Chapter Text
Ansonville, North Carolina. June 2, 1982
Early morning.
The best time of day, isn’t it. Nothing bad has happened yet. All you’ve done is open your eyes, and at this time of year, even before you open them, you’re seeing the sun; it’s turning the black into purples and tans behind your eyelids. Sun rose before 6:00 am, and it’s not even the longest day of the year yet, isn't that something. Everything just stretches out in front of you, when you’re lying in bed, eyes not yet open, in the early summer. Like it will go on forever.
And then you open your eyes.
The first thing he sees is the back of a head, his little brother Ernie, curled up in the bed across from him. Three years old, he’s a bit behind on his development. At least that’s what Johannah says, worriedly to Louis alone, after the younger kids are all tucked in; eldest sibling privileges include being the one your mother worries less about, but worries more to. She'd know, though, because she had seven kids, something not uncommon in these parts. But as far as Louis’ concerned, Ernie is free to develop at his own pace.
Though Ernie is the first thing he sees, he’s also, essentially, all he sees. Their room is only roomy enough for two twin beds separated by a narrow alley of space in between, narrow enough that Louis has to creep sideways through it. The slatted wood floor creaks when he sets his two bare feet on it and moves over it.
The second floor of their somewhat dilapidated two-story house consists of a hallway with one bedroom on the left, one on the right, and one more at the end. The bigger bedroom is for his five sisters. The second-biggest is for him and his brother. And then the smallest, just a closet, really, is for his mother. She swapped with her sons when her husband ran off, because she no longer needed a space big enough for a double bed.
Everything is warm and still as he begins descending the stairwell. On the wall by the front door, at the base of the stairs, is the thermometer. He leans close and reads the red mercury for all it’s worth, where it's risen like magma in a volcano, about to explode.
81 degrees at 5:57 am. Must not have dipped below 80 all night, even though summer’s just starting. Still, he doesn’t flip on the fan in the living room. Conserve energy until necessary, and nothing’s necessary if it’s just for him. Besides, he isn’t staying in here for long. Just long enough to take a piss in the only bathroom. He doesn’t even bother to rinse his hands.
Because he’s out of the bathroom and out of the whole house in no time, stepping into the hazy dawn. The fresh air feels like a wet blanket on his skin, the grass dewy under the soles of his feet, and he takes a deep breath in. Eyes on the outstretched horizon, as though he’ll ever run after it, he raises his arms, feeling his muscles unclenching.
Good morning.
He’s quiet, walking around the side of the house, because the windows are open in the other two bedrooms. He tries to be quiet even as he finds the hose and turns it on, rinsing his hands in the tepid water, the hairs on his arms prickling at the new sensation, the gradual awakening of his senses. Hands washed, he then lifts the hose to his mouth and takes his first drink of water, moistening his dry throat and lips, clearing his head of the last gauze of sleep. And finally, just for fun, he sprays himself in the face, lets the water rinse his hairline and the tip of his nose before dripping down his neck and dampening the collar of his white undershirt.
He’d be more covered up, pull on a flannel, if there was anyone else out here but him. But there aren’t even any other houses visible from theirs. It’s just their garden, then their yard, then scrubby fields before the road bends and disappears into some woods. There’s nothing to see here, and nothing to see him. If they lived closer to town, maybe. Ha, ‘town’, meaning the grocery store, post office, mechanic and church.
Though it’s hot outside, he doesn’t dry quickly. That’s the classic Carolina humidity for you, right there. Once wet, nothing dries for hours. Not dishtowels, or rugs, or shirts, or moods, or gossip. Everything takes a while to dry out around here.
He then opens a plastic bin, rummages around inside, grabs a silver food bowl and unfurls the top of a large bag of kibble. He pours some of the pellets into the bowl and sets it on the ground, a little miffed that the recipient hasn’t already come running over and demanding breakfast.
Next, he drags the hose through the grass, over to the garden. Hardy, easy-to-grow vegetables are the most practical, of course, and he starts by watering those, the cabbage and carrots and potatoes. Then come the more finicky ones, peppers and onions and tomatoes.
The tomato plants look alright, don’t they. Not bad. And actually, through the pale green leaves, he thinks he can see – there. The season’s first tomato. Small, the size of a blueberry, and just barely yellow, not to be harvested yet. But that tomato is going to taste sweet and tart and wonderful soon, thin skin splitting beneath his teeth and spurting, gushing flavor in his mouth. There’s nothing like fresh tomatoes from one’s own garden. Nothing.
Finally, after watering both the hardy and delicate vegetables, he reaches the flower beds. They’re impractical, don’t do a thing, but they’re his mother’s favorites and his favorites, too. Morning glory, face-first into the rising sun, climbing a rickety old trellis. Coneflowers, food for finches, stood still because there’s no breeze. Black-eyed Susan, yellow and dark like bumblebees. And, of course, the roses. Just wild roses, sure, not all that special, but his mother treats them like they’ll one day grace the Queen of England’s tabletop. And he loves them too, those roses. He loves them to death.
After watering, he winds the hose back up just to return to the garden. Time to weed. And no, it doesn’t make any sense to weed after watering. Logically, he’d do those tasks vice versa. But when it’s so dry like this for so long, he can see the plants’ thirst as soon as he looks at them. And he can’t ignore that thirst for a single second longer; he has no choice but to water them before he does anything else.
So now he kneels on the slightly soggy ground in front of the beds, aware that soil will, well, soil the denim he pulled on over his boxers. But it’s the same pair of jeans he wears every morning, and they’ve survived worse. Besides, he’s just going to hose himself off afterward, anyway, and these jeans will be left out to ‘dry’ until tomorrow morning’s chores.
There are some in the community who would reprimand him for doing chores today, because this, today, is Sunday. They keep the sabbath very holy around here, and that’s all well and good. But neglecting chores on Sundays is only for the shop owners and mill managers, but certainly not for the likes of the Tomlinsons. This is white trash, population 867, and almost no one can afford to sit around one whole day of the week. But the Tomlinsons in particular are some of the trashiest in that population.
