Retribution by John Fulton

Benny closed himself into the pissy stink of the Impala. “Daddy doesn’t talk or move or anything anymore,” Bo told him.
    â€œShut up,” Jeannie said. She held the man’s face directly to hers. “Open your eyes, Rex.”
    She wasn’t careful where she put her hands. Benny wished that she would be more careful, because the way she was holding him must have hurt him. “Look at me, Rex,” she said. When the man’s eyes didn’t open, she opened them with her thumbs, but they didn’t seem to see her. “Rex, damn it! Here I am.” She was whispering.
    â€œHow come you didn’t bring Black back?” Bo asked.
    â€œHe won’t come.”
    â€œWe got to get him,” Bo said.
    Their mother let the man’s head drop against the glass and lifted her hands. There was blood on them.
    â€œHe won’t come,” Benny said. “He doesn’t want to come.”
    â€œWe got to get him anyway.”
    But something was happening outside now. The sheriff’s car had pulled up and a man knocked on their window. He said something about an ambulance not coming today. There had been a bad accident on the interstate and all the ambulances were out. They should follow him. He said the word hospital. So they followed the red lights of the sheriff’s car. After they turned the corner, Bo looked back to see Black running after them in the distance. “We forgot Black. We got to stop for Black.” They drove and followed the sheriff’s car, until the dog disappeared behind them and Benny had to pin the little boy to his seat.
    â€œForget Black,” he said.
    At the hospital, the light was yellow and closed in with pain and hurt people. Benny heard two men talking about the accident—something about cars and a station wagon, ice and danger on the roads—and everything was too bad, just too bad, they said. An old woman fell over in the hallway. Benny looked around, but nobody explained it to him. People were traveling fast on beds with wheels. He thought maybe he should be looking for someone. A nurse was in his face, telling him and Bo to sit on the floor and stay there. He looked behind him. Two little blond girls were playing with a doll in a corner. They took turns loving it and gave it a beautiful girl name—a flower name—Lilly or Rose or Violet. They were the only ones that the pain in the hospital did not seem to be calling to. “Everything’s going to be okay,” they told the doll. Benny resisted the urge of ripping the toy away and making them scream for it. The nurse was still telling him to sit. But when Bo slipped past her, she went after him, and Benny was free to move again.
    He moved until a woman seized him. She was crying hard, her eyes sudden and shocking, like broken glass. She embraced Benny until his face hurt, pressing against her bones. A man worked his hands between him and the woman and wrenched them apart. “He’s not ours,” the man said. “He’s someone else’s.”
    The nurse came back again, angry. Bo was still loose, and she didn’t seem to care about keeping Benny in his seat now. He saw a toy car roll through the crowded feet over the floor and on into the next room. He followed it, wondering when the child who had pushed it would come. He looked around him, but no child came. The car was a bright red color that burned against the white of the walls. It was kicked around until it disappeared in the crowded stomp of feet. He saw two policemen questioning his mother in the far corner. She was crying her soft-evening face off into tissues and dropping it at her feet. The officers said, “The man in your car was dead on arrival. Can you give us his name? We don’t think he’s your husband, lady, and we have to ask you about the goods in your trunk.” Benny reached into his back pocket and felt the soft paper on which the man’s name was