Strays Like Us

by Cecilia Galante

  After I got through my homework, I’d work on the sculpture. By now, I was pretty sure what I was going to make. Something had come to me one night while I was staring at all the different pieces spread out on the table. It was weird how it happened, because I hadn’t even been thinking about it, really. I was just looking at all the pieces, and suddenly, the bicycle handles stopped being bicycle handles. The windmill blades weren’t windmill blades. Even the chubby little candlestick and the hubcaps seemed to morph. For a split second, they weren’t junk at all. They were part of something else. Something bigger.

  I needed some help actually building the thing, of course. Especially when it came time to connect the pieces together. I begged and pleaded, but Margery wouldn’t even hear of letting me try the soldering iron. “You just show me what you need soldered,” she said. “And I’ll do it for you. End of discussion.”

  She was true to her word, coming out whenever I asked her to—even at nine o’clock at night—to help my sculpture take shape. “This side to this one?” she’d ask. “And then this part over here?”

  She’d make me stand behind her—far behind her—as she worked the soldering iron, and I would hold Toby, who trembled a little, as a fountain of white and red sparks sprayed the ground. The heavy mask over her face and her thick, stiff gloves made her look like an alien from a different planet, but there was nothing strange about her work. She was good at what she did. Really good. When she’d call me over to examine what she’d done, I was always amazed at how smooth the seams were, how sturdy the whole thing was becoming.

  It was exciting, watching my sculpture take shape. Thrilling, really.

  I just found myself wishing that Delia could see it.

  A few short weeks later, the phone rang in Margery’s kitchen. It was Carmella.

  “We have a date, honey!” she said brightly.

  “A date?” I could feel Margery’s eyes on me as she stood at the stove stirring a giant pot of chicken chili. “For what?”

  “For your dependency hearing,” Carmella said. “The one I told you about? For you and your mother. It’s been scheduled for December fifth.”

  I glanced at the calendar hanging on Margery’s kitchen wall. Today was November 21. December fifth was only two weeks away. I was going to see Mom again in two weeks. Fourteen days. I sat down hard. “Does that mean she’s out of jail?”

  “Yes,” Carmella said. “She was released two days ago. She has to pay a fine, and she’ll be on probation for two years.”

  “That long?”

  “She would’ve gotten less, but she …” Carmella paused. “Well, she wouldn’t agree to some of the terms they set out for her.”

  “What do you mean?” I stared at the flowers and leaves carved into Margery’s chair across the table.

  “They wanted her to get help,” Carmella said. “You know, go to a rehab center. But she told the judge she’d already been away from you long enough. That being apart for another month or more wouldn’t do either of you any good.”

  “Yeah.” I studied the edge of a long, trailing vine etched into the chair. Tiny leaves sprouted out from either side, and at the very bottom of it was a little flower. “Well, you know. She’s right. It’s hard for her. I do—I mean, we do a lot for each other.”

  “I know she misses you,” Carmella said. “And I know you miss her. But I’m concerned, Fred. I really am.”

  “Why? Because she won’t go to rehab? That’s her choice. Besides, she doesn’t even really need it. And you guys can’t force her.”

  “Oh, I know we can’t.” Carmella sighed heavily. “But I’m worried that she’s so against it. She wouldn’t even consider it.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “So sometimes people who struggle with this kind of sickness will find any reason not to get better. I know it’s hard to understand, honey, but deep down, they don’t really want to get well.”

  “But she’s not even sick.” I could hear the edge in my voice.

  “What I’m saying, Fred, is that sometimes—”

  “I know what you’re saying.” I cut her off. “But you don’t know my mother. You’re just saying stuff because it’s your job. Because you have to.”

  Carmella sighed again. “Maybe I am. And I hope I’m wrong. But I’ve been doing this job for a long time, honey. I do know a few things.”

  I pressed my lips together. Toed the floor with the tip of my sneaker.

  “So,” Carmella said. “December fifth. I’m sure you’ll tell Margery, but please let her know that I’ll be sending all the paperwork to her in the next day or so, too. Okay?”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay.” Carmella paused. “And, Fred?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’ll be okay,” Carmella said. “Whatever happens. It’ll be all right.” After Carmella hung up, I sat there staring at the chair for a few long moments. The little flower at the end of the vine had funny-shaped petals; some were round and smooth while others had a more pointed shape. There was a wide curl at the bottom of the vine, too, which swooped down low like a fat comma and then disappeared behind the edge.

  “You okay?” Margery asked.

  I nodded.

  “You might want to hang the phone back up.” She set two place mats down on the table. “It doesn’t work otherwise.” She gave me a little grin as I glanced over at her. I stood up and put the phone on the hook.

  “Carmella says she’s worried about Mom,” I blurted out.

  “How come?”

  I sat back down. “She thinks Mom doesn’t really want to get better. Because she won’t go to rehab. But she’s not even sick.”

  “They offered to send her to rehab?” Margery handed me a set of bowls and spoons and napkins.

  “I guess.”

