Ralph drank his coffee. He had heard about Steven. It happened in places like this, he had figured. But then again, it hadn’t happened before in all his time at Brightwood.
“How did he get out?”
“Back door was unlocked when I got here.”
Ralph set down the coffee and went to check the back door. The lock hadn’t been broken. It had just been left unlatched.
“Doors are supposed to be locked every night,” he said, coming back into the warm kitchen.
“Don’t I know it,” she said. “Night watchman swore it was locked. Personally, I think he goes outside on his shifts, heaven knows why. He raids the kitchen too. Don’t tell anyone I said so.”
Ralph picked his coffee back up. It was lukewarm. He gulped it, eager to be awake.
“Maybe the boys are getting ahold of his keys,” the cook said, rolling out another batch of biscuits. The dough was so light, it sprung in her hands. She patted it lovingly. In a pot on the stove behind her, the thick white gravy bubbled.
“What makes you think that?”
“He’s always sleeping. Thinks no one knows, but I’m here at the crack of dawn, and more times than not, that man is just waking up. He puts his keys right there on the desk in front of him.” She shook her head, and went to stir the gravy.
“More coffee?”
“Not now,” Ralph said.
Ralph found Dennis asleep in his room. He was very sweaty, and the custodian knew he was having bad dreams too.
The custodian put his broad, cool hand on the boy’s brow. He felt the thoughts rushing there. The boy’s breath quickened, and thencalmed. He twitched and fell back to sleep. Hopefully, this time his dreams would be better.
“Ralph?” Dennis said when he was almost out of the room.
The custodian stopped.
“Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
“Why do you ask, son?”
They could hear cars arriving outside, including Martha’s. It changed the air in the entire center. Dennis never knew when it would be a holding time day. Sometimes days passed and Martha didn’t call for him. Then, suddenly, a week came where it was every day. The uncertainty was part of the cure. You never knew when the monsters were coming.
“I don’t know. You don’t seem right.”
“I suppose I’m not. Get out of bed, try to have a good day. There’s biscuits and gravy.”
“I don’t like biscuits and gravy. They hurt my stomach.”
That’s because that woman presses on you, Ralph thought.
“Guess I’ll have to eat your share, then.”
He was rewarded with a rare giggle. It sounded nothing like an honest giggle, and it hurt his heart to hear it. Dennis turned over in his bed, seeing the morning light coming in the window. He remembered in that moment, and the respite from pain was gone. The rabbit was gone.
But Ralph was here.
“Okay,” Dennis said.
Dennis ate his biscuits after all, and Ralph and the other staff members ate after the boys were done, the last of the gravy spooned over their plates. They ate quickly, before going back to work. Only Ike lazed around, trying to shoot the bull with the cook, who wanted him out of her kitchen.
“Get on now,” she said, shooing him out. “Unless you want to do dishes.”
