Eleanor’s face tightened.
Caleb laughed bitterly.
“My father nearly threw him through a church door.”
“I’m beginning to like your father.”
“Wait.”
At twelve, pain began.
Sharp episodes.
Fever.
Breathing difficulty.
That was when a traveling physician became interested.
He examined Caleb and said surgery might help.
The man wrote to colleagues.
Without the father’s permission.
A month later two strangers arrived.
One represented a medical institution.
The other did not.
Caleb remembered that second man’s clothes more clearly than his face.
Bright vest.
Shiny boots.
Gold tooth.
He had offered Caleb’s father more money than the family had seen in years.
“For what?”
Eleanor already knew.
Caleb’s mouth hardened.
“To show me.”
The phrase was so simple that it became worse.
“To exhibit me in cities.”
“St. Louis.”
“Chicago.”
“Maybe New York.”
“He said people would pay to see a boy with two hearts.”
Eleanor’s stomach turned.
“What did your father say?”
“He told him to get out.”
“And?”
“The man came back.”
“With more money.”
Caleb’s father threatened him.
Then the physician returned with a surgeon.
The surgeon believed some of the malformed tissue could be removed.
Pain might improve.
Caleb’s father agreed because his son was suffering.
The operation happened at home.
No hospital.
No clean white room.
Just a kitchen table, boiled instruments, whiskey, and two men holding down a terrified thirteen-year-old boy.
Caleb remembered screaming.
Then darkness.
When he woke, he had the scar.
The swelling was smaller.
The pain eventually decreased.
But something remained.
The separate pulse.
The surgeon wanted another operation.
Then Caleb’s father discovered the physician had told the exhibition man where they lived.
That night the father packed everything.
Within a week, they were moving west.
They eventually reached Colorado.
Then climbed farther.
And farther.
Until neighbors became miles away.
Then towns became days away.
Caleb grew into a man among trees, traps, snow, and his father’s rules.
Do not remove your shirt around anyone.
Do not let a doctor examine you.
Do not trust men who ask too many questions.
Do not trust women because women tell families and families tell towns.
Do not marry.
Do not have children.
Do not let anyone close enough to discover the movement.
Eleanor listened.
The last rule hurt most.
“What happened when you became older?”
“Nothing.”
“No woman?”
“No.”
“You never wanted one?”
Caleb looked toward her.
That question had embarrassed him earlier.
Now it seemed to wound him.
“Every year.”
Eleanor’s throat tightened.
“Then why stay?”
“My father.”
“He still controlled you after you became grown?”
“No.”
Caleb shook his head.
“That’s not fair.”
“He was afraid.”
“So were you.”