Among the Lesser Gods

by Margo Catts

  I looked at Sarah, who seemed completely absorbed by the kazoo making. Bella had flopped on her side and the puppies were nursing.

  I lowered my voice. “What was it you wanted to tell me about Kevin’s friends?”

  Poppy made a sound in her nose. “Scott’s not usually his friend. Plus you said it was a group.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She lifted her chest in a deep sigh. “Kevin gets bullied a lot.”

  “So isn’t it a good thing somebody wants him to play?”

  Poppy looked at me. “You know how bullies work, right?”

  “Oh,” I said. But did I? I’d grown up behind a fence built of other kids’ unsureness about me, not bullied but not befriended. I thought of all my urgings to Kevin to get outside, find somebody, anybody, and just play. I’d seen other kids do it. I thought that was how it worked. I always thought that if I’d been pushed to do the same maybe I would’ve learned to be more like the children I assumed were happier. “What are they going to do? Should I not let him play when they ask?”

  “No. You can’t prevent it. You can’t keep him in hiding. Just—keep your eyes open. Help him figure out how to act. How to find real friends. Coach him.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “It’s just—there can’t be a worse person for that job.”

  “Oh, don’t be melodramatic. You know the difference between a good kid and a little shit. Scott’s a little shit. Help Kevin figure it out for himself.”

  She pivoted forward from her seat to her knees, scooped up a puppy that had fallen asleep, and deposited it in Sarah’s lap.

  “There you go, honey.”

  “Oh!” Grass fluttered down from her hands. She curved over the puppy in her lap like a scallop closing its shell and stroked the puppy’s fur. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Can I say something?” Poppy asked as she dropped onto her backside.

  “Sure.”

  “Look. I can see you got troubles. You’re wrapped around ’em as tight as a rope. You gotta let go. We’re all your friends here. Everybody thinks you’re the kindest thing in the world, looking after these children like this. You got more credit in the goodwill bank in this town than you could spend in a lifetime. So start spending. Let folks help you with those troubles.”

  I looked down at the sling of my arms wrapped around my thighs, the wedge of grass visible between them. Today I wore shorts with a zipper, which was cutting into my belly more sharply than the button on my jeans had done. I looked back up at Poppy—the gentle eyes, the flyaway gray tendrils, the soft little rolls along her neck. Turquoise stones the size of gumballs hung from wires in her ears, stretching the lobes long and flat.

  “I didn’t come here to be kind,” I said.

  “Well, of course not. Nobody would. Are you ashamed of that?”

  I straightened my back, trying to pull away from the zipper teeth. I glanced at Sarah, still mesmerized by the sleeping puppy. I lowered my voice until I wasn’t sure even Poppy could hear it.

  “I’m pregnant,” I said.

  Poppy nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Yes, yes,” she said, as if considering whether she had enough toilet paper to lend me a couple of rolls. “That’s a worry for certain.” She nodded some more, gazing off across the yard, thinking. “But I believe we got everything you need around here to help out with that.”

  23

  Kevin arrived home a little after noon, filthy and hungry, as I bent over the washing machine scraping wet socks from the wall of the tub.

  “Good grief,” I said. “What have you been doing?”

  “Diggin’ in the dirt,” he said, slamming the back porch door behind himself. He had a lightness, an energy I hadn’t seen before. A wash of relief passed over me. Perhaps I’d pushed him in the right direction after all.

  “Wow. Did you leave any dirt outside?”

  “Nope. It’s all in my pockets,” he said, then barked a big laugh, clearly delighted to share a joke.

  “Well, shake it out tonight before you get ready for bed. Outside. Are you ready for lunch?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Ham sandwiches?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I sent Kevin to wash up and called Sarah, who’d been asking about lunch for some time. As they ate, he tore big bites out of his sandwich and made a play out of filling his cheeks, making Sarah laugh. The cloud of bad temper had lifted.

