by Megan Hart
The sudden silence is thicker than the cigar smoke fog.
Then Gabe’s dad says quietly, significantly, “Little pitchers, Archie. Little fucking pitchers.”
Gabe acts as if he didn’t hear what Archie said, or at least didn’t understand it, and in another half a minute the men are back to their laughter and jokes. Money’s tossed on the table along with a watch, a pocketknife, a slip of paper scrawled with an IOU. It’s become serious business, and Gabe’s not invited to play.
He sneaks away upstairs, where the gables are so steep you can stand upright only in the center of the room, and if you’re on top of one of the six sets of bunk beds you’d better watch your head if you sit up too fast. He has a top bunk, of course, away from the rest of them. The room’s cold enough to show his breath, but he’s warm in his sleeping bag. His eyes droop. He sleeps.
He’s woken by the sound of shouting from outside. Blinking, Gabe sits, forgetting the slope of the ceiling. Stars explode in his vision when his forehead connects with the slatted wood. Something that might be a spider, please Jesus, not a spider, skitters across his lips and he swipes at it frantically. The pain’s so fierce, so bright, he thinks it has made him blind.
Of course, it’s just the darkness. Gabe twists in his sleeping bag to look out the window. The glass is rimed around the edges, but the center’s clear. Everything’s so cold in the room, even his breath, it hardly frosts the rest of the glass.
Outside is a lot brighter than in, because of the fire in the pit and the single spotlight. The snow around the pit has melted, the dirt beneath churned to mud. Benches made from split logs ring the fire, and one of them’s been knocked over. Mud streaks the snow, which even farther from the pit has been gouged down to bare ground in places. That’s because of the men who are fighting, Gabe thinks, his brain still a little blurry from the whack he gave his bean on the ceiling.
It’s his dad; he knows that at once. Ralph Tierney fights when he drinks. His friends know it, though it never stops them from offering that next beer.
“You stupid bastard!” Ralph shouts, fists raised. Fluid that must be blood, but looks black, leaks from his nose. His thinning hair stands on end. His red-and-black-checked flannel shirt flaps open to reveal the stained white T-shirt beneath it. Gabe’s dad is muscular and lean most everywhere but his belly, which sticks out now. “You stupid, loud-mouthed, lousy son of a bitch!”
“Jesus, Ralph, simmer down!” That’s Archie, whose friends all know he does have a loud mouth, the way they know Ralph gets fisty after his sixth or seventh Straub’s greenie. “How was I supposed to know?”
“You should’ve thought about it, you stupid...” Ralph seems to lose steam at that. He staggers.
Gabe turns away, feeling sick. The floorboards creak. It’s Eddie with a palm-size flashlight, hand cupped over the light to keep it from blinding anyone.
“Go back to sleep, kid.”
“I am.” Gabe scoots down into the sleeping bag, though he’s pretty sure it will be a long time before he can sleep.
Eddie moves closer. He’s the youngest of Ralph’s friends, part of the group because his older brother, Frank, went to school with them all, plus Eddie married Archie’s younger sister, Denita. Eddie wears wire-rimmed glasses that always slip down his nose, and he pushes them up now as he looks out the window.
“It’s just Archie,” he says supercasually. “Running off his mouth. He should know better than to piss off your dad.”
Gabe says nothing. Archie ran his mouth about a lot of things; that wasn’t new. But what he ran his mouth about...that had been different.
“He doesn’t know when to shut up, that’s all.”
Gabe doesn’t look at Eddie. “He was talking about my dad’s...girlfriend.”
The word tastes funny. Men Ralph’s age oughtn’t to have girlfriends. They should have wives, or old-maid sisters who did for them. Or housekeepers like Mrs. Moser, who’d been with them since Gabe was little. But girlfriend is a nicer word than whore, which is what Archie had called her.
Eddie snorts softly. The light from outside flashes on his glasses when he turns. “Your dad has a girlfriend?”
“I thought that’s what Archie meant.”
“No. It was shitty of him to say it like that, but he meant your dad’s old lady. His wife. Your mom.”
