Trail of Crumbs

by Lisa J. Lawrence

  “You should apologize to him.” His words, their conversation, kept her there with Ash, prevented her from sliding toward panic. They hadn’t seen Nate in two days, either coming or going.

  “Maybe you could make him cookies or something.”

  “You make him cookies,” Greta said. “You did the crime; you do the time.” It was a classic Rogerism, oddly satisfying to say. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the bus doors slide open and the couple slip off, dodging the line filing on. Greta relaxed back in her seat again.

  She knew Ash wasn’t trying to be a caveman, asking her to bake the cookies. They never talked about it, but Ash always used to bake with their mother. How many times had Greta seen him standing on a kitchen chair next to her, leveling a cup of flour with a butter knife? Or him guiding a mixer around a bowl, her hand clamped firmly on top of his? Greta had always darted in to stick her fingers in the batter, but Ash was methodical, almost scientific. Patty offered to bake with him once, before she and Roger got married. Ash just stood in the kitchen doorway and dropped his chin, his eyes still fixed on her. Like one of those psycho kids who’s all quiet until he snaps and stabs someone with an apple corer. Now Greta only saw him wander in for crackers or to make macaroni and cheese.

  Last day of the term. Greta paused outside her biology classroom and repeated those words in her head, wanting some comfort from them. One more class trapped in a room with Rachel and Priya, avoiding Priya’s curious looks, watching Rachel avoid her. She should have sailed through the door. Instead, anxiety—like she’d swallowed a stick whole—jammed up her center, threatening to push everything up through her mouth. Ms. Nordstom, the teacher, stuck her head out to sweep the hallway with her eyes before closing the door.

  “Ah, Greta. Come in.”

  The spell broke. Greta took a step forward and moved to her seat, her eyes fixed straight ahead. Her heart pounding as she moved to her seat, she never once turned to see if Rachel was even there. She saw the back of Priya’s head near the front, but Priya didn’t peer over at Greta today. Greta sat rigid in her chair and tried to focus on breathing, hearing only snatches of what Ms. Nordstrom said. Last day of classes. Then exams. Then something new.

  When Ash appeared at her locker at lunchtime, she glowered at him. It was his fault she was there. Still, he hadn’t taken off, and that counted for something. They ate in an empty classroom. Her body unclenched a little as they closed the door. Just the two of them in the quiet space.

  At the end of the day Greta and Ash stepped through the front doors and headed to the bus stop, Greta checking around them constantly. The temperature had risen—she didn’t shrink from the air like she had that morning. Snow, tinged gray, covered the green space in front of the school and the base of the flagpole. It hadn’t snowed in a week. Sand had been scattered over the icy patches on the walkway.

  The rush to get ready for school gone. The panic of having to see them gone. Just the bus carrying Ash and Greta to their empty home. Ash must have felt it too. They said nothing at all on the bus ride or the walk from their stop. Rebus was already parked outside Nate’s house.

  Greta waited until they had stepped inside, not wanting to say the words in the wide open. “We could check the app again, you know. Maybe they’re closer to home now.”

  Ash kicked off his snowy shoes. “I told you. I don’t have a father anymore, and I never had a stepmother.” His words came out tight, clipped. “But I can’t stop you from looking.” He ducked through the storage-room door, still wearing his coat, and closed it behind him. His face had twitched when Greta suggested he move into Roger and Patty’s room. She didn’t blame him. She could still smell the candle and matches.

  Greta lit the oven and grabbed a cheese slice from the fridge to prove to herself that she wasn’t in a hurry. Then she settled at the kitchen table, the stick back in her throat again. They could be in Whitecourt or the Northwest Territories or even somewhere in the city. What would she do if the app showed her Edmonton? Hide in a bush near their hotel and try to catch Roger on his own?

  The phone’s battery showed 20 percent. Greta didn’t tell Ash she’d checked for texts and missed calls every half hour since they got up that morning. She opened the app and held her breath, waiting for the results.

