Fic: Bones: In the Trenches, Part 20/30
Chapter 20: Section Eight
Author: amilyn
Rating: PG-13 (themes, abuse)
Chapter 19
Chapter 20: Section Eight
***
Temperance balled her hands into fists. Her head ached. She hadn't moved in fifteen minutes. She only stared at the man opposite her. He was in his late 30s, had light brown hair that was thinning, had blue eyes behind thick-lensed glasses, and slouched in the manner of someone with poor fitness. A yellow legal pad lay atop crossed legs, and he twirled a pen in his left hand.
She hated him. She hated being here.
"Temperance, I can tell you don't want to be here, but these sessions are mandatory. Mrs. Dougherty and the Bradentons are concerned about you."
"There's nothing wrong with me."
Dr. Allen shifted in his chair. "I tend to doubt that. Your family abandoned you nearly a year and a half ago--"
"You don't know that." Her response was quick, defensive.
"Oh?" He looked at her the same way she imagined she looked at the viscera of a raccoon. "It's certainly clear that your brother abandoned you."
Her tear ducts contracted, and she looked at the floor, blinking rapidly. The memory of Russ driving away was one she tried to avoid. She raised her eyes, looked just past Dr. Allen's ear, and kept her voice flat. "No one knows what happened to my parents. Given the blood found in their car, it's possible that their disappearance was the result of foul play."
"All right, well, your parents disappeared, which is upsetting in and of itself. It would be natural for you to fear that they left you intentionally, but it would be equally upsetting to fear that they were killed."
"We don't know that they're dead!" She lifted her chin. She would not concede a thing to him, no matter how reasonable.
"Really?" Dr. Allen raised a quizzical eyebrow. "What other explanation do you have for their lack of contact?"
Temperance's jaw ached. She stared at him, avoiding expression.
"These are very upsetting events. Losing the closest people in one's life is a life-altering event for anybody, but especially for a young woman just beginning to get a sense of who she is in the world. You're at a critical age, in the midst of the turmoil of that age, and I suspect you've had very little assistance in processing those events."
"I don't need help 'processing.' I'm doing fine." When she stated facts impassively, some students called this her "robot voice."
"Temperance." Dr. Allen's voice was soft, like Mr. Buxley's had been when he retrieved her from under the stairs. "You're continuing to be successful in school, but you don't seem to be doing very well personally. You have very little contact with others. Would you like to talk about how you feel about that?"
She shrugged. "It's who I am. Anyone who knew me would tell you so."
"Ah." Dr. Allen made some notes on his pad.
"What does that mean?"
He set his pad aside and leaned forward. His face looked gentle, and his voice was as well. "I think your main social interactions occurred within the nuclear family that dissolved last year. I think that, without that focal point, you've been...at loose ends, and that you've detached yourself from these painful feelings, suppressed your reactions, and focused on your intellect, your academic ability: the characteristics that have earned you acceptance outside of your family. I think you fear that your only value to anyone is in what you're able to do."
Temperance felt the now-familiar pressure on her chest and in her throat, but the heat in her cheeks was pure rage. She glared at Dr. Allen. How dare he? How dare he poke around in her life, talk about her, hypothesize about her? What did he know of any of it? And no matter how close to home his statements fell, what could she do about any of it? The reality was that this was how things were, and talking, especially to him, wasn’t going to change anything.
He was still talking. "I think you're unwilling to form close bonds with anyone new for fear of being abandoned again."
"I'm not afraid."
"The Bradentons think you are. They told Mrs. Dougherty they're concerned you've been mistreated."
Her heart rate spiked. Her gaze flitted around the room. She wanted to run, but forced herself to sit perfectly still.
He leaned forward again. "Temperance, is anyone hurting you?"
Relief flooded through her, and she laughed. It sounded barking, bitter, even to her ears. "No." She shook her head, made and held eye contact. "No one is hurting me."
"They were very concerned after the incident at school. They said you seemed panicked, afraid of how you might be punished after the other girl was injured."
