A Hole in the Universe

by Mary McGarry Morris

  Delores took her into the kitchen and cut a slice from the coffee cake she found in the refrigerator. It was almost gone by the time Gordon came back down.

  “What’re you doing here?” he demanded from the doorway. His face was flushed.

  Jada tried to smile and for a moment seemed almost afraid, stammering how long it had been since she’d seen him and how sick she’d been, but then when she saw Delores’s car she’d just run over to say hello. “She gave me some cake.” Jada put the last forkful into her mouth and swallowed hard, as desperate to keep talking as Delores was to keep the moment from caving in on itself. “It’s good. It’s really, really good. Homemade’s always the best, don’t you think?” Jada’s voice weakened under his cold scrutiny. “Did you make it?” she asked him.

  “It’s Entenmann’s,” Delores finally answered, and they both regarded her with almost identical expressions of strain and bewilderment.

  “I have to do something.” He turned as if to go back upstairs.

  “Go ahead. I’ll keep the coffee warm,” Delores said.

  He looked at her. “That’s okay. It’s late. It’s too late now for coffee.”

  Too late for Delores to be here. More than hurt, she was angry with herself for letting the girl in.

  “Oh, I don’t want coffee,” Jada said. “Do you have any milk, though? I’d love some milk. I’m really thirsty.”

  “There isn’t any milk,” he said.

  “How about juice? You got any juice?” Jada’s eyes kept straying to the refrigerator.

  “I think you better go,” he told her, and Delores didn’t know which bothered her more, his icy command or the easy forbearance of Jada’s shrug as she rose from the table. Was she so whipped, her threshold for rejection so high, that this one didn’t even matter?

  “Do you want me to go, too?” she asked the minute the door closed behind the girl.

  “No,” he said, but she knew he did.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let her in without asking you first.”

  He rinsed Jada’s plate and fork, then scrubbed them with the soapy sponge. Impelled by his silence, she tried to defend Jada, excuse him, and explain herself. She could understand his irritation, but Jada hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not intentionally. Deprived of the most basic social skills and manners, she just didn’t know any better. Delores had been too startled by her appearance to turn the poor thing away, she tried to explain. “Next time I’ll know to ask you first.” She touched his arm.

  “Well, don’t!” He spun around. “Because I don’t want her here. Ever!”

  “My God, Gordon, she’s a poor kid. She was hungry! What’s the harm in giving her some food?” His indifference shocked her. Especially after all he’d been through.

  “She’s not my responsibility.”

  She looked at him. “Of course she’s your responsibility. She’s a kid, she’s all our responsibility.”

  “I can’t take chances like that.”

  “Chances? Every morning you get out of bed you’re taking a chance!”

  “No, it’s different with me.”

  “Why? Because you spent all those years in jail? So you’re going to keep living your life like that?” That’s exactly what he’d done this past week and a half, locked himself away from everyone.

  “You don’t understand. I know she’s got problems. But I can’t get involved. I can’t even care.”

  “You’ve got to care, Gordon. You’ve got to reach out. To people.” To me, she longed to say. “But especially to a child.”

  His cold quiet triggered the old fear. She needed to coax him back from the precipice he had backed them both onto. The words came so fast, she felt breathless with their urgency. “We have to help one another. We only get so many chances, Gordon, just so many ways to save ourselves. But then after a while if we keep turning away, then they stop.”

  “Well, so then they do.” He squeezed out the sponge.

  “How can you do that?” Her voice rose over the running water. “How can you shut yourself off like that? I can’t imagine living like that. It’s like being dead.”

  He turned off the water and began to clean the place where Jada had sat. Bent over the table and with the light at his back, he appeared to be scrubbing his own shadow.

  CHAPTER 18

  The lockdown bell is ringing and he can’t get up.

  His hand shot out and Delores’s mirror fell on the floor. The glass was intact, but a lot of the shells had broken off. The phone was ringing.

  “Thank goodness,” Mrs. Jukas said when he answered. “I was afraid you’d already left for work.”

