Excerpt from TWOS: A Novel

by Matt Runkle

Three.

In which the missing boy's mother meets Dorina, a rightwing advice columnist who has teamed with a pair of Mormon missionaries in an ambiguous door-to-door crusade

The boy’s mother is tired. The afternoon is always the hardest for her, when her head feels four ounces heavier. Even without Henry here—dizzy and shrill, spinning in circles—even without Henry, she can’t get the nap she so badly needs. Some policeman, most likely the same policeman, the one who’s been cruelest with his questions, the one who first made her feel so shamed last night—some policeman will come around to stir her from her sleep. She nuzzles her chin into her bathrobe; its lace scratches her throat like stubble.

“Ma’am,” a woman’s voice says. Maybe this means the officers have changed shifts? She keeps her head tucked in hopes the woman will sympathize and leave her alone.

“Ma’am,” says the voice again, and she’s jarred by a sudden slam to her gut. Her organs clench, and she watches a chubby hand grab at the butterfly sewn to her breast. It’s her daughter—her real daughter, the one she raised to be that way. The one who’s still young enough to wonder at her own little hands. The one who’s going to save this second-rate world. She holds the girl tight, feels her curl into the void between her breasts and lap. Her organs soften and drift back into place.

“Ma’am,” she hears again, and there’s another hand—claw-like, this one—and its nails pierce the puff of her sleeve. She finally raises her head.

It’s Dear Dorina, flanked by two handsome, wholesome young men.

“I’m sorry,” says Dorina. “I forgot your name.”

The boy’s mother stays slumped. “Did you get my letter?” she says.

Letter? Dorina removes her hand from the woman’s shoulder and strains her memory. Sometimes Slade gives her the letters of real readers, if he finds something notable about them. But the rest end up in the trash, she imagines. She asks the boy’s mother if she sent it to her column.

“Yes,” she sighs. Once again, Dear Dorina seems more distant in person than on the page. “We spoke before. About my son. When you came over to ask for help getting the mural covered up.”

“Exactly,” says Dorina. She can feel Brady’s expression creeping into a smirk. “Your son. Had he gone missing before?”

“Yes, but that wasn’t the real problem.” The boy’s mother glances at the two Mormons: their parallel ties behind the v-necks of their perfectly creased ponchos. She can feel her blood sinking. “He was cross-dressing, remember? You told me to put it in writing.”

“Of course,” says Dorina. “I have it on file. You are a Christian, right?”

“I’m a Catholic.” The boy’s mother wishes her head would blur and sink right through her daughter’s soft skull. Blur and sink and align with the child’s head in slumber. “I guess I’m not meant for this world,” she murmurs.

“Well,” says Dorina. “That’s the goal, really. To make it into the next world. And it’s also our duty as mothers to guide our children toward that world.”

“Before we can do that, though,” says Brady, “we’ve got to locate the children. How long has your son been missing, ma’am?”

“Since last night.”

“So he couldn’t have made it very far,” says Dorina.

“Unless …” says Bryson, but he’s hushed by a general denial.

“Look,” says the boy’s mother, and her tone almost moves Dorina to pity. “Maybe you should talk to the police about it.”

Dorina looks back at the police officers, dressed in murky blue, chortling and milling about like a moat. One of them meets her gaze, and speaks sidelong at his comrade.

“Come on, boys,” says Dorina. The Mormons snap to attention as if by instinct. Dorina grips the woman’s shoulder in one last, quick movement. “I promise you, Ma’am, we’ll find your son. And we’ll address his … problem once we do.”

The boy’s mother watches the three march off, their glances darting, their necks tense as they head through the neighbors’ yard. She is grateful for her daughter—her real daughter—small and certain inside her lap, almost back inside her again. Right now, the little girl is the one thing that makes her know she’s not a bad mother. As long as she likes being held: like a butterfly under the glass of its dome. Henry, she knows, is the kind of animal who needs to run.

“Wait!” she calls out, and Dorina turns around. “That mural you want to cover up?”

Dorina is surprised at the woman’s fervency.

“The Sistine Chapel,” says the boy’s mother. “There were people who wanted to cover that up, too.”

“That was a ceiling!” she retorts. “People have a choice whether to raise their eyes or not.”

And a thunderclap breaks: a hissing release that comes from below and swells and bursts in a roar from the sky. Lightning laughs in its wake as everyone looks up.