Chapter Text
The black-clad smiling woman welcomes him to St. Joseph’s Home for Boys. She introduces herself, but Arthur doesn’t remember her name and he doesn’t care.
Her chirping voice contrasts from the dull, slate-gray surroundings, the stone walls adorned with pictures of saints he vaguely recognizes, the wide arched windows open to an equally grey sky replete with clouds.
Arthur says nothing, simply scowls. He wasn’t listening to her. He doesn’t want to hear anything she has to say. He doesn’t want to be here.
Her hand is cold on his shoulder as she guides him inside. He tries to shake it off, but she grips tighter, as if she knows he wants to run far, far away from here. Arthur imagines her sharp knobby fingers boring holes into his skin, piercing him all the way through. He hopes she will, and maybe all the air will burst out of his skin like a badly tied balloon, leaving him to sag down onto the wooden floor until someone picks him up and carts him away.
Maybe he will wake up in his room, with his blankets and books surrounding him. He will go to the kitchen and Mum will be there making pancakes and Dad will sit at the table reading poems from his big leather book, his voice booming through the kitchen, and Mum will look at him and smile, a real smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling. There will be no empty brown bottles clattering in the corners, no sharp pungent whiskey smell that makes him gag. Dad will hug him and ruffle his hair and Mum will kiss him on the forehead and their eyes will be bright, their cheeks pink and not deathly pale like they were in his nightmare last night, and everything will be all right.
The woman shepherds him through the austere narrow corridors, shows him the dining area with its rows of long, peeling tables, the dormitory, the chapel. Arthur glares when he sees the large cross in the back of the room. “God has a plan,” he’d heard so many times over the past few days. Arthur decides that he hates God and he hates his plan and he hates this stupid place.
The woman’s cheerful voice flattens as they continue walking, the sprinkle of bright joy fading into the ever-present silver mist hanging outside the windows. Maybe Arthur drains the joy and life out of everyone he meets like the mosquitoes on that summer trip, which feels so long ago. Maybe that’s the real reason his parents aren’t here. Not because of God’s stupid plan but because he didn’t know how to play with the other boys, and stared out the window during classes when he ought to have been paying attention, and got into trouble. Because he was too loud and too quiet and too much and not enough.
He doesn’t realize he’s crying until the woman hands him a handkerchief. He doesn’t take it. He just wants her to leave so he can be alone. (He’ll be alone no matter what but at least if she leaves it will be quiet.)
The woman sighs and walks Arthur back to the dormitories. When she speaks, the words feel like they are floating towards him from far away. “I know you’ve had a great loss, child,” she says, her voice flat and tired-sounding, cold as her fingers still on Arthur’s shoulder, “But I hope, with time, you can think of this as a home.”
Arthur wrenches away from her grip. He does not look at her as a fresh wave of tears burns across his cheeks. He hates it, hates the way his throat locks up so he can’t say a word (though what would he say? he just wants to scream), hates how weak and broken he feels, like the shattered glass of a bottle just seconds after it hits the wall. He’s too big to cry now, and still the tears fall, the room blurring in his vision.
This isn’t his home, and it never will be. Home is his own room, his own bed, his parents laughing and singing together just across the hall.
Home will never exist again.