  He peered at the clock: 6:10. She was saying she needed a few things from the Market. Her gritty voice buzzed in his ear. Well? If he couldn’t do it, he should just say so. She hated insincerity, people pretending they didn’t mind when they really did. Even more than that, she hated asking people for help, but she was at that horrible stage in life now where she had little choice. “So do you have a pencil and paper there?”

  “Okay.” He fumbled in the nightstand drawer for a pen.

  “Three medium-size peaches, all ripe. One ripe banana and two green.” Was he writing this down? If he got the wrong things, she wouldn’t pay for them. Reading it back, he purposely rustled the paper near the phone. “A quart of skim milk,” she continued, “and six cans of chicken noodle soup. Low-sodium if they have it.” She wasn’t sure of the prices, but the Market was such a rip-off, everything cost three times as much now. She’d pay when he came. Oh, and come to the front door. With her leg so swollen and sore, she spent all her time on the couch now.

  Before he did anything, he tried to glue the shells back on the narrow mirror frame. Some were broken, others didn’t seem to fit; the mirror didn’t look the same. He hid it in the drawer. He wished Delores hadn’t given it to him. Once again he found himself resenting her generosity and guilty for the poverty of his own.

  After his job interview he would walk downtown to the Shop and Save for Mrs. Jukas’s groceries. He couldn’t tell her he’d been fired. He had a ten o’clock appointment with Treeshrub’nlawn Landscaping. He had circled the want ad for three straight days before working up the courage to call. The company was in the industrial park on the other side of the city. He rode the bus, then walked the dusty few miles past modest one-story homes that seemed part of an unfinished development. When he finally came to the industrial park, his relief quickly faded. Most buildings had company signs, but there were only a few street signs. It was 10:05 before he finally found the right address. It was the last building in the farthest part of the sprawling, treeless complex. Before he went inside, he blotted sweat from his face, neck, and forearms, then folded the handkerchief and put it into his pocket.

  “So what’s your story?” Bart Pugh asked. He had a red beard, blond hair, and a crushing handshake.

  “My story?”

  “It’s usually kids I get. Illegal aliens, you know, but a guy like you. I mean, what do you want a job like this for?”

  “I like working outside. Growing things. Especially roses.”

  “Yeah, well, mostly we cut grass.”

  “Sure, I do that,” he said eagerly. “I cut the grass at home, my lawn.”

  “You ever use a commercial rider?”

  “No. I use my dad’s old mower. It’s one of those push mowers. It doesn’t have an engine.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Interest waning, Pugh began to sort through papers piled on his desk. “What was your last job? Where’d you work?”

  “The Market. Nash Street. The Nash Street Market.”

  “Yeah?” Pugh glanced up. “What’d you do there?”

  “A lot of different things. Bagging groceries and stocking shelves. Other things.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got fired.”

  “Oh, I don’t usually hear that.” Pugh seemed amused. “How come?”

  “Well, actually it was a misunderstanding
.”

  “What kind of misunderstanding?”

  “I’d rather not go into it. I mean, it involves my boss. And it may well be just speculation on my part. So it really would be best if I didn’t say anything. But I can assure you I’m a good worker. And I’m very dependable. I’d never call in sick and leave you in a lurch or anything like that.”

  “What if you had to? What if you were, like, really sick?”

  “No! I’d work anyway. I’d be right here. No matter what.”

  Pugh put the papers aside. “What kind of license you got?”

  “Well, you see, the bus picks me up right around the corner from my street.” He pointed back over his shoulder as if it were idling out there now. “And then it’s not too far and I really enjoy the—”

  “Wait! What? You don’t have a car?”

  “Uh, no. I don’t. I don’t have one. Actually, I don’t drive.”

  “Oh. What?” Pugh gave a dismal sigh. “DUI?”

  “I don’t have a license. I never got one.”

  “You illegal? An alien? You don’t sound like one.”

  How foolish, how naive, to think he might have avoided this. The reason, he explained, was that he’d been in jail. For many years. Most of his life, as a matter of fact. And with the admission came relief, not that Pugh knew, but that he had been able to say it.

  “You’re kidding! Usually I can tell. Most of your life! Christ, what the hell’d you do, murder someone?”