It wasn’t always so bad. It was always bad, yeah, but not so bad. His father had worked for a few years there, even until the end, when he fled town after one too many nights caught drunk and disorderly. Because if this town is strict about keeping holy the sabbath, then it’s ten times stricter about public decency. So the next morning, Johannah awoke, heavily pregnant with her second set of twins, to find her husband and main income source having abandoned her. And that, in short, is how they ended up so abysmally poor (and the family reputation poor, too).
Johannah works. Always has. Louis began working after school and on Saturdays from age 14, as many young men do in a country devoid of child labor laws. Lottie, now 15, will start working soon. It’s just the way it is, especially with so many young mouths to feed. And it probably wasn’t Johannah’s fault she had so many stupid kids.
It’s not a good life, on paper. It’s really not. But he’s got his family, three generations of strength and determination, an abundance of ferocious love. All anyone really needs is to be deeply loved by one person, it’s said. But Louis is deeply loved by seven people, and so is Johannah, and so is Lottie, and so is Fizzy, and so are all the varieties of twins.
Daisy and Phoebe cried when Johannah announced that Troy had left. But Louis remembers, crystal clear, that he did not cry. 16 years old, he looked his grandpa in the eye, and saw his grandpa looking right back. Jim had given him a small, firm nod. Louis had nodded back. And both men, the remaining two men of the house, knew that they were better off without that piece of shit around here, anyway.
Grandpa Jim passed away last year, which is a real shame. He was only 66 years old, and Louis misses him far more than he misses Troy. He was the last remaining grandparent, too. Rest in peace.
Louis hums as he gardens, aware of the rising sun and rising temperatures. It’s country, folk, and Christian music on the radio, and since it’s Sunday, he should probably be humming worship songs. But he’s got some fiddle tune stuck in his head. He can’t remember when or where he heard it. Maybe he never heard it. Maybe he just composed it, like a genius, in his sleep.
He had weeded half the garden yesterday, so today’s the other half, currently cucumbers. They’re in season, and he picks the best as he works, placing them in a little pile to his left. His mother and sisters can them every summer, because pickles are a supremely cheap way to feel a little fuller without having to eat more expensive food. He doesn’t like pickles, but sometimes the brine and salt are satisfying.
He hears rustling accompanied by the light drumming of paws on the dry ground. To his left, a burnt orange tabby cat is padding over, a bloody chipmunk wedged in her jaw.
Well, no wonder she didn’t want breakfast. She’s an outdoor cat, Egg. The twins named that, because she’s the color of a yolk. It’s a weird name, but you know how little kids are. They just make associations out of anything. Anyway, Egg is a huntress. It’s something that maybe Louis should be proud of her for, survival instinct and tough ferocity. Instead, he can’t help but hate her a little whenever she kills.
The chipmunk is dead. Sometimes, they’re still alive, the field mice and shrews and even sparrows. It’s worse that way because they’re almost never salvageable. He’s never once been able to save one.
Sometimes they make sounds, tiny little squeaks. Sometimes there’s so much blood that he can taste it in his own mouth and has to look away, has to take deep breaths to keep his head from spinning. He’s always hated the sight of blood, even worse the feel of it.
Egg meows loudly, then purrs, circling the chipmunk and brushing against Louis’ crouched legs. She wants to be pet for it, to be praised for her hunt. He thinks she doesn’t deserve it. But he grits his teeth and scratches her ears, trying not to look at either the dead chipmunk or the stained fur around her mouth.
He picks her up in his arms and carries her to the hose. Just a dribble of water is enough to wash her face as she squirms through it, meowing unhappily until he lets her go. Then he grabs a trowel, walks back over to scoop up the chipmunk, and brings it to a far corner to be buried. And maybe it’s strange because animals likely don’t have souls, but he says a prayer over its grave.
After a while spent back with the vegetables, a bead of sweat slides down the nape of his neck. His upper lip and hairline have been damp for ages, but now the armholes of his undershirt are drenched, his spine, the creases behind his knees. It’s about that time, then.
His body barely aches as he rises. It’s used to this, used to bending and folding and kneeling and stretching. His body is used to everything.
The sun is higher, the air thicker. Time to continue with his day, into all the parts he likes less. Because the reality is that time will drag on, the sun will rise and set, and his body will ache more every day until it’s buried in the local cemetery. That’s reality.
He rinses himself off again, all the soil and weeds and probably a worm or two, rinses off the cucumbers he picked. Then he dries himself with a dirty old tarp, probably half defeating the purpose, and heads back into the house with a cucumber stuck between his teeth.
In the kitchen, in secret, he takes out a small knife and cuts it into a series of disks. Then he sprinkles a little bit, just a little bit, of salt over the disks. When there are tomatoes and an influx of fresh herbs, they’ll be eating good. Fresh tomatoes and cucumbers on some fresh bread and butter? Yeah, that’s the good stuff. Maybe followed up by some watermelon.
They don’t grow fruit. Well, aside from the vegetables that could be called fruit by stupid scholars and whatever. But fruit, real fruit, is something they have to procure from the grocery store or their neighbors. Johannah will trade jars of her pickles for jars of jams, strawberry and blackberry and peach.
He hears footsteps above, like they might cause the ceiling to cave in. That’s another one of his cues.
As he heads for the staircase again, Lottie appears on the top step. Daisy and Phoebe are squabbling behind her, practically pushing her down in their haste. They’re 7 years old now, and think they’re much older than they really are. They overtake Lottie, trying to overtake each other and be the first to the bathroom.
“I have to pee,” Daisy is shouting.
“I woke up first,” Phoebe shouts back.
And Lottie just sighs long-sufferingly, pushing her long flaxen hair out of her face. She and Ernie are the only blonde kids. Daisy and Phoebe, and Fizzy, have the darkest hair, and Doris is a ginger. Louis cringes imagining himself as a ginger; that was a close one.
Johannah will be dealing with the aforementioned Doris right now, and he’s off to deal with Ernie. Both little twins are awful at getting up in the morning, and even worse at going to sleep. So he clips Lottie’s shoulder with his bicep as they squeeze past each other on the stairs, then almost whacks Fizzy in the face. No one says ‘good morning’ to each other. Why add more noise?
