Elementary

by Jason Zandri

  Matthew nodded.

  “This is where that saying is applicable,” Mark said.

  “I just feel like there’s more we should be doing.” Matthew sounded frustrated. “Isn’t there another way we can help?”

  “Well,” Mark said, walking through the kitchen toward the hallway.

  “If you have an idea then share it with me, but there’s only so much we can do. If you try to force someone to do something they’re not yet ready or willing to do, sometimes they resent that and resist harder to change.

  Honestly, given the situation over there, the last thing we should want is for Karen to stay in that environment and keep Melissa exposed to it. I still think our best way here is to stay engaged, try to encourage her, positively, that there are better options for her to choose from, and try to help her get there on her own.”

  Matthew nodded again. “I think I understand.”

  “Go get ready for school.” Mark pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s going to be a long day for you, but at least we’re winding down for the end of the school year.”

  Matthew smiled a little and nodded.

  ***

  Mark neared the corner of Route 5 and Ward Street. With the store in view, he could see it open already. The garage bay door was up, and his car sat outside in a parking spot. He crossed the street and came further up onto

  the property. John cleaned up his tools and put them back into his kit.

  “Going somewhere?” Mark called out in a friendly tone, nearing the garage bay.

  “You’re all set. I came by early to get your car finished since, well, everything last night and all. I was too shook up to finish everything before we left. You’re all set now.” He motioned over to the car.

  Mark looked over at the convenience area of the store, which was still closed and locked. He then glanced at the garage bay doorframe.

  “I’m sorry about making my way in here on my own. I wanted to finish the work on your car so you could get it back,” John said quietly as he put the last of his tools away.

  “I was going to say—I was pretty sure we locked up good, certainly once we came back at the end of the night.”

  “The place was locked up,” John said awkwardly. “Never met a lock that kept me out.”

  Mark nodded then scratched his head. “You never said where you were going.”

  “I’m pretty sure with the exchange last night, what Joe said and all, that my time here is short,” John said.

  “Ah.” Mark stepped into the bay and looked around. “You know, I have this philosophy regarding the perspective from the view from the review mirror. It’s a great thing to have to understand where you’ve been, but I prefer the view out the windshield since that’s the direction where I’m heading.”

  John thought quietly on Mark’s comments and set his tool bag down on the counter just inside the door.

  Mark smiled. “I have to get the coffee on; want to come into the store for a cup?”

  John nodded and walked ahead of Mark toward the door.

  ***

  Just ahead of three in the afternoon, Diane walked into the store.

  Mark was already looking over in the direction of the door when she walked

  in, and he came around the front side of the counter.

  “How’s your Mom?” he asked, leaning back against the work surface.

  “She’s fine; she’s all bandaged up and back at home … at Joe’s,”

  Diane said.

  “So that’s it? She’s going to stay there?”

  “I’m still trying to talk to her. She feels her place is with her husband and that it’s not right to leave him. She said I can drop Melissa off later today. I talked to her already, before I came here. She really would rather stay with me.”

  “You do realize that this is not a good situation; for her or Melissa.

  Maybe you should tell your mother Melissa’s going to stay with you for a while.”

  “I can’t do that. I can’t make Melissa choose, and I can’t do that to my mother. I can’t care for my sister on a full-time basis and work here.”

  Diane moved away and looked out of the far windows of the store to the outside parking lot.

  Mark stood quietly behind her for a few moments, and then broke the silence. “I don’t know what else to say. I’ve done all I can to help, but I can’t force any of you to make different decisions than you’ve already made. What else can I do?”

  Stray tears escaped from Diane’s eyes as she continued to look out of the windows. “You’ve done far more than I’ve expected anyone ever would for me. I would selfishly like for you to continue to be there for me. If you weren’t here, I’m sure all of this would tear me apart and do far more damage than it has. You’ve been my calm port in this storm. A rock that I’ve been able to anchor myself to when I needed it.” She turned around and looked at him. “And I desperately needed it. I still do. I’m afraid if I keep pushing my mother to leave, she’ll just be more determined to stay and try to fix something broken she assumes can be fixed.”

  “It’s interesting that I told Matthew something similar this morning,”

  Mark said. “Having said that, I have to amend my response to you and make it different than the response I gave him. You might have to push slightly with your Mother, even if the risk is that she digs in. Given the nature of her husband, at best, this situation and response will remain the same. Generally,

  it just gets worse.”

  “I know.” Diane wiped her tears away. “I’ll keep at her.”

  Mark walked over and took Diane into his arms and held her tightly.

  ***

  Karen sat on the edge of her bed and stared into the mirror on the dresser. She focused on her unkempt hair. She played with it, but couldn’t get it exactly the way she wanted, so she stood up and walked over to get her brush from the bathroom.

  With the fluorescent light of the bathroom shining on her face, she leaned in to look more closely at her reflection in the mirror.

