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He is five and he has never known adventures, but he sees them on the backs of cereal boxes and the cartoons that play on Saturday morning. He watches with wide eyes as brave knights and soldiers fight for the glory of their kingdom; as heroes with capes and mystique vanquish villains on rooftops; as daring, charismatic pirates cut down row after row of rule followers. His mother tells him the cartoons will rot his brain, and she turns off the television. He watches her leave the room and then dives behind the house, where he pulls out soft, floppy comic books and buries himself in the bright colors.
He is six and he knows how to read chapter books. Adults like to see you reading, so he makes a business of it; reading all the time, at night with a flashlight, in class when he is supposed to be learning subtraction, the minute he’s free from dinner. Teachers ruffle his hair and talk about how well-spoken he is. Well-spoken is boring, he thinks, but it means his parents smile a lot. It’s not the same for kids, but they’re busy with their make believe, and he doesn’t think they know the adventures they are missing out on. Tall for a kid, with scuffed knees and freckles that the other kids make fun of, swinging gangly legs from a bench beside the playground, nose buried in a book as the other kids shriek and play. His cousin pokes the spine of his books and calls him a nerd. His mother snatches the books away when he tries to read them under the table at dinner.
He is seven and it seems like everyone is always busy. He tries to show his parents his little model ships, made from pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks, but they wave him away and tell him to go play at his aunt and uncles’ instead. The road is dusty in the summer as he walks down it, and he kicks at it, watching the dirt spin into the air. He puts a piece of grass wheat in his mouth and now this sad town is a ghost town.
His cousin is only four and enough of a handful by himself for his parents, so he leaves them to it. He walks around the grove by their house, balancing on tree stumps and facing branches armed with sticks. He leans against the pokey, splintery fence and watches that horse they have eat grass on the other side. He thinks about knights, riding horses into battle. The long stick held loosely in his hand bumps between his ankle and the fence.
When it rains, a bunch of little bits of trash and trinkets come up from the ground. He finds a little thimble washed up by the stables and brings it inside. He suggests to Myra that maybe, it’s a trash can for fairies. She tells him, “Maybe so.” When his parents come to pick him up, he tells his mom the same thing. She tells him fairies don’t exist.
He leans his cheek on his hand and turns the thimble upside down on the windowsill as the adults talk. Maybe it’s a bird cage for tiny birds.
He is eight, and they are going on a trip. His parents are often too busy to go on vacation, so he is excited, even though they aren’t flying and it’s only overnight. He races little horse figurines against cars out the window and is delighted when they win. Six now, Chase tries to get him to play car games with license plates and paper, but he is too excited to do that. A balled-up piece of paper hits him in the ear.
They stop at a petting zoo. He is hanging onto his mother’s sleeve the whole time, digging his feet into the ground for leverage and trying to convince her to hurry up. She is in a good mood, she is laughing. She tells him to be patient. Well, he’s good at that, so he tries his very best so that they can get on sooner. They wander through, looking at goats and chickens as his grandfather and father discuss the local farmers. He sees a few distant horses and talks his parents’ ears off. The adults let him and Chase go off on their own for a minute, just around the courtyard, to look at the baby pigs.
Halfway through the day his mother gets a phone call from her work and she has to walk away for a minute. When she comes back, she is not smiling anymore, and mutters to her husband as they walk. They look at handsome Clydesdales snorting and stomping their hooves, and he stares for five minutes, imagining brave battles and long journeys, before his grandmother offers to pay for food to give them, while his parents hang back and talk. The treat is sticky in his hands as he walks up to the edge of the fence and nervously holds out his hand. The horse takes one look at him and refuses to take the treat, all the while until it passes hands to the rider.
He is inconsolable. His mother tells him to stop being dramatic and his father tells him to stop being sensitive.vFinally, his mother buys him an ice cream cone and tells him that should cheer him up. He doesn’t want to feel ungrateful, but he can’t help from sniffling a little, still, especially as it melts warm and sticky over his hands. Finally his mother throws her hands up and tells them all that she needs to take another call. While she’s gone, Aunt Myra takes his hand.
She tells him that it’s okay, and lots of other nice things. She nudges him into a line and buys something while he cries into his sundress. Then she turns around, and in her hands is a little brown horse made of thread and stuffing.
He hugs it to his chest and starts to feel a little better. His horse beats out all the cars on the highway.
He calls her Thimble.
He is ten, and he can’t find her. He tears apart the house looking, pulling up couch curtains, books scattering his room. Finally, she is found on a very high shelf in his parent’s study. “I wonder how she got there?” his mother asks, as he cradles the little horse to his chest.
He is twelve, and they are at a riding camp over the summer. He edges between the gate and the fence and stands very still so that the horse isn’t scared. The nice counsellor helps hold the creature very still as he gets on the stool. For the first time in his life, he is on a horse. She snorts, throws her head back, and bolts—he falls over backwards onto the ground. His cousin draws stars all over his cast.
He is fifteen. Chase is quiet all of the time now. He is facing that heroic test that his cousin has never been afforded. It is strange to be in the same room as him and not hear him talking. It hurts to leave and go back home. So he doesn’t; not for long. He ignores his mother yelling at him after dinner and goes out into the garage and slings his leg over his bike like he can’t hear her voice, and pedals out into the rain. The streetlights are like stars winking down at him. The mist kisses his face. He has never gone this fast before. It’s almost, a little bit like riding—but of course, heroes have horses, so he’s just him, instead.
He is sixteen and holding flowers. He never figured out how to be a hero before it was too late. Not in return for someone who was a hero for him—but there is someone next to him, and if he is going to be a hero for anyone, it will be his cousin. He needs it right now.
Chase knows a lot of people, and not all of them good. Students at school talk incessantly about why he’s been gone, and never comes out of his old farmhouse anymore. Deacon tries to ignore them, but they are so loud, and he is practiced at being invisible but never being blind. Some of them know the truth and are quiet about it. Others make up reasons, elaborate stories about involvement in crimes, from family to boyfriends. Deacon has always been a good kid, which means he only gets one hit in.
He feels practically deaf to his parents’ shouting as he sits in the office and nurses a swollen lip. They preach strange morals to him. Why can’t he figure out how to be the hero, even when it counts? And it has never counted more than it counts now.
But then he is seventeen, and suddenly boxes and bags are packed, goodbyes are exchanged, and he is watching the old farmhouse slide away in the rearview mirror. The little horse is on his lap; he didn’t want to risk her with the moving truck. He sees the way his mother looks at him and he hates that he cares.
He is eighteen and crawling to the end of high school. He calls home sometimes to talk to his cousin and his friends. He is still eighteen when he gets the call from Chase about Myra.
He is twenty and he is home for the summer. His room is not his own anymore, but all of his little action figures and pirate ships are still on his shelves. Usually Chase is up here; Deacon hasn’t gotten much of a chance to talk to Myra alone recently, busy with a degree he’s not even sure he wants. They talk about school and his friends. They talk about Chase. He notices the little plush horse on the shelf and walks over. “Oh yeah,” he says, “I forgot about this.”
“I didn’t,” Myra says.