He hears the older twins still arguing from downstairs, hears Doris wailing about something, hears his mother coaxing her to cheer up and get up. Louis can remember when she was just a newborn baby, always in either Johannah’s or his own arms, one twin for each of them. Giving them to the Grandpa Jim or a very, very careful Lottie when they needed breaks.
“Ernie,” he calls, swatting him on the back. “Get up.”
His little brother, just a small lump under yellowing sheets, curls into a smaller lump and groans.
“Ern. C’mon.”
“Nooooo.”
“Dude.”
“Duuuude,” Ernie echoes sleepily, blonde hair full of static.
“Gotta get up, dude.”
“Why.”
“It’s Sunday,” Louis reminds him, yanking down the sheets.
“I hate Sunday,” Ernie mumbles, pulling them back up.
“Lord’s Day, Ern, don’t –”
“I hate the Lord,” Ernie proclaims defiantly.
“Ernest.”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles in shame, finally dragging himself out of bed. “I’m sorry, Lord. I love you.”
Though this is serious and his little brother is sinning, Louis is finding it hard not to laugh. Besides, he’s too young to be really sinning. Just sort of getting in the habit of sinning for when he’s older. When he’s more like Louis.
He helps him dress, as he’s just learning, in a tiny cotton shirt that makes him look like quite the dapper gentleman. Tiny khaki pants. Not as tiny as when he was a baby, of course, but still enough to make Louis’ heart swell slightly whenever he performs simple tasks like these. Ernie won’t be this young forever. Now, at this age, he still believes, all day, that anything is possible. At Louis’ age, he’ll only believe so for a few hours in the early morning, suspension of disbelief. And Louis doesn’t wish himself on anyone.
After attending to Ernie, he dresses himself in his own pair of khakis, plus a stark white button-down that’s missing a button on the very bottom. But that doesn’t matter when he’s tucking it in, now, does it. No need to buy another Sunday shirt, and no need to make Lottie or Johannah sew in a new button. He does his best not to create more work for anyone.
Ernie tumbles his way down the stairs as he hovers behind him, trailing along into the kitchen, where Daisy is complaining about something. She’s always complaining about something.
“... cimmanin rolls for breakfast.”
“Cinnamon,” Fizzy corrects her impatiently while braiding Phoebe’s hair. “It’s pronounced cinnamon.”
“We had cinnamon rolls yesterday and we can’t have them every day,” Lottie says definitively, pouring a bowl of Cheerios for Ernie.
“No milk,” Ernie requests.
“What do you mean, no milk?” Daisy immediately demands. “You can’t have cereal with no milk.”
“You can,” Fizzy corrects her again. “You just shouldn’t.”
“Milk makes you strong,” Lottie intervenes, adding it to Ernie’s bowl despite his protestations. “Don’t you want to be strong?”
“I am strong. Louis told me I was strong yesterday when I –”
“Yeah but that was yesterday,” he joins the conversation, taking the cereal now that everyone has some. “You’re not going to be strong anymore if you don’t drink your milk.”
“Actually –” Fizzy starts, but Phoebe whacks her on the shin.
“We do what we have to do,” she says solemnly. “Facts aren’t important.”
“But we’re –”
“I’m going to ask Mom if we can have cinnamon rolls for breakfast,” Daisy threatens, getting out of her chair. “MOOOOMMMM!!!!”
“Don’t bother Mom with that!” Lottie yells after her. “You don’t need to bother Mom about everything, Dais, be a big girl –”
But Johannah has appeared on the staircase, holding Doris, and Daisy is screeching up at her while obstructing her route. “Mom can we have –”
Eventually, and on the brink of running late, they pile into the truck. Louis always sits in the bed in the back, holding Ernie tightly on his lap. Fizzy joins them, the most adventurous of the girls, her calf-length plaid dress a little worse for wear than any of the others’, her hair a little more disheveled. Lottie’s hair, for example, is always perfectly in place, and she’s taught the twins to demand the same precision.
The air is stickier and warmer now that it’s nearly 9:00 am. There’s a service at 11:00 am, too, but they typically attend the earlier one. Besides, today there’s a specific reason. They all have somewhere to be at 2:00 pm, and Johannah wants as much time as possible to bake for the potluck.
They drive over a pothole and Ernie laughs, bumping around in Louis’ lap. Fizzy, sitting across from them, mimes falling out of the truck. Behind her, to the East, the sun is bright through humid haze, glinting off yellowing leaves and dry shrubbery. Louis’ so unhappy, and also so content.
The church is the tallest building in town, which isn’t much of a feat considering how few buildings are in town in the first place. But it’s visible from a distance, white-washed sides and a bit of a spire. A field of flattened grass as a parking lot, populated by recognizable community trucks. They pull up next to one Louis knows belongs to the Akinsons.
Everyone gets out, Daisy fighting with Phoebe for not moving fast enough. Louis spots a bit of dirt on Ernie's khakis and brushes it off. Lottie helps Doris out of her seat. Johannah greets Mr. and Mrs. Wilkes as they walk past, quickly, their expressions judgmental. Everything is as it always is, every Sunday morning. Every quiet, stifling, holy little Sunday.
As soon as they pass the threshold into the quaint old Southern Baptist church, established 1861, the temperature rises. Despite the slow ceiling fans and the relatively early hour, it’s muggy and full of stale air. The collar of his shirt immediately starts feeling sticky and constrictive.
Johannah herds her flock to a mostly empty pew while chatting with the Randalls. He takes his place on the aisle, next to Fizzy. Ernie and Doris are with Johannah, and the big twins are preoccupied chatting with some of the Walkers’ girls in the pew behind. They’re all blonde, and he once heard Daisy complaining about how much prettier they are than her. So of course, from then on, Louis had to hate a six-year-old because she made his sister feel insecure.
He’s barely settled when the congregation hushes. Pastor Roberts has raised his hands to heaven, or at least to the slanted ceiling, his bald spot shining like a halo.
“Jesus, Lamb of God, have mercy on us,” he calls out. And so Louis, as well as his whole family and every other voice in the humid room, joins him in saying, “Jesus, bearer of our sins, have mercy on us. Jesus, redeemer of the world, grant us peace…”
And as he recites, he glances around at the familiar faces. They’re in the second-to-last row since they arrived so late, only the Walkers behind them. Across the aisle but in the same row are the Kiersons, including Mrs. Kierson, the 8th-grade teacher. She’s well-liked, not too strict. She didn’t give Louis as hard a time as some of his other teachers did, that’s for sure.
