Lullabies for Suffering

by Caroline Kepnes et al.

  “Pretty, aren’t they?”

  A voice to his left, down by his elbow. He turned and saw a tiny woman with a crinkled face.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered.

  She grinned and her face crinkled even more.

  “Oh, a polite one. I like that. Where you from, boy?”

  Kel paused awkwardly. The old woman nodded.

  “One of those,” she said knowingly. “Hope whatever you were running from, or for, was worth it.”

  Kelly thought of Joy and the way she used to burrow into his side while she slept. She wasn’t as hard, then. She was simply herself, Joy with her Kel, and that was the only moment when either of them was truly happy.

  “It’s worth it, ma’am,” he answered.

  The woman peered inside the glass store. “Ever go inside?”

  Kelly cleared his throat. “They’ve asked me to leave. Twice. Pretty sure they think I’m going to steal something or knock it over.”

  She looked at him innocently. “Would you?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “Never, ma’am. I just would like to look, that’s all.”

  She was quiet for a while. Then she said, “You seem like a nice boy. Does your family know where you are?”

  He shook his head, suddenly unable to speak.

  “They cruel to you?”

  He shook his head again.

  “Think they’re worried sick?”

  Kelly nodded and dashed at his eyes with his filthy sleeve. The woman patted his arm.

  “You’re a good boy, and I like to trust good boys. Here’s what I’m going to do. Take my phone and make a phone call home. Go on, take it. I’ll be browsing in this store for a few minutes while you do. When you’re done, you can return the phone. Sounds to me like that would work right well for everyone.”

  She reached into her purse and handed him the phone. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Good boy,” she said again, and patted his hands. She wandered into the store.

  Kelly stared at the phone as if it couldn’t possibly be real. It was more likely that he had caught a fairy in his hands, or a magical talisman. His finger shook as he punched in the numbers and held the phone to his ear.

  One ring. Two.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  Three rings. Four.

  Nobody was home to answer.

  Five.

  What would he leave on the answering machine? Should he say anything at all? Hang up? He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know…

  “Hello?”

  Her voice was weary. His mother had grown tired while he was away. Kelly’s breath caught.

  “Mama?”

  He hadn’t called her “mama” in years, not since he was a little boy terrified of the monsters in his closet. Joy had real monsters in her house, but Kelly’s could be chased away with his parent’s love and a little bit of Monster Spray.

  “Kelly? Kelly, is that you?”

  “M-mama?”

  His mama screamed, then made a sound so happy and loud and forceful that Kelly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he did both.

  “Kelly, I’ve been so worried, you have no idea! Are you okay? Are you safe? Is that girl with you? Are you coming home?”

  Kel wept into the sleeve of his hoodie and assured his mother that yes, he was all right, and yes, they were alive, and yes, he still said his prayers and tried to be a good man and he loved his mama, yes, he did, and he always would, and tell his dad he loved him, too, because he did, it was true, he loved them so much that his soul hurt.

  “Kelly,” his mother said, and her voice had that Very Serious Tone that made his body chill. “I have to tell you something about your daddy. His heart hasn’t been so good and he’s been real sick. I think you need to come home, son. Come home and…tell your daddy goodbye.”

  “It’s…that bad?”

  Her voice was somber. “It’s that bad. But God told you to call today, so you could come home before it’s too late. Will she come, too?”

  “I don’t know, Ma. I don’t think so. She never wants to come back.”

  “I don’t blame her. Her daddy is right awful. I think he’ll kill her if he sees her. You keep her safe, as much as you can, but you get on back here, even if it’s just for a little while. Okay?”

  “I love you, Ma.”

  He hung up the phone and stared at the cold cement under his feet.

  The old woman came outside and took her phone.

  “Well?” she asked. Her face was a light. It was aglow. Kel wanted to sweep her into his arms and thank her a million times, but his head was full of marbles and thoughts and fears.

  He simply looked at her.

  “Everything’s changed,” he said.

  #

  Joy didn’t want to hear it at first.

  “You’re just trying to get me to go back, you son of a–” She took a swing and missed. She staggered and glared at Kelly as though he had pushed her.

  “My dad is dying, Joy,” Kelly said. His hands hung limply at his sides. He couldn’t have defended himself if he wanted to. He stared at something behind Joy’s shoulder, some spot in the distance that had nothing to offer except a place to rest his eyes.

  “You’ll say anything, won’t you?” she spat. “I’m tired of this dance. I’m not going home and nothing you can say will make me.” She looked like she was going to say more, but Kelly’s strong skeleton betrayed him and he slid down to the ground, seemingly boneless. He wrapped his arms around his skinny legs, his embarrassed face held low, and sobbed.

  Joy watched him for just a second, and something seemed to move inside of her heart. Street Joy disappeared and Real Joy came creeping back.

  “Kel,” she whispered, and squatted down next to him. She pressed her forehead to his and kissed his salty face. “Kelly, I’m so sorry. You’re telling the truth. I know you are. I’m sorry I’ve been so awful. I know how you feel about your daddy.”

