Trouble Page 2

  But Henry was wrong.

  He knew it as soon as the elevator doors opened and he stepped onto his brother's floor. A white-coated doctor ran past him, and the nurses' station was empty. Henry sprinted toward Franklin, and when he turned the corner of the hall, he saw his parents standing outside the room, his mother holding his father, together looking inside. Father Brewood stood beside them, his hands on them both. The running doctor was pushing past them. The sounds that were coming from the room, the terrible sounds ...

  The smell of the cafeteria disinfectant came back into his throat, and Henry threw up.

  The next time that Henry saw Franklin, his brother had a strap drawn tightly across his chest. His right arm was strapped down. The thought came into Henry's head: They don't need to strap down his left arm, because it isn't there anymore. I wonder where it is? He went to sit again on his brother's bed. He fingered the taut straps.

  Dr. Giles was back in the room. There was a seizure, he said. Significant swelling of the brain still. Whatever damage there had been may now be more extensive. If the scan is positive, then surgery will be recommended to control the swelling. No visitors now. Stimulation to a minimum. Hope for the best.

  Henry couldn't say whether the rest of that day went quickly or whether it dragged its wearisome self along. The brain scan came back with a report of "indeterminate brain activity." The decision was made, and Franklin was taken immediately into surgery to relieve the swelling. They waited for about forever. Finally, he came back, the top of his head wrapped in bright white bandages, his eyes closed. All the blood cleaned from his face and fingernails.

  "With some patients, the scans are simply impossible to decipher accurately," said Dr. Giles. "But we'll be able to tell more in twenty-four hours. We'll have another scan then."

  Sitting on his brother's bed, fingering again the taut straps.

  Eating in the hospital cafeteria. Thick roast beef with thick brown gravy. Canned corn. Canned carrots, tasting like the canned corn.

  And all of that seemed to take no time at all, because there was no time at all. There was only Now. In the hospital. Where they all sat in the middle of Trouble.

  That night, Henry went home with his parents. He was astonished that the world was pretty much as it had been before he had gone to the hospital. He was astonished that he was sitting in a familiar car, riding along familiar streets, idling into the carriage house, walking through the back door of his home, climbing the stairs, coming into his own room. Is it possible for everything to change, and for nothing to change? He opened his casement window, and the clean salt smell of the sea rose to him. He could hear the waves cresting onto the black boulders along the cove, one after the other. The moon was coming up, throwing a startling silver light along the undersides of the clouds and setting them apart from the darkness.

  Henry lay back on his bed and fell into sleep.

  And dreamed again of the Gateway. His brother was ahead of him, always ahead of him, hefting his backpack up around his shoulders. He turned back to Henry. "I knew you'd make it," he was saying again.

  And Henry desperately wanted to say something to him. Something to let him know how wonderful it was to be up on the mountain with him. Something so beautiful that they would both begin to cry.

  But when he opened his mouth, all he could say was "Indeterminate brain activity." And still asleep, Henry did begin to cry, and the waves below him galled themselves on the dark stone ledges beneath the house.

  2

  IN THE MORNING—What day was it? Wednesday? Had he lost track?—in the morning, Henry came down and found yesterday's Blythbury-by-the-Sea Chronicle beside this morning's Blythbury-by-the-Sea Chronicle out in the back gardens, the first one damper than the second. The first had the reporter's hurried photograph of Franklin on the front page, and, thought Henry, you had to admire a guy who could focus and shoot that quickly. Part of his own back blocked the view of the machine behind the bed, and there was part of a hand—probably one of the policemen's—at the bottom. Otherwise, Henry's brother filled the image. No one could tell from this angle that Franklin's arm was missing, but the headline—"Longfellow Prep Student Loses Arm in Accident, Faces Brain Surgery"—helpfully added that detail.

  Henry didn't read the article.

  But he did read the article in the second newspaper, because there was a different picture. It was a yearbook picture, and a dark-haired, dark-eyed face looked formally out of it, as it if wasn't used to appearing over a suit and tie and didn't quite know how to hold itself.

