“Yes. They were out earlier.”
“I’m offended that they didn’t wait for me.”
She glanced over at him and saw that he was joking, so she offered a smile back. Juno sprinkled the last of the Fiber One on the ground for the birds and dusted her hands.
“What are you giving them?”
“Old cereal gone stale.”
He took a step forward, examining the ground as the birds jackrabbited around his shoes; Vans, Juno knew. Her sons used to wear them. Sam toed one of the little pieces until a crow stole it away, hopping out of reach.
“It looks like hamster pellets. No wonder you didn’t eat it.”
Juno laughed. “Yeah, it was pretty bad. Fiber stuff.”
“Breakfast should be fun. If you have a bad breakfast, you have a bad day.”
“You sound like a commercial!” Juno exclaimed. “What cereal are you trying to sell me?”
“Froot Loops, definitely.” He grinned, enjoying the joke. And then, “Hey, you’re wearing a Landman shirt! I used to have one just like that.”
“I got it at Goodwill.” She shrugged. “I thought it was a green bean.”
Sam found this hilarious. He laughed hard enough to make Juno smile, too.
“It was probably mine,” he joked. “My mom gives all my stuff away.”
“Well, if it was,” Juno said, “it would be tiny on you now.” She thought wanly of the giveaway bags.
Sam shrugged, his smile lingering.
“He’s from a video game. Landman can morph from a man into anything that grows out of the earth. So basically, he has to defeat his enemies, the Gorgs and Spawns, by trapping them in, like, volcanos and rivers.”
Juno listened raptly, nodding when he made references he clearly expected her to know. She imagined his parents’ eyes glazed like doughnuts as they half listened to everything he said, nodding and mmming dutifully until it was time to talk about them. Kids needed to talk; they needed to empty themselves of their experiences so they could process them properly. And, more importantly, they needed to have someone who wanted to listen and who could gently guide. That’s what Juno did. She listened.
Sam, finished discussing his video games, slid his arms through the straps of his backpack until it was hanging on his front. He wore a plastic bracelet on his wrist, the stretchy kind that had a little motto on it. A little dog on one of those retractable leashes skittered into the clearing, sniffing at Sam’s sneakers before darting off at the sound of “Klipper!” Sam bent down to pet Klipper, but it was too late, his little hind legs were working hard to get back to his owner.
“Anyway, my uncle broke my system and I couldn’t play anymore.”
Juno’s ears pricked to attention. Could be talking about Dakota? It hadn’t happened during Datoka’s last stay; Juno knew that for sure.
“How did your uncle break your game?” she asked.
“He’s an alcoholic.” So matter-of-fact about it, too, Juno thought. She studied him with the eyes of her old profession.
Sam was a small kid, scrappy-looking, with bandy, muscular arms and a boxer’s set to his chin. She’d never heard him complain to his parents about the kids at school bothering him, but that didn’t mean anything. Some kids shared that stuff and others bottled it up. Who are you, kid...the bully...or the bystander? Juno watched as he cocked his head and then, almost as suddenly, his eyes returned to the water. He watched a couple of teenagers in a kayak with interest for a few seconds before turning back to her. He regarded her like he was seeing her for the first time, and Juno began to sweat beneath the Landman sweatshirt. She searched his face, though for what, she didn’t fully know; a little bit of Winnie or Nigel, maybe. But in this moment, she couldn’t see a trace. With a quick dart of his hand, his phone materialized from his pocket, and he checked the screen.
“Want a puppy dog? That’s what my dad calls a hot dog.” He kicked the toe of his trainer into the dirt, but then squinted at her. “I always bring money on Thursdays so I can get two before I go home, but we had a class party with pizza today so I’m still pretty full. I have to eat this stuff out here where my mom can’t see.” He grinned.
“Health nut?” Juno knew that Winnie was more akin to control nut than health nut, but Sam nodded. The kid wasn’t allowed sugar, processed carbohydrates, soda, meat, or pizza unless it was a special occasion. As much as Winnie tried to control what he ate, Samuel worked equally hard to assert rights over his own choices by disobeying her. It would be an ongoing battle until someone yielded, and by the looks of the scrappy little boy in front of her, Winnie was in for a long, hard fight.