  Then she reached up and touched the mirror where the bruises were on her face. She then reached back to touch them on her face. She winced as the lightest of touches were uncomfortable.

  Even though she tried hard to open up the eye that was still mostly swollen and closed, it couldn’t open. With gentle fingers, she touched the four stitches on her forehead.

  She spent several minutes getting her hair just the way she wanted to, and then she stepped out of the bathroom and back over to the mirror over the dresser. Eventually, after she’d adjusted her top better into her skirt and smoothed it out, she folded her hands in front of her and looked into the mirror.

  A photo in a frame of her and the girls sat on the dresser. Karen stepped over to it and picked it up. Her gaze locked on the picture.

  “Such beautiful girls you are, both of you,” she said to the empty house. “I’m so proud of you both. We’ve come so far, the three of us, and we’ve so much farther to go together.”

  She fixated on her image in the photo for a few moments, and then looked over into the mirror at her reflection. Then she looked back at the photo and then into the mirror, focusing on the contrast between her face in the photo and the bruises in the reflection.

  She raised the picture higher and extended her arm out so that she barely had to move her eyes to view both the photo and her mirror image.

  Tears streamed down Karen’s face. She stepped back away from the

  mirror with the photo still in her hand, turned and set the picture down on the bed, and went to the closet. She moved her dresses to the side, pulled out a suitcase, and set it on the bed next to the photo.

  She turned one last time and looked into the mirror.

  “Never again.”

  ***

  Matthew got off the school bus at his normal stop at the corner of John Street and South Cherry and walked along the sidewalk. He ran in to his backyard to drop his books inside the back porch. After
setting them inside, he closed the door and grabbed his bike. When he re-entered the street, he crossed over to turn up Carlton Street. He stopped at Diane’s apartment and leaned his bike against the fence.

  He looked up at the three-family house for a moment before entering the yard. After he’d climbed the three stairs to the door, he rang the bell.

  “Who is it?” Melissa called out.

  “Melissa, it’s Matthew. I wanted to see how you were,” he said through the door.

  “I’m fine,” she responded without opening up. “My mother called the school, and I’m excused all week. So I probably won’t see you until next week.”

  “Next Friday is the last day of school. Why wouldn’t I see you over this week?” Matthew asked, confused. “I know you might be excused from school with everything, but it’s not like you’re ill. I can visit, you know, like this. Can you open the door?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Thank you for stopping by to visit. I’m going to go back and lay down and rest.”

  “Sure,” Matthew said. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He leaned in closer to the door and waited for her to answer, but she didn’t. “Did I do something wrong? Something to upset you?”

  “No,” she replied.

  Matthew pressed, “Can you open the door?”

  “I’m not supposed to; no one’s home.” The knob rattled when she

  took hold of it.

  Matthew noticed. “It’s never stopped you before. Please?” he asked.

  “I’d like to see you.”

  “I don’t want you to see me,” she said in a barely audible tone, which a passing car partly drowned out.

  “I did upset you,” Matthew said quietly. Dejected, he turned and stepped off the top stair.

  Melissa cracked the door open. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said through the opening, which stopped Matthew at the bottom stair. “I want to see you; I don’t want you to see me.”

  Matthew turned and looked up. The door stood cracked open, but he couldn’t see her. He walked back up the stairs and pushed on the door lightly.

  It only moved a little because Melissa stood behind it and stopped it from opening more.

  “Why don’t you want me to see you?” Matthew asked.

  “My face … it’s ugly. It’s bruised where Joe hit me,” she said, and her voice cracked. “I don’t want you to see me like that. I don’t want anyone to see me like that, but especially not you.”

  Her upset and crying troubled Matthew. His mind raced, trying to think of some way to make it better. “Would you want to see me? Would that help?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want you to see my face,” she said, sniffing.

  “I’m on the top stair; on the platform out here. You can come out. I can’t see you.”

  Matthew stood there with his eyes closed, and heard Melissa come out. She sobbed, then grabbed him in one motion, cried openly on his shoulder, and hugged him tightly.

  “Have I ever told you, you’re the nicest boy I’ve ever met?”

  Matthew held her firmly and never opened his eyes. “A few times now.”

  “I mean it every time I say it,” she said, sobbing and sniffling. “And every time I say it, I mean it more than the time before.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The recess bell rang, and Matthew headed outside through the rear doors of Pond Hill and onto the fields. It was a special recess for him, as it was his final one. The last day of school for fifth grade had arrived. Come September, he would be going off to James H. Moran Middle School with a few others from the South Cherry Street neighborhood and the rest of the kids he had yet to meet from the west side of town. Everyone else he knew in the fifth grade at Pond Hill would be going with their eastside counterparts to Dag Hammarskjold Middle School.

  Matthew walked all the way to the southwest corner of the schoolyard where Edgerton Road ran to its dead end just beyond the property line and leaned against the fence. He looked back across the schoolyard toward the school and watched the kids pour out onto the fields.

