A Roof Over Their Heads

by M. K. Stelmack

  She resisted the urge to hug him as she handed him his lunch. She couldn’t resist, however, sneaking Seth a glance. He didn’t meet her eyes.

  Seth jutted his chin at the pack. “How come that’s so full? I thought you said you didn’t have homework last night.”

  Guilt flushed across Matt’s face. “Uh...it’s my social project.”

  “What?” Alexi flipped open his agenda on the counter. “It says here you only had your independent reading to do.”

  “I know but I wanted to get ahead on it because then I don’t have to work on it on the weekend. Then I could help out here more.”

  Once again, she resisted hugging him but signed and handed over his agenda before clocking the time. “Bryn. Amy,” she called in the direction of the bathroom. “Hurry up. Wipe faces. Move it, team.”

  In the last-minute flurry of jackets, backpacks and hair brushing, Alexi didn’t notice Matt leave.

  “Matt!” It was Seth out on the front porch, holding up Matt’s lunch kit. Matt jogged back, his heavy pack like a turtle shell.

  Alexi joined Seth. “Here, I’ll take it to him. He’ll fall over before he gets back.”

  He handed it to her without a word, without eye contact. She met Matt, who took it, head down. Could no one look her in the eye?

  “Thanks, Mom,” Matt mumbled. He straightened. “Thank Seth Greene, too.”

  She could resist no longer. She hugged him, bulky backpack and all. It was a good call because the hug he gave back meant she could get through her day.

  And from the grim look on Seth’s face when she returned to the porch, she would need all the strength she could get.

  “I think I’ve overstayed my welcome,” he said. “I’ll stay in town tonight, after the kids are in bed. Mel will drive me back to my place.” His voice was quiet and soft—and unyielding.

  She didn’t want him to go, but they both knew there was little point in him staying now. He could get around on his own, and last night had made it clear that they were at a stalemate. “You’ll be okay?”

  His eyes searched hers. “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

  Alexi wasn’t sure she was going to be. She sat on a deck chair. Callie sat on the top porch step. “I want you to know—”

  “Unless,” Seth interrupted, “you’ve come to a different conclusion than you did last night, let’s leave that door closed.”

  She hadn’t, and she lowered her eyes until all that occupied her vision was the bottom tip of his right crutch on the deck. Seth was silent, his weight pressing the rubber tip against the wood. All at once, he swung the crutch forward.

  She rose. “Here, I’ll get the door—”

  But he was already swinging it open, getting himself inside. She sat back down. When she finally came inside, Callie in tow, she figured from the closed bedroom door he was inside. She could pick out the faint sounds of a drawer opening. She remembered accidentally opening her lingerie drawer in front of Seth. His grin, her excitement at having him close to her, her awareness of how it could become so much more.

  The drawer scraped shut. It would be empty now, ready to be filled with just her stuff. Tears began to clog her throat and she grabbed the silverware, clattered it and the plates together, anything to cover the sounds from the bedroom, anything to get through this moment and on to the next.

  Callie padded to Seth’s door and before Alexi could stop her, turned the handle and began to slip inside. Alexi called, “Callie. Come help me clean up the table. Let Seth be.”

  The door widened, and she heard Seth from behind the door. “Come in, Callie. You can help me, okay?”

  Just like that Callie disappeared inside, having made her choice. Alexi stood in full shock. Two forks and a spoon fell from her hand to the floor. Callie was alone in a room with a man.

  Did Seth realize how momentous this was? No, of course not. She had never told him. Had never told him anything about her kids, really. About how Bryn hadn’t spoken for the first three years of his life, about Amy’s three major surgeries, each one carrying with it the risk she’d never walk again, even the details of Matt’s horrific upbringing. Seth had accepted them all as they existed now.

  And she had rejected him because he’d loved her kids more than her. How much love did she expect from him? Wasn’t marriage also for the purpose of creating a family? Need it always be about two people loving each other?

  Yes. It is always about that. And Seth didn’t love her. She left an opening as big as a barn door for him last night, and he’d dodged it with his talk of commitment.