  "Chay Chouan of Merton Charged in Smith Accident," the headline announced.

  Henry read through the article and found, when he reached the end, that he couldn't remember a single thing—except for the dark-haired, dark-eyed face. So he read it again. Chay Chouan. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Preparatory High School. Father and mother, Cambodian immigrants. Stone masonry business in Merton. One brother. Coming home alone after delivering a load of slate for a roof. Asleep at the wheel. Never saw the jogger.

  "Runner," whispered Henry to himself; then he threw the two Blythbury-by-the-Sea Chronicles into the garbage can in the carriage house before his father and mother could see them. In the kitchen, he fried up three eggs for himself. Toast. Fresh orange juice. And it all tasted like the canned corn from the hospital cafeteria.

  He thought vaguely for a moment about Whittier and didn't decide not to go to school as much as he drifted away from deciding anything at all. And who would drive him? He hadn't seen Louisa since the accident and his parents were still not up. So he set his dishes in the sink and headed toward the cove, where the frothy tops of the small waves bending into the beach were white as milk, almost as white as the sky that backed the sea.

  He untied his kayak from the high-water post and pulled out the paddle and life jacket from inside. He kicked off his shoes and rolled up his pants, drew on the life jacket, then carried the kayak into the first water until it floated bow up, stern up, bow up, stern up on the low waves. He got in, looped the paddle string around his wrist, and headed onto the milk-white sea.

  He hadn't really decided where he was going. When he had first gotten the kayak, he had explored north along the coast, sneaking into every tiny inlet. Later, he had explored south near Manchester, paddling among the marina docks and the highprowed boats, then along beaches stretched beneath the houses of Old Money—like his own.

  But today, he headed straight out from Salvage Cove, paddling fast. It was still early in the morning, and who knew how far he could go? He let his mind turn as white as the waves, fading toward indeterminate brain activity, paddling, feeling the familiar, welcome strain on the muscles of his shoulders. He dug the paddle into the water and pulled. Dug and pulled. Dug and pulled. Soon he would be out of the cove's shelter and into the open sea. Already the swells were longer and deeper, and the white froth was turning a slight green. Stroking hard into an oncoming wave, he felt the spray dash to a mist around him.

  And that was when he heard the frantic, panicked, cut-off yelp.

  He turned toward the sound, somewhere off the north point of the cove, where the ledge dropped straight down into the breaking water.

  And there—it came again. Desperate. Choked. Hard to hear above the ocean's heavings around his kayak, but still unmistakably there.

  And there again.

  Then Henry saw something struggling in the sea, thrashing the water around itself.

  He turned the kayak and slanted it across the waves. Now he felt the force and muscle of the water, pushing him back directly into the cove. But he kept the kayak cutting across the swells even when he began to ship some water, and he paddled so that the spray from the bow flew back into his face. He knew that if he weren't paddling, he would be shivering, for the water was still spring cold, especially this far out from shore.

  He kept on, faster now as the thrashing grew less, and he couldn't be sure if it was trying to float or getting too weak to struggle. Its head was low
to the water, and now it was going under most of the oncoming waves. It wouldn't be long before it stayed under.

  "Wait!" he cried. "Wait for me!"

  The head went under.

  Henry paddled desperately.

  It came up again. And it turned toward him.

  It was a dog. A black-faced dog, and as soon as it saw him, it began to swim out with sudden spurts of frantic energy, as if it could run through the water somehow, wrenching itself up and free from the waves, then falling back, then wrenching itself up again. Trying to yelp.

  A dog.

  Henry kept the kayak slanted, willing the waves to drive him by the stern. They did, and as Henry closed, the dog gave a choked bark, went under and came up again, tore itself toward him, went under, came up, and then, with an unbelievable final leap, careened from the water and threw its two front legs and as much of its chest as it could up over the kayak's bow.