  Nothing. Roger must have deleted it. Actually, Patty would’ve been the one to find and delete it. She was the more tech-savvy one and also the more suspicious one. That last tie to her father snipped clean. Ash was right—just the two of them now. A grim relief, the clarity of it.

  While Ash slept, pouted—whatever he did in the storage room—Greta got to work. Half an hour later, she knocked on his door, calling him out. He followed her to the kitchen, raised his head and took a step back.

  “This is all the food we have,” she said, “not counting what’s in the fridge. Which isn’t much.” She swept her arm across the cans of food, boxes of cereal and Jell-O packets spread over the countertop.

  Panic on his face. Their food supply was finite; she felt it too. One day soon they would eat that last package of lime Jell-O, and then what?

  “Soooo” —she drew out the word—“we need to talk about what’s next.”

  Ash nodded.

  “How much money do we have now?”

  “Seventy dollars,” he said, “including your twenty.”

  “Okay,” she said. “That’s not great.”

  “What about calling Aunt Lori?”

  “In Arizona?”

  “Sure. She’d help.”

  For a second, Greta felt the weight of their burden shift—less crushing. Then: “Dad had her number on his phone. Do you know it?”

  Ash shook his head. Neither of them spoke for a minute. “We can both apply for jobs,” he said.

  “We don’t have much time. February’s rent is due in a week.”

  Ash’s face looked grimmer, if that was possible.

  “We could tell someone, ask for help. Like a teacher or someone at school,” Greta said.

  Greta could almost see the thoughts tumbling in his head. “What would happen then?” Ash asked.

  She shrugged. Brand-new territory. What would happen to them, their home, their dad?

  “Okay.” He turned and fixed on her, something firmer in his face. “Okay. Let’s look for work this week and see if we can do it on our own first.”

  Greta knew that even if they found jobs that week, they wouldn’t get paid for a few weeks. And would it actually be enough for rent, food and bus passes? Still, it felt good to make a decision, nail something firm. “Agreed.” They had enough food for a week. Their bus passes lasted another week. In seven days they would sail off the edge of the flat world.

  Greta pulled out her English textbook at the table. Exams would give her something to focus on other than their slow drift toward doom. Ash was right—she shouldn’t give up on it.

  Ash reassembled the contents of their cupboards. When he had put everything back in its place, he rustled through the pantry. “Do we have any chocolate chips?” Patty had bought a few baking supplies for some Pinterest inspiration she’d had over Christmas, which had never gone anywhere. That app was like crack for her.

  “No, I think Patty ate them all.” Actually, Greta had finished the bag herself. “There’s peanut butter. Maybe raisins.”

  Ash moved like a pro, pulling out a bowl, the measuring spoons, a recipe book. Greta watched him over the top of her English text. She stopped pretending to read as he leveled a cup of flour using the back of a butter knife, his eyebrows pinched in concentration. He scooped the last of their margarine into the bowl. A sweet sting, seeing him in the kitchen again, but by himself. He free-poured the vanilla. Their mom had always done that too.

  Greta knew she should get up and offer to help, try to fill that empty space at his side. Somehow it felt disrespectful. Ash didn’t ask her to either. Maybe he had avoided the kitchen to spare them both.

  “Aren’t you going to sneak some cookie dough?” Ash
asked.

  She smiled and took a pinch with her fingers, ducking her head away from him. The smell from the oven made the basement feel warmer. When the stove timer rang, Ash dropped a crumbly peanut-butter cookie by her elbow and loaded the rest on a paper plate.

  “Raisins in cookies are evil,” he said.

  As Ash slipped on his shoes—no jacket—Greta followed behind him. “I’ll go with you.”

  He nodded and led the way across the street and up Nate’s steps. He rang the doorbell. Nate answered the door this time, opening it a crack. “Oh, hi.” His red hair stood in tufts.

