The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan Read Free Book Online

saying,
Really? Will we really?
My father said,
Of course we will
, and he stooped a little to put an arm around her shoulders, pointing out the windows, the rooms, asking her to choose which one would be hers.
We must go
, my mother said, plucking at his cuff.
What if someone comes and finds us?
My father said,
What if they do?
But he turned away all the same.
    My father pushed back his chair, said he had no appetite, and he caught my mother’s hand as she reached to take his plate and held itfor a moment. Then he left the kitchen and we heard his footsteps going back and forth, back and forth, in the room above our heads. After I had watched Rachel cross the road to school he came down with his hat in his hands, said he had errands to do in town. My mother asked if he would get a few nails to fix the loose board on the chicken coop, but he said he would do it another day
.
    Dr. Robinson counts my heartbeats, looks in my mouth and my eyes. Once he tried the electric box; he gave me his own white handkerchief and said it was a shame that it had upset me. Said that he knew it would help, that we would try again, but not for a month or two. When I went home I still had the handkerchief crumpled in my hand; I washed it and pressed it and put it under my pillow so I wouldn’t forget to take it back.
    After the checking Dr. Robinson sits behind his desk, all his buttons sewn on. I sit in the chair and listen to him talk and it doesn’t take so long now, for me to be able to stop staring at the toes of my shoes. He talks about how the treatment is working, how I am progressing, and it may be true, although there are always things I don’t tell him. He asks how my mother likes the town, says that his own wife came from the city, as he did, that she found it difficult, at first. He talks about his son, Rachel’s friend, how there are things a mother doesn’t understand, things about being a boy. Sometimes when I raise my eyes he’s not even looking at me, and sometimes he calls me someone else’s name, but I never say. I know what it’s like to have someone bring you back, even if it’s done in the gentlest way.
    Dr. Robinson reminds me of some nice type of dog, I don’t know why. Maybe his brown eyes, the way his mustache droops over the corners of his mouth. The type of dog that would follow you everywhere, that would sleep on the end of your bedand only ask you to be kind to it. The type of dog that would always try to protect you, even when it couldn’t. My mother had a dog like that once, in England. Its name was Blackie, and one day it ran into the road and was crushed by a brewer’s cart. She never wanted another.
    Dr. Robinson talks, and sometimes he stops and I can’t even hear him breathing. I watch until he blinks his eyes, puts his hands on the desk, asks if I have any questions. One day I heard myself ask if it’s true, that every life has a purpose. I didn’t mean to ask it, I felt my face flush, I didn’t know where to look, but he answered as if there was nothing strange in it, nothing strange in my speaking. He said he believes that’s true, though a purpose can be many things. He told me about a promise he had to make once, to do no harm. Then he asked if I’d been thinking about that, asked what I think my purpose is.
Like the garden
, I said, and he waited for me to say more but I couldn’t go on, my mind a jumble.
    There was a bite in the air and the chickens pecked the ground around my feet, even though I’d scattered the grain in a wide circle. I was very tired, but I thought how it was Tuesday, and almost the top of the week. When I went back inside my mother was humming, heating up the stove and saying maybe she’d bake a cake later, if she had enough flour, saying we all needed something to cheer us up a little
.
    When my father polished his boots and came on the train without us, a man he met told him that Mr. Marl owns half the town. That may not be true, but his name is everywhere in