by Ginger Scott
“I can fly,” I say, my tone serious.
Wes’s laughter erupts instantly, and his arms hold me to him again as he rocks me side to side, eventually lifting me in his arms as he stands and starts to jog around the bases. Our laughter overtakes the chirping from the tall grass behind the field and the rustling in the trees from the breeze, and for that brief moment, everything in my world is simply perfect again.
One perfect day that lasts all the way until the end. I deserve this.
Nineteen
It’s a new rent-a-cop outside this morning. I wonder if we’re part of an overtime shift? Maybe people are fighting to get the hours. Seems like a pretty easy gig for a full day’s shift of overtime pay. The new guy looks like a real cop. He even has a pair of reflective sunglasses that reek of the old cop shows on cable. He also chews; there’s a stain growing right outside his door where he keeps spitting. Even when I smoked, I picked up my shit. I didn’t mar the world with my habit.
“New guy outside,” I say to my dad, yawning and stretching my body as I meander into the kitchen for my Pop-Tarts.
“I’ll make you eggs. We’re out,” my dad says, stepping away from the laptop open on the kitchen table and pulling a pan out from the bottom drawer below the stove.
“Thanks,” I say, moving to the stool near the counter. I curl my good leg up, lodging my heel close to me on the seat, and I watch my dad take eggs from the fridge and crack them against the sink.
“What’s on the computer?” I ask, noticing the page that’s open filled with job listings. A rush of adrenaline numbs my spine briefly from sudden worry that my dad’s lost his job at the school.
“Just seeing if there’s something that pays better than the feed store,” he says over his shoulder.
I get up and click through a few of the postings, most of them night jobs that won’t add up to much and will leave my dad too exhausted to be able to coach come spring.
“What if I take on more hours…at the Jungle Gym. I could work a little more, cut back on training…”
“Joss, this isn’t your problem,” my dad cuts in, never looking at me. His hands remain busy at work on my eggs.
I look back at the listings, glancing to my dad a few times. A year ago, something like this would stress him out to the point of benders and bar fights. I scroll through a few more, then minimize the search window, revealing an open folder underneath. A few of the file names catch my attention—words like DELINQUENT and FORECLOSURE.
“Are we losing the house?”
The words fall out of me in a panic. I probably should have eased into it, investigated more…something. But this place is my home. As crappy as it is, it’s the one place that has always been my identity. Everything awful and wonderful has happened here, and while I’ve spent my life wanting to run away from it, all I can think about now is how badly I don’t want to let it go.
My dad moves the pan on the stove, setting it on a cool burner while he takes a plate from the cabinet above him. He slides my eggs from the pan onto the plate and turns to face me, setting my breakfast down on the counter near the seat I just left. His palms rest on either side of the plate and his eyes stare right back at me, his look not wounded, but definitely tired.
“At one point…yeah…we were,” he says.
I’m not going to be able to eat those eggs. I feel sick.
“At one point?” I question.
My dad nods, nudging the plate forward. I shake my head at him.
“We’re not losing the house now, so eat your damn eggs,” he says, a touch of hostility to his voice.
“Don’t do that,” I say, standing and moving to the seat, pulling the plate to me to humor him.
“Sorry,” he says, hushed.
I pick at a few pieces with my fork, and eventually I put one in my mouth. It’s tasteless, but my stomach growls so I know I’m hungry. I force another bite down, then lay the fork flat and fold my hands together on the counter, waiting for my dad to give me the entire story.
“It’s been tight ever since your mom left,” he says, shrugging once as his eyes flit down to our scratched and glued counter that we’ve never once talked about replacing. His hand runs along the rough surface. “Every year I’d run a little short, and they’d make threats, and then I’d get things paid somehow. But the more I drank…”
His eyes raise to meet mine, and I blink slowly, puffing out a breath from my nose and looking away.
“You drank away our mortgage,” I shake my head.
“Yeah, I did.” He doesn’t deny it, owning it—part of the whole recovery process, I’ve learned. I still resent him over it now, though. Fair or not, I do.
“Is that why you borrowed money?” I ask, letting my legs dangle against the bottom of the stool, glancing at him sideways.
“It started out as just a little bit…enough to get us through, and I could keep up with it. I took out loans from one of those same-day places. It was working for a while, but then the gap started to get too big—between what I owed and what I could pay back.”
“How big was the gap?” I ask, knowing nothing can shock me quite the way the eighty-thousand number did.
“Maybe ten…eleven thousand,” my dad says.
I nod.
“It went to collection, and that’s when things started to get away from me,” he says, stepping back, his hands sliding along the counter. My eggs are cold now, so I stand with the plate and walk to the trash, sliding them inside and dumping the plate in the sink.
“There was this guy who worked at the loan place…” My dad closes his mouth, pushing his lips together tight and locking eyes with me as he takes a deep breath.
I flit my eyes to the side, blinking quickly in disbelief.
“He’s the one you owe the money to now.”
I wait for my dad to nod, and eventually, he does.
“Him and another guy. We were at the bottom, about to lose the house, and no place would loan to me…legitimately. I couldn’t fail you like that…” My dad looks up at the ceiling, his shoulders sagging as his breath leaves his chest. “I’d already failed at so many things, the least I could do was keep the damn roof over your head.”
