Be Not Afraid

By AJ Saxsma

"Utterly mesmerizing..."
- IndependentBookReview.com

"Beautifully written...cathartic and entertaining."
- BookReviewDirectory.com

"A highly accomplished work of dark and resonant modern drama."
- ReadersFavorite.com

 

In the small town of Larton, Lloyd Wood daydreams of success and struggles to keep his failing restaurant afloat, all the while dodging developers eyeing his land. A ray of hope appears when a charismatic business guru promises to turn things around, luring Lloyd into a risky deal.

 

Toby, Lloyd's son, obsesses over fitting in. Every day, he buries his true self deeper, hoping to blend into the background at school and at home. His quest takes an unexpected turn when he enrolls himself in a program that vows to erase his authentic self permanently, pushing Toby into a journey of unintended self-discovery.

Meanwhile, Dawn, Lloyd's wife, finds solace in a new church in town where love seems more transactional than genuine. Lost in her family's shadow, she adopts a new persona in the midst of a church community with questionable intentions.

 

As the Wood family labors to avoid their own realities, the gaps they create around themselves deepen, putting at risk the people they care about the most.

'Be Not Afraid' delves into identity, family dynamics, and the destructive nature of denial. With a strong narrative voice, the novel challenges our ability to accept the things we cannot change, leaving readers to ponder if change is ever truly out of reach.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zeus Books
• Release date: Nov 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798224681693

Book preview

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Author’s Introduction to the Material

Igive to you, in its simplicity, no more and no less than what the characters have given to me over the course of the year I spent with them.

If you find there grows, from the scenes and your imagination, what author William Hope Hodgson names a scheme of ideas, a greater story within the lesser, then that is yours, and to quote Mr. Hodgson, the inner story can only be uncovered, personally, by each reader, according to ability and desire.

But yet can I promise certain thrills, merely taking the story as a story.

And so I invite you to Be Not Afraid.

"Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that

we are not alone."

- Fred Rogers

When they ask me what I’m afraid of, I lie.

-Olivia M. Likens, THE MONSTER

"I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says:

turn back."

- Erica Jong

For Us

BE

NOT

AFRAID

Chapter One

Lloyd

The meeting began some twenty minutes ago.

Lloyd Wood, the quiet gentleman by himself in the back of the community hall, with a stone-sour look and a sweat-stained ball cap atop his head, sat and listened to the man who was front and center and smiling and waving his hands at the seats packed with local land and business owners. It was the third such meeting the man had organized. He thanked the room of faces for coming and removed his business blazer and rolled his sleeves and said let’s do away with formality, shall we. He was one of them, after all, he pointed out to the room. He gets his hands dirty, too, he said, just like anyone else. As a matter of fact, he hated suits, he told them, don’t you hate suits? He was one of the regular folk, he said, not some stuffy suit. He said he’d been glad to spend time and acquaint himself with all the wonderful folks in front of him over the last two meetings. Their stories moved him, he said. They’d gotten him right in the heart. He cupped one hand over his heart and made sure everyone saw him do it.

He had brought easels this time, and they were lined before him for the room to see. They held illustrations, land development concepts, the man said. Don’t worry that they’re vague, he said, all great ideas begin this way; what’s important is the vision. You’re going to want to worry about their vagueness, he said, but please resist that, okay, do not worry these concepts are undefined; that was for contractors and lawyers to worry about, he laughed—and the room laughed. These vague concepts hold the future, he told the room, and, boy, doesn’t the future look bright?

The room replied yeah!

The families and businesswomen and businessmen fed on the man’s words, and they would not break eye contact.

A woman near the front could not sit still with her excitement.

Lloyd was seated far from the others, near the exit.

After the first two meetings, he now preferred to sit close to an exit. His arms were crossed, and he watched the room clap for the man and cheer for the promises that rolled from his lips.

Lloyd did not participate.

The man with his sleeves rolled up told the room the future could be theirs and, while most of the faces he was looking at were ready, there were some still on the fence. Those people, he asked, were they ready to seize the future? He invited the stragglers—the holdouts, he called them, the ones who had not turned in their contracts—he called them out, specifically, and drew them to the front of the meeting house with mouthfuls of flashy words, and the stragglers—holdouts—rose and filed, one by one, and the man collected their completed contracts.

Lloyd did not move, and he said nothing to those who did.