  “You wanna come over?” he asked Sarah as he finished his Fritos.

  “Come over where?” I said.

  “Back to the Brames’ with me.”

  Something struck me wrong. This seemed like an odd request for a eleven-year-old boy to make of his much younger sister.

  “Scott has a sister,” Kevin explained before I could ask. “She wants Sarah to come play.”

  Sarah took an overlarge bite of her sandwich. “I don’t like Cindy,” she said around it.

  “Yeah, I don’t like sending her to a place I don’t know,” I added.

  “She really wants you to come.”

  Sarah frowned, brows furrowing as her cheeks widened and slackened with chewing.

  “I don’t think that’s a good—”

  But she cut me off. “Okay,” she said. She put down her sandwich and took a swallow of milk. She looked up at me as she set down the glass. “Can I go?”

  “But you just said you didn’t like this girl.”

  “Sometimes she’s mean. But sometimes she’s nice.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good friend.” Was this the way I was supposed to teach them?

  Kevin translated for me. “Cindy was in her kindergarten class. They play a lot. They get in fights sometime, but then they’re okay again.”

  I couldn’t automatically blame the unknown child for disagreements between them. Sarah certainly tended to be bossy herself. Perhaps this was one of the families that had had its fill of Kofford children in the months before I came. Perhaps connections were repairing themselves and I should be supportive.

  “Okay,” I finally said. “But I’m going to walk over with you both and make sure it’s okay.”

  Kevin gave a whine of protest, which actually made me smile.

  “I’m embarrassing?” I asked.

  An eye roll was his only response. Perhaps I was better integrated into this family than I thought.

  *

  At six thirty I admitted to myself that I was worried. I’d left the children at the Brames’ house over five hours earlier, after the mother met me at the door, put her hand over the phone mouthpiece long enough to confirm the invitation, and said she’d send them home before dinner. But in even my limited experience, Sarah tended to tire of playmates quickly and I’d expected her sooner. And Kevin should have been painfully hungry long ago.

  I consumed another half hour telling myself I was overreacting, waiting for worry to be proven wrong. Any minute. In just one more minute. But at seven, as the sun spread wide rays across the roofs, and the house’s shadow covered the neighbor’s fence, I couldn’t wonder what to do any longer. Leaving a note on the table, I walked down to the corner, turned, and headed up the next road. The abandoned house on the corner. The next one with the spotted dog in the front yard. The yellow house. And then the Brames’, with its faded wreath of wooden hearts on the door.

  Seeing no one in the yard, I climbed the slat steps to the door and knocked. I heard toenails, then snuffles along the baseboard, but no barking. Eventually I knocked again. The dog walked away.

  I left the porch and circled the house. A tire was strapped to a tree trunk in the backyard, and the tall grass bent here and there to cup balls in assorted sizes and varieties. But no children. I came back around to the front, then went into the center of the road and stretched to see as far as I could around each of the other houses. Took a few steps one way, and then another. It felt like action. I didn’t know what else to do.

  I stood still eno
ugh to feel claws of anxiety scrabble at the insides of my ribs. Where could they be? I looked around at the homes of strangers, which stood stiff and silent, closed against me. Other than the scattering of pickup trucks and cars, the street was empty. I went to the house next door, the yellow one, and knocked on the door. A creak, voices, footsteps, and then a man answered the door, steel-haired and pot-bellied.

  “Hi—I’m—looking for the Brames. Some children who were playing there?”

  The man listened to me, then frowned and shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I just got home. No idea where they are. Sheila?” he called over his shoulder. “You know where the Brames are?”

  The response had the inflection of another question but no discernable words. He turned back to me. “Sorry. She doesn’t know either.”

  I found another man home in the house on the other side and got the same response. Also across the street. On either side of that one, no one answered the door. I’d started to run from house to house, but gave up at the house with the dog, which lunged at its chain within easy reach of the porch.

