But sometimes we can’t have what we want.
“I’d walk you to work tonight if I could,” I say, breaking our shared silence. “I just can’t.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, but I can tell from her voice that she’s already nervous.
“I’ll be there at eleven to walk you home,” I say. “Newie, too, if he can pry his dick out of Erika.”
Annie snorts. “Who are you kidding? Newie’s going to have that Tenzar slut on her back all night.”
“He’ll be there,” I assure her. “He’s Newie. He told me he’ll be there, so he’ll be there.” That’s the one thing about Newie. He might only have two brain cells fighting for territory, but if he says he’ll do something, then he’ll do it. Besides, he’ll most likely chicken out and not do anything with Erika, anyway. She’s carrying half the diseases we read about in that thick book from health class, the one with the nasty pictures and the warning labels about how this could happen to you.
“Your mom’s at Tenzar’s?” I ask her as I unconsciously reach into my shirt pocket to make sure the grocery money is there.
“You making dinner again?” Annie asks me. She sounds sad when she says it, like she’s commiserating with me about how both our home lives suck.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Probably something easy like frozen pizza. Everyone seems to like that.” In my head, I hear myself sigh with relief, because you don’t need any utensils to eat a frozen pizza—not even a spoon. That means Becky’s eating with her hands tonight, which makes me feel a little less uneasy about her.
As we reach Annie’s house, she leans over and gives me a quick kiss before turning away.
“Hey,” I yell after her.
“What?”
“You okay?”
“About as okay as you are, I guess.”
She turns to head back into her house again, and I say, “Don’t do anything stupid, please.” Annie stops. I see her back go stiff. I think I’ve plucked a nerve, the one that feeds her need to lock herself in the upstairs bathroom for a little alone time with a razor blade. I’m immediately sorry for saying anything. I already snagged her this morning. I don’t have to dredge it up again this afternoon. She turns around and walks back to me.
“Can’t you just leave it alone?”
I want to. I really do—but the simple answer is, no, I can’t leave it alone. “What do you want me to say, Annie? You can’t keep doing that to yourself, or someone’s going to wise up and throw you in the state school over in Bellingham.”
Her eyes narrow into slits. “You mean like where Becky should be?”
It’s like getting a slap in the face. Her words come out of nowhere and they sting. Sometimes we hear stories about Bellingham State—about how the patients are left to sit in their own urine for days on end—about how they shit themselves until their giant diapers are full and fat.
“That’s not fair,” I tell her. “I can’t do anything about that.”
“Well, I can’t, either,” she says. “Becky can sit in your house and go freaking crazy if she wants to, but I’ve found a way that helps me make sense of it all. Don’t tell me to stop doing that, because if you tell me to stop, you’re going to end up making me go crazy—like your sister.”
I want to tell her that, in some ways, she already is, but it won’t do any good. I just have to take a deep breath and hope that, eventually, Annie can exorcise her demons with something other than a sharp piece of metal.
I close my eyes and try to summon up the ear worm in my head again. I want it to eat up every bit of the past twenty-four hours and help me find peace, but no matter what I want, it doesn’t come.
All that’s left are Annie’s words cutting into me like a knife, and the only thing I hear myself saying is, “You’ll never be crazy like Becky, Annie. Trust me. Never like her.”
23
I BUY TWO FROZEN pizzas at Tenzar’s and endure a conversation with Mrs. Ruddick, who used to play canasta with my mother. There’s something about her that screams “not from Apple.” Middle-aged women here don’t dress up to go grocery shopping. They’re more likely to be wearing sweats and oversized shirts to hide the fact that they’re losing the battle of the bulge. Some even go out with curlers in their hair.
“How’s your mother, Jackson?” she purrs in that damned superior voice of hers that makes me feel like I’m scum. I’m standing in front of the freezers, deciding between hamburger and pepperoni, and trying to remember if my grandfather doesn’t like one or the other.
“Okay,” I tell her. Mrs. Ruddick isn’t the kind of person you lie to. If she doesn’t like what you have to say, she’ll make up something else and spread it around like summer mulch—the kind that encourages weeds to grow through it.
“We haven’t seen her out and about lately.”
I’m not sure who the “we” is that she’s referring to, unless she’s talking about the “royal we.”
“My grandfather’s in a wheelchair now,” I say. I’m still not lying. I’m just dancing with words. “He needs a lot of help.” I’m hoping that Mrs. Ruddick goes away soon, because I don’t want to endure any more questions. I already got interrogated by Ms. Hutch this morning. That’s about my limit for the day. Besides, the last thing I want is for Mrs. Ruddick to ask about Becky, because she’s exactly the kind of person who’d pry like that.
I’m pretty good at switching the subject.
“Do you know which one of these is better?” I ask, as I hold up two different brands of pizza with pictures on the boxes that don’t look anything like the flash-frozen disks inside.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” she says, which is exactly what I expect her to say. “We always buy our pizza fresh. It’s so much tastier that way.”
Of course you do, you stuck-up bitch. Go back to Boston or Springfield or wherever you’re from, because you’re certainly not from around here. “Thanks, anyway.”