"It was frightening," she said, holding her voice even. "The ambulance came. She had to go to the hospital. She's a very popular girl, and many of the students were angry at me. However, all the adults understood that I didn't mean to hurt Evelyn, and she even wrote me a note to tell me she held 'no hard feelings' against me."
"So you weren't afraid of reprisals?"
"Everyone was very reasonable and reassuring."
Dr. Allen stared at her. Studied her, more like. Finally he said, "I'd like to see you at least three more times."
"Why?" The muscles in her arms, back, legs, and hands tensed even more. She forced herself to remain seated.
"You appear to be handling the aftermath of this incident well enough. I hope that if anyone treats you badly, you'll speak to the adults in your life. I'm concerned that you may become more and more detached from life and other people." He glanced up at her then wrote on his legal pad. "I believe that these maladaptive coping strategies you're leaning on are setting you up for a dramatic crash that could be dangerous."
"You mean...you think I might hurt someone?"
"Well," he said, shrugging, "you have once already."
"That was an accident. I told you." She did stand up then and began pacing the room. "And these 'maladaptive coping strategies' are who I've always been."
"All the more reason for me to be concerned. It's unhealthy for a young woman to engage in such atypical social refusal, even after a trauma." He scribbled another note. "Yes. I think we have a great deal to talk about. I'll see you next week." He stood and opened the door as she paced near it.
Temperance glared at him, then she stalked through. At Dr. Allen's gesture, Mrs. Bradenton stood and joined him. Temperance plunked into one of the waiting room chairs, aware she looked the part of a sulky teenager. She knew it didn't help her case at all, but she couldn't get out of this anyway, it seemed. Words floated through the door. "Abandonment issues... Emotionally shut down... Dissociative response... Intellect as shield..." Her muscles quivered with fury as her cheeks burned.
She sifted through the magazines, but there was no distraction to be found in Highlights, Seventeen, Parenting, or American Girl. She flipped through Popular Mechanics, but the main story was about an actor who played an incompetent carpenter on a sitcom, and the other stories seemed to have a similar lack of depth.
The door opened, and Mrs. Bradenton shook Dr. Allen's hand, "Thank you for your help, Doctor. I know you want what's best for Temperance. You'll send your report to Mrs. Dougherty?"
"I will. I'll see you next week, Temperance."
Temperance couldn't bring herself to wave back. He might see that her fingernails, short as they were, had carved deep crescents into her palms.
"Come on, Temperance. We need to go to the grocery store and get home to make dinner." Mrs. Bradenton gestured to the door, and Temperance stood, forcing her hands open one finger at a time. "How does roast chicken with vegetables sound?"
"Good, but it'll take a long time. It's already five," Temperance said.
"Good point. We'll get the stuff for that and have it tomorrow. I think burgers, cottage cheese, and salad tonight." She unlocked the car.
"I could make the salad."
"That sounds great. You pick up the produce and I'll get the meat and staples. Deal?"
Temperance nodded as she fastened her seatbelt.
"Temperance."
Mrs. Bradenton sounded serious, and Temperance felt a chill wash through her. She focused on the evergreen-tree shaped cardboard on the floor. The car still smelled of its pine scent. She swallowed. After Dr. Allen's assessment, after she'd injured Evelyn, Mrs. Bradenton and her husband would surely send Temperance away. She'd have to add their name to the bottom of her old running shoe, in the list she'd learned at the girls' home. She might be placed there permanently, or with a family even worse than the Maxwells. It might be located somewhere that meant she had to change schools.
"Temperance, look at me."
She turned her head. She couldn't force herself to meet Mrs. Bradenton's eyes.
"After what Dr. Allen said--" Mrs. Bradenton began.
Temperance looked away.
"I was thinking about how amazingly brilliant you are and how that must make it hard to connect to other high schoolers. How would you feel about taking university classes over the summer? I mean, I know academics are important to you, and you might even find some actual peers there. We could talk to Jake tonight."
Temperance stared. "You're not sending me...you'd..." She paused, thought, then looked down again. "There's no way to pay for that."
"Jake and I are doing just fine, and you have a state stipend each month that, if we need, can help cover your classes. I'll get a copy of the registration information for Elmhurst College's summer session."
