The South Side Tour Guide

by Shelter Somerset

  Olivia placed her tiny index finger to her plump pink lips and gazed upward, as if musing over her father’s suggestion. Finally, she sat erect. “Okay.” She jumped from the sofa and sprawled prostrate on the floor before her laptop, the soles of her stocking feet parallel with the ceiling.

  “She’s adorable,” Andy muttered.

  “If she wasn’t, I doubt she’d survive.”

  “I’m getting passionate about them both. I’m starting to understand Kamila’s motives for following us.”

  “They’re kind of like a basketful of puppies,” Harden said, gazing at his daughter with wistful eyes. “A burden, but too cute to get rid of.”

  Andy chuckled at Harden’s humor. “She helped me make the french fries for dinner to go with our hamburgers,” he said. “You’d be happy to know she only dropped about three or four of the potatoes.”

  “How many fingers does she have left?” Harden said with a snort.

  “Don’t worry about that. I did the chopping. She rolled the wedges in salt and garlic powder. Mason made the patties. He put special spices in them. Wouldn’t let me know what.”

  “The kids are full of surprises.”

  “You’re talking about us,” Olivia said, using her maternal voice. She kept her eyes on her video cartoon. “You’re being supercilious.”

  Andy blew out a chortle. “She’s right, you know.”

  “Kids are right about everything,” Harden said.

  And that night, Andy dozed, thinking of Olivia and Mason. In his dreams, he chased after them in a cornfield brimming with purple stalks, while they laughed and squinted from the white sun bursting through a burnt orange sky. Andy’s job was to steer the children away from the broad fissures in the earth. But all at once, he was driving them in his glossy black van through a dirty, seamy street. Bright streetlamps pelting the windows and gunshots blasting against the van’s sides replaced the sunshine and chatter of birds. Ken Millpairs appeared before the windshield, Glock raised at shoulder level. Andy slammed on the brakes, and he awoke panting and confused.

  Slashes of sunlight cut across the bed. He sat up against the headboard and steadied his breathing. His cell phone read close to seven thirty. But he did not emerge from the basement until quarter past nine, when he knew Harden had gone to work.

  Detached and frustrated, he climbed the stairs. The murmuring of unfamiliar adult male voices commingled with Kamila’s forced him to pause before opening the door. He waited a good minute, then, inhaling, found Dick Carelli seated at the kitchen table alongside another man, sipping coffee. Kamila, without acknowledging Andy, carried a steaming mug and sat across from them.

  He was unsure what to say to her after their altercation from Tuesday. He expected her to initiate the first sign of an armistice. Yet she remained fixed, her eyes far away like the times before, unwilling to express the most basic salutation or even bother to introduce the men to him.

  “Good morning,” Andy said in his over-the-top singsong voice, knowing he might irk them.

  Too tired and still reeling from his dream to care about any of their mumbled responses, Andy poured himself coffee and headed for the front porch, void of any further words. What difference did civility make in an uncivil world?

  Andy leaned against the porch railing and watched the corn. Little else to do. The landscape offered limited visuals: cornfields or sky, or the barn and silo if he turned his head sharply to the right. He visualized Lilly standing on the front porch, coffee in hand, like he was now, dulled by the same scene day after day after day.

  When his coffee went lukewarm, he tramped back inside, set down his mug with a thud, and marched to his basement bedroom. With the taste of toothpaste fresh in his mouth, he lay in bed and listened to the murmurings of Kamila and the two men flow through the ceiling.

  “I best get home,” Dick Carelli said. “The wife will be wondering what happened to me. I been working too many nights.” A chair skidded. “Thanks for the breakfast, Kamila.”

  “Thanks, Kamila” came the other man’s voice, followed by two more chairs pushed out from the table.

  Three sets of feet slapped the floor above and faded toward the front door. Next, the door slammed shut and a single set of steps grew louder. He jumped from bed and beelined up the stairs. Kamila sat firm at the kitchen table with her coffee. This time, he was less suave. “Where’re the kids?”

  “Upstairs to play.”

