I start to make two piles of junk on the floor. I find a basket in the hall closet and throw Mandy’s toys in it. I add a few toys lying around the living room and leave the basket by the TV.
I dig around in the drawer where we keep the dishtowels and find what I think is a tablecloth. It’s been folded up for years and smells musty. When I spread it out, there’s a squished moth stuck to it, so I chuck it in the hamper. Back to the kitchen. Hiding under a set of old dishes are five mismatched plastic place mats—Niagara Falls, the Habs, SpongeBob—all from when we were little. They’ll do. I set five places at the table. Mandy’s stuff on the SpongeBob place mat reminds me of a birthday party.
Which side do the forks go on? I decide it makes sense to put them on the right, but then it seems wrong and the table still seems empty. I switch the forks and rummage through the cupboards to find a jug, which I fill with water and place in the middle of the table like a centerpiece. Around it, I arrange salad dressing, a shaker of parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. At the last minute I add a bag of white bread from the freezer—at least it won’t be all stuck together at suppertime—and a tub of margarine.
I like it.
I’m a bit nervous about what Mom’s going to say, but the hell with it. It makes the trailer feel like a family lives here.
I drain the spaghetti and put it back in the pot on the stove, and make sure the sauce is on low so it doesn’t burn on the bottom. I check the time. Mom won’t be home for another twenty minutes or so. I still have time to chill for a bit. I take a detour to the utility room to get my clothes out of the dryer, and I’m sock-skating past the kitchen on the way to my room when Seamus scares the crap out of me. I barely miss smashing into the wall. He’s standing at the stove in his underwear and a T-shirt, eating spaghetti sauce out of the pot with the big wooden spoon.
“Shit, you scared me!” I say.
Seamus turns around, his mouth full, blinks and turns back to the pot.
“Why are you eating out of there? That’s for supper.”
He opens and closes the cupboard door with his left hand while scooping spaghetti sauce with the other. “No plates.”
“They’re on the table.”
He looks past me to the five places I set for supper.
“What the fuck?” He sneers. “Did you do that?”
Instead of answering, I grab a plate and take it to him. He has serious bed head, and he smells like dirty laundry. “Forget it—I’m leaving anyway.” He puts the lid back on the pot and drops the spoon onto the stovetop. It leaves a trail of red sauce on the white enamel.
I rinse the spoon and clean off the stove. Why does he have to be here? I didn’t even think he was home, and frankly, I was counting on it. I don’t want him around when I tell Mom about tutoring.
Seamus slams the bathroom door and turns on the shower. While the water runs, I close the door to my bedroom partway, flop on my bed and pull out Killing Joke, even though I’ve already read it. I want to be able to hear what’s happening with Seamus, so Ozzie will have to wait.
Right when the water in the shower stops running, I hear Mom’s car, so I jump up from my bed and speed-walk to the front door. I want to get to her before Seamus does. On my way I pull ten bucks out of my wallet and stick it in my jeans. I’ll offer it to Seamus before he hits Mom up for cash.
I watch Mom get out of her car. She’s five foot fuck-all and about as skinny as the mangy foxes that run around our place. She has on a big, puffy winter coat that makes her look like a kid wearing her mother’s clothes. It’s secondhand from the church, just like my jacket, but not as nice.
She comes up the steps with two grocery bags, and I unlock the door. “Oh, hi, Dekkie honey. Take these?”
I kiss Mom on the cheek and bring the two grocery bags to the kitchen while she takes off her boots and yells at me from the mudroom, “Did you get my note? Did you do the spaghetti? I hope you got here in time to do the spaghetti. Kate’s coming, and I want to have something ready for Mandy. You know how Katie hates—”
She stops midsentence when she comes into the kitchen and sees the table. “This is very nice.” She’s forcing a smile with closed lips, her chin almost touching her chest. Her forehead is lined like loose leaf. I know the look. I’ve known it since I was a little kid. She’s wondering why I did something nice, and whether it means I’m trying to butter her up before I give her bad news. “Did something happen at school today?”
