by Teri Harman
Two determined steps forward. “Beverly!” he yelled again.
Finally, she lumbered out of the shelves toward the circulation desk, putting it between him and her. “What do you want, Mr. Craig? I’m not giving Matilda the job back.”
“You have to!” His fingers curled into fists until his stubby fingernails dug into his palms. Fear fueled his rage. Fear that the bridge he and Matilda had crossed last night was burned to ashes, he on one side, she on the other. He had to rebuild it, make it better. Make it like it was last night in the candlelight.
Beverly scoffed. “I don’t have to do anything. She knew full well I would not tolerate one mistake. She abandoned me once. I didn’t even have to give her the job back in the first place. But I did and she repays me by being late and insulting me. She’s done. For good this time.”
He plunged to the desk, gripping the edge of the wood. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t be … this way. She’s good. She deserves this job. It was one mistake—one mistake that was my fault. She never would have been late if not for me.”
Beverly crossed her arms and frowned her famous frown. “Yes. That fact is not lost on me. You’ve done a lot of good since you got here, haven’t you?” She huffed sarcastically. “Nothing you can say will change my mind. And I couldn’t care less about your little fling.” She added a nasty smirk for good measure, as if loving someone also broke a rule. “Get out, Henry.”
“No!” The word echoed in the large library. Henry felt the eyes of onlookers drilling into his back. Beverly rolled her eyes impatiently as she picked up the phone. Henry watched her, confused. “Who are you calling?” he demanded. Imagining himself in handcuffs, he released the desk.
“Henry!”
Henry spun. Abby was in the doorway, holding open the door. “Abby?”
“Come on, let’s go.”
“Not until Beverly gives Matilda her job back.” His voice had lost some of its strength.
Abby released the door with an impatient sigh. “You know that ain’t happening. What happens next is Bev gets Sherriff Bailey to put you in his little cell for the night. He likes you, but Bev’s sister is married to his brother, so you don’t stand a chance.”
“Don’t call me Bev, Abby O’Nell!”
Abby ignored Beverly’s chiding as if she’d been doing it her whole life. Henry shook his head, embarrassment edging out his anger. “But …”
“Yeah, I know, but you gotta go now.” Abby motioned toward the door. When he didn’t move she leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “Beverly’s mother left when she was about five and since then Bev’s been bent on making everyone else as miserable as she is.”
“How dare you, Abby!” shouted Beverly.
Abby ignored her again. “We grew up together; I’ve watched her do it over and over. So trust me—you’ll get no sympathy here, Henry. Best to leave.”
Henry looked back at Beverly, the phone cradled between her face and shoulder, her lips pursed smugly, and her face red with anger. With a heavy sigh, he let his shoulders fall forward. He followed Abby out the doors. Abby didn’t speak until they were at the bottom of the steps.
“What happened?”
Henry ran his hands back through his hair. “I got her fired. I held her in my arms, and now she doesn’t have a job.” He looked down at his empty arms. “I think I ruined everything,” he added more quietly. “You said she left once. What if she leaves again?”
Abby put her hand on his arm. A car drove passed, wheels sloshing on the wet road. “It’s just a job, not even a good one. Who wants to work with that woman?” Abby’s eyes moved up the stairs. “And aren’t you enough reason to stay?”
Surprised, Henry studied Abby’s face. “I don’t know.” He shook his head, his temples throbbing with a fresh headache. “I don’t know. What we have … it’s so fragile. It was one night. I didn’t even kiss her.”
“Is it—so fragile?” Abby squeezed his arm. When Henry didn’t answer, she said, “If it’s worth fighting for then go back to her and fight for it.”
Henry shook his head, stomach hollow and head aching. “She probably won’t even let me in.”
“You won’t know till you knock.”
n
Her door was the Berlin Wall. Henry wanted to climb over it, smash through it, but feared the consequences. Her doorbell looked like the spindle of a spinning wheel. Fated curses and all that. Maybe we are cursed. Maybe I am. He thought of going home to bash out his feelings with the typewriter. If he wrote it all out first perhaps then he’d know what to say to her. Because standing there, morning sunshine on his back, he didn’t know.
