The Whole Stupid Way We Are

by N. Griffin

  “Pardon,” says the cop. “I don’t mean to offend. We just need to get what all happened, what led up to this trip to the hospital for your dad.”

  Skint straightens and bends his knee.

  “Skint.” Mrs. Beach. “Officer Craig is talking to you, honey.”

  Skint glances at the cop.

  “Do you know how your dad got that bruise there on his head, Skint?”

  “He fell.”

  “Oh,” says the cop. Then: “What made him fall?”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “Skint.”

  “The floor was wet,” says Skint. “He slipped. He fell.”

  The policeman glances at Mrs. Beach. What? What? Where’s Ellen?

  Where’s Ellen!

  Skint leaps up. What is going on? Do they have Ellen in jail? Are they bringing her up on charges? “My mom didn’t hit him!” His voice doesn’t even sound like his own. “My dad just fell and hit his head!”

  The cop glances at Mrs. Beach again, then at Skint. “How did that come about, Skint? Can you tell us?”

  Ellen’s blotchy face, ponytail sliding. Neck craned forward, contorted mouth. His dad, backing up.

  “Leave me alone!”

  Dinah’s father and Beagie came and got her at the Center hours ago, but no one will let her go be with Skint. She’s been lying here on her bedroom floor forever, waiting, bones leaded and heavy and dead. The rug needs a shampoo. It smells awful, like rotting teeth and crying. There are two uneven yellow threads in front of Dinah’s nose and she picks at the shorter one.

  Feet creak outside her door. “Dinah? Dinah? Are you asleep?”

  “I’m awake,” Dinah cries, lifting her head from the floor. “I’m awake!”

  Dinah’s mother opens the door. “I’m sorry it took so long. We’ve been at the hospital most of this time.”

  Dinah scrambles up to sitting. “Is everything all right? Where’s Skint?”

  Skull against the bedspread; all the blood has rushed to Skint’s head. Mrs. Beach and the cop going on and on about how his father needs care, as if it is news. As if what he needs were some kind of goddamn puzzle. Food. Showers. Help with his goddamn clothes.

  “Your mother—” says Mrs. Beach.

  No. Skint can’t think about Ellen right now. They’ve questioned her but they aren’t holding her, they said; they can’t prove that she did a thing. They’re offering her counseling. They think that will help.

  “Fuck my mother.”

  Skint lifts his head. The shift of his blood makes him lightheaded, his eyes staring and feeling like stones. “I can take care of my dad. I already do.”

  “We’ll help,” says Dinah, bouncing a little on her knees. “We’ll take turns taking care of Mr. Gilbert when he’s out of the hospital. We can take turns staying over there, too. I’ll do all the cleaning. You and Dad can ask in church for people to help, too. Don’t you think that’s a good idea? Don’t you think people will help?”

  Mrs. Beach nods, eyes creased, twisting her fingers in her hands. Then she stops, and shakes her head no.

  What do they mean, his dad needs more help? What, a machine with arms and claws, a putter-on of pants? Or maybe they mean someone to come around to the house, maybe even someone living in. That actually wouldn’t be half bad. Skint could give his room to that person and make a new one for himself, down in the basement.

  But no. No. That is not what they mean.

  Dinah screams.

  “No!”

  Skint leaps from his chair and it goes flying back, crashing.

  This is what she calls helping, sending his dad away! “I watch my father! I make sure he’s not unsafe! You don’t know shit about any of it!”

  He’ll punch Mrs. Beach in her swimming fucking eyes. His chest draws in, ribs constricted, jabbing tight.

  Dad! Daddy!

  Walking. Talking. Hand in his father’s hand.

  “Where is Skint?” screams Dinah. “Where is he?”

  “We tried to get in touch with his uncles,” says Mrs. Beach, grabbing for Dinah, who rears back, pushing away. “Bernadine tried and tried!”

  “Bernadine?!”

  “It was her volunteer shift—she saw Mr. Gilbert’s name—”

  Please, God, help me, please!

  How did they get to this point? How did all this happen? How did they get from cookies and home to people stealing away his dad? How? Who?

