Retirement Plan

by Martha Miller

  The Morning children didn’t encounter Kitty until school was out for the Easter break. Merris spent most of her time with her nose in a book, and that spring she was working her way through Tolkien. So when Kitty showed up for lunch one day, she barely acknowledged the introduction. The boys seemed curious about her, but accepted that she was a friend of their mother and alternately stayed around her or totally ignored her.

  Once Merris did ask, “Why do you let her smoke in the kitchen? You never let Dad do it. What if I smoked? Would you let me?”

  “She’s a lot older than you,” Celia answered. “But you know what? I didn’t let Dad smoke in the house because it wasn’t good for any of us. I’ll ask her to go outside.”

  That seemed to satisfy Merris. Her well-being had been put before Kitty. After that day, Kitty only smoked outside the house.

  One warm night in early June, Celia and Kitty sat on the back steps. Kitty was smoking cigarettes bought with money from Celia. They weren’t talking, just looking at the clear night sky, the almost-full moon, and the stars. The school year had ended and all three kids were home all day. That morning she’d put both boys on the bus to church camp, where they’d be for two weeks.

  A realtor had bought the corner house and had been restoring it all spring. Celia remembered the night she’d gone into the house and torn all the pictures off the bedroom wall, then searched the house for more. She’d discovered an old suitcase in the bottom of the closet full of pictures and magazines that made her want to vomit. A laptop computer had disappeared before she could grab it. She thought Kitty might have stolen it and sold it for cash. Whatever happened to it, she hoped the police wouldn’t find it. She’d destroyed all the evidence she’d pulled out of Smallwood’s house in the burning barrel at the back of the lot and covered the stuff with branches she’d cleaned from her yard. She’d had the trash collectors haul off the suitcase.

  Out of a long silence Kitty said, “Looks like you’ll be getting a new neighbor soon.”

  Celia nodded.

  “Hope you have better luck than last time.”

  Celia said, “Don’t see how it could get any worse.”

  Kitty tapped a fresh cigarette from her pack and dug in her pocket for a match. The flame threw crazy shadows across her face. She inhaled and blew smoke out both nostrils. Then she said, “I was there the night he was killed.”

  Celia didn’t respond immediately. She tried to imagine the child, streetwise as she was, seeing Jason Smallwood murdered.

  Finally Kitty went on. “My father dropped me off there to meet him.”

  “Your father—why?”

  But Kitty wouldn’t look at her. “Woods paid my father for an hour or two with me. It wasn’t the first time. If Jon Woods had lived, it wouldn’t have been the last. It didn’t matter to me. Sometimes Jon was nice. He bought me cigarettes and sometimes little gifts, jewelry or whatever. I always sold it for drugs. But it was nice of him.”

  “Your father let him?” How could a parent let that monster near his daughter? Then she understood. “He sold you to him.”

  Kitty nodded.

  Celia gasped. “What a sick fuck. How long had that been going on?”

  Kitty shrugged. “Woods, or someone like him, as long as I can remember.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “Don’t have one.”

  “Come on. Everyone has a mother.”

  “Well, I don’t. Never did.”

  Celia reached to put her arm around Kitty’s shoulders, but the girl pulled away. “My dad’s just another one of those freaks like Jon Woods. He shared because he needed money. Sometimes he got his kicks making me talk about it. He always insisted on details. The night I witnessed the murder was one of several nights I met Woods there.”

  Celia watched Kitty, trying to read her. “Tell me what happened.”

  The question lay there between them in the quiet. At length Kitty started talking, her voice somehow detached from her own words. “My old man dropped me off at the entrance like usual. The park is closed that time of night during the week. Anyway, I walked to the bank where I was supposed to meet Jon. I took my time finding him. I was thinking of running away. Trying to figure out where I could go and how I’d live.”

  “God…”

  Kitty spoke softly. “I found him in the usual place. I was going to ask him for money. He’d given me ten or twenty dollars before for something special. I was on my knees in front of him when I heard this burst of air and felt something warm and wet all over me. When Jon fell, I realized it was his blood. I got the hell out of there fast.”