A few rows ahead are Mr. and Mrs. Springer, the diner owners, aka the owners of one place to get a decent meal in town. A town of this size can’t support a formal restaurant. Apparently, some brave and stupid soul tried a few years before Louis was born. It closed within six months, and, all finances having been sunk in the venture, the failed businessman crawled back to the tobacco factory. And then six months later, he died of a heart attack. Such is life.
Half the town works at the tobacco factory, six miles outside of ‘downtown’. A third works at the textile mill. And the remaining sixth of the population works in another capacity. Those jobs, meaning any job not in a factory, are the most coveted. They pay more. They’re safer. And they’re the kind of job Louis wants now that he’s graduating high school.
Which brings him to Mr. Berninger, owner of the one clothing store in town. And when the scandal went down three years ago, old Mr. Berninger was a source of relief. He’d give Johannah any extra scraps of fabric for free, and was sure to remember each child’s birthday just so he could gift them a scarf or even a pair of shoes. After service today, Louis is going to ask him for a job.
The thing is, he’s smart. Okay, he’s not smart. Louis’ actually pretty stupid. He was held back a year at school because he couldn’t figure out how to read, which was embarrassing and demoralizing. But even though he’s graduating a year later than he should have, at least he’s graduating. Many don’t. Most don’t. What’s the point when you’re just going to work in the mills anyway? You don’t need to know a damn thing to get on with the rest of your life in these parts. Nothing you can learn at school, anyway.
But you kind of have to graduate high school if you want to work at Berninger’s. You’re supposed to speak nicely there, present yourself accordingly. You’re supposed to be an upstanding citizen, and you’re going to get paid as such. Not much more than the mills, but a little more. And a little more, in this town, is everything.
A few pews in front of Mr. Berninger is one of Louis’ three friends. He used to have far more friends, before the scandal. And then, after the scandal, people warmed back up to the Tomlinsons bit by bit, polite smiles again and eventual chats about the weather. The girls were young enough that their little classmates weren’t told of such things, and school was still tolerable. But Louis was in 9th grade, and the morning after the news broke, he went from being a friend of many to being a friend of exactly two people.
One of those people, Liam Payne, is standing next to his wife, Laura. They graduated last year, when Louis was supposed to, and had been dating throughout high school. The natural, expected, and endorsed thing to do was get married in haste post-graduation, and that’s exactly what they did. All the lucky ones get married right out of high school.
Niall wasn’t so lucky. He’s still with his parents and older brother Greg in a pew toward the front of the church, no wife in sight. He was seeing this nice girl, Julia, a few months ago, but it didn’t work out. She’s now expected to get engaged to one of the town’s most eligible young men, someone above working at the mills and quick to stop associating with Louis after the scandal.
Louis’ third friend is not present, and it’s not because he’s going to the 11:00 am service, either. He was the least popular person in school (the only thing worse than a bad Christian is a non-Christian) before he dropped out, and since Louis was the second-least-popular for a while there, it only made sense that they’d find each other. He said he’ll be at graduation later, no matter how much Louis told him not to bother. Zayn’s just like that.
“Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you,” the Pastor is reciting, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”
It gets warmer as the minutes tick by, the preaching and reading. Ernie is getting fidgety. Johannah catches Louis’ eye and gently pushes his little brother his way. Bathroom break.
He doesn’t mind taking his younger siblings to the bathroom. He cringes and apologizes to God for the thought, that he looks forward to playing hooky from service, just a little, just a few minutes to stretch his legs and let his mind wander. He’s not supposed to find his faith boring, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t. And isn’t lying a sin, too?
So he helps Ernie in the bathroom and thinks about graduation later, thinks about how silly and pointless it all is. He thinks about what he’ll say to Berninger to weasel his way into a job. He thinks of seeing his three friends later this evening.
Ernie finishes up and they head back. Not long left, at this point. Johannah smiles at them as they return to the pew, then faces forward, Doris tucked into the side of her butter-yellow dress. Lottie, in pure white, doesn’t move a muscle. She’s on her best behavior, not only at service but all the time. The fact of the matter is that the scandal seriously affected her and her future. It affected them all uniquely, but Lottie is of marriageable age and no one wants to marry her.
Why would they, though? I mean, Louis understands both the positive and negative qualities of his eldest younger sister better than anyone, and he understands how it looks from a potential suitor’s perspective. Her reputation is a discredit to her. She has no money. Marrying her would mean having to deal with her disreputable family, potentially even aid said family in their poverty. No, it doesn’t matter how pretty she is, how mature and kind and reasonable. Better to choose someone else.
And Lottie wants to get married. Since she was a kid, she wanted to get married. She wanted Johannah to help her sew a different white dress with lace sleeves, a matching lace veil that’s much longer than necessary, shiny white shoes with tasteful heels. She wanted to wear her hair down, flowing flaxen over her shoulders. She wanted a particular hymn at the service, and she wanted her younger sisters to wear flower crowns. And, before, she expected her father to walk her down the aisle.
Now, Louis just hopes that one day he himself will get to walk her down the aisle. Her, and then Fizzy, and then Daisy or Phoebe in whatever order, and then Doris. And he hopes that some mature and kind and reasonable man will still want to take care of his sisters, provide for them better than Louis could. Louis’ time and money aren’t enough for all of them, plus Ernie until he can work for himself, plus his mother once she’s too tired and worn down to continue putting in the hours at the mills. Louis can’t provide for them forever; he can barely provide for them now. So every night he prays and prays and prays that his sisters will find loving husbands. That his family will be alright.
Which he should be doing now, praying. Nowhere better than church. He lifts his gaze to the crucifix, Fizzy fidgeting next to him, and shuts his eyes.
Dear Lord, he starts, the pastor’s words humming along in the background, I know I’m no one special. I know I’m not a particularly good person. I’m selfish and stupid and lazy and short-tempered, and I covet everything, so much, that I don’t have. I know I’m not a particularly good person, but please just let me be good enough to help my family be alright.
