by Beth Vrabel
CHAPTER THREE
I walked to Jeff’s shop after school. It was only a couple miles. I think Mom would’ve freaked out about it anyway, especially if she knew about the shortcut through the woods and the bear I had seen earlier at school, but I knew Jeff wouldn’t ask how I get there. It’s funny, I used to feel super lonely in the woods. When we first moved to Ashtown from Charleston, I was too used to living in apartments and always seeing other people around, and I wouldn’t step into the forest for anything. Too quiet, too green. Landon used to bust me about it, the way I’d circle around so I could stick to sidewalks or the sides of roads. But now, the woods were the only place I didn’t feel lonely.
Convey Auto Shop sits in the gap between two roads that lead into Ashtown’s small downtown area. The Shop isn’t much to look at—cinder block walls, cement floors, splatters of grease and motor oil—but the view is pretty sweet. Across the street is the river, with a long walking trail winding around it. It was close enough to Sal’s, the pizza place, for us to have takeout almost every night (another thing Mom would’ve freaked about). And after Mom left, the guys in the Shop never stopped looking me in the eye or letting me ring up the cash register.
I found Jeff working under a shiny red Impala from the 1960s, the car’s owner hovering nearby. “Hey, kid,” Jeff said without pushing out from under the car. Guess he saw the sneakers. “How was school?”
“Fine,” I mumbled. A long counter ran the back length of the room. Jeff had plugged a desk lamp in next to one of the stools so I could do my homework. I smiled when I saw the nameplate stuck to a space over the counter: NOAH, SCHOLAR AND ASPIRING CHESS CHAMPION. I guess I was aspiring, since I had yet to beat him.
“Nearing the top of the totem pole this year,” Jeff said as I pulled up the stool and got out a notebook, acting like I had homework despite it being the first day. I had learned last year that if I looked busy, Jeff and the rest of the guys wouldn’t ask many questions. “First day of seventh grade under your belt, buddy!”
“Whatever.” I ran my pencil over the blank page, not paying attention to what I was drawing.
“Ah, come on!” Jeff pushed out from under the car. “I saw the way girls were checking you out last year.” The Impala owner snickered like he knew me.
Yeah, I might be physically bigger than a lot of the guys—in a tall, wiry way. And I guess I wasn’t ugly or anything. Mom used to say my eyes and dimples were “a recipe for eye candy.” But socially? There’s the bottom of the totem pole, and then there’s below the earth’s crust. I hovered somewhere around the molten core.
“That was last year.” The pencil point broke on the page. Jeff’s engine oil-stained hands dug into my shoulders, turning me around.
Behind him was a giant calendar hanging from a nail on the shop wall. A giant black x covered each day that had passed. Each one reminded me that three pages in, a red circle surrounded a date—November 5. FREE! was written in all caps.
“It’s been three months.” Jeff was inches from my face, forcing me to look at him. I stared at the stubble around his chin, another thing that changed since Mom’s been gone. She would’ve hounded him until he was fresh shaven. “Noah, three months since your mom … left. People will forget about it soon enough.” His breath smelled like coffee and cigarettes. “Just stay out of trouble, man. Keep your nose clean. Kids have a short memory.”
But Jeff was the one with the short memory. I had no trouble keeping track. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Nine months and twenty-one days earlier, on December 1, Coach held the pregame party. That night, Mom was arrested. Her face, a cartoon picture of shock with a circle mouth and backdrop of red and blue lights, flashed behind my eyelids. Don’t tell them, Noah! Nine months and twenty-one days since Jeff burst through the doors of the state police barracks, arguing with an officer that he could take me home, that they didn’t have to call Child Protective Services.
And that meant it’d been nine months and twenty days since the championship game. I could still hear the crunch of Micah falling, still could see him flying away from me, still feel the impact as I tackled him full force. I could still see his face, crumpled behind his helmet. I could go right back to the moment when I realized he wasn’t getting back up. When I realized I had wrecked everything.
