Wrecker

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Wrecker Page 10

by Summer Wood


  A grin played at the corner of her mouth but gained no lasting purchase. “Can the bullshit, DF. You don’t get your work done Dreyfus is going to—”

  “Right, right. All work and no play.”

  “Find your jacket, Wrecker,” Melody said, and a customer called to her and she ducked back out the doors.

  DF Al beamed at her retreating back. He tilted his head toward Wrecker and sighed. “Women love me.”

  Wrecker nodded. The women he knew joked about Al when he wasn’t there, called him Dope Fiend Al or Dumb Fuck Al or worse. Wrecker thought he should act more normal around other people, but he didn’t know if Al could pull it off. “Seen my jacket?”

  “Yeah. A penguin waltzed in here, asked if he could have it. Said it’s cold at the South Pole. I told him sure, you were a generous guy.”

  Wrecker spied the blue sleeve of the parka on the floor by the meat locker. He pushed himself to his feet. “See you tomorrow,” he said.

  “Not if I see you first, brother.”

  Melody was in a huff. She had to get the produce order in by 3:30 and do the payroll and file the something and do the something something for Wrecker’s school and still catch Ruth before five o’clock at the salvage yard with some kind of information. Wrecker yawned. His stomach hurt from too many apricots. The day was bright and cold. One kid from school had off to go hunting. He wanted to go hunting. Why couldn’t he go hunting.

  Melody tapped the steering wheel of the bus with her index finger while she drove. It was a nervous habit. “When you’re older.”

  “How old?”

  “Old enough to know better than to want to do that,” she said, flicking her turn signal and flooring the gas pedal to urge the old bus past a lumbering pickup loaded with trash for the landfill. The motor made its cheery jingling VW sound. The little engine that could. On Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday, at least. The rest of the time was a toss up. She wished she could shoot the poor thing and put it out of its misery. She alternated between feeling nostalgic about its years of magical service and disgusted by its current unreliability. Disgust was weighing in heavily, but it wasn’t like she could run down to the local dealership and pick up a new one. If she skimmed the top off what she took home each week, if she made payments, maybe she could spring for a skateboard. Maybe. She and Wrecker could take turns riding and running alongside. It would take them—oh—a day and a half each way to commute into town.

  Why couldn’t she have been born rich?

  Oh yeah. She had been born rich. It just hadn’t worked out.

  Wrecker made a face. “Too many apricots,” he said.

  “Go easy on them, buddy. They sneak up on you.” She cut a quick glance at his face and then swung the bus back into the proper lane. He was changing so fast. One week his face was all baby fat and foolishness and the next it had slimmed down, had an eight-year-old’s skepticism and resolve. Well, not resolve. He’d always had that. They’d just labeled it stubbornness. Stubborn fit in with ornery and immature, but resolve?

  He sure hadn’t picked that up from her.

  “What time is it, Wrecker?”

  He lifted his wrist to check. She watched his lips move as he counted by fives. He was okay to thirty or so, but after that it started to break up. She had bought him a watch so he could practice. At school they played cooperative games and learned number theory with manipulatives; at home, guiltily, it was flash cards and torn sheets from the cheap pulp workbooks she picked up at the supermarket. “Eleven ten.”

  “Let me see.”

  Jesus, it was five to two. She was supposed to have him there by one fifteen. By two she was supposed to—oh, well, great. They were out in the open, three minutes from Wrecker’s school, and a cop was dogging the van with lights flashing and the siren making its stupid little whoops. A cop? Out here? She pulled to the side of the road and shut her eyes. She rolled down the window. “Yes?”

  “Holy mackerel, lady!” The cop had a beefy face that appeared red from internal combustion and not from any exposure to the elements. “You know how fast you were going?”

  Speeding? No. Not speeding. She couldn’t keep a small smirk from staining her face. “Not exactly, officer. But I can tell you this old bus”—her index finger flicked rapidly against the steering wheel—“she just hasn’t got it in her to speed. I’m lucky if I can coax her up the hills.”

  “Up, maybe,” he said. He looked earnestly affronted. He looked personally offended. “But coming down that hill I clocked you at sixty in a forty-five zone. That’s—that’s—”

  Fifteen.