Gabe’s throat closes. His body goes stiff, like stone. He can’t move anything but his mouth, and he wishes he couldn’t move that because then he couldn’t answer. “I guess Archie’s an idiot then, because it couldn’t have been my mom. My mom’s dead.”
A slow, awkward hiss of air slips from Eddie’s mouth. He moves closer. “Jesus, kid. I’m sorry.... I think it’s rotten your dad has been lying to you. But it’s gonna come out sometime or other.”
Gabe manages to turn his head on the pillow and prop himself up to look at the man. “My mom’s dead.”
Eddie shakes his head slowly. He smells like wood smoke and beer, and he’s clearly drunker than Gabe thought he was, because he wobbles a little when he bends to unlace his boot. He pushes it off with the toe of the other, then takes a break with a sigh. Eddie scratches at his face, then his hair. His face is nothing but shadow except for the twin bright disks of his glasses, reflecting the firelight coming in the window. It makes his eyes look as if they’re on fire.
“I’m sorry to tell you, kid. But she’s not.”
TWENTY-ONE
GETTING BENNETT TO take a shower was not yet monumentally difficult, but it was a whole lot harder than it had been even a year ago.
“It’s cold!” he complained, hopping from foot to foot, already in his pajamas.
Compared to California, it was cold. Still, that was no excuse. “You can’t go to school looking like a hobo. I’m sure your friends’ mothers don’t let them go to school in ripped clothes with knots in their hair, either.”
“Who cares?” he cried, suddenly vehement. “Who cares what anyone there thinks about anything, anyway?”
“I care,” she said.
“It’s my hair! My clothes! I should be able to decide what I want.”
Without thinking, Janelle ran her fingers through her own hair, which was sleek and without tangles. How many times had she fought the hairbrush? How often had she been allowed to face the world with a dirty face and clothes because her dad had been more concerned about being fun than firm?
“It’s my job as your mother to make sure you are taken care of and that you learn to take care of yourself,” Janelle told him. “No arguments. This is not a negotiation. Get in there and shower. Wash and comb your hair.”
He stared at her, fists clenched, brow furrowed. Scowling. For a minute, Janelle thought he wasn’t going to go, but then he turned, muttering things under his breath she didn’t have the strength to ask him to repeat. She remembered the day she’d figured out her mother couldn’t actually force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. She’d never thought about the day when Bennett would figure out the same thing.
“It’s my job,” she said softly.
Then
On the TV is some weird program showing how to make a telephone out of some string and two soup cans. It looks like fun. Daddy and Uncle Marty and Uncle Bobby and Uncle Joey are all sitting around the table with their beers and pizza, playing cards. Nan’s at work. Janelle’s eyes are droopy, but she wants to stay up until Nan gets home so it will be easier to sleep late tomorrow. If she gets up too early, she’ll make too much noise, and Daddy will yell.
Nan comes home in her white nurse’s uniform. She hollers at all the guys to clean up their stuff and go home, but not like she’s mad. She even eats a piece of pizza with them before noticing Janelle still on the couch.
“What’s that girl doing up?” Nan shakes her head. “No rules. You’re raising her like a wild animal, Ricky.”
Daddy looks over at Janelle and gestures for her to come to him. She does, her eyes heavy with sleep, stifling a yawn she doesn’t want Nan to
see, because that’s proof she’s too tired to be up.
“Janny’s okay, aren’t you, hon?”
“Of course she’s okay, she’s doing whatever she wants.” Nan shakes her head again. “Did they feed you, honey?”
“Yes, Nan.”
To Daddy, Nan says, “A child needs boundaries and rules. And a bedtime. When’s the last time she had a shower, for heaven’s sake?”
“C’mon, Mom, who cares? It’s summer. Let the kid have a little freedom.”
At home with her mother, Janelle showers every other day whether she wants to or not. Bedtime is always too early, and they have pizza only once in a while, for a treat. When Daddy’s got his own place, the routine is much the same as it’s been at Nan’s, only without any showers at all, and sometimes not even pizza. One time they ate saltines and peanut butter every day for a whole week until Daddy got a paycheck. Then he took her out for a steak dinner and bought her a new doll. It was great.
