Mother began to muscle-test compulsively, unaware she was doing
it, whenever she grew tired of a conversation, whenever the
ambiguities of her memory, or even just those of normal life, left her
unsatisfied. Her features would slacken, her face become vacant, and
her fingers would click like crickets at dusk.
Dad was rapturous. “Them doctors can’t tell what’s wrong just by
touching you,” he said, glowing. “But Mother can!”
—THE MEMORY OF TYLER haunted me that winter. I remembered the day he
left, how strange it was to see his car bumping down the hill loaded
with boxes. I couldn’t imagine where he was now, but sometimes I
wondered if perhaps school was less evil than Dad thought, because
Tyler was the least evil person I knew, and he loved school—loved it
more, it seemed, than he loved us.
The seed of curiosity had been planted; it needed nothing more than
time and boredom to grow. Sometimes, when I was stripping copper
from a radiator or throwing the five hundredth chunk of steel into the
bin, I’d find myself imagining the classrooms where Tyler was
spending his days. My interest grew more acute with every deadening
hour in the junkyard, until one day I had a bizarre thought: that I
should enroll in the public school.
Mother had always said we could go to school if we wanted. We just
had to ask Dad, she said. Then we could go.
But I didn’t ask. There was something in the hard line of my father’s
face, in the quiet sigh of supplication he made every morning before he
began family prayer, that made me think my curiosity was an
obscenity, an affront to all he’d sacrificed to raise me.
I made some effort to keep up my schooling in the free time I had
between scrapping and helping Mother make tinctures and blend oils.
Mother had given up homeschooling by then, but still had a computer,
and there were books in the basement. I found the science book, with
its colorful illustrations, and the math book I remembered from years
before. I even located a faded green book of history. But when I sat
down to study I nearly always fell asleep. The pages were glossy and
soft, made softer by the hours I’d spent hauling scrap.
When Dad saw me with one of those books, he’d try to get me away