"I...I don't know what to say." Temperance blinked back tears and took a deep breath, no longer able to smell the evergreen air freshener. She wanted to hope, but being beholden to the Bradentons was dangerous. "Thank you for the suggestion. But...I don't want you to take me and pick me up."
"Oh, don't worry about that. Polly didn't take her bike to college, and she's doing an internship this summer in Bloomington, so she won't need it. We'll make sure the bike is in good working shape, and you'll get yourself there." Mrs. Bradenton pulled into a parking space, put the car in park, and smiled.
She'd thought this through, and Temperance could see there would be no getting out of it. And it beckoned to her. "Mrs. Braden--"
"Nora."
She would have to be vigilant, cautious in case the Bradentons demanded repayment. But...college. Foolish hope rose within her. "Nora. I--I can't think of a way I'd rather spend my summer."
***
Unit Cohesion
***
Mr. Buxley always worked on his own tasks while Temperance was dissecting. Sometimes he sharpened tools, sometimes he organized his workshop, sometimes he filled out paperwork.
"Where did you find this one?" she asked as she prodded the remains of a raccoon with a gloved finger.
"Where you think?" He grinned.
She had to admit, she enjoyed this game they played too. It was the kind of challenge her father would have issued. "There are burrs in the pads of the feet, and I doubt a wild animal would leave those for long, so wherever it died--"
"Rocky."
"Excuse me?"
"I like to name 'em." The groundskeeper smiled at her from behind a disassembled string trimmer.
"It would be unprofessional for me to personify my subject," Temperance said. Russ would have chuckled at her seriousness, but Mr. Buxley only nodded. "Wherever it died," she continued, "I suspect it was near the edge of the woods. Most burrs are found on low-growing plants under tree cover or in open fields, and while we have the former on campus, we don't have the latter."
"I don't think I could fool you if I tried, Temperance. I did find it just inside that stand of trees past the baseball diamond."
She smiled. She positioned the animal and secured it, then made her first cut. She wondered how different this process was with quality instruments. At least she'd been lucky enough to find a set of beginner-quality instruments at a thrift store, so she had two hemostats, tweezers, scissors, a probe, and a knife she'd carefully sharpened on a tiny whetstone. It was more than she'd hoped for when she went searching.
"Necropsy on male juvenile raccoon weighing approximately ten pounds. The animal has been dead a relatively short period of time. Rigor is still present, and there is little bloating. The odor released upon making the initial incision was not heavily laden with decay." She recited the components of each system as she examined it, carefully detaching organs and blood vessels by separating the connective tissues. When she was done with the body cavity, she removed the furry skin from the underlying muscle and skeletal structures.
Mr. Buxley approached with a paper bag. "Looks like you're about ready for this."
"Thank you, Mr. Buxley." She set the skin on the bag, fur down, and lay the removed organs onto the pelt. She smiled at him, returned to the muscle-covered skeleton, and began detaching the tendon insertion points, adding the muscles one at a time to the pile as she named the corresponding human muscles.
"Temperance?"
She looked up.
"It's getting late. Nearly ten after seven now, and I want you to be able to get out of here and home on time. Think you can finish up tomorrow?"
She made one more cut. Her knife was going to need sharpening again. "That's the last major skeletal muscle. Would you mind if I kept the skeleton here until tomorrow so I can disarticulate it?"
"I'll be here." He smiled.
Temperance didn't understand why students she sometimes overheard considered Mr. Buxley "creepy" or "unfriendly." She placed her instruments in a pile. "I'll just get this put--"
"No, you go on home, Temperance. I'll be glad to take care of it...and I'll make sure the skeleton isn't moved or dried out."
"Thank you, Mr. Buxley." She peeled off her gloves. He had supplied a whole box the first time he let her know he had a specimen for her. It was thoughtful of him. She looked at the remains of the raccoon. "Mr. Buxley?"
"Yes, Temperance?"
"Where do you think the raccoon went?"
"I don't follow."
"It was alive and then it was dead. And I'm pretty sure, based on the reading I've done, that the extra mucus, thickened foot pads, and what appeared to be bleeding from swelling on the brain, probably indicate distemper. And...it was alive, probably in pain, and then it was dead. All vertebrates ultimately die from a lack of oxygen to the brain."