  Ash swallowed and pushed the plate of cookies forward, like they would speak for him. Nate eyed the cookies, then Greta and Ash. So he wasn’t going to make this easy. Standing behind Ash, Greta nudged his elbow.

  “We—I—just wanted to say sorry for”—he cleared his throat—“you know, driving your car all crazy and…” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  Nate let the door fall open a little wider.

  “I made you cookies,” Ash said. “I hope you’re not allergic to peanuts.”

  Nate took the plate but didn’t say if he was allergic or not. He set them on a shelf of shoes beneath the coats. “You know,” Nate said, crossing his arms over his chest, “I always wanted to meet you guys. Then when I did, I wasn’t so sure anymore.”

  Greta felt guilty when he said it, even though she wasn’t the one who’d nearly killed them all. Maybe for asking him to get involved in the first place? He’d spent the whole day driving them to Whitecourt and back, put up with their meltdowns and barely broke even for gas. He’d definitely gotten the worse end of the deal. Ash dropped his head too.

  “It was kind of you to help us. We won’t forget it,” Greta said, turning and heading back down the steps.

  “Yeah, thanks.” Ash followed behind her.

  They had both reached the path before Nate called out, “Do you want to come in? I’m making beef stew.”

  Ash and Greta looked at each other and then nodded. They sat at Nate’s kitchen table while he chopped carrots and onions. His dad came home from work and gave them a smile that twitched on and off like a tic. “I hope everything, uh, went well,” he said, clearing his throat. “It’s good to be proactive with…those kinds of things.” While Ash turned purple again, Greta pushed through the dirty feeling tugging her down and talked to Nate’s dad about school and exams and the price of his winter gas bill—everything except their absentee parents.

  On Wednesday Greta came home from her English final to find Ash in a kitchen chair and Nate standing behind him with clippers. Ash’s long brown wisps had fallen in a mesh of hair on the pocked hardwood.

  “What are you guys doing?” she asked, peering over Ash’s scalp.

  Ash turned proudly in each direction so she could inspect it. Nate had shaved along the sides and back, leaving a longer section down the center.

  “What’d you do that for?”

  “All the cool kids are doing it,” Ash said.

  “Shut up.” Greta flicked the back of his head.

  Nate turned on the clippers and touched up an uneven spot.

  “Don’t you think it might hurt your chances of getting a job?” she asked.

  “I’m pretty sure it won’t hamper my ability to lower fries into a deep fryer.”

  “Touché.”

  Ash had applied for three jobs already that week, at two fast-food places and a snow-removal company. Nothing yet. Greta had applied as a cashier at the only supermarket in busing distance and at a place that made cinnamon buns in the mall. The bun place had told her she was underqualified. To bake pre-made cinnamon buns and make basic change. In the post-Christmas retail slump, few Help Wanted signs hung in store windows.

  Now that she and Ash had no money, everything was about money. Greta had rationed their last few tomatoes, only to find one spotted with gray mold. She’d waited too long. She felt sick, dropping it in the garbage can.

  Then a woman came to their door looking for donations for after-school programs for inner-city kids. She told Greta everything a thirty-dollar monthly donation would provide, and then talked the sum down as Greta politely declined each time. Finally the woman asked, “What about a one-time twenty-dollar donation?”

  “I’m really sorry,” Greta had said, “but I can’t right now.”

  The woman left, looking at Greta like she was single-handedly responsible for child poverty.

  The school had handed out sheets outlining fees for the second term, mostly for textbook rentals. Greta would take math, social studies and French. She had been enrolled in food studies too but had dropped it. It was unlikely any of them would take that class, but dropping it meant a spare at the end of the day. Quick exit. Three possible classes with Dylan, Rachel or Matt. A roulette wheel spun in her head, a ricocheting ball deciding her fate.

