Charles Grant - The Pet

“Divorce,” Tracey said with a sympathetic shake of her head. She had changed into a shirt and jeans and was wearing a light sweater under her school jacket. “God, I don’t know what to say.”

Don sniffed several times to keep back the tears, determined not to let Tracey see him cry. “They hate me, you know.”

“Don’t be silly. They do not.”

“Well, they don’t care, then. All they care about is themselves. Jesus, do you know … I can’t believe it, but do you know that last week Mom called me Sam?”

Tracey pried one of his hands loose from between his knees and held it, rubbed it to drive away the cold. “And I’m crazy, Tracey.”

“Dumb.”

“No,” he said earnestly, turning to her, leaning closer.

“No, I mean it. I’m crazy.” He kept her silent with a look and took a slow breath. Now was the time to do it, but the words he sought were impossible to order, and he shoved himself to his feet and began pacing the oval. Tracey watched him patiently, biting at her lips, lifting her shoulders when the breeze came again.

He stopped on the other side of the pond and faced her, looking up at the trees and the dark above the leaves. “I don’t get it,” he said with a tremulous smile. “I mean, your folks fight, don’t they? I mean, I know what your father is like and all, but they have fights, right? So why don’t they get divorced? Why … what’s the matter with me that Brian can’t leave me alone for one lousy minute?” His neck tightened, pulling his mouth down; he lowered his gaze and saw Tracey watching him, her hands deep in her coat pockets and forced together over her stomach. “I did something, Trace,” he said softly. “I did something.”

She stood and walked toward him, but he held out his hands to keep the water between them. “What, Don? That nonsense about killing Tar?” He nodded.

“That’s stupid. You didn’t do it.”

He nodded again, and put a hand to his forehead, massaged it, and drove it back through his hair. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand you’re upset about Tar, and Mandy, and now this stuff with your mom and dad. I can see that, Don, but you—”

“No.”

The word was quiet, and as effective as a slap. She took a step back and turned her head away from the wind that engulfed them for a moment in a shower of dead leaves.

And at that moment Don started around the pond toward her, hoping the raw edges of the leaves would cut him to shreds, would bury and smother him, and when they blew away, there would be nothing left but a pile of slow shifting dust.

She met him and embraced him, and he almost decided not to say anything more.

“Don?”

“Tracey, look, let’s go—”

She pushed him away and glared at him, black hair fanning over her eyes and fanning away. “Jesus,” she said, “do you think you’re the only kid with problems? What the hell makes you so special that you’re the only one?”

“Tracey!”

“You’ve never been called a spic, have you? You’ve never had someone try to feel you up just because you smiled at them.”

“Hey, Tracey, please, I didn’t—”

“You know why my folks don’t get divorced? Because my father is a worse Catholic than the Pope, that’s why. Because if it came to it, my mother and father would live together for the rest of their lives hating each other’s guts, but god forbid they even think about divorce.” She put a fist to her cheek and pressed it in hard. “I have to wear long skirts so you can’t see my legs, and I have to wear baggy blouses because my father doesn’t want you to know I have any tits.”

“Jesus, Tracey, I—”

“It’s like living in a convent, Don! I love him, don’t get me wrong, but there are times when I want to bust open his head. So …” She pointed at him, her hand trembling violently. “So don’t you dare tell me you’re the only one around here with problems, all right? Don’t you dare, Donald Boyd!”

“Tracey,” he said, taking a step toward her, “I didn’t mean that. I meant—”

“I know,” she said, suddenly smiling though there was a tear on her cheek. “I know. But you don’t seem to understand there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t run away, and you’re too good to end up like Brian.” She closed the gap and took his hands. “You have to live with it, Don. Like me, I guess. You have to live with it.”

She hugged him. She lifted her face and she kissed him, and he tasted the sweet of her, the soft of her, and for a second in that kiss he thought she was right.

But it ended.

And still holding her, he shook his head.

“Tracey, you’re wrong.”

“About what, Vet?”

“I did something about it.”

Joyce dragged the bench from her vanity and shoved it against the door. Then she shoved it away and dragged the vanity over, toppling bottles of perfume and lotion, stands that held her necklaces, a lamp and a pair of china figurines, and she didn’t make a sound when an ivory-handled hairbrush slipped and bounced off her bare foot.

She was sobbing noiselessly, cursing the long hair that kept falling into her eyes, cursing Norman for not being here when she needed him.

In the hall — hoofbeats sharp, slow, and steady.

An armchair was next. She couldn’t move the dresser, couldn’t move the bed and fell to the floor with her hands over her head, not wanting to listen to the thing moving toward the room, not wanting to see the slips and fingers of fog drifting under the door and over the carpet.

Then she heard something else and her head jerked around, her hands dropped to her robed lap, her eyes widened while her mouth opened in a strangled, gurgling scream.

A whickering, soft and low and deep — the thing in the hall telling her it was coming in.

They were still by the pond, and Tracey was growing angry.

“Now listen,” Don insisted. “Just one minute, okay?”

“Don, I’m trying to help. I’m not an expert, Jesus knows, but you—”

“I asked you about wishing, remember?”

Her eyes shifted side to side before returning to watch his face. “Yes.”

“Do you know …” A hesitation while he waited for something he said to make enough sense to keep that flicker of fear from returning to her eyes. “A wish, I think, isn’t just one thing. It’s whatever you want it to be. It can be like wishing for a million dollars to fall out of the sky on you, or maybe getting all A’s without doing any homework. Or it can be really wanting something with everything you’ve got— like you and your flute, y’know? You want to make records and do concerts and make the most beautiful music in the world, right?”

She gave him a nod that was touched with confusion.

“And I want to be a vet. I mean, what the hell’s wrong with wanting to be a vet? I want it so bad I dream about it, I wear it, for god’s sake, and the … the only people who understand are my friends on the wall.”

He stopped and tried to turn away, but she wouldn’t release him, only hugged him once and tightly to force him to go on.

“I talk to them,” he continued in an embarrassed whisper. “I tell them things. Everything. My stories, you know? And about Sam, and the folks, and about goddamn Brian and Tar, and even a little bit … a lot about you.”

A hard look now, to see if she was laughing. She wasn’t; she was crying.

“I needed a friend, Trace. Things felt like they were falling apart and I needed a friend, so I picked one out. A poster. A horse. I …” He looked over her head to the darkness beyond. “I made him come to me.”

He could see it then in her eyes, and the way her lips quivered though she tried to keep them still with the press of a finger. Then her eyes cleared, and he saw something else — she believed him now. She believed he had killed Tar.