Hush

by Anne Frasier

  Max was always telling Ethan that people had to look out for the less fortunate. Ever since he could remember, Max had sent money to a girl and boy in Bolivia. Those kids were adults now, and they still sent Christmas cards and letters, and Max now had two new children he supported. Ethan had always thought it was cool of Max until he found out he was just like those kids. At least they knew they were charity cases. At least with them there had been no pretending.

  He wanted to talk to somebody about it, but his buddies didn't talk about that kind of stuff. They would feel weird and embarrassed, and they wouldn't have any answers anyway. That's what you realized when you got older. When you were little, you thought you were just too young to understand the answers and that when you got older things would come into focus. Then you had to finally face the truth: There were no answers.

  Ethan swung around just as a coworker spit on the plain bagel with light cream cheese.

  "What the hell are you doing?" he whispered.

  "What's it look like? I'm givin' her my House Special. I hate it when them bitches hold up the line like that. Like they're the only people wanting to eat."

  Jarod had been working at Bagels, Bagels only three days, and was a total pain in the ass, one of those rich kids whose parents made them get a summer job so they wouldn't stay in bed all day watching MTV and playing video games. He was sour and rude, and the only time he enjoyed himself was when he was fucking something up—which was about every two minutes.

  Ethan grabbed the bagel and threw it in the trash. "Fix another one, and do it right."

  "You talkin' to me? You tellin' me what to do?" He was also one of those white kids who liked to talk black.

  "Yeah, I am."

  Jarod dropped his arms to his sides, his hands clenched, his face red. Everything about him was confrontational.

  "Come on, man." Ethan gestured toward the bagel container. "Just make another one." He couldn't believe they were fighting over a fucking bagel. "It's no big deal."

  Jarod pulled off his green bagel cap and tossed it on the floor. "Fuck you. Fuck you, man." He stomped out.

  Wearily, Ethan prepared a new bagel and took it to the cash register where the woman was waiting to pay.

  She pushed it back at him. "I don't want it," she said, her chin raised in indignation. There was no way she could have heard or seen what Jarod had done with the original bagel, but she couldn't have missed his tantrum. "I have no desire to eat in such a hostile environment. What's your manager's name? I want to report this." She had a pen out, and now Ethan could see she'd already noted his badge and written his name on a napkin.

  He stared at her and wondered if he should have kept his mouth shut about the spit bagel.

  Two hours later, Ethan was putting away the last of the cream cheese when he heard a commotion at the door. Why the hell did people come at closing time? He looked up to see a bunch of his friends piling in, laughing and shoving one another all the way to the order area. Ryan Harrison, a neighbor, hockey teammate, and longtime friend, sprawled partway over the counter.

  "You have to buy something," Ethan said. "The manager's in the back office."

  The last time his friends had shown up, the manager had kicked them out because they'd overtaken and dirtied two tables, helped themselves to self-serve ice water, straws, and napkins, and left a soggy mess for Ethan to clean up while not purchasing a single item.

  "Give me a pizza bagel and medium soda," Ryan said while Heather Green tugged at his arm, pleading with him to buy her a bagel too. He rolled his eyes and ordered a second one. Heather smiled broadly and winked at Ethan. Heather was always laughing and happy. Even though she lived down the street from him and he'd known her forever, Ethan felt a little clumsy around her because he'd heard she was sexually active while he was still a virgin.

  "Did you hear about the record show at Navy Pier?" she asked.

  "No," Ethan said. She was also one of the only girls—or guys, for that matter—who knew anything about music. Not a lot, but more than his buddies.

  "Next month. Tickets are ten bucks for three days."

  "You going?" he asked.

  "Can't. Family vacation. We're going camping in Colorado."

  "Cool." He gave them their bagels and self-serve drink cup, then totaled their order. "What about you?" he asked Ryan.

  "The record show? I don't know." He shrugged. "Maybe. Will your dad let you go?"

  "If he doesn't, I'll sneak out." There was no way he would allow his dad to keep him from going to something so important.

