by Julia Keller
“Lois ain’t home,” Herb said. His meaning was clear: So get the hell out. He was looking at the old woman now. Not angrily, but indifferently, his eyes trimmed down to slits. As Belfa had discovered right away, Herb McCluskey’s mood rarely rose to the level of true anger. She had been around mean, destructive men before—chief among them was her father, Donnie Dolan—and Herb McCluskey was not that way. Bitter, yes. Frustrated, absolutely. But not violent. In a strange way, it made her think less of him. He didn’t flail helplessly in the grip of some furious, uncontrollable rage; he was just easily irritated. Herb McCluskey wouldn’t have made a decent villain. Like most people—this, too, was an idea that would only come to Belfa many years later, long after she’d left this place and the other places like it—Herb was simply overwhelmed by circumstances. And a little bit lazy. And a little bit stupid. Herb McCluskey was too small to be evil. Too petty. He lacked the drive, the imagination.
Crystal, of course, was another story.
“Well.” The old woman nodded to Leonard as she spoke. “Give those to your mama.”
“Okay,” Leonard said.
“And guess what,” Gladys added. The information that came next was the real reason she had stopped by; her eyes had acquired a rabid gleam of anticipation. “Won some money in the lottery the other day. The scratch-off. Lucky Stars.”
The air in the room instantly changed.
“That right,” Herb said.
“Yep. Gotta figure out how to spend it.” Gladys frowned and flapped her arms in a dramatic shrug, as if a sudden influx of cash were an intolerable burden. “Once I get some bills paid off, of course.”
“Well,” Herb said, “good for you, Gladys.”
Crystal, bulling her way into the conversation, cut off the end of his sentence. “How much.” It was a challenge, not a question.
Gladys shook her head. “That ain’t polite, Crystal. You don’t ask folks that. None of your business.”
Gladys looked down at Crystal and Crystal looked up at the old woman The battle that raged over the next few seconds was waged exclusively by their stares.
“Whatever,” Crystal finally said. Without taking her eyes off Gladys Goheen’s face, she pulled a ridged chip out of the bag between her legs. Crystal’s teeth were big and yellow and hard; they looked like horse’s teeth, biting into a carrot. Shattering and sheering.
As soon as the trailer door smacked shut behind the old woman, Crystal laughed. “Crazy bitch,” she said, and there were preoccupied murmurs of agreement from her sisters and her brothers and her father, all of whom had instantly focused anew on the TV show.
____
That night the girls were parked on the floor again, although this time they were sitting upright, legs sticking out straight in front of them, waiting for their turn at the red and white cardboard bucket. Steve and Mr. McCluskey had taken seats at the small dinette in the kitchen area, elbows angled, tearing into pieces of mushy, aromatic chicken. Mrs. McCluskey was reaching into the refrigerator to fetch something. Leonard stood next to the table, peering into the bucket, deciding which sodden blob of chicken appealed to him. Before he could make up his mind, Crystal came over and bumped him away with her wide hip. She proceeded to wade through the bucket’s contents with the fingers of both hands.
“What,” she said, not looking at Leonard but definitely addressing him.
“Nothing,” he replied.
Leonard waited until she’d picked out her piece and walked away, and then he slid back into place in front of the bucket. Even though he was older than she was, he always deferred to Crystal. Everyone deferred to Crystal.
“Wonder how much the old bitch got,” Crystal said. She was backed up against the counter now, holding the chicken breast with both hands, using her front teeth to drill away at the greasy meat. A rag of light brown chicken skin had come unhooked from a corner of the piece and now dangled from it like a slimy shroud. Crystal’s lips and the area around her mouth were moist and shiny.
“No telling,” Mrs. McCluskey said. “But she can use it. Her disability check’s not a whole lot, let me tell you.”
Crystal didn’t say anything else that night about the money, but the information had hit its mark. Belfa could see that. Crystal’s eyes continued to dart around the room, even though her head remained still. Those eyes were the only part of her that moved quickly; everything else about her was slow and deliberate.
