The Taker (5 page)

A
friendship progressed between us—Jonathan and I—in this way through childhood. We met after services on Sundays and at social events such as weddings and even funerals, whispering together on the fringe of the mourners, or giving up on propriety altogether and wandering off to the woods so we could concentrate all our attention on each other. Heads shook in disapproval, and without a doubt, some tongues gave in to gossip, but our families did nothing to stop our friendship—at least, I was not made aware of it if they had.

It was during this time that I realized that Jonathan was lonelier than I had imagined. The other boys sought his company far less than I’d assumed and, for Jonathan’s part, when a group approached us at a social, he often skirted them. I recall one time, at a spring church gathering, that Jonathan steered me to another path when he saw a group of boys his age heading in our direction. I had no idea what to make of it and, after a few minutes of anxious contemplation, decided to ask.

“Why is it that you choose to walk this way?” I asked. “Is it because you are embarrassed to be seen with me?”

He made a derisive sound. “Don’t be daft, Lanny. I am seen with you now. Anyone can see us walking together.”

That was true enough, and a relief. But I could not give up my inquiry. “Then is it because you don’t like them, those boys?”

“I don’t
dislike
them,” he said, peevishly.

“Then why—”

He cut me off. “Why are you questioning me? Take my word for it: it’s different for boys, Lanny, and that’s all there is to it.” He began to walk faster, and I had to lift my skirts a bit to keep up with him. He hadn’t explained what the mysterious “it” was that he referred to:
what
was different for boys? I wondered. Nearly everything, from what I could see. Boys were allowed to go to school, if their families could afford to pay the tutor’s fee, whereas girls got no more schooling than their mothers could impart—the household arts of sewing, cleaning, and cooking, maybe a little reading from the Bible. Boys could tussle with each other for amusement, run and play tag without the encumbrance of long skirts, ride horseback. True, they drew hard chores and had to master all manner of skills—once, Jonathan told me, his father made him repair the foundation of their icehouse, stone and mortar, just so he would know a bit about masonry—but to my way of thinking, a boy’s life was much freer. And here Jonathan was complaining about it.

“I wish I were a boy,” I muttered, nearly out of breath from trying to keep up with him.

“No, you don’t,” he said over his shoulder.

“I don’t see what—”

He whirled on me. “What about your brother, Nevin, then? He doesn’t much like me, does he?” I stopped, dumbstruck. No, Nevin didn’t like Jonathan and hadn’t for as long as I could remember. I remembered the fight with Jonathan, how Nevin had come home spangled with a crust of dried blood on his face, and how Father was quietly proud of him.

“Why do you think your brother hates me?” he demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve never given him reason, but he hates me just the same,” Jonathan said, straining not to betray the hurt in his voice. “It’s that way with all the boys. They hate me. Some of the adults, too. I know it, I can feel it. That’s why I avoid them, Lanny.” His chest heaved, tired from explaining it to me. “There, now you know,” he said and then hurried away, leaving me to stare after him in surprise.

I thought about what he’d said all week. I could have spoken to Nevin about his hatred of Jonathan, but to do so would restart an old argument between us; he couldn’t stand that I’d befriended Jonathan, of course, and I knew the reasons well enough without having to ask. My brother thought Jonathan was proud and arrogant, that he flaunted his wealth, and that he expected, and received, special treatment. I knew Jonathan better than anyone outside his family—perhaps even within his family—so I knew all of this to be untrue, except the latter, but it was hardly Jonathan’s fault if others treated him differently. And, though Nevin wouldn’t admit to it, I saw in his hateful eye the wish to spoil Jonathan’s beauty, to leave his mark on that handsome face and bring down the town’s favorite son. In his own way, Nevin wanted to defy God, to right what he saw as an injustice God had deliberately meted out to him, that he should have to live in Jonathan’s shadow in every regard.