When he opens his eyes, he sees not just Pastor Roberts raising his hands, but the whole congregation. And Mrs. Dickinson strikes the first piano chord and they’re singing one of many worship songs he knows by heart.
“Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing pow’r?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you washed in the blood,
In the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”
<><><>
“Mr. Berninger? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Louis wipes his clammy palms on his khakis, cringing when he realizes that they’ll leave marks. Women are fanning themselves, men wiping sweat from their brows. The rising sun has turned this little church into an oven.
“Louis. Always good to see you and the family. I should go on over and say hello to everyone, I haven’t –”
“We’re in a hurry to get home,” Louis interrupts, which he then realizes is rude enough to potentially cost him a potentially nonexistent job. “I have graduation today, and there’s a potluck afterward. Mom’s making herself crazy baking for it.”
“Ah,” Mr. Berninger says with a knowing nod. “Your mother works hard.”
“She does. And so do – so do I,” Louis adds before he can regret it. “So I was hoping you had a job for me at the store.”
Mr. Berninger grimaces just slightly, the lines of his face tightening. “Don’t you have a job?”
“Of course, at the mill.”
“Tobacco?”
“Yeah. And it pays me the same as it pays anybody, but, I,” he takes a breath. “You know my family. You know we’ve struggled. You can understand why I might want something that pays a little more. Not much more. Just a little. Doris had pneumonia last month, and the doctor’s bills – I’m not begging but –”
“Look, Louis, I don’t need anyone else. I employ the same people I’ve employed since ‘70. And I’m not going to fire any of them. If I added someone, it would be out of charity, and it would be to my own detriment. And I’m not sure you want that.”
Louis deflates, feels his chest literally releasing air, staring at a painting of the Last Supper on the wall by Mr. Berninger’s head. At least he tried, even if he embarrassed himself. He doesn’t have much pride to lose, anyway. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. A smart kid like you shouldn’t be working in the mills.”
“I’m not smart. I just made it to graduation, is all.”
“How old are you now?” he hears Mr. Berninger asking, gently. “19?”
“Yeah. I just want to keep my younger sisters out of the mills, you know?” He knows he should stop, that no one cares about his troubles, but sometimes it’s hard not to want to share them. “That’s what I want. To keep them safe for as long as possible, until –”
“Well, I heard Ken might be needing someone soon?”
<><><>
“The guy who handles the grocery stock there? He injured himself and can’t work anymore,” Louis tells Johannah, while she bakes her signature honey-sweetened cornbread. People like her cornbread more than they like her, and the whole town knows it.
“Shipments, deliveries, unpacking, stocking the shelves. And Mr. Engle hadn’t started looking for someone yet because the injury just happened yesterday. Berninger lives next door to him and heard firsthand, he introduced me after service and it’s all set. I’m going into the mill tomorrow morning just to quit, then I’m gonna turn right back around and get to the store to start learning the ropes. I’ll be paid more, more responsibility, too. And from there, I’ll get to know more people, ask around for a childcare job for Lottie or something so she doesn’t have to go to the mills. I think this is going to work out well for us. Don’t you?”
Johannah laughs through her nose, arm-deep in the vat of batter. “I hope so. It’s awful that man got injured, bless his heart, we should be praying for him. But also … thank the Lord. Thank the Lord.”
Someone’s screaming in the living room and Louis goes running, especially because it’s Phoebe, who never screams; that’s more Daisy’s thing, or the small twins.
“Phoebs, are you –”
Her hand is over her mouth, a more generalized Tomlinson thing. Her shaky finger points at the corner of the room, where an absolutely massive cockroach scuttles into a shadow.
“What’s it?” Daisy says curiously, peering around him. “Oh.”
“Just a cockroach, scared the life out of me,” he sighs. “Phoebs, you can handle that. It’s just a bug.”
“It’s so big,” Phoebe whispers, her face white, eyes wide.
“You can get it.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. Go get a cup from the kitchen, go on.”
And so he helps remove the cockroach from the house. Phoebe’s eyes go watery with fear as she traps it, Daisy quickly and eagerly shoving a slip of paper underneath the glass.
The three of them go on a little caravan walk outside, through the yard and out to the tall grass, as he murmurs words of encouragement to his quietly crying sister.
When Phoebe puts the glass on the ground and finally, after many minutes of protest, removes it and flings herself back with a gigantic wail, he’s almost proud.
<><><>
The local school has one classroom for each grade. That’s all it takes.
Louis’ graduating class consists of 13 students, and probably only a handful will bother showing up for the ceremony. Still, Johannah is treating it like it’s a big deal, dragging the whole family back out into the heat, trays of cornbread in nearly everyone’s hands. Or at least those hands that aren’t small enough to require being held by larger ones.
Her cornbread is exceptional, people say. It’s a cry for acceptance, Louis thinks cynically, the way his mother hopes to lure people back into liking them through a bite of food. It’s extra apparent when they harvest the tomatoes. Juicy, ripe tomatoes should be eaten fresh from the vine, not much done to them. But Johannah will put almost all of them into cornbread and gift it to other people. He resents that, but through gritted teeth and bitter understanding.
There’s a dirt parking lot out back, full of trucks at the moment, and now it includes theirs. Nearby is a large grassy field, where some folding chairs now face a wood pallet. The school principal will stand and give a speech that sounds a lot like the sermon from earlier, and then the graduates will pitter-patter across it uselessly. Some ceremony.
Louis guides Ernie out of the truck; he could hurt himself if he tries to jump down. They all start to walk to the field, and almost immediately, he spots the smear of black hair against the beige landscape.
“Zayn’s here?” Johannah asks with hesitation in her voice and a bit of a frown on her face.
Louis inhales and bites the inside of his cheek. “Yeah. Nice of him, isn’t it?”
“Well,” she sighs, “You know what I think.”
“Doesn’t reflect well on me or something, yeah,” Louis mutters.
“Just …” she trails off. But in the end, it doesn’t matter what she thinks. If being friends with Zayn is wrong, Louis doesn’t want to be right. It’s one of his extremely, preciously few unsensible choices.
He sets the tray of cornbread down alongside coleslaw, potato salad, ambrosia salad, jello salad. The sun is beating down now, melting the edges of everything and making the centers cave in. There’s a reason nothing on this table involves cheese.
