by Nikki Loftin
Right then, I wanted a pork chop more than anything. A pork chop, and a family who ate meals together, and had enough money for meat . . . and doctor’s bills.
And rent.
The other note was from the landlord. I tore it down and scanned it while I filled a glass of water.
He’d heard about the accident. He’d taken the money I’d left, but it wasn’t enough. We still had to pay the rest immediately. He was coming back with the eviction notice in a few days, if we didn’t bring cash or a money order to his office.
I crumpled both notes up and threw them away, burying them deep under the garbage in the kitchen can. The trash was starting to stink.
The fridge was full of casseroles, but I couldn’t stand the smell of all that Jell-O and hamburger meat. Maybe later. So I ate the last of the bread—two heel ends wrapped in a bag in the freezer, with some margarine on them—and got to work.
I didn’t want Mom coming home to a filthy house. She already had to come home to a son who’d stolen from her. It was the least I could do.
I must have fallen asleep on the sofa. I woke up to Mom’s cool hand on my forehead. “You sick, Little John?” she asked. “You’re burning up.”
“Sunburn.” I tried to sit up. She pushed me back down, gently. “No,” she said. “Don’t get up.” She stood and started out of the room.
At the last minute she turned back. “You paid the landlord,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “Thanks,” she said.
I sat up, startled. “What—”
She smiled. “I checked the money box. Thanks.” She clicked off the light. “I knew I could count on you. Now sleep.”
I could have stopped her, could have told her the truth then. But I didn’t. She looked so tired, old. I hadn’t seen her look like that since the week of Raelynn’s funeral.
I closed my eyes, bad memories and guilt filling my mind. I tried to sleep, but I kept remembering that saying. “No rest for the wicked,” I’d heard the church ladies say sometimes. I hadn’t understood it then, but now I did. I’d never thought of myself as wicked before.
But I was a liar, a thief, and—with the way I’d left my dad to work alone—a hair away from being a murderer. I was wicked for sure. Through and through.
I stayed awake with my dark thoughts for a long time.
“How’s Dad?” I asked at breakfast the next morning. Or it was supposed to be breakfast; it was the leftover casserole from Ernest’s mom, which had started to go a little hard on the edges. But there wasn’t any regular breakfast stuff like milk or cereal.
I hadn’t slept, but I knew I had to do some thinking today, so I was drinking coffee with Mom. She hadn’t questioned it when I’d asked—just poured me a cup like it was an everyday thing. The bitterness on my tongue matched what I was feeling inside. Of course, Mom had made extra—she obviously hadn’t slept much either.
“He’s okay,” she said. “Doing better last night, anyway.” She closed her eyes for a second, like her head hurt. “The doctor wants to keep him a few more days, but maybe he can come home sooner.”
“Really?” Maybe he wasn’t that bad. Maybe he would be able to work again, and we could earn the money for the rent after all. I’d work as hard as he needed me to, I knew that.
I had to make this right.
“Are you going back up there today?” I asked. When she nodded, I went on. “Do you want me to come? I was thinking I could mow some lawns, look for a little work?”
She smiled, but the lines between her eyes didn’t disappear. “That’d be real good, Little John.” She paused, and took a sip of coffee. “We’re going to need you to help a lot more, once Dad’s home. He’s not going to be able to work for weeks.”
“Weeks?” I swallowed. The landlord had said he was evicting us in a few days.
“He got cut up pretty bad,” she said. “But don’t you worry. Pastor Martin said we can get food from the pantry, and once your dad doesn’t need me at home, I’ll take on some secretarial work they have up there. Fold the bulletins, that sort of thing. If you can do a little more work around town, that’d help. We’ll make ends meet.”
I fought not to cry or scream. It kept coming back to me—this was all my fault. If I hadn’t wanted that money from the Emperor so bad. If Dad hadn’t been working alone—I must have said the last few words out loud, because I felt Mom’s arms around my shoulders.