Before she could give him an answer, he was running toward the kiosk. Juno had ordered from it many times before; it was just a little metal-roofed shack that sold cold beverages and turned hot dogs slowly for hours on a greasy machine.
“You’re fast,” she said, when he came back a few minutes later carrying two paper boats, one in each hand. His backpack, sticking out like a turtle shell in front of him, had a stray blob of mustard on it. Juno took the meal without looking at Sam. When she raised her eyes to his face, he was already eating and staring at the lake where the teenagers had been floating earlier. The birds, which had forsaken their foraging for Juno’s cereal, were starting to peck at Sam’s feet for new crumbs. He consumed his food so quickly, never taking his eyes from the water, she was unsure how he could have tasted it.
She finally remembered her manners. “Thank you, Samuel.”
He turned the full beam of his smile on her. And then just as suddenly it fell away. “Please, call me Sam,” he said. “I hate my full name.”
Juno would admit that she was out of touch with young people, but she was fairly certain most of them didn’t sound like young British aristocrats when they spoke.
“Okay. Sam,” Juno said slowly. “I like that better, as well.”
He grinned at her. Then, “So you’re still homeless?”
“Yeah,” Juno said. “I am.”
She watched as he kicked his legs against the brick wall, and then, all of a sudden, he spun around and sat down next to her. Juno found this almost childlike in its innocence. Most people moved away from the homeless, not toward.
“How come?”
“Life happened. It doesn’t always happen the way you want.”
He seemed to mull over this for a while before nodding. “Why’d you come to Seattle?”
“How do you know I’m not from Seattle?”
“I guess I don’t. But most of the people I know aren’t from here.”
“Well, you’re right,” Juno said. And that’s interesting, she added to herself.
“I’m from New Mexico,” she said. “I used to be tan all the time, now...” She looked up to the sky where the clouds had obscured the sun again. Sam laughed.
“What was your job, before?”
“You make a lot of assumptions, Sam.”
“That’s what my dad says.” Sam was unabashed, almost like he’d taken this as a compliment. “He says that making assumptions makes an ass out of everyone involved.”
“That right?” Juno couldn’t take her eyes off him. She’d heard Nigel say those very words in that very tone to the boy, but here she was, seeing how he interpreted them.
“I was a therapist once, a very long time ago.” Juno paused to gauge Sam’s reaction. She had his attention, his murky eyes fixed on her face. This kid ticked in a different way; she just couldn’t tell how yet. She waited for him to ask the question she could tell was perched on his tongue.
“Why did you stop?”
“You never stop being a therapist.”
He thought for a minute, sucking his cheeks in like a fish, and then reworded his question. “What was your last day at work like?”
Juno felt jarred; he’d thrown her off again. In the end, she couldn�
�t lie to him; there was something about him that told her he’d see right through it anyway. She’d always noticed that about him during their lakeside conversations. And really, what difference did it make? Sam knew exactly what Juno was, and yet he didn’t seem to care.
“It was sad. I didn’t want it to be my last day, but sometimes there’s no way around these things.”
Sam considered this, his forehead furrowed. “You felt out of control.”
“Yes, Sam, I did,” Juno said slowly. “Unfortunately, we aren’t the only ones in control of our story arcs. Outsiders have an influence, too.”
“But we let the outsiders have an influence.”
“Yes and no. When you’re an adult you can control who you allow into your life, but you can’t control how they’ll behave once they’re there.”
“Kids don’t get that choice.”
Sam didn’t say this bitterly; rather, he was matter-of-fact, which hurt Juno’s heart. He was so tender in this moment, so vulnerable. It was hard to learn your place in the world when so many people told you different things. She’d confused the hell out of her own kids, God forgive her. In youth, people were plenty stupid—mostly because they thought they were so smart.
“Hey, regarding our conversation earlier... I have a little something for you,” she said, reaching into the paper bag at her feet. She grunted a little as she bent over, but Sam didn’t seem to notice; his eyes were glued to the bag, curiosity on his face. Fighting her uncertainty, Juno pulled out the box of Froot Loops and presented it to him. It was a stupid gift, she was almost embarrassed—except Sam’s face lit up as soon as he saw it.
