A Roof Over Their Heads

by M. K. Stelmack

  Connie shrugged. “Bling is a great icebreaker.” She glanced at Alexi’s bare arms and hands. “Of course, it’s not for everyone.”

  Connie began to play with the clasp on her bag. “The thing is, I talked with Seth a few weeks ago, and I explained to him that I was experiencing problems getting the work completed.”

  “Every ‘wow’ you see here is because of him.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s still definitely not up to par. I take full responsibility for that. I will clearly have to bring it up to standard before I could possibly let you or anybody live here. So, the thing is, I don’t think we can continue with our agreement.”

  It took Alexi a long moment to register what the world’s nastiest landlady was getting at. “Are you evicting me?”

  “No!” Connie said. “Evicting implies you’ve done something wrong. You haven’t. More like giving you notice.” She flicked the clasp open and shut, open and shut. “Effective immediately.”

  It was a good thing Callie wasn’t leaning on her, because Alexi’s legs gave way and she had to grip the island for support. “You can’t do that. I’ve paid rent.”

  “To the end of the month, which is like, in two weeks. So technically you’ve got until then.”

  “You’ve got to give me more notice than that.” What were the legal requirements exactly? She and Richard had rented their place in Calgary, a quiet exchange of checks and routine maintenance that had continued for nearly a decade.

  “Yes, for this month but the agreement was you had to pay first and last month’s rent at the time of move-in. And you didn’t, so technically, you’re behind. That gives me grounds.”

  “I thought it was arranged between you and Seth that he’d do the renovations in exchange for you waiving the rent.”

  “I don’t have the paperwork for that.” Connie smirked. “Do you?”

  Like last night with Seth, Alexi had a nearly unstoppable urge to punch Connie in the face. Hard to believe that this was the same woman who’d had a breakthrough with Callie not five minutes ago. “What if I pay you right now? All that’s owing you plus next month’s rent.”

  “Cash?”

  “No, I don’t have that kind of cash here. By check.” Drawn on an account with zero balance.

  “Ha!” Connie said and pointed her finger—the one with the broken nail—at Alexi. “I know that look. You don’t have the money. I’d have to kick you out next month anyway.”

  “Look, it’s like you said,” Alexi said. “You couldn’t rent the place out in this condition anyway. How about you let us stay until it’s ready to rent?” At the rate of these renovations, it could buy her a year.

  “That’s not the point. Things have changed for me. I need a place to live, and since this house is mine, my choice is obvious.”

  Connie’s columns of bracelets and her overstuffed bag took on new meaning. Maybe she was packing all she owned. Maybe desperation would make her compromise. Alexi was certainly willing. “Maybe we could all just share the place until—”

  “Until one of us murdered the other in their sleep,” Connie said. “No, I’m not bunking down with you and four kids, especially when I—”

  “Own the house.” Alexi was beat, and in her defeat she said something she wouldn’t ordinarily have dared. “I don’t know why Seth bothered to save you from prison.”

  Connie froze, and then she busied herself with one of the columns of bracelets, stretching one over another to rearrange the order. “Oh, he told you about that, eh? You two must be close. Or, this is another of his causes. A widow and her four kids are just up his do-gooder alley.”

  How dare Connie trivialize what was...what could’ve been between her and Seth? Alexi slammed a fist on the counter, a pale substitute for the face she wanted to drive her fist into.

  “For your information, Seth can’t be a part of my life, of Matt’s life. He’s the boy I’m trying to adopt and criminal records don’t look good. Your kicking me out of this house isn’t the only thing you’ve kicked out of my life.”

  Callie had abandoned her bejeweled jar to cling to her leg.

  Connie swung up her bag and moved to leave, but she caught sight of Callie’s wide-eyed gaze. She peeled off another bracelet and kneeled in front of Callie. “One more?”

  Callie obediently stuck out one arm, the other wrapped around Alexi’s leg, and Connie slipped it on. They smiled at each other, like friends in on a secret.

