Brian Freeman - Thief River Falls

She waited, hoping Purdue would open up to her. They sat in silence for a long time. The ghosts who were here must have been waiting, too, wondering if she’d meant what she said about facing down the hard things in life. Because she was a hypocrite. She couldn’t deal with the Dark Star that had taken her family. She was just like Noah, running away to Lake Bronson when the going got tough.

The house began to shake.

Literally. The floor trembled under her feet, and the windows rattled, and a whistle that was more like a scream split the air. Purdue’s eyes widened with wonder.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“A train. They go by right in front of the house. Want to see?”

“Yeah!”

They went to the bedroom windows, and Purdue pressed his nose against the glass. Across the street, the engine of a freight train rumbled through the crossing, dragging car after car, some stacked one on top of the other. The freight cars were a kaleidoscope of peeling paint, rust, and wild graffiti, and they went on forever. By instinct, Lisa counted the cars, and she got to seventy-one before the caboose brought up the rear and the earthquake eased under the ground.

Purdue stayed at the window, watching until the train had completely disappeared. Even then, he didn’t move; he just stared at the tracks the way he had when the two of them were creeping down the street toward the house. There was always something about boys and trains, but this was more than that.

“Purdue?” she murmured.

He said nothing, but she could tell that the rattling of the train had jarred something loose in his head.

“Purdue, talk to me.”

He looked up at her, and suddenly he was calm.

“That’s how I got here,” he said. “I came on a train. I was running away.”

“Running away?” Lisa said. “What were you running from?”

“I was in the hospital.”

Lisa took his hand. The two of them were still in her parents’ bedroom, looking down from the window at the train tracks. He recited the story with that odd detachment he often had in his voice, as if the events had happened to someone else. Maybe that was the only way he could face it, like a character in a novel.

“Why were you in the hospital?” she asked. “Were you sick? Or hurt?”

He shook his head and then wiped his nose with his sleeve. “It wasn’t me.”

Lisa didn’t understand at first. And then she did. She made a guess. “Was it your mother?”

Purdue nodded.

“Do you remember where you were?”

“No. We had to go somewhere because of what was wrong with her. I didn’t know where it was. We drove for a long time.”

“And where’s home? Do you remember that?”

“We didn’t really have a home,” he said. “We moved around a lot. My mom had friends in different places, and we’d go there and stay with them for a while. But we always kept moving. I don’t remember us staying anywhere for a long time. Sometimes we’d just sleep in her car if it wasn’t too cold. We kept all of our stuff with us there.”

Lisa thought of the key she’d found in his pocket. Not a house key. A car key.

“It was just the two of you?” Lisa asked.

“Yes.”

“What about your father?”

The boy shrugged. “I never met him. Mom never talked about him.”

Lisa realized that she really was dealing with a lost boy in Purdue. Homeless. The child of a single mother. She’d hoped there would be a better explanation for his missing past, something that gave him a family and a place to go. Instead, here he was. Alone. With her.

“Purdue, what happened to your mom?”

The boy took a long time to say anything more. “Months ago, she started having headaches. Really bad ones. We were staying with one of her friends, and she said Mom should go see a doctor, but Mom didn’t want to do that. Doctors cost a lot of money, and we didn’t have any. She said it was nothing. She said the headaches would go away, but they didn’t. They got worse. A lot worse. There was one night where Mom woke up in the middle of the night, and she was screaming because it hurt so bad.”

“That must have been very scary,” Lisa murmured.

He nodded. “I made her go to the doctor. She didn’t want to, but I said she had to. The doctor put her in a big tube where they could see inside her, and after that, he said she needed to go to a hospital right away.”

“Did the doctor say what was wrong with her?”

“Well, he said they were going to take out her brain.”

Lisa wanted to smile, but she knew what he meant. “A brain tumor? They were going to remove a brain tumor?”

“I guess so.”

“So you went to a hospital?”

“Yes. They shaved my mom’s head. I didn’t like that. It didn’t look like her anymore. I remember sitting in a room and talking with her before they took her away. We talked for a long time. We talked about places we’d been. Stuff we’d done. That was nice. But doctors and nurses kept coming in, and they were whispering to each other. My mom said everything was going to be fine, that I shouldn’t be scared or worry about anything. I didn’t believe her.”

“I understand.”

“She talked to me about Canada while we were there, too. She talked about it a lot. She said that’s where she grew up. She never told me that before. I don’t think her parents were very nice to her. She said her dad did some bad things, and after that, she ran away and never went back. But she said she missed Canada. She talked about how pretty it was in the snow. She wanted me to see it someday.”

“It’s a beautiful place,” Lisa said. “We’re pretty close to Canada here, you know.”

The boy said nothing.

“What happened next?” she asked.

“They came and took her away. Mom was crying. She was holding my hand and saying how much she loved me and that she would see me soon. Then she was gone. She was gone a long time. Everybody kept coming up and asking how I was, which was really stupid. I was fine. My mom was the one who was sick. They wanted to play games with me, and get stuff for me to eat and drink, and put on videos for me, but I just wanted my mom back.”

Lisa had no trouble imagining this calm, serious boy at the center of a whirlwind as all the nurses fussed over him. Nothing was worse in a hospital than a child who was alone.

She didn’t want to ask the next question, because she already suspected what the answer was. “Did your mom come back?”

Purdue shook his head. “No. I told you, Lisa: people die in hospitals.”

Somehow he managed to fight off his own tears, but Lisa surrendered to hers. She pulled his little body close and hugged him, and she cried silently. It felt strange, as if he were the one comforting her.

“I’m so sorry, Purdue.”

“A man and a woman came and told me that Mom died. They said the doctors tried and tried and did everything they could, but Mom’s heart stopped in the middle of what they were doing, and it wouldn’t start again. They acted like I didn’t even know what that meant. Then they started asking me all sorts of questions.”

Lisa nodded. “I bet they did.”

“They asked about where I lived, and where my dad was, and what family I had, and stuff like that.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I lied. I said my dad was on his way, and he’d take me home. I said we lived in a really big house and had lots of money. They didn’t believe me. I knew what was going to happen. They were going to take me away and put me with strangers somewhere. That’s what they do with kids who don’t have anybody.”

“What did you do?” Lisa asked.

“I said I was hungry. And I was. So they took me to the cafeteria and got dinner for me, and I put another sandwich and some cookies in my pocket when they weren’t looking. Then I said I had to go to the bathroom. But I didn’t. I ran down the hallway and out of the hospital.”