He flexed his hand over the doorbell and then knocked instead. Too quietly. He knocked again.
And waited.
Matilda
Matilda came out of Jetty’s room at the sound of the hesitant knock. She’d been lying on Jetty’s bed, staring at the letter that Jetty had never wanted her to see. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, many things were wrong.
Matilda knew it was Henry before she saw his tall silhouette in the fogged glass of the front door. He knocked again, and she sat down wearily on the top step. She wanted to open the door and see him, let him hold her, tell her things would work out. But she didn’t know what to say to him or how to feel. Too many things had gone wrong. If she opened the door, what else would fall apart?
Henry knocked once more. She watched his form shift weight from side to side. His hand lifted, touched the glass briefly and she almost felt the heat of his skin on her own. She nearly stood, but the battle in her head kept her in place. Henry dropped his hand, and walked away. Darkness welled up inside her, a pain she didn’t understand; it frightened her. It was that same feeling she’d had so many times since she woke up in Jetty’s ruined house with six years missing from her mind.
I’m sorry, Henry. I’m sorry.
n
After the fourth call, Matilda took her phone off the hook. Ten minutes later, Thea stormed in through the back door. Huffing from the hurried climb up the stairs with her large belly, she put her hands on her hips and glared at Matilda’s form under the quilt on Jetty’s bed.
“She fired you.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Because you were out all night with Henry.”
“Yes. And showed up forty-five minutes late. Also, there was some name calling.”
“I’m not sure whether to be angry or thrilled.”
Matilda threw the quilt off her face to look at Thea who was grinning like the Cheshire. “Give me a break,” Matilda mumbled.
Thea waddled to the bed and sat, rubbing her belly. “‘Pompous beast.’ I think we should have a nameplate made for her desk; it’s the best description of her ever uttered.” She laughed loudly. “And you were out all night with Henry!” She clapped her hands. “What happened?”
Matilda sat up. “You’re huge. When is that baby due?”
“Couple weeks. Now, a kiss, lots of kisses … more?”
Matilda huffed and dropped back to the bed.
“Juicy details, please.”
“Please stop. Depressed wallowing going on here. Not frippery kiss and tell.”
“So he did finally kiss you!”
“I hate you.”
Thea scooted closer. In a changed voice she said, “I’ll miss you at the library.”
Matilda looked over. “Thanks.”
“What will you do now?”
“No idea.”
“Are you going to leave again?”
Matilda blinked at the nervous tone in Thea’s question. She sat up and leaned closer. “Why would you think that?”
She shrugged. “It happened before.”
“My aunt died. I didn’t lose a job.”
“You can’t leave again.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“You didn’t plan it last time either.” Thea nodded stiffly, let out a breath. “Did you start your meds?”
<
br /> So Parker had told her. Matilda felt a rush of shame. She looked over at the letter half under the pillow. “Yes,” she whispered.
“I’m so sorry about your mom.”
“Me too.”
Thea groaned quietly as she adjusted her position. “I think this kid is trying to kick his way out of me.” She pushed a palm to her belly.
Matilda watched a small movement lift Thea’s hand. “He’s really moving.”
“Yeah,” Thea reached for Matilda’s hand, “feel this.” She pressed Matilda’s palm to the spot. Almost immediately a little pop kicked back. Matilda gasped, pulling her hand away quickly. Her vision faltered, grayness welling up around the edges. In her head, she heard crying, loud and incessant, as if from a child in pain. She closed her eyes, pushing the heels of her hands to her temples.
“Whoa! What’s wrong?” Thea asked, startled.
The crying only grew louder until Matilda wanted to dig inside her head to rip out the source. A baby. A baby. Thea reached out to grip Matilda’s wrist. The sound stopped instantly.
“Tilly?”