____
Steve’s knife was missing. He had worked last summer at Lymon’s grocery store, Leonard explained to Belfa, and one of the first things he’d purchased with his paycheck was a Swiss Army knife, a sleek maroon thing with a tiny white cross on it, the kind that opened into so many different tools—corkscrew, file, screwdriver, can opener, scissors—that it was like carrying a whole tool kit in your pocket. Steve adored it. When he couldn’t find it one morning, he went a little crazy, stomping around the trailer, knocking things off tabletops and bellowing his rage.
“It was right here,” he said. “Right goddamned here.”
His first instinct was to accuse Leonard, but his brother shrank away, ducking his head and denying any knowledge of its whereabouts. Steve stormed for more than an hour, ripping off the cushions from the couches, yanking out the kitchen drawers one by one and emptying the contents on the floor and then, when the knife didn’t show, sidearming the drawer away from him. He made Abigail and Tina show him the insides of their pockets. He glared at Crystal; she shook her head and shrugged.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
“When I find it—if one of you little shits took it—I swear I’m gonna—” Steve stopped, letting the threat hang in the air. He was skinny but very strong; his arms and legs reminded Belfa of the wire they wound around giant wooden spools for use on construction sites. When he’d grabbed her wrist and demanded to know if she’d taken it, Belfa wanted to cry out from the pain.
She had never seen a strong person so bereft. To Belfa’s way of thinking, strong people never got this way, never showed their emotions. That was the whole point of being strong: You were beyond this. Anger, she had witnessed often; sorrow, though, was something else. And Steve wasn’t just mad. He was grieving.
Finally he gave up. He pulled open the trailer’s flimsy screen door—nearly taking it off its hinges—and flung himself out of the place, flying off the stoop and into the woods. Belfa watched him go, and then she turned around. Crystal was watching her as she watched him. And Crystal was smiling.
____
Two mornings later, she had another encounter with Crystal. Belfa was stepping out of the shower. The four girls had to share a single towel all week long, and it was always sopping by the time Belfa got to use it. She rubbed her hair and her arms and her legs, rubbed the back of her neck, and then she wrapped the towel around her torso and tucked in the ends just above the small buds of her breasts, so that she’d be covered. She had left her clothes on the couch in the girls’ area.
The pocket door slid open. There was Crystal, looking at her. She was chewing gum, a big wad that poked out of her left cheek like a jabbing thumb.
Belfa didn’t know what to do. Did Crystal want something? Did she have something to say to her? Crystal continued to chew, her jaw revolving methodically, as if she were contemplating some deep philosophical problem.
The moment stretched on and on. Crystal still didn’t speak.
And then Belfa made a mistake: She smiled. It was a polite, nervous smile, intended to show Crystal that she just wanted to go past her and get dressed. She didn’t want any trouble. She wanted to be invisible in this family, a nonentity, making the best of things, slipping in and out, causing as little noise or fuss as possible.
Belfa’s smile, however, caused Crystal to flinch and scowl.
“The fuck you smiling at?” Crystal said, her voice scissors-sharp with annoyance. “Something funny? You laughing at something? Laughing at me, maybe.”
“No.” Belfa felt a flash of cold crazy
fear rocket through her body.
Crystal stared at her. “You,” Crystal said. That was it: “You.” Sneer in her tone. Then she turned around and left.
____
It had taken Belfa a long time to fall asleep that night because the air mattress was hotter than usual against her cheek; the plastic created a sticky continuous smear of sweat. She kept trying, however, closing her eyes and picturing Comer Creek, its steady running.
A voice slithered in her ear: “Bitch.”
Belfa didn’t move, but she opened her eyes. There was nothing to see; the trailer was tomb-dark. She was lying on her right side, hands pressed together between bent knees, and she could feel hot breath on her neck. Someone was kneeling right behind her, bending over her, whispering: “You bitch.”
She closed her eyes. Maybe she could pretend to be asleep. Maybe Crystal—it had to be Crystal—would leave her alone if she didn’t wake up.
The word darted in her ear a third time: “Bitch.”