  And immediately dumped Henry over and into the sea.

  Henry's mouth filled with water when he went under, and he tried to cough it out while he was still capsized—which only let more in. Quickly, he pushed himself down and away and came up to the surface, sputtering. The kayak was floating beside him, tipping bow to stern on the swells. He grabbed onto it, still sputtering.

  The dog was gone.

  "Here!" hollered Henry. He coughed up water. "I'm here." And he was pushed under by two paws that had come up from behind him. His mouth filled again.

  When he came up to the surface, he grabbed at the dog's neck. "Stop ... "—more choking and coughing and sputtering—"stop doing that," he said.

  So the dog stopped, and instead it began to rake its back legs along Henry's chest as if it could somehow use Henry as a ladder and climb right out of the water. Henry felt the laces of his life jacket start to give way.

  "Stop doing ... "—cough, sputter—"that, too," he said.

  So the dog went back to throwing its front legs over his shoulders and holding him down under the water. Henry let go of the kayak, which floated away from him.

  He decided he would have to do something differently. So he coughed up as much of the water as he could, took a breath, swam under the next wave—which is not easy with a life jacket on—and came beneath the frantic dog. Then he reached up from under the water, grabbed whatever he could grab, and pulled the dog beneath the surface. When they both came up, the dog's eyes were round and shocked, and it coughed up more seawater than Henry could believe.

  "Now stay still," said Henry. He put one hand under the dog's chest to hold it up; with the other he began to stroke toward the kayak. If it had been any rougher, he thought, they would have been in ... trouble.

  He was glad it wasn't rougher.

  When they reached the kayak, Henry grabbed hold with one arm, held the dog with the other, and began to kick. It took a while to make progress, so by the time Henry, the dog, and the kayak all reached the point where the waves began to break in to shore, Henry was starting to shiver. The dog was already shivering so badly, it could hardly swim at all. Its eyes looked at him with more trust than he felt he deserved.

  "Almost there," he said.

  And they were. Two breaking waves knocked him under, and the dog as well. Coughing, sputtering. Then a third wave almost flipped him over, and the dog as well. Coughing, sputtering. But that was the wave that finally brought them to where Henry could touch bottom, and he held the dog and kayak against the ocean's tow, pushed toward the shore with the next wave, held on against the tow again, came in more on the following wave, and so stumbled up onto the beach of Salvage Cove, and collapsed.

  He looked up toward his house. His parents were probably still asleep. Maybe Louisa, too.

  During all that trouble.

  The dog stood uncertainly, spreading out its back legs to keep itself from falling over sideways. Its back was arched against the coughing spasms that spewed out white water from its guts—which was also true of Henry. He finished before the dog, and figured that he shouldn't do anything until it had cleared its lungs. So wiping his mouth and still coughing, he got up and went out into the water to grab the kayak and drag it from the waves and onto dry sand. Then he sprawled on his back beside the kayak and looked into a sky that was starting to blue.

  It had never looked so blue before.

  Until the dog came and stood over him, its face panting and looking down into his own. It licked him once and then drooped down beside him on its back, still heaving.

  They lay together, dog and boy breathing heavily and to the same rhythm, the salt strong in their mouths. Overhead, seagulls flew randomly, and their shrieks pushed the sun higher. A cool breeze came off the sea, ruffling the hair of both, but neither noticed. The sand warmed beneath them.

  Henry was the first to open his eyes. The sky was full blue now. He propped himself on one elbow and looked down at the dog, who instantly opened her eyes, too, and watched him. She was, Henry figured, the ugliest dog since Genesis. Her snout was all beat up and scabby—and some of the scabs had torn away during their frantic swim and were bleeding. She was missing a good chunk of her left ear—which gave her head a lopsided look—and a little of her right. As her black hair—her short black hair—was drying in the sun, it was getting duller and duller, and the bald parts near her hindquarters and down her legs showed yellow skin. Every rib stood out from her sides to be counted, and where the rib cage stopped, her body cascaded inward like a deflated bag. When Henry ran his fingers down her spine, he could feel the ridge of each vertebra, as sharp and distinct as the mauled beams beneath his house.