  She couldn’t marry a man who didn’t love her, even though... She froze, holding a plate covered in toast crumbs and bits of egg.

  Even though she hadn’t told Seth she loved him. She’d been so fixated on hearing about his love she’d kept her feelings hidden from him. She’d welcomed him into the house, wondering if her feelings reached to love but she’d never made a decision. Why couldn’t she have made the first step?

  Because loving Seth was not easy. Loving Richard was like loving a good friend. Loving Seth was like loving one of her little wonders. It required imagination.

  Of that, she had plenty.

  She stepped toward the bedroom door. Stopped. No point. She could declare her love right now, which would leave him with two options. Lie and say he loved her, too. Or avoid the truth, as he had last night. The result was the same: a closed door between them.

  Alexi shoved her hands in her hair. She couldn’t stand looking at that door one second more. She pivoted on her heel and walked to Matt’s room. Time to absorb the good energy from his hug and move on.

  Step one. Bed making. She straightened his sheets and shook out his quilt. The sudden billowing sent a plain ruled sheet free from his bedside table. Part of his social project, she assumed, as she retrieved it. Then she caught sight of the words, Dear Mom.

  Dear Mom,

  When I’ve run away before, I haven’t told anyone. There was no one I wanted to tell. But I want you and Seth Greene to know that I am not running away because of you and him. I know if I stay, you two can’t be together. That means I won’t have a dad but Bryn, Amy and Callie won’t have one, too.

  I am the problem. I thought Seth Greene could make everything better, except if I’m here, nothing will get better. All three of my dads have ended up dead. Seth Greene nearly died. I can’t take the chance I will end up getting him killed, too.

  Don’t worry. I will go someplace safe. I won’t do anything stupid. Bryn and Amy and Callie can have whatever I left behind.

  I love you, Mom. I love Seth Greene, too.

  By the time she got to his signature done in handwriting, her hand was shaking so bad the letters appeared broken and blurred. She was panting, her breaths hard and labored in the still room.

  No, Matt. No.

  Her phone rang. She whipped it out of her pocket. The school. “Please,” she whispered, “please, please, please.” She brought it to her ear, holding it with both hands to steady it.

  “Hello? Alexi Docker? Oh, good. Hilda at Matt’s school here. We’re just checking on him. He didn’t turn up for class. Is he with you?”

  Alexi couldn’t get her mouth to work.

  “Hello? Alexi?”

  She couldn’t say he’d run away. There’d be trouble. He’d be taken from her. She just needed to find him. She needed time. Had he even got on the bus? He must’ve.

  Where are you, Matt?

  “Hello?” The tinny voice of Hilda prodded her.

  “Yes. There was a mix-up,” she said. “I need to go. Thanks.” She ended the call before she had to say another word, another lie.

  She stood, stumbled forward. At the bedroom door, she felt light-headed and grabbed the frame. She couldn’t go on. She had to go on. She had to find Matt.

  Where to start?

  Sh
e looked at the picture on her phone.

  “Seth,” she whispered and ran out of the room. “Seth!”

  * * *

  WITHIN THIRTY MINUTES of Seth getting the news, the facts started trickling in. Fact: Matt had boarded the bus and arrived at school. Fact: he did not enter his classroom. Fact: the school was within easy walking distance of the secondary highway that ran north and south through town. Fact: he was not sighted at Tim Hortons.

  Seth fell back against the kitchen counter when he gleaned this last bit from Mel. He had hoped against hope that Matt might have walked there to find Mel.

  He hadn’t felt this scared since his dad died. Alexi stood beside him, her face creased with worry, having heard her husband die, Matt wander away without permission, Bryn bolt, all in little more than a year. How did she do it?

  He called Greyhound. No scheduled stops that day for Spirit Lake and sorry, no kid loitering outside, either.

  After the first hour, Seth called Paul at the police station. “Look, I know it’s only been an hour but he has a history of running.”

  Alexi gasped. “His backpack,” she whispered. “I bet it was filled with his stuff. That’s why he made a big deal about packing his own lunch.”

