by Jo Barney
“Nice,” he said. “I bet you wear a thong. You’re that kind. Let’s see it.”
She pulled back, stepped down from the barstool. “You’re an asshole.”
He didn’t remember the incident when the chief called him in, replayed it for him in the policewoman’s words, told him she was considering filing harassment charges unless something was done to straighten him out. Captain McMillan said he understood what watching a kid’s knees tremble then collapse, hearing a gurgle of a moan, feeling the weight of a warm gun in a hand, and knowing that an instant of fear and a tense finger had caused the pool of blood emptying out of a still body onto dark pavement, what that scene could do to a person. He added, “I also understand how a worrisome child can dismantle a marriage. I was in your shoes once, Matt.” The captain seemed almost about to take his hand, then he sat back. “If I could do it, you can do it.” He offered Matt a medical leave and a program for drying out, straightening out.
Matt hesitated, not sure he wanted to be straightened out, not sure he could be straightened out. Maybe, he said, he was just a failed cop and it was time to quit.
“Bullshit,” Captain McMillan said, and he called in his secretary to begin the paperwork. Matt was relieved that someone had taken charge of his life, for a while at least.
Three months later, when Matt returned to the station, he found himself assigned to graffiti detail, a quiet re-entry into being a cop. At home, Madge and he settled into an uneasy compromise. He wouldn’t drink, she wouldn’t pull away when he touched her. For Collin’s sake.
Then their pediatrician witnessed one of their son’s intense meltdowns, learned that the boy had lost most of his words, communicated by waving his hands, watched the fingers tapping, tapping. He sent them to a specialist who diagnosed Collin as autistic on a midlevel, and added that because he was young, the boy might be able to overcome some of the condition’s symptoms.
For the next two years, a therapist came to their home, worked with Collin, taught them both how to deal with him when she wasn’t there. The tantrums reduced. He began to respond to questions, not with words so much as with gestures. He tried to look at them, as they asked him to, he frowning, turning away as if the effort were painful. He learned to say thank you when prompted.
They maintained some hope, mortgaging the house for a second time to pay for the therapy. Then came the weekend they had to accept the fact that their son would never be like other kids. Marge had put Collin to bed, the normal routine of three stories and a prayer. They had poured a glass of wine for Marge, a sparkling water for Matt, when Collin began to scream, piercing sounds that brought them to their feet. “Juicy Juice,” he demanded, charging out of his room, stomping and flailing his pajama’d body at their feet.
“No sweets,” Matt said.
“God, we have to do something.” Marge reached for the juice carton.
“No, Marge.” Matt grabbed her arm, and she spilled juice all over the counter and onto the floor.
“Juicy Juice!”
“Damn you, Matt.”
Matt bent to pick up the boy, but the arms and legs interfered, caught him in the groin. Collin ran howling into his bedroom, then back out into the living room. He pounded on the front door, tried the knob.
“For God’s sake, stop him, Matt.”
“You stop him. I’m wiping up goddamn Juicy Juice.” As he mopped the floor with a wad of paper towels, Matt wasn’t sure at whom he was most angry, his son or his wife.
Collin managed that night to scream, cry, and run for three hours. When he finally fell into a deep sleep on the floor next to his bed, Matt and Marge, exhausted, stood looking down at their son.
“Not quite what we expected,” Matt whispered.
Marge knew what he meant. “No,” she answered as she turned away.
When he was five, they enrolled Collin in a special-ed classroom program, found a new medication, and tried a marriage counselor. Then they divorced, each of them exhausted.
Marge chose Paxil to get through her days; Matt had his work. They split the Collin duties, caring for him separately, inserting a cartilage of quiet hours between the days that rubbed bone on bone.
And now a year later, Marge is drained empty of love for her son. Matt can understand it. He himself can come up with only shadows when he thinks of Marge, and he is running low on love for his son. But not empty. Not yet. As he bends over his son, he hears the faint “Papa” as blue eyes close, lulled into sleep by a medicinal lullaby and chocolate milk, a scruffy gray rat tucked under a tender chin. No, not empty, just bewildered. How will he do this? A tightness grips his chest; he breathes five times through his nose.