  The tears felt so good, so strong and cleansing, and they had brought Joy back to him. There might be worth in human tears, Kelly thought vaguely. Maybe one day we’ll collect them and trade them like diamonds. Tears will be our new currency. Wouldn’t that make us appreciate everything we had, if we had to earn each and every item with our tears?

  “I’m losing my mind,” he said aloud, and Joy was right by his side.

  “You’re not. You’re a good, strong man and a good, strong son. We need to get you home.”

  He looked at her, puzzled, not sure if he heard her correctly.

  “Home?” he asked. The word tasted…sweet.

  “We’ll need to get you cleaned up first,” she said, looking him up and down. “It’s been a while and your hair is awful long. Your mom might pass out when she sees it.”

  He turned his head and watched her flit around, making plans. He had to say it again, say the words slowly and make sure they were absolutely real and that he wasn’t stuck in this strange half-shadows/half-light dream world that might be the undoing of him.

  “We’re going home?”

  He hated the hopeful note in his voice. He was disgusted with his weakness. He saw Joy’s shoulders slump. She turned to him, brown eyes full of pain.

  “No,” he said, and shook his head. She took both of his hands in hers.

  “Baby,” she said, and kissed his fingertips. He shut his eyes, like a child. If he didn’t open them, perhaps he’d be safe from the monsters that swarmed underneath his bed and in the dark streets. Maybe he’d be safe from the horrific disappointment he knew was coming.

  “Baby. I know you need to go home, but I can’t. Do you understand? I can’t go with you.”

  “We won’t see your father,” Kelly insisted. “You’ll stay at my house. I won’t let him touch you, I swear. I’ll—”

  “It’s more than that,” she said, and she spoke so solemnly and low that he could barely hear her. “There’s nothing to go back to. I have nothi
ng left. I can’t go like this,” she gestured at the bruises and tracks in her arms, “and I don’t want to. But you, my love. You need to go home. You know you do.”

  They huddled together that night, her thin fingers tucked into the hole in the knee of his jeans. A couple of Joy’s friends approached them, but she shook her head and mouthed “No.” Kelly fell asleep and Joy ran her fingers through his hair. She rubbed her cheek against the filthy sleeve of his hoodie.

  He stirred.

  “Joy?”

  “Shhh,” she soothed, and kissed his shoulder. “Go to sleep, love. I’m the last one awake. I’ll watch over you.”

  He faded back into oblivion and Joy pressed her back into the stone wall, staring at the smoggy sky far into the night. There were no stars there. Sometime before daylight, she slipped away. She returned with a torn shirt, cauliflower ear, and a single, solitary bus ticket.

  They cleaned up the best they could at the bus station. Kelly washed his face and tried to comb his hair back with his hands. He smiled awkwardly at Joy.

  “Is this a face only a mother could love?” he asked, and waggled his brows.

  Joy laughed, and it almost sounded normal. “A mother, and me. I love that face more than life.”

  Kelly’s smile faded.

  “I love you more than life.”

  Joy handed him his backpack, staring at the ground. Kel reached out and tipped her chin up so she’d meet his gaze.

  “I’ll stay if you need me to. You know that, Joy. I’ll do anything for you.”

  Her brown eyes washed over with so many emotions that Kelly was nearly dazzled.

  “I know. You’ve proven it over and over and over again.” She took her necklace off, the one with the shiny glass star, and tied it around his neck. “It suits you,” she said. She hugged him and it was the old days. He was just a young man worried about school and a job and making sure the lawn was mowed in the right pattern so it looked nice and neat for his mother. He closed his eyes and rested his chin on her hair.

  “I’ll come right back,” he promised. “I’ll bring money and more stuff for us. Clean up good and get a job this time. I’ll make someone hire me, anyone, doing anything. Things will be different.” He pulled back and looked into her eyes again. “Promise me you’ll be here. Promise I’ll be able to find you.”

  She reddened at his intensity. “I’ll be here, Kel, waiting for you. I can’t wait to get into some clean clothes. Will you bring a band for my hair? If I don’t tie it back soon, I’ll go crazy and chop the whole thing clean off.”

  “So many bands,” he swore. “A hairband for every day of the month.” He pulled his hoodie over his head and handed it to her.

  She looked confused.

  “It’s your favorite one. You’ll need this.”

  He shook his head. “No, you’re my favorite one. It will keep you warm until I get back. Just…don’t forget me while I’m gone, okay?”

  “In a week?” she teased. She leaned her forehead against his chest. “I could never forget you, Kel. Never ever, not even if you never come back.”

  “But I will,” he promised. His eyes were fierce, fiercer than he had ever felt them. “Don’t you doubt, Joy. Just be where I can find you.”

  He kissed her again and climbed onto the bus. He slouched down in his seat and squeezed his eyes shut as it began to move. He hoped his hoodie would somehow turn into a magical shield, covering Joy from the top of her head down to her knees, keeping her soul inside instead of letting it seep out through the pinpricks in her arms.

  He slept. There was no one awake.

  #

  His mother met him two days later at the station. He wrapped his long arms around her and she cried into his shirt. “You’re filthy,” she sobbed. “You’re so skinny. I’ve missed you so much. I’ve never seen a boy who needs a shower more than you.”

