(sounds alive and well in my head)
(at least something’s alive and well in there)
She shook her head a final time and got out of bed, headed for the stairs. Past experience told her that she wouldn’t be sleeping again tonight.
“You excited?” she asked. A knot of pain thumped within the center of her skull and her eyes felt like they’d been rubbed in margarita salt, but she kept her voice light, anticipatory.
Kevin watched the intersection through the windshield, his eyes glued to the left side, where the bus for Fort Buchanan Elementary would come. On the corner beside Karen’s Sundance, other parents waited with their children. The crossing guard, a plump older woman in a hunter’s-orange vest, stood by the crosswalk. “Uh-huh.”
She glanced at him. He held his Jansport backpack—Navy blue and scuffed with a year’s use—in his lap. The school clothes were new, bought with money socked away, and the colors seemed brighter than he was. It was the early morning sunlight making him look pale, right?
“Second grade,” she continued. “Moving up in the world.”
“I have the same teacher,” he said. “Miss Lake. Same class.”
“But new things to learn,” she replied.
He continued to watch traffic. She bit her lip, made herself stop. The knuckle of pain rapped her brains once more. “You sure you’re all right, kiddo?”
“Yeah, Mum.” Flat, barely-listening. He’d been like this since she’d picked him up yesterday (Nick, per usual, hadn’t walked him down to the car, even after the conversation he and Karen had had on Friday).
“And the weekend went okay?” she pressed. “Nothing off with your dad or Moira?”
“It was fine, Mum,” he said, with feeling, but his expression never changed from that mute watchfulness.
“They didn’t say anything you, or—”
“The bus is here,” Kevin said, and undid his seatbelt.
Karen shut the Sundance down and got out with Kevin; a few other parents—all of them dressed for work—did the same.
They queued up as the bus pulled to the intersection and put on its lights. The crossing guard moved into the center of the street as the bus’s doors opened. Parents hugged and kissed their kids—the younger kids struggling not to cry, some failing, some with parents joining in. From past experience, Karen wouldn’t be seeing any of these parents for the rest of the year.
Kevin rushed to get close to the bus, outpacing his mother.
“Hug your mum, guy,” she said, catching up. “You’re not too big, yet.”
He turned quickly, his hands sliding over her shoulders in a distracted grasp. She hugged him more fully, kissing the top of his head. “Good luck, kiddo. Enjoy yourself.”
He fidgeted in her grasp. “I will, Mum.”
She let go and Kevin rushed to catch up with the rest of the line. His head continued to look around as other kids piled up. He paused, looking up 54th Street, and she followed his gaze.
Three girls, ridiculously close in age—growing up in the 1960s, they would’ve been called Irish Twins—came galumphing down the sidewalk. Where every other kid had new clothes, their clothes bore a myriad of old stains. The youngest had a head of hair closely resembling a bird’s nest made by an idiot pigeon. The middle had dirty hands that swung—the only word that came to Karen’s mind was stupidly—at her sides.
Karen’s lips thinned instinctively. The Perozzi girls. Every neighborhood had a white trash family and the Perozzis were Oak-dale’s. The mother was rarely seen, the father was a loud drunk, and there were rumored to be even more kids—a boy in middle school and a handful of toddlers.
They crossed the street under the direction of the crossing guard. The woman said good morning to them and they didn’t even raise their heads.
Karen looked back at Kevin and Kevin scrambled up the steps, nearly kicking the boy in the front by accident.
Karen’s brow furrowed. The Perozzis got in line last, looking as out of place as pimples on a model’s chin. She glanced up at the bus and saw Kevin in his seat, looking out the window, watching the line. He caught Karen watching him, and quickly looked away.
What was that about?
She watched Kevin until the bus lumbered down the street, but he never looked back out the window. She watched him facing forward, hugging his backpack now.
When the bus was out of sight, she joined the line of parents going to their cars. A few talked to each other, but not many. She thought of Kevin and the Perozzi girls. What was that about?
None of the Perozzi kids were genteel; she’d often heard them outside, their foul-mouthed conversations drifting on the breeze like the smell of
(sulfur)
For the life of her, though, she couldn’t think of a single instance of Kevin being near them, and he’d never mentioned anything last year.
(yes because he’s just such an open and conversational kid)
As she rolled up to the light, her head throbbed once more, louder and more painfully now, as if knowing she didn’t have to fake it for Kevin’s sake. By mid-afternoon, when she picked Kevin up, it would be a full-fledged exhaustion-migraine. She completely forgot the Perozzis.
Thursday, and the interview was wrapping up, and she didn’t know her agent’s name.
That was okay, though, because her agent—a young guy with carefully-styled tousled sandy hair—had avoided looking at her as much as possible. She’d spent forty-five minutes getting her makeup perfect, too, making sure to soften the hard edges of her cheeks, to lighten the bags under her eyes, to give her pale skin some color.
Forty-five minutes, which was three times as long as this interview. Eight dollars to a parking garage to be ignored for fifteen minutes. The agents barely referred to her form.
