Jacey put the sodden lock of hair back in her mouth and stared at Keri until she turned away. Then Jacey stood and picked up her chair. For a moment Rakmen thought she might throw it. Instead she carried it around the table and wedged in next to his. He turned to the obits, ignoring her.
An undulating wail from upstairs fractured the uneasy pause.
Even the little ones bickering over toys in the corner fell silent. Jacey shifted closer to Rakmen. Keri gasped, froze. So much for her being in charge.
The crying rose a notch, and Molly shot a pleading look at Rakmen. Do something, she mouthed.
His limbs were leaden, but he pushed back from the table. If he could help anyone, which he doubted he could, he would want to help Molly. He turned on the crappy old dehumidifier, which rattled even louder than the lights buzzed, muffling the sounds from upstairs. It was the best he could do.
Exhaustion poured through Rakmen. This day needed to end. But when he turned back to the group, they were all watching him. He leaned against the wall and tipped his head back to avoid their eyes.
Every day ended like this, and every day he wondered how he could survive another one.
“Here’s the deal,” he said, talking to the ceiling tiles. “We’re all in a club no one wants to join. We hang out. Our moms cry.”
Jacey whimpered like a kicked dog.
“At least here, everybody knows you’re missing something.”
“Like a leg?” Jacey asked, her need for answers a gaping wound.
Keri opened and closed her mouth like a fish. The worthless woman was swimming in the wrong pool, but Rakmen knew exactly what Jacey meant. “Yeah, it’s exactly like you’re missing a leg, but no one can see that it’s gone.”
The stuffy basement was suddenly crammed full of the dead. Molly was digging her nails into the soft flesh of her upper arms. The girl next to her blacked out the unicorn drawing in long steady strokes with a Sharpie. The twins looked ready to break the table in half. The little ones playing blocks began to cry.
“How do we walk?” Jacey whispered.
Even though he could barely hear her, Rakmen felt her question in his bones. He thought he might sink through the floor into the heavy earth. Maybe then he could rest.
The girl started to sob. She was looking to him for answers he didn’t have.
“I don’t know,” he pleaded, “with a limp, I guess.”
CHAPTER 2
Even after Rakmen retreated to his room that night, the girl’s question gnawed at him. She’d burrowed into things he kept tucked away and expected him to have answers.
He didn’t have answers.
He didn’t have anything.
Rakmen flicked off the light, abandoning the pretense of studying for tomorrow’s biology test. Once he’d dreamed of architecture school. At this rate, he’d be lucky to finish high school. It was all so much empty effort.
The dishwasher gurgled in the kitchen downstairs. The orange glow of the street light illuminated the room, stripped to the bare essentials—twin bed, black desk, straight-backed chair. The stuff Rakmen used to care about—scale models of bridges and posters of snowboarders—were in a landfill somewhere. Tenuous heights and steep slopes made him think of snapped necks and shattered skulls. He hadn’t been to the mountain since Dora died.
Rakmen slid into bed and pulled a pillow over his head to block the noise of traffic. When he finally slept, he dreamed of biology—deformed frogs and genetic mutations.
“¡Despiértate!” His mother shook him awake.
He couldn’t have been asleep more than a few minutes.
“Huh? What?” Rakmen fumbled for the clock—almost midnight. “Yeah?”
Illuminated by traces of orange light from outside, she sat in his desk chair, cell phone muffled against her chest. The strain on her face brought him fully awake, chest thudding.
He sat up. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, “I don’t know. There’s a little girl on the phone and says she has to talk to you.”
“Who?” he asked, rubbing his temples.
“Jacey. Your biology teacher’s daughter.”
His head was thick with sleep. The gears turned slowly. Jacey. The girl from the basement. “What’s she want?”
“She won’t talk to me. Says it has to be you.”
“How does she even have your number?”
“I gave it to her mom after group last night.” She held out the phone.
He squinted against the screen’s blue light and started to lie back down. “She needs to talk to you. Not me.”
“¡Tomalo!” His mother whispered the command. He shook his head. She tugged on his blanket and pushed the phone toward him. Every part of her body said you will talk to her.