  “But if you were covered in blood, where did you go. What did you do?”

  “My father was waiting. When he saw me, he thought Jon had hurt me. It wouldn’t have mattered, but it would have cost more. I told him that I thought someone shot Jon. I really wasn’t sure what happened. Maybe I didn’t say shot, I don’t remember. Anyway, I cleaned up at home, put my things together that night, and left.”

  “For where?”

  “I slept in the bus station one night, then a soldier picked me up and I stayed in his motel room until he got drunk and a little rough. That’s when I realized that no one was at Jon’s house. It was just sitting there with food and heat and water. So I started camping there.”

  The girl seemed to age in front of Celia. She still didn’t look like she was sixteen, but her flat, disparaging tone made her sound like she was closer to forty.

  Celia asked again, “Where do you stay when you aren’t here?”

  Kitty shrugged, her reddish hair framing her face. “Here and there.” She looked away. “There’s always ways to get money for a room.”

  Above them the sky was dotted with intermittent stars. Celia sat next to Kitty and watched them.

  *

  The Jumper job came to them through the ex-husband grapevine toward the end of winter. After exchanging e-mails, Sara Jumper called late one Sunday night. She spoke cautiously. “Where are you? I’d like to meet.” Finding a neutral place to talk was important, so Sophie arranged to drive north and meet Mrs. Jumper at a Denny’s just off the Wisconsin tollway.

  Sophie and Lois got up early that morning and drove north. They missed the exit and had to backtrack, paying the toll for a second time, so when they arrived at the restaurant they were stiff from the long ride and slightly miffed at each other. They waited in silence over endless cups of coffee in a booth from which they could see the door. The woman was forty-five minutes late, but when she came in, they recognized her at once. She was small with mousy brown hair and large, owl-like glasses. Sophie waved at her and the woman walked toward them.

  “Are you the contractors?”

  Sophie motioned to the empty bench opposite her and said, “Sit down.”

  Without bothering to take off her coat, the woman slid into the booth. She looked from Sophie to Lois and said, “I thought you’d be younger.”

  Lois chuckled. “We’re young enough to manage. Why don’t you tell us about your problem?”

  She didn’t hesitate, but spoke like she was in a hurry. “Sean, my husband, is a violent man. He’s been in and out of drug-treatment centers since he was fifteen years old. He was sober when we met and got married. But that didn’t last long.”

  “Any children?” Sophie asked.

  Sara Jumper turned toward Sophie. Her eyes, which seemed enlarged by the glasses, were cold and dark. She held up two fingers. “Two boys.”

  Sophie said, “You’ll raise them alone.”

  “That might be easier.”

  After a short silence, Lois spoke up. “Have you tried anything else?”

  “As in?”

  Lois shrugged. “Trial separation. Counseling.”

  Sara leaned back as a young waitress put a glass of water in front of her and asked if she wanted a menu.

  Without looking up, Sara said, “Grilled cheese and a Coke.”

  The waitress left them.

  Looking
at Lois now, Sara said, “I tried Alanon once. They told me to focus on my life and let go of his behavior—to let him bottom out on his own. But that’s hard to do when he starts hollering and throws his dinner on the floor. It’s hard to do when the boys are so afraid of him. I went to a battered-women’s shelter once. The place was crowded and didn’t have air conditioning. I got to thinking that it wasn’t fair for us to leave when he got to stay in a nice air-conditioned home. I got an order of protection, then called the police and had him arrested. His mother bailed him out in a couple of hours. He showed up in the middle of the night as sweet as could be and swore he’d change. Yeah, I’ve tried other things.”

  “What about the OP? Has he violated it?” Lois asked.

  Sara shot a bitter look at Lois and raised her voice a little. “Do you know what it’s like to live waiting for the other shoe to fall, to live waiting for the next time you have to call the cops? Do you know what it’s like to wonder which time he’ll get in and hurt the kids or kill me before the cops can get there?”