  Connie rose and turned to Alexi. “As for you, don’t pull the holier-than-thou stunt on me. I know what I am. I know what I’m capable of. But even I didn’t ask him to take the rap for me. You, you know you’re taking advantage of my brother. You’re stringing him along, aren’t you?”

  Alexi shook her head. “He knew I needed his help because of the situation with Matt. We both knew we were doing it for him.”

  Connie gestured to the nearly empty fridge. “You really think the kid couldn’t do better?”

  There it was. The question that had wormed into Alexi’s thoughts. Connie’s pink-painted mouth twisted. “Your face is a dead giveaway, girl. You’re in this for yourself.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Answer me this. Do you intend to have a relationship with my brother?”

  “I would if I could.”

  “Then you’re not. You can have your reasons for doing what you’re doing but at least be honest with yourself. Cut him loose.”

  “I did! Because you ruined it.”

  “Quit coming back to that stupid argument. Seth ruined it by taking the fall for me. That’s a fact. But you’re the one making him pay for it all over again. You won’t take a chance on him, will you?”

  Connie started a “gotcha” grin, then it wobbled and she bit her lip. “The fact is neither of us deserves Seth.”

  She spun away and left in a clatter of heels and bracelets, Callie holding to Alexi’s leg, her eyes following the beautiful pink lady and her fake jewels.

  * * *

  SHE’D DECIDED TO give up on Matt, ditch the adoption and hand him over to Child Protective Services. The mean landlady was kicking them all out, and they’d nowhere else to go. They were basically homeless, and she’d spent all night and all this day thinking of another way out but she couldn’t.

  She told him this when the others were in bed and he’d gone with her to sit on the back deck stairs. Matt knew from her face that it was going to be important, but he thought it was about their money problems and he already had a solution. He’d followed her out into the dark and coolness, excited to share his plan with her.

  Never had he dreamed she’d do this to him.

  She sat with her arm around his shoulders and told him that it was her, not him, not ever him. The fact was, she said, she didn’t deserve him, and he deserved to be with someone who could provide for him and love him as much as she loved him because she did, she really did.

  “This is about money,” he interrupted, “isn’t it? I know what you can do. Ask Seth Greene for a small loan. Like a hundred dollars. Two hundred to make sure we’re covered. Then we’d buy bread and cheese and lettuce and cold cuts—no listen, Mom!—and make lunches, and we could sell them to Seth and Mel and the guy that works with them and other people.”

  She squeezed his shoulder and began shaking her head. He rushed on.

  “That’d make us some money, and we could gas up the lawn mower and I could go door-to-door, and you wouldn’t need to take me because I could just push it. I can even do that after school. I could rake leaves in the fall—we got a rake already, we wouldn’t need a loan for that—”

  She squeezed his shoulder really hard this time and pulled him tight against her. “I don’t want you to go, either,” she whispered.

  It was like she was squeezing a big lump of tears in his chest. He swallowed hard. “Homeschool me,” he said. “I cou
ld be at home taking care of Callie while you work. I’m old enough.”

  She rested her cheek on his head, which squeezed the lump near to bursting. “You can’t be learning if you’re taking care of kids. Besides, I wouldn’t be home to help you with your lessons, which I’m pretty sure the caseworker wouldn’t approve of.”

  Matt felt the lump crack, his whole insides start to cave in, and this time he spoke just to get words out, any words, so as not to cry. “What does it matter what she thinks? You couldn’t do anything to make her happy. She’s fat and ugly and stupid and I—”

  “Don’t, Matt. Don’t let your sadness make you mean. That’s not you.”

  This time it was him squeezing hard, squeezing his eyes and lips tight, squeezing his hands between his knees, because she had this way of making every wrong thing he did appear to come from a good place within him that he didn’t even know existed.

