Always Chloe and Other Stories
Page 20
I walked to the store to get something nice for dinner, a nice cut of meat or something, and the checker was talking to the lady in front of me about it, saying, “Did you see it, honey? I saw it on the TV. Can you believe that shit?”
I wanted to say that nobody would have seen it if it wasn’t for me. I put it in Jeannetta Constantine’s hands and told her where to take it. She was going to give it to the police. But she wasn’t talking to me, she was talking to the lady in front of me. It was really not my conversation in the first place.
I broiled the steak for supper, and Tanya said it was good, but really, it was tough. It was a little too tough.
Day Three, I went out for a walk, because other than going down to the store, which is right at the end of the block, I felt like I’d been inside forever. I felt like I needed to fill up my lungs and breathe.
It was coming on late autumn, and the air that filled up my lungs was cold.
Down at the new construction site, there was a temporary fence, and someone had spray-painted on it, in big letters, Jarred Constantine died for our sins. Except the J and the C were even bigger, to point up the coincidence in the initials. I had never noticed that coincidence about Jarred Constantine’s initials, but I guess nobody could miss it after that.
I went by Jeannetta’s house on the way home.
What a zoo.
There were news vans on the street out front, with big antennas, and news crews with cameras and microphones on her lawn.
I tried to go through them to knock.
A lady reporter with perfect hair talked to me. She had so much makeup on. In that light, it looked awfully silly. She had on a dress that was so red, you could use it for highway safety. She wasn’t even wearing a coat.
“Are you family? Do you know Jeannetta Constantine?”
She stuck her microphone at my face.
“I know her. But I’m not family. We both lost sons. My son Anthony was killed nine months ago. Gun violence. That’s what killed him.”
There was a cameraman behind her, filming all this.
“So how long have you known Jeannetta Constantine?”
“Just since Jarred died. But you know, my son Anthony died, too. And nobody’s gotten to the bottom of that yet, either.”
“So tell us about your relationship with Jarred’s mother. What did she say to you about Jarred’s tragic death?”
“I’m going inside now.”
I knocked, and a man came to the door, a big, burly guy, like a bodyguard.
I told him I was a personal friend, so he walked me in.
Jeannetta was at her dining room table with the state senator and a guy writing stuff down on a pad. She looked up and waved at me. I waited. For something more, I guess. But that was it. She just waved at me, like I was part of the crowd on the parade route or something. Just, Oh, hi, Sally. And then she was back talking to the state senator again.
The big, burly guy asked me if I wanted to wait.
“No, never mind,” I said. “I’m tired. I’m going home. Tell her to come by my house later if she wants to talk.”
On the way home, I looked up and saw it again on the back of a billboard. Jarred Constantine died for our sins, with a big J and a big C.
Jeannetta never came by to talk, surprise, surprise. Probably, she was busy with the governor or the President or something.
I put on the news at five, and there was lots more about the indictments and an enhanced version of the tape, but no footage of me on the lawn.
After that, I have to admit that the days and the numbers on the days got muddied. I really can’t say I kept good track after that. But I know it was more than two weeks later before Jeannetta finally came around.
She came at eight-thirty in the evening. Woke me out of sleep. I answered the door in my robe.
She had the storm door open so she could knock properly, and a blast of cold air hit me when I opened the door.
We looked at each other a minute.
“You’re letting the cold in,” I said.
I guess that was sort of an open remark. She could either take it to mean come in or go away.
She came in.
I wanted her to, but I guess I wanted her make that choice on her own.
We stood in the living room, me with my hands in my robe pockets.
Jeannetta said, “I don’t blame you for being mad.”
“I’m not mad,” I said, which was not entirely true, but maybe ninety percent.
“It’s just all been so overwhelming.”
“I can imagine it has been. I won’t lie to you, I would have liked it a whole lot better if you’d come to see me. But the first few days after your kid dies is not a good time to have to be thinking about somebody else.”
“I did think about you,” she said. “I just figured you’d be mad that I was getting all the attention.”
Then I got mad. When she said that, the ten percent came up, and I got really mad.
I said, “You don’t get it, do you? You think this is about us? You and me? You come with me. Come with me, right now. I’ll show you what it’s about.”
I took her down the hall to Anthony’s room.
I’ve kept Anthony’s room just exactly the way he left it. I didn’t even go in and clean. I dust in there, but the clothes on the floor and the books spilling off the nightstand, all that stuff, I just left. And it’s funny, because before Anthony died, a team of Clydesdales couldn’t have kept me from going in there and cleaning.
Now I leave it all untouched.
“I want you to look at his stuff,” I said to Jeannetta. “All of it. Walk around and look. Look at the posters on the walls and the schoolbooks and his jeans on the floor. Look at every video game and every model car and every comic book and every snapshot. Look at his soccer trophies. Look at his comb on the dresser. It still has a few hairs in it.”
I will say this for Jeannetta, she did as she was told. I sat on Anthony’s bed, and she walked around and took everything in, even though I’m pretty sure she didn’t know why she was doing it yet. But I asked her to do it for me, and she did.
“See how real he was?” I said. “He was a real boy. He deserves to still be here.”
“Jarred was real, too, though. He deserves to be here.”
“I know that!” I said. My voice was up by then. I was all agitated. “I know he was. Everybody knows he was, that’s exactly my point. That’s what I’m trying to get you to see, Jeannetta. Everybody in the whole damn country knows that Jarred was a real boy, and that he didn’t deserve what he got. You never have to prove that to anybody again. You got nothing to prove to anybody. You don’t have to prove it anymore. I still have to prove it, Jeannetta. I still have to make people get that.”
