knowing that his answer was met with disapproval, he considered the implication. He wasn’t sure if the problem was that he didn’t miss his father, or that he admitted to not missing his father. Nothing to be done about the former, but he could mitigate the latter.

Nathan did not attend his father’s funeral, but that wasn’t his choice. He was barely a year old. An infant. While his mind was already firing away, his legs were not, and his presence or absence anywhere was entirely dependent upon others. If someone had carried him to the funeral, he would have attended, like it or no. Instead, he was left with a sitter. Either way, he could not be blamed for not attending the funeral.

But he was to blame for his father’s death.

No one knew he was his father’s murderer, but that didn’t matter. Intention had little to do with outcome. Nathan’s actions—whatever his intent—led to his father’s demise.

That morning, one year ago, Nathan had awoken hungry. Ravenously hungry. And he hated screaming. It hurt his throat, purpled his face, sometimes made him accidentally fill his diaper, adding insult to injury. When he needed something, he did not throw the typical infant temper tantrum. He made one loud sound, almost a bark, and someone always responded. So that morning, he barked.

His father answered the call, clodding awkwardly down the hallway on his too-long legs. But then the footsteps stopped, just short of Nathan’s room. At the bathroom just next door. Through the thin wall separating the rooms, Nathan heard the distinct sound of a gush of urine hitting toilet water. This irked Nathan.

His father, stopping to pee on the way to Nathan’s bedroom. Giving preference to his own needs before making sure that Nathan’s needs were met. That was not the arrangement. Parents cared for children. Children’s needs came first. That was the deal.

Nathan considered letting out a second sharp bark, but decided against that course of action. Instead, he gripped the bars of his crib, hauling himself up on his fat weak baby legs. The crib was old; it had been his brother’s, and his father’s before that. It was made with thick, heavy wood, with wide bars—twice as wide as the gaps between each bar, making it an effective prison for the thick-bodied infant.

His unreliable balance tilted Nathan back and forth. The slight rocking caused his fingers to slip from the thick bars. He fell back onto this mattress, and hated the squelching sound his wet diaper made. He was so angry, sitting in the wet cloth while his father peed a few feet away.

Not. Fair.

In his crib, Nathan had several toys. Silly baby things, none of which interested him. A teddy bear, some wooden alphabet-letter blocks, and a bright red fire truck. No one knew yet that you weren’t supposed to put babies to bed with toys; that it was a hazard to do so. Nathan never hurt himself sleeping with the toys. He shoved them into a corner and avoided them. But he did know that stepping on them hurt; he’d seen his mother and father step on them and let loose a series of whispered words he knew he shouldn’t have heard.

He wanted to make his father say those words.

He wanted to hurt him.

To punish him.

Nathan grabbed the blocks, wrapping his chubby fingers around them. He tried to hold two in one hand, and use his other sausage of an arm to pull himself up on the rail of the crib. It didn’t work. Down the hall, he heard the toilet flush.

Faster.

Nathan released his grip on the blocks and went instead for the fire truck. It was heavier, but easier to maneuver. He shoved it against the bars of his crib, positioning himself under it, so it balanced on his head and shoulders. Then he carefully gripped the bars, slowly stood up, then let go of the bars and before falling back down, shoved upwards with his hands, pushing the raised fire truck just enough to send it toppling over the edge of his crib.

It landed a mere two feet away.

Nathan almost wailed. It was too close to the crib. His father would easily avoid it. A wasted effort—but then his father stumbled in, rubbing his eyes and not looking at his feet. He made his way to the baby’s crib and stepped square on the truck.

“Shit!” Ernest Fell swore, the muted syllable barely escaping from his lips before he stumbled, pitched forward, and smacked his head hard on the wide edge of the heavy wooden crib. Without making another cry, he thudded dully to the floor.

Nathan didn’t mean for his father to die. He wanted him to hurt his foot, not smash his head. His goal was a fall, not a fatality. It was Nathan’s first lesson in accidental outcomes; in the collateral damage that can come when trying something new.

It was also a lesson in how quickly things can change. When Ernest Fell walked into Nathan’s room, he was one thing: a person. When he hit his head and stopped breathing, stopped moving, stopped being, he was no longer a someone, but a something: a body, empty and vacant.

That was what they buried. Just an empty body.

Why would he miss that?

Everyone assumed Ernest Fell died of a heart attack. There was no reason to suspect foul play, and autopsies weren’t really done in situations like that. Not back then. So Nathan’s crime went entirely undetected. Even he didn’t think about it much. Only at moments like this one, when an entirely unsuspecting party asked him about his father’s death.

“Okay, Nathan, let’s go home,” his mother said, shifting him from her left hip to her right hip. Her eyes were far away. He could tell she was already planning her next nap. “Your brother will be home from the neighbor’s soon. I’ll make us all TV dinners and maybe we’ll watch a show tonight. There’s a show I think you and Howie will like. It’s called ‘I’ve Got a Secret.’”

The title of the show intrigued two-year-old Nathan. After all, young as he was, the little boy already had a massive secret he’d never share with anyone.