“No, Mom. Does there have to be some major reason?”
She shakes her head slowly, and there’s a little grin on her face like she’s saying, Aww. I almost expect her to pat me like a dog.
Seamus barges in. The scent of shampoo and my aftershave follow him. Too late for my plan to intercept him. “Hi, Ma.” Mom’s startled, but she smiles at my brother, probably because she thinks he’s staying for supper. “I need twenty bucks, Ma. Where’s your wallet?”
“I don’t have twenty bucks. I just went to the store. I thought you were staying for dinner.”
“Nope. I’m leaving. Who’s coming?”
“Kate and Mandy. I wish you’d stick around.”
I notice my brother can’t stand still, and his hands are trembling, like that thing that happens to alcoholics. The DDTs or whatever.
“Look, do you have a fuckin’ twenty or not?”
“No, and watch your mouth!”
Seamus rolls his eyes and turns toward the front door. Mom follows him. “Where are you going? Are you going to be drinking? Don’t you dare get into a car with someone who’s drunk, Seamus. And call if you need a lift home.”
Better yet, don’t come home.
“Yeah right, I’ll call Mommy.”
“Seamus!”
“Fuck off.” He’s bending down to pull on a shoe, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.
“Don’t you talk to me that way!”
My brother stands up and looms over Mom. She steps back and crosses her arms. I can see the whites of her eyes, and her lips are parted.
My fists clench and unclench as adrenaline starts to pump through me.
Seamus spins around and pounds the paneled wall of the mudroom on his way out. The screen door bounces behind him, then latches quietly as the spring catches. He pauses on the porch and lights his cigarette before sticking his hands in his pockets and taking off. A white cloud of cigarette smoke trails over his shoulder.
Mom stares at the closed door, her arms still crossed. Her lips are now thin, straight lines. One foot taps. Annoyed, angry, upset. Her fists drop to her sides and make muffled clapping sounds against her thighs. She watches as Seamus gets smaller and smaller. Finally, she shuts the inside door so we can’t see him anymore.
I guess she forgot I was behind her, because she jumps when she realizes I’m standing in the doorway to the kitchen. She sighs heavily.
I feel useless. I watched the whole thing happen. I’ve never seen him purposely intimidate her like that before. And I stood there—what do they call it? A bystander—while my brother bullied my mom. But all the tension empties from her body when she sees me. She tips her head to the side and shrugs. The thin lip lines turn down slightly. She holds out her hands like, What am I supposed to do?
I reach out and rub her skinny arm. “I know, Ma.”
In a blink, her old take-care-of-business self is back. She checks the spaghetti and the sauce and gives the table one last nod. Then she says, “Please get Mommy’s cigarettes, honey.” She doesn’t usually refer to herself as Mommy. It’s just with her cigarettes. It’s always been a thing—Mommy’s cigarettes. We all call them that.
I get Mom’s smokes from her purse on the front-hall table, take one out of the pack for myself and follow her out the back door to sit on top of the picnic table. She takes a few drags and tries to act calm, but that foot is tapping again where it rests on the bench. Her face is serious, and she’s staring off int
o the forest. The only thing you can hear for a while is the hiss and crackle of burning paper and tobacco each time one of us takes a drag.
“It’s not fair, Mom.”
She comes back to reality and flicks a long column of ash into the snow. “What’s that, honey?”
“He makes everyone nervous. I knew when I found out he was here he was going to upset you. I knew exactly what was going to happen. I even tried to get to him first, to give him this”—I pull the ten out of my pocket—“so he wouldn’t bug you.”
“I don’t want you giving him money.”
“Why? Because you have lots?”
“Declan.”
“Sorry. But it’s not fair. There’s something wrong with him.” I watch for her reaction. “I think about Seamus all the time, and I bet you do too. But we never talk about it.”
“He’s just in an angry phase.”
“Are you serious? A phase? It’s more than that. He’s been messed up ever since—”
“Drop it, honey. It’s not your problem.” She leans away from me and crosses her arms over her knees.