I put the more expensive one back in the big freezer and take two of the cheaper ones. “I’ll tell my mom you said hello.”
“Yes, please,” she calls after me, but I’ve already gone down the snacks aisle.
I see Annie’s mother at the registers. I feel sorry for Mrs. Berg. She wears her long gray hair in a ponytail, and her face is dried up and mottled like a piece of old fruit. Her lips are cracked, and I can tell she’s jonesing for a cigarette. Mrs. Berg’s been working at Tenzar’s ever since I can remember. When I was a kid, she used to turn the other way when Newie and I swiped candy bars from the rows of crap next to the registers. I thought she was cool like that—but more likely than not, letting us commit petty larceny was just her way of giving her middle finger to the Tenzars for being rich people from up on the hill who still paid her next to nothing.
When she sees me, she waves her hand and calls me over, brushing a few long strands of hair out of her face and pulling on her shirt to make the wrinkles disappear. I go stand in line at her register. She’s running groceries through for a fat lady wearing dirty sweats that are way too tight. They’re almost flesh-colored, which makes her look like she’s naked from the waist down. It’s not a pretty sight. I look at the bounty she’s buying and note things like Pop-Tarts and Oreos and butter—lots and lots of butter. I wonder if she applies it directly to her thighs to make gaining weight more efficient.
Mrs. Berg takes a handful of coupons from the fat lady and runs them through the scanner, then waits patiently while the fat lady slides her debit card through and punches in her access code—five digits long, the same number of people that are going to die this fall in Apple.
Five will die.
Five will die.
Five will die.
I grimace and try to recall the ear worm, but Mrs. Berg brings me back to reality. “Jackson?” she says.
“Hi.” I put
the pizzas down in front of her and fish around in my pocket for the grocery money.
“How are you doing, honey?” she asks with tired eyes and a sad smile. I know she’s really asking how I’m doing since finding Claudia Fish in the woods.
I shrug. “Okay, I guess.” I don’t want to talk about death anymore. I don’t want to think about it. I search around my head for something else to say, and thankfully, it comes easily. “So Annie’s starting at the BD Mart tonight?” It’s not really a question, because I already know the answer. I just want to make conversation that’s not about murder.
“Yes, she is,” says Mrs. Berg. “I really wish I could drive her, but I have to work late.” Tenzar’s is open until eleven on Friday and Saturday nights because it’s about the only place around where you can buy groceries on the weekends.
I like Mrs. Berg. Something inside of me urges me to ease her pain. “I told Annie I’d meet her after work,” I say, mustering about as much cheerfulness as I can. “I’ll make sure she gets home okay.”
Mrs. Berg stops what she’s doing. She reaches out and touches my cheek for a moment. It’s a little weird. “You’re such a good boy, Jackson.”
Her words feel like déjà vu. My face gets hot, and I think I turn a little red. “Newie’s going to meet us, too,” I blurt out.
“That’s good,” she says. Mrs. Berg finishes sliding the pizzas under the scanner and tells me how much they are, which is way cheaper than buying the fresh crap that Mrs. Ruddick says is so much tastier.
“She’ll be fine,” I reassure her as I bag the pizzas myself. Mrs. Berg smiles that sad smile again, which really isn’t a smile at all. It’s a novel written on her face about lost lives and abusive marriages and unspeakable things that go on behind closed doors.
As I leave, right before the exit, there’s a bell hanging on the wall with a sign above it that says, Ring if you’ve received good service. I guess I did, so I ring it as I go. The check-out people at the registers, all four of them, stop what they’re doing and clap a few times.
It’s weird, just like Mrs. Berg touching my face.
I feel smothered in Tenzar’s, with its depressing people going through their depressing lives. People like Mrs. Ruddick, who must have one hell of a story to tell about how she ended up in the armpit of Massachusetts, or Mrs. Berg, who doesn’t realize she’s already in Hell, running a cash register and ringing up food on a black conveyor belt without end.
People like me, who find dead bodies in the woods, and it’s not even the worst part of their day.
I make my way up Main Street, past some nameless stores, and try not to look at anyone. I need to mentally prepare myself for whatever I’m going to find at home. Will it be screaming today? Will I find my mother slumped over at the kitchen table, her expression vacant and far away? Will my grandfather be upstairs, cursing out the remote because he can’t remember that you have to set the television to channel three in order to make the cable box work?
When I pass Francine’s Fire House, I absentmindedly look in the window. It’s not quite dinnertime yet, so only old folks are in there. They’re buying the early-bird special before five, the one that comes with salad and dessert that they’ll wolf down as quickly as they can so they can get home and hide from Apple.
I pass Zodiac Tattoo Parlor, with its darkened windows and its ever-changing bulletin board filled with photographs of arms and legs and chests that have been permanently scarred for some stupid reason. Of course, all the burnouts and addicts think it’s funny to get a tattoo of an apple with a razorblade stuck in it and blood dripping out. There are other winners, too, like zippers that are half-open showing peeled back skin and bits of guts, or skeletons with snakes squirming through their vacant eye sockets.
Just like the chief’s.
