by Teresa Hill
I admire that so much about her, even if it does frustrate the hell out of me at times. Especially times like this.
“You promised me Freshman year, no more fighting,” she reminds me.
“Yeah, and I didn’t get in a fight, did I?” It comes out really mean, meaner than I meant it to.
I would have told her I was sorry. But the teacher starts talking, going through the problems we had for homework last night, and like the very good girl she is, she turns around and listens to what he has to say. Problem solved, for now. She’ll come at me again the minute class ends.
Too bad she isn’t my biggest problem. Not nearly.
Mom, out of jail?
I can barely breathe, just thinking about it. I feel like getting down on my knees and begging the universe to not let it happen, to make it all a lie. And I’m not a guy who begs the world for anything. I learned long ago that nobody’s listening.
But ... God, please. I break out in a sweat, right there in calculus. Not that.
* * *
Peter
I manage to slip away from Dana after class by watching the clock, having all my stuff shoved into my book bag and charging toward the door the minute the bell rings. I take off in the opposite direction of my sixth period class, thinking about ditching and going home -- both to avoid Ben and his friends, just in case, and because there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to concentrate on anything in a classroom.
But then, I start that whole know/not know thing in my head. Do I really want to know if it’s true? If she’s getting out? Because that will suck hellaciously. Or do I want to take the chicken-shit way out and not know, so I can lie to myself a while longer? Well, try to. It isn’t working at all at the moment, but I can keep trying to convince myself that my world isn’t disintegrating beneath my feet.
And then I realize, why try to avoid Ben and his friends? I made him look like an idiot back there in the hall in front of everybody walking by. He isn’t going to let that go. He’ll try to show me I can’t get away with it.
On a normal day, I never would have come at him the way I did, backing him into that locker. I know where that leads. I just didn’t have it in me to be calm and smart, and now I’m going to pay for it.
On a normal day, I could probably diffuse the situation, even now, let him say what he wants, maybe shove me around a little. I could let him and his friends call me a pussy when I walk away. I learned the hard way to do that -- walk away – to try to keep peace in my house, but what does that matter, if Mom’s getting out?
So this isn’t a normal day. This is a shit day, and I’m really freaked out but also really, really pissed. I hope he’ll take a swing at me, because I’m not walking away today.
I’ll let myself hit him back, hit him hard, go into that mode where I’m like a machine, where I don’t feel anything. When no one can land a blow that hurts me. I don’t care if I’m fighting three of them. I want to hit, and keep hitting, spill all my anger out into my fists, smashing into their faces and their bodies.
It would feel great, and for a few moments, I’d forget all about my mother. The day would be about something else. Me, not thinking for a while.
So I turn around and take the normal route to my next class, which Ben may know and may be taking right now, looking for me. I want him to find me.
But it sucks to be me today, because I don’t see him again at school. I get home still ready to blow up at someone, but the house is empty. No Julie. No Zach. No one to confront about my mom getting out, and them not telling me. I could call them, but I want to see their faces when I ask about it, because right now I don’t trust anybody.
Then I think, if she’s really getting out, maybe I’ll just take off, not even give her a chance to screw up my life. I have money. I’ve been expecting disaster of some sort ever since I came to live with Zach and Julie. Something’s bound to happen sooner or later.
I’ve been working with Sam and Dana’s dad as much as I can, helping on construction sites and in the warehouse. They restore old houses and have a business that supplies builders with original fixtures and things from old houses, plus new fixtures, woodwork, hardware that are replicas of old-style things.
But most of my money comes from playing poker.
Poker is math. It’s odds, probabilities, strategy, reading people while hiding your own feelings. I know all about that. I spent years reading the faces of my parents to see what kind of shape they were in and whether one or both of them was about to blow up. When your survival depends on it, you get really good at reading people.
That night, I head out in a reckless mood. It takes a few hours, but I find what I need, a half a dozen guys, mostly in their early twenties. I’m going to take their beer money, maybe even their rent money. Sometimes I feel bad about doing that, but, hey, you should never risk what you can’t afford to lose.
Me, with Mom getting out? I have nothing to lose.
* * *
Chapter Five
Dana
Peter gets away from me at school before I can stop him, and I’m so mad at him for that. Worried, too, that by the time school ends, I’ll hear he’s gotten into a fight with Ben and is in all sorts of trouble.
He promised me. No more fighting.
I thought he meant it when he said it. That a promise to me means something to him. That I mean something to him. I’m not so sure of that now.
Leaving school that day, I don’t hear anything about him or a fight. A few people gossip about the thing in the hallway before calculus, but nobody I talk to was close enough to hear what it was about.
I try his phone. He doesn’t answer. I call his house. Again, no answer. Uncle Zach calls me later, looking for Peter, asking if I saw him at school or if he said anything about where he might be going or what he might be doing.
“No. He didn’t say anything about doing anything after school.” I don’t tell Zach about the thing with Ben in the hallway. I wouldn’t anyway, but nothing really happened. Nobody threw a punch. Nobody got detention or anything like that. But Zach sounds like he knows something, so I ask, “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Zach sighs, sounding disgusted, or maybe just worried. “His mother’s getting out of prison.”