  Lois shook her head, no, and watched the woman cautiously.

  The restaurant was warm. Sara Jumper rambled on about her marriage, stopping only when her food came. She pulled a picture from her purse and passed it across the table. “That’s him.”

  The man was standing—probably in a backyard—over a charcoal grill with a spatula in his hand. He was turned toward the camera, smiling.

  “I know he doesn’t look like a maniac,” Sara said. “No one would believe the stuff that goes on in our home because he looks so—so normal.”

  Lois asked, “Can we keep this?”

  “Sure.”

  “Tell us about his routine. Where does he work? Where does he drink, that sort of thing.”

  The trip home was quiet. When they finally crossed from Cook County into Will County, Sophie said, “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  Lois, without taking her eyes from the road, said, “Me either. But I can’t figure out why.”

  “Something’s wrong with that woman. She’s hiding something. Did you notice she didn’t take her coat off the whole time?”

  “That’s why I told her to keep her money until she heard from us.”

  Sophie’s head snapped to her left. “You what? When did you do that?”

  “While you were in the john.” Lois glanced toward the passenger seat, then back at the road as she signaled to pass a huge truck. “Did I do something wrong?”

  Sophie said, “No. I wish I’d thought of it.”

  In the end they didn’t follow up with Sara Jumper.

  *

  Ruby had been working the night shift at Walmart for several months when the money came up missing. Lois might not have checked her wallet that night if the coffee mug filled with dried-up ink-pens hadn’t been in the wrong spot. She’d had two fifties, a twenty, and some ones in her wallet. Only three ones remained. Without mentioning it to Sophie, Lois climbed the stairs to Ruby’s room.

  At ten o’clock, the room was dark. Only dim moonlight streamed through the southern window. From the blackness, a red eye stared at Lois, unblinking. She switched on the overhead and saw, on the dresser, next to an open box of tampons, a curling iron had been left on. The bed wasn’t made, and one of the pillows lay on the floor next to a pile of dirty clothes: underwear, T-shirts, and jeans. Lois switched off the curler, tossed the pillow back on the rumpled bed, and picked up the jeans. Ruby would know she’d been there, but Lois didn’t care. She had no right to expect privacy after all that had gone on between them.

  Lois found the letter from Tia Johnson in the top drawer. When she saw it had been forwarded from Dwight, sadness washed over her. This was the girl Ruby had wanted to room with on the outside—the woman who was selling and using drugs again. Ruby hadn’t told her this. Sophie had.

  Lois slipped the letter into her own pocket to read later and started searching the dresser—she remembered the steps to this old dance without trying. The next two drawers, almost empty, held clean socks and a few pairs of white cotton underpants. The bottom drawer was totally empty. Besides the pile of dirty clothes, Ruby owned very little. Lois scanned the room and stopped at the desk. She stepped toward it and stuck her hand into each of the pigeonholes. Nothing.

  She was turning away when she bumped the globe and caught it before it fell. Beneath the plastic gold-colored base was a tiny bag of white powder, probably less than a half teaspoon. Lois turned out the overhead light and made her way toward the stairs. She wasn’t going to find the money.

  *

  Lois waited until she was sure Sophie was asleep, then eased out of bed. Alone in the kitchen, she read the letter. It was printed in an uneven scrawl on a piece of notebook paper torn from a spiral tablet. The message was short.

  Hi Ruby,

  I am sending this to Dwight hoping they’ll forward it to wherever you ended up. I had a dirty drop. There’s a meeting tomorrow. I’m leaving tonight. I met a guy. If you get this, call him. Leave a number where I can get you. I want to go straight. I can’t go back to prison. I need your help.

  Tia

  Lois read the letter twice. She supposed it was bound to happen—someone from Ruby’s old life coming into her new one. Since Ruby had been home, Lois had been remembering her as a little girl, intelligent beyond her age. She saw her standing before the congregation on the day of her first communion, her long black braids a stark contrast to her white dress. She remembered Christmases with the smell of new dolls and Khoury League games where Ruby had been among the best hitters because Sophie, who had played softball in college, taught her how to swing with her eyes open.