Then the dates get a little mashed in my mind. But I know about a week passed before a police cruiser pulled up in front of the apartment Mom and I had lived in then. And then, a couple days later, I waited outside in the lobby of a public defender’s office, trying not to hear Mom’s sobs.
And then January 5, when I sat in the last pew of the district magistrate for something called a “prelim,” which I’m still not sure about but I think is like a test run of a trial. Mom sat up front next to the same tired-looking lawyer, before the judge. Next to them was a woman in a black business suit. Slowly, I had realized she was the prosecutor and I was the child she was talking about when she talked about endangerment and neglect. When she talked about severing parental rights, she was talking about Mom’s rights to me. Other words didn’t have as much effect on me, but they definitely did to Jeff, who choke-coughed when the prosecutor said the words “third offense” and “felony.”
I remember Mom standing, her shoulders shaking, when the judge said Mom had four months to get “her affairs in order,” to “figure out guardianship for her minor child,” to attend parenting classes, and enroll in “a suitable twenty-eight day detox.”
And that meant it was eight months and sixteen days since we broke our lease and moved out of the apartment with its dripping faucet and patch of grass in the middle of town and into Jeff’s bungalow on the edge of it. A week of Mom saying there’s no way they’d really make her go to jail, that this was all a big mistake we’d figure out. That finding space for everything we owned in Jeff’s little house was something we’d have done eventually, anyway. That this timing was “just in case.” And so was that meeting with the social worker and Jeff being the one officially in charge of me for school forms and permission slips.
While we’re doing math here, that means it’s been four months and twenty-one days since April 1 (April Fools’ Day, not that anyone but me noticed), when Mom left for rehab. “Think of it as test run,” she had whispered as she hugged me goodbye, “for next month.” And that’s when I knew she had been lying to me along. That this wasn’t a mistake.
And now we’re finally at the three months, like Jeff said. But technically, it’d been three months and seventeen days since May 5, the day the circuit court reconvened. That day my mom once again stood in front of a judge across from the prosecutor. The day my mom pled guilty to a reduced charge of second offense of driving under the influence of alcohol. “Do you understand that this comes with a mandatory six-month sentence in regional jail?” the judge had asked. My mom had nodded. And I realized I hadn’t told her anything she needed to know—that I loved her. That she needed to stay safe. I hadn’t told her that. And as an officer put Mom’s narrow wrists in handcuffs and led her from the room, as Jeff shook in the pew next to me, I realized I didn’t have anything to say her after all. Nothing at all.
Three months and seventeen days since I’ve seen my mother.
It sounds like a long time. It felt like a long time. But it wasn’t.
The Impala guy cleared his throat, but Jeff didn’t move, just kept staring me in the eye.
Jeff sighed when I didn’t blink. After a too-long moment, when the rest of the shop seemed blanketed with our silent stare off, he went back to the car. I grabbed a different pencil and again just sort of ran it across the page, not really thinking about anything in particular. Without even realizing it, I had sketched the blue bear from that morning.
Glen, Jeff’s chief mechanic, roared a laugh from just behind me. “Goin’ on a bear hunt?” Glen rasped. He snagged the notebook from the counter and held it under the fluorescent light like it was the Mona Lisa. Jeff won’t let anyone light up in
the Shop, but Glen still had a cigarette between his lips, bobbing up and down as he spoke, just waiting for the next break.
I shrugged. “I saw the bear hanging by the school this morning.”
“They’re becoming a nuisance round here.” Glen rolled the cigarette between his lips. “Used to be you’d only see ’em deep in the woods. Now they’re all over.”
“Can’t blame them,” the Impala owner piped in. “We’re taking over all their land. Makes me sick. Plus, idiots leave trash out all the time for them to forage.”
“Huh.” I looked over at the man. He didn’t strike me as someone who’d fight for animal rights. He wore a suit that looked about a size and a half too big and was drinking the free coffee from one of the Styrofoam cups Jeff leaves out for customers. The guy looked more like a salesman than a tree hugger.
“What?” Impala guy stared at me so hard a line formed between his eyebrows.
