by Sara Hosey
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
I watched the back of her head and she nodded. “You got to take care of your dog,” she said. “You go. I’ll stay here with him. You want me to shoot him again?”
I didn’t say anything. I looked at Angel on her side, her chest heaving. She raised her head and moved her legs like she was trying to get up.
My eyes returned to my stepbrother. He wasn’t sitting up anymore, but instead sprawled out on the ground.
“What happened to him? Is he dead?” I asked.
“Passed out,” my mother said, her arm still extended. She reached out her other hand and grabbed my shoulder.
She pulled me to her face. “What do you want me to do, Iphigenia? Do you want me to shoot him again?”
“No,” I said in a hurried exhale. “No, please don’t. I don’t want that. I thought I did, but I don’t. I don’t want that for us,” I said.
Our eyes locked. “Go,” she said. “Get away from here.” Her voice cut through, deep and steely.
All I could say was, “Mommy.”
She glanced back at him and then continued. “They’re gonna know it was me. I’m the one who shot him. Maybe I’ll even turn myself in. I don’t know. But they’ll know it wasn’t you. So, you gotta go, now.”
“I can’t,” I shouted back, my ears still ringing, “I can’t leave you. I just found you!”
“You have to, Iphigenia. You’ve got to go. Go,” my mother growled, her face angry. “You don’t need me,” I think she said.
“I can’t,” was all I could say.
“You can,” she said. “And I can too. I will handle this. I should have handled it a long time ago.”
With one arm, she squeezed me to her and then she pushed me away.
I walked over to where my stepbrother lay on the ground. He didn’t look good, but he was breathing. “He’s gonna need help,” I said.
“I’ll handle it,” my mother said again.
I had seen my stepbrother asleep before, but this time he looked different. He looked younger now, somehow, without his smirk or his scowl.
“Your dog,” my mother said. “You better get going.”
I turned away from Marco and walked back to my mother.
“We’ll see each other again,” my mother said. She put her cool palm on my cheek. “Don’t cry,” she said.
I grabbed her and held her.
“Don’t never forget,” she whispered in my ear, her breath hot and sweet. “Her mother avenges her, Iphigenia.”
She kissed my head and pushed me from her.
“Now, go.”
Chapter 38
I did. I let go of my mother.
I went to Angel. Her big, dark eyes rolled up and looked at me standing over her. She was breathing hard and whimpering.
“Oh, Angel,” I said. I fell to my knees. “I am so sorry. I am so sorry this happened to you. I’m gonna have to carry you, Ang. Okay?”
They were still there, my mother and my stepbrother, a frozen scene in my periphery, but I focused on Angel, on the whooshing noise in my head and Angel and on trying to tell her it would be okay and, then, trying to pick her up.
My right hand was pulsing, and when I looked at it I saw it was misshapen. But there wasn’t any pain, not yet, so even though I couldn’t flex my fingers, I positioned my hands under her front and back legs, her belly resting against my forearms, and I lifted, trying to hold her to my chest. She cried out and even snapped at me, but then I just heaved and she squirmed a little but then settled in a resigned, helpless way that I didn’t like. She was heavy. Oh my god, she was heavy.
“We’re gonna be okay, Ang, I’m gonna take care of you,” I whispered as I staggered, carrying her away. I looked back once.
“I love you,” I said, my voice rasping. I stopped, ready to return to my mother.
She still stood where I had left her. She nodded at me slowly and I turned away, a deep sob escaping from me as I squeezed my eyes shut and walked blindly through the trees. Angel whimpered a little and I felt a wetness from her. Was Angel crying, too?
I couldn’t bear to think about it.
I trudged and stumbled to the trail that led most directly out of the park. My hearing was coming back, and I got into a pattern—listening to my steps and my panting breath. The focus allowed me to not think about what had happened and what was happening and what I was gonna do next. Crunch-crunch-breathe, crunch-crunch-breathe, step over root. Crunch-crunch-breathe, crunch-crunch-breathe, crunch-crunch-breathe, watch out for rock.
Just when I decided I couldn’t go any further, that the dog was too heavy, and where was I going anyway, I caught a glimpse of the sidewalk in the sunlight. It was truly morning when we emerged from the woods. I was sweating and panting; Angel had begun wheezing, her head on my shoulder.
Once on the sidewalk, I slumped to the ground, Angel in my lap, and I wept.
I felt a shadow, someone blocking the sun and I looked up at a man standing over me. The sun was so bright behind him that I couldn’t make out his face. “You okay?” he asked in a kind voice. I was aware then that traffic was going by.
I squinted up at the man and licked my lips. “My dog got hit by a car,” I said. “I just need to get home.”
“You should be taking that dog right to the vet,” he said, crouching beside me. He was an older guy with wrinkles, dark-skinned with a nice, calm face.
“I will … but I’ve got to get home first. It’s only a few blocks away.”
“Hey,” he said. “My car is right here.” I looked up to see a gypsy cab idling at the curb. “Can you carry him?”