“The problem, Ms. Dempsey,” her agent said, cornering a sheaf of papers against his desktop blotter and paying particular attention to getting them into order, “is your skills are incredibly common. You can do basic reception work, you can type—”
“—one-hundred-twenty words a minute,” she said, keeping her hands folding in front of her, in spite of how her arm itched. She kept her back straight, in spite of the slowly deepening ache in the center.
That stopped him mid-tap. Around them came the drone of many conversations going on at once, with the occasional sharp ring of a phone or the buzz of a Xerox.
“Is that timed?” He still held the sheaf of papers and his cufflinks winked in the low fluorescent lighting.
(it’s in my file you smarmy little shit)
“I studied court-reporting,” she said. “Ninety per minute was minimum to continue. I never tested lower than one-ten.”
“Why didn’t you pursue it? Court-reporting’s good income.”
Something scratched her throat. She resisted swallowing.
“Yes—if you can get in to the system. You have to freelance for a year and your territory’s the entire state. That’s an incredibly unreliable means of making a living when you have a son to raise.”
“No …” His eyes dropped to her ringless hands. “… extended family?”
“No. I was coming out of a divorce and was trying anything to earn a living for my child. That plan didn’t work out.”
The man’s eyes glazed over. She’d seen the look before. Silly woman, trying to play a game she had no business playing in, and without even knowing all the rules. Typical.
Her hands, folded, locked together. A headache was forming.
He leaned back in his chair, studying her. His gaze, along with the low ceiling, boxed her in, pressed her more deeply into the uncomfortable plastic back of her own chair. As if in warning, her back twinged.
“I’ll revise,” he said, with the air of conferring a great favor. A photo was tacked to the wall of his cubicle, directly in his eyeline, of him and a woman in a park. This presumed that he wasn’t an asshole all the time.
(this from the person who married nick)
“You have commo
n skills, which are abundant in our economy, but you’re particularly good at them.”
(it didn’t sound so patronizing from lisa)
He leaned forward. “If you don’t hear from me, call next Tues-day. I should have something. A lot of companies are going on computers, which is requiring all personnel to transfer records. They’re short-handed.” He gestured towards her. “This is where you come in.”
A lump formed in her throat, but whether it was from disgust or relief, she couldn’t tell.
“The companies give us your wages,” he said, “we pay you. Standard rate, regardless of the company. Given your situation—” He paused the slightest bit. “—I’ll try to keep the jobs steady, even if you’re bouncing around the city. Is that agreeable?”
“Of course.”
“A lot of these companies hire our temps. We have an over-seventy-percent full-time hire rate, which we’re incredibly proud of and work hard to maintain by vetting all candidates.”
His eyes had been traveling the space of his cubicle, but now returned to her.
“We offer, as much as we’re able, careers here. Too many people come in looking for some quick cash, low commitment. That’s not what we do. Do you understand?”
His eyes said, This is where you put on your big-girl pants and don’t fuck this up.
She wanted to look away, but didn’t. “Of course I do,” she said. “I have a son to raise.”
He was already turning away to his computer. Dismissed.
The understanding, former-cutter receptionist had been replaced by a skinny woman who’d bought into the shoulderpad-1980s a bit too much. She didn’t even look up when Karen left.
Waiting at the elevators, willing her back not to bend against the ache in her spine, Karen reached into her blazer jacket for her parking garage ticket. She felt a second edge of cardboard and, brow furrowing, pulled out her reminder card, the one the receptionist had written on the back of:
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
ST. JUDE’S MINISTRIES
FRIDAYS - 9:00 PM (Doctor Darren)
She sat on the couch, the reminder card on the coffee table.
(YOU ARE NOT ALONE)
(i’ve been there, too, the woman’s smile says)
(ST. JUDE’S MINISTRIES)
(nick rolling his eyes dramatically: for how long, karen?)
Gilligan’s Island wrapped up on the television in the corner, finishing with Tina Louise’s laugh, which sounded to Karen like glass shards falling together.
(YOU ARE NOT ALONE)
(the temp agent smiling patronizingly at her: now put on your big-girl pants and don’t fuck this up, okay?)
The theme song to Bobby’s World, which sounded like a poppier-version of the theme from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to Karen, permeated her thoughts. She glanced at the television. The cartoon was part of a new scheduling block Fox had started last year. Kevin, of course, loved it.
Wait.
Kevin.
The green numbers of the VCR beneath the television jumped out at her: 3:35.
Kevin’s school bus dropped him off at 3:15.
She froze, panic for a moment crystalizing every nerve in her body. The image of Kevin on the corner of Butler Street, watching the heavy traffic pass and looking for his mother, filled her head.
“Shit!” she yelled and the crystals broke from her body, sending a pained shudder down her limbs.
(failure at parenting failure at parenting)
She raced for the door.
She found him, pressed against the side of the building on the corner—Acme Supplies and, oh, how that name had delighted him last year when she’d read it to him—watching the traffic like a cornered animal.
Her battered Sundance roared across the intersection, brakes squealing to a hard stop just past the crosswalk, and she flew out.
“Kevin!”