  "You're so intense at those things," Ryan said. "It's kind of a drag."

  "Thanks." Nobody got it. Nobody got Ethan's infatuation with music. Not the radio crap, but music. Good music.

  He hung out in a few select chat rooms—it was great "talking" to people who loved and revered the same things he did—but why didn't he actually know anybody like that?

  How could you respect somebody who didn't understand good music? What if he met a girl and fell in love . . . but she listened to crap? Could he marry her? Could he spend the rest of his life with her?

  "Right now we're going to an all-ages show at the Quest," one of his other buddies, Brent, said. "Wanna come?"

  "Who's playing?"

  "I don't know. We just thought it would be something to do. We're going to try to hook up with Pasqual or Donnie Issak to get us some vodka. We have enough money for three fifths."

  "I can't."

  "Come on, man. Don't you get off work pretty soon? We stopped to get you."

  "Yeah, but my dad's picking me up."

  Brent laughed. "Oh, yeah, that's right You're grounded. I forgot. Bummer."

  "If it's such a bummer, why are you laughing?"

  "I was just thinking about how drunk you were the other night. You were funny as hell. I almost wet my pants. I didn't know you could be so fucking funny."

  Ethan had a fuzzy memory of climbing on top of somebody's car. He'd removed his pants and tied the legs around his neck like a cape and was shouting things like, "I'm the king of the world!" Thinking about it made his face hot. The cape thing was bad enough; he hoped he hadn't done anything more embarrassing than that.

  Headlights suddenly illuminated the interior of the small shop. When the lights were cut, Ethan could make out the car. "Cool it," he told Brent. "My dad's here."

  "Hey everybody," Brent announced. "Ethan's daddy's here to pick him up."

  Chapter 10

  It used to be that thirteen was his lucky number. But lately the number twenty-two had been showing up with unwavering regularity. Anytime he looked at the clock, it was something twenty-two. 2:22, 5:22, 7:22. Like that. The other day, he bought a sandwich and a Coke and it cost him $6.22. Then he picked up a newspaper and there was a picture of a wrecked bus on the front. The bus's number? Twenty-two. Then it occurred to him that his address was 7852. If you added those, you got twenty-two. . . .

  A thud above his head made him jump.

  She was awake.

  Soon she would begin bellowing at him, making demands.

  He could smell her through the floorboards. Her stink permeated the whole house. Did she take a shower at all anymore? He didn't think so. In some ways he liked that, because it meant he was the only person using the shower. He didn't like knowing someone else had been there, that those were her body hairs stuck to the soap and the fiberglass shower floor. He couldn't stand knowing that she'd left invisible sloughed-off skin behind, along with her stench. It was much better that it was just him.

  Why had she always hated him?

  Dirty boy. Dirty, dirty boy.

  He remembered the first time he realized she was different from other mothers . . . and that he was different from other children.

  Kindergarten.

  That single word made him break out in a cold sweat.

  She'd taken him to the huge brick schoolhouse, her sweaty hand swallowing his as she pulled him along, his short legs trying to keep up, his fear crea
ting an acid taste in the back of his mouth.

  His legs were almost too short to make it up the steps, but she didn't slow down. "Come on. Let's get this over with," she said, tugging at him, pulling his arm straight up from the socket. As soon as they stepped inside he felt alien. And that alien feeling never went away.

  Women—other mothers—looked at them, then quickly looked away. Some put hands to their faces, covering their nose and mouth. Some moved back to let them pass, as if afraid he or his mother might brush up against them.

  He wore little red shorts and a red-and-white- striped T-shirt that didn't cover his belly. His shorts were stained from "shit," as his mother called it, and his feet, in the faded, cracked flip-flops, were crusted with dirt.

  His mother was dressed the way she always dressed when she wore clothes, in tight terry-cloth shorts and a tank top with black, coarse hair sticking out from under her armpits. She had always seemed huge to him—she was his mother—but now he saw that she was three times as big as the other women standing in the hallway trying not to look at them.