  “You,” Dinah breathes to her mother. “You. This is because of you.” Skint in the hospital, her ghastly mother taking his hand, telling him she’s called the police and arranged to have his father taken away. Ellen back home and Skint sick with rage, can’t stand to be with his mother in that house. “You’ve wrecked everything! You’ve wrecked Skint’s entire life!”

  “Dinah sent me, honey; she sent me” is what Mrs. Beach told Skint before, at the house.

  Dinah is how they got here. Dinah ran out the door and told.

  Blue flame licking, spitting, rising steady burn.

  Dinah told them, she told them, she told them.

  “Skint.” Mrs. Beach’s voice scrapes inside his brain. “If you don’t want to go home, you can stay with us, as long as you need, as long as you want, as long as you like.”

  “Mrs. Beach,” says Skint, “I would rather fucking die.”

  Skint’s staying with Ms. Dugan?

  “Bernadine called her from the hospital. She offered and he said yes, Dinah,” Mrs. Beach cries. “He won’t stay with her forever! Just until we can sort things out! Bernadine will help her!”

  “Help her? Sort things out?” Dinah cries into her mother’s upturned face. “How can you sort this out?”

  If Skint won’t live with his mother or with the Beaches, they’ll send him away—one of those useless uncles—he’ll have to move away from Aile Quarry!

  “This is what you call helping?!” Dinah’s up and by the door. “Skint won’t even come to our house because he can’t stand to be near you! I hate you! I hate you!”

  Dinah bolts from the room.

  Feet slapping the road, she tears down to Ms. Dugan’s. Her mother is the assiest person who ever lived, the stupidest, least caring—Dinah will get her to undo what she did. She has to; she’ll make her apologize to Skint. Dinah will fix it; she will, she will.

  Skint’s bike is on Ms. Dugan’s porch. Good, he’s here.

  Dinah pounds on the door. She’ll make Beagie do that little dance for Skint, she’ll—

  “He’s out.” It’s Bernadine, not Ms. Dugan, who opens the door. “Come in, Dinah Beach. It’s cold.”

  “Where did he go?” asks Dinah, breathless from running. Behind Bernadine the living room smells like meat and the shelves are full of trophies. Pictures of teams and nephews hang high on the walls, practically touching the ceiling.

  “Nowhere. Just out and about,” Bernadine tells her. “You leave him alone. Sometimes a body needs to be alone.”

  Skint is alone all the time, you awful person. What he needs is me.

  “Hey, there, Dinah B.” Ms. Dugan appears behind Bernadine. “Come on in. Mrs. Chatham’s in the kitchen. Come sit with us. Have a soda pop and we’ll talk the thing out.”

  “No, thank you. Please tell Skint I came to see him, please.” Dinah’s off the porch again and running.

  Oh, please, just come stay with us; I’ll get my mom to keep away.

  The sky is darkening and the clouds are thick with imminent snow. Dinah has looked everywhere. It shouldn’t be this hard to find Skint, not if he isn’t on his bike, but he hasn’t turned up anywhere Dinah can think of for him to be.

  Jogging, hustling—past the Rural Routes’ house. The man Rural Route is out on his porch. Where is the woman? Dinah has never seen one Rural Route without the other. The man stands, shoulders sloped, head bent down—he’s waiting for the woman, Dinah imagines. She’s probably inside, putting on that coat—

  Stop it, Dinah Beach. You have to get going; hurry. She waves
quickly to Mr. Rural Route, but he doesn’t wave back; maybe he doesn’t recognize her alone, without Skint.

  I’ll help you but Skint first. I have to find Skint right now.

  The road climbs deeper up into the woods until the pavement gives out and becomes the dirt path, littered with fallen twigs and stones. Other than Dinah’s footfalls, there’s nothing to hear up here but the no-sound of waiting snow. No houses up here and the path isn’t cleared, so Dinah has to bash through the icy crust on top of a winter’s worth of snow with every step.

  Bash, bash.

  Wait; ahead of her. Someone walking. Thin, in a hooded sweatshirt.

  Dinah freezes.

  “Skint!”

  The walking person stops. Hollow-looking bones and too-thin skin.

  Dinah flails forward, ice cutting at her shins. “Skint!”

  The person turns around. It is Skint. But he does not step forward to meet her.