Rakmen sat back up. “Fine.”
His mother sat back down in the desk chair.
“Hello?”
A long-held breath whooshed through the phone, followed by a sob. “It’s you,” she said, her voice sounding younger than he remembered. Another deep breath. “Make it stop,” she wailed, loud enough for his mom to hear.
“What are you talking about?”
A series of breathy hiccups came through the phone. He waited. More hiccups. He yawned again, squeezing the bridge of his nose with a free hand and extending the phone to his mother. He needed to sleep, not talk to a messed-up little girl.
A tremendous crash exploded through the phone. Both Rakmen and his mother jumped. He snapped the phone back to his ear in time to hear another crash.
Jacey gulped like a drowning girl. “My mom’s crying and breaking plates.”
Rakmen’s mom raised her eyebrows in question.
Another plate hit the wall.
“So your mom’s really missing the baby tonight,” he said, not bothering to make it a question. The answer was loud enough.
“Uh huh,” said Jacey. “And . . . and . . .” The words were traffic-jamming in her mouth. “Rakmen . . .”
“Yeah?”
“My dad’s at work and . . . ” Another plate shattered. “ . . . and she’s trapped!”
For a split second, Rakmen thought of calling 911. They needed professional help. Someone other than him. But there was no fixing what was wrong in that family.
He knew that from experience.
“You have to make her understand.” Jacey’s voice shook. “I didn’t mean anything bad.”
“What did you do?” Fear rose in Rakmen. He knew how unstable grief could make parents.
“I dreamed about Jordan—that’s my baby—and us and you. And we were all okay. We were someplace sunny.”
“Then what?”
“I woke up and told her about it.”
Rakmen covered his face with one hand. “You shouldn’t have—”
Another crash. There wouldn’t be any plates left.
“You have to talk to her.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“It’s the middle of the—”
“I’ll take the phone to her.” On the other end of the line, he could hear Jacey getting up from wherever she was sitting. Another plate shattered. Rakmen was wide awake now. He imagined the star-like explosion frozen in mid-fall for the space between heartbeats, and then the shards clattered to the floor.
“Wait!” he shouted and heard her sit back down again. “Jacey-girl. I can’t—”
Jacey cut him off. “You can! I had a dream!”
“Hey, why don’t you talk to my mom for a while? She’s good with this stuff. You know, she’s been there.”
“But I had a dream!”
“Jacey, Martin Luther King had a goddamn dream. You had a nightmare. So did your mom.”
“My baby brother was not a nightmare!” she shrieked.
Rakmen held the phone away from his ear. Jacey’s screech transformed into wild, rolling sobs. He had nothing for her. There was no stopping the plates. Rakmen handed the phone to his mom and pulled the cover
s over his head.
The wet warmth of his own breath filled the claustrophobic space under the blankets. He heard his mother crooning something soft and soothing. He willed her to leave.
Jacey howled his name as if she could drag him to her through the phone. Rakmen flattened his hands against his ears and listened to the rush of his own blood. From inside the cave of blankets, Rakmen heard the distant shattering of one more plate before the call ended. He held his breath and waited for his mom to get up and go.
Instead, she tore away the covers. “Come on.”
“You can’t be serious.”
She made one of those faces.
“We don’t know them. We don’t even know where they live.”
“La señora was in group tonight. That’s all I need to know.” His mom’s voice was hard. “They live close.”
“You’re crazy,” Rakmen muttered, groping for the blankets.
“Oh no, you don’t. You’re coming with me. I don’t know what is going on over there, but that little girl wants you. You know I know where her mama is right now. Let’s go.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Si, mijo. Get dressed. ¡Ahorita!” She flicked the overhead light on as she left the room.
He groaned and slid out of bed. When she spoke Spanish, you pretty much had to do what she said. As Rakmen pulled on his jeans, he stumbled into the desk and sent his biology folder crashing. His notes scattered across the floor. Nothing good would come of this.
. . .
