“I am,” she says, like all she wants is for me to hurry up so she can get back to doing something else.
“And those girls, the ones in pink . . . those are all Rowan’s nieces?”
She nods, showing me the shower and the bedroom and handing me a pile of her old clothes.
“Shirley, did I do something? Should I . . . ?”
“Don’t play that game with me. You’ve got some nerve coming here,” she says.
I want to tell her that I didn’t ask to come here, that I was supposed to connect with the Network, but I don’t know where to begin.
“Don’t stand there and try to act innocent. You know what you did. You and that kid have just ruined everything,” she says, and when she closes the door, I climb onto a bed that’s meant for a young boy and cry into the pillows.
I WAKE UP from a nap thick with sweat in a blue room with a shelf of tarnished trophies and a pair of old boxing gloves that hangs from the wall. I pull on a fresh T-shirt and step out of the room, worried about where DJ has been while I was fast asleep and how much time has passed since I last fed him.
When I reach the kitchen, Shirley is holding DJ and Geneva is washing dishes. I can hear the girls outside, but there’s no sign of Roger, and the dishes from breakfast are all cleared.
“I forgot how small they are when they just come out,” Shirley says. “Look at all those wrinkles. It’s like he’s an old man. Maybe Roger and I should have another one, Ma. Try for a boy.”
“Absolutely not,” Geneva says, and Shirley laughs.
“Where did everyone go?” I say.
They both turn to look at me but no one says anything as DJ wiggles and stirs, like he’s the only one who really cares that I’m here.
“You could have woken me up. He must be ready to eat,” I say, moving toward Shirley, who hands him to me without a word.
After my shower, I shoveled down a small plate of eggs and a slice of bread before taking him to the bedroom to be fed. But after he ate, I felt more tired than before, and Geneva insisted I rest, carrying him out of the room before I had a chance to protest.
“Use the chair in the corner to feed him. It’s much better for you than the bed,” Geneva says.
I sit down in the chair, pulling my shirt up and holding DJ to my chest while Geneva slides pillows underneath him. He clamps down tight, and I try not to show how much it hurts.
“You’ll get used to it,” she says, returning to her sink full of dishes.
Shirley stands a few feet away, staring out the window at the girls, who are playing with a few boys in the backyard.
“I get to be the boss next,” Reina shouts.
“You’re too little to be the boss,” says one of the boys.
“You can be the boss with me, Ray,” Beula says, and when the two girls start to count, Haddy stays and tries to count too while everyone else runs away.
“Roger coming back before he heads out?” Geneva says as DJ guzzles loudly.
“I don’t know, Ma,” Shirley says, like the question itself makes her tired.
“Oh, don’t get all emotional, Shirley. He’s fine.”
“He’s not fine, Ma. Roger is . . . Roger’s going to be done at the factory next month,” she says, and I can tell by the way Geneva’s shoulders sink low that she doesn’t approve.
“He’s quitting?” Geneva says, dropping a bowl in the sink with a loud thud, so water spills on the counter and over the edge. “We’ve had this conversation before, Shirley.”
“Yes, and it’s always the same argument. ‘Think of the girls. Think of the girls.’ But we are thinking about them, Ma!”
“I think Roger is only thinking about himself.”
“Three of his friends died last year from that sickness. Three. In one year. And they all started at the same time. It’s a miracle he’s still alive.”
“You can’t beat the pay at the factory,” Geneva says. “Or the benefits.”
“I know, Ma. But he’s gone all the time. He only sees us on weekends. I don’t know why they built the factory down in the Lower End and then set us up way up here. It’s like they don’t want us to even be together.”
I watch DJ guzzle, thinking about Rowan, wondering if he knows about the baby, curious if he would ever have a problem being apart from us like Roger.
“The factory is down there because that’s where the resources are, Shirley. And you’re up here because nobody wants to live in the Lower End.”
“Lots of people like living there, Ma.”