“There’s freedom,” Nan says, “and there’s just lack of responsibility. You know her mother wouldn’t approve of this at all.”
“Her mother doesn’t need to know anything, and who cares what she thinks?” Daddy’s chair scrapes along the carpet. “It’s my turn to have my kid. She’s not in danger. She’s got food, clothes. So what if she hasn’t had a shower?”
“Or brushed her teeth, I’ll bet. Definitely not shampooed her hair—there’s a knot in it the size of my fist. Have you fed her a vegetable at all this week?”
“Mom,” Daddy says, but that’s all.
“More importantly, Ricky, have you spent any time with her?”
“She’s with me every day.”
Nan sighs. “She’s here every day. You’re here. That’s not the same thing. You keep her up too late, then she’s sleeping half the day away. Or she’s up a the crack of dawn and neither of us are with her. She spends too much time alone.”
“She plays with those kids next door, doesn’t she?”
“The Tierney boys?” Nan laughs. “Sometimes.”
“So? She’s not alone.”
Nan knocks her knuckles on the table. “It’s her summer vacation. Take her to the pool once in a while. To the park. We could take a day trip down to Parker Dam, take a picnic....”
“I can’t be doing all that stuff, Mom. I have to work. You know that.”
Silence.
“Work is something that you get paid for doing.”
“Oh, here we go.”
“Just hear me out,” Nan says, and even if Daddy’s mad, he listens. “I know you’re trying hard to make a go of this music thing, and believe me, honey, I want you to make it more than anyone. But how long are you going to go from job to job, never putting in more than a few hours here and there, just enough to get you through?”
“It’s hard to have a full-time job and get gigs. I have to be able to travel. Why do we even have to go over this again?”
“Because you’re living in my house and you have a child to raise,” Nan says. “So at least for this summer, Richard, you need to pull your head out of your behind and find some steady work. Or send her home to her mother so you can run off all around the country playing in bars. You can’t have it both ways.”
Daddy flicks his lighter on, off. On, off. It’s a big one, heavy and silver, with a picture of an eagle engraved on it. Sometimes he lets Janelle light it for him. She loves the smell of the gas just before the flame appears.
“You don’t think I can make it.”
“I think you can do anything you set your mind to,” Nan answers in a tired voice. “But my God, Richard. Set your mind to something. That’s all.”
“Janelle! Get your butt to bed! And in the morning, you take a shower.” Daddy snaps his fingers, waking her all the way.
Janelle sits up, rubbing her eyes. “Huh?”
“You heard me. Get upstairs.”
Nan reaches for her as she passes, kisses her cheek. “Tomorrow we’ll do something fun, okay? I have the day off.”
“Okay, Nan.”
Upstairs, Janelle takes an extra-long time brushing her teeth, even though she knows if Daddy comes up and finds her not in bed he’ll be mad. She has to take extra time because Nan’s right, she hasn’t brushed them in...well, she can’t remember the last time. She thinks of the tiny cavity monsters in her mouth, biting away at her teeth, making holes. She scrubs and spits, scrubs and spits.
This visit, Janelle’s in the big room with Daddy, because the little room is full of his equipment and stuff in boxes he brought from his last apartment. The window in the big room looks across the alley into the window next door. There’s a light on over there, not in the bedroom, but the hall, so it shines into the bedroom.
That’s Gabe’s room. Janelle goes to the window, meaning to see if she can wave at him. She thinks of the telephone idea, those tin cans and the string. They could make one of those, she’s sure of it.
Because it’s dark in her room, she can see into his, but nobody over there can see into hers. She pulls aside the curtain only partway before seeing it’s not Gabe moving around his room. It’s Mr. Tierney. He’s pacing next to Gabe’s bed, and because of the way the light falls into the room from the open door, sometimes he’s in shadow, sometimes he’s in light. Dark, light, back and forth.
Then he stops.
