Behold the Child Read Online Free Page A

now?"
    Greenburg seemed only mildly interested, although he did make another note. "Do you have any siblings, Sam?"
    Kenzie said nothing. Greenburg scribbled a bit more then looked up with an arched eyebrow. "Sam?"
    Kenzie was surprised to find his voice small and weak. "A sister, Jenny."
    "And where does your sister live?"
    "She doesn't."
    "I beg your pardon?"
    "Jenny is dead."
    Suddenly the clock on the wall seemed to tick forward more slowly and with greater volume. Greenburg could have, perhaps should have spoken but he did not. He waited, masterfully increasing the pressure until Kenzie felt his emotions rising like sewage in a tank; choking off his breathing and moistening his eyes. He felt himself drift through a wrinkle in time.
    "Jenny was always skinny," Kenzie said softly. "My aunt used to say she could turn sideways and stick out her tongue and she'd look like a zipper. We we're pretty close for brother and sister, maybe because we had to be to survive. Went swimming together down at the creek, swung out over it in an old used tire Grandpa hooked up to a piece of rope, stuff like that, you know?"
    Greenburg remained silent.
    "I reckon I was maybe ten, so Jenny would have been eleven then. It was just before we moved from Twin Forks to California. A half-breed name of Red came by, offering to break horses. We had two we couldn't handle, so my uncle hired the man. Red, he was a big, pony-tailed bastard who walked bow-legged. Had a happy smile, like a kid at Disneyland, but he was pure evil."
    Kenzie looked up at Greenburg with a worried frown. "I've never talked about this before," he said. "I don't like how it feels."
    "No," Greenburg said. His eyes were kind. "Go on. I think it will help you to talk this out, Sam."
    "She told me she was afraid of Red," Kenzie said. "But I didn't believe her." A clumsy, stiff moment passed. What Kenzie thought he saw in Greenburg's placid eyes forced him to look down and away. The flesh around his lips turned white. "That's bullshit, I guess," he said. His voice was thick with emotion, now. "I believed her. But I was afraid of Red, too. Afraid to back her up with the grownups for fear he'd whip me. I had nightmares about him."
    Greenburg interrupted only to prompt him. "What happened in those dreams?"
    "I'd be somewhere, stark naked and trying to cover myself. I'd see Red laughing at me like he knew what a coward I was, but also like he . . . wanted me. And in that dream I'd know something had happened to Jenny, something bad . . . "
    "Sam?"
    Greenburg's voice startled Kenzie into realizing he'd been silent again. He tried to meet the therapist's eyes, to defiantly stare him down and stop the flood of repressed emotion. He failed.
    "Sam, what happened to Jenny?"
    Kenzie looked down. "My sister hung herself in the barn," he said. His voice broke on the last word. "She left a note. Turns out old Red had held her down and had his way with her more than a few times, and she didn't think she could tell anybody."
    "But you think she tried to tell you?"
    "Yes."
    Greenberg leaned forward with sympathy in his eyes. "Sam, you were just a ten year old boy. What were you supposed to do? She should have told an adult."
    "No," Kenzie sighed, "she was probably right not to bother. Dad would have blamed her, and Mom would have figured out a way to make it something to get drunk over."
    "What happened next, Sam?"
    "My uncle Buck, he was a mean bastard. I suspect he took care of it."
    Greenburg cleared his throat nervously. "Excuse me?"
    Kenzie looked up again, and his eyes were cold. "We didn't call cops in my family," he said. "Maybe that's why I decided to become one, who knows."
    Dr. Greenburg was perspiring. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve. "Uh, what happened?"
    Kenzie smiled thinly. "Red just up and disappeared, that's what. My guess is he's buried near Twin Forks, where the family used to plant dead livestock. Stinks up there anyway, you know? They probably beat the bastard senseless, then