“Her,” I said. “Yeah. Yes.”
The man hustled away, half walking and half jogging, and opened the back door of the long blue sedan. I caressed Angel’s head, kissed her face. She watched me. She never took her eyes off me.
I picked her up again. She moaned. The few steps to the car seemed impossible. I wondered how I had made it through the woods. But then we were there and I slid into the back seat with her in my lap.
“Please just take us to 114th street. You can go up Myrtle,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “But I think you should really get that dog to the vet. Like, immediately.”
“I will,” I said, “I will. Please just go.”
As the car pulled away from the curb, the man turned around to look back at us, maybe to see if blood was getting all over his seat. “So, what happened?” he asked.
“She got hit by a car.”
We stopped at a light. I listened to the directional blinking, the soft hum of the radio that he meant to turn off but only turned down. I hoped he knew I wouldn’t be able to pay him.
The car smelled strongly of air freshener. A green cardboard pine tree hung from the rearview. I thought I might be sick.
“Was she on leash?”
“What?”
“Was your dog off her leash when she got hit?”
What did it matter? I thought. It’s a lie anyway, I wanted to tell him. What does it matter?
“She got away from me.”
Maybe the cabbie wasn’t buying my story; maybe he was finally thinking, what on earth did I get myself into? This kid is trouble and now her dog is gonna die in my car. Who’s gonna clean that up?
But Angel didn’t die in his car.
We pulled up in front of the address Ann had given me, a small blue house with a big pine tree in the front.
I considered going to a different house, to a different address, just in case the guy, like, later got questioned by the police or something like that. But I didn’t have the energy. I just wanted help. I needed someone else to help me with Angel.
“Thanks,” I said, kicking the door open and sliding out, holding Angel like a baby. “I’ve got it from here.” She cr
ied out again as I awkwardly heaved us both out of the car, and I whispered, “Sorry, sorry, baby,” and I was about to hurry away but I turned back, looked into the man’s eyes. “Thank you,” I said. “Really.”
He looked back at me, frowning with concern. “You’re welcome,” he said. “I hope your dog is okay.” I felt him watching me as I struggled up the driveway.
Once in the backyard, I laid Angel down on the grass. The back door was open. I could see into the kitchen. “Ann?” I called through the screen door, “Is anyone here?” A dog started yapping, a little white thing that came to the door, jumping and scratching and whining.
I tried the screen door, but it was locked. “Anyone?” I called again. What if she wasn’t home? What would I do then?
But she was home. A moment later she was at the door.
“Iphigenia? What is it? What’s wrong?”
I wasn’t crying anymore at that point, I don’t think. But I couldn’t talk either. I just pointed at Angel on the ground.
“What happened?”
“Angel,” I said, gulping air. “Please take her to the vet. Please don’t let her die.”
“Jeannie!” Ann shouted into the house, but there was already another woman standing in the door.
“What’s going on?”
“We have to get her to the vet. Get a blanket. It’s Lola. We have to get her to the vet.”
I threw myself on the ground. I took Angel’s head in my arms. I cried into her fur. I told her I loved her and I was sorry.
Then a different woman was there and she and Jeannie were putting the blanket on the ground and then putting Angel in the blanket and then carrying her away.
“You come in the house,” Ann said, her hand on my shoulder. “They’ll take care of Angel. You come in the house.”
Chapter 39
Ann sat, her hands flat down on the small kitchen table. “Iphigenia, I have to ask you something.”
I stood at the counter and kept my eyes on the humming toaster, looking in at the red coils. It was one of those industrial-sized appliances; it could hold eight slices total. I might have made eight slices if I’d been alone. Instead, I’d made four.
“What do you know about the shooting in the park?”
“Shooting?” I said. I moved to the fridge and opened it. Ann and Jeannie ate the fake butter that came in a tub. I’d never had it before coming to stay with them, and I found that I loved it—it was so easy to spread a thick layer on the bread, unlike the hard sticks of butter we’d always had in the apartment. I took out the tub and put it on the counter.
“A shooting of a young man. In a campsite. He’s uh … he’s not cooperating with the police. But I think maybe you might know something about it?”
I nodded, looking at the closed refrigerator door. “Yeah,” I said, turning back to the toaster.
“Is it?” Ann asked. “Not your boyfriend?”
I shook my head, no.
“But, you knew him? Not your …?” she trailed off, maybe not wanting, really, to hear the answer.
“My stepbrother,” I answered. “I didn’t do it.” I finally looked at her and I knew my eyes looked as dead as my words sounded. Although, for a long time I wanted to, I thought. I could feel my face, flat, impassive. You might think I was bored. But truly, I was holding on so tight. I knew that if I let myself start, I would never be able to stop.
The kitchen had yellow, brown, and orange paneling. Ann sat at a yellow-topped table that had matching chairs with yellow plastic cushioned seats that whooshed when you sat down and made a sucking noise when you got up. It was a large room and bright, but it was too clean, the counters uncluttered and spotless. I wondered, vaguely, if I would appreciate how clean this place was once they sent me to some overstuffed group home.