It was quiet for a minute, and then she took my hand and pulled me up off Anthony’s bed and out into the living room. She put me on the couch with a blanket and started massaging my feet. It made me cry, just like it does with Tanya. So she went and got me a box of tissues, and she massaged, and I cried.
Then she got up and went into my kitchen, and I heard her take down a pan and also open and close the refrigerator door.
“Sally?” she called.
“In the cupboard over the stove,” I called back. “Except for the marshmallows, which are in the pantry.”
A few days after that, I got a phone call from a reporter at one of those weekly magazines.
He wanted to know about Anthony.
“What do you want to know about him?” I asked.
“Pretty much anything you want to say about him, I guess. We can do it either one of two ways. I can come interview you, or you can write something in your own words and send it in, and we’ll print it.”
“How did you know about my Anthony in the first place, anyway?”
He got stuck on that one and didn’t say anything at all.
“Well, that was very nice of Jeannetta to do that,” I said. “I think I would like to say something
in my own words.”
“Five hundred words, maximum,” he said, and he told me where to send it when I was done.
I spent the whole day writing up this really nice thing all about Anthony and how real he was. And then I tore it up, and I threw it away. Because I kept thinking that other people would read it who had lost somebody. I didn’t want anybody to feel the way I’d been feeling the last couple of weeks, and especially not because of Anthony or because of me.
So instead, I called Detective Fallon and asked if he would please send me the names of two hundred and fifty kids who’d died. That was what I sent to the magazine. That was my five hundred words. I named it “A Partial List of Kids Who Should Still Be Here in Addition to Anthony Powell.”
I was sorry it could only be a partial list, but I think people will get the idea. Actually, probably most of the people that read it won’t get what I’m trying to do, but those that don’t get it don’t need to, and those that need to will.
By the bestselling author of DON’T LET ME GO and PAY IT FORWARD, the short stories compiled in EARTHQUAKE WEATHER have been published in literary magazines, nominated for Best American Short Stories, the O’Henry Award and the Pushcart Prize.
In “Dante,” a woman inherits a dangerous dog from her late, married lover. The dog isn’t dangerous to her, but he threatens anyone who tries to get near her. Now she's left wondering if that's exactly what her lover intended.
In “Mrs. Mulvaney, the Grasshopper God,” an older woman has a spiritual experience and swears off mowing her lawn, driving her neighbor--who found her lawn unkempt to begin with—right over the edge.
In “Red Texas Sky,” a young boy, plagued by nightmares since witnessing the death of his father, gets help from his mother’s new boyfriend, an alcoholic Vietnam vet, who takes him on a mission to face his fears and leave his nightmares behind.
“Of the eighteen stories collected here… all are worth reading. Empathy is everywhere in this book…. And perhaps that’s what’s so striking about this collection: in your heart, you can see yourself in most every character. Sometimes that’s frightening, and sometimes it’s kind of nice. Either way it’s a good read.”
—San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune
This “Classic Catherine” Anniversary Edition includes a new Author’s Note by Catherine Ryan Hyde.
BUY YOUR COPY TODAY!
About Catherine Ryan Hyde
Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of 20 published and forthcoming books. Her newer novels include When I Found You, Second Hand Heart, Don’t Let Me Go, and When You Were Older. New Kindle editions of her earlier titles Funerals for Horses, Earthquake Weather and Other Stories, Electric God, and Walter’s Purple Heart are now available. Her newest ebook title is The Long Steep Path: Everyday Inspiration from the Author of PAY IT FORWARD, her first book-length creative nonfiction. Forthcoming frontlist titles are Walk Me Home and Where We Belong.
She is co-author, with publishing industry blogger Anne R. Allen, of How to Be a Writer in the E-Age…and Keep Your E-Sanity!
Her best-known novel, Pay It Forward, was adapted into a major motion picture, chosen by the American Library Association for its Best Books for Young Adults list, and translated into more than 23 languages for distribution in over 30 countries. The paperback was released in October 2000 by Pocket Books and quickly became a national bestseller. Love in the Present Tense enjoyed bestseller status in the UK, where it broke the top ten, spent five weeks on the national bestseller list, was reviewed on a major TV book club, and shortlisted for a Best Read of the Year award at the British Book Awards. Both Becoming Chloe and Jumpstart the World were included on the ALA’s Rainbow List, and Jumpstart the World was a finalist for two Lambda Literary Awards.
More than 50 of her short stories have been published in The Antioch Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train and many other journals, and in the anthologies Santa Barbara Stories and California Shorts and the bestselling anthology Dog is my Co-Pilot. Her stories have been honored in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest and the Tobias Wolff Award and nominated for Best American Short Stories, the O’Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Three have been cited in Best American Short Stories.
Catherine is founder and former president (2000-2009) of the Pay It Forward Foundation. As a professional public speaker she has addressed the National Conference on Education, twice spoken at Cornell University, met with Americorps members at the White House and shared a dais with Bill Clinton.
For more information, please visit the author at catherineryanhyde.com. You can also learn more about Catherine by picking up your copy of The Long Steep Path!
Also by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Fiction
Walk Me Home
When You Were Older
Don’t Let Me Go
Second Hand Heart
When I Found You
Electric God/The Hardest Part of Love
Funerals for Horses
Walter’s Purple Heart
Earthquake Weather and Other Stories
Jumpstart the World
Diary of a Witness
The Day I Killed James
Chasing Windmills
The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance
Love in the Present Tense
Becoming Chloe
Pay It Forward
Nonfiction
The Long, Steep Path: Everyday Inspiration from the Author of Pay It Forward
How to be a Writer in the E-Age…And Keep Your E-Sanity
Copyright © 2013 by Catherine Ryan Hyde.
Special thanks to Leslie Moroney for the beautiful photo used in the cover art.
Cover design by Madeira James, www.xuni.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
Edition: February 2013