Henry Franks Read Online Free Page B

photographs.”
    â€œHas anyone from the album appeared in a dream?” she asked.
    He stared back out the window past the palms to the sliver of the Atlantic visible between the other buildings. The distant horizon shimmered in the haze.
    â€œMom.”
    â€œShe’s the only person you recognize?”
    â€œNo.” He shook his head, once more hiding behind his hair.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe little girl. Calling me Daddy, over and over again.”
    â€œShe’s in your scrapbook?” Dr. Saville asked.
    â€œNo, but I always think I know her.”
    â€œDo you?”
    He shrugged. “Her name’s Elizabeth.”
    â€œElizabeth?”
    â€œShe told me.”
    â€œYou asked?”
    He smiled. “Why not, it’s my dream.” Then the smile died. “I think.”
    â€œYou think?”
    â€œI asked her what my name was.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œShe called me Daddy again.”
    â€œThat’s progress.”
    â€œI asked her what Mommy called me.”
    Dr. Saville’s pen stopped its steady march across the paper and she looked up at him. Her brown hair, lighter in the summer months, was plastered to her scalp and didn’t move with the motion. “‘Mommy’?”
    â€œShe started to cry.”
    â€œDid you wake up?” Dr. Saville asked.
    â€œâ€˜Victor,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Mommy called you Victor before she died.’”
    Henry pushed himself up so hard that the heavy couch actually moved across the wooden floor. He walked to the window, watching the heat radiating in waves off the white stone pathway beyond the palm tree. The path wandered into the bushes and stopped. It was, he thought, symbolic of something; this meaningless walkway behind a psychologist’s office, boldly going nowhere. Like his life.
    â€œReady for school?” Dr. Saville asked after too long a silence.
    He didn’t look at her. “It’s school.”
    â€œNew year, new opportunities.”
    â€œJoy,” he said, hiding his smile from her.
    â€œYour father asked me to speak to you about the future, Henry. You’re a junior now, only two years until college.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd?” he asked.
    â€œThe future?”
    â€œI have enough problems with the past.” Then he laughed, the sound thin and weak.
    â€œHenry,” she said.
    â€œMaybe in the future, I have a daughter.” He looked at her. “I think I’ll call her Elizabeth.”
    â€œThat’s not quite what your father meant, but we can talk about that if you’d like.”
    â€œIs this my last session?”
    â€œDo you want it to be?” she asked. “My understanding is you’ll continue to come after school, the way you did last year.”
    Henry looked back out the window. “Will it help?”
    â€œI’d like to think so.”
    Henry walked back to the couch and sat down, pressing his palms into his thighs. Closed his eyes and counted to ten.
    â€œDid Elizabeth say anything else?” Dr. Saville asked.
    He opened his eyes, looking at her through the fall of his hair. “I had to protect her,” he said, his voice harsh. “She’s my daughter.”
    â€œYou’re not Victor,” Dr. Saville said, her pen still and silent above the paper.
    â€œI had to.” He rested his head back, exposing his neck. He swallowed and the scar writhed. “I couldn’t let her die like that.”
    â€œTell me what happened, Henry.”
    â€œI killed her.”
    â€œWho?” she said, the single word barely spoken out loud.
    â€œI killed them all.”
    â€œHenry?”
    â€œThen I woke up.” He smiled. “I killed my mother.”
    â€œWhat happened to Elizabeth?”
    â€œI held her while she died.”
    Discovery of Bodies
Closes Popular Beach
    Jekyll Island, GA—August 6, 2009: The bodies of two missing boaters washed