  "Come on," she said, jerking his hand, dragging him into a room where a beautiful woman sat at a desk. She had black hair and red lips, and a warm smile that made everything seem okay.

  Other women were sitting at desks, filling out papers. Some children were in the corner, playing with toys.

  His mother dropped his hand. The woman behind the desk said hello to him and asked him if he'd like to play with the others.

  He looked up at his mother. Would she let him?

  "Go on," she said, using her angry face, her angry voice.

  So he walked slowly over to where the other children were playing. One boy had a plastic car he rolled along green carpet that had a drawing of streets on it. A girl with blond hair was playing with colored blocks, stacking them higher and higher. He thought she was pretty.

  The girl looked at him and said, "You stink."

  The boy looked up, then pointed. "You pee-peed." That wasn't enough, he had to announce it to everyone in the room. "He pee-peed," he said in a singsong voice, still pointing. "Teacher, he pee-peed."

  He could feel something hot and wet trickling down his leg, his foot, puddling on the carpet. The smell of urine stung his nostrils. Confused, he wondered what he'd done wrong.

  The beautiful woman behind the desk stood up. She wasn't smiling anymore. Her red mouth was a straight line, her dark brows drawn together, creating deep creases between her eyes. "Isn't he toilet trained?" Her voice held disbelief combined with shock.

  "Thought you could take care of that," his mother said. She waddled across the room, grabbed his hand, and pulled him after her, his wet feet squishing in his flip-flops.

  But now she wore the opal necklace he'd given her. And she had something from every mother he'd ever killed. Seeing her wear his gifts made him feel wonderful because they were the truest symbols of his deep and profound feelings for her.

  From above his head came a crash, followed by a heavy thud that shook the house.

  What now? he wondered. What now?

  And then she began screaming and moaning.

  "My leg! My leg! I broke my leg!"

  Chapter 11

  In Japanese, Sachi meant "child of bliss." LaDonna Anderson wasn't Japanese, but she'd traveled to Japan as a high school exchange student. That had been years and years ago. And even though she'd thought about her Japanese parents often, hoping to someday go back there, she never had. She'd married a kind, patient man who developed emphysema from working in a coal mine. They had one child, and LaDonna named her Sachi, child of bliss.

  Sachi was a beautiful girl who became a beautiful woman. When her father died and LaDonna was too overcome to speak at the funeral, Sachi delivered a wonderful eulogy. She was that kind of person. Someone who could do anything.

  And when she accidentally became pregnant and announced she would keep and raise the baby without the father's help, LaDonna had thought, Yes, you will. And she thought, There are no accidents. Only miracles.

  During Sachi's pregnancy, she and her daughter often talked about going to Japan together someday. It was a dream they'd often shared through the years, and now that dream included a child. They would take Sachi's baby with them. . . .

  The baby ended up being a boy. Sachi named him Taro, Japanese for "firstborn son."

  It had been expensive to have the special birth announcement put in the paper. Even though LaDonna couldn't afford the forty-dollar fee, she'd done it anyway. She wanted all of her friends to know that she was proud of her new grandson, proud of her beautiful daughter.

  LaDonna worked nights at a market only three blocks from where she and Sachi lived. She could pick up a paper that evening when she got to work, but she couldn't wait so long. And sometimes there were no papers left by evening.

  She got up early and walked to the market, buying a paper and a cup of flavored decaffeinated coffee for Sachi, caffeinated for herself. Sachi had temporarily given up caffeine and chocolate because she was nursing. Some people said it didn't matter what a mother ate, that it didn't have any effect on her milk, but LaDonna knew better. Food like beans and brussels sprouts made a baby colicky, and caffeine kept an infant awake, and Lord knew a mother needed that baby to sleep as much as possible.

  LaDonna hurried home with the paper.

  They'd lived in the apartment on Mulberry for more than three years. Enough time so that she no longer saw the carved names on the walls, or noticed that the handrail to the second floor was loose. What was outside their apartment didn't matter. Because inside was their world, their safe, cozy world.

