D Gillespie - The Toy Thief

The quarry came into view, wide and lovely and silent. For all its beauty, it was an ominous place, the sort of place where a hand might shoot up from below and drag you down into the angular, man-made caverns, and to the wild caves beyond.

“Careful,” I said, pulling Andrew far away from the edge.

“What is it?”

“A quarry.”

“Why?”

“Just is.”

I stood there for a while, feeling afraid and very small, like every choice I’d ever made had been wrong, if for no other reason than it had brought me here.

Mom was dead.

Dad was dead.

Andy was dead.

Had I ever done anything right?

“Look!”

I scanned the horizon and saw it. A heron, tall and thin, was gliding across the glassy water as silent as a water skimmer. She rose up, tipping her blue-gray wings before landing on the top of the wall across from us.

“Birdy!”

She alighted on a patch of green, and I noticed how much everything had changed over the years. The burned yellow of that summer had turned now. Trees poked up through the sides of the quarry. Wildflowers painted the field on both sides pink and yellow.

This whole place was alive. It didn’t remember the horrible things that had happened here. Those were all so far in the past, and the only thing left for nature to do was get on with living. I was alive too, and so was the boy at my side. We all had Andy to thank for that. Somehow, I managed a smile, and Andrew and I walked back, holding hands.

That’s almost all there is to tell. I did end up keeping the bear. After it was all said and done, I found it sitting there on the floor, right where the Thief had dropped it. I wanted to burn it the second I saw it, to pretend like that moment, and all the moments after, were just a bad dream, something I could forget seconds after it ended. But I couldn’t do it then, and I still can’t do it now. I threw the bear into a plastic bag and tossed it in the closet. I thought about it every night when I lay down, obsessing over it, changing it into something warped and obscene, something forever tainted. Then, when I finally worked up the nerve to pull the bag out and peer in, all I saw were cotton, buttons, the same metal clasp.

I took it out, washed it by hand once, twice, three times, and once all the dirt and grime were washed away, I saw it for what it was: a simple gesture, a gift given by a woman and man who loved me very much. I still have it. It’s threadbare and worn, but I keep it in a box in my closet. Every once in a while I take it out, just to make sure it’s still there, that it hasn’t vanished in the night. Every time, I consider giving it to Andrew, but I never have. This toy means a lot to me, the good and the horribly bad, and there’s no reason to put my own messed-up shit on him. He’s still so young. His own little dysfunctions are still waiting out there for him to go find.

I will tell you one more thing. About a week ago, a moment happened that made me consider writing all this down. Something that threw the whole thing into a new perspective. I’ve learned that most everything in life comes down to perspective in the end. I was cooking breakfast. It was a Saturday morning, and most weekends I get up and make French toast. It’s Andrew’s favorite. He was sitting at the kitchen counter, half watching me, half drawing with his crayons. That was when he said it.

“Momma?”

I stopped, spatula in my hand, feeling my eyes well a bit as I processed exactly what had just happened. I could tell by his voice that he didn’t need anything, not really. He said my name three dozen times a day in that same bored, sweet tone. He might have needed some more milk, or a different set of crayons, or maybe a new sheet of paper to draw on. It didn’t matter. The word, though. That meant everything.

Let’s get one damn thing straight. I’m not his mom. I don’t deserve that name, not yet at least. But I have to say that in that moment, I felt as if I could be, that maybe everything that happened, from Mom and Dad to Andy and me, had all been for something. That maybe, just maybe, something good had made it out of that cave intact.

I took a deep breath, and I answered.

“Yes, baby?”

This is a FLAME TREE PRESS BOOK

Text copyright © 2018 D.W. Gillespie.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

FLAME TREE PRESS, 6 Melbray Mews, London, SW6 3NS, UK , flametreepress.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Thanks to the Flame Tree Press team, including: Taylor Bentley, Frances Bodiam, Federica Ciaravella, Don D’Auria, Chris Herbert, Matteo Middlemiss, Josie Mitchell, Mike Spender, Will Rough, Cat Taylor, Maria Tissot, Nick Wells, Gillian Whitaker. The cover is created by Flame Tree Studio with thanks to Nik Keevil and Shutterstock.com.

FLAME TREE PRESS is an imprint of Flame Tree Publishing Ltd. flametreepublishing.com. A copy of the CIP data for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

HB ISBN: 978-1-78758-048-0, PB 978-1-78758-046-6, ebook ISBN: 978-1-78758-049-7 | Also available in FLAME TREE AUDIO | Created in London and New York

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