“Perley,” I called. “I brought oatmeal.” The small window above the bed slid open, and Perley stuck his head out.
“Does it have sugar on it?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said, handing in the bowl.
“Damn,” Rudy said, taking a good look at him. “You look like a pirate lost his eye patch. Now you’ll finally get some respect.”
“You think so?” Perley asked.
“Let me come in and show you my cures,” Rudy said.
“I told you. You have to know the password,” Perley said.
“Well, what is it?” asked Rudy.
“I don’t know,” Perley said. “I haven’t invented it yet.”
I picked up the dream catcher, hot pink, emerald-green feathers stuck on with glue. “What we could really use help with is getting rid of the snakes,” I told Rudy.
“Good fucking luck,” Rudy said. “I know a woman gave her house to the snakes and built another one.”
“We’ve got to get rid of them so that Perley can move back into the main house,” I said.
“I’m not moving back in,” Perley said. “I’m free and independent now as a human man.”
“Does that shit hurt?” Rudy asked, touching his own cheek in sympathy.
“Of course it does,” Perley said. “Can I have your Sharpie?” He pointed to the marker stuck behind Rudy’s ear.
“I use that to label my fruit trees,” Rudy said, but handed it right over.
“We’ve tried everything except a cat,” I said.
“You know I’m always at your service,” Rudy said. He turned his bucket over, deposited his snakebite cures into it, and crashed off through the woods toward the pipeline.
* * *
We came to an agreement. Perley allowed us to administer first aid, to wash his wound, to take his temperature. He rested when we told him to rest. He ate the nourishing food we cooked. In return, we let him sleep alone in the camper. Perley used Rudy’s Sharpie to make a sign that said NO MAMAS ALLOWED. To that he added NO MEAN AUNT, NO RUDY. PASSWORD REQUIRED. I didn’t know the password. I couldn’t guess it. I didn’t try.
At first the snakebite rode full sail on his face, and we couldn’t look at or think about anything else. His punctured places were black and red, raised in scabs, his cheek bruised dark purple. We fed him vitamin C, spooned cod-liver oil down his throat. We changed the dressing four times a day. Four times a day, I kneaded my breasts and expressed into a cup. Then I washed Perley’s wound, using a dropper to send my milk down into the sutures.
The danger of infection passed. Perley’s purple faded to reddish brown. I hadn’t been to work in two weeks and we needed money. It was a busy time for Helen, too. The acorn harvest was over, but she had to finish her community service hours before the end of the calendar year, and she was working long days for Rudy, trying to make back court fees. So Perley was left with Karen.
It was nothing new. From the time he was a baby, while I worked during the day, she’d stayed home to teach him all that she knew. He took to her old comics so that the two of them nearly shared a secret language: sending, treeshaping, soulmate, wolf friend. He’d echo her, Practice and prepare, and if she managed to press knowledge into him, he’d be proud of it. But all the while, he’d resist her. She’d tell him to muck out the duck shed, and he’d toss his shovel in a ditch. He’d hide behind a tree, aim hickory nuts at Karen if she came calling him. She’d teach him to use live coal to hollow wood into bowls and spoons. He’d use that coal to build a fire and burn up the whole project. She’d set him to digging up multiflora rose. He’d lay aside his hoe and follow deer into the forest to find out where they slept. By the time Perley decided to go to school, the only time there was ease between Karen and our son was at night, when he slept with his head in the crook of her arm, when she licked her fingers and smoothed his eyebrow.
When I went back to work, the two of them stood together at the top of the driveway and waved goodbye to me. It looked as if they planned to stay right there waving until I got back.
But when I came home that day, it was to the corduroy sound of