  He sensed her cold brown European eyes burning holes into his back as he went to the bottom of the steps and shouted for Mason and Olivia. He cared little for her disapproval, but he needed to get away from the farm, from Kamila.

  “What is it, Uncle Andy?” Olivia said.

  “We’re taking a day trip.”

  Olivia’s blue eyes shone. “Where to?”

  “Get your brother and let’s go.”

  “You take the kids?” Kamila said from the kitchen.

  “Nothing to concern yourself over.” He wanted to face her again and say, “You plan on following us?” but rather than unleash his anger in the manner he wanted, he checked his tongue. In a way, his taking the kids on a joyride was more to test Kamila than to get out of the stuffy house.

  He waited, noting Kamila’s unchanged stony countenance. The kids trampled downstairs, dressed and ready. For a good three hours, Andy chauffeured them around northeastern Iowa. His Magellan piloted the way past Holbert Park, where the kids had said they sledded in winter if they could find rides, next through a small Amish settlement, and to a Trappist monastery southwest of Dubuque, where a lone monk dressed in a black-and-white tunic came out to provide them a quick tour of the lush grounds. Andy balked from allowing him to show them inside.

  Much like his life back in Chicago, Andy played the tour guide. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves, but he turned for home after Olivia and Mason stretched and yawned. To his odd sense of disappointment, there was no sign of Kamila tailing them that day. She was still silently stewing when they returned home.

  The remainder of the week passed much the same. Andy threw himself into domestic life, doing his best to avoid Kamila. Harden went to work each morning, and Andy stayed behind to entertain the kids, and they him. Wednesday, they rode their bikes through the Iowa countryside, and the kids took a turn at playing tour guide. He and Harden were the same size, and Harden’s three-speed needed minimal adjustments. Pungent odors of sticky sweet earth and livestock followed them along the rolling farmland.

  He and Kamila continued their silent face-off. Her presence bothered him less and less. She had become like one of the bruises from his beating. A dull ache, fading to a barely noticeable tawny color.

  Ken had no additional news from Chicago. Andy suspected whoever had clobbered him would evade justice. Without informing Ken, he’d concluded he’d return to Chicago by next Wednesday. That would give him a solid two weeks visiting the Kranes, in compliance with Ken’s original command.

  On Friday, he drove Mason to his first baseball practice since his suspension and encouraged him to avoid any altercations with the nasty boys who teased him. “This time, let them throw the first punch,” he said before the game. Luckily, no one did. Before reaching home, they stopped at the grocery store. They returned home with three bulging plastic bags, and Andy insisted Kamila again leave early. With the housekeeper out of the way, he took over the kitchen. Olivia and Mason assisted.

  “What are you making?” Harden, bordered by the kitchen’s doorway, said a few hours later when he returned home from work. He looked handsome in his usual dress-down Friday attire.

  “Mexican vegetarian fare,” Andy said. “Soup’s on the stove and bean burritos are baking in the oven.”

  “Nice to have something other than Balkan food,” Harden said. “Kamila makes so many meals with beef I worry I might turn into a sausage link. I take it you sent her home early again? Wish she would lighten up.”

  “We get along okay.”

  “How was Mason’s scrimmage? A
ny trouble?”

  “As smooth as asphalt. His side lost, though. How was your day?”

  Harden stepped to the stove and inhaled the steam rising from the pot of pumpkin soup. “One of these days, buddy, I’m going to quit,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table with a sigh. He stretched out his legs and rested his left arm over the top. “I finally had that teleconference with the big ethanol buyer from California. I felt like I was selling him snake oil.”

  “You gotta do what you gotta do,” Andy said into the pot, which smelled of cinnamon and cumin. “Think of Mason and Olivia.”

  “Sure, sure. They’re the only things I do think about. You plan on sticking around past next week?”

  Andy faced him. “You kidding? I’ve been here too long already. I got my business back in Chicago waiting for me.”

  “That’s some life you got.”

  Andy returned to stirring the pot without responding. Behind him, Harden sighed and said with a patronizing tone, “They say there’s more money in nation destroying than nation building.”

