Yes. I almost drove us all to the police station, after we dropped off Grandma. But I decided I wanted to explain to you. I want you to understand. That’s my gift to you.

The house felt to Galen like a cavern. No lights on, shades drawn. Great hollows in the ceiling above. Prison. His life, not someone else’s life. His life in prison. And for doing nothing wrong.

Please, he said. I don’t understand this. I don’t know how this happened. He had to be careful how he talked to her. She really was crazy. I can’t go to prison, he said. You’re my mother.

Yes. I’m your mother. And that’s why I have to do this. It’s my responsibility.

Please. Please think about this. You’re talking about prison.

Yes.

You’re talking about sending your own son to prison.

Yes.

She had a strange attentiveness, something he couldn’t place at first, and then he realized what it was. She was excited. You’re excited, he said.

Yes. I guess I am. It’s been so long. I’ve been afraid of you for so long. But now I won’t have to see you ever again. I get my life back.

You can’t just throw people away.

You threw yourself away.

Please. I’m your son.

She turned away then, walked down the stairs and toward the kitchen.

Where are you going?

She didn’t answer, but there was a phone in the kitchen. He dropped his duffel and went after her fast. The light in the kitchen was on, and she was already reaching for the phone.

No! he yelled.

Her hand jerked back as she saw him coming after her. She screamed and ran out the pantry door.

He followed her onto the lawn, but she was already across it, running for the shed.

What the fuck are you doing, Mom? he yelled. I’m your son. I’m not some kind of monster.

She disappeared around the corner, and he just stood there on the lawn. Prison. He couldn’t believe any of this. None of it could possibly be real. But it felt real. It felt more real than anything else ever had before. The world did not seem like an illusion. His mother was going to call the police. That had an enormous and terrifying reality.

Galen’s life closing in around him. The shed, the old house, the trees above, the walnut orchard, all of it edging in closer. The end of a future. To have no future at all.

I’m not garbage, he yelled. I’m not something you can just throw away.

The air so hot and thick. He walked through it past the corner of the shed, into the orchard and around to the sliding bay door. It was closed. He stood there before it in the hot sun and begged. Please, he said. Please. I’ll go away. You won’t have to see me. But I can’t go to prison. I don’t even know what prison is.

He got down on his knees in the dirt, in the broken furrows. Please, he begged. Please.

He could feel the heat radiating from the old wood and from the ground. His body slick. He crawled closer and reached up for the handle. I’m just coming in to talk, he said. I just want to talk. But she’d somehow locked the door. It wouldn’t slide.

He stood up and pulled harder, but it wouldn’t budge. The old rusted handle, the old padlock hanging. It didn’t have a lock inside. But she must have jammed a piece of wood or something.

Please, he said. Let me in. We need to talk.

I’ll give you a head start. If you leave now, I’ll give you one hour before I call.

No. I don’t want one hour. You can’t do this, Mom. He slumped against the door, old gray wood, rough and weathered and hot against his cheek.

The unfairness was too much. Rape. It couldn’t be called rape. I’m not a rapist, he said.

She didn’t answer. Just waited there in the shed, the place of her childhood. Her childhood that was so special and couldn’t be touched by anyone else. The whole thing a lie.

I’m not a rapist.

You are a rapist, and an abuser. And you will never abuse me again.

What the fuck? He slapped the wood with his open palm.

See?

You’re crazy.

See?

You stop fucking saying that.

See?

Galen was so frustrated he yelled and kicked at the door.

You’re an animal, she yelled at him. You’re an animal, and you deserve to live in a cage.

Galen stepped back and turned to kick at the door with the heel of his shoe. He kicked it hard. But it was tougher than it looked. I’ll show you some fucking abuse, he said. If you’re going to use that word, then you should learn what it means.

You’re just giving me more to say in court. I’ll tell them you tried to kill me.

Galen stopped kicking. He couldn’t believe any of this. She kept twisting things around. He needed to think. He needed to think his way out of this.

Look, he said. Let’s calm down. Let’s think about this. I never hurt you. I’m not an abuser. Can we agree on that, at least?

You’re an abuser.

Galen couldn’t stay here. He was going to just scream if he stayed here. He needed to go away for a while and calm down and think. But he couldn’t have her calling the police while he did that.

There was a bar that fit over the door handle. He swung this in place and then tried to close the padlock. It was rusty and didn’t close easily, but he brought a thigh up to hold the bottom of it and he pushed down with both hands until it locked.

What are you doing?

I closed the padlock. I have to think for a while. I have to figure this out. And I can’t have you calling the police.

She laughed. That’s perfect. You’re hanging yourself.

Are you my mother? he screamed. He screamed so hard his throat hurt, the same as when he vomited, his mouth and throat stretched wide open and burning. Are you my mother?

Chapter 19

Screaming at her like that made him weak. Everything gone inside, a hollow. It wasn’t even anger. It was something far more desperate, the entire world unmoored. He walked toward the house reduced to a shell. There was nothing left at all.

The blanket was somewhere in the house, and he would find it. Not that finding it would make much difference.

Her room a child’s room still. Wooden toys from Germany on the shelves, wagons and nutcrackers and small wooden girls. A full-size rocking horse also out of wood. Everything placed carefully, the most special of her childhood remembrances.

He didn’t really understand who his mother was. He hadn’t been there when she was made, or lived any of the years when she was remade. He didn’t have anywhere to start from. And what she was doing now was unimaginable. The way they were talking to each other was unimaginable.

What happened? he asked aloud.

He found her small suitcase in the closet, but it was empty, already unpacked from the trip. He pushed dresses and coats aside, found paper bags of sweaters and socks. No sign of the blanket.

Her bed small, with a light blue cover. He knelt down, looked under the bed, and there it was. An old brown blanket from the cabin, and somewhere on it the signs of his crime.

Galen lay down on the wood floor and put the blanket under his head, a pillow. He just lay there because he didn’t know what to do. He needed to undo things, to make them not have happened. Where had he and his mother first gone wrong?

The blanket was rough wool, very old. And this was the problem. Galen and his mother had gone wrong before Galen was even born. That was the truth. And it was outrageously unfair that he should be blamed now.

This is not me, he said. This is not even about me.

He rose and took the blanket into the backyard, dumped it on the lawn. Then he went to the kitchen for matches and returned to burn this blanket and everything it meant. He watched the flame start at one corner, nearly invisible in the sun. Hints of blue and orange. He could feel the warmth as the fire spread, warmer even than this hot sun, and he could see the wool turning black and thinning as it was consumed. The fire known by what it left behind.