Belfa was afraid to react. She heard heavy breathing—Crystal always breathed heavily, through her open mouth—and she felt a hand clamp her shoulder. It stayed there. Belfa found herself wishing that Crystal would do something—even something bad—just to get it over with. The tension was giving her a sick feeling in her stomach. She realized that she needed to pee. Badly. She remained absolutely still.
She felt the flat air mattress shifting under her. Crystal had removed her hand and was moving away. The trailer was still too dark to see anything but she could hear Crystal’s breathing, the husky rasp and sigh, and Belfa knew that Crystal was somewhere close, watching.
_____
The deputy sheriff named Fogelsong showed up the next day. He offered to take Belfa for a ride in his squad car but she said no. She knew she’d pay a price later for that privilege; even though Crystal wasn’t around at the time of his visit, she would hear about it. Crystal heard about everything.
Belfa and Fogelsong sat on an old picnic table a few dozen yards away from the McCluskey trailer, side by side on the sun-warmed bench seat, facing away from the table top.
“It’s not forever,” Fogelsong said.
Belfa looked at him, wondering how he knew about Crystal. Years later, she would ask him outright: How did you know? And the answer, of course, was that he didn’t know. He didn’t know specifics about the McCluskey family, only generalities, only abstractions linked to past experiences with other foster families. He wasn’t thrilled about the placement; he knew that Herb and Lois McCluskey only took in foster children because of the monthly fee provided by the county. But as he would explain to Belfa once she was an adult, the fact that the McCluskeys were in it for the money was actually a plus. It meant they wanted to stay in the county’s good graces and would not be blatantly cruel or neglectful. It wasn’t paradise, God knows, but it also wasn’t as bad as it might have been. The McCluskeys hoped to host more foster children in the future, and so they had to watch themselves. Do the bare minimum. And there was more: As long as the principal motive for having helpless and usually traumatized young children in their home for short periods of time was only money, the motive was not something darker and more sinister. Fogelsong didn’t offer up what that other motive might be, but by the time they discussed it Belfa was a prosecuting attorney herself—and he didn’t have to. She knew.
At ten years old, however, all she knew was that she’d better not say a word to him about Crystal. The punishment would be swift and severe. And she was accustomed to keeping secrets. She was very good at it. Until the night when everything had changed, no outsider knew anything about their father’s behavior. Her sister Shirley had insisted on that.
“Okay,” Belfa replied. She picked at a splinter on the seat beside her. The day was smotheringly hot, and she wondered how the deputy could stand it in his brown uniform. It looked tight and uncomfortable, the stiff shirt buttoned all the way up to his neck, the creased pants tucked into the tops of the scuffed boots. Big loops of sweat with salt-white borders had darkened the fabric under each arm. Fogelsong took off his hat and set it down on the warped wooden tabletop behind him. His hair, Belfa saw, was shaved so close to his skull that it looked like pepper sprinkled on a white paper plate.
“Thing is,” he said, “we’re doing the best we can. We’ll get you out of here, soon as possible. Didn’t want you to think otherwise.” He paused. “That lady you met. Mrs. Perkins. The one who brought you here. She’s a good woman. Does a world of good for this county.” He paused. “She’s got a tough job.” Paused again. “You’ve got a tough job, too, and we know that. The toughest.
“Your job,” he went on, answering the question in her face, “is to trust us. And your job is to get ready for the school year and do your best there, no matter what else is going on. Okay?”
She looked back down at the ground again. “Where’s Shirley?”
Fogelsong made a noise that sounded like a sigh, but then he cleared his throat, and Belfa thought she might have been mistaken about the sigh; maybe it was just part of the throat-clearing. His legs were spread wide, and he put his elbows on his knees so that he could lean out over his dangling hands and look at the ground himself when he spoke.
“I don’t want to lie to you, Belfa,” he said. “You might not see your sister for a long time, okay? Can’t be helped.”
She wanted to ask him why but didn’t. If she started to ask “Why” there would be no end to it; she would be asking it about so many things that Fogelsong would have to stick around for days while she rattled through the list.
