Secret Star (5 page)

“Not about you.”

“About my father, same thing.”

Kam said, with passion yet without raising his voice, “What else am I supposed to do? I need to find him. You can't help me.”

Damn, he was right. There was nothing else he could do except go away, and she didn't want that. She let out a long breath and said nothing.

“Anyway, no such luck,” Kam said more quietly. “It seems like you and Mr. Mathis are kind of new here. Just moved here four, five years ago. Nobody knows a thing.”

“Huh!” Tess was taken aback. Somehow she had assumed that she and Daddy had lived in the little cow-plop cinder-block shack in the country since she was born. But it seemed not.

It seemed like Daddy had let her think that, though.

Kam gave her a minute to process the information, and then he asked, “Tess—why don't you remember?”

Dumb question. “I just don't.”

“Because you're a mental deficient? I don't think so. Tess, c'mon. Why?”

No, it wasn't such a dumb question. Something dark and hard had started to gather in her chest and she didn't have a name for it but she knew it was the bomb that was going to blow the walls of her world in. She admitted it, though only to herself: some horrible thing had happened when she was a child, something so awful she could not remember.

Kam said, “Don't you want to know about your parents? Aren't you curious?”

She shook her head vehemently.

“Tess,” he said, “I'm asking your permission to talk to Mr. Mathis.”

She knew he was. “Go away.”

He could tell she didn't mean it. He turned to go, but said gently, “I'll be back when you get off work.”

How he knew when she got off work was a mystery to Tess, because she had never told him. Maybe he just stood there for hours. When she came out, though, there he was by the Dumpster, swiveling his head to check her face like a hawk checking to see which way the wind was blowing. She didn't know what to say to him, but stood and waited for him to come and walk beside her before she headed toward home.

Neither of them said a word as they walked up Hinkles Corner. Tess trudged more slowly than usual, noticing things, as if that could help her. Outhouses. Somebody had a plywood cutout, a granny fanny, leaning against an outhouse. Springtime, so people were putting ornaments on their lawns, propeller-wing ducks, kissing kids, plastic pinwheel daisies. Some old woman even had the push mower out already. Tess saw yellow posy bushes blooming, yellow smoke rising from a chimney—somebody had a coal fire going. It was going to be a chilly night.

She and Kam said nothing until they were clear out of Hinkles Corner, through the salvage yard and past the sawmill and into river-bottom country. It was dusk by then, with the evening star coming out like a highlight in a polished brass sky. There was light enough for Tess to see Kamo's scarred face when she turned to him.

“Okay,” she said to him, hard. “You want to find your father.”

He nodded.

“Why?” she demanded. He'd better have a good answer to justify what he was putting her through, not some selfish reason. Heck, for all she knew he might want a place where he could stay and not have to work. He might want to tell his father off. He might want to kill him.

“That's kind of a dumb question,” Kam said.

“No, it's not. No dumber than a lot of the questions you're asking me. Why is it so important to find your father?”

He stopped walking, but he didn't answer right away. He stood where he was and looked off to where the dark hills crowded against the golden-bugle color in the sky. On the nearest hillside an old orchard hulked, overgrown with poison ivy. Everywhere the stony farms were abandoned, pastures going to locust and cedar, wilderness taking them back.

Night noises were starting. Spring frogs.

Kam said, so softly she could barely hear him, “You'll think I'm a jerk.”

“Maybe.” She could not afford to have mercy. Her voice came out as hard as the stony hills. “What do you want your father for?”

He took a breath and looked straight at her with his head lifted, defiant, as he said it. “Love.”

Tess gawked at him.

“I want somebody to love me,” he said, and his voice didn't stay quite steady, and neither did his face.

It took her breath away. No boy she knew or had ever known would have had the guts to say it, to tell the real reason. Boys she knew at school, trying so hard to be cool in hundred-dollar running shoes—they would have joked around. Or they would have come out with some lame reason, like wanting money. Or they would have gotten all studly and mad.

Kam wasn't being macho. Just for that alone the whole world should have loved him.