Pelting raindrops glowed in the halogen lights of the Plaid Pantry on the corner as his mom parked in front of a boxy, brown house. Dandelions and crabgrass grew in the cracks crisscrossing the front walk. A single pot of pansies was on the front step.
“Can’t I wait in the car?”
“No,” his mom snapped.
“She’s my teacher. This is weird.”
“The little girl wants you.”
“Why?”
“She can tell you’re a kind person.”
Rakmen ducked his head, breath in his throat. His mom might as well have punched him.
“Let’s go,” she said, propelling him out of the car and up to the door. Rakmen hung back, slouched against the rain, while she knocked, waited, and knocked harder.
“Leah!” she called through the door. “It’s me. Mercedes. From Promise House.”
The solid door squealed open a crack. Mrs. Tatlas’s pale face seemed to float in the dim light. The plate crashing and crying had done a job on her. She looked like a wadded-up paper towel. One white-knuckled hand clenched the door frame. Her eyes darted between them. “What are you doing here?”
“Jacey called,” said his mother, trying to squeeze under the eaves and out of the rain. The barely contained hysteria in Mrs. Tatlas repelled Rakmen. He stood as far back as he could. An icy finger of rain snaked down his neck, and he shivered.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His mom shrugged and ventured a half-smile. “I guess she found my number in your phone and seemed to think that you might need someone to talk to.”
“And you came in the middle of the night?” Disbelief laced her words. “You both came?”
His mom shrugged again, and Rakmen fought the urge to bolt to the car and lock the doors behind him. Jacey slid into view behind her mother, eyes fixed on Rakmen’s face like tractor beams. He stepped back involuntarily, wanting to move out of range.
“Can we come in?” his mom asked.
Mrs. Tatlas swayed slightly. “I don’t . . . It’s really late.”
But Jacey pulled the door open wide.
Mrs. Tatlas was in her pajamas. Under the thin blue T-shirt, Rakmen could see the outline of her breasts. The flannel bottoms were torn in one knee, and he could see flesh there too. She was like a body at a crime scene, no longer capable of modesty. He wanted to cover her with a sheet. Instead he looked away.
Mrs. Tatlas stepped aside for them to enter, shut the door behind them and turned on Jacey. “What have you done?” The girl hid behind those scraggly bangs. She wore a patterned nightgown. Dogs or rabbits. An animal of some kind. Her bare feet unnerved him.
“Look,” said his mom. “It’s no big deal. Everybody needs somebody to talk to sometimes.”
Mrs. Tatlas lifted her hands, and for a second Rakmen thought she might slap Jacey, but instead her arms dropped to her sides, too heavy to hold. “My husband, George, is working tonight, and I—”
“Come on. Got any tea?” Rakmen’s mom guided Mrs. Tatlas into her own kitchen, leaving Rakmen and Jacey in the dark entry hall.
He sat down on the staircase. The carpet between his feet was stained. Something dark. Something old. Another family’s mess. Next to him, Jacey’s fingers crumpled and uncrumpled the fabric of her nightgown against her thighs. He could hear the faint, wet sound of her chewing on her hair.
In the kitchen, the faucet went on then off. The kettle went on the burner with a metallic clunk, followed by the whoosh of gas. “Broom?” his mother murmured. A moment later, he heard bristles on linoleum and the clatter of porcelain shards. Things break and go in the trash. And he was always overhearing.
“I’m sorry she called you,” said Mrs. Tatlas.
“Hard night?”
Beside him, Jacey’s breathing was fast and shallow.
“You should go back to bed,” he told her.
Jacey shook her head. She was not a pretty girl. Not the kind who got her cheeks pinched. Not like Dora, whom he’d watched sleep, her lips moving in that other-worldly baby way. Not like Dora, who had been beautiful.
Jacey shifted next to him, her bare feet shuffling against the ratty carpet. A nondescript, unremarkable girl in a crumbling house.
The kitchen voices rose.
“One of the girls in my fifth period class had a baby boy last night.”
“Dios mío.”