He bends over Gabe’s bed. He must be tucking him in. Janelle’s mom does that, tucks her in so tight she can’t move at all. Janelle likes that. It makes her feel as if she’ll never fall out of bed.
Gabe must not like it, though, because all of a sudden he’s sitting up. Hands are waving. Mr. Tierney stumbles back. The shadows move, making it hard to see what’s going on, but whatever it is, it doesn’t look good. In the light, Mr. Tierney’s face is twisted, his mouth open as if he’s shouting. He reaches for Gabe to shake him by the shoulders. Gabe pushes him back again. There’s a muffled sound of yelling.
Daddy’s feet thump on the stairs, and Janelle lets the curtain fall. She runs across the room to dive into the bouncy bed—it’s not a real bed, it’s a rollaway that folds up when nobody’s using it. It bounces when she jumps into it, and she goes very still to keep the springs from creaking as Daddy comes into the room.
She closes her eyes. She slows her breath. Downstairs she was way more tired than she is now, but watching Mr. Tierney and Gabe fighting and knowing that she’ll get in trouble if Daddy knows she’s not asleep yet have both made her heart pound a little too hard. She snuggles deep under the covers, faking sleep.
Daddy runs the water in the bathroom. He turns off the light in the hall and moves through the bedroom in the dark, bumping into something and muttering about it. She expects to hear the creak and groan of his mattress in the big bed along the wall, but the darkness by her bed gets a little darker even through her closed eyes.
She thinks of Mr. Tierney shaking Gabe and tenses. What does Daddy want? Does he know she’s not asleep? Is he going to be mad?
Her father touches his fingertips to her forehead, brushing away her hair. Then comes the soft press of his lips in that same spot. A murmured, “Love you, kiddo,” and a few seconds later, the creak of his mattress as he gets into bed. Snoring, after that.
And after that, before she knows it, it’s morning.
* * *
Her door creaked. “Mom?”
Janelle turned. “Yeah, buddy.”
“Are we going to leave Nan’s house?”
Janelle let herself sink onto her bed and gestured to him. He came to her willingly enough. He hadn’t combed his hair the way she’d told him to, but she didn’t have the strength to argue with him. It hadn’t been so long ago that he’d have snuggled up close to her, but now he sat with some distance between them.
“No, buddy, we’re not going to leave Nan’s house. At least, I hope not.”
“Will we go back to California?”
She couldn’t resist stroking her hand over the damp tangle of his hair. “No. Do you want
to go back?”
Bennett shrugged without looking at her. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
She knew he’d left friends behind, that they kept in touch through Connex and their online games. She’d expected him to make new friends here without much effort, because that was her sweet boy. But she did not know if her son was happy here.
“How’s everything at school?”
Bennett shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“Any more trouble with those boys?”
“No.”
“Don’t you like it here?” Janelle asked.
He leaned against her, just a little. “It’s okay. It’s cold here, though. Does it get warm, ever? Is there summer here?”
She laughed. “You act like it’s the North Pole.”
“Feels like it,” he said.
Janelle laughed again. “Yeah. I promise you, it’ll get warm. And summer here’s nice. We’ll go swimming. We can go hiking, too. Out in the woods. We’ll go to the elk preserve. How about that?”
Bennett looked up at her. “Who will stay with Nan?”
Summer was a few months away. Another few months of being chained to this house as caretaker, barely able to get away to the store by herself. An entire summer of it seemed intolerable, and when summer came, Bennett was right. Who would stay with Nan?
Probably, nobody would have to.
“Maybe,” she said, pushing his hair away from his eyes, “she’ll come with us. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
TWENTY-TWO
APRIL SHOWERS BROUGHT May flowers, but an overcast sky on Easter morning brought worried looks and anxious parents. With everyone dressed in their finery, frilly dresses and bonnets and white gloves for the girls, adorable little pastel suits with vests for the boys, Janelle didn’t blame any of them. Her own son, of course, wore black cargo pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a picture of a tuxedo on the front. He had consented to tying back his hair, though it looked suspiciously uncombed.