“It’s not your fault, Little John,” she said. “Don’t even think that.” Her hands were soft on my face, and I leaned into her. It had been so long since she’d held me, I couldn’t remember feeling this. Feeling loved.
Even though I didn’t deserve it.
She patted me on the shoulder and carried our coffee cups over to the sink to rinse them out. “I have to walk to the church today. The truck is still out at Mr. King’s. Pastor said he’ll drive me out there so I can take myself to and from the hospital from now on. Sure wish I’d learned to drive a stick shift now,” she muttered, and crossed the kitchen. “Can you get lunch together without me?”
“Sure, Mom,” I said. I was itching for her to go. I had to have some time alone to think. I guess she could see it in my face.
She smiled again and shook her head. “Look at you, all the worries of the world on that sweet face. Don’t be afraid. It could be a lot worse. At least Mr. King’s paying all the hospital bills. Of course, he’s the only one in town with enough money to do such a thing. So, if this sort of thing had to happen, better there than anywhere else.” She turned away. “I’ll just go tell Raelynn good-bye.”
“Bye, Mom,” I whispered. I grabbed a plastic dish of some casserole that smelled like meat loaf, a fork, and a bottle of water from the fridge, tossed them into my backpack, and headed out. I didn’t want to see if Mom came out of Raelynn’s room crazy or not. I just had to hope for the best.
And try to find work.
• • •
I knocked on fourteen doors, but no one needed any yard work done. Two ladies handed me sodas, and one told me to come back the next week. But the next week would be too late.
I sat in the shade of a soapberry tree and drank the last few swallows of the soda. I was getting desperate. Was this my payback for stealing that ten-dollar bill from the church collection plate, or for all the wrongs I’d done since?
Maybe I needed to ask forgiveness. I got up and headed in the direction of the steeple.
The sanctuary was open, but the church secretary saw me go in. I knew I only had a few minutes to pray before she came in to see what I was up to. I hustled to the front of the church and knelt down.
I didn’t pray out loud. In fact, I couldn’t pray at all. Only one word came to my mind.
Why?
I thought about it, over and over. Why had all this happened to me, to my mom and dad? We were good people; we’d always tried to do what was right.
Well, Mom had, anyway. I knew I’d done plenty wrong, and Dad? He probably hadn’t prayed in . . . longer than I could remember. But it had all started with Raelynn dying.
“Why?” I said out loud. Then louder, “Why?”
“Do you need something, son?” It was Mrs. Haas, the secretary. She hung back at the edge of the sanctuary, like she was afraid to come in—or afraid the phone would ring in her office and she wouldn’t hear it. “How’s your daddy?”
“Fine, ma’am,” I answered, getting up. “I was just . . .”
“Praying?” She smiled, looking at the cross hanging there. “Good. You know, God answers prayer.”
I tried not to laugh; I had a feeling it wouldn’t be a happy sound. “Well, he hasn’t answered mine,” I said.
“What is it you were praying for?” she said. “If you can say.”
I think she figured I would say “for my dad to be healed,” but I didn’t. “Money,” I stated. “I need five hundred dollars,
this week.”
“You’re not planning on holding up a bank, are you?” She laughed, then stopped, her eyes alarmed. I guess Mr. King had been right about my poker face, since she blurted out, “Don’t get any ideas.”
I shrugged. Until she said it, I hadn’t thought once about stealing the money. Maybe I wasn’t such a hopeless sinner after all.
“I don’t have any ideas, ma’am,” I said. She relaxed.
“I wish I could help you, son. But—” She hesitated. “I don’t see why you’d need that much money. Isn’t Mr. King paying for your daddy’s bills? He’s the only one in this town with money to spare.” Then the phone rang in her office, and she turned halfway away. I could tell she didn’t want to leave me there alone, especially not after she’d seen me consider stealing.
“I’ll be right out,” I said. “Give me a minute?”
She left, her sandals flapping against the fellowship hall floor.
The only one in town with that much money was the Emperor, she’d said. I felt sick, but I knew what I had to do. Only it seemed like a betrayal of everything I believed in, of the one I’d sworn to take care of, to do it.