Matilda opened her eyes. “The meds … give me bad headaches,” she lied.
Thea narrowed her eyes. “That didn’t seem like a headache. Do you want me to call Doc?”
“No, no. I’m fine.” Matilda lowered herself to the pillow; it smelled of smoke. “I’m fine.” She looked at Thea with a thin smile. “What are you going to name him?”
Thea’s frown remained, but she played along. “We like Toby.”
“That’s cute.”
“What do you want me to do, Tilly?”
“There’s nothing you can do. Beverly won’t give me the job back. I’ll have to do something else. Though I don’t know how to do anything else.”
“I’ll try talking to her.”
“It won’t do anything but make her mad at you too. Don’t risk it.”
“Why isn’t Henry here?”
“Why would he be here?” Matilda thought of his foggy figure at the door hours ago, his hand touching the glass. Why hadn’t she run after him?
Thea gave her a look. “Are you going to be all tragic and stay in bed for weeks?”
Matilda sighed. Maybe I’ve earned that. “No. Just today.”
“Good. ’Cause the way I see it, you just got a free pass. Go spend as much time with Henry as you can. Treat it like a vacation. That’s what I’d do. Someone will give you a job when you need one.”
“Right.” There was a beat of silence between them. “What else did Parker tell you?”
Thea smiled. “Only that you found out your mother was sick and you think you might be too. Nothing more. Though I could tell there was more.”
Matilda nodded. “I think I’m broken, Thea.”
Thea pushed up to standing. “Then fix yourself.” She said it so simply, but it hit Matilda like a rock from a slingshot. “I gotta go,” Thea added as she pushed her hands into her lower back. Matilda looked away from her pregnant shape. “Also, now you can enjoy the festival instead of standing in the library booth most the night like I get to do. Go with Henry. Eat too much, dance too close, and for heaven’s sake, get that man to kiss you.”
Matilda smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”
Henry
Henry didn’t go to work. He couldn’t be there without Matilda. He couldn’t face Beverly’s intrusive lectures or the stares of the townspeople. He holed up on his couch, staring at the repaired typewriter. Fighting the urge to write to her. By late evening he was shaking from lack of food and the temptation.
Beverly was right; he’d done nothing but cause problems from the moment he drove over the city limits. For Abby, for Matilda, for himself. Why had he followed such a thin whim and come here? Why didn’t he have the strength to leave? To tuck tail and run, as he should?
Henry went to the kitchen and ate the first thing he saw, an overripe banana sitting alone on the counter. He didn’t taste it. Standing at the island, he let his mind wander through memories. It only took a few minutes to come to the darkest one. The one he didn’t want to think about. But something about the sadness inside him brought it out of hiding.
It had been March, the bleakest month of the year, and Henry was twelve years old. By then he’d grown used to the life of a foster child, and though he hated it, he’d come to accept it. To patiently wait until the day he could be on his own. For the most part, he hadn’t had it too bad. No one loved him, but he wasn’t on the streets.
School was both easy and hard—the learning was easy, interacting with the other kids was hard. He’d had a few scuffles on the playground that year, but nothing major. Mostly, he tried to stay out of everyone’s way. And it was that mentality that brought him his deepest shame.
Late on a Tuesday night, he sat on his bed in the basement room he shared with another boy, Ronny, also twelve and bitter, prone to foul insults and rough slugs to the shoulder. But thankfully, Ronny wasn’t home yet from wherever he spent his time. Henry had an old newspaper spread out before him, one he’d found sitting on a park bench earlier that day. He was half way though it when he heard the first sound that something was wrong.
His foster parents were Todd and Mavis Short. Blue-collar, scrape-by kind of people. Mavis liked kids, though she didn’t know a thing about how to care for them. Henry had been with them about six months, and while he liked Mavis okay—when there were a few extra dollars she bought them the name-brand cookies at the grocery store—there was something about Todd that made him uneasy. Todd kept his distance, said very little to the boys, tolerating them only because of the State check that came every month, and also, Henry thought, because it gave Mavis something to do besides nag him.