“Hey,” he hears from behind him.
He turns toward the familiar voice, familiar face. Still, no matter how familiar it is, every so often Louis has to take a moment to collect himself. It’s not just that Zayn looks different from everyone else in their community; it’s that he looks better than almost everyone else, too.
“Hey. You didn’t have to –”
“Yeah, yeah,” Zayn waves him off, sunbeams glinting off his shining hair and making his dark eyes sparkle. “But it’s kind of a big –”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a big deal for you, because for a while there we weren’t sure your brain would fully form.”
“I mean, while we’re on the subject, I’m still not sure your … is fully formed.”
“Ahh shut up,” Zayn mutters, pushing him a little as they walk back toward the folding chairs.
Niall bounds over out of nowhere, shielding the sun from his clear eyes, dancing around trying to avoid it. “Congrats.”
“No.”
“Still on for tonight?” Zayn asks him.
“Yeah,” Niall nods, a sly smile on his face. “Greg’s helping out, if you know what I mean.”
“Of course I know what you mean, we just talked about –”
“Okay, great,” Louis interrupts impatiently, seeing everyone starting to gather. “We need to sit down now, it’s starting.”
“You gonna sit in the front row like a celebrity,” Niall teases, jogging along next to him. “Like you’re –”
Louis rolls his eyes and breaks away to, yeah, the front row, where eight of his classmates await. Not a bad showing, more people graduating this year than last year. There’s a free plastic chair between Milly and Abby, probably because they were both trying to get with Tyler all Spring. They’re not on the best of terms, now.
“Hi,” Milly says graciously, a polite smile on her face. Her hair’s the color of the aforementioned cornbread, a demure ivory sundress fluttering down around her ankles. She’s not a friend, but she also didn’t treat him like trash after the scandal. At least not openly, she didn’t.
“Hi.”
“I just saw your twin sisters running around.”
Louis cranes his head to make sure said sisters are no longer running around. Thankfully, they are now seated. “Yeah, they make themselves pretty visible.”
“They’re so cute, in their little matching outfits.”
“They’re not matching, exactly. Daisy’s has tulips embroidered while Phoebe’s has daffodils, but you probably can’t see that from a distance.”
“No, sorry, I just saw flowers. I didn’t mean to say that –”
“It doesn’t matter,” Louis laughs, then lowers his voice as the small crowd starts to hush. “You definitely don’t have to apologize. I’m just warning you, because if you get within ten feet of Daisy, she’ll make sure you know that they are different people with different flowers on their dresses.”
“Welcome, everyone,” he hears the principal proclaim, and he grins again at Milly before facing forward. Then they sit and listen to ironic manifestos on the importance of education; everyone here knows that education means next to nothing.
But he would go to college, if he could. He’s heard about it. One person from his graduating class moved away and went to college in Raleigh last year, Ryan the valedictorian. Louis almost wishes he could ask about it. He saw Ryan when he was home for Christmas, in the grocery store, all tall and proud and charming. A real college kid.
He would, if he could. He’d like to sit in a classroom surrounded by smarter people, learning about literature from a man in a suit. He’d like to live in a dorm room and eat in a cafeteria. He’d like to have a new experience.
But when he walks across the stupid platform, he sees the faces of his mother, his sisters and brother, Liam who arrived just in time, Niall bravely sitting next to Zayn. They’re smiling, except for Doris who’s pitching a fit. They’re here for him. And, really, they’re all he’ll ever need.
<><><>
The potluck is fine. Liam and Zayn leave quickly after the ceremony, but Niall stays for a bit, grabbing a plate of food and camping out with Lottie and Fizzy. Louis helps keep Ernie from getting baked beans all over himself. The sun beats down, and he’s tired, and the cornbread has run out by the time he tries to claim some for himself. But it seems like other people are having a good time.
When they get home, half the family takes naps. He and Johannah clean up, scrubbing the dishes from the cornbread while Lottie does the laundry. He can see her hanging the wet clothes on the line in the backyard; they don’t have a dryer, and even though it’s needed, no rain is predicted. Her long blonde hair is shoved up on top of her head, slipping from the patterned headscarf she likes to use.
“It was nice, wasn’t it?”
Johannah is speaking quietly, just having entered the kitchen. She’s reaching for her sewing kit in the cabinet, because Phoebe ripped her skirt earlier.
“Hmm,” Louis agrees, drying one pan and putting it away.
Johannah smiles and leans against the counter, rummaging through the kit. “Saw you talking to Milly a bit. Before the ceremony.”
He nods and begins washing the other pan. He wonders if they still need to eat dinner tonight, or if the afternoon meal will suffice. If nothing else, he can skip it.
“She’s very pretty,” Johannah continues, needle and thread. “Milly.”
“Sure.” He hears low voices from the living room, Daisy and Phoebe playing with the dollhouse. Must have gotten bored of the nap.
“She seemed to like you, don’t you think?”
“Was just a few words.”
“Louis.”
He finishes scrubbing and positions the pan in the plastic drying rack. And when he glances at his mother, she’s looking back with that soft, slightly concerned expression he knows well.
“You’re allowed to. I want that for you,” she says, hands busy. “You can take her out, she’s –”
“She wouldn’t want to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, though.”
“I know you have these ideas in your head about what you can and can’t do –”
“No one –”
“Don’t interrupt me.”
He shuts his mouth, chastised. Daisy laughs from the living room, a little too loudly. It might wake the small twins.
“You don’t know she’d say no. I don’t want you to be scared. You’re not scared, are you? Because you shouldn't be.”
“It’s not that I’m scared. It’s that,” he exhales, irritated that she’s making them have this conversation. “Between you and me, we barely have enough money to support the kids.”
“You shouldn’t be so worried about supporting the kids. You’re not a parent. You’re a kid, too. You’re my eldest and I want –”
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” he interrupts, seeing her face tighten. “That’s not what matters. What matters is what we need. All of us know, Lottie knows, it’s not some secret you’re keeping from us. It’s not something you need to shield us from. We need more than we have, and it’s not enough as it is.”