That was why Jonathan had rushed away from me at the church gathering, because he had been forced to share his shame with me, and perhaps he thought that once I knew his secret I would abandon him. How strongly we hold on to our fears in childhood! As if there was any power on earth or in heaven that would stop me from loving Jonathan. If anything, it made me see that he, too, had his enemies and detractors, that he, too, was constantly judged, and that he needed me. I was the one friend with whom he could be free. And it was not one-sided: to speak plainly, Jonathan was the only person who treated me as though I mattered. And to have the attention of the most desired, most important boy in town is no small thing to a girl nearly invisible among her peers. How could that help but make me love him even more?

And I told Jonathan as much the following Sunday, when I went up to him and slipped my arm under his as he paced about on the far side of the green. “My brother is a fool,” was all I said, and we continued walking together without another word between us.

The one thing I did not take back from our conversation at the church social was that I’d rather have been born a boy. I still believed that. It had been drummed into my head, by the things my parents did and the very rules by which we lived, that girls were not as valuable as boys and that our lives were destined to be far less consequential. For instance, Nevin would inherit the farm from my father, but if he hadn’t the temperament or inclination to raise cattle, he might be apprenticed to the blacksmith or sent to work as a logger for the St. Andrews—he had choices, albeit limited ones. As a woman, I had fewer options: marry and start my own household, remain at home and assist my parents, or work as a servant in someone else’s home. If Nevin rejected the farm for some reason, conceivably my parents could pass it along to one of their daughters’ husbands, but that, too, would depend on the husband’s preferences. A good husband would take his wife’s wishes into consideration, but not all of them did.

The other reason—the more important one, in my view—was that if I were a boy, it would be so much easier to be Jonathan’s friend. The things we could do together if I were not a girl! We could ride horseback and go off on adventures without chaperones. We could spend lots of time in each other’s company without anyone raising an eyebrow or finding it a fit topic to remark upon. Our friendship would be so banal and so ordinary that it would merit no scrutiny and would be allowed to proceed on its own.

Looking back, I understand now that this was a difficult time for me, still caught up in adolescence but stumbling toward maturity. There were things I wanted from Jonathan, but I could not yet put a name to them and had only the clumsy framework of childhood to measure them against. I was close to him but wanted to be closer in a way I
didn’t understand. I saw the way he looked at the older girls, and that he behaved differently with them than he did with me, and I thought I might die of jealousy. Partly, this was due to the intensity of Jonathan’s attention, his great charm; when he was with you, he had a way of making you feel that you were the center of his world. His eyes, those bottomless dark eyes, would settle on your face, and it was as though he was there for you and you alone. Perhaps that was an illusion, perhaps it was merely the joy of having Jonathan to oneself. In any case, the result was the same: when Jonathan withdrew his attention, it was as though the sun slipped behind a cloud and a cold, sharp wind blew at your back. All you wanted was for Jonathan to come back, to enjoy his attention again.

And he was changing with every year. When his guard was down, I saw aspects of him that I hadn’t seen (or noticed) before. He could act crudely, particularly if he thought no woman was observing him. He would display some of the rough behavior of the axmen who worked for his father, speak coarsely of women as though he was already acquainted with the full range of intimacies possible between the sexes. Later I would learn that by age sixteen he had been seduced and gone on to seduce others, a participant (comparatively early in his life) in this secret waltz of illicit lovers going on in St. Andrew, a hidden world if you did not know to look for it. But these were secrets he couldn’t bring himself to share with me.

All I know is that my hunger for Jonathan grew, and it felt, at times, that it was nearly beyond my control. That there was something about his smoldering eye or half smile, or the way he knowingly caressed a young woman’s silk sleeve when he thought no one was watching, that made me want him to look at and caress me in the same way. Or when I thought of the rough things I’d overheard him say, I wanted him to be rough with me, too. I understand now that I was a lonely and confused young girl who yearned for intimacy and craved physical passion (even though it was a mystery to me) and—I know this now—my ignorance would be the means of my ruin. I was in a mad rush to be loved. I cannot blame Jonathan alone. So often we bring about our own downfall.