  She lifted her head and with her fingertips, turned his face to hers. “The thing is, Matt, you’re not mine. And because of where I am right now, I cannot make you mine. Even though I want that more than anything else in the world.”

  To keep from crying, he looked up and away. The stars were coming out. There’d be more, and if you were out all night like he’d been more than once, there’d be so many they’d all blur together in places into a great dome.

  Only it wasn’t a dome. It was just the curve of the earth making it appear that way. Because really it was black endless space and faraway, dead places.

  “Please,” he said in his best, calmest voice, “please talk to Seth Greene. He will help you. He’ll talk to his sister. I know him.”

  She shook her head. “He’s a good man but even he can’t pull off the miracle we need.”

  “Have you tried?”

  She moaned softly. “Matt. Please.”

  He didn’t push her because even though she was wrong about Seth Greene, he knew nothing he said was going to budge her. “When?” he said.

  “I’ll call Marlene tomorrow, and we’ll go from there.”

  It wouldn’t take long, he thought. Hours, a day or two at the most. He’d have to move fast. He leaned away from her, straining against her hand on his shoulder. “Could you leave me alone for a bit?”

  She let him go, though she continued to sit on the step, her mouth twisting. She finally stood and walked to the back door. She paused. “Matt. You’re not going to run away, are you? Promise me that much.”

  It hadn’t even crossed his mind. “No. I promise.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. That was the other thing about her. If he said it was so, she believed him.

  He wasn’t running away, but he wasn’t going to let her give him up, either.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE SECOND SETH entered the drive-through lane of Tim Hortons coffee shop with Mel, he spotted Matt crouched beside the speaker box. The truck clock read 6:21 a.m. Great start to a Monday morning.

  “Isn’t that Alexi’s oldest?” Mel said. Matt must’ve recognized them, too, because he rose and came straight for them. His hair was every which way, and he wore a T-shirt, shorts and sandals. Okay for noon but at this time of morning, it had to be cool. As the boy drew close, Seth lowered his truck window.

  “Seth Greene.” The boy’s eyes looked bruised, the eyelids heavy. He looked as if he hadn’t slept all night. Had he run off? Alexi would be in full panic mode.

  “Matt.”

  “We need to talk.”

  No kidding. Seth eyed the gap ahead of him, and the line piling up behind them.

  Before Seth had a chance to respond, Mel said, “Sure, open up the back door there.” Matt didn’t need to be told twice before he was in the passenger seat of the crew cab.

  Mel turned to look at him. “What do you want for breakfast?”

  “I don’t have any money,” Matt said.

  “My treat.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Mel.”

  Seth felt more than his chronic low-grade irritation with Mel. The boy had come to see him and Mel was taking over.

  What’s more, why did Matt call Mel by his first name while he got the full name treatment?

  “In that case,” Matt said and drew a deep breath, “I’ll have five hot breakfast sandwiches on an English muffin, five hash browns, a side order of bacon, four orange juices and a medium coffee.” He paused and added unnecessarily, “To go.”

  “Got it,” Seth said fast before Mel could get in another word.

  At the take-out window, Seth put in their regular order, Matt’s order, added six muffins, three grilled wraps, up-sized the coffee to a large with a double shot of cream, and threw in an extra box of Timbits.

  No doubt Alexi would thank him, even though it wasn’t her gratitude he wanted.

  Not that he could ask for what he really wanted from her.

  As bags and boxes and cups were passed into the vehicle, Matt tucked his family’s share around himself, all the while his stomach squeaking and groaning like an eager puppy.

  “Dig in,” Mel said.

  Matt looked longingly at the bag of hash browns but said, “No. I’ll wait to eat with the others.”

  Mel, with a Timbit on the way to his mouth, stopped. “Good idea. I’ll do the same.”

  Still sideways in his seat, he chatted with Matt about what grade he was in (grade six in September), what sports he liked (baseball and soccer and snowshoeing), if he’d been to the Calgary Zoo (of course), and since he had, which was his favorite animal (the penguins, same as Mel).