“Oh. He didn’t tell me.”
“I just found out today. That’s why I’m trying to find him, to tell him.”
As upset as he was at school, I wonder if he already knows. “What does that mean? His mother getting out? I mean, for Peter?”
“He’s not going to like it, Dana. I’m going to try some of his friends, see if anyone’s seen him. If you hear from him, call me, okay? And tell him to come home.”
I promise I will, but Peter doesn’t call, and soon we leave for a last-minute family dinner at my grandparents’ house. Dad suggests I drive. It’s only five minutes away, and I can stay on quiet, neighborhood streets, but I don’t want to. I’m not one of those kids who can’t wait to get my license. I got my permit in October, because you can at fifteen-and-a-half in this state and all my friends were getting theirs. But I put driving off until winter came, and then it started snowing, and I didn’t want to start out driving on snow. Then Luc died, and since then, driving scares me a bit. I’ll get over it, I’m sure, just not yet.
We get to my grandparents’ house, and Gram says she just felt like cooking and made a roast. She’s a great cook and likes to do that, but I suspect she mostly wants to get Aunt Grace out of her house and around family, especially my little sister Lizzie.
It’s hard for anyone to not smile or laugh around Lizzie. She’s all giggles and smiles and sweet hugs. I think she believes every family dinner we have is for her to entertain us all. That night, she dances, she sings silly songs, and she wants the men to twirl her around and lift her up and make her fly.
And I swear, she seems to sense when someone is sad and needs her to give them a hug or make them laugh. I’ve seen her do it so many times, go right to the person who need
s her special Lizzie-love most and do her best to delight them. Sure enough, that night she’s all over Aunt Grace, hugging her, kissing her, eating dinner sitting on her lap, even making her laugh out loud.
Everyone’s there except Peter, and Zach and Julie are worried. I am, too. We finish eating. It gets late. Lizzie’s already asleep on a bed upstairs, and Jamie’s fading fast. We’re getting ready to go home when I see Zach glance out the front window and then mutter a faint, “Oh, shit.”
I hurry to his side and see a police car stopped in front of the house.
Zach’s face has gone white. My dad and granddad are behind me, and the look on both their faces scares me, too.
“What is it?” I ask. “What do you know about this?”
Zach and my granddad head to the front door, and I turn to my dad, who puts his arm around me and hugs me for a moment. “We don’t know anything. It’s just that the last time a cop showed up, it was to tell us Grace’s husband was dead. I guess seeing this just took us all back there for a moment.”
“Peter’s not here,” I say, hardly able to get the words out. “He’s been gone for hours. Nobody knows where he is.”
“Now, we do,” my dad says, nodding toward the window.
I look outside and see the cop holding the back door of his vehicle open. Peter climbs out.
It’s complete chaos for a few minutes after that. I feel like my legs are going to collapse at first, but I get them to work, and I run for the front door.
Outside, the cop has Peter by the arm, but not handcuffed. I look him over from head to toe. He has a bloody bottom lip, more blood on his shirt, and an I-don’t-give-a-shit look on his face. I know that look. It’s the one he wears when he’s trying to convince everyone he doesn’t care about whatever’s happening, but I don’t believe it.
I know he cares. Deep down, he has to.
“Got something for us?” my granddad asks the cop. I think Granddad knows the man.
“Yeah, I do, Sam. We stopped at Zach’s house first, but nobody was home. I thought I’d just hand him over to you,” the cop says, then turns to Zach, “but lucky me, you’re here.”
“Are you arresting him?” Zach asks.
“No!” Peter growls. “I didn’t do anything!”
Zach shoots him a look that keeps him from saying anything else, then turns back to the cop. “Sorry.”
“I’m just bringing him home. I want to talk to you about how he spent his evening,” the cop says.
“Sure. Come on inside. It’s cold out here,” Granddad says. “Have you had dinner? Rachel made a roast. We could warm some of it up for you.”
“You’re going to invite him to dinner?” Peter asks. “I didn’t do anything. It was--”
Zach steps between Peter and the cop and says, “Kid, when a cop does you a favor, you say thank you, then shut the hell up.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Peter says.
“Somehow, I’m sure you did something, and try to remember, this man could still arrest you. Am I right?” Zach turns back to the cop, who nods.
“Are you hurt, Peter?” Granddad says. “Anything besides your face?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Good.” Granddad turns to me. “Honey, take him inside and see what you can do for that cut. You know where the first-aid supplies are, in the hall bathroom upstairs, right?”
I nod, then take Peter by the hand and tug him toward the house with me. He’s so mad he’s fuming, shaking his head and swearing softly. He stops when we get inside and have to walk past my gaping sister Tricia and a puzzled-looking Jamie. They have their coats on, ready to leave, and my mom’s there, carrying a sleepy Lizzie.
I’m not leaving. Not now. No way.
“Granddad asked me to take care of something for him,” I tell my mom. “I’ll get a ride home later with someone.” Then I drag Peter toward the stairs, still hanging onto his hand, because I take any excuse I can to touch him. “Come on upstairs. Let’s see how bad that cut is.”
“It’s nothing,” he protests, but he follows me anyway.