“But –”
“Listen to me, Mom. Any girl who miraculously wants to go out with me? Any girl, whoever she is, wants to get married to someone who can support them, at least more than half. At least as much as possible. And all my money is going to this family right now, and it’s not enough. You think I can use that money to support a wife instead? Or you think anyone’s going to agree to be my wife knowing that I still have to support my whole family? No way. Just forget it. There’s not enough for everyone, so I’ll just hold off on asking any girls out. At least until Doris is married. It’s just the way it has to be.”
He takes a breath and tries to smile. “Besides, it’s not like I’m suffering over it. I don’t want to, anyway. I don’t care. I’d be alright if I never got married.”
He knows that it sounds like an excuse, but it’s the truth. He’s seen his classmates lose their minds over girls. Seen his friends. Liam even married one. But he just can’t understand what would make someone starry-eyed and fixated. Never saw the draw, never felt the pull.
“You know that I’m so grateful,” Johannah finally says, “that you’re the way you are. You’re so responsible, and reasonable, and careful. You’re such a great, great help to me. But you deserve to be happy, too. You deserve to have some fun and find someone. Someone good.”
He laughs easily now, wiping his hands. “Maybe I do, but it doesn’t matter what I deserve, does it? What matters is what I get.”
<><><>
Late that evening, when the sun’s finally gone down and the temperature’s a few degrees lower, he grabs the keys to the truck. It’s not often he goes out, better to save gas and energy, but he has plans tonight. And he’s actually looking forward to them. This will be the little happiness he deserves.
The dirt road is straight and narrow, and he knows it well. Pine and birch branches hang over the sides of the road, enough that if another truck drove in the opposite direction and Louis had to move over, they’d be brushing against the side of the vehicle. Every so often, a deer darts away. It’s not quite the backwoods, but it’s close.
The windows are down, of course. The truck doesn’t have air conditioning, never has, so there’s really no alternative. He popped in a cassette, and they don’t have many. At least many that aren’t full of worship songs. This is Bob Dylan, Tangled Up in Blue.
A few minutes later, he’s pulling off the side of the road into a clearing, next to a tan truck and a black one. The trees are thin here, and through them, he can make out a small bonfire on the edge of a pond. There’s a lake another mile away, a nice big lake that’s good for fishing and evening canoes. But that’s where everyone else goes. This dumbass pond is theirs.
“The man of the hour,” Liam calls, stoking the fire as Louis walks closer.
“The hour has passed,” Louis calls back. “Now I’m just another loser like you two.”
“Speak for yourself,” Zayn scoffs, firelight making his cheekbones sharper. Sometimes, Louis has to tear his gaze away from him when he realizes he’s looking too long, too hard.
“You’re the second-biggest loser of all of us,” Louis retorts, plopping down between them.
“Who’s the biggest?” Liam asks.
“Niall,” Louis and Zayn say simultaneously.
“Now wait, let’s look at this logically,” Liam protests, leaning forward with interest. “And he’s not even here yet to defend himself.”
“Yeah,” Louis agrees, brushing dirt off his jeans. “Logically, okay, I am the most impoverished.”
“Broke, yeah,” Zayn nods.
“Which makes me the biggest loser. But you aren’t even Christian, what’s that about?”
“Hey.”
“So that might make you the biggest loser,” Louis grins. “Because God said blessed are the poor, so I’m blessed and you’re not. Sorry.”
“He said blessed are the poor in spirit,” corrects Liam. “And you’ve got plenty of that.”
“Anyway, you’ve got a wife, so I think that makes you less of a loser than us.”
“Absolutely right.”
“But then again, there’s your whole personality.”
Zayn starts to laugh, Liam scowls, and headlights beam through the night, dwarfing the meek little bonfire.
“Woo!” Niall screams out the passenger side window. “Woohoo!!!”
“Biggest loser,” Zayn mutters under his breath, but fondly. They’re all fond of Niall.
“Why’d he drop you off?” Louis shouts when the doors open, gesturing at the driver, Greg, lingering with the engine on. “We just needed him to get the booze.”
“He wants the truck tonight,” Niall shouts back, hoisting three sixpacks of beer out of the backseat. “Liam can take me home tonight, can’t he, live only a mile away from each other.”
“Sure,” Liam agrees. “Won’t be drinking as much as you idiots tonight, anyway.”
“Have fun, virgins,” Greg calls out the driver’s side window, starting to pull away.
“I’m not a virgin,” Liam whines. “I’m literally married.”
“And where’s the kid?”
“I don’t need a kid to prove I have sex!” Liam bellows back, while Niall cackles, setting the beer on the ground and immediately popping a can. The truck lumbers away down the dirt road, the engine sound getting quieter and quieter along with their laughter.
“So tell us about all this sex we’re not sure you’re having, Liam,” Zayn says lazily.
“Yeah, tell us,” Niall eggs him on.
“No, I – well I – no,” Liam stammers, his face reddening. “That’s between Laura and myself.”
“You’re no fun,” Niall scoffs.
“I’m respectful.”
“Same thing.”
“The conjugal bed is sacred,” Liam starts, but they all cut him off with more laughter.
“Want me to tell you who I thought about while I jerked off last night, instead?” Niall rolls his eyes.
“No I don’t want to hear about what gross things you’re doing to distract yourself from the fact that Julia went and dumped your ass,” Liam shoots back.
They’re all silent for a minute, and Louis glances at Niall, whose face is now devoid of mirth. He’d been serious about Julia all Spring, even told the group he wanted to propose come Fall, but she’d broken it off with him as soon as Will Larson asked her out. Will’s taller than Niall, is training to be a plumber, and was one of Louis’ closest friends before the scandal.
“Don’t want anyone who’ll go for a guy like that, anyway,” Niall had said loyally, but they all knew he was hurting. And, only a few weeks later, he’s clearly still hurting now.
“Sorry,” Liam murmurs, chastised. “Y’all were riling me up.”
“It’s alright, whatever,” Niall waves it off, taking a long gulp of beer.
Frogs chirp louder in the silence, and a bat flies overhead. “It was Sarah, wasn’t it it,” Zayn deadpans, miming a handjob.
