Lisa slowed, eyes locking on the metal skeleton that, once upon a time, had lifted up a lit sign. Now, it seemed to exist solely to hang the small, handwritten sign that underscored how depressing this all was:
ST. JUDE’S MINISTRIES
FRIDAYS – 9:00 PM (ALWAYS)
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
She turned in and parked in a space farthest from the building, ass-in so she could stare.
This. This was where Karen came on Friday nights. This was where Karen, after the meeting with Nick, Moira, and the lawyer had absconded to, completely blowing off her own son.
This is the place that has replaced her cutting, Lisa thought. It depressed her to think of Karen driving to this shitty old building that had inexplicably become a “church.”
For the past week, everything had been names and addresses.
Now she could picture it.
“Even if I don’t know what goes on inside of it,” she said. Karen, reluctant to even mention she came here, was absolutely mum on what went on inside.
It’s a cult, Lisa thought. Who starts up a church out here? What could be out here that’d be so goddamned special that Karen would choose it over her own goddamned child?
She thought of Karen’s face when Lisa had shoved up the shirt-sleeve, revealing the fresh cuts; she thought of Karen’s face, lit by the porch light. Gooseflesh prickled across her skin.
Why didn’t you come to me, kiddo? Why couldn’t I help you?
A Subaru pulled into the lot. It slowed, the driver obviously looking at her.
Dude, it’s closed on Tuesdays, she thought as the car pulled into a spot close to the glass doors.
What if it’s Darren Roberts? the interior voice asked and, with that, she started her car and got the hell out of there.
Maybe the background check is in, the interior voice said, driving out of Harmarville, and something in her chest clenched maybe-maybe-maybe, but she ignored it. Seeing the depressing focus of Karen’s illness was enough for one day.
Is that what this is? the interior voice asked. An illness?
“I don’t know what the hell else to call it,” Lisa muttered. “She’s not well. How much she isn’t well is still uncertain.”
Lisa needed to see Karen. To complete the picture. She checked the dashboard clock—a little before two. She could be back in their neighborhood by the time Kevin got off the bus.
The lunch rush had passed, but traffic was still heavy with the beginnings of evening rush hour; it took her an over hour to get across the city and back to her own neighborhood. At 50th Street, she skirted traffic and turned right, heading up the curving hill to McCameron Street and turned left. Kids ambled along the sidewalks, their backpacks as large as their torsos. It was three-thirty. Karen would be dropping Kevin off at the house around now.
She reached the corner of McCameron and 53rd and turned down.
Karen’s Sundance wasn’t parked in front of the house. Lisa rolled to a stop where Karen’s car should be. The upstairs blinds were drawn.
That doesn’t mean Kevin’s not inside, the interior voice said. Why would an eight-year-old give a shit about the blinds?
Lisa rolled on anyway, turning onto Keystone Street. With traffic as bad as it was, maybe it was taking Karen a moment. If Lisa went to Kevin’s bus stop and didn’t see them, she’d head to Karen’s work.
This was Lisa’s thought until she reached the stop sign for 54th and Keystone, looked down, and saw two things.
Then all thought stopped.
The first thing was Karen’s Sundance, parked behind a Nissan, and ridiculously far from Butler. With traffic the way it was, Kevin would never see it.
The second thing she saw was the group of kids at Kevin’s bus stop, a great mass of small children. No adults. Lisa saw a fist rise from the center, like a fish breaking the surface of the water, and then come crashing down.
The bottom dropped out of Lisa’s stomach. “Oh shit,” she said, breathlessly.
She peeled out from the stop and arrowed down the street, passing Karen’s Sundance without even a glance. The light favored her and she sped across, hitting the brakes. That sound was enough to alert the kids. When Lisa threw open her door and launched out of the car, they scattered, opening up to the center where a middle-school-aged boy paced with Kevin, their fists up. The middle school boy’s nose bled; a Canadian sunrise burgeoned on Kevin’s face. His lower lip was split.
