A Roof Over Their Heads

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A Roof Over Their Heads Page 12

by M. K. Stelmack


  He could barely push the words out past the dry lump in his throat. “Alexi, I’m coming over. I’ve got something you need to hear.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “POSSESSION OF A controlled substance with intent to sell?”

  It was the third time Alexi had asked the same question since he’d made her sit at the kitchen table and he’d delivered his news from his seat at the far opposite end. For the third time, Seth gave the same answer, “Yes.”

  Her face contorted with disbelief, hurt...betrayal.

  It was that last emotion that made him blurt, “For what it’s worth, I didn’t do it.”

  Her face contorted more. “You’re innocent?”

  “Not on paper. I confessed to it but I didn’t do it. I took the blame instead of Connie.”

  “Connie? Your sister? She was trafficking?”

  “Yes and no. Cocaine and meth. A few grams of each. She was doing a favor to get the real trafficker off her back. It turned out he knew the police were going to show up. He set her up, except I was there, too. I’d come along in case things went wrong. I was expecting a fight or a knife, not the cops. So I passed off it was me because at that point in her career, Connie didn’t need a criminal record.”

  “But you did?”

  Something in her tone made Seth pause. Did she think he’d made a boneheaded move? Because not a day had gone by since then that he hadn’t wondered the same thing. “I knew it would go easier on me. It did. I guess. I was released on my own recognizance for the first year until my court date, and then the judge just handed me two hundred and fifty hours of community service, is all. Me and Mel, we were already running Lakers-on-the-Go so the court allowed me to count one hundred hours toward my service. And Paul has tracked my time, but everyone just thinks he’s there for the fun. Which he is.”

  “Lakers-on-the-Go?”

  “Yeah, it’s a club me and Connie and Mel came up with two, three years back in the summer. We set up a Facebook page, then we send a call out on Tuesday for what’s happening Thursday, and everyone shows up at wherever. The lake, the ball diamonds, school yard.”

  That first summer of Lakers-on-the-Go had been one of the best summers of his life. He’d never felt closer to Connie and Mel, especially Connie. Then the druggies had gotten their hooks back into her and not a month later, he was arrested. And nobody had had a good relationship with her. “I’ve been running my community hours through it the past year.”

  “But if Connie was there, didn’t they know it wasn’t you?”

  Yes, they had. Paul, tight-lipped and cynical, had glared at Connie the whole time Seth talked. “I confessed. She didn’t.”

  Alexi’s expression transitioned into outrage. “That was a real scummy thing for her to let you do.”

  “She was going somewhere. She was accepted into nursing school, you know. Had a stable relationship. Was actually turning things around for herself. I figured it would be worth it if she kept it up.”

  He couldn’t go on. Every time he thought about what had happened next, it made him sick, and his stomach already wasn’t doing too well.

  “But she didn’t,” Alexi prompted.

  Might as well lay it all out there. “No. She let it all go. Withdrew from nursing school. Spent her savings. Cheated on her boyfriend so he tossed her out. She says I backed the wrong horse. Thing is, Connie’s bright. Brighter than me and Mel put together. Growing up, she could do my homework, and she’s four years younger. I swear sometimes she did it to spite me.”

  Alexi snorted. “That’s a lot of spite.”

  “You haven’t met her.”

  “Maybe I should. Just to see the look on her face when I punch it.”

  The pure venom in her voice startled Seth. He’d expected her anger to be directed toward him, not for him. It made what he had to do now even worse.

  “Problem is damage control,” he said. “Now that the caseworker knows—or will know soon enough—you’re going to have to come up with a good explanation.”

  Alexi took up a clump of Play-Doh and began to pinch and poke it. “I’ll tell her the truth.”

  “It’s like you said, the truth sounds weak.”

  “How would I know you had a criminal record? We’ve only known each other for two weeks.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not what she thinks.”

  Her hands stopped over her work, and she lifted her blues eyes to his. “Why didn’t you tell me, Seth?” she said softly. “Given me a heads-up, so I knew to avoid talking about you? I could’ve warned Matt. You knew how important it was to me and...I thought it was important to you.”

  “It is important to me. I honestly didn’t think it would come to this.”

  She tore off a piece of Play-Doh so hard it came away with a short plucking sound. “No, Seth. Don’t lie. You knew it could come to this. You just didn’t want it to come to this.”

  Not since he’d viewed his father’s dead body, wearing a suit and tie, in the coffin, had truth hit him so hard that he felt winded. He had not wanted this and yet once again, by his doing, it had come.

  “I guess... I guess...” He took a breath and kept going. “I knew that telling you about me would blow any chance of us being together. And I wanted that very much. Too much.”

  She lifted her face to his and for a split second, he was granted a sight of how much she wanted him. Then her mouth thinned and her gaze dropped. “Well, you’re right. You and I—” and now it was her turn to draw breath “—are through.”

  She’d made the cut he thought he’d have to do, what he’d doubted he had the strength for.

  He creaked his mouth open to speak but as halting as her speech was she beat him to it.

  “There’s still the question of the house,” she said. “You can’t come here anymore.”

  Cut.