  While he looked over the field, Elizabeth Wellsworth came over towards him. He smiled at her; she waved to him and quickened her pace.

  “Hi Matthew,” she said, latching onto him and giving him a tight hug around the neck. He responded and looked over her shoulder. He felt apprehensive as to who might be watching. His mind immediately went to Melissa, and he scanned around but didn’t see her.

  They both let go of each other at about the same time, and Elizabeth stepped back to look him up and down.

  “So this is it,” she said with a smile. “The summer of ’81 and then off to Middle School.”

  “The year went by fast,” Matthew said, looking at her intently.

  “Probably more so for me; I got here in January, so the school year had already started. I just got the chance to meet everyone, and now I have to do that all over again at Moran.”

  “You’ll do fine,” Elizabeth said. “Making new friends came pretty easy to you here; you’ll repeat that in the fall just as easily, I’m sure.” She paused for a moment and some of the enthusiasm left her voice when she finally continued. “Don’t forget your old friends from here.”

  “I won’t.” He tried to sound reassuring.

  “Please don’t forget me,” she said and her lips pulled down at the corners.

  Matthew stood for a moment and looked into her eyes. When the sun burned through the light cloud cover and highlighted and accented her red hair in a fashion he’d never seen before, his heart skipped a beat. “Liz, I don’t think I could forget you if I tried.”

  Elizabeth smiled, looking somewhat reassured. She pulled a small pad of paper and a pen from her back pocket. “Can you call me over the summer?

  Maybe you could ride your bike down from the store, and we can sit and talk at the park, or the school grounds at Dag or something.” She finished writing down her number, tore the small sheet from the pad, and handed it to him.

  Matthew looked at the pretty handwriting in the red ink, folded the sheet in half, and tucked it into his pocket. “It seems so stupid that you’re going all the way to Moran. That’s miles away from the center of town and your neighborhood. You’re a lot closer to Dag,” she said in a protesting tone.

  “I know,” Matthew replied. “I was talking about it to my Dad when we first got here. We’ve talked about it more than once. I guess the dividing line has to be drawn somewhere. Quite a few are just on one side or the other of it. It does seem funny that I’m closer to Dag than Moran.”

  Elizabeth squinted a little with the sun shining even brighter. “Think we could trade? There are a few people I wouldn’t mind trading to Moran to keep you here and have you go to Dag.”

  Matthew smiled. “I don’t think it works like that.”

  “I know,” she said and stepped forward. “A girl can hope, right?”

  Elizabeth looked down and dragged her sneaker in the grass, then looked back up. “Did you mean what you said? That you couldn’t forget me if you tried?”

  “I did,” Matthew said without hesitation. “I have a kiss in front of the library to always remember you by.” He grinned while he remembered the incident. “Did you mean what you said the day you went to the nurse’s office with me? That I’m an awesome friend and that you wouldn’t forget me because we’re going to different schools.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “That, and I don’t care what boys like me or who I like; I’ll always have Matthew Sanford somewhere in my head … and …

  well, you know.”

  ***

  Carrie Hoag and Alecia Parker stood on the blacktop hugging each other. “We made it,” Alecia said. “We’re going to be middle schoolers!”

  Alecia turned to Melissa, who stood looking around the playground.

  “You have to call us. We have to hang out over the summer. We’ll have sleepovers. I’ll have one,” she said, then turned to point to Carrie. “Then Carrie can, then you can, and we’ll go back aroun
d. We have to; we have to keep in touch.”

  Melissa smiled politely at her. “Of course.”

  “Things still bothering you?” Carrie asked with a touch of concern in her voice.

  “A little,” Melissa said. “Sorry; I’m being a drag.”

  “A lot’s gone on with you. I understand,” Carrie said.

  Veronica and Kelly walked over and chattered away with them.

  Melissa continued to scan around the playground while she walked up the small hill. Carrie followed her. “Looking for Matthew?”

  “I’m sure he’s around here somewhere,” she said quietly. “I just wanted to say goodbye to him here on the playground. You know … our last day here and all.” Melissa smiled at Carrie. “I know, I know. It’s silly. I’ll see him at Moran, and I basically see him all the time in the neighborhood. I’ll see him at Colony later today …”

  “It’s not silly,” Carrie said and gave her a hug. “You like him. I hope he’s smart enough to see that.”

  “Oh, you know …” Melissa tried to come off nonchalantly. “Boys …

  I have my whole life to like them. There’s a whole bunch at Moran I don’t even know yet, so who knows.”

  Carrie smiled and stepped back. “Maybe. In the meantime, we have sleepovers and slumber parties to plan.” With a wink, she pointed over to Alecia and the other girls. “Where we can talk about … boys.” She wore a huge grin, which made Melissa laugh.

  ***

  Mark walked over to the north windows in the store and looked out to the parking lot, where Matthew kicked a small soccer ball lightly against the fence. Diane finished up with a customer and walked away from the counter

  over to where he stood.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” she said softly.