by Paige Dearth
“Hey. How long did I sleep?”
“Almost ten hours. How do you feel?”
Joon rubbed the tears from her eyes. “Like I’m drowning in a puddle.”
Skinner put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s hard and we’re all sad. But things will get better. I promise.”
“You sound like Lulu. Before she died, she kept telling me that I had to believe my life would get better after she was gone. I don’t know how she could think that anything would be better without her.”
Skinner scratched his five o’clock shadow. “I think she knew her death was going to be hard on you, but that, in time, your life would change, and you would adjust. It’s not that you won’t miss her, but you’ll learn to go on without her and live in a way that she wanted to live. That’s what she wanted for you. I heard her say that to you lots of times in the past week. You have to look to the future, sweetie. Remember, you’re not alone. You have me and my stallion to keep you company.”
Joon and Skinner looked over at Gunther sitting in a chair, scratching his crotch and giggled half-heartedly.
“I talked to Dr. Becker before I left the hospital. Lulu’s gonna be cremated. I have to go back for the ashes, but the doctor is taking care of everything. I need to have a funeral for her.”
“Of course we will. In fact, Gunther knows this religious dude, and he asked him to say some prayers or something.”
Joon shook her head. “No, just us. She needs to be with the people who loved her.”
Skinner nodded. “Whatever you want.”
“I want Lulu to be alive and healthy,” Joon said. She had a twisted, rotten feeling in her gut.
“I wish I could give you that, but I can’t.”
“Thanks for coming to get me today…or yesterday or whenever it was. I appreciate it.”
“Sure thing. Remember, you’re the one who couldn’t leave me on the street by myself and had to deal with the wrath of that bitch whore Fipple for bringing me into the house.”
Joon smiled at the memory. “Lulu was sick then, but she didn’t tell me.”
“I know.” He looked at her for a moment. “Hey! Gunther and I are springing for burgers and milkshakes for dinner tonight.”
Joon tilted her head and closed her eyes. “Thanks for everything you’re doing. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here. You’re spending a lot of money.”
“We’ve been saving up.” Skinner lowered his head. “We talked about it. We knew this day was coming, so we begged, stole some stuff, sold some stuff, you know…all the things us homeless people do to stay alive. We wanted to be able to take care of you, so we did what we had to do to make that happen.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. We washed your clothes while you slept.”
“You’re a good friend.”
“Oh, when we emptied your bags, we found a diary. I mean, we didn’t read it, but I never knew you kept one.”
“I don’t. I’ve had it for a while now. A little girl that shared a hospital room with Lulu gave it to me…asked me to give it to her father if anything happened to her. Her ‘last wishes,’ she said.”
“Well, that’s odd…and a bit intense. Okay then. It’s back in your bag.”
Joon thought about Molly and hoped the girl was doing better than Lulu. She made a mental note to ask Dr. Becker about her when she went to pick up Lulu’s ashes.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
“Joon, how are you holding up?” Dr. Becker asked after a nurse showed her into his office.
She shook her head. “I feel like I’m in a fog. I keep telling myself things will get better, but I can’t see how that’s ever going to happen.”
“Losing people we love is the hardest thing in life. But I believe that every loss we suffer comes with a life lesson, and if we open our hearts and listen closely, we find a way to make our grief meaningful.”
Dr. Becker stood from his desk and carried a small, thick cardboard box over to Joon. He handed it to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Lulu was lucky to have you. You be good to yourself, and if you ever need to talk, come back and see me.”
After talking to the doctor a few more minutes, Joon hung her head and left his office. Skinner was waiting for her in the hospital lobby, and as she approached, he eyed the box but remained silent. The two walked to the place where they would lay Lulu to rest.