Mr. Buxley nodded.
"But...do you think, like some people do, that what made the animal itself continues in some form, or does it stop with the body? And what makes an animated, living body think and have a personality?"
"I don't expect anyone really knows that, Temperance. A whole lot claim they know, but I suspect their guess is as good as anyone else's...and as worthless as anyone else's."
It was her turn to nod.
"Some people find comfort in their religion or faith. Me, what I know is that death is a natural process. Things are born. Things live. Things die. When we're done with Rocky here--"
She cocked her head at him. "The subject," she corrected.
He grinned. "Your subject here, I'll make sure he's buried deep enough not to disrupt anyone's life, not to get anyone else sick, and to let him return to be that 'food for worms' Shakespeare kept writing about."
Her forehead ached. She tried not to frown so hard as she reflected. "Do you think there are raccoons who lived near him who miss him or know he's dead?"
"There could be. I know I've seen squirrels--and they're not as smart as raccoons--I've seen a dead squirrel on the road with another shoving at it, trying to get it to wake up and come along."
The mental image of the squirrel trying to prod its dead comrade made Temperance's chest hurt.
"Those of us still alive, it's a natural part of life to miss those who are gone...even if they're not dead, we miss what's changed. That's just...part of life." He clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Go home, Temperance. Have a good dinner and finish up that novel you told me you were reading in English."
"To the Lighthouse. I'm finding the non-linear storytelling quite difficult to follow. So, you're right, I'd better get to work on it. Good night, Mr. Buxley." She clicked the front strap on her backpack.
He raised a hand, and then she was jogging home in the waning light of the late spring day.
***
The first truly warm day of May came late that year. All the daffodils were still in bloom, and she'd been prolonging her runs in order to breathe in the hyacinth and forsythia. With the extended hours of Daylight Savings Time, Mrs. Braden- Nora didn't expect her home until nine or nine-thirty, but she enjoyed her morning run. Getting to school had become a joy, and she caught herself, on occasion, smiling spontaneously, which she hadn't done since her parents' disappearance.
The morning's run had been particularly pleasant, and she headed down the hallway, her good mood unfazed by the noise and jostling of other teenagers. Her breathing evened out before she turned down the hall to her locker.
A voice floated through the morning commotion. "Andy, man, are you sure you want to mess with her?"
"What do you mean?"
"Dude, don't you remember Morticia breaking Evelyn's jaw with that tennis racquet?"
Temperance shuddered. They were talking about her.
"Yeah. Her mouth is still wired shut. She's totally going to miss cheerleading for the rest of the year."
"Wow. That's intense."
"So...are you sure you want to do this?" There was an awkward pause as the boys saw her. The whole hallway fell silent as other students stopped talking and turned to watch.
"Hi, Temperance."
She wasn't sure who'd said her name, but then Andy waved, awkwardly. He'd been her partner in French for several speaking activities. "Hi?"
"Beautiful morning, isn't it?."
"Yes." Everyone was looking at her. Confused and uneasy, Temperance turned to her locker.
Taped to the door was a Smurf.
"Andy, is this from you?"
He nodded, a flicker of something she couldn’t quite identify in his eyes.
"You remembered from French class that I liked..." Her voice trailed off as she took a step closer. There was no yellow of long hair. She pulled the toy down and saw clearly the oversized glasses of Brainy Smurf. When she turned, Andy had taken several steps back, and the entire group laughed. Several pointed.
Temperance's face burned with humiliation.
Echoes of "Brainy Brennan" and "ridiculous" along with more laughter followed her as she ran for the doors and the fresh air of what had been a beautiful day.
***
Chapter 21
***
Posting Schedule: This story has 30 parts, which will post here and at ff.net on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Author's Notes
Thanks upon thanks to my wonderful betas and sounding boards: jennasq, b1uemorpho, and havocthecat. HUGE and effusive gratitude to my line-editor and prodder to make this story as good as I could at this time, as well as encouragement and sounding board services while I planned and wrote for two years to Ayiana2.