Through the window of Three Penny’s, I see a young mother with two little kids looking at hand-me-down coats for winter. She seems familiar, like maybe she graduated when Becky was supposed to, or dropped out because she got knocked up. I try to imagine Annie in there instead of her, but I can’t. I don’t want that for her.
When I walk by The Gin Mill and Millie’s Café, I quicken my pace. I don’t like the biker dudes that hang out front. Normally, I’d stop at Nick’s, but Newie and I were both dicks to Old Nick yesterday, and knowing Old Nick, he’ll need more than a day to cool off.
I brood most of the way home. I don’t remember walking down the rest of Main Street or turning onto Vanguard Lane, but once I’m in front of my house, reality comes crashing down, and I realize that I don’t want to go inside. I don’t want to know what I’ll find there.
It turns out I’m right.
I don’t.
24
THERE’S A CANDLE lit and sitting on the oak desk in the living room. It’s one of those scented ones that smells like fall. The label’s been peeled off, so I can’t see what flavor it is, but it reminds me of what the house used to smell like when my grandmother made Sunday morning breakfast—like baked McIntosh and cinnamon and caramel all mixed together.
Anywhere else in Massachusetts, it would smell like autumn.
In Apple, autumn smells like death.
I don’t know why my mother lit it in the first place. Back when she was still my mom and not a sad shell hiding in the dark, she had this thing she did after she cleaned a room. She would light a candle. Sometimes Becky and I would come home from school, and we would find a clean house and a different scent burning in every room.
I loved that—my mother’s little cleaning ritual—but my mother doesn’t clean anymore, so leaving a candle burning in the living room is only a tease. Life here will never be like it was before.
I blow out the candle and watch the end of the wick turn from red to black. A trail of smoke rises up into the air and vanishes, just like the memories of a time when my life was relatively normal—back when my sister was just Becky, Suzie Zickle, and the obsessive nun—back before Not-Becky.
The house is quiet, which is good, but there’re unwashed dishes in the sink from breakfast. There’s also white stuff all over the kitchen counter that looks like sugar. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think my mother tried to be normal for a change and bake a batch of cookies or a pie. After all, she did light a single candle. Maybe there’s hope for her yet.
I drop the grocery bag on the kitchen table and immediately go into after-school mode, which means washing the dishes and tidying up the kitchen to get ready for dinner.
I run a couple of paper towels under the faucet and wipe the white stuff off the counter. Some of it gets on my hand, and I absentmindedly stick my finger in my mouth.
I’m right, it is sugar.
I look around to see if there’s actually any evidence of baked goods, but it’s been two years since my mom’s done stuff like that. There’s not, so I only shrug and wash the dishes in the sink before putting them on the drying rack. Then I open the freezer and put the two pizzas on the shelf, because it won’t be dinner time for a couple more hours.
When I’m done, I quietly make my way down the hallway to my parents’ room and lightly knock on the door.
Nothing.
I knock again, but there’s still no response, so I softly push it open. My mother’s cocooned in blankets on the bed. She’s sleeping. I can hear her faint snores in the darkness. I take a step into the room and sniff to make sure she didn’t fall asleep with a cigarette in her hand. She actually did that once before and only woke up when her fingers started to blister against the heat of the smoldering ash.
I spent three weeks rubbing her hand every day with an over-the-counter cream from Jolly’s Pharmacy, because she refused to leave the house to see a doctor.
My mother doesn’t leave the house for anything anymore. She hides in her black pool and only comes up for air when she has to eat or put on a face for my d
ad or creepy Father Tim. She always puts on a face for Father Tim, slipping on a fake, cheery skin-mask over her own.
Thankfully, I don’t smell any smoke in my mother’s darkened room today. It smells of something else though, like a mixture of illness and despair. I’ve come to realize that both have a distinct odor—like the faint stench of my grandfather’s apartment upstairs—but his is also flavored with a touch of resignation. Old people’s homes all smell like that.
“Screw this,” I whisper under my breath, loosely translated as “I’m outta here—this house, this town, everything,” but I know I don’t mean it. Sure, I’m angry at my mother, but I’m madder at myself for being pissed. She’s sick, like my sister. Still, it’s all I can do to keep from shaking her. If she would only wake up from her stupor long enough to remember that she has a house and a family to take care of, maybe everything would get better—but who am I fooling?
Instead, I leave her in that dark room, clicking the door closed behind me and padding back down the hallway to the kitchen. Without really knowing why, I open up the cabinet where all the medications are and pull out one of the orange bottles with the white lids. It’s covered with sugar, too, so I know she’s taken her pills today—I just don’t understand why they don’t work.
She’s supposed to take them to keep the darkness at bay, to not let it in like a stray cat that curls around her head and smothers her brain.
Her pills are useless. Why doesn’t my father see that? Maybe he’s waiting for his precious God to notice for him.
I still have other chores to do, like checking on my grandfather, so I open the door to the back staircase and slowly climb the narrow stairs to his apartment.
The candle scent has permeated the whole house. It makes my nose tingle and reminds me that I once thought the smell of apple was nice. Now it only reeks of rot.
“Pa?”
He doesn’t answer.
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