  SIX

  Thursday, no news about jobs or their dad. They took a bus to their aunt Lori’s house and peered in her dark windows, then wedged a note under her door, asking her to call them the second she got back. Friday, Greta’s and Ash’s last exams, and a message on their answering machine from one of the fast-food places, requesting an interview with Ash. Ash actually smiled. Greta even saw a few teeth.

  Saturday—the first day of February.

  “Rent is due today,” Ash said, pulling a bowl of instant oatmeal out of the microwave, “but I don’t even have that interview until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “So we lay low, don’t answer the door. Come and go when it’s dark.”

  “Have you ever seen this guy?” Ash asked.

  “No. Patty said he’s old. Never goes out. Maybe he’ll forget about rent.”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say he was senile.” Ash sat across from her at the table. “What about food?” They had enough for another three days, tops.

  “We’ll dip into our stash and go shopping today. Buy nothing that costs more than a dollar.”

  Ash nodded, stabbing at his oats. “Maybe Nate and his dad would help us?” He dropped his spoon in the bowl. That conversation would be painful.

  “I don’t know,” Greta said. “It doesn’t seem like they have a lot of money.” Something about Nate’s generic clothes and the worn furniture in their place reminded her of their own. His dad’s pickup was more rust than truck around the wheel wells. “And we’d have to come clean to his dad.” She didn’t want to tell Ash she’d already texted Roger: We’re running out of food. Ash wouldn’t want to know about it, either the plea for help or the silence that followed.

  “I’ll go back to the mall today,” she offered, “to see if anyone else is hiring. And we can bus to the library tomorrow and use their computers to check the online classifieds.”

  Ash nodded but looked away, his food untouched. They both saw it now, the bow of their ship tipping over the edge of the world.

  “Eat it.” She nudged his arm and looked down at the oatmeal. There were only two more packets in the box. They couldn’t waste it.

  They went to the mall first, and Greta filled out an application at a sub-sandwich place in the food court. As she walked past another counter, her stomach dropped. Two drink dispensers stood side by side—one churning a peach-colored drink, and the other a deep purple. She stopped to watch the burbling purple juice, instantly nauseated. She swallowed against the saliva pooling at the back of her throat. Ash stopped beside her.

  “What? You’re thirsty?”

  Greta shook her head and started walking again, still dogged by that sick feeling. And not just queasy—something else was mixed in there. Embarrassment tinged with…something. Like everyone around her could see she was less. Dirty. It was true she had embarrassed herself. It wasn’t until she and Ash headed toward the mall exit that Greta could put a name to it. Near the entrance of a store selling chocolate, a mother tugged at the arm of a boy throwing a tantrum. She pulled a chocolate bar from his hand and dropped it back on the shelf while he whined and stomped h
is feet. People stared as they passed by. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” the mother hissed, her cheeks red as she dragged the boy from the store.

  You should be ashamed of yourself. Yes. Greta turned the phrase over in her mind, as though the words had been spoken just for her. She knew the feeling from before. Patty always had a way of making her feel small, like nothing. But it came more often now. Greta thought of how she’d shrunk from the couple making out on the bus. She’d even made Ash walk the long way to the mall exit, to avoid the posters hanging in the lingerie-store window.

  She was quiet on the bus to the grocery store, where she trailed after Ash. They hit a sale on sixty-nine-cent canned soup (“MSG delight,” Ash called it), and also bought a bag of apples and no-name mac and cheese.

  Back at home, Ash wrestled with the key while holding the bag of apples. It stuck in the lock, the door falling wide open as he jerked his hand away. A handwritten note clung to the bottom of the door, dragging in an arc. Greta crouched to grab it, for one second believing it was some secret communication from Roger.

  “I haven’t received a check for February’s rent,” Greta read. “Please drop it in the mailbox at your earliest convenience. Elgin Doyle.” Money, again. Always some reminder to nail them right back in reality.

  “So much for the senile old man forgetting to charge us rent,” Ash said, lifting the note from Greta’s hand. “What kind of name is Elgin? How do even you pronounce that?”