Feedback is most assuredly welcome.
***
Author: amilyn
Rating: PG-13 (themes, abuse)
Chapter 19
Chapter 20: Section Eight
***
Temperance balled her hands into fists. Her head ached. She hadn't moved in fifteen minutes. She only stared at the man opposite her. He was in his late 30s, had light brown hair that was thinning, had blue eyes behind thick-lensed glasses, and slouched in the manner of someone with poor fitness. A yellow legal pad lay atop crossed legs, and he twirled a pen in his left hand.
She hated him. She hated being here.
"Temperance, I can tell you don't want to be here, but these sessions are mandatory. Mrs. Dougherty and the Bradentons are concerned about you."
"There's nothing wrong with me."
Dr. Allen shifted in his chair. "I tend to doubt that. Your family abandoned you nearly a year and a half ago--"
"You don't know that." Her response was quick, defensive.
"Oh?" He looked at her the same way she imagined she looked at the viscera of a raccoon. "It's certainly clear that your brother abandoned you."
Her tear ducts contracted, and she looked at the floor, blinking rapidly. The memory of Russ driving away was one she tried to avoid. She raised her eyes, looked just past Dr. Allen's ear, and kept her voice flat. "No one knows what happened to my parents. Given the blood found in their car, it's possible that their disappearance was the result of foul play."
"All right, well, your parents disappeared, which is upsetting in and of itself. It would be natural for you to fear that they left you intentionally, but it would be equally upsetting to fear that they were killed."
"We don't know that they're dead!" She lifted her chin. She would not concede a thing to him, no matter how reasonable.
"Really?" Dr. Allen raised a quizzical eyebrow. "What other explanation do you have for their lack of contact?"
Temperance's jaw ached. She stared at him, avoiding expression.
"These are very upsetting events. Losing the closest people in one's life is a life-altering event for anybody, but especially for a young woman just beginning to get a sense of who she is in the world. You're at a critical age, in the midst of the turmoil of that age, and I suspect you've had very little assistance in processing those events."
"I don't need help 'processing.' I'm doing fine." When she stated facts impassively, some students called this her "robot voice."
"Temperance." Dr. Allen's voice was soft, like Mr. Buxley's had been when he retrieved her from under the stairs. "You're continuing to be successful in school, but you don't seem to be doing very well personally. You have very little contact with others. Would you like to talk about how you feel about that?"
She shrugged. "It's who I am. Anyone who knew me would tell you so."
"Ah." Dr. Allen made some notes on his pad.
"What does that mean?"
He set his pad aside and leaned forward. His face looked gentle, and his voice was as well. "I think your main social interactions occurred within the nuclear family that dissolved last year. I think that, without that focal point, you've been...at loose ends, and that you've detached yourself from these painful feelings, suppressed your reactions, and focused on your intellect, your academic ability: the characteristics that have earned you acceptance outside of your family. I think you fear that your only value to anyone is in what you're able to do."
Temperance felt the now-familiar pressure on her chest and in her throat, but the heat in her cheeks was pure rage. She glared at Dr. Allen. How dare he? How dare he poke around in her life, talk about her, hypothesize about her? What did he know of any of it? And no matter how close to home his statements fell, what could she do about any of it? The reality was that this was how things were, and talking, especially to him, wasn’t going to change anything.
He was still talking. "I think you're unwilling to form close bonds with anyone new for fear of being abandoned again."
"I'm not afraid."
"The Bradentons think you are. They told Mrs. Dougherty they're concerned you've been mistreated."
Her heart rate spiked. Her gaze flitted around the room. She wanted to run, but forced herself to sit perfectly still.
He leaned forward again. "Temperance, is anyone hurting you?"
Relief flooded through her, and she laughed. It sounded barking, bitter, even to her ears. "No." She shook her head, made and held eye contact. "No one is hurting me."
"They were very concerned after the incident at school. They said you seemed panicked, afraid of how you might be punished after the other girl was injured."
"It was frightening," she said, holding her voice even. "The ambulance came. She had to go to the hospital. She's a very popular girl, and many of the students were angry at me. However, all the adults understood that I didn't mean to hurt Evelyn, and she even wrote me a note to tell me she held 'no hard feelings' against me."