  Andy’s cell phone ding dinged just in time. Despite the determination to hang onto his career, his face flushed when he dug deep inside his cargo pocket to see who was calling. He deduced who it might be even before seeing the unrecognizable number: a caller for his tour business. He clicked “refuse call” (what difference did it make while in Iowa?) and went back to stirring the soup.

  “You know what I’ve discovered?” he said, steam tickling his nose. “What success requires is a certain lack of emotion. A detachment in what you do.”

  “You’re probably right, buddy. You’re probably right.”

  Mason raced inside, carrying with him the smells of body heat and the outdoors. “Is dinner ready? I’m starving?”

  “Almost, Mason.”

  He turned to his dad. “I helped make it.”

  “Go wash up,” Harden said. “You smell.”

  Olivia entered, dirtier than her brother. Harden insisted she wash up for dinner too, and he scooted her upstairs. By the time Andy plated the vegetarian meal, the awkwardness brought up by Harden’s disapproval for Andy’s career had left. Everyone gathered around the kitchen table, their hands scrubbed and shiny—and the front of Olivia’s blouse soaked—eager to eat. Harden asked Mason to lead the prayer. Like the other times, Andy respected their beliefs and bowed his head, although he refused to fold his hands or close his eyes.

  Halfway through the meal, Mason said, “You should move in with us, Uncle Andy. You can make yummy dinners like this all the time. It’s better than Kamila’s.”

  Andy required extra effort to swallow a bite of his bean burrito. “I’m glad you like my cooking, Mason, and I appreciate your offer, but I don’t think so.”

  “Do we bother you?” Olivia said. “We’re not being too supercilious, are we?”

  Andy chuckled. “No, you’re not. But I worry I might be.”

  “It’s fun with you here,” Olivia said. “I like playing Pictionary.”

  “I do too.”

  “Keep quiet, dumbhead,” Mason barked. “Every time you open your mouth you spit food at me.”

  “Knock it off, you two,” Harden said. “Olivia, you’re dripping soup down your chin.”

  Andy was about to bring humor back to the table with a riddle when the sound of crunching gravel forced him to look out of the window. A compact hatchback hobbled to a stop in the driveway. Harden mirrored his gaze.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Beats me,” Andy said. “Looks like someone in a beat-up car. It’s got Michigan tags. Maybe they’re lost, like that time Mom and I drove through Burt Anders’s cornfield.”

  Andy tipped his head for a better look, but he could hardly distinguish anyone sitting inside through the smudgy windshield. Difficult to tell if the car was beige or coated in dirt. Not until Olivia pushed out her chair—upsetting her plum juice in the process—and ran shouting for the front porch, did Andy realize who had come calling.

  “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy’s home! It’s Mommy!”

  Chapter 19

  ANDY sat, unable to move from the kitchen table while Olivia’s blood-red plum juice trickled onto the linoleum floor beside him. Through the kitchen window, he watched his sister, Lillian, stumble from the car and squat to scoop Olivia into her arms. A court order mandated that she keep away from the children without Harden’s consent. He was certain Harden had not given it. He would have told Andy if he had. And Harden’s subsequent actions confirmed he wanted Lillian nowhere near Burr Oak Farm.

  Harden leaped from his chair and made a mad dash after Olivia. Andy followed. He peered through the screen on the storm door that still vibrated from Harden having swung it open. Harden tripped on his feet to reach Olivia, his arms stretched before him, like a man under a spell. His ashen face twisted in pain and agony that caused Andy to step backward, bumping Mason, who’d edged beside him, trembling.

  Pure desperation exuded from Harden’s eyes. He fumbled for Olivia, trying to tear her from her mother as if his arms were made of wet noodles. “You’re not supposed to be here, Lillian. Lillian, put her down.”

  “I want Mommy!” Olivia clung to Lillian with one arm and pushed Harden back with the other.

  “Hello, my little darling.” Lillian lifted Olivia toward the blue sky and swung her around, ignoring Harden’s pleading and nearly falling over.