“No. Lots of people live there because they have no other choice. Mainlanders couldn’t care less about how much time a Gutter man gets to spend with his children. But you get a nice house and good money. You can manage.”
“I don’t want to manage, Ma. I don’t want Roger working down there.”
Geneva looks at her daughter, shaking her head.
“What’s wrong with the factory?” I say, swapping DJ from one side to the other as Geneva comes to readjust the pillows.
“There’s nothing wrong with the factory,” she says.
“Ma, you can’t be serious. Have you seen the yellow smoke coming out of those pipes? That’s what Roger breathes in every time he goes to work. Five days a week, that’s what’s going into his lungs,” she says. “The air is so bad you can taste it in the back of your throat.”
“That’s a little dramatic,” Geneva says.
“When was the last time you were down there, Ma?”
“I’ve been there plenty of times, Shirley.”
“Since Pop left,” she says, and Geneva doesn’t say anything. “How many times you been to the Lower End since Pop left, Ma?”
“What Shirley isn’t telling you, Elimina, is that that factory offers the best-paid work anywhere in the Gutter. The men get Redemption Freedom for their entire family if they put twenty-five years in—and that’s on top of their pay. If it wasn’t men only, I’d be there myself,” Geneva says.
“Ma, do you know how many people have even gotten that Redemption Freedom bonus?” Shirley says, watching her mother. “Do you want to guess how many, Lima?”
I stare up at her, startled by the use of my new name, unsure if she really wants me to answer.
“Since this whole Gutter System nonsense began, there have been nine factory workers to get Redemption Freedom. Nine. It’s like they just pick one every so often so folks still believe it’s possible.”
“Oh, Shirley, that’s nonsense and you know it,” Geneva mutters.
But all I can think about is the Hall of Heroes at Livingstone Academy—how difficult it must be to get Redemption Freedom if only eight men ever did it, and how impossible it seems for a woman to get it at all.
“Hundreds of men die in that job every year,” Shirley says. “And Ma knows better than anyone. She sees them at the Medical Center. She treats them. She’s there when the black in their lungs makes it impossible for them to breathe anymore, like they’re drowning in their own bodies. And that’s what she wants for Roger. That’s how much she cares about the father of my children.”
“You’re talking like the Network, Shirley. Like you have truly lost your mind. What you’re doing is shortsighted and it’s wrong,” Geneva says.
“If they don’t finish their twenty-five years to the day, we get nothing, Lima. Not even if it’s twenty-four years and 364 days,” Shirley says. “One guy finished his twenty-five years sick as a dog. He did everything he was supposed to, but he couldn’t pass Mainland medical tests. So they didn’t even give it to him then. Didn’t want whatever he had spreading on the Mainland. They refused him Redemption Freedom based on a sickness they gave him. Imagine doing all that, and working right to the end, and still not getting out?” Shirley says.
Geneva shakes her head like this is a rumor that’s not worth believing—a story that doesn’t change anything.
“That’s why Roger’s leaving, Ma. Because it’s a horrible place. Because it will kill him before it ever le
ts him out.”
Geneva spreads a towel out on the counter and places wet dishes on top.
“Do you know what they make down there?” Shirley says.
I shake my head, pulling my shirt down as DJ lies across the pillows, arms limp and dangling, mouth open.
“Shirley, stop with this,” Geneva says. “The last thing Lima needs is to get caught up in your conspiracies.”
“Guns,” Shirley says, raising her eyebrows and nodding her head when I look at her surprised and confused. “That’s what they make at the factory. Guns for guards and whoever on the Mainland wants to have them.”
I think of the headhunters around Miss Charlotte’s and the sound of their guns shooting into the dark.
“They’ll sell guns to people across the ocean. But no one in the Gutter is allowed to have a weapon. Nothing sharper than a butter knife. Right, Ma? We make the very bullets they use to shoot us and the guns that do the shooting, but we can’t be trusted to have our own. And you know why? Because they’re worried about another rebellion. And maybe they should be. I mean, what do we have to lose?”