He remained in his seat, arms crossed.

His contract was home in the trash, in shreds, many shreds. He wondered about those people lining up and riling each other up for a bright future, and they were laughing. The families and business folk laughed and were drunk on promises.

The holdouts turned in their contracts.

But not Lloyd.

‘Mr. Wood?’

The room settled.

The man waited. His hands were full of contracts, and there was a fragile smile on his face.

He needed one more.

‘A bright future is waiting, Mr. Wood.’

The room turned to Lloyd almost at once. They were ready for the future and needed to see who was holding them back.

Lloyd simply sat with his arms crossed and met not one person’s stare, now that he’d been put on the spot.

The man asked again, for Lloyd’s contract, please.

‘I changed my mind.’

The man held Lloyd’s words a moment, allowed them to pass, then filed the contracts he’d collected into a black briefcase and stood in thought. The room hung on his silence. Then he asked Lloyd didn’t he want the future. He wanted to know. The room deserved to know at least that, he said. Didn’t Lloyd know the others, the lovely and amazing and willing land and business owners of this room, he said, they were ready to step into the future and sell their hard-earned land. The man said those men and women were brave enough to give up what was theirs for something better, something from which the whole community could benefit, when those concepts were made more defined, of course. He said to Lloyd, don’t you want to see this community thrive? Mr. Wood? Lloyd? Didn’t he know, and the man was real sorry to say, if just one person does not have the courage to take that bright future, that vague and bright future, to sell him their land, if just one person can’t find the courage, then there was no deal. No bright future for this community. He apologized, he said, but that was how this was to work. He needed everyone, or no one. No deal. He said, don’t you want to escape your failed business and sell the valuable land it’s sitting on? He reminded Lloyd they’d gone over all that in the second meeting, how badly his business and everyone’s businesses performed, and how badly the town needed a lifeline, how everyone in the room needed a lifeline.

The room echoed the man.

Didn’t he want that?

The man spoke all of this at Lloyd but paced and directed his attention to the eyes of the room.

‘What do you say to these people, Lloyd?’

Lloyd gave an honest effort to think on that question, and the room was silent while he did.

An answer, unfortunately, did not come to him, and so he ran for the exit.

Which was not far.

The room booed Lloyd, and he yelled at them on the way out that a man don’t quit. He stopped and turned to the room and yelled it, a man don’t quit cause times are hard, but none of them heard.

Their boos were deafening, and they reached in his bones.

He hurried to his truck.

He took it through town, through Larton, a country pocket some ten thousand souls called home that slept against a state highway. It was small and forgettable. It shared no neighbors and was alone in a globe of fields and sky and long winding roads that rushed nowhere of consequence.

No one seemed to know quite where Larton was.

Unless it was home.

It was an organism.

Homes and businesses and trees were its skin; families and relationships and labor and movement were its blood and organs.

One body.

It relied on its parts and needed nourishment.

Like any living thing.

It was, at this moment, with illness.

LLOYD PARKED AND ENTERED a repair shop on the edge of Larton, before empty roads and fields and wide country took on and on near forever.

He waited at the counter.

Repaired appliances on sale for low money were displayed in disjointed rows; there was no uniformity among them. They were in poor condition and had handwritten price tags shaped like explosions in neon colors.

The inventory did not seem to change but once a year.

The repairman came from the back.

His hair was thin and held by sweat to his forehead. He wore a dirty flannel under overalls with work smudges and wrinkles from multiple wears with no wash.

His hands gently tremored. 

‘You were supposed to phone,’ Lloyd said.

‘No, I know.’ 

‘I got one call, then you say it’s ready. I got no other call. I got just the one.’

‘Was moving a bit slow that day. I just figured.’

The repairman searched for papers behind the counter.

‘You just figured?’ Lloyd said.

‘Yep. I was moving slow. Figured I’d just fix it.’

‘Well. How much is it?’

‘Yep. Hang on.’

The repairman paused his search to sit on a noisy stool then started again.

‘You should have phoned. Now I don’t know how much it is, I’m saying. I wanted to know how much before you fixed it,’ Lloyd said. ‘That’s the thing.’

‘No, I know.’

‘You fixed the fryer, though? It’s working now?’

The repairman found and placed a black ledger on the counter. He flipped near the end. ‘Got you here at four fifty. Parts and labor.’