“Of course it’s my problem. How is it not my problem? He makes it my problem. He’s always in my face, screwing things up for me. He showed up at the rink on Saturday, drunk, asking for money. What if Mr. Bergevin had been there?”
She’s quiet, trying to get lost in the forest again.
“Okay,” I say. “You don’t want to talk about it. I get it. I’m sorry. But what’s it gonna take?”
Her head shakes slowly back and forth, eyes closed. Now I’ve upset her. I wait for her to take a couple of drags, then change the subject. “Mom, I spoke to the guidance counselor today.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“She thinks I can finish high school.” I glance at her. “She got me a tutor.”
Mom looks at me like I’ve grown another head. “A tutor? Don’t you have to pay for that?”
I explain that it’s free and I’ll be taking the bus to Leah’s house on Tuesdays. We’re both quiet for a moment. Then I say, “So maybe I can graduate next year.”
“Hmph. A high school graduate in our family. That’d be a first, eh?” She slaps me on the leg. “It’s too bad about the other two.” She blows smoke out slowly through her nose. I watch it make a cloud in the cold air, then gradually fade. “Maybe I shoulda got them tutors.”
That’s it? She doesn’t even seem interested. I almost wish I hadn’t told her. All she can think about is Kate and Seamus. I try again. “Mom, maybe I can actually pass—”
She pats my hand. “That’s good. You never give me trouble like the other two. Just do your best, Dekkie, and that’s good enough for me.”
I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe some encouragement? A vote of confidence? But a pat on the hand and I’m glad you’re not a loser like your brother and sister, Dekkie? That’s it?
I turn away from her. I don’t want to say anything, especially after how Seamus treated her before. While I’m staring at the ice on the bench, a little feeling of excitement pokes through all the other crap. What if I actually could graduate?
Mom laughs her smoker’s laugh, flicks her ash and elbows me. “You always were a smart little kid. Do you remember when we used to call you Little Einstein? You got all upset because you thought Einstein was a monster.”
Ha. Very funny. “Whatever.”
When I was little, I collected insects but wouldn’t kill them, which was fun when spider eggs hatched and tiny, hairy babies infested the kitchen. And I made Kate do science experiments with me. That was before she became a bitchy teenage mom. I found a condom in her room once and thought it was a balloon. I attached it to the top of a beer bottle and made it inflate and deflate by changing the temperature of the bottle. I thought I was brilliant. I even got everybody together in the kitchen, like it was a show. I couldn’t figure out why they were all splitting a gut. Dad had to take me aside and explain it. Yeah, sure. A real Einstein.
There are only two classes I bother with at school—science and art—because I actually like them. I even get perfect scores in most of my science labs. I’m failing it because I never do the homework or study. But I probably could pass. It’s easy.
I stamp out my cigarette and stand on the bench. I wind up and pitch the butt as far as I can. It almost reaches the forest.
“Sorry, honey. It’s good what you’re doing, and I’m proud of you. I guess I’ve sort of stopped hoping for things.”
My brother and sister screwed up. I’m the one who’s been here the whole time. I have a job, I go to school, I help her out—I boil the fucking spaghetti. I was going to give Seamus my money! Seamus and Kate cause all these problems, and Mom gets all worried because things are difficult for them. I wasn’t expecting a party, but I’m trying to do something good here, and it doesn’t even seem like she’s taking it seriously.
Well, I guess tutoring is my problem. I should have known. Why do I care what Mom thinks? She can’t even spell spaghetti.
Mom’s butting out her cigarette. “I better get that salad made. Kate and Mandy are going to be here any minute, and you know Kate hates having supper late.”
“Aw, Kate bitches about everything. She’s getting a free supper. Maybe she could show some appreciation for once!”
“I know, I know, honey. But things are hard enough for Kate and Ryan. I just like to do what I can to help.”