“Wow. Now that’s ironic! We were just talking about Froot Loops.”
Juno laughed at this. It wasn’t ironic, nor was it a coincidence. But she wasn’t about to confess that she knew Sam loved Froot Loops. How could she explain why she knew that about him?
“Hey, I’ve gotta go.” He looked over his shoulder in the direction of the house. Winnie would be getting home; she could tell that Sam was calculating how long it would take him to get around the lake and if he could beat his mother there. He had a dusting of cinnamon freckles across his nose that made Juno’s heart ache in a way it hadn’t in a long time. Marcus, her oldest, had freckles. It had been so many years since she’d seen him, and she had no idea if those freckles still appeared in the spring like the cherry blossoms had. Sam reached for the Froot Loops. Juno watched in amusement as he dropped to a knee and opened his backpack.
“Thanks for the snack, Juno!”
Juno thrilled. He was such a good boy.
She wanted to make the right decision. Sam did not belong to Winnie and Nigel; they’d taken him from a woman named Josalyn Russel. Her story was tragic: a runaway, young and afraid, got pregnant. She must have been terrified. But that meant Sam had a biological family somewhere: aunts and uncles and cousins, maybe even grandparents. Juno would never have the chance to be a grandmother to her grandchildren, and that cut at her heart. What these people had done was unthinkable.
In that moment, she made her decision: she would find these people, the Russels. She needed to see what type of people they were.
Running into Sam had thrown off the timing of her plan, so she spent the night on the west side of the park, too afraid to sleep, but tired all the way down to her joints. It was warmish outside, and from her bench she could see the Turlin Street house and that gave her some comfort. She considered taking something for her pain—the pills in her bag—but Juno preferred being alert in the park at night. As if emerging from some horror movie, an old drunk stumbled by. Juno knew him from the area; Vic, they called him. Angry guy, from what she recalled. She’d always steered clear. Some of them knew you were there and didn’t care to acknowledge it, but other guys—like Vic—they wanted to get right up in your face, make you uncomfortable. People were the same everywhere you went: the suburbs, prison, the gutters of Seattle: everyone was afraid of their own existence. Afraid they were getting it wrong...afraid of what would come after as a consequence. And in Juno’s opinion, that made people act like irrational assholes.
A dozen yards away, Vic tossed something into the lake. Juno thought she heard him yell “Fuck you, Howie!” What does it take to get some peace and quiet around here? she thought. There was one more anguished hail of “Howieee!” He settled down after that, probably to squirt something into his veins. Juno relaxed a little, fingering the pill in her pocket. She could think in peace. She had a view of Winnie and Nigel’s bedroom—and Sam’s, she thought, her eyes drifting to the window that belonged to the boy’s room.
For Juno, there was the matter of getting back into the house the next morning without triggering the alarm. Her plan was to go through the kitchen door with the key she’d borrowed from the ring of spares. She’d have to time it just right, so that she’d be walking in the back of the house while Sam was leaving through the front. She had a three-minute window to get inside without triggering the alarm. Everything had to be timed just so.
Just so what? she thought. You get back to your little hovel in the ground where you live like a mole. It was almost spring, she could return to the park, walk away from the Crouch house. It had done its job; sheltered her through winter. Juno was certain she would have died if not for the crawl space. And she wasn’t well—far from it.
But she’d chosen the wrong family to follow, a family with deep, dark secrets. No, she chided herself. There was no wrong in doing right. Juno, who’d never believed that there was a reason for everything, had never blamed God for the things that had happened to her—knew that people made their own fate. She was a walking testament to that. But Sam didn’t belong in this mess. On top of that, Juno knew that the Crouches’ marriage was falling apart. Where would Sam go if they got divorced? What would his life be like? He was entitled to a different life, one with his real family. The clock was ticking, and Juno wanted to make sure Sam was okay. Sam was her priority. Sam was caught up in all of this because they’d stolen him. She’d read the police report, seen the little swatches of blood. A baby had been taken. Like hers had been taken from her. And she’d had no rights, no legal standing to see them. Kregger had erased her from their lives.