  In the kitchen, LaDonna cut out the birth announcement and stuck it to the front of the refrigerator with a magnet. Later, she would take Taro's hospital photo and the birth announcement and have them framed. It would be a surprise for Sachi. Something she could save along with all of her other treasures.

  The apartment was still quiet, so she left the white plastic lid on Sachi's coffee, opened her own, and sat down at the small round table in front of the bay window to read the paper. A short time later she heard the sound of a fretful baby, heard Sachi's sleepy voice. Then all was quiet, and LaDonna imagined Sachi nursing her tiny, red-faced baby, smoothing his straight black hair.

  Later, Sachi came out in her bathrobe and put the bundled baby in LaDonna's outstretched arms.

  "I brought you coffee," LaDonna said, not taking her eyes from the infant who was staring in her direction with crossed eyes. "Raspberry decaffeinated."

  "You've been out?" Sachi lifted the lid and inhaled. "Ah, that smells almost as good as caffeinated."

  "I wanted to pick up a paper."

  Steam swirled up from her cup as Sachi lifted it to her mouth. She took a cautious sip. "Why not wait until tonight?"

  "There. Look on the refrigerator."

  Sachi took four steps and leaned forward. "A birth announcement?" she asked in a puzzled voice. "Mom, nobody puts birth announcements in the paper anymore. Not unless you live in some small town where everybody knows everybody and they have a weekly paper that tells about things like Cousin Myrtle visiting from a town five miles away. Or a photo of somebody in a goofy hat and glasses with a caption reading 'Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's Forty.' "

  LaDonna felt deflated. She'd thought Sachi would be happy about the announcement. "I wanted to put it in the paper," she said stubbornly, frustrated that she would have to explain her actions. She certainly hadn't thought Sachi would question them.

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm so proud of you both. My Sachi. My Taro."

  Sachi sat down at the table across from her mother and smiled in that sweet and wise Madonna-like smile that made her seem so much older than her twenty- two years. She smelled like baby powder and raspberry coffee, and the muted sunlight that fell through the window painted her in a soft, golden patina. "I know that, Mom."

  LaDonna wanted to hold that moment, stop that moment, embrace, absorb, understand that moment. Th
e perfect circle of love. Mother and child, mother and child.

  That evening, LaDonna headed for work, leaving Sachi curled in the corner of the couch, filling out birth announcements, while Taro slept peacefully beside her. Later, Sachi changed his diaper, nursed him, then put him down for what she hoped would be at least a few hours, giving her a chance to catch up on her sleep.

  She was dreaming about driving around and around in a car, desperately looking for her missing baby, when she heard a knock. Thinking it was early morning and her mother had forgotten her key, she shuffled sleepily to the door and opened it.

  A dark-hooded man stood in the opening. Adrenaline surged.

  She tried to slam the door. He pushed it open, his hand immediately going for her throat, cutting off her scream before it began.

  Chapter 12

  City of Big Shoulders. That's what somebody named Carl Sandburg had called it, or so Ronny Ramirez had been told.

  It was 2:00 A.M. and Ronny Ramirez was on patrol as one of the rapid response teams implemented by Daley in the late nineties. Ramirez loved Chicago. He loved his job—most of the time.

  The son of migrant workers, he'd lived in the United States his whole life. Before he was born, his parents used to come up from Mexico to Missouri every fall to pick tomatoes, then pears. When the season was over, they returned to a little scrap of land that belonged to his grandfather where they grew produce and sold it in Mexico City. But when Ramirez's mother became pregnant with him, they decided to stay where they could take advantage of free hospital care in exchange for agreeing to be poked and prodded by students for two weeks before, during, and after the delivery. Twelve students had been chosen to participate in the birth. One had performed the episiotomy. Another had caught the afterbirth.

  I've never had so many strangers looking at my crotch, baby, his mother had told him. But the whole humiliating experience had been worth it, because her son, Ronny Ramirez, was born a citizen of the United States.