*
Dear Julie.
Lavender composed the letters in her head, because she didn’t have an address or any way to get to the post office. She didn’t know how to drive, and Johnny only used the truck once a month, alone, to go to the store. The farm needed so much work, he said—why would she need to go into town? Johnny would sulk as he unloaded the cans of food, muttering in a voice that belonged to his grandfather. Expensive, keeping the two of you.
*
Dear Julie.
Tell me about California.
I think of you often—I imagine you are on a beach somewhere, browning in the sun. Things are fine here. Ansel is five months old now. He has the strangest gaze, like he’s looking right through you. Anyway, I hope the weather’s nice there. Someday, when Ansel is old enough, we’ll come find you. He’s a good baby, you’ll like him. We’ll all sit in the sand.
Dear Julie. Ansel is eight months today. He’s so chunky, the rolls in his legs look like baking dough. He has two teeth now, spaced out on the bottom, like separate little jutting bones.
I keep thinking about summer, when we hiked to the edge of the property, where the raspberries grow wild. Johnny fed the berries right into Ansel’s mouth, and Ansel’s hands stained red with the juice. They looked like a postcard of a happy family, and I felt so outside of myself, watching them play. Like a bird perched on a distant branch. Or one of Johnny’s rabbits, strung up by the legs.
Dear Julie. I know, I know. It’s been a while. Spring again now. Ansel is walking, getting into everything. He sliced his arm on some construction equipment in the yard, and of course it got infected. He had a fever, but Johnny said no hospital. You know I don’t believe in God or anything, but it’s the closest I’ve come to praying. Summer will be here soon—you know how it goes. I don’t even remember the last few weeks. It’s like I slept right through them.
Dear Julie. Did you ever learn to drive? I know we promised we’d do it together. We should have, when we had the chance. I haven’t left the property since Ansel was born—he’s almost two years old now, can you believe that?
Johnny took Ansel hunting in the forest yesterday. I told him Ansel was too young. When they came back, Ansel had these purple splotches up his arms.
You should have seen the shape of those bruises, Julie. Like fingers.
*
It started small like that. Trivial, easy to ignore. A grunt from Johnny’s throat, an angry slammed door—a grip of the wrist, a flick on the ear. A palm, playfully smacking her cheek.
*
By the time Lavender looked up, Ansel was three years old. They had lived their days and nights in a long, repetitive procession, time sucked into the lonely vacuum of the farmhouse.
It was dead summer, a sweaty afternoon, when Ansel walked into the forest. Lavender was on her knees in the garden. When she stood from the dying dahlias to find the yard empty, the sun was high in the sky. She had no idea how long Ansel had been gone.
Ansel was not a pretty child, or even a cute one. His forehead was massive, and his eyes bulged too big. Lately, he’d been playing tricks on Lavender. Hiding the spatula while she was cooking, filling her water glass up in the toilet. But this was different. He had never gone alone beyond the edge of the field.
The panic came in a flood. Lavender stood at the tree line, calling Ansel’s name until her voice rasped.
Upstairs, Johnny was napping. He grumbled when Lavender rolled him over.
“What?”
“It’s Ansel,” she said, panting. “He ran into the woods. You have to find him, Johnny.”
“Calm down,” Johnny said, his breath sour.
“He’s three years old.” Lavender hated the alarm in her own voice, how it shrilled her. “He’s all alone in the forest.”
“Why don’t you go?”
Johnny’s erection poked through the slit in his boxer shorts. A warning.
“You know the woods,” she said. “And you’re faster.”
“What’ll you give me for it?” he asked.
He was joking, she thought. Grinning now. His hand moved down, into the elastic seam of his shorts.
“That’s not funny, Johnny. It’s not funny.”
“Am I laughing?”
He touched himself, rhythmic, smiling. Lavender couldn’t help it—the tears were lodged in her throat, thick and painful. When she began to cry, Johnny’s hand stopped. His smile melted down into a grimace.
“Fine,” Lavender said. “But you promise, after, you’ll find him?”