I’m not even mad. I try to let my chest shudder, and I can’t. I think maybe I’m tired of everything, and I feel sorry for my dad—not in a pity sort of way, but genuinely sorry. I hate that this is his life, and I wonder what it would have been like if we had nothing but days like yesterday rather than moments like right now.
I move to my backpack hanging over one of the chairs at the table, and I unzip the front pocket, pulling out my last check from Jungle Gym’s for $187. It’s wrinkled from being stuffed inside for the last two days, but it cashes just the same. My dad starts to turn and shake his head as I get closer, but I grab his hand in mine and stuff the check inside, folding his fingers around it.
“It’s change compared to what we need, but take it. I want to do my part, too,” I say, and our hands stay folded together around the envelope and measly contribution. “The loan guys…they saw the new car in the driveway, didn’t they?”
My dad’s eyes are on our hands still. He takes a short breath and flits his gaze to mine, nodding once before looking away again, finally backing off and taking the check I insist he have.
“Instead of paying them, you were spending the extra money…on me,” I say.
“Joss, this shouldn’t impact you…that was the point. I never wanted any of this to touch you,” he says.
“I know,” I respond, folding my hands behind my neck and turning in a slow circle with my face to the lights above. “I know you didn’t, Dad. But it has, and we’re in this together like it or not. Does Grace know how bad it is?”
My dad lifts his left shoulder and rolls his head back and forth.
“She knows enough,” he says. “She’s giving us money, but even with that, it’s not enough.”
I stare at him, knowing it doesn’t matter if we still owe fifty, sixty�
�seventy thousand dollars. It doesn’t matter if that number’s only ten. The people my dad owes are never going to stop until he pays them back, and any number is impossibly more than what we can scrape together, even with everyone we know.
My phone buzzes with a text from Taryn telling me she’s out front, ready to take me to school. I close the space between my dad and me, stretching up to kiss his cheek, and he grabs hold of my hand, letting my fingers slip through slowly as I walk away.
“We’ll figure it out,” I say, looking at the folded blankets on the sofa where my dad slept the night before. I wonder what came first, the drinking or the regrets? They’re forever intertwined, but I wonder which was the trigger. I wonder where I fit in that picture.
Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I leave through the back door, ducking under the half-opened garage on my way to Taryn’s car, trying not to let anything show on my face. Taryn begins talking the second I slide into my seat, telling me about some fight her parents had this morning over who put the keys in the wrong place. She’s complaining about how unreasonable her dad can be, how selfish her mom is with the car—needing to have the best one while her dad drives a truck that breaks down constantly. I let her vent about her unhappy morning in an otherwise spotless family home filled with warmth, support, trust and love, and I keep my mouth shut about how much worse things are in mine. I’m done winning the pity-party contest. I doubt the universe will even let me play anymore, given the unfair advantage I have over everyone when it comes to who’s got it worse.
We get to the parking lot at school, and Taryn is still letting out her frustrations, content with my sporadic “uh huhs” and “totally not fairs.” I’m not looking for signs at all. I’m not even looking for Wes yet. I’m just thinking about my code, my mission to get to the next thing—to class, to training, to work, to home. I’m focused on the speed bump that’s lodged in-between every destination for me now—the one that costs thousands of dollars and is guarded by killers. And then some freshman falls from his BMX bike right in front of me, a dangling strap from his backpack lodged in one of his spokes, sending him spilling to the ground and dumping his bag’s insides all around the front of Taryn’s car.
His knee is bleeding, a hole torn through his jeans, and he’s red with humiliation. I start picking up his things, just wanting to do someone right today, maybe jack up my karma a little, when I realize his bag is filled with comics. I stand, sliding one behind the next, looking at the familiar covers—most of them wrapped in plastic, labels taped to the bottom with dates and notes written in letters I recognize. The curve of the G, the crosses on the Ts…the Is.
“Where did you get these?” I ask, no longer worried about the kid’s bloody knee or torn pants.
“Some dude posted about them on the Internet. He’s giving everything away. Why…do you…are you into comics?”
There’s a geeky look of hope in his eyes, and I dash it quickly, handing the stack I’ve picked up to him as I walk toward the school, my phone in my hand.
Taryn calls my name, and I wave at her, pointing toward the main building.
“Library day,” I lie, just needing to have time alone.
She nods and walks to the weight room, and I scan the parking lot for Wes’s truck. It’s parked at the bottom of the hill, so I keep it in my periphery, changing direction and walking to it the moment the gym door closes behind Taryn.
I text Wes without a second to spare.
Don’t tell anyone you’re leaving. You have to drive me somewhere. Now.
His door is unlocked, so I crawl inside, dumping my bag on the floor and lying low in the seat. Wes jogs out of the gym in less than a minute, slowing his steps when he sees me in his truck, then jogging again after checking to see if anyone’s behind him.
“What’s up?” His face is tight, mouth pursed and eyes worried.
“We need to go to Shawn’s,” I say.
Wes breathes in deep, half of his body still outside his truck. A crease forms between his eyes, and I instantly wonder if he saw this coming.