That night Todd came home angry. Henry knew by the sound of Todd’s boots on the floor above. Henry paused his reading to look up at the gray popcorn ceiling. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Then muffled voices. Henry’s hands went cold; he held his breath.
Mavis’s first scream made him jump off the bed.
A loud thud. Someone hitting the floor, hard. Henry was up the stairs before he could think. Mavis was howling in pain, pleading with Todd. Her words were slurred. Henry couldn’t make out what they were fighting about. Drawn by a morbid curiosity, he followed the terrible sounds.
A slap. Another wail.
Henry found them in their disordered bedroom. He peered cautiously around the doorframe. Todd, a former football star and a house framer by trade, stood over small, smoker-thin Mavis. Her face was bloodied; she drooled blood as she tried to talk to him. Henry was repulsed by her. Maybe more than by the hulking form of Todd. She was sniveling when she should be fighting back, doing something. Henry immediately hated himself for thinking it. What chance did Mavis have against Todd?
Mavis tried to stand and Todd shoved her back to the floor. She hit her head on the nightstand and crumpled, crying quieter now.
“Stop it!” Henry yelled instinctively.
Todd rounded on him. The seething anger on his face drained all the fight out of Henry. He stepped back and hoped he wouldn’t lose control of his bladder.
“Get out!” Todd hissed.
Henry’s eyes flicked to Mavis. She met his look through her tears. There was such pleading, such fear; Henry felt it in his gut. She reached out a trembling hand to him. But what could he do? Todd took a step forward. Henry ran. Ran as fast as he could. He didn’t stop until he found himself in the local bookstore. He ran to a back corner and pressed his face into the dusty seam where a wall met a shelf. He cried as quietly as he could.
The image of Mavis reaching out to him would not leave him. She needed help and he had run. But what could he do against Todd? The man would have beaten him to a pulp. But still, Henry felt deeply he should have done something. Maybe call the police? What would Todd do to him if he did that? What would he do to Mavis? Todd had a healthy dislike for the law—it was the one subject he spoke on regularly.
Angry and helpless, Henry wiped his face on his shirt and tur
ned to the shelf. He pulled out the first book he saw, a random mystery with a bloody knife on the cover. He didn’t open it, only tucked it to his chest and closed his eyes. Breathe. Then he thought of how he would write his life if it were a book. How he would write this scene so that the weak twelve-year-old boy could triumph. It was the first time he’d done that—turned his life into a story, placing himself as omniscient narrator. The hero, the savior.
He stayed lost in that world of words until the owner of the shop found him and told him the store was closing. Reluctantly, Henry slid the book back into place. He walked home. The night was cold and he didn’t have his jacket. At least, he’d still had shoes on when he’d run like a coward. Hugging his arms tightly, he moved slowly, wishing he didn’t have to go back and face Mavis’s battered body, every cut and bruise a reminder of his failure to help. What had the fight been about? He wondered as he turned the corner.
The flashing of police lights on his street.
Henry stopped to stare, the cold forgotten. His heart started to pound. He took off at a sprint. A police officer caught him as he tried to push past the throng of people near the door.
“Whoa! You can’t go in there.”
“I live here,” Henry whispered.
Something passed over the officer’s face. “One of the foster boys?”
“Yes, sir.”
The policeman, young, with sharp, intelligent eyes knelt down to face Henry. “There’s been an accident. Your foster mom fell down the stairs, and hit her head. Your brother Ronny found her a few minutes before Mr. Short came home from work. I’m afraid she’d dead.”
Henry blinked once. “No. I just saw her …”
“I’m sorry.”
Henry looked past the officer’s shoulder. Ronny stood by a squad car, crying. Something Henry had never seen him do. Todd stood close by with another pair of policemen, his head solemnly bent, his face sad. An act. A lie. Henry knew instantly. Todd lifted his eyes and met Henry’s. Henry stepped back from the warning in them.