  Dinah reaches him, breathing hard.

  Crumbs in his eyes, knuckles purple, cheeks smooth and chill as stone. Sneakers soaked through; where are his boots? High above them the peaky heads of the evergreens bend and peer down.

  “Skint?”

  His eyes look like nothing.

  The quiet in the wood is enormous. No more boots sounds, no words, just Dinah’s own heavy breathing.

  “Skint,” she says urgently. “Skint, my mom’s an ass. She’s an ass but we can fix it; we can think of something—”

  Skint’s gaze grows distant and he looks over her shoulder, to the left.

  Dinah’s neck creeps up, freezing. “Skint?”

  He says nothing.

  Dinah looks over her shoulder, too. Nothing there but a pair of crab-apple trees, standing in the middle of the pines, ice-covered and bent under the snow.

  “Those are lovely,” she begins, but Skint cuts her off.

  “No,” he says. His voice is like a gun. “They are in fact not lovely. They are dying; they’re dead. They are calcified fucking trees.”

  “I only—”

  “Shut up.”

  Dinah starts.

  “Don’t talk to me,” says Skint. “Shut up.”

  “I—”

  “I said, shut up. Haven’t you said enough?”

  Dinah chest sears.

  “Skint—I’m sorry—my mom—”

  “Your mom? Fuck your mom. What did you think she was going to do? You’re the one who screwed everything up.”

  Dinah’s mouth opens. Her head snaps back.

  “You run off to her like a crying toddler; what other recourse does she have? Of course they’re going to take him, put him in a home! Thanks ever so much, Dinah. You’ve made everything so effing grand.”

  “Skint! I’m sorry! I thought—he—I thought—”

  “You didn’t think. You never do. You don’t think. You play, like an overgrown, messed-up baby.”

  What? What?

  “You and those skirts and your parcels and pretending.” Skint’s voice drips with disgust. “Fuck you, Dinah. Fuck your willful kid crap.”

  “Your dad—I was scared for him—he—”

  “You poor baby. I don’t care if you were scared.”

  “Your mom—Skint. He needed help—”

  “We’ve been fine without you this long, infant; what made you think we needed you now?”

  “Your mom was—”

  “Shut up about my mom! Since when do you notice my mom?”

  Dinah’s brain stumbles, trips. “I don’t—what?”

  Skint throws his head back, hands in his hair. “Jesus fucking Christ!” He drops his head back down and he looks at her, revulsed. “You fucking spare yourself from everything. You avoid anything that tells you that life is not a singsong. Most people don’t have it like you, you know—parents who think she’s hot shit for breathing and a life with zero crap. Your perfect parents perfect, baby laughing on Daddy’s lap. Shit happens, Dinah. People suck.”

  “I know people suck!” Dinah cries. “Don’t you know I know that?”

  “I don’t think you know jack. Grow up, Dinah. Grow the hell up.”

  “I’m sorry, Skint, I’m sorry! I’ll help, I’ll—” Steal back his dad, memory him up?

  “What’ll you do? Punch someone? Distract me with some crazy-ass game?”

  “I’ll do anything, Skint, I’m sorry! I love your dad, I love him!”

  Skint’s gaze is ice.

  “Then I’d hate to see how you help the people you hate. Go home, Dinah. Get away from me and go home. And never come near me again.”

  Dinah stumbles down the path in the falling-fast snow. The truth of herself is fire in her veins. Skint is right. What has she ever done but pretend? All these years of her stupid playing, thinking it made him happy—it was never what he needed. She never even helped him at all.

  Dinah’s skirt tangles in her legs and she slaps at its stripes. Tears and mucus rise and break. Every word he said was true. She told herself it was him she wanted to spare, keeping Skint away from his own house, away from thinking about his dad, but it wasn’t, not really. She kept them both away from it all because it was too much for Dinah to take, too: She’s never liked Ellen, but the truth is she was avoiding Mr. Gilbert just as much; Mr. Gilbert, bent and silver, sad to the bone and gone. She had no idea how bad he’d gotten because she didn’t truly want to know.