  Ruby had given Lois something she might never have had: a little girl with big brown eyes, ready to embrace whatever Lois told her about life. From the beginning, Lois read her to sleep each night. As Ruby grew older the books changed to chapter books. She had always begged for, and got, a second chapter before they turned out the light. The heroines of those books were fair-skinned girls who usually had wise fathers, so Ruby didn’t necessarily see herself in them, yet she did care about those girls.

  Even though Lois and Sophie had lived a private life, when they sent Ruby out into a non-accepting world, she had suffered for it. They’d also taken her to Florida so she could see that other people lived as they did, and Ruby was coping—Lois had been sure of it. Then, as quick as a light switched on, everything changed. Ruby wanted to wear makeup to school. Lois objected and Sophie refused to get in the middle of it. Ruby and Lois had been clashing over everything all day.

  “You have a beautiful face,” Lois said. “Adding makeup would be a waste of money.”

  Inexplicably, Ruby had the money. She held it out for Lois to see.

  Exasperated, Lois said, “When you’re in high school, you can put whatever you want to on your face. For now the answer is no.”

  “Just because you and Sophie don’t wear makeup doesn’t mean that other women and girls don’t. I’m not like you. I’m not a dyke!”

  Lois blinked as if Ruby had smacked her in the face. Trying to remain calm, she stammered, “Most girls aren’t lesbians. It never occurred to me that you were an exception.”

  Ruby’s eyes filled with tears. “It embarrasses me. I don’t want to have my friends here because they’ll laugh at me. You’re just a goddamn embarrassment.”

  Only when Lois felt Sophie’s touch did she realize that she’d raised her hand to strike. She heard Sophie say, “Go to your room. Now!” Then the door slammed and they listened to Ruby stomp up the stairs.

  “Well,” Sophie said, “she unloaded the whole shebang, didn’t she?”

  Lois shook her head. “Where the hell did all that come from?”

  Sophie pointed. “The other side of that door.”

  In Lois’s mind it all ran together. From Ruby’s brown eyes filled with tears that day to the dead brown eyes of the girl in Vietnam who’d died in childbirth, to the deer and her first kill. Then, one night at d
inner, the circle was complete. Lois watched Ruby push her favorite teriyaki chicken around on her plate.

  “I’m not hungry,” Ruby said.

  Sophie reached for Ruby’s forehead. Pushing the bangs back, she checked for a fever.

  What Lois saw, she didn’t understand, and when she understood, she couldn’t accept. Ruby’s eyes were glassy.

  Ruby pulled away from Sophie. “I’m fine. May I be excused?”

  Lois chalked it up to hormones. Her monthlies had just started so they were bound to see some mood changes. At one point she’d considered taking Ruby to the doctor. But then everything was fine for a couple of weeks. When they learned that her grades were down and she’d been skipping school, they decided to really crack down. By then it’d been too late. Whatever had been festering in Ruby exploded.

  *

  Lois spent a sleepless night lying next to Sophie. When the alarm went off, she told Sophie to go back to sleep, that she would pick Ruby up from work. The colossal parking lot at Walmart was almost empty when Lois got there early. She laid her wallet on the dashboard of the truck and put the bag of white powder and the letter next to it. Then she waited.

  When people started leaving the store at six, Lois craned her neck. Finally Ruby came through the automatic door, involved in a conversation with another woman. Then she looked toward the truck, and Lois waved to her. Ruby stopped a couple of feet away, staring at the dashboard.

  Lois motioned for her to get in and Ruby obeyed.

  Settled in the passenger seat, Ruby stared out the windshield, then said, “I’m sorry.”

  Lois sighed and watched her, waiting. She didn’t have any questions that she hadn’t asked before. She expected to be attacked for going in Ruby’s room and into her pockets. So the tears surprised her.