‘Yeah, I didn’t get a call, so,’ Lloyd said. ‘That’s what I’m saying.’

The repairman looked at him.

‘Can you do three fifty?’ Lloyd said.

‘Sir?’ he said.

‘You said you’d call’s the thing.’

‘Yep. But I just figured, so.’

‘So, can you do three twenty-five?’

‘Sir?’

‘Well, say you brought something to me to fix and I say I’ll phone you but I don’t. What would you say to that?’

‘You trying to haggle, sir?’

‘This ain’t a haggle. No one’s haggling.’

‘You brought it for fixing. What was I going to do? Not fix it? I just figured. So.’

‘You figured, so?’

‘I figured, so.’

Lloyd looked the repairman in the face. He pulled out his checkbook and filled a check and said, ‘I’m saying you should have phoned.’

The repairman collected Lloyd’s check with some friction.

Lloyd said, ‘The fryer is fixed, though, you said?’

The repairman made his way to the back, slow.

‘I’ll get the truck,’ Lloyd said.

Lloyd waited for a response.

He did not get it.

He said aloud from where he stood, aiming for the back room, ‘Okay then, I’ll pull the truck around.’

Lloyd loaded the deep fryer onto his pickup while the repairman offered a ramp and unhelpful direction from a distance. 

Before he drove onto the road with the fryer strapped in the truck bed, nice and snug, Lloyd told the man to wait a week before cashing the check.

Then he left, heading to the restaurant, his restaurant, self-named Lloyd’s, crossing his way back through Larton.

Truck windows were down. The day had been overbearing with its warmth, which had yet to wane. Hot air rolled over Lloyd from the fields and brought the smell of corn and beans in the truck.

The deep fryer rattled in the truck bed.

Lloyd passed the library, where a crew was in the middle of installing a sign on the building’s face, renaming it as the Don Wallace Community Library. A crowd had formed to watch. An older gentleman in a slick suit was in front of the crowd, apart from it, more important than it, and he watched the sign installed with big eyes and a big smile, and he and Lloyd glimpsed one another as the pickup passed.

Lloyd wondered how his name might look atop a public institution. The deep fryer rattled, and Lloyd thought, when he turned things around, his name should be on a brick building like that.

Lloyd parked around back of the restaurant.

His cook, Reed, was smoking and waiting. He had the loading door open, and he wasn’t in any sort of uniform, just work clothes. He was a freshman at the community college in Rodham, a forty-minute drive north.

Reed put out his cigarette and hopped into the truck bed before Lloyd parked. He worked on the straps holding the fryer in place.

‘I put oil out for the morning and printed new menus with fries and chicken and wedges back on there. Oh, I put the blue back in, like you like. The banner, you know? The red, on the menu? Where it says Lloyd’s? I made it blue again. I know you like that. Lloyd’s in blue.’

‘You did?’ Lloyd said. He’d come around the truck. ‘I mean the blue just works better, I think.’

‘I agree, Mr. Wood. I said before.’

The two struggled but unloaded the fryer off the truck and dragged it inside. They were red faced when they finished, and Lloyd complained about his back. Reed connected the fryer. It worked, but not right away.

Then the two smoked with the loading door open and dusk coming in. The kitchen behind them was dark. The dining room, beyond, was darker.

They were quiet in thought and quiet between them.

Reed finally said, ‘You don’t have to thank me for helping.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t mind. I said before.’

Lloyd looked at the young man, then away.

‘If you were thinking about thanking me, you don’t have to.’

‘Okay. Sure.’

‘Remember I said before I like work. I’m no good in school. I didn’t even want to go. I like coming in, I like work, remember I said before?’

Lloyd smoked and said yep, he remembered.

‘I’ll handle the morning shift,’ Reed told Lloyd. He’ll get the fryer going and not to worry, boss. He said he knows Lloyd doesn’t like the morning shift, so he’ll handle it.

Lloyd looked at the young man again. He said, with a smile in his voice, ‘Okay. Sure.’

Quiet came once more, and they smoked on the edge of the dark.

‘I think I saw an angel other day.’

Lloyd stepped out into the alley. Cool wind brushed through.

‘It was over the highway.’

‘You didn’t see an angel.’

Reed told him it was bright.

Lloyd finished smoking, then climbed in the truck.

‘Were you still looking into me for manager?’

‘I don’t know, Reed.’