“You don't—have anybody?”

He shook his head. His face flinched, and he turned away.

They walked on, and Tess knew what she had to do, both for him and for herself. But it was dark, with the stars shining up from the black creek water, before she could say it.

“Okay,” she told Kam. “Talk to Daddy.”

When Tess walked in she saw dinner waiting on the table and Daddy waiting to eat with her. “Kamo,” he said, looking a little surprised and not quite happy when Kam walked in with her. Tess saw him trying not to jump to conclusions. Daddy was fair. “You looking for supper again?” he asked, making himself smile at Kam. Daddy had manners. “Put on another plate, Tess.”

Kam shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice low, “I didn't come for supper.” Tess knew he wasn't about to eat Daddy's macaroni and cheese when he planned on asking unwelcome questions. He leaned against the sink edge, bracing himself. From his wheelchair Daddy peered up at him.

“What's wrong, son?”

“Mr. Mathis, I need to talk with you.”

But then Kam didn't seem to know what to say, and Tess saw the color start to seep out of Daddy's face, saw him going gray, saw his hands clutch at Ernestine's wheels. “Daddy,” she said, butting in to get this over with, “Kam's last name is Rojahin. He's looking for his father. He thinks maybe—”

“No,” Daddy said sharply.

“I haven't seen him since I was a little kid,” Kam said. “I don't know where to start.”

“Not here.” Daddy's hands jerked backward, rolling his chair away from Kam till it bumped against the table; the lid slid off the macaroni pan with a crash. “I don't want—”

“Mr. Mathis, please. Just tell me where—”

“No!” The color rushed back to Daddy's face, and he heaved himself up in his chair and roared. “You back off! I don't want you bothering Tess with this nonsense.”

She had hardly ever in her life sided against him, but this was one time. “Daddy,” she told him, “I need to know too.”

“No, you don't!” He swung his chair toward her almost like a threat. “No, you don't, Tess!”

“Just tell me where you lived before you came here,” Kam said, keeping the volume down. “Tell me where I might find him, that's all.”

“I'm telling you nothing! Nothing!” Daddy reared forward in his wheelchair, his face so flushed even his bald spot was red. “You get out of here!”

Kamo swallowed hard, gripped the edge of the sink and didn't move.

“Get out and stay out! I don't want you bothering my daughter.”

Tess was getting frightened. Not that Daddy would hurt anybody, even though he was yelling—
Why should it scare me?
But it did.

“Get out of here! Now!”

It was like—an echo, a voice she had heard before, roaring—in a nightmare that turned walls to tissue. Tess stood with the kitchen floor solidly under her big feet, and she knew every splotch on the linoleum, and the grease-freckled walls were not really billowing like sheets in a high wind, but—they had been—somewhere—

“This is my house! Get out of my house!”

There had been another house—not like this one, all one flat cluttered story without any steps even at the front and back doors, but a—a house with stairs, a big house where a half-grown girl had crouched on the tall stairs and peeked down through the white spindle railing—

“Get—out—”

Daddy's shouting turned to gasping. His face turned from red to putty pale, and he sank down in his chair. Tess could see him sweating. Could see how his hands shook as they clutched at Ernestine's wheels.

“Daddy!” She got herself moving and hurried toward him.

“My pills,” he whispered, and then he yelled it, his voice hoarse. “Tess, get my pills!”

His heart medicine—it had to be on the junked-up kitchen counter somewhere, but she couldn't think where. She sent dishes clattering, trying to find it. Kam turned to help.

“Go away,” she snapped, panicked and angry—at him, at herself, for asking stupid questions that could kill Daddy, give him a heart attack. “Do what he says, get out!”

She didn't look, just heard the door close as Kamo left.

“Okay, Daddy.” At last she found the pills and got the bottle open. She gave him two. “Just relax.” She dipped him a glass of drinking water from the covered bucket that sat by the sink. After the pills took effect and Daddy's breathing quieted down and his shaking stopped and his color was better, he just sat in his chair. Slack, like he'd been beaten up. Tess would have french-fried herself sooner than ask him any more questions. She offered to heat up supper but he didn't want any. He said he wasn't hungry. Neither was she.