Lisa saw all this in the time it took to come around the back of the car and reach the curb. In the next moment, she was grabbing the middle school boy by the back of his shirt and tossing him against the Acme building.
She hunkered down in front of Kevin, who stood with his shoulders hunched, his face a frozen flat rictus, looking into and through Lisa.
“Kevin,” she heard herself say as if from a great distance and gripped his shoulders. He flinched, blinking, saw her for the first time. “Kevin, are you all right?”
Muscles moved beneath the skin of his face. She grasped his fists and slowly lowered them. When she did, his shoulders dropped.
“Listen, bitch,” she heard the other boy say and she looked up, seeing three girls down the block. She immediately dismissed them and turned back to the boy, who glared at her with the sneering disgust only new teenagers can muster.
“What did you say?” she heard herself say, planted a hand in the center of his chest, and pushed. The boy slammed into the wall; the back of his head connected and he cried out.
She stepped close. “Like picking on little kids, huh?” she said and when he tried to straighten up again, she pushed him back. “What if I picked on you?”
The boy made one last effort. “You can’t—”
She pinned him to the wall. “Wrong. I can. I am. And if I ever see you so much as look in this boy’s direction, I’ll do more than pick on you. Understand me?”
His pride wouldn’t let him nod. His eyes, already shellacked with tears, was answer enough.
She removed her hand from his chest and he stumbled, the final humiliation. “Get the fuck outta here, you little asshole.”
He scooted away, joining the three little girls, obviously related, and ran off.
Lisa turned to Kevin. His face continued to ripple. His eyes, red and wet, glared at the sidewalk. He breathed through his clenched teeth.
She hunkered down in front of him. The world opened—the rev of engines, the honk of horns. Not a single car had stopped during this entire episode, not a single driver had called out.
Glory of living in the city, she thought.
“C’mon, Kev,” Lisa said. “Shake it off. Your twelve rounds against Admiral Asshole was called in the second round by Liberating Lisa.”
She’d hoped he’d crack a smile, but Kevin didn’t so much as look at her.
She rubbed his upper arms. “C’mon, kiddo, snap out of it. You’re gonna start freaking me out and I’m too old for—”
“Kevin! ” Karen cried and Lisa froze. Kevin’s eyes blinked and looked over Lisa’s shoulder. “Jesus Christ—Kevin! ”
Lisa turned and Karen stood beside the light pole, her face a mask of shock and horror.
That’s right, Lisa said, the image of Karen’s Sundance falling right into the forefront of her mind, it’s a mask.
Lisa glanced down and Kevin was regaining his usual too-mature-for-eight expression, made ludicrous by the bruising.
“Kevin, find your stuff, okay?” she said. “I’ll be a minute with your mom.”
Karen’s gaze snapped to her as she approached, bewildered, but Lisa never slowed; she grabbed Karen by the upper arm and half-led, half-dragged the other woman around the corner.
She shoved Karen away. “What the fuck was that?”
Karen straightened. “What the fuck was what? Kevin—”
Lisa’s jaw locked and she could only speak through her teeth. “I saw your car. Were you watching?”
Karen gaped at her. In the space of a second, guilt, shame, fear,
uncertainty—they all zipped across Karen’s face, rippling it much like Kevin’s had rippled. What was left at the end was an expression of exquisite sadness, of complete loss.
Lisa glanced over her shoulder to make sure Kevin didn’t appear. “For fuck’s sakes, why? How could you allow this? Did you know this was going to happen? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Karen’s throat worked as if the amount of words she needed to say had blocked access for any of them to escape. “He never talks, Lisa. He hurts all the time and he never talks.”
“What?” Lisa said. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The Perozzis have been bothering him for a while,” Karen said, “but he won’t admit it and I never catch it. He doesn’t say anything, Lisa, but I know it bothers him. I see the little clues.” She dropped her eyes. Her skin was almost freakishly white, pulled taut over her bones, and it was like seeing an erect skeleton nod its head.