  “I’ve got the numbers of the contractors so I’ll contact them if necessary.”

  Cut.

  “And please don’t pay for anything. Payment implies assuming responsibility, and responsibility implies attachment.”

  Cut. Completely off.

  He bowed his head, and at last got his mouth working enough to say, “I don’t know what to say or do, Alexi.”

  Her mouth twisted downward. “There’s nothing you can do, Seth. Nothing I want you to do.”

  He nodded, searched for the right thing to say. All he could come up with was, “I’m sorry, Alexi. I’m really sorry.”

  Perhaps because the memory of his conviction lay freshly exposed, Seth’s mind reeled back to a time weeks after his sentencing. Connie had shown up at the house, dead drunk, blubbering about how sorry she was. Sorry, sorry, sorry, she’d slurred on and on, gripping his shirtfront until he’d thought she’d tear it clear off him. He’d pried her away, set her down on a kitchen chair, feet from where he sat now, and told her to shut up.

  Now, as he sat on the hard kitchen chair and waited for Alexi to hand him her own kind of verdict, he realized how wrong he’d been not to forgive Connie. He’d chosen to assume her crime, yet he’d resented it and stewed over it every day since then. He’d done it from duty, not love. Or maybe it had been love and he’d treated it like a duty. Either way, he made Connie carry a terrible burden these past two years.

  Alexi fiddled and fiddled with whatever she was making with the Play-Doh, then finally spoke. “I know you are, Seth. And I know I’ll forgive you. I might’ve already. But it doesn’t change what we need to do.”

  Which was for him to once more get up and leave. He pushed back his chair, pressed both hands to the table and raised himself in a slow unfolding, his every muscle tight and unwilling.

  He did the only thing he could do, what he should’ve done right from the start, and left her alone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE NEXT MORNING, Alexi tapped the sub
mit button for the online government survey and waited for the results. They were as expected. She qualified for six different government subsidies, income support being the most significant.

  She dropped her forehead to the hard edge of her phone. She’d never been on welfare. Never received a single government dime since she left the foster care system fifteen years ago. Even when Bryn received his diagnosis of autism, she resisted applying for support for children with disabilities.

  She couldn’t bear the questions, the paperwork, the interference. She’d done enough during the adoption process. But now...now there was no other choice.

  But to go on welfare meant to accept that adopting Matt was at an end or a good long postponement. She couldn’t see Marlene recommending adoption into a single-parent family on welfare with no prospects. Right now, she was an unfit mother.

  Not just for Matt. For them all.

  Matt appeared at her elbow. “I was thinking maybe I could go with the others around the block.”

  Matt, alone with them all? Callie, too? Her youngest loved being in her stroller, but if Bryn got to be a handful, then what?

  “How about Bryn stays home with me while you three go out?” Alexi suggested.

  Thankfully, they all agreed to that, especially Bryn because he got to help her make pizza crust. Oddly, kneading the dough grounded her. Doing one good thing for someone she loved and who loved her for doing it lifted her into action.

  She made a list and got busy. Was it true, she asked The Red Deer Advocate, that they were looking for newspaper carriers? “Oh, you are! Yes, in Spirit Lake...Oh, filled...Sure, put me on your waiting list.”

  “Hi there, I’m looking to start a home day care through your agency...Yes, I have four kids. Three are school-age...A single mom...I rent...Okay, I see. Well, thank you anyway for your time.”

  Once again, Alexi pressed her head to the phone. Now what? Maybe she could work at a call center. For eleven bucks an hour. That wouldn’t work out to much more than she was earning now through her stuffie business and she’d have less free time with the kids. She certainly couldn’t afford child care unless she applied for government child support, which brought her back to square one.

  Bryn wandered over. “Mom, where’s everyone else?”

  She checked the time. Nearly an hour had gone by. Where were the kids?

  No, not this, not today.

  As if on cue, Matt burst through the door with the others right behind. “Mom, we got fifty-five dollars! Fifty-five!”

  Sure enough, a clutch of bills—blue, purple, one green—were waving in her face. “How did—”

  “Found them,” Matt said quickly. “Over there, on the grassy place, along the path. It must’ve dropped out of someone’s pocket. But if we left it there someone else might take it, right?”

  Alexi gave Matt a long hard stare and stayed silent. She’d used it to great effect first on Richard and then the children. It had never failed her. But Matt stared right back with his solid brown eyes until finally she sighed. “Congratulations, all. You’ll have to think carefully about how to spend it.”

  “Oh, no,” Matt said, handing the money to her. “You have it. We don’t need anything.”

  That’s when Alexi knew for sure Matt was lying. What kid gave up perfectly good money to their parent? Money they didn’t believe they deserved. She looked at the others, and read the guilt there.

  “Okay. I’m going to ask some questions and I want straight yes-no answers. Understand?”

  They exchanged looks.

  “Amy, did you or Matt steal this money from anyone?”

  “No!” She said it with such indignation that Alexi knew it was the truth.

  “Did you take it from someone’s property?”

  She frowned and glanced to Matt. “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? Was it lying on someone’s property or just in front?”

  Amy’s frown cleared. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Matt, do you know who this money belongs to?”