That evening the house was gloomy in the dim candlelight and far too quiet. Tess missed having the TV turned on even though the guns on TV shows usually drove her right out of the room. She didn't mind worms or snakes or any of the usual girly-screamy things but she hated guns—they made her gut squirm. Guns, and gunfire. And the sound of guns on stupid cop shows. That evening, though, she would have been grateful for some stupid cop show for Daddy to watch, because of the silence. It wasn't like they were fighting, but—this was why she hardly ever went against Daddy, because he was all she had. Without him she was alone, a speck spinning in the universe. In the silence he seemed light-years away.

That night Tess had trouble getting to sleep. And when she finally dozed, the nightmare began. Something was wrong, something was wrong, nothing could ever be warm or safe or right again, the bedroom walls rippled and wavered like vertical water, and under them, or behind them, was—the wrong thing, the bad thing, that was going to take away—take away—take someone away—

She woke up.

Then she lay there with her heart urgently pounding because of the dream, because somehow the dream made her think of Kamo, Kam—where was he? She didn't know; that was what was wrong, more than anything. God, what an idiot she was, she had yelled at him, sent him away, and—maybe he was her brother, and even if he wasn't, she still felt—something, like he was maybe the one other person in the lonesome universe—but she had never found out where he lived, and she didn't know where or how to find him. What if he never came back?

6

She skipped school the next day and searched for him, starting around Hinkles Corner, asking at the post office and the video rental place and the Qwik Stop Gas & Lottery and the Paperback Trader. Most people she asked knew who Kam was and stared like they saw something branded on her forehead. Gossips.
They probably think he's fed me drugs or made me pregnant
. Just because he was a tough-looking stranger with long hair and scars.

People knew who Kamo was, but nobody seemed to know where to find him. And nobody had seen him that day.

Tess started asking at houses, up one long rickety set of steps to the front door and then down and then up the next one. Half the time nobody was home. The other half the time nobody could help her.

It got to be afternoon, and Tess hadn't eaten; her belly felt as achy and hollow as her chest. She gave up on Hinkles Corner and started hiking toward Canadawa, asking at houses along the way. On the far hills she could see school buses crawling like yellow caterpillars. She knocked at a farmhouse, asked about Kam. Walked on, asked at another. Another. Next minute, it seemed, she saw the sun hanging heavy like an egg yolk over the hills and realized she should have been at work.

Oh, God. She had to find Kam.

But—if she lost her job, forget everything. She and Daddy wouldn't eat.

Tess ran.

Had to get to work. She ran along the road, panting, her empty belly aching so badly she couldn't keep her legs going right. Eyes on the ground, she had to concentrate on every step, and she was miles away, and it was late, damn, she knew she was good and late. Hours late. Near the IGA finally, on the back alley that ran alongside the railroad right-of-way. Almost there, running like molasses up the delivery lot, past the Dumpster, toward the back door—

She heard gravelly scuffling noises, and looked up, and there were Butch and Kamo.

Kam.

Standing like a flint knife.

Butch in a white apron, hands to Kam's chest, shoving him around. Yelling stuff Tess couldn't understand at first; to her they were just sounds hanging on the air. “Get out! I'm tired of your ugly face hanging around.”

There was no time to sort it out, what it was about, why her heart was pounding. Tess kept running, toward them, and Butch was shoving Kam, making him stagger back, and Kam's hands were curled into fists, though he didn't lift them, and his face was hard, his single eye narrow and hard, though he kept his voice quiet. “I got a right—”

“Like I care? Sludge face.” Butch grabbed Kam by the shoulders. “You get out of here. Now. Or I—”

“Stop it!” Tess didn't understand what was going on, but she knew she didn't like it. She barreled between them, knocking Butch's hands away from Kam. “Stop acting like jerks.”

Butch stood back from Kamo, but he yelled at Tess like it was all her fault, “You don't call me a jerk!”