“And you thought letting him get the shit beat out of him would open up a fucking font of discussion?” Lisa asked. “Jesus, do you have any idea how fucking nutty that sounds? That’s your son, Karen.”
Karen bit her lip. Her eyes were wetter than ever. Her throat bobbed like she was chugging something.
“I know, but I—” Karen swallowed. “But when I’m around, those kids never try anything and I get nowhere with him and I thought, if he felt a pain strongly enough, he’d talk then. It would be too much to hold in.”
“You allowed your son to be attacked,” she told Karen. Karen flinched with each hard enunciation. “Do you have any idea how fucked up that is? How fucked up that looks? What if your ex-husband saw that?”
Karen’s eyes widened. The idea had never fucking occurred to her.
“This is the kinda shit that loses someone the custody of their child,” Lisa said. “And if you honestly believe what you just said to me, then maybe Kevin would be better with Nick.”
She immediately regretted it, didn’t need to see the momentary rise of color in Karen’s cheeks to feel the shame go rocketing through her heart.
Some best friend I am! she thought. Asshole!
Lisa opened her mouth—to say what, she didn’t know—when Kevin came around the corner, shouldering on his backpack.
“Can we go home, Mum?” he asked and his voice, his demeanor, was as it always was. If not for the split lip and bruising, the torn shirt and blood, you would’ve never known he’d just been in a fight.
Jesus, Lisa thought.
“Yeah,” Karen said, her voice thick. “Let’s get you cleaned up, honey.” She held out her hand and Kevin took it.
As they walked to Karen’s Sundance, parked in front of Lisa’s car, Kevin looked back. “Thank you, Lisa,” he said.
Lisa nodded, unable to speak.
Karen didn’t look back or say anything at all.
Karen soaked a cotton ball with hydrogen peroxide, set the brown container on the bathroom sink. Kevin sat on the closed toilet and he flinched when she dabbed his split lip.
“Easy, champ,” she said, leaning forward from the side of the tub. “Gotta disinfect.”
He held himself still, only his slitting eyes giving away how much it stung as she continued to dab. She tossed away the cotton ball, pinkish with blood, and asked, “So what happened, hon? Why’d the Perozzi boy come after you?”
Kevin’s eyes cut down to his sneakers. “His sister Patty told him to.”
“Did you know him?”
He started to shake his head, then stopped. “No. Only saw him with his sisters.”
Karen swallowed. “Why’d Patty tell her brother to fight you?”
“He said I called her a mean name,” Kevin said. “I didn’t, though. I avoid the Perozzis. Everyone does.”
“Is Patty in your class?”
“Uh-huh, but she hangs out with her sisters during recess and stuff.”
“Do they pick on anyone else?”
“No.”
“But they do pick on you,” Karen pushed. “They do hurt you, right?” She held her free hand against his other cheek. “It’s okay to tell me, hon. You don’t have to hold it in.”
A beat of silence, and then Kevin looked up from his sneakers. “Where were you, Mum?”
Karen paused. Her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth, blocking air and words. She’d been deliberately late, leaving work at three-fifteen, when she knew the bus dropped them off. And then—
(do you have any idea how fucked up that is?)
She let go of his face, pressed the washcloth against his cheek, guided his hand to hold onto it. “I gotta call work, tell them I’m not coming back today.”
His eyes followed her out of the room, but he didn’t ask again.
(what kind of mother are you?)
Thursday. Lisa knew this because the calendar on her desktop blotter told her so.
The mailroom boy came in with a manila envelope. “For you, Mrs. Thorne.”
She looked from her computer as he dropped it onto the desk with a paper whap and left. She stared at the envelope, her fingers rubbing against each other over her keyboard. The urge to slide it into the trash—or, better yet, the shredder—came to her. Forget she’d even requested it. Tim from downstairs wouldn’t follow up.
She hadn’t talked to Karen in two days.
