by Erica Boyce
Rebecca backed down a step. “Well, it’s for your mom.”
“I’ll take it up to her!”
“Oh, I—”
Ella reached down and grabbed the box.
“Ella, wait—” she said as Ella opened the flaps. “Danny went out on a trip, and his net came up with it,” Rebecca said, so softly it was almost a whisper.
Danny Colbert the slacker finally took a trip! Ella couldn’t wait to tell her dad. She peered into the box, and everything stuttered.
It was a single brown boot. The bands of beige around the top and sole had worn down to brown, too, but there were blotches of white paint all over it. A flowering vine and a butterfly. They were nearly unrecognizable now, beaten down by the sand and stones rolling along at the bottom of the sea. But she knew what they’d once been. She’d put them there.
* * *
Last year, she had watched her dad yank his boots off in the front hallway while she sat on the couch. Her mom had gotten home early and was in the kitchen, fumbling and using curse words Ella had never heard before as she tried to make a pot of John’s famous chili.
“How come everybody wears those same boots?” Ella said as John sat down at the end of the couch.
John pulled a pillow out from under his tailbone and tossed it onto the armchair nearby. He turned to scrutinize the offending footwear with her. He’d forgotten to put them on the special tray her mom had got him, and they dripped water onto the tile floor that would dry into mysterious white rings by the morning. “Good question,” he said. “I guess because they work well, and no one wants to risk wasting money on a pair that doesn’t.”
“But they’re so…” she said. “Ugly” was what she thought, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. She tried again. “What if you get them mixed up with someone else’s? And then you’re wearing shoes with someone else’s foot juices in them.” She wrinkled her nose.
He laughed. “We don’t exactly sit around with our shoes off at the docks, Ella-Bella, so I can’t say I’ve ever heard of them getting mixed up.”
The next morning, he came whistling into the kitchen. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ve got an idea.”
And she went without a second thought, leaving her bowl of Cheerios behind to grow soggy in its milk.
He’d spread out newspapers across a patch of the concrete basement floors. Usually, the deep dark down there made her shiver deliciously before running up the stairs, but he’d set up one of his shop lights. She could see every dust bunny.
“I thought about what you said last night,” he said, “and you were right. Those things could use a face-lift. Go ahead and make ’em mine.” He held his hand out toward the newspapers. His boots were there, wiped clean of sand and salt, along with a brand-new can of marine-grade paint.
“Seriously?” She’d been dying to try out some of the new techniques she’d learned in art class that month.
“Sure. All they had was white paint, but I figured you could still do some damage.”
“Is Mom okay with me painting down here?”
“You kidding? She’s the one who bought the paint. Oh, and this.” He pulled a paintbrush from his pocket and held it out to her. “Put anything you want on there. My one request is that they be signed by the artist.”
She took the brush from him, grinning, and ran the clean white bristles over her palm. “Okay,” she said.
She worked half the morning away, the light buzzing overhead as she chewed her lip. Painting on bent rubber was a lot harder than painting on the giant pads of paper they used in art class. Sometimes, a stray grain of grit would appear and mess up her stroke. When she finished, she stood back, hands on her hips. A thorny stem twined its way around the shaft of one boot, topped with a thousand-petaled bloom. The other boot had ladybugs, butterflies, and other nondescript insects dotted all over. She’d even flicked blades of grass around the soles. Near the toe, she’d written her name in her best, most ornate cursive.
She wondered suddenly if it was too girly. Maybe they’d make fun of him down at the docks. But when her parents came downstairs to check on her a few minutes later, her mom held Ella’s shoulder, and her dad kissed his fingertips. “Perfection,” he said.
He let her come along the first time he wore them to check on something on his boat. She sat in his truck while he sauntered down the dock. Every time he stopped to talk to someone, she watched through the dirty window as he pointed back at her.
All that week, he came home with orders for her. “Danny was wondering if you could do a striped bass,” he’d say, or, “Jess said she wants a pair just like mine, only in color.”
She sighed. “That defeats the whole purpose, Dad. If everyone had painted boots, they’d all look the same again.”
He nodded seriously. “You’re right, you’re right. I’ll let them down easy.”
* * *
She turned the boot over in her hand and shook it. Two bits of dried seaweed fell out, crackling, along with one of the skate eggs the town was named for. A devil’s purse. With its fat middle that held the baby skate and two spindly legs almost like fangs at each end. Lying black on their front steps. She stared at it.
“Mom!” she finally screamed.
Her mom appeared in the doorway right away. “What’s going on?” she said. “Ella?”
At the sound of her name, everything leaked out of Ella. She turned and collapsed into her mom. The boot fell to the ground.
“It’s John’s,” Rebecca said.
Ella felt her mom’s chin bump against her scalp as she nodded into Ella’s hair. “Oh, honey,” her mom said.
“I’m so sorry.” Rebecca touched Ella’s back and rubbed it in small circles.
“Go away,” Ella said. She buried her head into her mom’s shoulder like that could make it all disappear. “Please.”
After a moment, Rebecca’s hand fell. Ella heard her footsteps move back down the walkway. Her mom pulled her inside.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rebecca was still wiping tears from her eyes when she got back home.