If I squawked and complained more, would she want to help me too? Suddenly I feel bad for being angry at Mom. Maybe it’s easier for her to relate to Kate because Mom was pretty young too when Kate was born. Besides, it’s probably Mandy who really pulls Mom’s heartstrings.
“Dekkie?”
“Yeah?”
“Please watch your language when the baby’s here.”
“Baby! Mom, she’s almost five!”
“You know what I mean.”
I hold the screen door open for her. “Okay, Ma. Let’s go cook.”
Eight
I got my permission slip from Mr. Peters, and now I’m sitting beside Little Miss Perfect on the bus. It’s super awkward. I hate school buses.
Some idiot is blowing spitballs through a straw at the nerdy kids. Leah’s holding her phone and her earphones are dangling out of her jacket, like she wants to plug herself in but doesn’t want to be rude. She’s trying to smile at me, but it looks fake. She’s not used to talking to someone like me, I guess. “Nice bus,” I say. Brilliant.
Just then a tiny ball of chewed-up paper whizzes past her head and sticks to the window. The bus driver yells at us in French. Some kid’s lunch kit opens, and stuff rolls all over the floor. We both start to laugh. Then we stop. Neither of us knows what to say, so we go back to being uncomfortable.
“It won’t be that long a ride. I don’t live far from school.”
I pretend to stare out the window. She plugs herself in.
I know where she lives—in one of the big houses right in Hudson. Not out in the country like me. And there’s a lawn and a garden in the summertime. In her neighborhood, there’s no broken bathroom fixtures out front. No pickup trucks or old tires or mobile homes or chain-link snow fences.
I know which house is hers because I rang her doorbell when I was trying to get shoveling jobs in Hudson the winter I was saving for my Xbox. She actually answered the door. I figured there’d be lots of people living in those nice houses who could pay a kid for something like that. I walked up and down Main Road, but everyone, Leah’s parents included, already had snow-removal companies plowing their driveways and clearing the sidewalks for them. They’d rather pay some old dude like my dad to drink coffee in a heated cab. It’s what he does now, in the winter anyway. Drives a snow plow, robbing little kids like me of a rightful living. Just one more reason to hate him.
Leah’s standing up to leave. Her eyes dart from me to the floor to the seat. “You don’t have a bag?”
What can I say? I stopped carrying a schoolbag about the same time I stopped doing homework. She rolls her eyes and raises her hands like she has a direct line to God. Looking over the top of her head as I walk off the bus behind her, I’m sure I can see the tip of her Little Miss Perfect nose in the air.
Leah’s house is long and white with green shutters. Like most of the lakefront houses, it probably has stables and buildings in the back where the workers lived a long time ago. A long driveway leads all the way to Lac des Deux Montagnes through the trees. What a spot.
My hands are shoved into the pockets of my jacket about as far as they can go. I’m watching Little Miss Perfect search through her schoolbag for her keys when I hear voices behind me. Instinctively I turn.
Shit!
Seamus, Robbie and two other kids are leaving a house up the street and walking to Robbie’s car, which is parked out front.
What are they doing here?
I try to shield my face with my hood while I watch them. Robbie chucks a cigarette butt onto the street. As he’s gawking around, he looks right at me! I duck my head down and try to melt some holes in the snow with my eyes.
Leah’s still fishing for her keys in her overstuffed backpack. She stops to take her mittens off.
Hurry up, dammit!
She’s scrounging way down at the bottom, even though there are pockets on the outside. I can’t stand it.
Car doors slam. Bam. One. Bam. Two. Bam. Three. I wait. No fourth bam?
I sneak another peek across the street. Everyone but Seamus is inside. He’s walking around to the back of the car, toward me and Leah! I can hear the blood rushing in my ears; my hands are sweating in my pockets. Leah’s still kneeling on the ground with her fucking backpack. Why couldn’t she have put her keys in one of the outer pockets? We need to get into the house now!
Seamus stops at the curb, looks both ways like he’s going to cross the street, coughs and horks into the gutter. Then he turns on his heel and heads back to the passenger door. I exhale, and my face tingles as it changes from hot to cold.
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