  Matt looked her in the eye. “Honestly, the only one I can think it belongs to is you.”

  There was some question she was failing to ask but it completely eluded her. She’d have to take them at their word. “All right. I’ll keep an eye on the money.”

  They all cheered, even Bryn. Alexi almost smiled herself. The kids, except for Callie, headed out the back door to play. Alexi lifted her youngest onto her lap. “So, Callie, what do you think Mommy can do that people will give her money for?”

  Callie surprised Alexi by actually answering. “Look pretty.”

  Yes, there were jobs where that was helpful. Unfortunately, she didn’t qualify for them. You have supermodel eyes, Richard had told her. You could do makeup commercials, he’d said. But pretty eyes wouldn’t cut it.

  By lunch, she hadn’t gotten much further. As she threw together peanut butter sandwiches, carrots and water-weakened juice, she forced herself to act normal, to smile every time she sensed Matt looking in her direction.

  Whether or not he had talked to the others, Alexi didn’t know, but that afternoon the kids were as good as gold. While Callie napped, the rest played together outside, and after Callie woke, Matt offered to take her and Amy out for another walk. Bryn wanted to come, too, and he looked so eager that Alexi relented.

  “But just for a half hour. To the playground, a short play and then back again. Understood?”

  As soon as they were gone, Alexi second-guessed herself. But the playground was less than two blocks away with only one street to cross. Matt was five months from turning twelve. He could handle himself. Besides, she had to begin to trust Bryn at some point.

  Still, she stared blankly at her computer until thirty minutes later, they all returned, safe and sound, skipping into the backyard. She came out and leaned on the deck railing.

  “How was your time?” she called down.

  “Great!”

  “Great!”

  “We had so much fun!”

  “I looked pretty!” Callie said.

  What was it with her saying that?

  She was setting out a supper of pizza and veggies when Seth called.

  “Where are the kids?” No preamble, no hesitation, like nothing had happened last night.

  “Out back. Why?”

  “Mrs. Pinkster, the lady five doors down from you, calls me this afternoon. Asks me if I know the family that’s moved into the house. Apparently, your kids knocked on her door today. Told her that due to their various physical and mental disabilities would she care to donate whatever she could spare.”

  Alexi groaned.

  “Also,” he continued, “apparently you have brain cancer and need money for treatments.”

  This made her almost choke in surprise.

  “Mrs. Pinkster asked if I knew anything about your situation, and if there was anything she could do. After the kids left, they carried on to the sixth door down.”

  Callie’s comment about looking pretty now sounded degrading. It was horrible enough that she couldn’t provide for her kids but that they knew and tried to help, and now the neighborhood knew... She hung her head.

  “Alexi?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You don’t have brain cancer, right?”

  “No. Not yet, anyway.”

  Seth made a sound that could’ve passed for a short laugh or a grunt. “Alexi?”

  She was about to answer but the front door opened to a woman in a pink minidress and pink stilettos and columns of sparkly bracelets that stretched halfway to her elbow on both arms. She was gorgeous. Gorgeous blond hair, gorgeous body, and a face that supermodels would envy...and just the oddest bit familiar.

  Could her day get any worse?

  “Hey, you must be Alexi. I’m—”

&nb
sp; Alexi held up her hand. “I know who you are.” Into the phone, she said, “I have to go. Your sister’s here.”

  * * *

  “TALKING TO SETH, I take it?” Connie swept up the stairs, as if—well—as if she owned the place.

  Alexi ignored the question and asked one that seemed way more relevant. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Connie clicked on her heels into the kitchen, either not hearing or ignoring the question. Alexi bet it was the latter. After all, tit for tat. “Oh, wow. Look at the counters! I just knew this grain would rock.”

  She dropped her purse, a giant red thing with gold clasps, on the island, and trailed her fancy nails along the surface. One, Alexi noted with glee, was broken. “And wow. Look at this fridge. Isn’t it ah-mazing?”

  She scooped a jar off the countertop and pushed on the ice spout and out clunked ice cubes. “Tons of houses have fridges like this. But really, isn’t this totally decadent?” She opened the fridge. “Uh...okay...going for minimalism, eh?”

  Why would anyone want to lift a finger for this self-absorbed woman, much less ruin years of his life?

  Connie filled the jar with water from the sink and then held it up to the light from the window. She rattled the cubes. “Wow. Look at the patterns!” She set down the jar, stripped off one of her many glittery bracelets—she wore as many as some women owned—and slipped it over the rim of the jar.

  Then with an affected regal walk, she came to Alexi, at the last moment, kneeling. What the...?

  Connie held the water out to Callie. “Here you go, sweet pea.”

  Alexi was about to explain about the acute shyness, the public term she used for Callie’s trauma, when Callie broke her grip on Alexi’s leg and took the jar, her dark hands tight on the clear glass. She squatted with it and began to play with the chunky beads on the bracelet.

  Connie laughed and stood. “Look, a fashionista in the making. A girl after my own heart.”

  Alexi could only stare at the small miracle Seth’s miserable sister had performed. “I... Callie doesn’t usually open up to strangers.”

 

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