"So you weren't afraid of reprisals?"
"Everyone was very reasonable and reassuring."
Dr. Allen stared at her. Studied her, more like. Finally he said, "I'd like to see you at least three more times."
"Why?" The muscles in her arms, back, legs, and hands tensed even more. She forced herself to remain seated.
"You appear to be handling the aftermath of this incident well enough. I hope that if anyone treats you badly, you'll speak to the adults in your life. I'm concerned that you may become more and more detached from life and other people." He glanced up at her then wrote on his legal pad. "I believe that these maladaptive coping strategies you're leaning on are setting you up for a dramatic crash that could be dangerous."
"You mean...you think I might hurt someone?"
"Well," he said, shrugging, "you have once already."
"That was an accident. I told you." She did stand up then and began pacing the room. "And these 'maladaptive coping strategies' are who I've always been."
"All the more reason for me to be concerned. It's unhealthy for a young woman to engage in such atypical social refusal, even after a trauma." He scribbled another note. "Yes. I think we have a great deal to talk about. I'll see you next week." He stood and opened the door as she paced near it.
Temperance glared at him, then she stalked through. At Dr. Allen's gesture, Mrs. Bradenton stood and joined him. Temperance plunked into one of the waiting room chairs, aware she looked the part of a sulky teenager. She knew it didn't help her case at all, but she couldn't get out of this anyway, it seemed. Words floated through the door. "Abandonment issues... Emotionally shut down... Dissociative response... Intellect as shield..." Her muscles quivered with fury as her cheeks burned.
She sifted through the magazines, but there was no distraction to be found in Highlights, Seventeen, Parenting, or American Girl. She flipped through Popular Mechanics, but the main story was about an actor who played an incompetent carpenter on a sitcom, and the other stories seemed to have a similar lack of depth.
The door opened, and Mrs. Bradenton shook Dr. Allen's hand, "Thank you for your help, Doctor. I know you want what's best for Temperance. You'll send your report to Mrs. Dougherty?"
"I will. I'll see you next week, Temperance."
Temperance couldn't bring herself to wave back. He might see that her fingernails, short as they were, had carved deep crescents into her palms.
"Come on, Temperance. We need to go to the grocery store and get home to make dinner." Mrs. Bradenton gestured to the door, and Temperance stood, forcing her hands open one finger at a time. "How does roast chicken with vegetables sound?"
"Good, but it'll take a long time. It's already five," Temperance said.
"Good point. We'll get the stuff for that and have it tomorrow. I think burgers, cottage cheese, and salad tonight." She unlocked the car.
"I could make the salad."
"That sounds great. You pick up the produce and I'll get the meat and staples. Deal?"
Temperance nodded as she fastened her seatbelt.
"Temperance."
Mrs. Bradenton sounded serious, and Temperance felt a chill wash through her. She focused on the evergreen-tree shaped cardboard on the floor. The car still smelled of its pine scent. She swallowed. After Dr. Allen's assessment, after she'd injured Evelyn, Mrs. Bradenton and her husband would surely send Temperance away. She'd have to add their name to the bottom of her old running shoe, in the list she'd learned at the girls' home. She might be placed there permanently, or with a family even worse than the Maxwells. It might be located somewhere that meant she had to change schools.
"Temperance, look at me."
She turned her head. She couldn't force herself to meet Mrs. Bradenton's eyes.
"After what Dr. Allen said--" Mrs. Bradenton began.
Temperance looked away.
"I was thinking about how amazingly brilliant you are and how that must make it hard to connect to other high schoolers. How would you feel about taking university classes over the summer? I mean, I know academics are important to you, and you might even find some actual peers there. We could talk to Jake tonight."
Temperance stared. "You're not sending me...you'd..." She paused, thought, then looked down again. "There's no way to pay for that."
"Jake and I are doing just fine, and you have a state stipend each month that, if we need, can help cover your classes. I'll get a copy of the registration information for Elmhurst College's summer session."