We get into the hall bathroom, and I push him down to sit on the edge of the tub, then grab a washcloth. I dampen it under the faucet, planning to start dabbing at the blood at the corner of his lip and where it ran down his chin onto his shirt.
To do that, I have to stand really close to him, between his legs, my whole body about two inches away from being flush against his. We get closer every time either one of us takes a breath, and I notice heat blasting off his body.
Which makes me remember being deliciously warm wrapped up in his arms on the couch the night Luc died. Which makes me think about how scared the men were for a second when they saw the police car. How scared I was.
What in the world did he do tonight?
This close to him, I don’t see any damage except his bloody lip. He isn’t moving like someone who’s hurt. I catch a hint of beer on his breath, but he doesn’t seem drunk.
“Dana, you don’t have to do this.”
“I know, but--”
“I don’t need any help. You can go back downstairs.”
It stings, him trying to push me away like this, but I try not to show it. “Why do you think they sent us upstairs? There’s a bigger first-aid kit than this one in the kitchen cabinet above the microwave. They sent us up here so they can talk without us being there. So I’m staying. I might as well clean this up while I’m here. Besides, I thought you might tell me what happened.”
“It was nothing,” he says finally. “I was playing cards with some guys. I guess I took a little too much of one guy’s money, or he had a little too much to drink or both. He got mad and jumped across the table at me.”
“And the cops came for that?”
Again, he’s looking me in the eye, his expression hardening, challenging me. “You don’t believe me, either?”
“I just asked, Peter.”
“His friends jumped in to stop him. A couple of the others got me away from him. It took a few minutes to stop the whole thing, and I guess the neighbors aren’t too happy having a couple of twenty-something guys living there. Too much noise. Too much drinking. Some parties. It’s not the first time the neighbors have called the cops. I guess they think if they call enough times, the landlord might kick the guys out. I don’t know, Dana. I was just playing cards. Next thing I know, that cop threatens to arrest me and then brings me here.”
“Arrest you for what?”
“I had a beer,” he says, sounding exasperated.
“Okay, but he didn’t arrest you. He just brought you to Zach and Julie. So, it’s not like ... a huge deal, right?”
“Yeah, well ... Maybe I’ll get lucky, and it won’t be.”
“Lucky?”
He shrugs. “Maybe they won’t kick me out.”
* * *
Peter
I know it’s a mistake, the minute I say it.
She gasps and drops all pretense of trying to clean up my bloody lip. Then she tilts my head up to make me look at her. My chin ends up maybe an inch from being nestled against her breasts, and if she doesn’t stop touching me -- for any reason – there’s no telling what I may say or do.
I never would have said what I did if she wasn’t so close with her hands all over me.
“Kick you out? Peter, they would never kick you out.”
I shrug, try to look like it’s no big deal. “We’ll see.”
Tonight for sure violates the take-care-of-your-own-shit rule. It seems like a no-brainer that anytime a cop brings me home, I’m not taking care of my own shit. And I hope Julie doesn’t cry, because that’s rule No. 1. Don’t make Julie cry.
“Wait a minute. You’re really worried about this?” Dana asks.
And then she gives me one of those looks, like maybe she sees inside me a bit, and it’s awful, and she feels sorry for me. God, I hate that look.
“It’s not … They might not have to kick me out, exactly,” I say.
�
��What does that mean?”
“Dana, forget it. Forget I said anything--”
“No! What’s going on? Is this about your mom getting out--?”
“You knew about that?” I say it so loud she flinches.
“Not until tonight. Zach told me when he called asking if I knew where you were.”
“Yeah, well ... I don’t really know. Zach didn’t tell me.”
“He said he didn’t know until today,” she says.
“Really?” I’ll feel a whole lot better if that’s true, if he didn’t keep it a secret from me.
“Yes. Peter, is this what that thing at school was about?”
Dammit, I can’t get anything past her. Either she reads me like nobody else can or I’m losing my ability to hide things from people, because she always seems to know what’s going on.
“That was nothing.”
She just gives me that yeah-right look. “Tell me about your mom. Will she try to make you live with her?”
“I don’t know,” I say, my gut churning just at the question.
“You think she’ll want you to live with her?”
“I have no clue. I try not to even think about her.”
“But she can’t make you, can she?”
“I don’t know what she can do. I’m seventeen. She’s still my mother.”
And that sucks. I think about her trying to drag me back into the craziness, and I shudder. If she’s here, and she wants me with her-- God, no. Not that. But the only reason I’m with Zach and Julie is because Mom hasn’t been here, and Julie felt too guilty to leave me to social services to handle. So she came back here to take care of me, even though she’s always hated this town. Too many lousy memories of growing up here with Mom.
She and Zach didn’t even plan to live here. They planned to move closer to Cincinnati, where Zach’s office is, but they stayed instead. For me, maybe. I’m not certain, but I heard them talking once about what a different county would mean, a different social services caseworker, different judges. Zach’s family has serious clout in this town, in this county, with social services and the cops and even judges. Rachel’s been here her whole life, and Sam for most of his. They adopted Dana’s mom, Zach and Grace when the three of them were just kids, through social services and took in foster kids for years.