when she gets in. “You and me together.” March notices that Hank is too tall for the Toyota and has to scrunch down in his seat. He looks so serious and so young that March feels moved. He’s shy and uncomfortable about making conversation and he hasn’t had much practice driving. When he least expects it, he has to swerve to avoid hitting a rabbit, and they nearly barrel right into a stone fence.
“Sorry,” Hank tells March.
“It’s all right.” March says. He looks amazingly like Alan, had Alan been sweet-tempered. “Those rabbits think they own the place.”
Hank nods. It’s awkward being with March, and he’s relieved when they reach the house on Fox Hill to find that Ken Helm is already there. These woods were once filled with chestnut trees, but in forty years the species has been all but destroyed, and now it seems this old specimen will meet a similar fate.
“Drastic measures,” Ken says grimly as they join him to study the tree. “That’s what we need.”
He’ll cut off most of the limbs in the hopes of salvaging the trunk, even though he’s doubtful that the tree can be saved. March tells him to go ahead and do as he sees fit, still, she worries about the doves who are peering down at them from their nest.
“They’re going to have to move,” Ken tells March as he goes to get his saw and ladder from his truck.
“I want to make sure nothing happens to them,” March calls.
“I’ll do my best,” Ken says. “I can’t do more.”
Hank has been leaning against a small maple tree, looking at the empty house. He has almost no memory of ever living here, except for the day of the fire. He remembers more than most people would guess; that the fire seemed liquid, for instance, that it looked so pretty he wanted to reach out and touch the flames, but his mother wouldn’t let him. She told him no.
“Let’s go inside and see how the place looks,” March suggests.
“I don’t think so,” Hank says.
“Oh, come on. Let’s take a peek.”
March goes on ahead, and Hank finds himself following. The house hasn’t been unoccupied that long, but the pipes have been drained, and it’s colder inside than it is out. Aside from a few big pieces of furniture-the dining room table, the couch-it’s empty. They can hear an echo as they walk through the rooms, like the past coming right back at them. Hank goes to the doorway into the kitchen; he knows exactly what he’s looking for. To the right of the frame, where the wallpaper is worn, he can see charred wood. He found this one day when he was visiting Mrs. Dale, and after that he always felt he had to revisit the spot, as though paying his respects.
“I’ll be outside,” he calls to March.
“That was a stupid suggestion of mine,” March says later when she comes out to the porch. “You must be upset when you come here. You must think of your mother.”
“I’m fine.” Something has caught in Hank’s throat, and he coughs. “But if it’s all right with you, I think I’ll stay here for a while and help Mr. Helm.”
“Sure,” March says, and she pats his shoulder when she walks by.
She feels sorry for him, Hank saw it in her face. Well, pity is meaningless, that’s what Hank’s been taught. It’s what you do that counts, Hollis has always said, and in Hank’s experience, Hollis is right. He remembers perfectly well the day Hollis came for him. They were living down in the Marshes and it was freezing cold; there was ice in Hank’s hair. His father had passed out and the fire in the coal stove had died; there was nothing but embers. He remembers how light spilled into the room when Hollis opened the door. Hank’s father was on the floor, and Hollis rolled Alan’s limp body over with his foot, then bent down to peer into his face. Hank was not yet five, but he already knew it did no good to complain; hunger and cold were the facts of his life, so he didn’t say a word. He remembers, though, the look on Hollis’s face, the absolute certainty there. How curious a man of conviction had seemed to Hank, how rare.
“Get what you want to take with you,” Hollis had said. “Hurry up.”
Because of Hollis’s tone, because of the way he was standing there-and how tall he seemed and how completely confident-Hank never thought to question him. He got the stuffed bear the ladies from the library had given him on Christmas, and his wool sweater, and he didn’t look back when Hollis closed the door. But now, for the first time, Hank has questions; it’s what he’s been instructed to do that’s the problem. He’s supposed to keep an eye on March: If she goes somewhere, he’s to tag along, as he did today. If he sees her setting out mail for the postman, he’s to grab it and hand it over to Hollis. When he raised the issue of March’s privacy with Hollis, Hollis laughed out loud.
“You really think there’s such a thing as privacy?” Hollis had said. “That’s just some bullshit they hand out to keep people in line. If you love someone, you do what you have to. You don’t think about what other people might say.”
Well, Hank has done as Hollis asked, he has March’s letters in his jacket pocket right now, secured when she went to say goodbye to Gwen. He’s done what he’s supposed to do, and when he hands the letters over Hollis will pat him on the back. Usually that’s enough for Hank-just the tiniest bit of appreciation, a nod to a job well done. But this time is different. What Hank has done in stealing March’s letters is wrong, that’s the way he sees it. And the most awful thing is, once he’s begun to question Hollis’s motives on this, he has other questions as well, especially concerning Belinda.
“She was driving me crazy,” Hollis used to explain, whenever he and Belinda would fight. “Some people have to be taught a lesson,” he’d tell Hank. “You’ll understand when you’re older, when you’ve had to settle for what you never wanted in the first place.”
Now, when Hank thinks about the way Belinda looked after they’d had a fight, he feels sick. He thinks about the sounds he thought he’d only dreamed when he first came to live with them. Frankly, he doesn’t like the conclusions he’s reached.
March calls out a goodbye to Ken and drives off, leaving Hank to help. Mostly, Ken needs the branches he cuts down to be sawed into pieces, then thrown into the bed of his truck, a job Hank is glad to do, since the work is almost hard enough to keep him from thinking.
“Good job, kid,” Ken Helm says when they’re done for the day. Ken will be back in the morning, to finish the job. “I guess I have to give you a percentage after I bill Hollis. Maybe I should charge him double.”
Hank laughs. “It’s okay.” All the same, he’s grateful when Ken Helm slips him a twenty. When all the dead wood has been toted away, they both shield their eyes and look upward.
“ ‘Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, but store them in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworms destroy them, and thieves cannot break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart also be.’ ”
“That sounds like good advice,” Hank says.
“It is.” Ken nods. “Matthew 6:19. I didn’t want to say anything to March, but that nest is going to have to go.”
“I figured.”
“Some people don’t like to hear the truth.”
And, Hank thinks as he watches Ken drive off, some people don’t like to tell it. Hank, for instance, hasn’t told anyone about the old man who has taken to following him. He didn’t even notice at first, but for the past week or two he’s felt someone watching him. He heard noises when he brought old Geronimo and Coop’s ornery pony out to the pasture. A branch breaking. An intake of breath. He has taken to looking over his shoulder, even when he and Gwen are walking home from school on the deserted High Road. Recently, he’d begun to see bits and pieces of the old man. A footprint in an icy field. A thread snagged on some witch hazel.
Hank tried to train his eyes to look beyond what he saw. A twisted oak had hands. A stack of hay wore worn leather boots. Then. one day, Hank looked behind him on the road and there was the old man, thin as a stick, pale as winter, with an unkempt beard and clothes far too big for his frame. Hank felt panic rise in his throat. He had the urge to grab the old man or to run away, but he did neither. He kept walking, and before long he realized it was his father who was following him. He knew because the old man would not cross onto Hollis’s property; instead he disappeared into the Marshes, without a sound.
What would be the point of having a father now? Hank’s all but grown, he’s managed without; he’d be embarrassed to be claimed by a pathetic drunk who doesn’t seem to know when his boots are on the wrong feet. It makes no sense; not now. It’s Hollis who raised him, Hollis to whom he owes his allegiance. All the same, Hank finds himself thinking of his father, the way he used to examine a bottle of gin before he began to drink, as if there