Then he calls his mother.
Chapter Five
Ellie
September 2009
I am lying, of course, about the freesias. Maybe if she’d said nasturtiums, I wouldn’t have had to. I haven’t grown a flower since Danny was a first grader and he had a science project from school, a few white bean seeds. We dug some dirt from the edge of our apartment parking lot and we planted them in a plastic cup. Danny knew enough to punch a hole in the bottom for the water to drain out, and we set the cup on the windowsill over the sink. In a few days he came yelling to tell me that green was coming up.
A few weeks later we had real leaves and he took the cup to school for show-and-tell. He was so proud, walking stiff like a zombie, the cup protected under the corner of his jacket. When the teacher told him that the plants would need more room to grow, we put them in a coffee can, and by the time school was out, we had orange and yellow flowers trailing down the wall under the window and getting caught in the faucet handles.
* * *
I hand Sarah a tissue and she dabs and blows.
“Sorry,” she says. “Sometimes I get weird.” She blinks a few times. “My mother’s dead,” like that does it. “I guess I should go.”
She looks up and down the street, and I can see gritty streaks on her neck. Kids’ necks collect dirt like that. I feel like taking her home and scrubbing her with a soapy washrag even if she does yell. Well, maybe not. A person does that only to her own scrutty kid.
But she does need a shower and probably clean underwear. That seems reason enough for me to take her arm, turn her. “Come on home with me. You look hungry, and I know I am.” She doesn’t say anything, just follows me into the depressing building I’ve lived in for ten years, low income, low expectations. The elevator smells pissy, as usual, and I’m glad when we can get out. My apartment is three doors to the right, the one with the note taped on it. I rip it off since I know what it says. The rent is late again.
Everything is brown in this place. Seemed okay when I moved in and bought coordinated furnishings from Goodwill. Brown rug, brown davenport, brown fake-leather armchair. They matched the brown cabinets in the kitchen, the tan, going to brown, vinyl under them. Even a brown stove. Today, the air even seems brown, and I open a window, hoping to get a cool draft to cut into the unmoving heat of the radiator clicking against the wall. Brown was big, once.
“This is nice,” Sarah says, dropping her bag at the door.
Now she’s lying, but it shows some upbringing, just to say it. She waits until I take the collar of her jacket and pull her out of it. I wonder if duct tape washes. Also the flimsy top that barely covers her breasts and not her belly button. And that little rag of a skirt. If she bends over in it, anyone looking could see everything, but luckily instead, she sits down on the hassock and pulls her boots off, sparing me that. I point toward the armchair. She collapses into it, leans her head back, closes her eyes.
“While I’m heating up dinner,” I say, “take advantage of my shower. Shampoo’s there, and a towel. We’ll eat and then relax. First things first.”
She opens her eyes, and for a minute I think she’s going to do that thing teenagers do with their mouths to let you know you’re not thinking right, but then she shifts, and says, “Where’s it at?” She’s peeling off the blouse as s
he walks toward the bathroom, and I get a glimpse of a black ribbon of a bra as she opens the door. The sight makes me a little sad. My bras, black and otherwise, huddle at the bottom of a drawer, waiting, maybe, for a reason to wear them again.
Before she can get the water running, I call to her to throw out her clothes and I’ll wash them in the basement laundry while we eat. When the clothes land in a heap in the hallway, I hand her the silk Japanese robe I’ve saved for a long time for some special occasion. Not that this is special, only unusual. And it won’t wrap around me like it might have once. It will around her.