“Okay, God. You want this? Send me a sign. Who can help me?” Nothing happened. No bolt of light, no angel choir. So, after a few minutes, I did what Raelynn and I used to do during the most boring sermons. It was time to play Bible fortune-teller. I picked up the Bible in front of me, thumbed through it with my eyes closed, and let the cover fall open on my lap. Without looking, I set my finger on the page.
I opened my eyes and read out loud: “‘I found he had done nothing deserving of death, but because he made his appeal to the Emperor . . .’” My voice stopped on the word Emperor.
It was as close to a sign as I was going to get.
I dropped the Bible on the pew and got up. As I jogged the rest of the way out to the Emperor’s house, I had plenty of time to think. Time to wonder what I was doing.
This was the man who’d scared Gayle so much she couldn’t sing. Who’d stolen her voice.
I wanted to kill him.
I had to beg him for money.
Nobody saw, but I stopped twice to throw up meat loaf and soda pop. Whether it was from the running or the thought of what I had to do, I didn’t know.
It didn’t matter.
When I got to the Emperor’s house, he wasn’t there. Dad’s truck wasn’t, either, which meant Mom had already come by and picked it up. I hoped she hadn’t seen me running out this way. Someone was at the house, though. A man in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt was standing by the fence line, shaking his head.
“Excuse me, sir?” I said. “Is Mr. King home?”
“No, son, he’s not,” the man said. I didn’t recognize him, but I knew his name. I’d seen his truck in the driveway. It had a fancy label on it that said DANIEL DEVONSHIRE’S DIAMOND LANDSCAPES. What worried me, though, was the chain saw and pruning extensions I’d seen in the truck bed.
“Want me to give him a message for you?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I can wait.”
“He’s not coming back until tomorrow.” The man smiled, trying to be kind, I guessed. But his next words took my breath away. “I can get him a message, though. I’m staying out here, trying to fix the work some idiot did last week.” He moved over to examine the cut branch on the sycamore. “Amateur hour,” I heard him mutter.
Was he talking about the work Dad had done?
“I don’t know what Mr. King was thinking. Must have been doing some poor guy a favor. But this is going to take some work to fix.”
My head buzzed. “What do you mean?”
The gardener looked back at me, impatience in his eyes. “Son, I don’t have time to talk. If this one’s any example, I’ve got about forty more acres of damage to work on. The last guy who messed with these trees left me plenty to do. Come back tomorrow.” He walked off to his truck, pulling his smartphone out of his pocket to call someone.
I wanted to run off, but I remembered what I was there for. My face burning, I called out after him. “You don’t need some help, do you? I can haul wood. I’m really strong. And I work cheap.”
The man just laughed and waved me off, like I was some sort of stray dog.
I looked at the sycamore. The cuts Dad had made didn’t look like the other ones, the ones on the pecans. Obviously, the branch had broken and fallen onto him—or he’d come off his ladder before he’d finished the cut, and the branch had broken then.
It stung, this guy with a fancy phone and a fancy truck, judging my dad by one branch.
The Emperor wasn’t home. No one else in town had any money, except for . . .
I knew one family that had money, enough money to pay the rent. The same one who’d taken it. But the Cutlins would never think of giving it back to me. Five hundred dollars was a heck of a lot to people like them, even if they did have cable and AC. And Jeb hated me anyway. He’d be glad to see my family out on the street.
There was no use asking again.
I had to get home. Mom would be back from the hospital before me, at this rate. I tried not to even look at the Cutlins’ house as I ran past it.
It was close to six o’clock by the time my feet hit the driveway in front of the house. Uh-oh. Dad’s truck was in the driveway. I crossed my fingers that Mom hadn’t been home long. “Mom?” I yelled as I ran inside. Maybe she’d made something for dinner—or would at least have some good news about Dad. “How’s Dad?” I said, when I pulled open the door.