She went for him and scooped him up, even as her back tweaked awkwardly at the sudden weight. She hadn’t picked him up like this in years.
If nothing else, her headache was gone.
She was babbling in his ear, half-coos and rambled apologies. She ran a hand along the back of his head, over and over. He clung back with a fierceness he hadn’t used since he was a toddler.
“I’m so sorry, Kevin,” she rambled. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Slowly, his tight grip lessened and she set him back on his feet, still holding his hand. Dear Jesus, he was so small—
(and you left him)
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He looked at her and his gaze wasn’t accusatory but she had to keep from recoiling, anyway. His eyes were wide, taking her all in.
“Where were you?” he asked and his tone was flat as if the question didn’t even interest him that much.
She opened her mouth, and nothing was there.
(forgot him left him behind what kind of mother are you you ruin everything)
“Let’s go, hon,” she said. “Let’s get you home, okay?”
His eyes lost some of their shine and she had to keep herself from recoiling again; resignation settling in.
(and you put it there)
She led him to the car and he followed. He glanced over his shoulder once as she held the passenger door open, and she followed his gaze.
Down the street, the Perozzi girls stood, watching. The middle held the hand of the youngest. They looked like they wore the same clothes they’d had on yesterday. When they saw her looking, they turned and walked up 55th Street.
Karen turned back to Kevin, but he was already in his seat, belt buckled, backpack on his lap. He didn’t look at her.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him about the Perozzis as she got in, but she took another look at his face, and didn’t.
That look of resignation.
That look of holding it in.
Friday night and Nick waited in the car, didn’t even turn his head to look at them as Kevin opened the passenger door to get in.
“See you Sunday,” Nick said to her, shifting into first gear when Kevin’s seatbelt clicked home.
(talk when clearer heads prevail)
Karen studied his silhouette, the firm set of his jaw, his eyes locked on the windshield, then turned to Kevin, leaning in to hug the boy and kiss the top of his head. “Have fun,” she said, and stepped back to close the door. Kevin didn’t wave as Nick pulled away from the curb, heading down the hill. She watched until Nick stopped at the bottom, right turn signal on, then pulled into traffic, heading away from the city and towards the eastern suburbs.
(talk when clearer heads prevail)
(where were you?)
(will nick notice how kevin’s acting? will he ask? will kevin tell him? will-will-will)
She shook herself and walked back into the house. Her limbs didn’t want to respond, wanted to stiffen and lock. Her head, for once not aching, felt padded with suffocating cotton, stifling coherent thought.
And, of course, her arm itched and itched and itched.
She paused at the end of the loveseat, which separated the living room from the entryway.
(what kind of mother are you?)
(put on your big girl pants)
(what if kevin saw you—)
A buzzing filled her ears, an ache filled her jaw—she was clenching her teeth hard enough to grind.
(a weekend of this? a weekend? i’ll never sleep—)
She forced her jaw to open, shook herself. She moved towards the couch and glanced at the coffee table.
And saw the reminder card.
(YOU ARE NOT ALONE)
She stopped, a wind-up toy that had run out of juice.
Her arm itched and itched and itched while visions of Kevin stumbling into the bathroom to find her dead flitted across her mind’s eye.
(why didn’t you tell me?)
(what if you hurt all the time?)
She got her keys.
The address was in Harmarville, a neighborhood along the southwestern edg
e of Hathaway. It took Karen nearly an hour just to get to that side of the city, using the map she had in her car and having to circumnavigate the city’s ever-growing construction detours.
She crossed the Hathaway Bridge, the only car in spite of the early hour. Along the crumbling sidewalks, PennDOT had left traffic cones, ready to be set out, and electronic signs blinking HATHAWAY BRIDGE RENOVATION BEGINS SEPT. 21ST. FOLLOW DETOUR.
She turned onto a secondary highway leading into Harmarville, which seemed to consist of barely-surviving businesses, seedy bars, dying plazas, and weed-choked vacant lots. For a while she could see downtown Hathaway and its tall buildings, but the highway curved to the left, pulling her further and further away from
(civilization)
the city.
She wound up on a darkened road called Vernazza, with junked-up houses set far back on the properties. She topped a short rise and, on the right, bright white security lamps lit up a large, sloped parking lot with a low, long brick building at the bottom. After the near-darkness of the previous streets, she had to blink at the brilliance.
The building had once been a bowling alley—a ghost outline of a bowling ball striking pins neon sign discolored the front of the building—but hadn’t been that way in a long time. The parking lot was crumbling, with only a dozen or so cars crouched near the front doors. Only the metal frame of what had once been a large lighted road sign remained, looking like an industrial-age interpretation of gallows.
A plastic sign hung from the arm of the metal frame, held there with zip-ties:
ST. JUDE’S MINISTRIES
FRIDAYS – 9:00 PM (ALWAYS)
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
She braked harder than her slight speed needed. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she said.
She looked from the sign to the building. Through the glass doors, she could see the house lights were on.
“Here?” she said. “This place is here?”
Her mind flashed to the sympathetic receptionist:
(but this might help)
Bones are Made to be Broken Page 27