After a long walk, Joon and Skinner stood staring at the burned structure. They hadn’t been back to the abandoned house since the fire. The brick row home stood stark against the overcast sky. The roof of the front porch sagged and the black shingles had melted and re-formed into grotesque shapes. Inside, all they saw through the glassless windows was black. They made their way around to the back and stepped into the gaping hole once covered with blue plastic. Inside, they looked up into a cavern of charred ruins. The floors above them were gone; stairs, walls, and rooms no longer existed. It was one big, empty space covered in black. The smell was unbearable, but Joon didn’t seem to mind as she looked around and carefully picked her way through the debris covering the floor.
Skinner held her hand. “It’s so…so…black.”
Joon looked into the darkness. “It’s the way my heart feels—hollowed out, covered in soot…dead.”
Skinner put his arm around her waist in an effort to comfort her. “We should take care of business and get outta here. This isn’t a safe place for us to be.”
They found a small spot where the dining room was when the house was first built. Joon knelt in the gray and black ash. She opened the cardboard box and pulled out the plastic bag that held Lulu’s remains. Her hands shook as she untied the bag, and a puff of Lulu’s ashes floated into the air in a small plume. Grabbing the bag, Joon stood and looked at Skinner for support.
She turned the open bag upside down, scattering Lulu’s ashes onto the scorched floor. Then she dropped to her knees and scooped up a handful of ashes. “Oh, Lulu, I’m so sorry that I couldn’t help you. I’m sorry that my stupid kidney didn’t match. I’m sorry that I couldn’t find anyone to give you a kidney. If I had just found one person, you would still be alive. Please forgive me for failing you.” Joon let the tears fall. Her chest heaved as sobs gripped her from the depth of her soul.
Skinner was leaning over her, trying to steady and soothe her. “Come on, Joon. We should go now.”
“No! I’m not finished.”
“Okay,” he said, stroking her matted hair.
Joon took a deep breath of burnt, rotten air. “Lulu, I hope you’re with your gram. I hope she’s holding you and loving you. I will miss you so much. I’ll miss the way you shined your light on the dark times. I’ll miss you believing in me and telling me that I’m worth something. Most of all, I’ll miss sharing my life with you. It may be a shitty life, but we were in it together. I hope that someday I can make you proud and that you watch over me and help me find what it is I’m supposed to do with my life. I will never forget you, and I’ll think of you every day, I promise. Please stay with me, because I don’t know if I can make it on my own. I will love you forever.”
“Come on now. We need to go,” Skinner said. “Lulu’s at peace. She feels good again, alive, and she’s with her gram. You’ve done everything you could do.”
Joon curled her body into a tight ball and grasped at the ashy floor. “I can’t leave her here by herself. I don’t know what to do. I can’t think straight. I just want to lie here until I die too.”
“No, look,” Skinner said, picking up the bag that held Lulu’s ashes. He shook it, and the remaining ashes piled into the corner of the plastic. “You can take this part of Lulu with you. We’ll find something to put her ashes in and you can keep them.”
Joon studied the corner of the plastic bag for a few seconds before she reached up and closed her fist around the small amount of ashes that had collected there and held them against her heart.
“Let’s go,” Skinner said, pulling her to her feet.
As she clung to the plastic bag, Skinner guided her to the hole in the building where they had entered.
Right before Joon stepped out of the house, she looked back at the spot where Lulu’s ashes were scattered, then down at the bag in her hand. “I really loved her,” she said.
“I know you did. She loved you too,” Skinner said as he led Joon outside. He looked at his friend, tears streaming from her unfocused eyes. For a moment, he worried that she wouldn’t recover, but he knew that Joon was a strong person. Thunder cracked overhead, and Skinner looked up at the darkening sky. He took a tighter grip on Joon’s hand and walked her back into the heart of the city.
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Months had passed since Lulu died, and Joon spent some of her time with Skinner and Gunther, but mostly she was alone.
“I don’t know why you’re staying at the warehouse by yourself again,” Skinner said. “You should stay with me and Gunther.”
“Because I hate riding the train all night. There are too many creeps lurking around. Besides, you don’t need a third wheel around all the time.”