"I...I don't know what to say." Temperance blinked back tears and took a deep breath, no longer able to smell the evergreen air freshener. She wanted to hope, but being beholden to the Bradentons was dangerous. "Thank you for the suggestion. But...I don't want you to take me and pick me up."
"Oh, don't worry about that. Polly didn't take her bike to college, and she's doing an internship this summer in Bloomington, so she won't need it. We'll make sure the bike is in good working shape, and you'll get yourself there." Mrs. Bradenton pulled into a parking space, put the car in park, and smiled.
She'd thought this through, and Temperance could see there would be no getting out of it. And it beckoned to her. "Mrs. Braden--"
"Nora."
She would have to be vigilant, cautious in case the Bradentons demanded repayment. But...college. Foolish hope rose within her. "Nora. I--I can't think of a way I'd rather spend my summer."
***
Unit Cohesion
***
Mr. Buxley always worked on his own tasks while Temperance was dissecting. Sometimes he sharpened tools, sometimes he organized his workshop, sometimes he filled out paperwork.
"Where did you find this one?" she asked as she prodded the remains of a raccoon with a gloved finger.
"Where you think?" He grinned.
She had to admit, she enjoyed this game they played too. It was the kind of challenge her father would have issued. "There are burrs in the pads of the feet, and I doubt a wild animal would leave those for long, so wherever it died--"
"Rocky."
"Excuse me?"
"I like to name 'em." The groundskeeper smiled at her from behind a disassembled string trimmer.
"It would be unprofessional for me to personify my subject," Temperance said. Russ would have chuckled at her seriousness, but Mr. Buxley only nodded. "Wherever it died," she continued, "I suspect it was near the edge of the woods. Most burrs are found on low-growing plants under tree cover or in open fields, and while we have the former on campus, we don't have the latter."
"I don't think I could fool you if I tried, Temperance. I did find it just inside that stand of trees past the baseball diamond."
She smiled. She positioned the animal and secured it, then made her first cut. She wondered how different this process was with quality instruments. At least she'd been lucky enough to find a set of beginner-quality instruments at a thrift store, so she had two hemostats, tweezers, scissors, a probe, and a knife she'd carefully sharpened on a tiny whetstone. It was more than she'd hoped for when she went searching.
"Necropsy on male juvenile raccoon weighing approximately ten pounds. The animal has been dead a relatively short period of time. Rigor is still present, and there is little bloating. The odor released upon making the initial incision was not heavily laden with decay." She recited the components of each system as she examined it, carefully detaching organs and blood vessels by separating the connective tissues. When she was done with the body cavity, she removed the furry skin from the underlying muscle and skeletal structures.
Mr. Buxley approached with a paper bag. "Looks like you're about ready for this."
"Thank you, Mr. Buxley." She set the skin on the bag, fur down, and lay the removed organs onto the pelt. She smiled at him, returned to the muscle-covered skeleton, and began detaching the tendon insertion points, adding the muscles one at a time to the pile as she named the corresponding human muscles.
"Temperance?"
She looked up.
"It's getting late. Nearly ten after seven now, and I want you to be able to get out of here and home on time. Think you can finish up tomorrow?"
She made one more cut. Her knife was going to need sharpening again. "That's the last major skeletal muscle. Would you mind if I kept the skeleton here until tomorrow so I can disarticulate it?"
"I'll be here." He smiled.
Temperance didn't understand why students she sometimes overheard considered Mr. Buxley "creepy" or "unfriendly." She placed her instruments in a pile. "I'll just get this put--"
"No, you go on home, Temperance. I'll be glad to take care of it...and I'll make sure the skeleton isn't moved or dried out."
"Thank you, Mr. Buxley." She peeled off her gloves. He had supplied a whole box the first time he let her know he had a specimen for her. It was thoughtful of him. She looked at the remains of the raccoon. "Mr. Buxley?"
"Yes, Temperance?"
"Where do you think the raccoon went?"
"I don't follow."
"It was alive and then it was dead. And I'm pretty sure, based on the reading I've done, that the extra mucus, thickened foot pads, and what appeared to be bleeding from swelling on the brain, probably indicate distemper. And...it was alive, probably in pain, and then it was dead. All vertebrates ultimately die from a lack of oxygen to the brain."
