Free The Sweet Relief of Missing Children by Sarah Braunstein Page A

about her heart. He barely knew her. “Helen,” he sighed.
    â€œThey’ll be home by seven.” She was talking about her parents. “I need to get dinner ready; they’ll want to eat when they get back.”
    On the wall was a piece of framed needlepoint, a peach-colored baby face and, in needlepoint script: Babies are such a nice way to start people. Beneath this was the date of her birth. But he couldn’t believe she was ever a baby. It was impossible to imagine her without this particular gravity, this restraint.
    â€œHelen.” He was careful not to yell.
    â€œYes?”
    But he didn’t know what to say.
    â€œOh, Sam.” She patted her hands on her lap.
    He said, “I need you is what I think I’m trying to express.”
    Express ? Why did he talk this way?
    But she said, “Need?”
    They were silent.
    â€œYou’re something else, Helen. I want. No. Everything.”
    â€œYou mean intercourse, right? That’s what you mean by everything ?”
    His hands and feet and neck burned.
    â€œSam.” She said this, too, like a mother. “Is that what you mean by everything? Intercourse?”
    â€œDon’t call it that.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œIt sounds medical.”
    â€œI want to,” she said. “I do want to.” Her voice was light, cool, a little mean.
    He was terribly afraid. “Maybe we’re not ready. No, we’re not ready.”
    â€œI want to,” she said. “Listen to me.”
    He was listening.
    â€œHelen. Helen.” He said her name the first time to remind them both of the girl she was supposed to be, and then said it again, louder, to celebrate the departure of that girl. He meant to speak to both Helens at once. A wonderful thought occurred to him: She was two Helens. He didn’t need to choose.
    It was six-thirty. Soon her parents would return.
    They agreed to meet in the woods by the river, the next day after school.
    They went outside and stood on her front stoop. The trees, newly budded, cast long shadows on the lawn.
    â€œDon’t tell anyone,” he said.
    â€œWho would I tell?”
    â€œPatricia?” This was her slit-eyed best friend.
    She laughed. “You don’t really know me.”
    His throat tightened. “Of course I do.”
    â€œIs the girl you know the kind of girl who wants to have sex with you in the woods tomorrow?”
    The answer was a terrible, blessed no.
    He walked down the street. Daffodils aimed their cyclopic heads at him. The dusk sky was yellowish, speckled with dim clouds. He walked until he was out of her sight and then ran. His mouth wanted to make a sound but he was afraid to let it. He clamped down on his bottom lip. What could he do between now and then? He couldn’t go home yet. He couldn’t run forever. Finally he let his mouth do what it wanted and it made a small, breathless gasp like cresting the Ferris wheel for the first time.
    He ran until he came to Marco’s, a dilapidated sundry at the corner of Maple and Eve, chimes on the door, old Marco with his cigarette behind the counter humming some dead song from his youth. It was rumored that Marco hired a woman to bathe him once a week though he was perfectly able to take care of himself. Sam wasn’t supposed to be here; his Aunt Constance didn’t approve of the place. There was a faint panic and pleasure in disobeying her. He looked through the selection of rude greeting cards, old ladies on the toilet, buxom nurses. One card was just some naked guy wearing one of those plastic Groucho Marx disguises on his penis. Incocknito, it said inside. He touched animal figurines, boxes of candy cigarettes. Everything was dusty. A stuffed frog. A squirt gun. A pencil that played the New Year’s Eve song when you pressed a button where the eraser should be. Nothing was right. He couldn’t present Helen with some trash.
    â€œFor a girl? I can tell.” Marco