Reed said he didn’t mind being assistant manager; he liked work. But if he could be manager, not assistant manager, it would be better for his career.

He was no good in school.

He’d said before.

Lloyd told him he was still looking into it, into the numbers, and that he didn’t know. He said that goddang shop was supposed to phone, was the thing, but now the fryer was fixed anyhow, and he had to pay, and he tried to haggle—he said he wasn’t haggling, but he was. Lloyd admitted he haggled and said what the hell was wrong with haggling anyway, and he said he didn’t know about manager work yet; he was still looking the numbers over.

He liked Reed as the cook right now, he said.

He told Reed good night.

LLOYD DROVE OUT OF Larton, out into wide and hungry country. The hills were ocean and the fields green and gold waves.

Lloyd followed them home and pulled into the farm’s driveway after the sun had gone.

His headlights slashed the farmhouse and the barn and the shed. He parked and quit the truck in the gravel lot on the center of the land, his land. The farmhouse drew warmth and light over the property. It filled the truck; it was on Lloyd as he sat in the quiet.

He saw two window AC units running and windows open upstairs. He shook his head and went in.

The farmhouse was small and pale and oddly shaped.

The second floor did not match the first in color or likeness, but the whole of it slouched, a thing now in its gray years.

Inside was small.

Laminate flooring curled in corners in the entry. Into the living room, the carpet had lost most of its padding. It was brown as dirt, and its threads were worn and coiled. Sections were a different shade. Brown carpet began behind the TV and ran upstairs into the bedrooms. The walls were wood paneling and also brown.

It was all brown, brown as dirt. 

‘Windows are open upstairs and the air’s on,’ Lloyd said.

‘Did you pick up the fryer?’ his wife, Dawn, said.

‘Yeah.’

‘But the repair guy didn’t phone.’

Lloyd moved through the small house and shut off AC units.

Dawn followed.

‘I pay electricity, and the windows are open,’ Lloyd said.

‘You pay everything, hon.’

‘Why do you got air on and the windows open?’

‘I must have forgotten. I don’t know, hon.’

‘You don’t pay, I pay.’

‘I must have forgotten windows were open.’

‘We don’t put air on until July. I say that every year.’

‘I thought it was July.’

Lloyd said, ‘You did not think it was July.’

‘It felt like July.’

‘Well, it ain’t July.’

‘Well, I don’t know, hon. It felt like July to me,’ Dawn said.

Lloyd shut off another AC unit and went in their bedroom and changed into comfy clothes.

Dawn went in after him.

He put the checkbook and his wallet in a drawer and locked the drawer with a key, which went in his pocket.

He did this with no pause and no concern that Dawn was in the room observing this—a husband locking his finances from his wife.

It seemed rather routine, in fact.

Dawn returned to the kitchen.

Lloyd turned out lights in empty rooms. He yelled down into the kitchen that there were lights on up here too. Why were they on, he shouted down at Dawn.

He paid.

She did not shout back. She did not respond.

Lloyd turned out the light in his son’s room. His sixteen-year-old son, Toby, yelled at him that he was in here, turn it back on.

Lloyd flipped them back. He noticed the window AC unit.

‘It ain’t July,’ he said. He shut off the unit.

Toby said sorry and nothing more. He was doing homework on the bed.

Lloyd said, ‘You going to eat with us?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I want you batting at practice tomorrow.’

Lloyd hovered and waited for Toby to say more, but there was no more. ‘Come eat with us. It’ll make your mom happy.’

Lloyd went downstairs and thought his son spent too much time in there, in his room, and that it wasn’t good to be alone so much.

He and Dawn ate in front of the TV, surrounded by brown paneling and brown carpet. Toby did not join. He came down for a plate and took it upstairs.

Dawn was on a plaid recliner parked next to Lloyd, who was also in a recliner. Both recliners were old, outdated from current trends. They ate with plates on their laps and big plastic cups of milk within reach. Few words passed between them. They sat in TV noise with the screen reflecting off their faces. When they finished eating, they sat with empty plates and empty plastic cups until Dawn collected these and made known to Lloyd, with an ache and a groan from sitting too long, that she was going upstairs to shower.

She kissed him and waddled upstairs, up the brown carpet.

The floor moaned under her feet.

Lloyd spent an hour on the family computer, in the office.

