Chapter One

Mack is six-years-old, and man, is he a beautiful boy. He has this shy little smile and such clear blue eyes. They’ve cut his hair into a bowl cut that sits above his eyebrows, and his shirt is striped and dirty with jelly stains. They don’t dress him or clean his clothes like they should.

They don’t do a lot of things they should, really.

But I love them, too, and I guess that’s always the hardest part for a heart to understand.

His best friend is Roy McGruffin, a nearly threadbare police officer that moonlights as a stuffed dog toy. Mack got him when he was three from a cop on a street corner handing out recruiting fliers to the adults and toys to the kids. The police officer told Mack the dog’s name was Roy McGruffin so Mack committed it to memory even though his tongue couldn’t quite handle the “gr” sound yet. Sometimes Mack thinks of the police officer and assumes he’s still standing on that corner. His name is Kevin, but he’s no longer there. In fact, he died last year breaking up a domestic dispute. Bullet straight through his heart. His death was like looking through a kaleidoscope, everything touching and turning. There was the grief that almost swallowed his parents and ex-wife whole.

But then there was this new shock of color and shape in the lens. Everyone began to trust each other with their hearts. 

Mack takes Roy everywhere which is why a lot of his fur has rubbed away, and he has a grubby feel to him. But these are things people only notice if they’re paying attention.

“Mack, you remember now, right? I’ll leave the key under the mat. You get off the bus, you go down the sidewalk, up the stairs, and open the front door. Wait here. Make a snack. No oven, no microwave. Uncle Dennis will come by when he gets off work so just wait for him. TV’s okay but just cartoons. You got it?” Rochelle Reynolds is exasperated by the end of this little spiel like she can already see in her mind’s eye Mack walking down the wrong sidewalk or entering the wrong duplex. Rochelle is very OCD and even now presses a Virginia Slim against her lips in hopes of curbing the way her brain thinks. I didn’t create it to be such a burden. In fact, there are so many beautiful things about Rochelle’s brain but the downfall is when she lets the voices get a little too loud. She gets paranoid. Her heart closes its eyes and pretends I don’t exist. But deep down Rochelle knows that’s a lie.

“‘Member,” Mack says because he’s about to get on the school bus and is too distracted by the fact that he’ll be separated from Roy McGruffin for several hours. Rochelle outlined what school would be like, and Mack has been infinitely perturbed about it. He lets his thoughts be a distraction now, and Rochelle sighs hard through her nostrils.

“Pray you make it through the day,” she mutters and grabs her purse. She presses her lips against his forehead, swipes at the permanent jelly stains, and takes his hand. She walks him to the bus stop which is across the street from their duplex. After another wet kiss against hair and skin, he watches his mother dash across the road in her “good” clothes. Rochelle just landed a temp job as a secretary for a pretty prominent Texarkana lawyer, and word on the street (or in the break room) is that the former secretary won’t be coming back. Rochelle hopes this is her big break.

Mack, however, feels empty, like he could fly away even though his backpack and his Wild Wild West lunch box weigh down his tiny body.

The bus comes. He goes to school, and it’s not that bad.

But then he comes home.

He makes the snack—crackers and cheese whiz—and pours orange juice into a cup but mostly on the floor. He watches The Deputy Dawg Show. He practices forgetting until Dennis walks through the front door.

Dennis. His heart has always been the feel and weight of rock. Even as a child, he’d pluck the wings off a fly and study its pain before slowly working it into the sidewalk with his thumb. I’ve studied Dennis from all angles: his choices, his parents who always turned a blind eye. They took Dennis to church, but they never taught Dennis about me. I was waiting so long for Dennis, but that door was slammed hard in my face.

At some point, your knuckles get sore from knocking.

There’s always a nefarious tether between Dennis and Mack. It’s all Dennis, all in his eyes and the way he leers at my beautiful boy and wants to make him his. The dark is deep inside him. A well with no water at the bottom.

Mack turns off the TV when Dennis comes in wearing his janitor’s uniform. Mack wants to continue watching, pretending he’s so enthralled with the show that nothing can tear him away and paste him back into reality.

Dennis nods, gives him the signal. And he takes my beautiful boy to his bedroom with the chair and the rope.