  “And she said no?”

  “Yeah, ’cause there’s nothing wrong with her.”

  “Did Carmella say why your mom wouldn’t go?”

  I set the bowls out slowly, Margery’s first and then mine. “She said Mom didn’t want us to be apart anymore. That we’d already been away from each other too long.”

  Margery set the pot of steaming chili in the middle of the table. “Do you think she’s right?”

  “Sure. I mean, we do need each other, you know? She’s all I have. I’m all she has.”

  Margery nodded as she spooned a ladle of chili into my bowl. “Do you think you could go another month without seeing her?”

  “What?”

  “Say she did decide to go to rehab.” Margery set my bowl down in front of me. “Just to get some help easing off all those pills she has to take. And say she had to stay for thirty days. Or more. Do you think you’d be all right without her?”

  My eyes skittered over the carvings in the chair again. And all of a sudden, as if it had emerged from within the chair itself, I saw the fox. The very fox that Margery had told me about on my first night here. The strange-shaped flower petals weren’t petals at all; they were the fox’s ears. The comma swoop in the vine was the tail, smooth and fat at the base and then curving into a tip just before vanishing off to the side. I caught my breath, looking at it, and my eyes widened.

  Margery grinned, watching me. “You see him, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “How’d you do that?”

  Margery shrugged, sprinkling a handful of cheese on top of her chili. “Don’t know, really. It just came to me while I was carving one night. I guess he wanted to be there.”

  “It’s so cool,” I breathed.

  “Sometimes when I look at that chair, I just see the flowers and vines,” Margery said. “And then other times, I’ll look at it and the only thing I can see is that fox.” She shrugged. “It’s that way with a lot of things, don’t you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can look at the same situation from a lot of different angles,” Margery said. “Sometimes you only see the little things. The details. And sometimes all those little details come into focus.
That fox—” She pointed to the chair with her spoon. “That fox reminds me to keep looking at the big picture. To keep my eyes focused on the big things. The important things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like just trying to be the best person I can be,” Margery said. “Not trying to fix anyone else, or live anyone else’s life.” She shrugged. “It’s all I can do right now. But I think it’s enough.” She paused, looking at me. “Do you know what I mean?”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded again. “I think maybe I do.”

  Every day, my sculpture grew. Three weeks after I’d started, it was already beginning to look like the image in my head. Or at least half of it was. I still had a lot more to do, but I wasn’t worried. I knew what it wanted to be. And I was going to make it happen.

  It always amazed me how quickly time passed when I worked in the shop. Sometimes it felt like only minutes had gone by before Margery’s “time’s up” knock sounded on the door, indicating that I had to come to bed. If it wasn’t a school night, she’d give in to my begging and pleading and let me work for another hour or two, but during the week she was firm about my ten o’clock bedtime.

  “No!” I groaned one night when the knock sounded. “I need more time!”

  Margery walked in, her hands in her pockets. “Time flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it?” Her eyes swept over my piece, and she nodded approvingly. “You’re really making headway on this thing. It looks good, Fred. It looks real good.”

  I could feel something swell inside at her words. Margery was not the type of person to hand out compliments. In fact, except for the time when she had noted how nice I’d been to Mr. Carder the night he’d gotten hurt, this might have been the first one she’d ever given me. “Thanks,” I said. “I still have most of the back to do, but I think it’s coming along.”

  “You like working out here?” Margery leaned against one of the stools.

  I nodded as I began cleaning up.

  “What do you like about it?” She crossed her arms, watching as I hung her tools on their hooks.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never really built anything before. It’s fun.”

  “What’s fun about it?”

  I glanced at her.

  She shrugged. “Just curious.”

  “I guess I like taking something that’s inside here”—I tapped the side of my head—“and making it into something out here.”

  “I like that part, too.” Margery paused. “It doesn’t get lonely out here for you, does it?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “It’s weird. I used to hate anywhere that was too quiet. But out here …” I looked around the room. “I don’t know. It’s a different kind of quiet. It’s sort of … relaxing. I just like it.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Margery scratched her cheek. “Still, it might be nice every once in a while to have someone to talk to.”

  I knew she was referring to Delia. Margery had asked about her a few times lately, and I’d brushed her off, telling her that Delia was away on a cruise with her parents.

  “Yeah, well, when Delia gets back, I’ll ask her over.” I grabbed my coat and whistled for Toby, who bolted out of the corner and nudged my knee.

  “Mr. Lark has been making his usual visits to oversee deliveries at work,” Margery said gently. “He hasn’t gone anywhere lately. No trips. No boats.”

  My face flushed. I kept my eyes down as I fastened Toby’s leash to his collar.

  “Fred?”

  “What?”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Then why aren’t you and Delia talking?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  I bit my tongue. Why did she have to be so direct all the time? “Okay, well, I don’t want to talk about it, then.”

  “Fair enough.” Margery got up from the stool. “But if you change your mind, I’m here to listen. You want some Mexican hot chocolate before bed?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe in the morning.”