Mr. Buxley nodded.
"But...do you think, like some people do, that what made the animal itself continues in some form, or does it stop with the body? And what makes an animated, living body think and have a personality?"
"I don't expect anyone really knows that, Temperance. A whole lot claim they know, but I suspect their guess is as good as anyone else's...and as worthless as anyone else's."
It was her turn to nod.
"Some people find comfort in their religion or faith. Me, what I know is that death is a natural process. Things are born. Things live. Things die. When we're done with Rocky here--"
She cocked her head at him. "The subject," she corrected.
He grinned. "Your subject here, I'll make sure he's buried deep enough not to disrupt anyone's life, not to get anyone else sick, and to let him return to be that 'food for worms' Shakespeare kept writing about."
Her forehead ached. She tried not to frown so hard as she reflected. "Do you think there are raccoons who lived near him who miss him or know he's dead?"
"There could be. I know I've seen squirrels--and they're not as smart as raccoons--I've seen a dead squirrel on the road with another shoving at it, trying to get it to wake up and come along."
The mental image of the squirrel trying to prod its dead comrade made Temperance's chest hurt.
"Those of us still alive, it's a natural part of life to miss those who are gone...even if they're not dead, we miss what's changed. That's just...part of life." He clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Go home, Temperance. Have a good dinner and finish up that novel you told me you were reading in English."
"To the Lighthouse. I'm finding the non-linear storytelling quite difficult to follow. So, you're right, I'd better get to work on it. Good night, Mr. Buxley." She clicked the front strap on her backpack.
He raised a hand, and then she was jogging home in the waning light of the late spring day.
***
The first truly warm day of May came late that year. All the daffodils were still in bloom, and she'd been prolonging her runs in order to breathe in the hyacinth and forsythia. With the extended hours of Daylight Savings Time, Mrs. Braden- Nora didn't expect her home until nine or nine-thirty, but she enjoyed her morning run. Getting to school had become a joy, and she caught herself, on occasion, smiling spontaneously, which she hadn't done since her parents' disappearance.
The morning's run had been particularly pleasant, and she headed down the hallway, her good mood unfazed by the noise and jostling of other teenagers. Her breathing evened out before she turned down the hall to her locker.
A voice floated through the morning commotion. "Andy, man, are you sure you want to mess with her?"
"What do you mean?"
"Dude, don't you remember Morticia breaking Evelyn's jaw with that tennis racquet?"
Temperance shuddered. They were talking about her.
"Yeah. Her mouth is still wired shut. She's totally going to miss cheerleading for the rest of the year."
"Wow. That's intense."
"So...are you sure you want to do this?" There was an awkward pause as the boys saw her. The whole hallway fell silent as other students stopped talking and turned to watch.
"Hi, Temperance."
She wasn't sure who'd said her name, but then Andy waved, awkwardly. He'd been her partner in French for several speaking activities. "Hi?"
"Beautiful morning, isn't it?."
"Yes." Everyone was looking at her. Confused and uneasy, Temperance turned to her locker.
Taped to the door was a Smurf.
"Andy, is this from you?"
He nodded, a flicker of something she couldn’t quite identify in his eyes.
"You remembered from French class that I liked..." Her voice trailed off as she took a step closer. There was no yellow of long hair. She pulled the toy down and saw clearly the oversized glasses of Brainy Smurf. When she turned, Andy had taken several steps back, and the entire group laughed. Several pointed.
Temperance's face burned with humiliation.
Echoes of "Brainy Brennan" and "ridiculous" along with more laughter followed her as she ran for the doors and the fresh air of what had been a beautiful day.
***
Chapter 21
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Posting Schedule: This story has 30 parts, which will post here and at ff.net on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Author's Notes
Thanks upon thanks to my wonderful betas and sounding boards: jennasq, b1uemorpho, and havocthecat. HUGE and effusive gratitude to my line-editor and prodder to make this story as good as I could at this time, as well as encouragement and sounding board services while I planned and wrote for two years to Ayiana2.
Feedback is most assuredly welcome.
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