18
“What do you want from me?” Dennis screamed from inside the rug. The sharp, spiky wool fibers were embedded deep in his lungs. They felt like shards of glass. He had been fighting for hours. Bit by bit, layer by layer, Martha was excavating him, finding terror where none had existed before.
His shirt was soaked in sweat. More sweat ran into his eyes. His skin radiated the caramelized smell of fear. His eyes were dilated, and his breath was ragged. Martha King had rolled him tightly inside the rug, and then taped it shut. His shoulders were bruised. He could barely move his fingers. In the pure darkness, he was sure he was being buried alive.
He thought he was dying. Hewasdying. The last resistance inside him melted into pure sorrow, pure terror. He felt the fear puddle at his feet. Everything in his mind was swept away except one last broken desire.
“Save me,” he whispered.
“I will save you,” Martha said, leaning down.
“Yes, please. Please! Just tell me what to do!”
He no longer sounded like the boy she had met nearly a year before. Martha rejoiced inside to hear this brand-new voice. It was the voice of a little boy starting anew. From here, she could help him.
“Please!” Dennis cried from inside the rug.
“You need to tell me your secret,” Martha said, leaning close to the air tunnel she had left in the rug. The smell of her breath traveled to the sweaty, panicked boy. It reassured him. He breathed it in, desperate.
“My secret?” The sweat ran into his eyes in the dark.
“I know you have one. Every child who fights the holding time has a secret, and they keep it close, as a barrier against change. Once you tell me your secret, you will start to heal.”
Dennis cried. He knew she was right. He would tell her everything, and start over.
“The rabbit,” he wept.
“The rabbit?” Martha remembered the day in the bushes. So that was what the boy kept sneaking out to see. A rabbit.
Instinct told her that could not be all.
“What else, Dennis? Tell me what else you have been hiding.”
“Ralph,” he sobbed. “I love Ralph.”
He felt her hands then, on the rug around him, unrolling him. The fresh air came as a shock to his wet body and compressed lungs. Dennis took a deep breath, and almost fainted. Martha King lifted him into her arms. The flesh that had once repelled him now felt welcoming. He even liked her smell. She rocked him. Dennis melted into her arms, and when she offered him the bottle, this time he accepted it. She looked into his eyes as he fed, pleased by what she saw: pure emptiness.
She could fill this vessel. New parents could fill it too. There would be no more fighting, no more resistance. Once she got rid of all his false loves, Dennis could begin again.
“A rabbit,” she said, shaking her head.
She leaned forward, her voice caressing him.
“Where is this rabbit, Dennis?”
Dennis sat at a table, eating. He held the fork like a robot. Reggie sat next to him. There was a hole in his ear where his earring had been. Martha had made him flush it down the toilet. Afterward, Ike Tressler had taken him to the gymnasium to practice wrestling.
Martha came into the dining room and walked among the tables. She was pleased to see the quiet faces. She stopped to touch the cheek of one little boy, who simpered at her. She smiled at the staff member in the corner taking notes.
Martha came up behind Dennis and Reggie. They could hear her rubber-soled shoes on the floor. Dennis stared straight ahead. She put her hand on his shoulder.
“You are doing so well,” she said. “Maybe soon you will be ready for a new family.”
“I don’t want a new family,” Dennis said to Ralph.
The custodian had found him sitting on the back steps. The cook had left the door open to air out the kitchen from a particularly redolent pot of corned beef and cabbage she was cooking. The custodian stood behind Dennis. For the moment, he thought, they were safe. Martha was in the holding time room with another boy.
Ralph spoke quietly.