  “A young woman.”

  Pugh stared as if something sharp were stuck in his throat. “Jesus Christ,” he squealed. “I can’t hire you. Half the places you’d be working at there’s women and kids. And, I mean, I gotta consider that. You know, security and all.”

  “Yes. I understand.”

  “I mean, you seem like a helluva nice guy, but I gotta be careful.”

  “Yes. I know.” He extended his hand, careful to lean back from the gesture. “Thank you for at least interviewing me, though.”

  Gordon rang the bell. When Mrs. Jukas didn’t come, he left the bag of groceries just inside the porch wall so they wouldn’t be seen from the street. The phone rang before he had even closed his own door.

  “Couldn’t you wait? I had to get my purse!” Mrs. Jukas said.

  “I thought you might be sleeping.”

  “Sleep! I never sleep. All I do is lay here. I’ve got your money. I’d put it out, but that girl, she’d be over here in two seconds. I used to think she was just wild or something, but it’s more than that. There’s something strange about her. The way her eyes move, the way she only comes out at night. She’s always watching your house, you know. She’s—”

  “Do you want me to come over now?” he interrupted.

  “It’s up to you.”

  The exact amount, she said, passing coins and bills through the slightly open doorway. She didn’t thank him but seemed pleased he had bought everything at Shop and Save instead of from those crooks, the Nash Street Market, who had been ripping people off for years. He said he’d been going by. Well, next time he did she needed some bleach and a small bottle of Fab.

  “Leonardo! Where are you, you stupid dog!” came a shout from across the street.

  “Will you look at that.” Mrs. Jukas stared past his forearm, for her head came somewhere between his waist and shoulder. “The way she carries on you’d think somebody’d do something.”

  A cigarette in her mouth, Marvella Fossum stood on her top step in a thin, dingy nightgown that clung to her swelling belly. Coughing, she struck one dead match after another.

  “Disgusting, isn’t it?” Mrs. Jukas shook her head. “The way they breed. Like rats. She takes men in there. All hours of the night. The landlord, he can’t even evict her off his own property, it takes so long in the courts. Everyone’s got rights but us. Last week the police came. The Spanish lady, Inez up there, she called them. One night it was three men in there. The girl, she waits outside. Pretty soon, she’ll be doing the same as the mother. That night, Inez said it was pouring rain. Two o’clock in the morning and she sees the girl run over here.”

  “Where?” Had it been raining the night he let Jada in? No, it hadn’t been.

  “In your garage. She takes the key down.”

  “Hey! Hey, mister!” Marvella was halfway down the steps. “I need a light. You got a match or lighter or whatever I can use here?”

  “No. I don’t,” he answered quickly, but she kept coming.

  “How ’bout you?” she asked Mrs. Jukas, who was already closing the door. In the sunlight she appeared almost naked. “All I need’s a match,” she whined. “Is that too much to ask?”

  “Ma!” Jada was hurrying down the street with a bag in her arms. She stepped quickly between her mother and Gordon.

  “Where the hell’ve you been?” Marvella roared.

  “The store. I told you. I said I’d be right back.”

  “Yeah, well, I hope you’re happy, leaving me alone, listening to that fucking dog, when I can’t even eat, I’m so sick, I can’t keep anything down. Not even crackers.” Her little round face twisted into a sour contortion of self-pity and anger.

  “It’s okay, Ma. Here, I got you some Dew.” Jada set the bags down. She twisted off the cap. Her mother cringed as if even the sight of it were repulsive.

  “I need matches and nobody’ll give me any. That’s all I wanted,” she whined as if Jada had accused her of something.

  “I don’t have any,” he said. He had yet to look at Jada.

  “Yes, you do!” Marvella’s beady eyes narrowed in amusement at his discomfort. “You just don’t wanna give me any.”

  “He doesn’t smoke, Ma. C’mon, there’s some. I’ll get’em for you.”

  “Yeah, well, you should’ve told me before,” Marvella complained as Jada picked up her bag to take her home. “And then he wouldn’ta got out.”

  Jada stopped. “You mean Leonardo?”

