just took me away and there’s nothing you can do, right? Or do you just not want to?”
“Of course I want to,” I said. “I’m trying.”
“Really?” he said.
I thought of how much time I’d spent sleeping, forgetting time. I gave him an extra big push, so that the chain went slack at the top. The white sky glared at me.
“What is it like, where you’re staying?” I asked.
“It’s nice,” he said. “I made one true friend. His name is Altemonte.”
“This is a mix-up, Perley,” I said. “A mistake. You’ll be home soon.”
“Do you and Mama K still love each other?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you still fight all the time?” he asked.
“Well, like I said, she’s not home right now,” I said.
“Does she want me to come home?” he said.
“I told you,” I said. “She’s saving money to bring you back.”
He thought about it.
“Ransom,” he said.
“Ransom,” I said.
“She’s on a mission,” he said.
“Right,” I said.
I had let the swing slow until Perley’s toes dusted the wood chips. The caseworker, on her distant bench, looked up from her phone. “You’d better keep pushing me,” he said.
So I began a fearful pushing. I stood behind the swing, circled my arms around him, then dug my feet sideways into the sawdust, hauled him backward, and let him fly up into the air. It got aerobic, difficult, strained. I couldn’t say if he enjoyed himself. I couldn’t say if I did. But when I pulled him in close to me I began to understand the change in him. It was the change I’d seen in his clear eye, with a pupil like a pencil point. When I held him around the waist, he was thicker somehow, not so most people would notice, but this one had been part of my body. So I knew, I knew, but I didn’t know what I knew until I pulled him in close and I smelled him. This boy who’d always smelled like pitch and yeast, smoke and yogurt, yarrow and graham crackers even though we didn’t let him eat graham crackers. Now there was something else. Now there was metal and chalk.
“What do they feed you?” I asked as I hauled him backward, his head up against my chest.
“Pie,” he said. I let him fly.
“What else?” I asked as I dragged him to me again.
“Pancakes,” he said. He flew. I drew him back.
“And?” I asked.
“Medicine,” he said, and I watched him arc away from me, far gone as a bird.
* * *
I went home furious and for the first time full of energy. I didn’t even look at the camper. I stormed to the pipeline, where Helen and Rudy were in the nursery bent over buckets, bickering and pruning. I ignored their obvious pleasure at seeing me out of bed.
“I want to go see Aldi Birch,” I said. “They’ve got Perley hopped up on some kind of meds.”
“Oh, that’s typical,” said Rudy. “Of course they do. You all are babes in the woods.”
“We’ll take Rudy’s truck,” said Helen.
Aldi’s place was all closed up, the cavernous garage locked up tight. There was no answer when I knocked. “He gets like this in the winter,” Rudy said. “He gets real low. Sometimes you don’t see him for a month or so.” I turned to go, but Helen said, “This is bullshit. He said he’d help us.” She put her whole arm into it, beating on the metal door. No answer. Rudy found an old two-by-four leaning against the side of the garage, and started whaling on the door with that. “Come on, asshole, open up,” he said between swings. “Come on, we know you’re in there.” Aldi Birch opened the door.
“I’m drunk,” he said.
“You’re not drunk,” said Rudy. “That’s just an excuse.”
“I’m useless. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m in no mood to talk,” Aldi said.
“Then don’t talk, just listen,” Rudy said. I described the situation.
“He says he doesn’t even know what pills they are. He doesn’t even know what the diagnosis is,” I said. “I asked the caseworker, but she won’t say.”
“It’ll be hard to find out what pills they have him on,” Aldi said, not inviting us in. “This is pretty common, and sad to say perfectly legal.”
“What did I tell you?” Rudy said.
“When kids go into foster care around here, first thing they do is diagnose them with something. Probably hyperactivity or something like that,” Aldi said. He still hadn’t opened the door all the way, but spoke to us through a narrow opening. All we