  “I love you, too, Ma,” he said, and slung his arm over her shoulder as they walked to the car. She couldn’t stop touching him the entire drive, picking at lint on his arm or poking at his hand with a shaking finger. Finally, he took her hand and held it.

  “I’m here, Ma. You aren’t imagining it. I’m real.”

  She drove the rest of the way home with his hand clenched tightly in hers, occasionally pulling it up close to her heart.

  It was late when they got in.

  “Take a shower while I put something together for dinner,” his mother said.

  The hot water was a sin, hitting his face and back as brutally as Joy’s father had ever hit her. He scrubbed the city out of his hair and the grime from his body. The horrors of the past months sluiced down the drain along with the dirty water. He climbed out and wrapped a towel around his hips. He studied his face in the mirror, all eyes and too-long hair and still no beard. He wasn’t sure he would ever grow one.

  What would Joy do for a shower?

  The thought turned his stomach, because he knew Joy would do just about anything for anyone. But not after he came back. He’d take her and they’d run to another city, a better one where she didn’t have regular johns and her sickness and her strung-out friends. They’d start fresh and she’d have sunshine on her hair every day.

  He ate dinner with guilty gusto.

  He climbed into his bed. It was plenty warm and soft, topped with a quilt his mother had made. After two hours of sleeplessness, he folded the quilt and set it aside as something to bring back for Joy. A blanket for both of them, just like old times. He huddled on his side all night, thinking of Joy shivering in the cold without him.

  You aren’t alone, he mentally told her. It’s safe to fall asleep. I’m awake and watching.

  He held the star pendant in his hand and counted the seconds until the sun rose.

  The morning was full of breakfast, a haircut, and a visit to his father in the hospital.

  “Kelly,” his father said, and his meaty hands, sans meat, clasped around Kelly’s fingers. “You’re home.”

  “I didn’t mean to worry you, Dad,” Kelly answered. He knew the words sounded weak, but they bloomed with truth.

  “I know, son. And I feel so much better now that you’re home to take care of your mother.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Dad. You’re going to be fine. We can take care of her together.”

  His dad clapped Kelly’s hands again, and met his eyes.

  “I wish you could be a child again, Kel, and not have to worry like a man worries. But you are a man, now, and we have to face up to things. I’m not getting out of here. This is where I end. It’s up to you to care for your mom now that I can’t.”

  “But Dad…”

  His father smiled at him and it was rife with sadness. It was the type of smile a boy should never have to see.

  “Make me proud, son.”

  Kelly tried. Every day he woke up and his first thought was “Joy.” Then he thought, “My parents,” and he set to work. He painted the house and fixed all of the things his father had meant to get to. He let his mother make him his favorite meals. He sat by his father’s bedside and cooled his fevered face with a cool cloth. Days passed. Soon it was weeks. Then the season changed and his father was gone.

  Nobody was ready.

  Kelly wore a new suit with enough fabric to cover his daddy-long legs, and he carried his father’s casket on his shoulder. The physical weight was also born by other men, but Kelly carried the emotional weight alone. His mother had long stopped sobbing and simply stood there at the gravesite, her eyes sightless as she stared at the love of her life being lowered into a hole in the dirt. Kelly stood beside her, scowling at the brazen sun that dared to show its face on this day. Shouldn’t it be raining at funerals? Shouldn’t the atmosphere itself drip with sorrow like the rest of them? He thought of his father. He thought of Joy.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Kelly’s mother murmured. Her fingers picked at her new funeral hat. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Kel took her hand to stop the birdlike tremor. “
We go home. We serve food and nod our heads. And then we go to sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.”

  “How do I live without your father? Who do I make breakfast for? How do I sleep in that big bed without him? It’s so very big. I…I can’t do this alone.”

  Kelly hugged his mother close.

  “You’re not alone, Ma. I’m here.”

  Kelly left his father in the cold, hard ground. The ride home was long and silent. Neither he nor his mother said a word. The car seemed far too empty with just the two of them. No, it wasn’t just the two of them. Joy and Kelly’s father rode along with them.

  The car was full of ghosts.

  When they returned, Kelly sat for a second before getting out and opening his mother’s car door. He took her elbow and guided her into the house. They walked into a room of hushed conversation and ambrosia salads. Grief is overwhelming, but a casserole seems to help. Neighbors pressed pies into their hands. Baskets of warm rolls. Fragrant breads wrapped in tinfoil.

  Kelly’s mother stood there, robotically holding the food until a kind woman guided her to the kitchen and helped her find a place to set it down.

  The door blew open and the air changed. It became hard, jagged. It pulsed like something with far too many tentacles and a spiny beak.

  Joy’s father, Buck, stood in the doorway, emanating an energy that made Kelly look up from his untouched plate. The man saw him and strode over.

  “Where is my daughter?” he demanded. His eyes were brown like Joy’s, but that’s all they had in common. “Why didn’t she come home with you?”

  “Buck, this isn’t the place,” an older man said, and touched Buck’s arm. Buck shook him off.