“You’re right, the train is a pain in the ass, but at least it’s heated. In that warehouse you’re all by yourself,” he argued.
“I told you a million times, a group took me in, so I’m not alone.” Joon tied her hair up in a ponytail. “I never realized I’d be this lonely without Lulu,” she sighed. “I’m empty, ya know? I’m having a hard time moving on, and the group at the warehouse doesn’t expect anything of me. I mean, I have to bring in food or money, but they don’t expect me to be happy.”
“That’s exactly why you should be with us. Because those bozos don’t expect you to be happy, and we do. You’re taking the easy way out. If you don’t have to face reality, then you get to keep walking around in your hopeless fog. Lulu would be disappointed.”
“Well, Lulu isn’t here, is she?” Joon snapped.
Skinner sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. So, okay, you’re staying at the warehouse with a big group of losers. What are you gonna do for yourself?”
Joon smirked. “There are two things I need to do.” She kept her eyes glued to the ground below her.
“Are you gonna tell me?”
“Actually, I was going to ask if you’d help me.”
“Okaaaay, do you wanna tell me what these two things are?”
“Yeah, of course. When I went back to pick up Lulu’s ashes from Dr. Becker, I asked him about Molly,” Joon said, staring at Skinner oddly.
“Who the hell is Molly?”
Joon sighed. “The diary you found. The little girl who shared a hospital room with Lulu.”
“Oh, sorry. How is she?”
“She died a couple of days before Lulu. Anyway, I promised Molly that I would take her diary to her dad.” She pulled the diary from her bag and opened the front cover. Joon pointed to the address Molly had written. “She lived in Villanova. It’s west of the city. Anyway, I thought I could take a train out there, and you know…drop it off to him.”
“Okay, that’s reasonable. I’ll go with you. What’s the other thing?”
Joon took in a loud breath. “I want to stop at Tioga-Nicetown.”
“Isn’t that a real shit section of town? What do you have to do there?”
“I want to go back and see the house where I lived with Aron.”
Skinner gasped. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I mean, what if she sees you?”
“Yeah, what if? I’m not the little girl I was when I ran away. I’m gonna be eighteen in two months. There’s nothing she can do to me.” Joon paused. “Especially not if you’re with me.”
Skinner rubbed his temples. “What do you expect to get out of it?”
“To face my greatest fear. That woman still gives me nightmares. When I dream of her, I feel like I’m a little girl being tortured again. I can go months without thinking of her at all. Then, I see someone who looks like her or sounds like her, and I spiral into this dark hole. Lulu and I talked about her a lot. She said that someday, we would go back to that house together, and she’d show me that the big, bad Aron isn’t so scary.” Joon chuckled. “Lulu would say the only thing big and bad about Aron is her breath. That always cracked me up…but she didn’t know Aron and how evil she could be. No one really believes me when I say that she’s the devil.” Joon looked into Skinner’s eyes. “I need to put her behind me once and for all. Face my fear. See that she’s nothing more than a sick woman. Maybe even spit on her if I get close enough.”
“Okay. When are we doing this?”
“Tomorrow.”
Chapter Ninety
The following day, Joon and Skinner took a train and two buses to reach Aron’s house. It was almost three thirty in the afternoon when they arrived. They sat on a curb where they could see Aron’s house.
“Is she home?” Skinner asked.
“How should I know? When I lived there, I would get home from school around this time. She was always at home then. But who knows what her routine is now?”
The two sat there and Joon looked around the neighborhood. She’d never spent much time out of the house, except to go to school, but she remembered how scary the neighborhood was to her when her caseworker drove her here so many years ago. Skinner lit a cigarette and passed it to Joon, who took a few drags and handed it back to him.
“Do you wanna get closer?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Joon answered, standing up and brushing off her pants. As they walked toward Aron’s house, they heard the brakes of a school bus squeaking behind them. The two turned around and watched as seven kids bolted off the bus. Then a few seconds behind them, a young girl lumbered off the last step. Instinctively, Joon grabbed Skinner’s arm.