  I stood in the center of the road, short of breath, heart thudding, while the chained dog barked at me. What options did I have? I didn’t know any of the children’s other friends. Should I start walking through town and just look for them? No—driving. I would be better equipped to find them in the car. I needed to go back and get the car.

  I ran down the road, along the street at the bottom, and back uphill to the Koffords’, arriving at the house out of breath. I jumped over the front steps and grabbed my purse and keys, then ran back outside. Poppy hailed me from across the street, where she stood with her thumb over the end of the hose, spraying something weedy.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I stopped by the car door. “The children. They’re gone.”

  “What?” She dropped the hose and started lumbering toward me. “What?”

  “They’re gone. They went to the Brames’. They were supposed to be home by now, but I was just there—everybody’s gone. I don’t know where they are.”

  She slowed down. “Oh, honey. It’s fine. They just got busy playing somewhere. You know how children are.”

  “No, I don’t know how children are!” I snapped. “I know these children, and they should be home right now, and Mrs. Brame said she’d send them before dinner, and now nobody’s home! Nobody! They should’ve been home hours ago!”

  “Maybe so. Maybe so.” Poppy had reached me by now. “You drive, honey. I’ll go with you. Everything’s fine.”

  I got in and started the car while Poppy went around and sank into the passenger seat. To my surprise, some degree of my own tension eased as the seat springs relaxed to receive her. What power did the mere presence of someone equally ignorant have to soothe? I took a steadying breath, then did a U-turn and started downhill, across the street, and rolled downhill for another couple of blocks. Nothing. I turned at another cross street and started back up toward the Brames’. I stopped in front of a house with a woman sitting on the front porch steps pulling weeds around her feet.

  “Have you seen some kids go by?” I called out the window.

  “Lots. Which ones are you looking for?”

  “The Kofford kids. They were with the Brames. Two little girls and two boys about eleven. There could’ve been other kids with them.”

  “Oh.” She frowned, then shook her head. “No, no I haven’t.”

  I didn’t bother to thank her but rolled forward again.

  “How ’bout we go back up to the Brames’ and try again,” Poppy said.

  “Okay.” It was as good a suggestion as any other. And I was glad for someone to tell me something—anything—to do. I pulled up in front of the still-empty house and parked. Poppy craned her neck forward and pointed.

  “Now that right there is the Clydes’. They’re catty-corner from my neighbor. Did you ask them?”

  I nodded.

  “And the Janeks, in the next house?”

  “No.”

  “Well, probably no point. They kinda keep to themselves. Now right there—” She pointed toward the end of the road, where the pavement ended against a weedy bank that looked more as if it had been bulldozed into place than as if the road had stopped because of it. “That’s a good place to play. Kids build forts and roads and whatnot up there all the time. Did you look there? Call for them?”

  “No.” Calling. What had kept me silent?

  “Well, now, let’s give that a try, then.” Poppy opened her door and hoisted herself up while I stepped out into the road. Someone walking uphill toward me caught my eye. A boy, head down, kicking a rock. I turned and started toward him

  “Scott? Are you Scott?”

  The boy looked up and stopped. Definitely the one I’d met earlier. Poppy folded her arms on the roof of the car as I hurried to meet him.

  “You remember me? I’m Elena. Where are Kevin and Sarah?”

  He put his weight back onto his heels. “I dunno,” he said.

  “You don’t know? They were with you. Your mom said she’d send them home for dinner. Where are they?”

  “I—I dunno.” He angled himself so that one shoulder was turned away from me, head slightly lowered. A defensive posture. I didn’t like it and took a step closer.

  “Scott? What’s going on?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Stop saying that! Where are Kevin and Sarah?”

  “I already told you! I don’t know! I’m not a liar!”

  What did I see? Something in the boy’s eyes, or the tilt of his head, or the two of them together combined with the tenor of his voice, and all at once I knew. The denial was false. Something had happened. My breath caught in my throat. There wasn’t enough oxygen.