Mack sat on the couch in their silent living room. His head was buried in his hands, and he looked up when he heard her. “How’d it go?” he asked.
“Awful,” she said. She dropped down onto the opposite end of the couch. She couldn’t summon the strength to be angry with him anymore, but things were still not easy between them. She didn’t know who owed forgiveness to whom. She wasn’t about to apologize for the money.
“Did Diane—” Mack swallowed. “Was she upset?”
“She already knew he was gone. But Ella…” Rebecca drew her knees up to her chest and tucked her head down. “She saw it first,” she said. “I tried to comfort her. She just needed her parents.” And no matter how close Rebecca grew to Ella, she would never be her mother. Rebecca’s breath caught in her throat. How absurd it was of her to think it. “She might not ever want to see me again.”
“Come on, babe.” The cushion shifted under her as Mack moved closer. “I’m sure she’ll forget about it soon and you can babysit her again. I know it’s important to you.”
She was quiet. He took a deep breath and pulled her close with one arm. She held her body rigid.
“It’s not really about the money for you, is it?”
She looked up and shook her head. “I knew we needed the money for treatments, but if you didn’t want to do that, then I thought—” She paused. “I thought maybe I could be a sort of parent in another way. By helping to raise Ella,” she admitted with a grimace. “What nonsense.”
“No. It’s not nonsense.” He curled his hand around her elbow. “You worked hard for that money. You should keep it. Or spend it, I mean. On the doctors.”
She released her legs, and her feet fell to the floor. “Are you sure?” she said, studying his face. “I know it’s hard for y
ou,” she said, “going in to get tested. I know you’re afraid something could be wrong with you.” She didn’t know this, not really, but a lot of women online said their husbands felt that way about fertility treatments. It seemed like something that could be true for Mack.
He said, “That’s not why I hesitated.” He rubbed his face. “I keep thinking about them. John’s wife and that little girl. Or any of those guys who went before John.”
Rebecca stayed very, very still. This was the most he’d ever said on the subject without telling her it was all going to be okay.
“What if we have this baby and something happens to me? I’m always careful, but so was John. I couldn’t leave you alone with a kid.” He stared up at the ceiling.
She shook her head against the thought of it. She remembered Diane’s face when Ella turned into her arms. In spite of all the pain, there was relief spread across it, like she was suddenly whole again.
“If…that…were to happen,” she began haltingly. “Don’t you think I’d need someone else? Someone who was half each of us, someone who was our family?”
“I guess.” He sighed. “And what about when I’m away on trips? I don’t want to leave you a single mother for weeks at a time.”
“We’ll figure it out,” she said with a certainty she didn’t quite feel. People did this all the time, didn’t they? There were days it seemed she couldn’t turn around in Devil’s Purse without seeing a woman pushing a stroller on her own.
He gently pulled her over so her head rested on his shoulder. “You really want this.”
She looked up at the outline of his chin. Part of her wanted to ask him what he thought they’d been doing all this time if she didn’t really want this and why these concerns of his had never come up before. The other part of her understood: somewhere along the line, a child had become less and less of a possibility with every negative test. If they saw a doctor, it seemed like the child they’d been imagining could suddenly, finally be real.
“Yes,” she said. “Very much so.”
“Okay, then,” he said resolutely. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ella lay in her parents’ bed. She was never one of those kids who climbed in with them when she had a bad dream—they had such nasty morning breath, and she hated waking up with that in her face—but now, she needed the weight of her mom’s arm across her back. It reminded her that her mom was still here. She wasn’t completely alone.
It was time to meet Lacey. “Mom?”
“Yes? What?” Her mom snapped up to sitting, out of her nap.
“I gotta go meet Lacey.” Lying about it seemed pointless now.
Her mom’s forehead wrinkled.
“She was helping me look for…for Dad.” Her eyes filled with tears. She sniffed them back and rubbed at her face. “I gotta go tell her the search is off.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Her mom sighed and touched Ella’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll call her mom and tell her.”
“No,” she said too forcefully. “I really need to tell her myself. Please? I’ll be back in a few minutes, I swear.”
Her mom nodded slowly. “Okay. But call me if you need me. I’ll drive straight there and get you.”
“Thanks, Mom.” She leaned in and pecked her mom on the cheek before scrambling off the bed.
Outside, the sun was way too bright. Ella picked up a stick and started whacking it against trees and fences as she passed for no particular reason. When she reached the corner, their corner, Lacey was already there.
“There you are,” Lacey said. “You ready to go?”
Ella noticed she’d put makeup on. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes all fancy and smudged. Something unfamiliar gurgled up inside Ella. She thought maybe she was furious. “How could you?” she whispered.
Lacey stopped. Her eyes widened so far, you could barely see her eyeshadow. “What?” she said.
“You let me think he was alive. You took me on these stupid interviews to find him. But he’s not. He’s not. He’s dead.” She was yelling now, and it felt good ripping through her.
Lacey was flushed all over. Ella threw the stick as far as she could, not exactly at Lacey, but away, away.