  This dog hadn't moved far enough away from Trouble.

  "What were you doing in the water?" Henry said.

  The dog watched his eyes.

  Henry wondered if she had been looking for something to eat on the ledge and then slid in. "Are you hungry?" he said.

  The dog was still. She watched his eyes.

  Henry wiped the sand from the dog's face. He thought he should try to clean away the blood from her snout, too, but she pulled away when he reached for it. When he stood, she jumped up, almost on her toes, but she kept her head low and she curled her tail between her back legs. "C'mon," said Henry, but he hadn't taken three steps down to the water before the dog had run ahead of him, lain down on the beach, and rolled over to show her belly.

  Henry reached down and scratched her behind the ears. "Stop fooling around," he said, and walked past her.

  Another three steps and she was in front of him again, her belly up. She did not move. She watched his eyes.

  "C'mon," Henry said, but this time he took only two steps before she was in front of him again, lying on her back but still able to wag her tail.

  It was a slow walk down to the water, and when they finally got there, Henry had to struggle to make the dog stand and not flop down and turn up her belly. He didn't think she would get back into the waves—and she didn't—but he cupped some water in his hands and dribbled it over the bleeding wounds. The dog did not move—except for her tail, which she tightened beneath her. Henry cupped water onto her snout until all the blood was washed away and the exposed flesh beneath was pink and white.

  But she wouldn't let him touch the broken scabs.

  "You are a mess," Henry said.

  The dog watched his eyes.

  Henry walked back up the beach to secure the kayak—this took a long time, since he couldn't go three steps without having the dog flop down in front of his feet, and he had to reach down every time to keep her bleeding snout out of the sand. She lay beside him, belly up, while he knotted the kayak ropes; and when he climbed the black boulders up to the house, she clambered on ahead and was waiting for him, belly up, when he reached the top.

  "You look like you haven't eaten since the day you were born," said Henry. He walked around to the back service door and the dog followed him, her head down, her tail still tucked tightly between her legs and up against her body, looking like a mongrel that nobody loved, the kind of d
og that hangs around the edges of a dump and tears open garbage bags.

  When Henry reached for the door latch, the dog stopped her flopping. She stood rigidly beside him, watching the latch, up on her toes, waiting for the door to open. But Henry knew that his parents would never, ever, ever let a dog into the house. Never. Especially an ugly, bleeding dog that was starting to smell as if she really did hang around the edges of a dump.

  She watched his eyes.

  "Stay here," Henry said. "I'll bring you out something to eat."

  But once the door opened, the dog would have none of that. She slid in like smoke as soon as a crack appeared, sticking her nose through and letting the rest of her follow. "No!" Henry called in a kind of whispered shout, but the dog went in, the nails on her paws clicking loudly on the pine boards, and her tail—up for the first time—striking against the wall and leaving wet strokes as she went.

  "You sorry dog," said Henry

  But she was ignoring him now, and Henry watched her follow her tingling nose, which led her past the mud room, down the hall—her nails click, click, clicking on the floors so loudly that everyone in the house must be hearing it—and so on into the spotless kitchen, where she immediately found the garbage pail beneath the sink and stood waiting politely for Henry to open the door so that she could explore it. Henry opened the refrigerator instead and looked around. It was pretty much empty, since no one had been doing any shopping for the last couple of days. One shelf was taken up by the whipped-cream cake for Henry's birthday celebration, now with most of its whipped cream turning yellow and sliding off. There was some milk and butter and a drawer of carrots and broccoli and lettuce heads. Nothing that a dog would want. But in the cupboard Henry found some beef stew, and while the dog watched eagerly, he opened a can, dumped it all into a mixing bowl, and set it down. The dog's bleeding snout was in it before it hit the floor.