I had thought I was doing right by Levi\u2014I took him to church, to concerts, museums\u2014but here is a severed rat leg telling me otherwise.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know it was Levi?\u201d I ask, already certain it was my son. It looks like his pet rat Zarathustra\u2019s leg. Poor thing<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cHannah,\u201d says my neighbor Debby, \u201cI saw him running from our house right before I found the box.\u201d\u00a0 She is pale and shaking at my doorstep, holding a cardboard gift box containing a bloody bit of rat. My autistic teenager had addressed the ghastly package to her 10 year old son. The note attached read: \u2018To Amos. His blood is on your hands.\u2019 I get it. I would be freaked too.<\/p>\n \u201cLevi can be hard to understand sometimes,\u201d I say, but she cuts me off.<\/p>\n \u201cAmos is not<\/em> playing with Levi again.<\/em>\u201d Shit.<\/em> Debby had been patient with Levi\u2019s sometimes unsettling eccentricities. Plus Amos is pretty much Levi\u2019s only friend.<\/p>\n \u201cLook,\u201d Debby continues, \u201cDo I have to get a restraining order or are you finally going to do something?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll get to the bottom of it,\u201d I promise.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I know you\u2019ll approach it like a mother. But you better think about what <\/em>mother.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre you going to think as his<\/em> mom? Give him the benefit of the doubt again?<\/em>\u00a0 Or are you going to approach it as the mother of a kid he might kill?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not gonna\u2014\u201c<\/p>\n \u201cCome off it, Hannah. This is how serial killers start.\u201d She shoves the box into my hands and stomps down the porch stairs. \u201cYou know I\u2019m right,\u201d she calls over her shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re wrong,\u201d I say quietly to her receding back. Goddamn crime shows. Everyone thinks they\u2019re an expert. <\/em>\u00a0I shut the door and plop the little box on the kitchen counter. I pull up a stool and stare at it. Levi\u2019s whole life I\u2019ve worked consciously to believe the best of him. That\u2019s what good mothers do. They give their children the benefit of the doubt. I only wish Levi didn\u2019t provide me with so much doubt.<\/p>\n I am wondering whether to throw the leg out or freeze it as evidence when my phone rings. I pull it from my pantsuit pocket.<\/p>\n \u201cHello?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMs. Yarrow?<\/p>\n \u201cSpeaking.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is Principal Roya. Levi is fine.\u201d Uh oh.<\/em> \u201cHe\u2019s in our office now and he\u2019s pretty upset. He ran away during 4th<\/sup> period. He was shouting about death and blame.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll come get him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMs. Yarrow?<\/p>\n \u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis was his last strike.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat? I thought he had one more!\u201d\u00a0 This is the last public school within a 50 mile radius. The private ones won\u2019t take him.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was the neck sniffing incident.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat? That wasn\u2019t a real <\/em>strike, was it?\u201d Three weeks ago, he\u2019d been sent home for sniffing the back of other students\u2019 necks. The school mascot is a Tiger and he\u2019s so proud to be a Tiger, proud to belong, that he pretends to be one. When asked what he was doing Levi had said, \u201cI\u2019m smelling them to see if they are good prey, for I am a Tiger.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMs. Yarrow\u2026\u201d The principal sounded sad.<\/p>\n \u201cOn my way.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We drive home from the school; Levi sits next to me, nodding his head in time with \u2018Eye of the Tiger,\u2019 which he has on repeat. He\u2019s not saying anything. He didn\u2019t say a word the whole time we were in the principal\u2019s office, getting expelled again.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t you care that you got kicked out of another school?\u201d Levi just keeps nodding to the beat. His profile is beautiful\u2014the little boy he was and the handsome man he\u2019s becoming blending with the endearing awkwardness of young adulthood. His eyes are closed and he looks happy. I can almost pretend no storm is coming.<\/p>\n But I know his disappointment and shame will roll in, and I\u2019ll feel the sting of it. When your child is cut, you bleed too.\u00a0 I am seized by fatigue and an urgency to just get it the hell over with.<\/p>\n \u201cHey! It\u2019s over. You\u2019re done. You\u2019re not a tiger anymore, so you can stop pretending to be <\/em>one.\u201d Nothing. Levi just keeps nodding. I hit eject on the CD player and grab \u2018Eye of the Tiger.\u2019 Levi stops nodding and just stares at me, smiling like an innocent. I set my jaw, willing him to feel the hurt, and roll my window down. I toss the CD out and it shatters behind us. Levi screams, tears pour down his reddening cheeks. He wails like a siren as I speed toward home.<\/p>\n Only when we reach our driveway and I angrily jerk the car into park do his screams stop. His silence is sudden and complete. He turns.<\/p>\n \u201cMom, I left you part of Zarathustra too.\u201d He smiles and says, \u201cHe\u2019s in your purse.\u201d He pats the back of my hand and I am seized with the urge to smack him across his face with it. Instead, I scream. A low roar from a deep place I never knew existed escapes my mouth. I turn my vicious hand to a fist and pound the steering wheel again and again and again. The horn honks under my fist and the turn signal snaps off the steering column. My howl sounds on and on while Levi sobs.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not a tiger, mom. What are you?\u201d He runs terrified into the house and away from me. The roar finally runs out and I am spent.\u00a0 I lean back in the seat and reach into my purse. My fingers close on a cardboard box. \u201cThere is blood on your hands, too,\u201d the note says. The ziplock sandwich bag inside contains white front paws and a tail. Zarathustra. Why would Levi kill him?<\/em><\/p>\n I unbuckle myself and walk numbly inside and up the stairs to Levi\u2019s room. I rap on his door before slowly pushing it open. Levi stares at something on his desk. As I approach behind him, I see that it\u2019s Zarathustra\u2019s head.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is blood on my hands, Mom.\u201d Levi swivels in his chair and wraps his arms around my waist. He buries his face in my stomach like he did when he was upset as a boy.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy did you kill him, Levi?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t. Ziggy did.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe cat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah. Amos was over. You<\/em> said Amos could come over. We went to watch Minecraft videos and I left my door open. Ziggy got in and broke Zarathustra\u2019s neck.\u201d I hold him tight as his tears sieze him. He didn\u2019t kill his rat. Thank God he hadn\u2019t killed that damn rat.<\/em> He gulps for air.<\/p>\n \u201cI miss him, Mom. It was my fault.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHoney, why did you chop him up?<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt bad that it was my fault. Like it weighed too much.\u00a0 I read all of the Bible they gave me at Church. It helped.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow did it help?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a story about a man whose concubine was murdered, so he chopped up her body and sent a piece of it to each person responsible so they\u2019d feel bad too. Every piece of Zarathustra I gave away, made me feel lighter. Like we could all share the blame together.\u00a0 But it was really the man\u2019s fault that the murderers got his concubine. And it was really my fault that Ziggy got Zarathustra.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh honey,\u201d I say, and I know what kind of mother to be. I will never stop believing in my son\u2019s goodness.<\/p>\n \u201cI gave a piece of him to Ziggy, but he ate it. I don\u2019t think he felt bad at all.\u201d Levi looks up and sees me smiling. A sunshine grin breaks out on his face and we both start laughing.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry I yelled at you and broke your CD.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Ok,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m creepy sometimes. It\u2019s hard to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I had thought I was doing right by Levi\u2014I took him to church, to concerts, museums\u2014but here is a severed rat leg telling me otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[183,518,711,807,1200],"class_list":["post-9611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-christmas","tag-horror","tag-mother","tag-parenting","tag-unexpected-gift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}