  “—that’s fifteen miles over the speed limit. I’ll have to ticket you for that.” He rearranged his features to express paternal disapproval. “Where are you in such a rush to get to?”

  Melody rubbed her face with her hands. She was going to have to grovel. “I’m taking my son—” She tipped her head toward Wrecker and the words died in her mouth. His face was ashen and he had made himself as small as he could in the seat. His hands gripped the frayed piping of the upholstery edge.

  The cop bent sideways to get more of his face in the open window. “Something wrong?”

  Melody turned in the seat and put her hand on Wrecker’s cheek. “Hey,” she said softly. “You okay?”

  The kid wouldn’t look at her. He kept his head down and his eyes fixed on the white rounds of his pant knees. She leaned closer to him. Whispered in his ear, “You need the bathroom?” He didn’t look up, but he freed one hand from the car seat and took hold of the sleeve of her sweater. He gripped it hard, his small hand kneading the fabric. He gathered more and started to twist. “Ow,” she breathed out. “That hurts. You’re pinching my skin.”

  “Miss? Is everything all right?”

  The boy kept an iron grip on the sweater sleeve. He drew back so he wouldn’t hurt her, but he wouldn’t let go.

  “Miss!”

  Melody swung her head toward the cop. “Look,” she said. “My son—I don’t know what. I think he needs to get to a bathroom. His school’s just a few miles ahead. I’m going to have to talk to you later. Okay?” Her voice cracked. “Will you just—okay?”

  “Oh,” he said. His wedding ring clinked on the metal of the car door before he backed away. “Sure. Just slow down on the hills, lady. You need an escort or something? I could go ahead of you with the siren.”

  Wrecker gripped tighter and it sent a volt of pain to the root of Melody’s brain. “No siren,” she gasped. “I’ll slow down.” She remembered to say thank you and the cop climbed into his cruiser and pulled away.

  Melody moved to extract her right arm from Wrecker’s grip so she could start the engine. “Wrecker, let go.” She kept her voice as calm and low as she could. “I can’t drive with you hanging on.” She studied his face. His eyes weren’t closed but he kept them turned from her. He was as white as a sheet. What was this? Even his lips were pale. His hair had darkened with each year to a dirty blond but it looked brown against his skin. Slowly he eased up until his hand was open and resting on her forearm. She started to move her arm away but a thread caught on his fingernail and he gave a short, sharp cry of pain. “What!” she shouted, jangled to the quick. Trembling, she extracted the thread from his nail and took his hand in both of hers and held it to her cheek. “I’m sorry, Wrecker. I am. I’m so sorry.”

  She could tell from the slight quiver that ran down his arm that he was holding himself as still as he could to keep from crying. He kept his head turned and all the misery in the world seemed trapped in the twist of that stiff neck.

  Melody was desperate to say the right thing. She racked her brain for the exact words. Maybe his real mother would know what to say. His real—she fit the key in the ignition and waited for the engine to even out before pulling onto the road. As if it weren’t hard enough already, being a mother. No. Willow had to make it harder. She had to go and dig up that other one, turn her from the ghost who loitered around the edges of Melody’s fear into a flesh-and-bl
ood human being sitting in a prison cell while another woman mothered her son.

  My son, Melody thought savagely. He’s my son.

  She looked straight out the windshield and kept the speed just below the limit until they arrived at the school. Melody halted the bus beside a spindly madrone. Wrecker stumbled out of his door, and she trotted around the front of the bus to catch up to him. “Does your stomach hurt?” She reached to adjust the shoulder strap of his knapsack. “Need the bathroom?” He pulled away from her touch and continued toward the front steps. “Wrecker,” she called softly. His back was turned but she thought she saw him hesitate. Even softer, she called, “You okay, buddy?”

  The boy glanced over his shoulder toward her, and Melody caught his eye like a bird on the wing. She felt her own heart pumping like a bird’s heart, pulsing in her throat. She could haul him back or she could lose him for good and she stood paralyzed, afraid that any move she made would be the wrong move. But Wrecker slowed, and turned to face her. For a moment he seemed to waver. And then he started back in her direction.

  Thank God. She opened her arms to him.