I think it’s peculiar, looking into the cupboard over the stove, the fact that I have two boxes of mac and cheese and, in the fridge, a head of pretty good lettuce from the food bank I go to in between Social Security checks. But mostly, the fact that I have someone to eat it with. The last time I had a someone to dinner, he ate so fast, his dentures sliding in and out as he chewed, that he choked on a piece of canned ham, another gift of the food bank, and had to be carried out hyperventilating by the super who knew the Heimlich maneuver but not about panic attacks. Mr. Levitz was not much of a catch, I realized, way too old, and I ate the rest of the ham by myself.
I don’t imagine this girl will choke on mac and cheese. And now I know what to do about it if she does. The water’s still running, so I bundle up her clothes and take them down to the washers, grabbing the soap and the quarters from the jar as I go out.
By the time I get back, she’s curling, legs up against her chest, into the chair, the robe wrapped around her. She looks new, red and orange and squeaky clean. She smiles at me from under a bow that holds her wet hair back, out of her eyes, just like her mother showed her, I bet, except the ribbon is the tie from the robe.
Ten minutes later we are sitting together on the davenport, eating out of our laps. She eyes the TV but doesn’t ask.
“Don’t have cable. I only get channels six and eight and twelve.”
“I was on television once.”
“Yeah?”
“Not my name, just me and some other kids. We were singing Christmas songs at Sunday school. My teacher said it was a way to say thank you to the people who gave toys for foster kids who might not get any.” She closes up for a second, then looks at me. “I got a jigsaw puzzle.”
“I hate jigsaw puzzles.”
“Me too.” She pokes at her salad. “What’s this?”
“Avocado. A little soft, but still good.”
Sarah tastes a green slice. “Too gushy.” Then her face goes still again, her fork resting on the plate, and I see the beginnings of tears. “I really wanted Samantha Parkington. I put her on the wishing tree at school and…” She wipes her wet cheek on the sash, which has dropped like a noose around her neck, her hair falling back to her eyebrows. “I prayed for her.” Her eyes close, her salad forgotten. “I was so stupid.”
“You prayed for Samantha Parkington?”
“A beautiful doll I saw on TV. A real girl. I thought she looked like me. Only she had brown eyes.” Sarah raises her head, finished with the tears. “I was just a little kid then.”
“Like four or so years ago?”
“Yeah.” She sits up. “Sorry. I spilled.” She scoops up lettuce leaves with her fingers, places them back on her plate, wipes off the pillow with her napkin.
“So, you were maybe eleven, you wanted this doll who was a real girl with clothes and looked like you, and you got a jigsaw puzzle?” I can’t stand stories like this. If I could cry, I’d be wiping my eyes right now.
“That’s about it.” Sarah finishes the greens, gets up, her robe flapping open, her young breasts peeking out from under the forgotten sash like new white nasturtiums, and takes our dishes to the sink.
“Well, that sucks,” I say. I’m not sure she hears me over the splashing of the water, the clanking of the pots. I go retrieve her clothes from the dryer.
* * *
“This was my grandmother’s,” I explain as I toss the quilt on the davenport. “Called Rose of Sharon. She made quilts in between kids.” Sarah does not pick up on my need to talk a little. Her eyes close as soon as she pulls the quilt up over the T-shirt I’ve lent her. “Sleep tight,” I say. I don’t say the thing about bedbugs. She might think I’m serious.
She’s left the towel on the floor and her bag in the sink. A flash of oh, shit passes through me as I pick up the towel, fold it and hang it on the bar. I don’t need this aggravation. It’s only for one night, I remind myself.
The duffel is gaping open and a wet toothbrush is lying beside the faucet. I am wondering if I should put it in the glass next to mine or mind my own business and just push the whole thing under the sink, when I see the cigarettes. What else? Underpants, a beat-up address book, a few wadded-up clothes, a plastic bag stuffed with makeup, a pill container, and a condom. Traveling supplies, I guess. I take out the plastic vial. Its label has been mostly peeled off; brown pills rattle inside. I put it back.