“So what are you going to do, Shirley? You going to move down to the Lower End and join the Network? Or live on Subsidy?” Geneva says. “For heaven’s sake! He’s just got ten more years.”
“That’s ten more years, Ma!” Shirley says, the skin on her forehead stretching as though each crease is filled with a new worry.
“Fine. Be Subs. Ruin your life, Shirley. I don’t know why I even bother,” Geneva says, and Shirley growls in frustration.
“Subs?” I say.
“Subsidy Cases,” Geneva says. “They’d live on government support, collecting checks that are barely enough to survive on. And every check, Shirley, will add to your debt. Remember that.”
“I know how it works, Ma.”
“But do you get what that means?”
“Of course I do, but—”
“If you become Subs, your debt will be so impossible so fast that your girls will never have a chance at Redemption Freedom. Never. And any children they have would have to go to an academy to even have a chance.”
“Ma, we can find work. Roger can work. I can work. The girls will work. People do that, you know. We don’t have to go on Subsidy,” Shirley says.
Geneva places her hand on her chest like her daughter is breaking her heart. “You know what it’s like down there, Shirley.”
“Ma, this is hard enough.”
“Oh, you don’t know what hard is, Shirley-girl. You don’t think I’ve had it hard?” she says, nodding in my direction, and I feel my face get warm. “You don’t think I want to give up?”
“Ma—”
“You really want to become Subs like Elsa May and those friends of hers? Is that what you want? Fine. Except remember, you won’t have a nice house in the Upper End, Shirley. You’ll have a crummy apartment down there. Because let me be clear: if Roger quits that job, you-all are not living up here with me. Not so long as I’m alive. You won’t bring that life in this house. I won’t tolerate it.”
“I would never move in here,” Shirley says, and the two women stop talking as Geneva unplugs the sink, letting the water drain out.
“My daughter. A Sub,” Geneva says eventually, spitting the words out of her mouth.
“Ma, we don’t want to become Subs!”
“Then have Roger put in more hours. They say that if you get out at a certain age, there’s a lower risk of sickness. Make him work.”
“He doesn’t want to work there, Ma!”
“Who cares what he wants, Shirley! You know as well as I do that finding another job like that is near impossible. Please. Think this through.”
“Am I just supposed to let Roger die? Force him to live down there all week and see his girls only on weekends, and then tell him, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, any day now you could start coughing up blood!’?”
Geneva steps closer to Shirley, her voice so low I can hardly make out the words. “Let me tell you something: I couldn’t care less what happens to Roger. Do not make his weakness their curse. Let him work, like he should. Keep him healthy as long as you can, as best you can. But don’t let him quit.”
“It’s that simple, is it, Ma? Did you tell Pop to keep working? Did you keep him healthy? Did that work? Cuz I don’t see him around here!”
“He didn’t have a factory job. But if he did, yes, I would have told him to do that instead. Because all those boxing wins got us nothing but a bunch of worthless trophies. What the hell am I supposed to do with those?”
I sit quietly in the corner as the two of them yell, and I wonder if this is what Shirley meant about ruining everything, if my being here reminds them why Rowan is gone, and why he might never come back.
“I don’t work at the Medical Center because I like it,” Geneva says. “I don’t go out and do twelve-hour shifts six times a week because I want to. I do it because I have to. Because it gave you and me and your brother the best chance at getting out. That’s what my parents wanted for me, and I promised your brother when he left that I would work hard and save too, that it wouldn’t all rest on him.”
“And how’s that working out for you, Ma?” Shirley says. “What are you going to do now that she’s here?”
Geneva presses her lips tightly together, pausing for a moment to gather her words. “I have no tolerance for weak men,” she says sharply, pointing at her daughter. “And neither should you.”
