Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt Page B

bridges over the train tracks and look out over the railing, you can see the whole train station platform. I turned up late, and I was freezing cold because I’d stuffed my stupid light blue puffy coat in my backpack. I’d taken the long way, up past the bike shop and the Mobil station and then across the weedy fields near the Lutheran church. As I got closer, I started to think that maybe Toby himself wouldn’t show up. Maybe he would hide somewhere and watch and wait to see if I would come, just like I’d decided I was going to do to him.
    I peered over the edge of the railing, trying not to get too close. I wasn’t sure I would even recognize him, but I did. I saw him right away. He was sitting on a bench at the far end of the platform, his knees pulled up to his chest, his fingers fidgeting with his shoelaces. I could see that he was skinny, but not exactly in an AIDS way. He didn’t look the way Finn did at the end. He looked like he’d always been like that.
    I stood for a while, watching him. Every now and then he snapped his head up and looked around. Almost like he was spooked. Like he could tell I was there somewhere. Each time he did that, I jumped back out of his line of sight.
    Toby looked younger than Finn. Younger than my mother or father. If I had to guess, I would have said he was around thirty, but I’m not good at that kind of thing. From where I was I could see his skinnyneck and his oversize Adam’s apple poking out; his hair looked soft, like baby bird feathers dusted over his head. Toby stood up and paced down the platform. He wore a small blue backpack and he had on jeans and sneakers and a thick gray sweater with a red woolen scarf, but no coat. He didn’t seem like anything special, and I wondered why someone like Finn would go out with him. He stared down the track, then glanced at his watch. I heard the noise of the train edging in.
    Toby peeked down at his watch again, and then, before I had time to think, he looked right up to the spot where I was standing. I jumped back before he saw me, and right then I decided I wouldn’t go down there. I wouldn’t meet Toby after all. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. What would I say? No. I wouldn’t go down. I’d watch from above. I’d wait for the train to take him away. He’d get the message.
    I inched back to my place and peered down. What I saw was Toby, looking straight back up at me, staring right at my spot. One hand was shading his eyes, and when he saw me he spread the fingers of his other hand and raised them in the smallest of waves. Before I could decide not to, I did the same. I edged a hand barely above the top of the railing and spread my fingers.
    Then I smiled. It was only the barest of smiles, and it came out without me wanting it to. I don’t know how I could have smiled at the man who killed Finn, but I did, and that seemed to seal something. It felt like that smile had locked me in, like it was some kind of promise that made it so I had no choice but to walk down that flight of steps to the platform.
    Toby kept staring up at me with a sort of worried look. The way the light was pouring down on his face, the way his hand stayed raised, made it look like he was in a medieval painting, shielding his eyes from something bigger than himself. He pointed to the platform and nodded his head downward. And before I could stop myself, I was nodding back and walking to the covered stairway. It felt like I was moving in slow motion. Like the stairs might keep going down and down forever.
    But when I walked onto the platform, it was light and warm and the train had just pulled in. Toby was walking toward me, with a smile that wasn’t one of those adult smiles that’s too big with no thinkingbehind it. It was a real smile. Like he was so glad to see me he almost couldn’t believe his luck.
    â€œCome on,” he said, like we already knew each other.
    It was a