  “Everything okay there, honey?” Poppy’s voice came from somewhere behind me, soothing, warning, but it had no power over my rising panic. I took another step closer, and my hand, of its own accord, grabbed the boy’s arm. “Then why won’t you tell me what’s going on? Where are Kevin and Sarah?”

  A car turned at the corner and rolled up the street toward us.

  “Let go of me!” He twisted against me, but I wouldn’t be so easily shaken off. All the strength I had left was concentrated in my hand. I clenched tighter.

  “Where are Kevin and Sarah? What were you doing together? When did you see them last?”

  The car stopped.

  “We were digging! Then they went home!”

  A man got out. T-shirt. Denim jacket. Bald on top. The shadowy form of a woman in the passenger seat. “You got some problem with my boy?”

  “We’re fine here, Frank,” Poppy said. She was right behind me now. “Elena—”

  I ignored them both and yelled at Scott. “That’s not true! Or you would’ve said so from the beginning!”

  “Ma’am! You better let go of my boy.”

  I pivoted toward the speaker without breaking hold. “Where are Kevin and Sarah? They were at your house! They were supposed to come home! Where are they?”

  “Scott, you told us they went home.”

  “They did!” He twisted again against me.

  “Really? Really?” I yelled as my fingers dug into his arm. My head jerked around toward the father, blurring the background of houses, rusted things, mountains, sky. “Because all I’ve been hearing is I don’t know, I don’t know. Now suddenly he says they went home. They didn’t! He’s lying!”

  “Elena—” Poppy again, pointedly calm.

  “Ma’am, settle down. If he said they went home, they went home. I’ll help you look but I suggest we start over.”

  I spun back to the boy. “Tell me what you were doing! Tell. Me. Now. Where were you playing?”

  He glared at me, surly, defiant, emboldened by the presence of a protector. He tilted his chin toward the top of the road.

  “Over the hill.”

  I tugged at his arm. “Show me where you were when they went home.”

  “Hey—I understand you
’re upset, but you need to let him go.”

  “No!” My anger had radiated outward, washing over both father and son equally. “I sent two children here to play, and she”—I pointed to the car’s windshield and the silent passenger just visible through it—“she said she’d send them home for dinner. She didn’t. Something’s happened! They’re gone. Now all I’ve got is this”—I shook the boy’s arm—“to help me find them. And he’s gonna help, whether he wants to or not!”

  I yanked at the boy’s arm and started walking up the street.

  “You let go of my boy!”

  I swung back toward the car. “He said they were digging. All day?” The man stiffened, straightening behind the car door. “You ask her! What time did they leave?” No answer. “What time?”

  He bent down to say something into the car. The engine rumbled. A moment later he stood again. His voice was lower.

  “She says our kids came home about four thirty. They told her Kevin and Sarah had already gone home.”

  A sob lurched up from the center of my chest. “They’ve been gone for nearly four hours! Please! Help me!”

  The man fixed his gaze on his son. “Scott, what did you find up there?”

  Like an umbrella starting to fold in on itself, the boy shrank. If I’d first seen him as he looked now, I would’ve said he was far younger. “I dunno. Just a hole.”

  “Shit!” the man snapped. Something had changed, and I didn’t know what it was. “Go! I’m right behind you.”

  He got back into the car and pulled around us and into his driveway while I started walking up the street again, still holding Scott. The man reached across his wife to fumble for something in the glove box as she got out of the car with a little girl.

  “Give me the keys,” Poppy said, catching up to me. “I’ll go back to the house in case they come home.”

  I fished the keys out of my pocket as Mrs. Brame’s voice called from the driveway, unbearably bright. “Don’t worry! You’ll find them!”

  I didn’t acknowledge it. I couldn’t look at her. Poppy squeezed my free hand as she took the keys. “It’s okay, honey. Everything’s gonna be just fine.”