  The trees overhead shake, snow falling down. Snot-smeared and eyes streaming, Dinah staggers down the path, her blood running with the sick of Skint’s rage, with her own selfish wrong-help having been worse than none at all. All this time with that going on over there, Skint all by himself in that house with just Ellen—

  Now you notice my mom?

  Dinah stops moving.

  You can understand her, though.

  Dinah’s sobs slow, and cease.

  Ellen. Ellen. Skint was upset yesterday because Dinah didn’t understand it was Ellen that was his problem, not just that his dad was worse. He was telling her. He thought she saw. And she didn’t. She didn’t. Dinah was too stuck in her own selfish thinking to see what Skint meant. He meant Ellen; he meant her cruelty; he meant how she was to his dad.

  She is a hypocrite! A hypocrite! So worried about how Walter was being cared for, but she never once worried about Skint.

  No! No! Roots in the path, ice covered and gray. Dinah drops, face in her palms.

  What if she hadn’t been so wrong? What if she had understood?

  Freezing knees; wet to the bone. Ice on her mitten tips, snow falling down.

  Good. Let her go. Stumble out of the woods, Dinah, clatter and stumble away. Skint’s chest hammers as hard and fast as if he’d shoved her down the path himself. His throat is full of stones.

  Dinah disappears around the curve of the path, and now there’s no sound but his pounding chest and his breath, ragged and loud.

  Then his heartbeat slows and his bones go suddenly limp. He is spent, exhausted, more tired than he has ever been.

  Should he go to Ms. Dugan’s and sleep? That house, though. That house. Full of old crackers and gym clothes; Bernadine and her mother always there, too, and the incessant, senseless askings. (“Newspaper, Mr. Gilbert?”—“No, thank you, Bernadine.”—“Join me in a run, kid? Get the old lymph system going?”—“No. I’m good, Ms. D. I’m fine.”) All of them sipping tea, one sip after another. Sip. Sip. Sip. Sip.

  Every day there? Every day counting sips of tea? Never alone, always with them, no more time with—

  Crack! A tree branch, snapping in the snow and cold.

  Dinah. Dinah.

  Stumbling away from him out of the woods, away from him, stumbling away.

  Heat threatens the backs of his eyes, flicks at the base of his brain, hollowing his chest to its bones. Can’t think about his dad without his body becoming a scream, can’t even begin to think about Ellen—

  Stop! Hold it in! But he can’t. Flames sear up Skint’s chest into his throat, bigger than he can quell, and the
heat tears through every stick of his bones, draining them of marrow and blood and racing up into his head until his skull can no longer contain it.

  Daddy! Dad! Dinah! Oh, God—everybody’s gone! There’s nothing left to keep him here. Nothing left at all.

  Too much. His mind explodes, bursts into eleven pieces, flung away, gone.

  Nothing left. Skint in a thousand fragments. Rising, filling the wood.

  Dinah lies on her bed, her clothes stiff with dried-out snow. It’s late; dark. Now is when Skint would usually call her, but her phone is as still as the trees. He is probably out walking, walking. Out in the cold and the snow.

  Beagie’s bedtime noises sound through her closed bedroom door.

  The phone rings and her mother answers it. Mr. Beach is out.

  “Dah, Dah, Dah!” Beagie shouts for Dinah over her mother’s greetings, but Dinah doesn’t get up or answer him, and he stops.

  “I wish we had known, too,” her mother murmurs into the phone in the lull. “If we had known, I might have—”

  Dinah leaps up and flings open her door.

  “You should have known,” she says clearly. “You should have.”

  “Dah!” cries Beagie and holds out his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Beach says into the phone. “The baby—I’ll call you back later.” Her mother’s eyes and her scrubby old bones, her hair a mess, as tangled as Dinah’s. “Dinah, it’s very complex—”

  “What’s so complex about it? Didn’t you ever think about Mr. Gilbert after he stopped coming to the Center? Didn’t you ever think about him at all?”

  “Dinah—”

  “Isn’t it your job to understand about dementia? How it is, how awful it gets?”

  “Dinah, don’t do—”

  “What? Would you prefer me to go look at how pretty it is outside? Would you like me to just not think about anything hard? Why?” Dinah’s voice rises to a shout. “So you won’t have to either?”

  Beagie’s face crumples and he starts to cry.