Besides, there was a part of her that wondered if Shirley might just show up one day, out of the blue. Belfa would come back from the creek and—there. Shirley would be right there, standing in a dazzle of sunlight, holding out her hand, calling to her, whispering urgently: “Come on, Belfa. Quick, now! Before anybody sees us. Let’s go.” It wasn’t completely out of the question. Shirley always had a plan. On the night their father died, Shirley had seemed very certain about all that was to happen next in their lives. Having mapped out the steps and all the possible contingencies, Shirley told Belfa to leave her alone in the kitchen with their father, who slept in a chair, his snores sounding like ripping strips of Velcro. Then Shirley had started the fire; called 9-1-1; gotten herself and Belfa out of the trailer; explained to Belfa that they’d be separated now and that Shirley would be leaving for a long time. She had made Belfa promise not to try to contact her. But maybe Shirley was on her way back, even now. Maybe that was the next step in the plan. And Belfa’s job was to wait, and while she waited, to put up with whatever happened to her. To not make a fuss. Once you learned how to keep secrets, there were always more secrets to keep.
The sheriff talked about other things for a few minutes. He wanted to know how much she was eating. If she was sleeping okay. Mrs. Perkins had left some donated clothes for Belfa when she dropped her off here, and Fogelsong pointed to the sleeveless yellow blouse she was wearing and asked if it was one of the garments supplied by Mrs. Perkins.
It wasn’t—it was an old blouse that Tina had outgrown—but Belfa nodded. She had figured out that it would make Fogelsong feel better. He wanted tangible proof that something Mrs. Perkins had done for her had worked out, even if it was just a blouse.
Once again she considered telling him about Crystal, but then she realized that it wouldn’t help anything. If Fogelsong intervened, then Crystal would retaliate, once he was gone; if Fogelsong didn’t intervene, then Belfa would clearly know the depths of her aloneness, the degree to which she was now subject to the world’s whims. Better to leave well enough alone.
“One more thing,” he said.
Belfa waited.
“I know Herb McCluskey,” Fogelsong went on, after shifting his right boot back and forth a few times, forward and back. “Known him for years. He’s no prince. That’s for darned sure. And Lois—well, you’ll find this out on your own, Belfa, when you’re a little bit older, but sometimes people
get beaten down by life and bad luck. A bunch of kids—and not a lot of money—is a heckuva lot to handle. I want you to remember that, if they’re ever short with you. They don’t mean anything by it. Like I said, Herb’s no prince, but he’s not too bad. Got his weak points—but he and Lois, they try. They really do. Anyway,” he said, and his voice changed along with the word, moving away from thoughtfulness and back toward a sort of bland, singsong encouragement, “I want you to take care of yourself, and study hard in school, and make sure you realize that it’s not forever. Nothing ever is. Things’ll be different before you know it. Hang in there, okay? Just hang in there.”
____
It was the habit of the McCluskey children—and now it was Belfa’s habit, too—to spend the long summer days by the creek, sitting in the mud and grass at water’s edge while they threw in rocks and sticks. It was cooler down there, and the woods gave the place an enchanted air of separation from the rest of the world. Summer heat made the air feel heavy everywhere, but at the creek, the heaviness seemed temporarily suspended, raised about the surface of things, like a piano being winched up on a pulley to a second-floor window.
Later that day, after Fogelsong’s visit and the conversation at the picnic table, Belfa lingered down at the creek. The others left. It was the only place where she could be alone, and there were times when she needed that. Her initial comfort with the crowded trailer was diminishing. Sometimes, especially during meals when everyone was present, and too few seats around the table meant that you had to get there early or you’d end up having to sit on the floor or to eat standing up, and a sort of opportunistic chaos waited at the edge of whatever was going on, she wasn’t sure she could breath. Being by herself like this, if only for a few minutes, was heaven.
A bird flashed out of the woods. She watched it leave the green and swing straight up, its wings flat and steady at first. The sky presented the late-afternoon light—it was blue, yes, but by this time it was darkening, as the day shriveled into dusk—the way a bowl holds water, with a tremor repeatedly crossing the surface, an all-over shimmer as one color surrenders fitfully to the next.