I shrugged. “You just don’t seem like an animal lover. Actually, you don’t look like the type to care all that much about anything but that car.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished I could’ve crammed them back in. The man’s frown dug deeper than that line between his eyebrows. All I heard in the shop were Glen’s wheezy breaths for a few seconds.
“Noah.” Jeff sighed.
Finally, the man’s frown broke and his lips curled up at the sides. “The kid sweet-talk all your customers, Jeff?” He laughed.
Jeff stood and wiped his hands on a rag. He walked over to ruffle my hair. “Only his mom’s sponsor.”
“Wh-what?” I stammered.
The Impala man put his hand out to shake. “I’m Mr. Trenton. You can call me Trenton, though.”
I stared at him. “Why does Mom need a sponsor? A sponsor for what?”
“For help and support managing substance abuse issues.” Trenton smiled like he was talking about frolicking puppies or something. I turned away and Trenton moved with me, so he was wedged against the counter in front of me. “Addicts like your mom, they need someone to look out for them, someone who’s been there.”
“So you’re an addict, too?” I sneered.
Trenton grinned. “Yep. Like your mom. I’ve been sober for more than ten years, though. I’m part of a group called Honor Healing For Recovery. We work with people to help them stay sober and out of trouble. My goal is to ease your mom’s transition back into society and her family when she’s released in a couple months. I’ll check on the two of you from time to time. Thought I’d come out and see the lay of the land. She sure misses you, kid.”
“Why would you need to meet me? I’m not the addict.”
Trenton snorted.
“What?”
“All struggles are family struggles,” Trenton said. “It’s not like this is a cakewalk for you, kid.” Trenton sidestepped so he could see Jeff. “Thought I’d get an oil change from my old buddy, too. Used to play ball together in high school.”
“Shouldn’t you have a badge or something?” I asked.
Trenton grinned, his blue eyes crinkling in the corners. Suddenly he almost seemed like a nice guy. “I’m not a prison guard or anything. Just a regular guy, so just regular clothes for me.” To Jeff, he added, “He’s just as blunt as Diane.”
Jeff smiled down at the cement floor. I wondered if his stomach got punched every time he heard Mom’s name, the way mine did. “They’re cut from the same branch.”
Those words, cut from the same branch, echoed in my ears. But when Mom and I were side by side, no one could tell we were even related. People used to ask if she was my babysitter. For the first time ever, that felt like a good thing. If we moved, like Mr. Anderson suggested, no one would even know she was my mom …
“Whatever,” I mumbled.
“Anyway, Noah, your mom said you’d gotten into some trouble—had sticky fingers at the pharmacy this summer,” Trenton said. “Pinched a bunch of candy bars, right? Well, I’ll tell you, that fits right into the profile for children of incarcerated parents. In fact, a number of studies say parental incarceration is the biggest threat to a child’s well-being in the United—”
“Trenton!” Jeff jerked his head toward me. He cleared his voice. “Noah was never charged with anything there.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Trenton shrugged. “I need to choose my words better. Always running at the mouth.”
“No filter,” Jeff said, sounding like Mom.
“So, Noah, there’s a teen meeting over at the Baptist church on Tuesday nights. We have this van that comes round. Could pick you up and you could talk—”
“No.” I grabbed my notebook back from Glen and sat down hard enough to make the stool rattle.
“It’s a good group,” Trenton said. “About fifteen kids.” When I didn’t say anything, Trenton cleared his throat. “I can see that talking too much isn’t a problem with you.”
I didn’t respond.
After a moment, Glen slowly sank into the seat next to me. He ran a hand through his short gray hair. “How big was he?”
“Who?” I grunted, not wanting to talk.
“Your bear.”
“Still practically a cub,” I said, thinking about what Rina said. “Too little for hunters this year. But it’s a blue bear.”
Glen laughed, a hoarse, sandpapery chuckle. “Some folks used to say I looked more blue than black.” He held out his big hand, turning his dark skin in the light.
I laughed, but the sound rattled around the shop. Trenton studied his coffee. Jeff kept rubbing at his hands.
I’m not sure why people get weird whenever someone talks about skin color. It’s not like Glen went and decided to be black or Trenton opted for white and Jeff decided to be something in between. People just are what they are.