He reconciled receipts and updated his business balances, then quietly sat and stared at the numbers before him. He stared and, quite slowly, deflated.

The screen colored him and, for a long while in the office, he let the numbers break him over and again. He drew in long, deep breaths. Then he shut off the computer and sat in the dark. 

Those were not large numbers he’d been looking at. He sat and wished they were, dreamed there, in the chair, in front of a black computer screen, that the numbers were large and dreamed they were not dwindling, anything but dwindling; he’d seen a lot of that. Too much of that, maybe, too much for one fellow.

Over and over, it was too much.

He dreamed the numbers were plenty.

He lay in bed. Dawn was asleep an arm’s length away. He scooted closer and imagined the numbers growing to plenty, more than that, growing enormous.

Enormous numbers.

But a man certainly don’t sell out.

A man don’t quit.

Chapter Two

Toby

The next morning, Toby Wood woke in his twin bed. It was not much larger than his thin frame. His hair was ordinary; it didn’t stand out from other sophomores at Larton High. It was accepted, and so were the clothes he put on, which he did not care for, the clothes that were like the other guys in school. They were usual, all-around general in shape and color and fit, and the sixteen-year-old, who looked at his thin frame in the mirror, did not like them and, as a result, did not like himself. Or the mirror.

He took it down and hid it in the barn.

Breakfast was ready for him when he came in the kitchen. Dawn left it at the table, at the seat where Toby always ate breakfast and where he always answered the same questions from his mother with the same responses.

Toby preferred this daily show.

He preferred questions that were not new; new questions required new answers, and he preferred to use responses he’d given.

He preferred no chance of actual conversation. There was no risk in that. Nothing would slip out by accident.

Dawn drove him to school and dropped him before the strange collection of education buildings which, together, made the whole of the high school. They did not resemble one another; they appeared constructed in different decades and with different budgets and with different hands.

They received the town’s children.

They received Toby.

He wove through halls, past classmates coming and going, through loud conversations and loud smells and loud shoes. He thought about the way he was walking and the way his arms moved at his sides. He adjusted both. He matched other sophomore guys in how they walked and how they moved their arms, but Toby did not stop there, with his limbs. He continued and monitored how his voice sounded when he spoke to classmates and teachers and other sophomore guys, whom he considered friends, good friends, and his teammates on the high school baseball team; he made himself move and sound like them. He monitored the depth of his voice and the firmness in how he stood, so as not to lean or allow slack, like the sophomore girls. It was constant, this audit, a review of himself that did not end. He made sure to say things other guys said, sometimes different, sometimes not. Sometimes he said new things, things none had said before, but this was rare. The others sometimes did not care to hear new things; sometimes the others insulted new things, and so Toby mostly said things they’d already heard. He agreed with the guys on things he, in fact, did not agree with, like how hot Maisey Brownlee was and how great her tits looked in that shirt, and how they would knock out that faggot Sonnie Cooper’s teeth if he looked at them, and how they bet he sucks cocks at the rest stop, and they wouldn’t even touch Sonnie Cooper to beat him up. They wouldn’t touch the faggot; they’d kick him. Can’t get faggot on your shoes, they said. They laughed. Toby laughed. He laughed the loudest and said Sonnie Cooper prolly sucks cocks at the rest stop, haha. Toby and the other guys laughed, and they said we should fuck with the faggot.

Isn’t that what we should do?

During lunch they sought out Sonnie.

He had hair that was different from the other guys, and he looked different, wore different clothes; they were different shapes and different colors. They were expressive; they stood out.

He was eating lunch alone. The other guys plotted from afar and took turns looking, and then they moved on him.

Sonnie was reading and eating alone with his head low. He didn’t notice them.

The other guys knocked his bag to the floor, and when he reached for it, they knocked his drink over him and his book, and when he went for napkins, they took them. They said to the surrounding tables, The faggot has cum on him! Look at his wet shirt and wet pants! That’s cum, haha! They laughed.

Surrounding tables giggled and laughed.

Toby was still at the table; he hadn’t joined, but he watched and did nothing to prevent Sonnie Cooper from being fucked with.

He watched and did not touch his lunch. His stomach was hurting.

When they were done, Sonnie picked up the mess the other guys had made of him.

Sonnie caught Toby watching.

Toby left the cafeteria. His stomach was hurting, and its discomfort followed him through the day and made sitting at a desk and paying attention to teachers and lessons difficult.