Juno’s body rocked with a different type of pain. She moaned softly, a purring sound in the back of her throat. Her boys, her boys, her boys. Dale and Marcus. One was the athlete, one was the student. She’d raised them. When Kregger was working long hours in the casino, she’d raised them. Two little boys and nothing but their stepmother. Good thing she’d been equipped. Juno had loved the boys enough to put her doctorate on hold, to be a mother instead of a student. She’d never once resented Kregger for expecting her to raise his young sons; she’d wanted to raise them. And he’d taken them from her. Like Winnie had taken Sam.
Vic let out a cry of pain from the brush. Distracted, she didn’t notice the truck that circled past the house twice, nor did she pay attention to the way it idled on the corner of Aurora and Turlin, the driver tossing a cigarette butt onto Winnie’s immaculate grass.
24
WINNIE
Winnie paused in the doorway of her bedroom, eyes flicking across the room; everything was as it should be. In here, at least, she thought. Maybe it was the stress of life that was getting to her. Yes, that had to be it. After all, hadn’t these thoughts been toying with her mind for years, hounding her relentlessly? Her subconscious was probably clogged up with fear, and it was clearly manifesting in her life. She was still embarrassed about the shadowy thing she’d convinced herself she’d seen in their bedroom window. Maybe she needed more time in therapy. That season of her life was over, that part of herself buried so deeply Winnie had created a new person, a better one, to replace the last. She breathed deeply, coercing her mind into emptying itself of the negative. Everything was going to be all right...everything was going to be all right...
When Winnie went down
stairs the next morning in her robe, Samuel was already in the kitchen, sitting at the table with his phone and a bowl of cereal. He was a sight, his hair flattened on one side and poking up on the other. He looked like the little boy she missed, the one who ran to her, eager for hugs and kisses. But she knew all too well that there was a simmering adolescent where her little boy used to be. And he didn’t want his mother’s affection.
As she breezed past him on her way to the sink, feigning indifference, she saw the rainbow Os floating in milk and bit her tongue. He knew he wasn’t allowed to have sugar. But she kept her trap shut about it, to avoid an argument. It was Saturday, and she wanted to make the most of the weekend.
Winnie opened the fridge. “Want to take a walk around the lake after lunch?” Her hand tightened on the handle as she waited for his possible rejection.
Samuel looked up from his phone, unaware that his mother was holding her breath. He shrugged and followed with a weak, “Sure.”
Winnie was relieved. Small victories. That was what her therapist had wanted her to focus on, small victories—not the giant, looming issues that chewed incessantly at her mind. She hid her smile and nonchalantly made her French-press coffee.
But all too soon, he left the kitchen. She cleaned up his empty bowl and the splashes of milk on the counter, wiping aimlessly until the kitchen was spotless. She felt disarmed by Samuel per usual; given favor one minute and having it taken the next. Being a mother was by far the hardest job Winnie had ever taken on, and she had roughly five years left before Samuel went to college.
Nigel often made fun of her for referring to parenting as a contract, but it was. The most unbreakable contract, excruciatingly unrewarding...and yet...it was the thing that most drove her in life, the thing that she simultaneously hated and loved at the same time. No—that’s wrong, thought Winnie. She didn’t hate being a mother, she hated parenting—being the enforcer, the teacher, and most often, the bad guy. Today was her day to be the good guy, to remind her son of the unbreakable bond they shared. She intended to make the most of these last years of his youth; it felt like Samuel was slipping fast from her grasp. He was solemn and slow to laugh, and he regarded both her and Nigel with suspicion. Winnie couldn’t make sense of it. Lately she’d been thinking that perhaps they’d spoiled him. That was a thing with only children; she knew this because Nigel was one. There was an entitlement etched quietly into their minds, a sense that things needed to go their way. They had no one to contend with but doting parents—no siblings to scream in their face, no hair-pulling, kicking, or having to share. The world was their oyster. And on that rare occasion when things didn’t go their way—well, that was when they sulked. These were all the things she told herself were going on with her son. The alternative...well, that she didn’t want to think about.
The Wrong Family Page 18