Then the drinking gets started. And the thing about drinking is that it’s a sin. Well, drinking isn’t, but drunkenness is, and that’s the intention of tonight. To get drunk. They don’t do it often – almost never – but they’re still teenage boys, aren’t they? And besides, as previously established, only one of them is having sex and that’s the one not getting drunk. It all works out, doesn’t it.
Still, as Louis finishes his first Miller High Life, the alcohol comes with a side order of fear. And that fear is of how much he likes it. He likes the way his shoulders drop, his skull seems to widen and leave more room for his brain to breathe, his muscles unkink. He likes how irresponsible it makes him feel. He fears how irresponsible it makes him feel.
But by the fourth beer on an empty stomach, little tolerance, and a low bodyweight, he’s not so scared anymore. The bonfire is sparkly. His friends’ laughs are musical. His –
“Hey, Louzer,” Niall yells, waving his hands in his face.
Louis starts laughing. “I am a loser, you’re right.”
“I am right but you know what?" Niall grins good-naturedly. "I'd forgotten that you're kinda fun. When you're having fun."
"But I'm never having –"
"Now listen to this.” It turns out to be a huge gulp of beer followed by a very impressive burp. “Bet you can’t do better,” he challenges, wiping his mouth.
“Bet,” Louis agrees, reaching for a fifth can, cracking it open, and chugging as much as he possibly can. Once he manages to swallow it all, he opens his mouth wide and tries his best.
Niall beams and toasts him, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Nice try, but you’re just too small to make big sounds.”
“M no smaller than you.”
“Yeah you are. Also, you’re really fun when you’re drunk. You’re all, I dunno, happy.”
“I’m not happy when I’m not drunk?” Louis ponders, head getting fuzzier by the second.
Niall grimaces a little, shrugs, and doesn’t reply. “I just like when you’re happy, whenever you’re happy.”
“Aww Niall,” he grins, warm all over. “That’s so nice. I love you.”
“Hey hey hey,” Niall protests, shaking his head. “Gay.”
“Wait, who’s gay?” Zayn asks from across the bonfire.
“Shh,” Liam hisses.
“It’s just us,” Niall points out.
“Who d’you think would be, you know, gay,” Zayn grins, reclining lazily. “If one of us had to be.”
“You,” Louis answers immediately without thinking. “You’re the one everyone would want, even the guys.”
“I dunno, Louis, that sounds pretty gay to me,” Niall considers.
“Can we stop talking about this,” Liam groans, by far the most sober.
“What you scared of, God’s gonna smite us down for just talking about it?” Zayn challenges, sticking his chin out. “It’s real, you know. Real people are like that.”
“Real weirdos,” Niall nods.
“Not just weirdos, they’re like,” Liam whispers, “Perverted.”
“Gotta piss,” Louis realizes out loud.
“Well go on, then,” Niall sighs. “In the woods. But not too far left, that’s where Zayn went.”
“Gay!” Zayn shrieks, and Liam pushes him over.
Louis stumbles to his feet and heads in what he hopes is the right direction. He is happy, he thinks. This is all he needs, his people and the woods on a hot night, and the rest of his people back at home.
He veers off to the right a bit, where the trees are thicker, away from the road. He can still hear Niall’s laughter, but quietly now, mixed with the hum of cicadas and trill of frogs.
There’s no path and very little light, so he finds himself tripping over sticks. Potentially tripping over nothing, he can’t really tell. And maybe he’s drunker than he thought, because it looks like there’s a shape in the trees a few yards ahead of him.
He pauses. Might be a deer; might be a log. He can still hear all three of his friends’ distinct voices, so it can’t be one of them. Unless they’re playing a trick on him? It could be one of them, is he sure that’s Zayn he’s hearing back by the pond?
“Zayn?” He asks calmly. He refuses to be pranked. But just as he asks, he hears Zayn yelling at Niall from far behind him, out of the woods. And instead of startling a deer away, his voice seems to beckon the shape closer.
Or maybe it’s just a trick of the light, drunk vision swirling and lying, seeing through kaleidoscope glasses. But there is no light; there’s no moon. It’s nothing but clouds above, hazy humidity, not even a star. Just the faintest traces of brightness from the bonfire, his own fault for not bringing the flashlight.
Carefully, he takes a step backward. He can piss a few minutes later, in a different area. He just can’t shake the feeling, little claws clamped on every vertebra, that something’s wrong here. That something wrong is here.
He takes a deep breath, takes another step backward, and feels his ankle catch on a vine. And that’s that, down he goes, flat on his ass, something scraping at his left calf. He’s about to laugh at himself, pick himself up and carry on, when he hears the strangest sound. Like a deep, ragged inhale.
Something is here.
A rustle above him, a change in the air, and for a split second blink of an eye, a violent hallucination, he sees the most beautiful man in the world.
A burst of whitehot pain in the side of his neck like talons or teeth or fangs, sinking, sucking and –
It’s gone.
Suddenly it’s just gone, and he’s still laid awkwardly on the dry ground, a stick digging into his hip and a stone up his asscrack. And there’s a blaring bright beam of light now in his eyes.
“Hey,” he hears Niall saying, holding the flashlight. “What are you screaming for, pussy?”
He groans and covers his eyes with dirty hands. “Nothing, I – nothing.”
“You trip and fall like a moron and start screaming, stop scaring people. Moron.”
“Shut up.”
“Get up.”
“Alright, alright,” he mutters, clambering to his feet, pushing Niall away and trying to knock him over, too.
“Hey, you’re bleeding.”
“What?”
“There,” Niall points, his expression bored. “The side of your neck.”
“Oh, yeah, I think a bug got me. Bit me and took me by surprise, I freaked out.”
“Like a lil pussy.”
“Would you cut that out?”
And so life goes on. He pisses. He gets back to the bonfire and doesn’t drink anymore, and the conversation gets slower and slower until they call it a night. He drives home, hands steady on the wheel, the night a little cooler. He hoses and dries himself off before going inside, checking his arms and legs for ticks. He creeps quietly into the house and up the stairs and into bed. But there, in bed, he lies wide awake.
And at some point, he slips his right hand from underneath his flat, yellowing pillow. He carefully, hesitantly, touches his index finger to the tiny cut on his neck. In a rush, he feels fear.
He fears how much he liked it.