  “He left a note,” Seth relayed to Paul. “And he’s got a fully loaded backpack. Listen, Paul. You have to know this kid does nothing without a purpose. This running off, he’s good at it.”

  “I hear you.”

  You got a picture? Seth mouthed the request to Alexi. Alexi immediately scrolled through her phone and sent it to the email address Paul gave her.

  “Got it,” he said. “I’ll take a car out now. He couldn’t have gotten far.”

  After finishing with Paul, Seth turned to Alexi. “Can you text me that picture, too? I’d like a copy to show around.”

  Alexi did, and Seth’s stomach churned at the sight of it. She’d cropped it to just show Matt, his smile wide, with a kind of aw-shucks embarrassed look, but he could see his hand on Matt’s shoulder.

  Seth tapped and scrolled and a few minutes later, announced, “Okay. It’s up on Facebook.”

  Alexi clutched her hair. “No, Seth. You can’t. No pictures of Matt are allowed on social media. It’s part of my agreement. Plus, I don’t want them to know he’s missing. Especially this way.”

  Of course. What had he been thinking? I thought Seth Greene could make everything better.

  And all he’d done was make it worse. His head was as messed up as his body.

  “I did it,” he said. “I took the picture. Delete it off your phone. And the email, too. We’ll say Mel took it. But, Alexi, we need to get the word out.”

  She frowned. “I don’t—”

  “It makes no difference to me,” he said. “I can’t get any more in trouble with Marlene than I am now.”

  Alexi bit her lip. “I just don’t want—want to lose it.”

  He stared at her. “It’s a picture, Alexi. Why are you worried about a picture when you stand to lose the real thing?”

  “Because pictures might be all I’ll have left! And it can happen, it can.” She was clutching her phone, clutching it so hard. “It already has.”

  Her blue eyes were wide and pleading, her entire body vibrating. He reached for her, to quiet her shaking, but she stepped back. “I can’t,” she said, “or I’ll lose it.”

  He nodded. He didn’t feel far different himself.

  His phone pinged. Saw your FB post. Are you serious? Don’t screw with me. A text from Connie, of all people.

  Wasn’t that rich? Yes.

  Immediately she replied: Hold tight. I’ll see what I can do.

  Who made her chief of police? It’s okay. Paul is in a car right now.

  He’s got his ways. I’ve got mine.

  His phone pinged again. A friend from the baseball game. No sighting but she’d shared it. Another ping. No sighting, another share.

  And on it went through the morning. Seth checking his incoming messages from the couch. Two sightings, supposedly. He contacted Paul, who turned up with nothing. One was a different boy; with the second, nobody could be located.

  By noon, there’d been no sighting of a kid hitchhiking within forty miles of any road out of Spirit Lake. He received seventy-six comments on his post and thirty-four shares. Seth had no idea he was so connected. He wouldn’t wish his worst enemy popularity this way.

  Seth hobbled into a very clean kitchen. Alexi had scrubbed, sorted, mopped, wiped, sprayed, treated the kitchen like a surgical theater. For the first time he’d known her, she’d set Callie up on a laptop with a movie. Torn between her unexpected treat and her worried mom, Callie had tugged at Alexi’s leg at the twenty-minute mark. Alexi had simply continued with her manic cleaning. Seth hadn’t stopped her. He wished he could be up on a roof right now, doing something worthwhile.

  She spun to him as he entered, her face bleak. “I can’t just do nothing. I should’ve known.” He couldn’t tell her that it wasn’t her fault because as much as it wasn’t, he understood because he felt the same way.

  “How about you drive to town? I’ll take care of Callie.” All on her own, Callie released Alexi’s leg and slid her dark, soft arms around his cast and squeezed like it was a stuffie. His leg couldn’t feel it but his heart sure did.

  Alexi left with phone and keys and purse, hair every which way, in an old T-shirt and jeans. Just as he’d met her. Same look of naked worry.

  Seth cupped Callie’s fuzzy head. “Everything’s okay.”

  A lie and a hope.