  Marvella nodded with a sob. “I was looking for matches. You must’ve left the door open. I didn’t even see it. And now he’s gone.”

  “Are you sure? Did you look for him?”

  “I been out here all this time, what do you think? I been calling and calling. Leonardo!” she wailed suddenly, teetering with the effort. “Leonardo! Leonardo!”

  “Did you see him?” Jada asked Gordon.

  “No.”

  “Come on, Ma. Quick, I gotta go look. I gotta find him,” she said, almost pulling her mother across the street.

  Gordon went right to the garage. He lifted the key from the rusty nail and put it in his pocket. Delores thought he should feel some responsibility toward the girl, but what she provoked most in him was fear. There was no keeping her out. She was like the stinkweed he was always pulling up. It left a terrible smell in his hands, and no matter what he did, vinegar, WeedRout, hacking at the roots, it always came back. Halfway down the driveway he stopped. He could hear whimpering. He looked in his backyard and under his steps, following the sound to the property line. Here the bushes hadn’t been cut back from the other side in years, the thickness almost impenetrable, especially for someone his size. Now the whimpering grew frantic. He knelt down and peered in. The dog looked back with an entreating yip. The rope from his collar was so snarled in brambles that he could barely move. Gordon tried to loosen the rope, but it was too tangled. He got his rose pruner from the garage and cut the rope on the first try. “C’mon, boy. C’mon,” he coaxed, straining to grab the rope end, but he needn’t have worried. The dog wiggled straight out into his hands. He carried him across the street.

  “Jada’s not here,” Marvella called through the open window.

  “I found your dog. I have him here,” he called back.

  “He’s not mine. I don’t have a dog.”

  “It’s Leonardo,” he called, stooping at the window. Seeing her hazy form on the couch, he straightened immediately. Crack. She was trying to light it so she could smoke it through a straw in the side of a soda b
ottle. “Your daughter’s dog. I have him right here.”

  “Jesus Christ, I don’t want him!” She waved him away. “You can have him. He’s yours.”

  “No, I can’t. I don’t want a dog. I’ll just leave him, then. Out here.”

  The adjacent door opened then and Inez came out onto the porch with her four-year-old granddaughter, who laughed and reached up to let the dog lick her fingers. Her grandmother spoke sharply in Spanish and the girl’s hands flew behind her back.

  Marvella had opened her door at the same time. She looked at the dog a moment, puzzled, as if she didn’t recognize it. “Can’t you just take him someplace?” she whined. “Please? Or keep him, I don’t care.”

  “No. I can’t. I can’t do that,” he said, struggling as the dog yipped and strained to get to Marvella.

  “He doesn’t want your dog,” Inez snapped. “He’s yours. You want to get rid of him, you go do it.”

  “Shut up!” Marvella cried. “Just shut the—”

  “No!” Inez growled, pointing to the child curled around her legs.

  Marvella cringed from the warning. “Oh shit,” she said, taking the squealing dog from him. “Like I really need this.”

  “Thank you,” Gordon said when he and Inez and the girl were down on the sidewalk. He explained how the dog had been caught in the bushes.

  “You should’ve left him. Better off there than with that,” she spat, then hurried down the street, the child in tow.

  Jada was at his door within minutes. She rang the bell, knocked, then tried the back door. She probably wanted to thank him, but that’s all it would take, the slightest civility, just a few words, and she would be right back insinuating herself into his life. He stayed upstairs until she finally went away.

  When Delores called he was eating a tuna-fish sandwich. He had forgotten all about the band concert in the park. When she had invited him two weeks ago his life had been fine, and now it was a mess. He still hadn’t found a job, money was running low, and he had wrenched his back yesterday scraping a patch of peeling paint from the back of the house. Because he didn’t have a ladder, he had climbed onto the porch railing, balancing himself quite well until he heard the wood crack. He’d jumped off, landing so awkwardly that something had pulled in his lower back. It especially hurt when he walked any distance, he was trying to tell Delores, but she said he wouldn’t have to walk far at all. The parking lot was right there on the edge of the park. It hurt to sit for too long, he said.