FOUR

A
ROOSTOOK
C
OUNTY HOSPITAL, PRESENT DAY

S
moke swirls in two down spots of light in the examination room. By now, the wrist restraints are undone and the prisoner sits with the gurney adjusted upright, like a chair, a cigarette smoldering between her fingers. Two butts, burned down to the filters, sit squashed at the bottom of a bedpan on the gurney between them. Luke leans back in his chair and coughs, his throat rough from the smoke, and his head cottony, as though he’s been partaking of a narcotic all night.

A one-knuckle rap sounds at the door and Luke is on his feet quicker than a squirrel can run up a tree, because he knows that’s the mandatory, perfunctory knock a hospital worker gives before stepping into an examination room. He blocks the door with his body, allowing it to open only about an inch.

Judy’s cold eye, distorted by the lens of her glasses, sizes him up. “Morgue called. The body just came in. Joe wants you to call the medical examiner.”

“It’s late. Tell Joe there’s no reason to call the medical examiner now. It can certainly wait until morning.”

The nurse folds her arms. “He also wanted me to ask about his prisoner. Is she ready to go or isn’t she?”

This is a test, he realizes. He’s always thought of himself as an honest person, and yet he can’t bring himself to let her go just yet. “No, he can’t take her yet.”

Judy stares so hard that it feels like it could go right through him. “Why not? There isn’t a scratch on her.”

A lie springs nimbly to mind. “She became agitated. I had to sedate her. I need to make sure she doesn’t have an adverse reaction to the sedative.” The nurse sighs audibly, as though she knows—doesn’t suspect but
knows
—that he is doing something disgusting to the body of the unconscious girl. “Just leave me alone, Judy. Tell Joe I’ll call him when she’s stabilized.” He pushes the door shut in her face.

Lanny pushes ash around the bedpan with her burning cigarette, deliberately not making eye contact with him. “Jonathan’s here. Now you don’t have to take my word for it,” she says, tapping ash into the bedpan and motioning to the door with her head. “Go down to the morgue. Take a look for yourself.”

Luke shifts uncomfortably on the stool. “So there’s a dead man in the morgue—all that proves is that you really
did
kill a man tonight.”

“No, there’s something else. Let me show you,” she says, pushing aside the cap sleeve of the hospital gown to reveal a small line drawing on the white underside of her upper arm. He leans in to look more closely and sees that it’s a crude tattoo done in black ink, the outline of a heraldic shield with a reptilian figure inside. “You’ll see on Jonathan’s arm, in this spot—”

“The same tattoo?”

“No,” she says, giving the tattoo a swipe with her thumb. “But it’s the same size and it was done by the same person, so it will look similar, like it was done with pins dipped in ink, because it was. His looks like two comets circling each other, with the tails extended.”

“What does it mean? The comets?” Luke asks.

“Damned if I know,” she replies, rearranging the gown and bedding. “Just go look at Jonathan, and then tell me if you don’t believe me.”

After he ties her up again—inefficiently, with rarely used straps kept on hand for unruly patients—Luke Findley rises from the stool. He slips through the swinging doors, checking first to make sure no one sees him leave. The hospital is still dark and quiet, with only faint movement in the distant pools of light illuminating the nurses’ station down the hall. His shoes squeak against the clean linoleum floor as he hurries down the staircase, heading north through a basement corridor that leads to the morgue.

The whole way his nerves jangle. If someone stops him and asks what he’s doing out of the ER, why he’s going to the morgue, he’ll just tell them … His mind goes blank. Luke has never been a good liar. He sees himself as a fundamentally honest person, for whatever good that has done him. Despite his honesty and his fear of getting caught, though, he has agreed to the prisoner’s outlandish suggestion because he is curious as to whether this dead person is the most beautiful man ever put on the planet and what the most beautiful man would look like.