“What?” he said, leaning into her.
“I don’t know. Something’s weird about that kid.”
“You’re spooking yourself out because you’re standing so close to that bitch’s house.”
Joon shook her head. “Let’s wait and watch her…make sure she’s okay.”
The two of them stepped back as the girl approached. Joon smiled at the child, who looked away quickly. As the girl got closer, Joon said, “Hi. Um, we’re lost. Do you know where the closest bus stop is?”
The little girl hesitated for a split second. “No,” she said in a whisper.
Joon looked the girl over. Her jacket was old, and her pants were three inches too short for her. The girl’s hair was dirty and matted to her head, and she was so thin. Joon smelled the child’s fear—her anguish was coming off her in waves. As the young girl kept walking, Joon followed at a distance. As the girl turned and walked up the porch to Aron’s house, Joon’s mouth fell open.
When the child got to the door, it opened, and there stood Aron with her hand on her hip and a scowl on her face.
“That’s her,” Joon croaked.
Skinner watched the woman intently. She didn’t look evil. In fact, she looked normal aside from her expression. Then as the child walked past her, Aron gripped the girl’s filthy hair at the nape of her neck and dragged her into the house, slamming the door behind them.
Skinner sprang forward. “Come on, Joon. We gotta help that kid.”
Joon remained planted on the sidewalk. Seeing Aron had made terror wash over her. Her limbs felt weak and her ears were ringing.
She’d always imagined that she would get even someday when she saw her foster mother. But seeing the woman had nearly crippled her with apprehension. She thought quickly and stopped Skinner. “No. We can’t. You don’t know what Aron’s capable of. She’ll kill us and bury our bodies in the backyard. She’s an emotional vampire. Sucks the life outta you and then beats your corpse until there’s nothing left.”
Skinner put his hands on Joon’s shoulders and shook her gently. “Snap the fuck out of it, Joon. Didn’t you see her grab that kid’s hair when she walked by her?”
Joon nodded. “That’s nothing compared to what she’s gonna do.”
“And we’re gonna stand here and do nothing?”
Joon’s knees felt weak. Before she arrived, she fantasized about confronting Aron. But now, seeing the woman made her want to get far away. “We can’t do anything now. I have to think. I...I just gotta get outta here. Please.”
Skinner looked at her carefully—the blood was drained from her face and she was visibly shaken. “Okay, we’ll come back. All right?” he said, trying to calm her.
“Yeah, we’ll come back and help that little girl. I promise. Let’s go. I wanna be waiting for Molly’s dad when he gets home from work. I don’t know what time that is, but we’ll just have to wait. Even if we have to stay there all night.”
On the train to Villanova, Joon thought about the horrors taking place inside Aron’s house. Guilt pressed in on her, and she felt a surge of remorse for not being stronger, but she also knew that Aron was clever, a manipulative woman who couldn’t be trusted.
“You okay?” Skinner asked as the train hummed along.
“No, not really. I know what’s going on in that house. I’ve lived that little girl’s life.”
“One thing at a time, Joon. Let’s get this diary delivered and head back to the city.”
Joon and Skinner got off the train at Villanova just before five in the evening. Spotting what she needed, Joon headed straight to the map behind glass hanging on the wall. She and Skinner mapped out their route to Molly’s house, and seeing that it was less than two miles from the station, they walked.
When they arrived, Joon stood on the sidewalk for a moment, looking across the manicured lawn at the beautifully kept home—Molly’s home.
“Let’s sit and wait,” she said.
For the next two hours, the two friends sat and talked about the little girl that lived at Aron’s house. Then, as they were growing tired, a car turned into the long driveway.
“Here we go,” Joon said, standing and walking toward the car.
As the man got out of the car, he noticed Joon and Skinner coming toward him. As they got closer, he could see they wore tattered clothing, and he adjusted his stance, his feet spread apart, his back erect, not knowing what to expect, but wanting to be prepared. “What do you want?”