(do you have any idea how fucked up that is? if you honestly believe what you just said to me, then maybe kevin would be better with nick)
I should’ve left it alone, she thought. I pushed and this was the result.
To have Kevin beaten raw? the interior voice mocked. If you hadn’t been there, that’s what would’ve happened. She’s ill. With or without you. Now that you’re in it, stop being such a pussy and be in it.
But she didn’t come to me—
Because people who aren’t well always do what’s in their best interests.
She tore the envelope open and pulled out the thin sheaf of papers, bound with a paperclip. She flipped through the papers, skimming a word here, a phrase here—Arizona; oh, he actually was a preacher at one point—and then stopped.
“Holy shit,” she breathed.
Everything around her became unglued. The sounds in the bullpen dwindled. The chill of the air conditioner faded.
She spun around her desk, hands padding the desktop, trying to find the next thing she needed, not knowing the next thing she needed.
Her eyes locked on the phone—yes! She needed the rest. She needed Tim to deep dive that son of a bitch, pull up everything up to and including any overdue books from fucking middle school. Yes. She picked up the receiver.
No.
She froze with her other hand about to dial.
That would take weeks.
(guilt, shame, fear, and uncertainty zip over karen’s face, leaving a feeling of exquisite sadness and complete loss)
She racked the phone, then slumped back in her chair, rubbing her temple. Carnegie Library, you doofus, drifted across her mind.
Lisa grabbed a pad and, flipping through report, jotted down:
Placerville, Arizona.
1986.
Darren Roberts.
Sarah Goode, Ann Proctor, Anthony Desmond.
Placerville Three.
The Absolution of Christ Church.
She tapped her pen against the pad, looking through the report a second time. “That’ll do,” she said, and tore the page off the pad.
Nick froze welcoming Kevin into the car. “What the hell happened to you?”
Karen’s eyes snapped to Kevin, who finished climbing in and buckling his seatbelt.
“Ran into a door at school,” Kevin said. The swelling on his lip had gone down, leaving a scab that resembled the aftermath of a bad piercing. The bruising on his cheeks had lightened, until it looked like Kevin had decided to play with Karen’s makeup.
Nick turned his son’s face this way and that under the dome light. “How many times?”
Kevin shrugged and Nick turned hi
s incredulous look towards Karen. For the second time this week, her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth. The truth was—
(do you have any idea how fucking insane this is)
—while lying was—
(what?)
her mother asked,
(completely against what your job as a mother should be? an underscoring of how completely and utterly you’ve failed as a parent?)
She swallowed.
“Why didn’t you call me?” Nick asked, his voice softening—not in understanding, but in a wounded kind of way, as if it hurt that he wasn’t alerted.
“I didn’t want to make a big deal about it,” Kevin said, not looking at either parent.
Karen’s eyes snapped back to their son.
(why is he covering for me?)
Roberts’s voice perked up:
(that means he knows there’s something to cover up)
Nick looked at their son, his brow furrowed. His eyes ticked off the bruising, the scabbed lip. He glanced at Karen, and Karen couldn’t read the expression. Finally, he settled back into the driver seat, stared at his odometer, then shook his head. “Same time on Sunday?” he asked the windshield in an odd, flat voice.
(what aren’t you saying to me? what aren’t you telling me?)
Her mother responded—
(what aren’t you telling him?)
—before memory did—
(we’re only doing this for kevin for what might be best for kevin)
A cold hollow formed in her chest. “Isn’t it always?” she said and her voice was thicker than usual.
He nodded and shifted the car into Drive. If not for Kevin’s face, this might’ve been a replay of last weekend.
(i’m missing something)
(there’s something unsaid here)
“See you, then,” Nick said in that flat voice and Karen stepped back, closed the passenger door.
As they pulled away, Kevin looked back at his mother, once, and his expression was just as unreadable as his father’s.
(we’re doing this for kevin)
(where were you mum?)
Bones are Made to be Broken Page 33