***
I find Oscar in one of the alleys where we frequently hunt rats. He's hunkered down, slingshot in hand, waiting for his prey to emerge into the open. He glances my way when my shadow blocks out the light, but doesn't move or make a noise. It's because he's hungry, I realize. He's been sitting here for who knows how long, waiting on a measly rodent that may never show up. Well, those days are over. I step into the alley and walk toward him.
The way his mouth turns down at the corners, I know he's disappointed with my impatience. But he stands up and turns toward me, and pulls a smile out of somewhere.
"I need to talk to you," I say. My voice comes out strangled, my throat constricted by guilt and grief. My head hurts. My stomach hurts. How can I possibly do this?
Oscar loses his smile immediately. His brown eyes scan my face for answers. "Is..." he whispers, then licks his lips. "Did someone... get hurt, again?"
I shake my head right away and smile to reassure him, but I can feel my mouth stretch out in a straight line across my face, refusing to turn upward. I tousle his hair. "Everyone's OK," I say calmly. "It's... It's just... you're not going to like this."
He turns his head and eyes me cautiously from the side. Before he can start asking questions, I take him by the arm and lead him to a place where we can sit against the wall. We slide down with our backs against cold, crumbling brick, and, for a while, we're both silent.
It takes some time to make myself form the words. Oscar studies me nervously. I want to get to the point— to just tell him and spare him the suspense, but the words get stuck somewhere between my brain and mouth, and won't seem to come out. I say them over and over in my head before I'm finally able to produce them verbally. Then, they come out weakly, as though they're not deserving of air, and volume, and vibration. "I want you to stay with Matt for a while. He says he'll look after you."
I've never seen Oscar so mad before. He scrambles forward, getting his feet under him, but doesn't stand. He twists sideways to look me in the eye. "No," he cries. "Nuh uh. I'm not. I won't."
"Oscar," I say soothingly, reaching out to him. He shrugs away from me. Letting my hand drop, I lean toward him. "It's the only way," I say. "There's not enough food. I can't let you starve."
His small face, which was twisted in rage and pain, goes suddenly calm. He lifts his chin and says, "Oh. So you're coming with me, then."
I shake my head, mouth open but lacking an answer.
Then his face twists again, a flash of pain before a frown that pulls his eyebrows down in the center, his mouth puckering. "No." His voice is small, but vehement. "If you think for a second that I'm going to go live with Matt while you keep right on starving, then—"
"Oscar." I say it sternly this time, cutting him off. I can't go live with Matt, nor am I willing to explain to him why. But I need Oscar to do it. As much as I don't want him to, I need him to. So I tell him a lie. Out of my love for him, I lie to him, twisting the truth into something that will work. "You don't understand," I whisper. "I need you to do this for us. If you go, you can listen in on what's happening. Maybe help us figure out some way to get through this. Because, right now, as it stands, we don't even know what's going on."
He stares at me as my words sink in. Stares at me a long time. I begin to think he doesn't believe me, but then he looks down at his hands, fiddling with his fingers. His young face looks very serious. Finally, looking up at me, he says, "You really believe it could help?"
I nod gravely, swallowing, because I can't quite manage to get the lie out verbally. I nod twice before I find my voice again. "Just..." I say, "...nothing risky. You know. Just listen when you can is all. No sneaking around or anything. I wouldn't put you in danger." Already, I'm fighting down panic at the thought. What if he takes me too seriously? What if Matt catches him doing something he shouldn't?
Oscar flashes me a smile. He's either sunshine or rain. You always know where you stand with him. "I'll be a spy." His voice lingers deliciously on the last word. He reaches over and grabs my hand. "We'll be spies together," he amends. "We should have a secret code word."
I close my eyes, then open them. "Buckets," I say. We both start giggling. And so, over the course of the next hour, our secret spy protocol is born. We laugh and laugh, while inside I cry. Every second I love him more, every second that rips itself out of my hands and flies away too quickly, until, in a blink, we're standing at Matt's door with my hand on Oscar's shoulder. The girl with the burned face steps aside to let him in, and he goes without a hug, with only one quick glance back at me, because he doesn't know that this is parting. In his mind, we're still together. It makes me cry harder as I walk the empty streets toward a home that is no longer home. I bat my tears wildly away, trying to see. But tears or not, right now I feel as though I will never see again.