“And he’s fine!” Mrs. Tatlas’s voice cranked up. “She’s sixteen. Smokes cigarettes. Drinks Red Bull. Eats like crap. Her baby’s fine and mine’s . . . ” The volume dropped, muffled by tears.
Marissa.
Rakmen knew she did worse than smoke cigarettes, much worse. Juan had screwed her at a party where they were all doing crank and tequila shots, back when it didn’t seem possible that they could mess things up very bad.
“We’d tried for a long time after Jacey was born,” said Mrs. Tatlas. “We really wanted two. And Jacey—that little goose has been begging for a baby brother practically since she could talk.”
Next to him, Jacey started to cry.
It was always this. Women crying. Men leaving. Him overhearing.
Rakmen stood up. “Come on,” he told Jacey. “Let’s go upstairs. I’ll read you a story or something.”
She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and padded up the stairs. Jacey passed the doorway to her room where the pink glow of a lava lamp oozed across the walls and the green safari net over her bed billowed in a blast of hot air from the floor vent. Instead, she opened the door of the nursery. Blue walls, freshly-painted. Rocking chair. A painting of Noah’s Ark in bright colors.
Rakmen hung back. “Let’s go to your room and find a book.”
Jacey ran her finger along the crib rail. “This was mine when I was a baby, but we lived in a different house.”
A teddy bear slumped next to a carefully folded quilt on an unwrinkled sheet. This room had never seen spit-up or dirty diapers or late-night feedings. It smelled like fabric softener and the sterile aisles at Babies-R-Us.
It did not smell like baby.
Rakmen picked at the torn lining of his jacket pocket, trying not to remember Dora’s sweet, milky breath.
Downstairs, Mrs. Tatlas’s voice rose again, fractured and staccato.
Rakmen stepped inside, shut the nursery door behind him, and leaned against it, heaviness sucking him down. Jacey lifted a wooden chest the size of a shoe box from the end of the crib and carried it to the rocking chair. When she sa
t, her feet didn’t touch the ground.
“Shouldn’t he feel close?” she asked, clasping the box to her chest. “It’s only been a few months. I thought he’d hang around. But I don’t feel him at all. That’s why the dream made me happy. Because Jordan was with us. And Mom was happy. I thought she’d want to know.”
Rakmen dropped his head to his chest. Dreams were empty cribs and unused bedrooms. “She’s upset about the girl at school,” he said.
“I know.” Jacey stretched one toe to the floor and rocked herself in the chair. The wood creaked rhythmically.
“What’s in the box?”
“My brother’s ashes. Wanna see them?” She went to open the lid.
“No!” Rakmen snapped.
Jacey shut it and glared at him. “Fine. I’ll show you his picture instead.”
She put the box back in the crib, patted it softly, and tucked the stuffed bear in next to it. She gestured for him to come to the changing table by the window. Rakmen pushed off the door and crossed the room to her. Morning was only a few hours away. He needed sleep before he had to get through another day.
On the changing table, Jacey had arranged a series of objects. She touched them one by one. “Jordan’s rattle. Mom’s hospital bracelet—I saved it from the trash. And look at this list.” She crinkled a piece of paper in front of his nose. It held a list of names written in misshapen, fourth grade print: Jonah, Benjamin (Ben), Samuel, Max, Martin, Jordan. The last name on the list was circled in pink marker, and she’d drawn little hearts around it.
“When we picked the name, Mom and Dad and I had a party with cupcakes. Dad said he wasn’t going to be outnumbered anymore.” She took back the list and replaced it near a tiny pair of mint green socks and one of those bulbs for sucking snot out of baby noses.
“Here,” said Jacey, holding out a piece of stiff paper.
He didn’t want to take it.
She shook it at him, frowning.
He took it. The certificate was from the hospital. Jordan Timothy Tatlas. Weight 6 lbs 11 ounces. Stillborn December 21. There were two footprints. The left slightly turned in. A wispy chunk of brown hair was taped below the photo of the baby’s slightly squashed newborn face, eyes squeezed shut, lips the color of dried blood.
The Way Back from Broken Page 2