Not my business. She’ll leave in the morning. I push the duffel under the sink, wash my face, and smooth a couple of dots of Pond’s on my cheeks. I do this every night. My fingers, pressing lightly on my cheeks and temples, soothe me. I remember other fingers doing the same when this face did not need a cream to make it touchable, and most of the time, I sleep better thinking about them.
I wake up wondering where she keeps her monthly supplies if not in her bag. Then I hear why I woke up. Someone’s throwing up in the bathroom. She comes out rubbing her mouth on the T-shirt, pale and watery-eyed. “Must have a bug,” she says.
“Then you won’t need breakfast,” I answer, putting my two wonderings together, pissed at her lying. So easy to get sucked in, I remind myself. Not my problem. “Coffee maybe.” I put on the water and begin to figure out what I’m going to say to her as I measure out a couple of teaspoons of instant. “Listen, Missy,” I’ll say. “I got no time for girls who mess around, get pregnant, run away, end up with duct-taped jackets. Mother or no mother, you have a family somewhere to handle this mess. A bit late for the condom, don’t you think? And what the hell are you doing with those ugly brown pills?” By the time the water is steaming, so am I.
I turn around to hand her the cup and my words, and she is gone. All of her, even the bag from the bathroom and the pile of clean clothes, I see when I go look for her.
Not even a thank-you. I fold up the Rose of Sharon quilt and sit down next to it on the davenport with my coffee.
I never learned to make quilts even though my grandmother encouraged me to try. Once, she even made a little sewing kit and cut out squares of printed cotton and brought them to me as I loafed on my bed, reading a comic book. She held out her offerings, sat down and prodded me until I threaded the needle and sewed two squares together. Then I said, “That’s it, Ma” and got up and dropped needles and thread, the fabric, and my teenage disgust in her lap. Not even a thank-you.
Remembering like that isn’t good for a person. I glance at the clock. Almost noon; time for my daily dose of Perry Mason. Perry never has doubts or bad memories to screw up his day. While I’m watching him, I don’t either.
Chapter Six
Sarah
September 2009
It’s lucky the park is only a couple of blocks away. I’m going to barf again. I can feel it clogging my throat, my mouth watering. I’m not going to make it to the john. I head for the bushes at the edge of the walkway, lean in, let go. I’m hanging onto a branch, sweating and shaking when I feel a hand on my elbow.
“Take it easy, girl. Let’s go sit down.”
My eyes are too bleary to see who is leading me or to where. When I stumble, an arm reaches around my waist then releases me to a seat on a wooden bench. He sinks down next to me and wipes my mouth with something, my jacket collar probably. His voice is jagged, the way old smokers sound. His beard, once I can see his face, confirms my guess. It’s white with black streaks, nicotine yellow at the edges.
“You’re hot,” he says
. “You got something.” He pulls a bundle from his pocket, a bottle in a paper sack, is about to hand it to me, then takes a swallow himself. “You don’t want this. Even makes me sick. Stay here and I’ll get you some water.”
His long overcoat flaps against his ankles as he shuffles toward the fountain. In a moment he’s back, a plastic bag spurting water in his hands. I manage to get a mouthful, then dash a little against my face. The cold feels good on my cheeks. I really am hot. “Thanks,” I say. I’m not sure I can stand up.
“Where do you live? Around here?”
“I’m okay. Just have to rest for a minute.” He hesitates and then gets up. “I have an appointment,” he says. “I’ll be back.”
“Sure.” His appointment is with a bottle. I’m too tired to think of what to do next. I close my eyes.
I wake up when the bench shakes and someone sits next to me, breathing hard.
“Sorry. I had to get my teeth cleaned. Are you feeling better?”
“Teeth cleaned?”
He grins. His teeth are white, healthy-looking, except for the one in front that is missing. So are his brown eyes. They smile at me. “At the Williams House. Every week the medical bus comes and treats people. For nothing. If you make an appointment, you can get your teeth cleaned.”
“Not my teeth that’s bothering me.” Maybe I ate something bad last night—the avocado? I’m still sick to my stomach. “Thanks for helping me. I’m okay.”