It forced him to shift in his seat now and again and annoyed and distracted him.

The pain was not great, but it was tender, deep in his belly. He brought the pain with him to baseball practice after school and out into the field while he caught for batting drills.

He made sure not to look at the other players, the other guys, not for too long. He made sure not to look at the bulges in their practice shorts or watch them slap each other’s butts as congratulations, and he made sure, especially, not to slap any player’s, any guy’s butt, especially not that.

His father, Lloyd, was head coach and pitched to practice batters. He wore an athletic polo and cargo shorts and ankle socks. He had a whistle around his neck, which he blew, an animal signaling the herd.

Lloyd barked batting corrections at batters. They listened to Toby’s father and took his coaching with no disagreement.

His assistant coach, Nick Robison, was on the side of the field with a clipboard and whistle of his own, which he never used, not one time.

Lloyd did the whistling.

Nick looked about the players in the field and made notes. He made notes on Toby. Then batters switched with the field.

Lloyd pitched seven hits to the outfield before Toby was up. His father showed no indifference. His pitches came at Toby swift as the others, sometimes swifter, sometimes harder. Toby missed the first four, he swung and felt only air three more, and heard his father bark corrections at him, as he’d done for the other guys. His words were sharp. Toby hit two pitches, but they did not leave the infield. The rest he missed, and his father asked for the next player.

Toby went into the dugout. He sat on the wood bench. It needed repainting; its dark-green paint had chipped away but for the borders and less-used areas. Toby watched the other players.

Jonah Robison, the assistant coach’s son, was next. The lean boy with short hair, like the other guys, clocked each pitch into the outfield. Lloyd lit and praised Jonah, and Nick said, ‘That’s my boy, that’s how it’s done,’ and Lloyd pointed out the things the lean boy excelled at to the other guys. They should listen and watch him and see the way he does what he excels at, he said.

Lloyd asked for the next player.

Jonah, who was bright red from exertion, sat beside Toby and calmed his breathing. He seemed more exerted than the other guys, though he’d batted the same amount. His breathing was shallow. It calmed, but it took far longer than seemed normal.

He was sweating, more than the other guys.

Jonah asked for a towel. Toby passed one. He could smell the sweat. It smelled sweet. It smelled like sun and grass.

‘You need water?’ Toby said.

‘No.’

‘You sure?’

Jonah took Toby’s and drank from it. He took gulps and gave it back. Toby drank. He tasted Jonah, he tasted the lean boy’s spit on the bottle and in the water.

Toby finished the bottle.

‘Doctor said I could still play next week’s game.’

‘He did?’ Toby said.

Redness was leaving Jonah’s face. He said, ‘My doctor said, yeah.’

‘My dad will like that.’

‘I’m not that sick. I just get tired is all. I play fine. You were watching. I saw. You were watching me knock them out. They said I can play as long as I feel fine.’

‘I was not watching,’ Toby said. 

‘He doesn’t take it easy. Not on me. Not on you either. Not in any practice or game I seen. He coaches us the same. My dad too. He don’t go easy.’

It was a long moment before Toby said, ‘They don’t.’

‘You think he’d take it easy on you. But he doesn’t.’

‘Why would you think that?’

Jonah kept talking. ‘My birthday is Saturday. It’s a stay-over. Some of the other guys are coming. You want to?’

‘Why would you think he would take it easy?’

‘Mom’s freaking out this could be my last birthday. Doctors scared her, but I’m fine they said as long as I feel fine, and I feel fine.’

Two practices ago, Assistant Coach Nick announced to the team that Jonah was at Saint Mary’s and that he was staying overnight. There was no reason to worry, he said, his son will be okay. Let’s get a good practice, thoughts and prayers, right, thoughts and prayers. Jonah missed the last practice too, and in his absence, Nick announced the doctors had found something with a long and complicated name, but there was no reason to worry.

The team, in response, did not worry.

‘I like they don’t take it easy on me. Even though I’m sick.’

‘You’re not scared?’

‘My doctor says not everyone dies from it, what I have. It’s rare. It’s like a slim percentage. That’s what he said. Hardly anyone gets worse, and if they do, hardly any of those die, so. He said no reason to worry. I can play.’

Toby could not move forward yet. He said, ‘Why do you think he’d take it easy on me? Why would you say that?’