  But he lowered his head and collided with her, butting her to the ground.

  Wrecker’s arms swung like windmills. It was all Melody could do to dodge the blows, and when she rolled away she somehow—half by accident—got behind him, got her arms around his to stop their flailing. She held on tight. Dropped her head to gasp in his ear, “What? In the hell? Are you doing?”

  He had froth around the corners of his mouth and she could barely understand his bellow. Until, suddenly, she could.

  “Fuck, no! I would never,” she yelled, and squeezed hard. Wrecker paused in his thrashing. Melody roughly spun the boy to face her. He dropped his chin and she reached out and lifted it until his eyes were forced to meet hers. “I would never let him take you. Never. Not him and nobody else. Do you understand me? Never.” He watched her and she thought, Oh God let it be true. Forget everything else I have ever asked of you and give me the strength for this one thing.

  She felt him reach his gaze behind her eyes and grope around for the shape of her prayer.

  For today. Okay.

  His body relaxed some under her grip and she eased off a bit. Melody glanced over her shoulder and saw that they’d attracted an audience. She dragged her shoulder across her cheek to wipe the sweat and elbowed toward the school. “You going in?” He barely blinked but she understood him. “Then get in the car,” she muttered, and released him.

  Wrecker did as he was told. Melody stood and faced the small crowd that had assembled. Their faces were aghast. “Well,” she said. She tugged on the hem of her jacket and cleared her throat. “I guess we’ll see you on Monday,” and she managed a wave before bolting for the bus and pulling away.

  Wrecker was laughing softly. The color had come back into his face. “Did you see them, Deedee?” he asked. “Did you? They looked like—”

  Melody brought the bus to a screeching, shuddering stop in the middle of the road. “Wrecker,” she said, her voice trembling. “I swear to God I will not give you away. But do not hit me again. Understand? Because—”

  “Okay.”

  “Because—”

  “O-kay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” she muttered, and shifted into gear and started forward again. They were as real as it could possibly get for each other. That woman in jail—“Okay,” she said. She started to laugh. It tasted like salt and lilacs, like snot and pine needles and a torn heart. “Okay,” she said again. Wrecker was laughing hard. He was starting to hoot. “Okay.” Torn but still functioning. Okay. It would have to be.

  Melody maneuvered the bus fitfully up and down the small hills and around the bends as the road traversed the valley and headed for the sea. Wrecker hummed to himself beside her. He seemed pleased to have the afternoon off. Melody squinted at him. He bounced back fast, but for her? It had been weeks and still she couldn’t shake the scare of Willow’s trip to the prison. It had flattened her confidence and left her second-guessing every move she made with the boy, looking over her shoulder for the long arm of judgment to snatch him away.

  All this, because of that damned check. It had come in the mail without warning, a piddling inheritance that was the scant remainder of Meg’s parents’ estate once the banks and the creditors and the government and the lawyers got through taking their cut. It was laughably small, but Len was adamant. It wasn’t right for one daughter to inherit everything. He didn’t care what the will specified; as Meg’s guardian, he wouldn’t let her accept it. He would locate Lisa Fay and deliver her half.

  He would not, Willow said. She was due for a trip to the city. She would take the money.

  When Melody caught wind of the plan it raised every hair on her body. Len had launched some bad ideas before, but this one was terrible. Rotten as a fetid fish and just as dangerous, and Melody had not had a single stinking say in the matter. When she’d tried, both Len and Willow had gazed at her—gently, affectionately, entirely blankly—and then went back to debating the best way to handle the situation. When she’d shouted with exasperation that she was the one raising the kid and should therefore be party to this decision, they had finally paused and paid attention.

  “Melody,” Willow said, somewhat quizzically. “This is not about you.”

  “It’s about Wrecker!”

  Len and Willow looked at each other, considering, and then back at Melody. “No,” Willow said, “it isn’t, actually.” It was about Meg, she explained, and Meg’s sister. And their parents. It was a small part about Len, who wouldn’t cash the check unless he could split it with Lisa Fay. “None of it is about me. That’s why I’m the obvious person to bring it down to her.” And Len, determined though he was, couldn’t talk her out of it.