“I think he’s up to something…maybe disappearing. And he’s the only person who can help my dad,” I say, pleading, my mouth hung open as I search for what to say next. “He owes me this, Wes. He owes me.”
I can tell he agrees with me by the way his breath slows and his eyes dim, blinking as his focus moves to my leg—the one thing that, no matter how hard I work, will always define me in some way. Wes nods and shuts the door, turning the key and buckling up as he backs out of the lot.
He drives faster than normal—urgent—like he knows something. I wonder if he had a vision of Shawn leaving, or if he knows that this debt is what will kill my dad. I wonder if he knows whether or not we make it there in time, if Shawn will help us change the future, if he’ll give us a warning so we have a fighting chance, if any of it will matter.
I keep trying to get myself to ask, but even if Wes did, his answers wouldn’t stop me. Whatever anyone thinks they see about my future…is their version.
My dad’s voice echoes in my head, and I smile.
Screw track records.
Twenty
Everything looks exactly as I remember it, and nothing like it should. There’s a certain quiet that practically stuffs my ears and mutes all other sound when we get out of the truck. The van is gone. There aren’t even tracks in the dirt to prove it ever was. My heart sinks.
“We’re too late,” I say, my teeth gnashing as I march forward anyhow.
Wes doesn’t leave the truck, and I don’t ask him to. This place isn’t dangerous, and I get why he has mixed feelings about being here. The way I felt about losing my home earlier isn’t something he would understand, because he never really had a place. He has a family now, though. And he has me. But this…it’s just a trailer that once held a bunch of old junk.
I glance back at him when I reach the ramp leading to the door. His hands are resting on the wheel, and he lifts one to raise his hat to let me know he’s watching me. I turn back and climb the slope, not sure whether to expect it to be unlocked or not, knowing that my knock will be useless. I rap my knuckles on the door anyway, and it rattles from my touch. I can see a light shining through the crack, so I twist the knob and pull, the door opening easily.
“Hello?” I call into the space before the door is fully opened, a small sliver of hope still alive in my chest that Shawn will call back, that he’ll be smiling and welcome me, and tell me that he was wrong, that the police are wrong, that my dad was mistaken, and we’re not in any danger. I give myself exactly one breath to swim in the fantasy, and then I push the door wide.
The room is empty, except for the coffee table that we set our water on when Kyle and I visited Shawn the first time. The walls are freshly painted in a bright white, and the smell is strong throughout the trailer. The costumes are gone, and the framed memorabilia that filled the wall behind where the sofa once sat has disappeared as well.
I spend a full minute soaking in what’s left—the nothing that I’m surrounded by, as if it’s all been erased. Eventually, I move into the kitchen area, opening the fridge hoping there’s some sign of something, not even a bottle of water left inside. I grow manic, and I begin to pull open drawers, flip through cabinets, peer through the small space where the fridge butts against the cabinet wall. The place is spotless, ready to sell.
The small bedroom in the back is the same—closets bare, the floor clean. Carpet probably never existed in here given Shawn’s mobility, but the vinyl floor that is there looks almost new. If I didn’t have Kyle with me when I came, or Wes outside waiting for me now, I could easily believe I was going mad.
I leave nothing unopened or unsearched, even floor vents and light covers. I tap on the walls, and I run my hand along wood panels hoping to find something loose, but eventually I’m forced to give up. I leave the lights just as I found them, the one in the living room on, and I step back outside into the morning sun. I’m sure I’ll get a detention for missing
first and second hours, and I’m surprised my dad hasn’t lit up my phone wondering where I am yet. He was planning to leave our house minutes after I did. It’s been a long time since I’ve spent my day in study hall though, and I almost look forward to it. I won’t have to talk to anyone, I’ll get to catch up on the things I didn’t get done last night. The only sad part is missing photography, but my heart’s not even in that today.
Turning to push the door closed behind me, I take my phone from my pocket and open my camera, snapping a shot of the pretend world left behind. Maybe I’ll do something with it in class, or maybe I’ll just use it to remember that this is the crazy shit that happens to girls like me.
I push the door shut, not bothering to lock it, then move down the ramp toward the truck. Wes hasn’t moved much, his hands resting on the wheel, his head still cocked to one side. He didn’t expect to find answers here either, and I suppose he shouldn’t. All he’s ever found here are lies.
My shoulders lower and my energy is drained as I cross over the concrete walkway leading to the ramp, into the dirt and back to Wes’s truck, happy that at least I have him waiting for me. We make eye contact briefly when I get inside, but only long enough for me to shake my head and confirm what he already knows.
I tug on the strap for my seatbelt as he starts his truck and begins to back away from the trailer, but it’s twisted, so I turn in my seat and release it to get more slack. Wes drives slowly as I pull the belt away again, my eyes adjusting from the inside of the cab to the tall weeds and electric posts clustered outside. Standing tall, the only thing not obscured from overgrowth, is a bright-red mailbox, so shiny I’m sure it was recently painted, too. The flag on the side is flipped up, and in a weird paradox, the flag…it’s not painted, but rather rusted and original—one small detail left behind.
Mail.