No one answered, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim light inside. But when they did, I saw Mom sitting there, on the sofa. Crying. She had something in her hand—a yellow piece of paper. It had been crumpled up, then laid back flat. I could read the words on the top plenty well, even in the dark room. Notice of Eviction.
“Mom?” I said. I could feel my heart pounding so hard, the blood pulsed in my neck, my skull, the roof of my dry mouth.
“Mom?” I asked again.
But it wasn’t Mom who answered.
“What did you do with the money?”
“Dad?”
He was lying on the sofa, his head and arm propped up on stacks of pillows. The coffee table had been pulled up alongside the sofa to help support his arm and to make a space for all the bottles of prescription medicines there. There was a soda and a glass of water, sweating rings of condensation onto the fake wood surface.
“How are you, Dad?” I took a step toward him. “I didn’t think you’d—”
“Where’d you put the money, boy?” he shouted. Whatever was wrong with his arm obviously hadn’t hurt his vocal cords. I jumped at the familiar yell.
I didn’t know what to say. How could I explain what I’d done? What could I possibly tell them that would make them understand? I hadn’t known how bad we needed the money when I took it. How could I have known there wasn’t anything else for the landlord? That Dad wasn’t going to be getting any more paychecks from the Emperor?
There was no way the Cutlins would give the money back, and I wasn’t about to bring Gayle into this.
There wasn’t anybody here who would understand. Who would take my side.
I had to take the blame. “I lost it,” I said softly. But each word fell like a grenade into the silence of the room.
I heard a soft moan. Mom was wringing her hands, twisting at the silver ring on her finger—the one that had taken the place of her old gold one, the real one she’d had to sell to afford the down payment on the burial plot for Raelynn. “Where we gonna live?” she murmured, her voice high and strange. “Where we gonna live now?”
“Lost it?” Dad said, then repeated himself, louder. “Lost it where? Lost it at a store? You buy yourself something nice?”
“No,” I protested. “Nothing for me. I didn’t spend it, not a cent! I just—I lo
st it.”
He could tell I was lying. “Boy,” he whispered and started to get up from the sofa. I recognized the gleam in his eye; he was planning to wallop me. But he’d forgotten about his arm, I guess. As soon as he started moving, the pillows shifted, falling to the floor like a block tower, but silently. Dad yelled, “Mary!”
Mom raced over to pick up the pillows. Dad’s face was red, and creased with pain. I knelt down, trying to scoop up the pillows to help, but Dad’s growl stopped me.
“Get away from me,” he said, each word as clear as a whistle. “Get out of my sight.”
I held the pillows out to him, but all he said was “Now!” I set them down at Mom’s feet and turned to go.
“Don’t . . . come back . . . without . . . that money.” His voice followed me out of the house, but I didn’t make it far. On the porch, just a few feet away, my legs gave out on me, and my knees folded, until I was sitting on the wood, legs splayed like one of Raelynn’s cloth dolls.
Raelynn. Gayle. My parents. I’d let everyone down. I stuffed a fist in my mouth, hoping it would keep the cries from coming out.
I sat there for hours, wondering how to make it right. How could I come up with the money?
The Emperor would be back the next day. If anyone owed us the rent money, it was him.
The night air got cooler. I shifted on the porch, trying not to make a sound. Maybe I could sneak back into my room. But Mom’s soft crying and Dad’s swearing kept me up most of the night. The moon was brighter than a nightlight, too. After a few hours, I gave up waiting and walked around back, the grass soft under my tennis shoes. I leaned my back up against the stump that had been Raelynn’s oak tree. I remembered the day Dad had cut down all the trees in our backyard, the day after the funeral. I had watched, wanting to help. Hating those trees.
Why had Dad left the stump of this one? To remember her by? I knew he’d had plans to burn it out. I ran my fingers along the top of the stump. The chain-saw cuts he’d left had started to weather, get softer. The top was almost smooth, but puckered, like an old scar. I pressed a hand on my chest, wondering if someday the thought of Raelynn would be like that in my heart. Softer, not so sharp.