  Willow was gone for a week. She took the Greyhound down to San Francisco, did some sleuthing, and tracked Meg’s sister down at Chino, the giant prison east of L.A. Willow was gaunt and exhausted when she returned. She had visited the prison twice. They had spoken for a long time. Lisa Fay wouldn’t take the money.

  “She wants you to have it,” Willow told Melody.

  “Me,” Melody scoffed. “She doesn’t know me.” Her face suddenly blanched. “No.” She watched Willow’s face closely. “You didn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “No, Willow. You couldn’t have.”

  Lisa Fay needed to know that her son was safe, Willow explained. Was that so hard to understand? And so Willow—Willow had told her. Where Wrecker was, who was raising him in her absence, what he looked like at eight, which foods he liked and which he could not abide. Willow told Lisa Fay how Meg had suffered in the dental surgery, she told her that her parents had died—but at length, and in as much detail as she could muster, she described the boy’s life at Bow Farm. In exchange, Lisa Fay told Willow everything: who had fathered the boy, what happened in Wrecker’s first years, the whole sordid story of her arrest and trial and incarceration.

  “I don’t want to know,” Melody cried bitterly. “None of it.” She glanced at Willow and away, her eyes flashing with anger and pain. “And don’t you tell Wrecker.” She glared at Willow. “Promise me that. Not a word.”

  “He should know, Melody. It’s his history.”

  “This is his history!” She swung her arms stiffly. “Bow Farm. The Mattole. You, Ruth, Johnny, me. The rest is dead weight, Willow. You want to remind him of that? Whatever happened to him, you want to bring that back?”

  Willow looked at her steadily. “You’re making a mistake. Someday—”

  “Someday I’ll explain it to him.” Melody felt her breath scour her insides. It was no lie, what they’d told him—and no secret. Someone Len knew had given the boy up for adoption. With Meg ill, Melody had stepped in to raise him. Len signed the important papers, but Melody was his mother. It was as close to legal as things got in the Mattole, and it had been working just fine. “But not now. It would just confuse h
im. He doesn’t remember any of that, anyway.”

  “There’s a photograph.”

  Melody felt Willow’s soft voice seep in to stain her heart. “No.” Her lips closed in a tight line and she worked her hands, squeezing the knuckles. “Absolutely not.”

  “It’s his history.”

  “And this is his present,” Melody snapped back. “This is his reality, Willow. Don’t you realize how vulnerable he is? If she wanted to take him back—” Melody stopped and tore her gaze away. Only Len, skinny Len, stood between her and losing Wrecker—and he was no protection at all.

  Melody felt panic grip her throat. Her brother Jack was a lawyer. Could she count on him to help her? Maybe she should take Wrecker and run. But—leave the Mattole? Where would they go? She forced herself to turn back to Willow. “No.” Melody lifted her eyes to confront Willow’s steady, penetrating stare. “That’s my decision.”

  The corners of Willow’s mouth turned down. There was a long pause, and then she nodded slowly, as if deciding something. “All right,” she said, her voice low and measured. “I’ll hold it for him. You tell me when it’s okay.”

  Melody shot a sidelong glance at the boy, now. He was gazing out the window at a trio of horses in a green pasture. Wrecker liked horses, but they made him sneeze.

  Did his mother sneeze at horses, too?

  It would never be okay, Melody knew. But that didn’t mean she could keep it from him forever.

  The boy rode shotgun for Melody all the rest of the afternoon. They took care of business at the post office, making copies at the only Xerox machine for miles, and Wrecker filled up on free popcorn at the counter while Melody struggled with paper jams and a defunct stapler. They doubled back to the Mercantile to check produce inventory and phone in the order by the supplier’s deadline. Wrecker went looking for Al. Melody sussed the situation with the cantaloupe and kale; she was getting it down out of Eureka and it was looking a little shabby. The Ukiah distributor was more professional and had higher-quality stock but charged too much to bring it this far north. Nine tenths of this job was aggravation, and now she had to tell the others payday wouldn’t happen until Monday. Dreyfus needed the weekend receipts to keep the checks fluid. Why were these apples stacked so poorly? DF Al was supposed to take care of that. Where the hell was he, anyway?

 

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