  All well and good, but that got Seth no closer to finding out why Matt had tracked them—him—down. How had he even known to go to Tim Hortons? Had he just surmised from Mel’s donut box and the fact that that was where most of Alberta’s working population went every morning?

  Whatever, it had to be something serious. Was it money? Had Alexi gone through his money already?

  Or was it something Connie had said when she’d come by yesterday? Yeah, bet it was his charming sister.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror at Matt to ask a few of his own questions, but when he saw the boy with warm bags of food and cold drinks, his head resting against the back of the seat, and a small smile playing on his lips as he listened to Mel rattle off random facts about Antarctica, Seth decided that all explanations could wait until they got to the house.

  The door flew open as they came up the walk. It was Alexi and from the moment he saw her, Seth saw nothing else.

  She was a wreck. She was in sweatpants and a gray T-shirt, her hair loose and wild, her feet bare, her shoulders slouched, her hands hung by her side. No phone.

  This was not his Alexi.

  “Matt.” Her one word, empty and flat. Resigned, as if she’d expected him to leave her.

  “I had to,” Matt said, and she nodded, not surprised, not angry. Nothing.

  There was something else missing about her. Of course. Callie. It was still early. He could take a moment to talk and find out what had gone so wrong.

  But in the way of all kids who sense when the adults in their lives would like time alone, there was the snick of a door, a sleepy call, the sound of bare feet on wood and the whole crew was there.

  After a quick connect with their mom, the kids clustered around Mel with his paper bags and drinks. He climbed the stairs to the kitchen, the kids encircling him like chicks around a hen, leaving Seth and Alexi alone together.

  She hadn’t thanked him or Mel for the food, but had quietly instructed the kids to do so. Maybe she didn’t realize he’d gotten her breakfast, as well.

  He wanted to open his arms as he had only a few short nights ago, have her fall into them, feel the rightness of her body against his and let them talk with nothing between them.

  Two things held him back. One was the boy up in the kitc
hen. As much as it grated that some bureaucrat held the power to decide who was part of Matt’s life based on some idiotic rule, he wasn’t about to jeopardize the best thing that had happened to Matt: Alexi.

  The second were the cups of coffee in his hands. He held out the large one. “Here. The way you like it.”

  Alexi stared at the coffee as if it were a foreign substance. Then in a slow, almost drugged way, she took it from him and held it. She didn’t drink, just stared at the plastic lid.

  This was killing him. “Alexi. What’s the matter?”

  She lifted her eyes to his. Her blue, blue eyes now dull and bloodshot.

  “I’m giving up Matt.”

  Her whispered words floated around Seth, their meaning not settling on him. “What?”

  “I have to. I’ve got no money, no job, no home—”

  “No home? What do you mean? This place is coming together.”

  Twin frown lines appeared between her eyes. “You haven’t talked to your sister?” There was a small, distinct spitting of the last word.

  Connie. He knew it. He shook his head.

  “She kicked me out. Said she was moving back in. Immediately.”

  His paper cup of coffee slipped a little in his hand. So that was why Connie had come over. He’d thought she might’ve insulted Alexi or laid out new rules, never eviction. If possible, she’d sunk to a new low.

  He pulled out his phone, stopped. As if she’d answer at this time in the morning. Probably had it turned off.

  “Mel!” Seth called. “Mel. Come here, okay?”

  “Why? I’m eating.”

  “Now!”

  Mel took a dog’s age to appear at the top of the stairs, his cheek bulging with food, a half-eaten muffin in his hand.

  “You two need to come. The food’s getting cold.” He turned to Alexi. “Seth got you a lemon poppy seed muffin, but you’ll have to watch that the seeds don’t get stuck in your teeth.”

  “Mel,” Seth interrupted, “did Connie tell you she’s moving back into the house?”

  Mel’s eyes grew round. He said to Alexi, “Connie’s moving in with you and the kids?”