Jonah didn’t answer.

‘Come stay over Saturday.’

Jonah left Toby in the dugout.

NO ONE HAD BEEN HOME when Toby came in from practice. He went in his room and did homework until the mail came into the mailbox at the end of the driveway with the red flipper.

He waited until the mailman was gone before he grabbed it and ran back in the farmhouse.

He sifted through the bills and mailers and catalogues and searched, same as he’d done the last fourteen days, then stood still as a post. There was a letter for him. He held it there, in the kitchen, and read his name on the envelope many times, Mr. Toby Wood.

He read the sender.

Foundation for the Desire for Restoration.

He took the envelope through the farmhouse and checked he was still home alone.

He was.

He left the farmhouse.

Day was dimming across the farm; it was dying behind the fields.

Toby took the envelope into the barn and slid the wooden door closed behind him. He opened the envelope in the corner, where he’d stashed the mirror from his bedroom.

The paper was high grade, it was expensive. It felt good in his hands. He thought, before he started to read, it felt of a credible source. It felt from a place of knowledge. It felt good.

He read.

Mr. Toby Wood,

I want to thank you for considering us in your recovery. I was not surprised when the foundation received an overwhelming amount of applications, not even a little bit. I read all the applications sent in, every one, I can promise that with absolute certainty. I didn’t miss one, and if someone says I missed one, they’re incorrect. Toby, there are so many in need. So many with unnatural feelings like yourself.

The demand for repair is incredible.

After thorough review, I’m pleased to write and congratulate you on the first step to repair, your application has been accepted to the upcoming Desire for Restoration Group Program.

I look forward to personally repairing you.

- Dr. PJ MCFARLINN

Toby dropped to his knees and wept in the dark corner. He said aloud in the empty barn thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, fucking thank you.

The mirror was beside him.

Two young men, one real and one a reflection, wept in the barn while no one was home, in the corner and in the dark.

Chapter Three

Dawn

Dawn had seen it; it had been way out in the cornfield, in the rows. The night had been filled with clouds and was black and crude. It had been floating, and she thought my Lord, it had shined when she saw it. It had cast such wonderful shadows across the property. She had been in the barn looking for beef in the deep freezer and had seen the mirror in the corner; it was Toby’s mirror out here, in the barn, in the dark corner. She had been bringing it back inside when she saw the thing shining and floating way out in the field, the angel.

It was there and then it was gone.

She told Lloyd during dinner and TV. She was telling him about her day and putting butter and salt and pepper out from the fridge, saying it out into the living room in the same manner one says they saw a friend earlier that day.

I saw an angel in the field, hon.

Lloyd paused over his meal of potatoes with gravy and beef and green beans. He looked at her in the kitchen.

‘No. You didn’t see no angel.’ 

‘It’s a good omen. Isn’t that what they say? A blessing on our home. Don’t they say that?’ Dawn said.

Lloyd continued his meal.

‘I think they say that, hon,’ Dawn said. ‘You have a good practice?’

‘Yeah, hon.’

‘You tired? Practice always tires you.’

They ate in quiet.

Then Dawn said, ‘Could be a good omen for the restaurant, hon. Could be things turn around.’

‘You didn’t see an angel.’

In front of the TV, Dawn said, ‘Maybe not. Maybe I didn’t.’

She ate her green beans and potatoes and drank her cup of milk. ‘Could be things turn around, anyway,’ she said.

Lloyd took his dinner to the kitchen.

She finished her meal in the TV’s glow.

Late, while Lloyd was sleeping, Dawn lay awake facing the window. She thought about what she would do if the window filled with the angel’s light.

She would wake Lloyd, or maybe she wouldn’t; he did not like to be woken.

No. She would not wake him.

The window stayed dark.

She had breakfast ready for Lloyd and Toby when they came down the following morning.

Lloyd put cash from the locked drawer on the counter and ate his eggs and toast and sausages with black coffee.

He told her it was for groceries.

‘Oh, thanks, hon,’ Dawn said. She said it with a smile. ‘Anything special you want?’ She smiled wide.

Lloyd did not look up from his breakfast but said, ‘No.’

Dawn drank her coffee and looked at the money on the counter, bills folded over one another, while Lloyd stood from the table and kissed her goodbye and told her he expects he’ll see change from the groceries, that she needed to return the rest.

He left his plate and the food he hadn’t