“We have to talk to the police,” she said. “You understand that?”
“No,” I said and the toaster popped.
Toast—that was all I understood anymore. Hot, buttered toast.
With my left hand I plucked each hot piece out, one by one, making a little pile on the plate.
Ann regarded me.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s just … we really should get out in front of this Iphigenia. You should talk to the police before the police decide to talk to you.”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I scooped a huge slab of the butter-type substance and slathered it on each piece of toast and then stacked the slices again. The ones near the bottom of the pile would have the butter melted in, soaked in, just the way I liked it.
After Jeannie and another person—a neighbor? a random unlucky visiting friend?—took Angel away, Ann had brought me inside the house. I suppose I was in shock, because the whole thing passed in a blur, Ann buzzing around, offering me water and bananas and wrapping my injured hand. Then I’d been led to a bathroom and my hand was in a Wonder Bread bag with ice in it and I remember that Ann had turned the shower on but still I found myself, standing, looking down at the dirty, bloody water and at the little swell of my tummy, wondering how I’d gotten there, exactly.
I was then led to a tiny room with a twin bed and a small window that looked out over the backyard. I glanced out once and then didn’t look again. And then I’d slept, wearing a sweet-smelling gray sweat suit with the words “The Mary Louis Academy Hilltoppers” on the chest and “TMLA” down one leg.
I’d slept deeply and I don’t know for how long, but I wasn’t confused when I woke up. Instead, even half conscious, I woke and I instinctively knew not to feel. With my hand resting on my chest, it didn’t ache so much and I’d noted the softness of the bed, the perfectness of the pillow, that my feet were cold in a way that made me enjoy the blankets even more. I woke up and decided I wouldn’t think about my mother, even though it was all I wanted to do, to think about our time together in the tent. I wouldn’t think about my stepbrother, about his face, and what I’d seen out of the corner of my eye, even though I was trying very hard not to look. I wouldn’t think about Corinne and Anthony and whether or not either of them had come back for me.
Ann must have heard me stirring, because she was right outside the door when I opened it, waiting to escort me downstairs.
“Angel?” I rasped. I realized my throat hurt.
“She’s okay,” Ann said. “They have to keep her while she recovers, but the vet says she is going to be okay.”
I let myself feel relieved. And then I went back to not feeling anything.
And after two days, I was doing a pretty good job. Ann was always around, doing things for me: making phone calls and appointments, offering me a banana, asking how I felt. I focused on Angel, on her being okay, on keeping my hand very still and not bumping it against anything, and on my toast, and on the Gatorades Ann kept in the fridge. On air conditioning and ice cubes, on the slippers she gave me to wear around the house.
I didn’t like being indoors. It was comfortable, but except for the kitchen the rooms in the house were small and if there was another person around I felt crowded. I thought maybe living in the park would make it hard to ever live indoors like a normal person again.
I ate my toast methodically, like getting through each slice was a job I had to complete perfectly. Ann watched me, and when I was done she rose and took a banana from the fruit bowl and handed it to me. What was it with these women and their bananas?
“Fruit is good for you,” she said, as though reading my mind.
“Ann,” I said and she watched me expectantly. I took the banana and put it to the side. “Can you keep Angel? I don’t think I’m gonna be able to take care of her anymore.”
I’d have thought it would have been harder to say.
“Of course,” Ann said. “Of course.”
I nodded, looking at the banana.
“Ready to go?” she asked.
“I want
to do something first,” I said, not meeting her eyes. “Actually.”
She waited.
“Can I use your phone? Can I call information? It’s long distance.”
“That’s fine.”
I could tell she wanted to know who I was calling but she didn’t want to come out and ask. “I need to call my friend, Corinne,” I said.
She gestured, help yourself, toward the rotary phone on the wall.
There was a pad and a pen on a string next to the phone.
Ann stepped out of the room and I put the banana back in the fruit bowl.
I held the phone and dialed 411 with the same hand. I asked if there was a listing for Wales in Bayonne, New Jersey. There were two: Gary and Diane.
Cradling the phone against my shoulder, I took down Diane’s number and then dialed it.
I was unaccountably nervous. Maybe I was nervous that it was the wrong number or, if it was the right one, she wouldn’t be there or she wouldn’t want to talk to me. But she might as well have been waiting because after the second ring, she picked up.
“Corinne!” I whispered.
“Iffy?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m okay. I’m not in the park anymore.”
“Where are you?”
“Ann’s house.”
“Wow. That’s … weird.” She paused.
All I could say was, “Yeah.”
“Is this gonna be like an Annie scenario after all?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“A joke. The movie, you know, Annie. The sun will come out tomorrow? Sorry. Never mind. But what happened?”
“A lot,” I said. “Angel is … Angel is in the hospital—you know, the animal hospital.”
“Oh my god,” she said. I wanted to tell Corinne everything but there wasn’t time. I didn’t know how to begin.
“What happened?” she asked again.