admired something that I wrote. Before I knew it, she was asking me to memorize a long and complicated fairy tale, and she was begging me to help her stop some monster that I was quite sure didn’t exist. It didn’t add up. If something bad was happening in Fiona’s life, then who were these other characters? Who were Chua Ling and these other kids?
When you pen something it means … well, it means you do it like an artist . You dig up the story beneath the story.
That’s what Fiona had said to me. I was beginning to realize that the story beneath the story wasn’t simply about some girl who was having trouble at home. It was much bigger and much more disturbing than I had ever suspected. As I watched Fiona walk past the pickup truck parked in her driveway, I started to dig deep into my imagination.
A dangerous man. Missing children. A girl too scared to tell the truth.
T HURSDAY , O CTOBER 26
The streets were clear by the next morning and school was back on. I hauled my backpack to the kitchen where my mom was at the counter, spreading peanut butter and marmalade onto bread.
“Do you know anything about Fiona Loomis’s uncle?” I asked her.
My mom had grown up in Thessaly, and for years she had worked at the post office, the only one in town. While it wasn’t a gossip mill, it was a place that everyone visited, a place where everyone revealed themselves through their bills and their catalogs and their boxes big and small and long.
“You’re spending a lot of time with Fiona, aren’t you?” She smiled, but it was a cautious smile.
“I guess so. She has this uncle, and he’s like a heavy metal guy and—”
“His name is Dorian. Dorian Loomis.”
“You know him?”
My mom bagged a sandwich, plucked a couple of apples from the wooden fruit bowl, and washed them in the sink. “We went to high school together.”
“Fiona’s parents too?”
“They were older, gone by the time I got there. Dad and I got to know them later, when you kids were all little. But Dorian and I graduated together.”
I wasn’t sure how to put this without causing her alarm. Still, I needed to know. “Was Dorian a … good guy?”
My mom thought about it for a second, and she handed me my lunch. “He was a guy. Like any guy. War will change people. Some for better. Some for worse.”
“He was in a war?”
“A lot of the guys went to war back then. Around here, the draft wasn’t something you got out of.”
They would be stringing the memorial lights up on the tree in the center of town for Veterans Day in a few weeks. My mom might have known some of the people those lights honored. This was the first time that thought had occurred to me.
“Do you think he came back for the worse?” I asked.
Maybe I didn’t want my mom to understand what I was getting at, but I wanted her to look more concerned than she did. She smiled again. “As I heard it, Dorian drifted around for a while after the war. He’s had his troubles, but he came home this summer and he’s home for the right reason. He’s looking after his mother. Fiona’s grandma. She’s a nice girl, Fiona. But the more time you spend with someone, the more you realize they’re not perfect. Everyone comes from a different place with different problems.”
“But … do you think her uncle is a good man?”
My mom dried her hands on a dish towel. “A girl is not her family, sweetie.”
Smiling there in the kitchen, she must have thought she was giving me advice on exploring the foreign lands of a first girlfriend. She didn’t ask Is something wrong? or Are you worried about Fiona?
It was baffling, but it was typical. We all see what we want to see.
“Thanks,” I said, and I left for school.
* * *
I didn’t know war. Skirmishes sometimes lit up our TV during the nightly news, but war was something that happened in other places at different times to faceless people.
I knew stories. My dad would sometimes tell the tale of an
When you pen something it means … well, it means you do it like an artist . You dig up the story beneath the story.
That’s what Fiona had said to me. I was beginning to realize that the story beneath the story wasn’t simply about some girl who was having trouble at home. It was much bigger and much more disturbing than I had ever suspected. As I watched Fiona walk past the pickup truck parked in her driveway, I started to dig deep into my imagination.
A dangerous man. Missing children. A girl too scared to tell the truth.
T HURSDAY , O CTOBER 26
The streets were clear by the next morning and school was back on. I hauled my backpack to the kitchen where my mom was at the counter, spreading peanut butter and marmalade onto bread.
“Do you know anything about Fiona Loomis’s uncle?” I asked her.
My mom had grown up in Thessaly, and for years she had worked at the post office, the only one in town. While it wasn’t a gossip mill, it was a place that everyone visited, a place where everyone revealed themselves through their bills and their catalogs and their boxes big and small and long.
“You’re spending a lot of time with Fiona, aren’t you?” She smiled, but it was a cautious smile.
“I guess so. She has this uncle, and he’s like a heavy metal guy and—”
“His name is Dorian. Dorian Loomis.”
“You know him?”
My mom bagged a sandwich, plucked a couple of apples from the wooden fruit bowl, and washed them in the sink. “We went to high school together.”
“Fiona’s parents too?”
“They were older, gone by the time I got there. Dad and I got to know them later, when you kids were all little. But Dorian and I graduated together.”
I wasn’t sure how to put this without causing her alarm. Still, I needed to know. “Was Dorian a … good guy?”
My mom thought about it for a second, and she handed me my lunch. “He was a guy. Like any guy. War will change people. Some for better. Some for worse.”
“He was in a war?”
“A lot of the guys went to war back then. Around here, the draft wasn’t something you got out of.”
They would be stringing the memorial lights up on the tree in the center of town for Veterans Day in a few weeks. My mom might have known some of the people those lights honored. This was the first time that thought had occurred to me.
“Do you think he came back for the worse?” I asked.
Maybe I didn’t want my mom to understand what I was getting at, but I wanted her to look more concerned than she did. She smiled again. “As I heard it, Dorian drifted around for a while after the war. He’s had his troubles, but he came home this summer and he’s home for the right reason. He’s looking after his mother. Fiona’s grandma. She’s a nice girl, Fiona. But the more time you spend with someone, the more you realize they’re not perfect. Everyone comes from a different place with different problems.”
“But … do you think her uncle is a good man?”
My mom dried her hands on a dish towel. “A girl is not her family, sweetie.”
Smiling there in the kitchen, she must have thought she was giving me advice on exploring the foreign lands of a first girlfriend. She didn’t ask Is something wrong? or Are you worried about Fiona?
It was baffling, but it was typical. We all see what we want to see.
“Thanks,” I said, and I left for school.
* * *
I didn’t know war. Skirmishes sometimes lit up our TV during the nightly news, but war was something that happened in other places at different times to faceless people.
I knew stories. My dad would sometimes tell the tale of an
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