“If you see that bear again, be careful, kid.” Trenton dumped his coffee cup in the trash can. He nodded toward my sketch.
“Ah, come on.” Glen chuckled. “Black bears are about as dangerous as a puppy dog.”
Trenton puffed air from his nose. “Tell that to the college kid who got attacked hiking in New Jersey last year. Black bears attack a person every year in North America.”
“You’re like a walking Wikipedia, aren’t you?” Jeff tossed the rag he was using to clean his hands onto the counter.
Trenton knocked the side of his head with his knuckles. “Steel trap.” Turning back to my drawing, he said, “And if it’s a blue bear, better believe hunters will be aiming for that pelt.”
Hunting was a big deal in Ashtown. Like, school closed on the first day of deer season. Trenton was probably right about the bear.
“Yeah, but this one is little,” I said, even though I didn’t want to talk to him.
Trenton leaned down, resting his elbows on the countertop next to me. “Then you really need to worry. ’Cause its mama is probably lurking in the shadows.”
Jeff went back to work under the Impala as he and Trenton started talking about Mom’s upcoming release. About what she could and couldn’t do after she got out.
“Even after she’s done the time, there are lasting consequences. After all, this was officially her second DUI conviction, though we both know it was actually her third. And she had been driving with a minor in the car. So her license is gone for five years. Another violation during that period, and she’s doing more hard time,” Trenton said. “Have you thought about putting an IID in her car?”
“A what?” Glen broke in.
“A ‘blow and go,’” Jeff’s voice, soft and steady as old jeans, floated up from under the car. “Ignition interlock device. Car won’t turn on if it detects alcohol on Diane’s breath. And, no, Trent. I haven’t. I trust her.”
Trenton shrugged. “The stats—”
“She learned her lesson,” Jeff cut in.
“That doesn’t mean she won’t have lapses.”
Jeff’s whole body stilled under the car. “She’ll never drive drunk again. Never put Noah at risk again.”
Trenton and I made
the same hmmf noise at the same time. He grinned at me. I didn’t smile back.
Jeff pushed out and pointed to Trenton. His face flared. “I’ll make sure Noah’s never at risk again. I left him there—”
“I told you, man,” Trenton said, “you’ve gotta let go of the guilt. She made the choice, not you. You can’t keep making decisions out of guilt.”
“Enough,” Jeff snapped as my head flooded with thoughts too fast to sort. “Move on.”
“All right,” Trenton said with a sigh. Then he ranted on about more meetings and “recovery paths.” I tuned them out.
You can’t keep making decisions out of guilt. Decisions like taking me in? Was Jeff only keeping me out of foster care because he felt bad for leaving me behind at the party with Mom that night? I bit my lip, trying not to think about it and not being able to think of anything else.
But then Jeff was standing right behind me, and I heard him say, “I’ll let Diane know when Noah and I see her on Saturday.”
Glen’s face flashed toward mine and then to the ground, but he didn’t say anything.
“You tell her. I’m not going,” I said. Jeff and Trenton ignored me. Louder this time, I said, “I’m not going there.” Trenton’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.
Jeff turned toward me. He sighed, his shoulders rising and falling and breath tickling the back my hair. I concentrated on my drawing, shading in the bear’s back. “Come on, Noah. Cut her some slack.”
“I’m not going,” I repeated.
Jeff’s arm moved out, his hand hovering over my shoulder like it was deciding whether to land. Times like this, I know what he’s thinking: If he were my kid, I’d … Fill in the blank. Slowly, he lowered his hand back to his side.
Trenton mumbled something about getting more coffee. Glen muttered that he’d brew a fresh pot. Jeff stood there, just behind me. I pressed so hard on the bear outline that the paper tore through. I scribbled harder when Jeff spoke next, trying to scratch out the sound of his words. But I couldn’t.
“Do you know what it’s like, Noah, every Saturday when I go there? Her eyes, searching for you. Smiling, a little, for me, but searching for you. Can you picture her? Noah, come on, man. She’s your mom. She made a mistake—”