  Margery held the door open for Toby and me. She locked it softly behind us and followed us into the house. And after I got into my pajamas and brushed my teeth, and Toby lay down at the foot of my bed, she came into my room and wished us both good night.

  “So, are you doing that bottle cap project with Lardvark?” Gina asked the next day at lunch.

  “Don’t call her that.” I pointed my spoon, which was smeared with chocolate pudding, in her direction.

  “Okay, okay.” Gina held her hands up, surrender-style. “Miss Touchy today. Geez. So, are you working with her or not?”

  “No.” I dipped my spoon back into my pudding cup, forcing myself not to look over at where Delia was sitting alone in a corner of the cafeteria. She’d been there for the last two weeks, with her back to everyone, like some kind of hermit. “I’m just going to do it by myself.”

  “Probably better,” Bridget said. “She seems like she’s in some kind of funk, lately.”

  “Yeah,” said a girl named Lydia. “I have Spanish with her, and she’s always just sitting there with her head down on the desk. She’s, like, totally out of it.”

  “Not totally out of it,” Gina said. “She scored really well on the Quiz Bowl test. I know she made the math team.”

  I pretended not to know what they were talking about. “The Quiz Bowl?”

  “Oh, it’s this whole dumb thing that they do every year for all the science and math geeks.” Bridget waved her hand dismissively. “They act like they’ve been given the Nobel Prize or something if they win. Sometimes Mrs. Iskra keeps her team so late after school that she has to get them pizza for dinner. It’s nuts.”

  “Delia must be pretty good at math if she made the team,” I said.

  “She’s great at it.” Bridget nodded. “Seriously. I have algebra with her this year. She kind of makes the rest of us look like idiots.”

  I glanced over at Delia. I thought about going over there and giving it one last try to get her to listen to me, to at least consider the possibility of making up. But then I remembered what she’d told me the last time we’d spoken. This isn’t about you anymore, Fred. It’s about me. So just leave me alone. I’ll figure it out.

  It wouldn’t make any difference what I said anymore. Delia had made her decision. She was moving on with her life.

  And I wasn’t going to be a part of it.

  There was an unfamiliar blue station wagon parked in Mr. Carder’s driveway when I got home from school the next day. Margery didn’t recognize it, either, and I’d almost forgotten about it when a knock sounded on the door during dinner. We locked eyes across the table. Margery bit down hard on her lower lip, and I knew what was coming. But that didn’t mean I had to let it come without a fight.

  I stood behind her as she opened the door and squinted at a strange man dressed in a heavy black coat. He lifted his wool hat in greeting and put it back down on his head. “Hello, Miss Dawson?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Frank Carder. John Carder’s son?”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Margery.

  “You as well.” Frank glanced at me. I glared at him. “My father says you’ve been taking care of his dog while he’s laid up in the hospital.”

  “Yes,” Margery said. Behind us, Toby gave a bark, as if he knew we were talking about him.

  “I want to thank you,” Frank said. “My father said he didn’t ask you to do it, that you just sort of stepped in.”

  “Someone had to,” I said before I could stop myself. “Toby wasn’t being taken care of even when your dad was home.”

  Margery gripped my arm and tried to push me back, but I kept going. “Do you know he never let Toby come inside? Even in the winter? Even when it was freezing? And your dad hardly ever fed him. Toby was skin and—”

  “Enough!” Margery turned all the way around, holding me by
one arm. “Now, I mean it, Fred. You knew this day was coming. You’ve known it all along. Toby belongs to Mr. Carder. And that’s the end of it.”

  “But it’s not fair!” I shouted. “Toby has a life now! A good one! He gets to eat and run and he knows how to come when we call his name! How can you send him back? How can you make him live with someone who doesn’t even care about him?”

  “Excuse me.” Frank cleared his throat. Margery and I looked at him. “I’m sorry this is so distressing for you,” he said. “I’m not sure if either of you are aware of this, but Toby was my mother’s dog.”

  “Your mother’s?” Margery repeated.

  Frank nodded. “She died ten years ago. It was a huge blow for all of us, but mostly for my father.” He looked down at his shoes. “I don’t think Dad recovered. He spends ridiculous hours at work and everywhere else just so he doesn’t have to come home. And the poor dog …” His voice trailed off. “I think Toby reminds him so much of my mother that Dad can’t even bear to go near him.”

  “I didn’t know,” Margery said slowly. “That explains a lot.”

  “I know it’s difficult for you, but my father’s insisted that I return with Toby tonight.” He shrugged. “I think it’s a good sign. Maybe he wants to give taking care of him another shot.” He looked at me. “Please try to understand.”

  My head understood. But I wasn’t sure my heart did. “So will you be helping him take care of Toby now?”

  Frank nodded. “I have a job that requires me to travel a great deal, but I will make sure to come by whenever I’m home and see that Toby is being cared for. You have my word.”

  It was something, I told myself. And it was a hundred times better than the alternative. But I wasn’t going to be able to watch Margery give Toby back. I just couldn’t.