  * * *

  AFTER CIRCLING THE SCHOOL, Alexi edged the van down back alleys, then along random streets, twice nearly going up onto the curb from focusing on the sidewalks. She walked along bike paths, peering into the bushes. She got into the van and drove randomly, whispering a prayer every time she turned a corner.

  Without intending to, she ended up at the house. There, at the front door, was Connie talking to...Marlene? Yes, the sneakers and girth were distinctive. Connie was gesturing wildly, Marlene with her fists punched into her wide hips. What the—

  Connie was Marlene’s bird. Connie had fed Marlene the information about Seth that had demolished him in the interview, driven a wedge between them.

  Of course, she would. Hadn’t Connie told her that she wasn’t fit to be a mother? And God help her, for a while she believed it, even when she knew better. How much easier it would be for Marlene to believe lies about Seth.

  The vibrations that started with the words Dear Mom had risen through the morning with each text, spiked with the news of possible sightings, beat against her insides as she drove into town, now exploded in pure white rage.

  Later, she couldn’t remember how she’d covered the ground between the driver’s seat and the front steps, but all at once she was there and in Connie’s perfect face.

  “What exactly did I ever do to you? What is it? Why have you made my life hell? I did nothing to you and you’ve taken away everything. A home. Seth. And now my kids?”

  The woman’s eyes widened as if she’d no idea what she’d done. Behind Alexi, Marlene started in. “Now, just hold your horses, Alexi—”

  Alexi whirled on her. “As for you, why do you believe her lies? Don’t you check the background on your so-called birds? Don’t you know what she’s done? How about you speak to Paul with the RCMP? I bet he could tell you a story or two. Oh, but wait, you can’t because he’s out there right now, trying to find Matt who ran off because he thinks he’s a problem when it’s you two with your lies and paperwork and processes and meanness that have driven him away from the only people in the world who love him. You hear me? Love, love, love him.”

  Alexi couldn’t speak anymore. Already the last words had come out shaky and stuttering. All she could do was stand and shiver. The other two women were staring at her.

 
In a slow and quiet tone with none of her usual brashness, Marlene spoke. “Alexi, did you say that Matt has run away?”

  One look at Marlene, and Alexi knew she’d screwed up. Marlene had no idea about Matt’s disappearance. But... Alexi pointed at Connie. “Didn’t she tell you? Or was she too busy coming up with more lies and innuendo about her brother?”

  Now Connie spoke in the same calm tone as Marlene. “Actually she just showed up a minute before you came. I was going to tell her but I first wanted her to promise that she would stay calm.”

  “I always stay calm,” Marlene interjected. “You just don’t bring me the beers fast enough. Now, what’s this about Matt running off?” Her gaze switched back and forth between Alexi and Connie.

  Alexi blinked. What was the deal with the two women? “This morning. After Matt left for school on the bus, I found a note in his bedroom. He said he was running away.”

  Marlene made a noise of anger and disgust and kicked at a flowerpot. It toppled over and out spilled dirt and plants.

  “Marlene! Look what you’ve done.” This from Connie.

  “Whatever. I hate geraniums. They stink. He say why he ran?”

  Alexi went eye-to-eye with Marlene. “Because he figures that if Seth is part of the family, he can’t be. Now, where would he have got that idea?”

  Marlene punched her fists back into her wide hips again. “I did not tell him any such thing. I told you. I told Seth. You tell me where he got the idea.”

  Alexi stopped, her mind sorting through the scenarios until the only possible one surfaced. “He must’ve overheard Seth and me talking about it. But we weren’t blaming him. We weren’t even talking about him, at all.”

  “Well, think. You two must’ve said something that set him off. If we can figure out what it was, then maybe we can figure out where he went.”

  Alexi bit her lip. She didn’t want to reveal that conversation, especially to these two. It felt like such a betrayal. But if it meant finding Matt, then she had to. “Seth proposed marriage. I said no, because as you’d told him, he was doing the right thing for us. Not for himself.”

  “Marlene!” Connie squawked, and this time it was going eye to eye. “I told you that Seth would do the right thing even if it wasn’t for his own good. I did not say that Alexi and her kids were not for his own good.”