If it hadn’t been for the eyes they shared, those light green eyes that glowed bronze as scuppernongs in the right light, Aiden would have sworn April was not Thad’s mother. But those eyes proved she had birthed him, or at least proved they were kin, and once blood gets that close, it really doesn’t make a damn.
When Thad was little, he told everyone his father was Cherokee. Thad said his daddy’s last name was Walkingstick, sometimes Pheasant, but usually he stuck with Walkingstick. He carried a big bowie knife with him all the time, twisted crow feathers in his hair, and smeared his chest with mud clods. The way he told it, he was going to be chief, and when that time came, Aiden would be one of the few white people he didn’t have it out for. But Aiden had never seen a redheaded Indian.
In truth, Aiden had always believed, just as everyone else, that the most likely man was the church deacon, Samuel Mathis, the only other redhead ever to come out of Little Canada. All the kids bullied Thad and called him Sam, and more than once Aiden had bloodied a kid’s nose or blacked his eye because of it. Though April could’ve gotten knocked up somewhere off the mountain, it didn’t take a DNA test to see Samuel and Thad were spitting images of one another. Back when Aiden slipped into pews to pilfer the offering plate, there was more than once when he saw how Samuel stared at April the entire service, and how she seemed to notice but for some reason or another refused to meet his eyes. Either way, Thad’s and Samuel’s heads were both as red as ginseng berries. Sometimes the proof was in the pudding.
She was already asleep when Aiden walked into the house. The television was on in the living room, but muted, and flashed an unsteady blue about the walls. A tabby cat named Mittens was curled at one end of the couch. The walls were covered with knickknack shelves, different shapes and sizes, but all having the same square nooks. April collected Stone Critters, chalk animal figurines that fit in the palm of her hand. She bought them from flea markets and yard sales, and though Aiden thought it was silly, collecting those figurines made her happy.
There were things Aiden would never understand about her, like how she demanded the lights be on when they made love. Likewise, she always slept with the lights on, and on nights that Aiden lay beside her, he would get up and turn them off once she’d fallen asleep. Some nights she woke up panicked and would scream when she found someone in bed beside her, so most nights he left the lights on and slept by himself on the couch.
April was gorgeous. Aiden had always thought that. And every time they lay together, in that moment just before he came, he would stare into her eyes, those jade-green eyes, and it was enough to push him over. He loved her and always had, even when he and Thad were little. Sometimes he’d even tell her that he loved her, though she never said it back. She always responded with something like, “I know you do, sweet one.” But she never said those words in return.
The rest of the house was dark as he walked to her bedroom and stood at the doorsill. She was on her side, facing him, the sheet pulled down to her waist and bunched around the curve of her hip. Her body was tan from sunbathing naked in the backyard when no one was around. There were freckles on her shoulders and chest, freckles he’d traced so often with his fingers that he could map them on paper. One arm was tucked under the pillow. The other hugged around her chest. Honey-blond hair streamed over her shoulder and ran into the place where her breasts pushed together.
Aiden turned off the light and climbed into bed beside her. When he drew close she turned over and he spooned in behind. He was wide awake as he pulled close to her, their bodies together in every place they could be. For a long time, he lay there and couldn’t sleep. He’d been hungry so long that the pangs had gone and now returned. He thought about getting up to eat, he thought about a lot of things, but it felt so good beside her that he didn’t want to move. When he shifted his legs to get even closer, she stirred against him.
“Will you turn the light back on, sweet one?”
“I will,” he said. He stood and then did as she asked on his way out of the room. Down the hall, a light was on over the stove in the kitchen and he opened the refrigerator to look for something to eat. She’d made him a plate for supper: cube steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a slice of tomato covered in plastic wrap on a plate. He ate the food cold, and when he’d had his fill, patted the plastic wrap down and slid the leftovers back into the fridge.
In the living room, he shook one of her cigarettes from a pack on the coffee table in front of the couch. Mittens rose from where he’d been curled and sleeping and let his front paws down on the floor, his haunches still on the couch as he bowed. The cat lolled over to where Aiden stood by the window and ran its body against his bare legs. Aiden drew the curtain back and stared down the hill to where Thad sat. He finished his cigarette, watching him, glad that Thad was there simply because his being back meant that Aiden was no longer alone.
When Thad left for Fort Bragg, Aiden felt something he hadn’t felt since he was a child. Those nights in the group home while he lay beside the boy who memorized baseball cards, Aiden was frozen with fear. He was alone and helpless, and that feeling was like the world was out of control, like his mind was trying to fathom the speed of light. His palms would get clammy and his ears would ring and his heart raced and he would forget to breathe and he would just lie there knowing for certain that he was about to die and there wasn’t a soul on this planet could stop it.
There’d been so many years since he’d felt it that he’d forgotten. All that time, the feeling lay dormant inside him, buried and unnoticed, until that first morning he woke up alone, that first morning Thad wasn’t there. Aiden couldn’t understand why the feeling came back, he couldn’t connect one time and another, but nevertheless there it was day in and day out.
He told himself that things would be different now. Those dark, racing thoughts were gone, and he’d come to believe that if he and Thad could get off this mountain and head to Asheville, they could get back to the way things were before. That hopeful feeling was as nice a thing as he could remember. So he closed his eyes, the same way he did every night, and tried to think of nothing else.