  Even from the door, Andy noticed Lilly’s inebriation. She struggled to keep her eyes open, and one of those odd half-wit grins contorted her unrecognizable face, which had aged beyond her thirty-nine years. Though dressed in clean, stylish blue jeans and a beige camisole, Lillian’s clothes hung off her underweight frame and creased with her movements. Her teeth had been narrow and jagged when he’d last seen her three years ago. She must have had them capped since. Now they gleamed perfectly white and absurd, mocked by the sunlight.

  Premature age lines still cut into her pink, narrow face, and gaunt cheeks revealed the bones underneath. Haphazardly applied makeup failed to cover the blemishes along her jawline, which had taken a sharp masculine contortion. Her hair remained the typical platinum from the last time he’d seen her. Ken had once told him that female crystal methamphetamine users often resorted to prostitution to support their habits, and they bleached their hair platinum to stand out.

  “Put her down, Lillian.” Resignation scorched Harden’s whimpering voice. “We’ve been over this. You’re not allowed to come here. Put her down. Put her down, Lillian.”

  In his attempts to lift his daughter from Lillian’s tightening arms, Harden vacillated between clawing for Olivia and throwing his head into his hands. From his vantage point, Andy noted Harden’s delirium. He was clearly weakened from the anguish of his ex-wife’s imposition. He was like a man sleepwalking.

  “Put her down, Lillian. Put her down. Christ, look what you’re doing. You’re doing it to them all over again, Lilly. Put her down. Please, stop this. Stop this before you cause them more harm. Please stop, Lilly.”

  Blood pounded in Andy’s ears. His feet remained stationary, as if fierce claws held him fixed to the floor. For the first time, he wished for Kamila’s presence. Her iciness alone might push Lillian back into her derelict car, where a shabby-looking man sat reading a magazine behind the steering wheel, disinterested in the family drama taking place beyond the smudgy windows.

  “She’s my baby girl,” Lillian muttered, acknowledging Harden for the first time. “Let me kiss her. Let me kiss my baby.”

  “Mommy, come inside. Come inside.”

  “Mommy can’t come inside,” Harden said, his voice faltering. “You know she can’t. Mommy can’t come inside.”

  “I want Mommy.”

  “Let me hold my baby,” Lillian squealed.

  “You can’t, Lilly. You know you can’t.” He pried loose Olivia’s grip and pushed her sideways, but she ran back for her mother’s arms. Harden’s expression demonstrated a desperation Andy had never witnessed before, not even a
mong the urban youth in Chicago’s South Side. Stricken with disbelief and helplessness, Andy watched, unable to move a muscle.

  Mason nudged Andy out of the way and ran outside. He stopped on the stoop, began sniveling, and rushed across the driveway. “Mom! Mom!”

  With his arms spread-eagle, Harden attempted to block his son from reaching his mother. But with the nimbleness of a cat, Mason dodged Harden’s grasps and collapsed into Lillian’s wobbly arms.

  “Mason, my love. Hug and kiss your mother.”

  The three of them coalesced into a singular embrace. Harden circled them, like a policeman trying to break up a brawl. Joyful and horrified sobbing poured into Andy’s ears.

  Harden dislodged Mason from the group and dragged him kicking and squealing up the porch and into the house. Andy tried to restrain him with a light clamp on his shoulders, but he jerked free and ran back outside, straight into Lillian’s arms. Again, Harden extricated him and forced him to the porch. But Mason slapped at his father’s arms and rushed to his mother’s side. Andy willed his feet to move, and he marched straight to Lillian.

  Affecting nonchalance, he grinned, wanting her to think he was happy to see his big sister after three years, which on some level he was. Immediately, he winced from the unidentified stench he recalled from the last time he’d seen her that she tried to mask with Magnetism.

  “Lilly, how have you been?” He patted her shoulder and, in doing so, tried to grab Olivia from her tight grip and pass her over to Harden, whose flimsy arms still came at them with intermittent lunges. “Don’t you recognize me, Lilly? It’s Andy.”

  She stopped struggling and looked into Andy’s face. Her smile disappeared, and a shadow of a frown emerged. “Andrew?”

  “Yes, it’s me.” His smile muscles convulsed. “It’s your baby brother.”