“Ella, I—”
Lacey reached for her, but Ella couldn’t stand to see her face anymore. Why didn’t she just tell Ella her dad was gone like everyone else? Ella turned away and went back home.
* * *
It was painful, running, but a relief, too, to find that she could still do it; her knees didn’t bend the wrong way, and her ankles didn’t collapse under the weight of her. Lacey knew she was trying to leave the beetle behind, just as she knew it wasn’t going to work, and still, she ran. Her breath came harsh and her head pounded whenever her feet hit the pavement. Sweat trickled down under the arms of her jacket.
She knew people were staring at her, running down the street in her suede boots and her nicest jeans, the ones she hadn’t worn in months and now slipped down over her ass. Mrs. Wall, who always put up her Christmas decorations before they’d even hit Thanksgiving, stopped stringing lights along the railing of her front steps and shook her head when Lacey passed. Matt would’ve told her to fuck ’em if he’d been there, and maybe he would’ve kissed her on the temple, right near where the beetle lived. But he wasn’t there.
And there was home. Her feet fell to an awkward, slapping rhythm as she slowed to a stop. Maureen’s van was gone. She’d probably decided to take advantage of her afternoon off from nannying Lacey and go buy supplies for her next event. Mrs. Staybrook might call her soon, though, and tell her Ella’s search party was off. She didn’t have much time.
She thundered up the stairs to her room. She washed her face, hot water stinging her sinuses as she splashed the makeup off. She shouldn’t have bothered. The mirror hung above her, daring her, but she turned away from it. She stripped off her jeans and folded them carefully back into their drawer before retrieving a pair of leggings from her hamper of dirty laundry. She pulled on a sweatshirt and tugged it over her hips.
She would go to the library. Her mom wouldn’t find her there, and Lacey wouldn’t have to see her sad, clear eyes. Everywhere else was too risky. She might run into people, people who knew, people who told her the beetle was right.
She ran again. Down the stairs, out the door, she forgot to lock it, but then they left it unlocked half the time anyway, not something to worry about in this town. Down the street a mile, two, trees whipping by around her, above her, the perfect joy of the sidewalk underfoot, her sneakers beating the beetle’s tongue into the earth. She barely stopped at crosswalks, waved at the cars that stopped for her without looking at them. When she got to the library, she bent over next to a bush, her hands on her knees, her heart an enormous thudding. It was an effort not to puke. There was pain everywhere, everything hurt. She hurt. She remembered Ms. Bray talking about PAWS, what a silly name for this, like a kids’ TV show.
She rubbed her sweatshirt sleeve across her forehead and licked the salt from her lips. She stood up tall and walked into the library, wiggling with impatience as the automatic doors wheezed open. The librarian was frowning down at something on her desk, twisting that locket, her locket, around one finger, and didn’t look up when Lacey passed.
She stopped in front of the bathroom door. They’d never gone in there, her and Matt and his friends. Public restrooms, in libraries and fast-food restaurants, were for homeless users who didn’t have cars or bedroom doors to close themselves off with. Her mom had gotten rid of her bedroom door, though, and she’d never had a car, only Matt’s, so. There she was.
She pushed the door and was surprised by how easily it swung open. It didn’t fight her, didn’t throw the slightest weight against her arm. The greenish fluorescent lights inside made her squint, as did the industrial peach of the floor tiles. Just like the ones at the
clinic. No, not here. Not with those floors.
The study room. It was quiet there and always empty. She knew because she and Amanda and Chloe used to go there after school. They’d spend hours there, talking and laughing.
Sure enough, the room was empty. She closed the door behind her. She sat down in a carrel in the corner, its half walls protecting her.
There was shame, there was fear, there was the beetle, fastidiously noting everything she’d ever done wrong, even helping Ella, especially helping Ella. It was all too much, too much. There was the bag in her sweatshirt pocket, the last thing she’d grabbed from her bathroom vanity before she’d started running. She’d forgotten to put the diary back in the wall in her rush, and Maureen would probably find it and see the photos tucked inside it, the ones from the locket.
The bag slipped from her fingers to her lap. She picked it up again. The pills were white white white. They weren’t a challenge, not anymore. They were all she had left.
Maureen had gotten rid of her kit. Obviously. She would have to snort it. Her tolerance would’ve lowered while she was sober, so she pinched a single pill out of the bag. She laid it on the desk before her and stared at it. If she took it, she knew, that would be it. Her mom would never forgive her. She couldn’t claim to be sober anymore. Ms. Bray would probably smell it all over her the second she saw her. What did she have to lose, though, anyway? Her family didn’t want her anymore. None of her old friends did, either, and she couldn’t see her new ones or Matt. College was a pipe dream.
“Snap out of it, Carson,” she muttered, the way Coach Johnson used to when she was daydreaming in the outfield.
It was so morose, so self-absorbed, like those videos they used to show in health class. A black-and-white image of a girl in an outdated hairstyle staring out into the middle distance, chin resting on her fist, with a voice-over that said mournfully, “If you or someone you know is suffering from thoughts of self-harm, please, seek help.” And then the teacher would turn the lights on to reveal the doodling, the texting, the occasional good old-fashioned note being passed from desk to desk: “Would bang girl in video Y/N.”