“I’m not like you, Ma. I’m not going to push my family away,” Shirley says, stepping outside and calling for the girls without saying goodbye to her mother.
Shirley tells them it’s time to go home, and when Beula and Reina complain that it’s too early, that they’ve almost won the war and killed the monsters, Shirley tells them it doesn’t matter, that they’re leaving anyway, and Haddy throws herself on the ground.
“This is so unfair,” Beula says.
“This is so unfair, Mommy!” Reina echoes, while Haddy cries louder and louder.
“Well, sometimes life is just incredibly unfair,” Shirley says as she nudges the two girls down the road with a screaming Haddy tucked under her arm, legs kicking in the air.
32
NETWORK LETTERS APPEAR IN THE GUTTER BY WAY OF Runners, who hide notes from the Mainland inside grocery containers or special deliveries. My first letter arrives in Geneva’s vegetable box—a note from Duncan informing me of the arrival of Violet’s baby three weeks ahead of schedule.
“It was a close call, but the baby is holding on so far,” he writes. “Unfortunately, due to the smallness of the child and some other complications, little Jewel was declared medically unfit and will not be going to an academy. As soon as Violet and Jewel are safe to travel, they’ll both be heading your way.”
I pause when I read this, staring at each word. Violet didn’t want to come to the Gutter and she didn’t want to keep the baby. Now she has to do both.
“Violet is adjusting to the news,” Duncan writes. “But I wanted to let you know she’ll be there a week from today. She’ll be fine in time, Little Lima. Don’t worry.”
But all I feel is worry. For Violet and for Jewel.
“I hope all is going well and that you’ve found a place where you’re getting all the rest and Sossi love you deserve. You did good. Best, Duncan.”
I cry over these closing lines because even though we’re safe with Geneva, I worry that someone from the Mainland could show up any day and take DJ away.
THE STREETS IN the Upper End run in parallel lines, forming a neighborhood grid. The lower-numbered streets lead to the bridge, while the higher-numbered ones lead toward the main road that curves down to the Lower End. Odd numbers run east to west, and even numbers run north to south, so that by the time I take my second walk with DJ, searching for a place to live with Violet, I feel a confidence and comfort I’ve never known in any of the other places I’ve lived. As though no matter where I go, I’ll never be lost again.
Geneva’s house sits on Fifth, near Eighth—around the center of the Upper End—near a convenience store and a tiny park where hundreds of birds perch in tall trees.
On a hot, blue-sky day, when Geneva is at work, I take DJ to the park to study the birds. I hold him tightly to my chest, watching their wings, imagining what it might feel like to be light enough to soar all the way to the Hill.
“Lima!” a woman says.
I stop at the end of Geneva’s walkway, looking in every direction for the person who called my name.
“Lima!”
A woman is standing on the front steps of a lavender house, waving her arms and trying to get my attention.
I cross the street and climb up the steps to a porch where four ladies in floral dresses are seated on white chairs, sharing a pitcher of lemonade.
“I’m so glad to finally meet you,” the woman says, adding another chair around the table while the others adjust to make room. “I’m Elsa May. Please, please, have a seat.”
Elsa May introduces me to her longtime friends Cecily Smith and the Harper twins, Marley and Marnie. The twins wave hello, almost in unison, while I stare at their hair and their matching green dresses, trying to figure out a way to tell them apart.
“You all know Lima—Rowan’s lady,” Elsa May says, and the three women nod.
I consider telling Elsa May that I’m not Rowan’s “lady,” but the women have already moved on.
“May we see the baby?” one of the twins says, smiling and leaning toward DJ, who’s tightly wrapped in a thin blanket. When I tilt his face toward them, they all sigh.
“What’s the little man’s name again?” Elsa May whispers.
“Duncan Jackson,” I say. “DJ.”
“I tell you, isn’t he just the spitting image of Rowan when he was that age,” Elsa May says.
“You know, we practically raised Rowan,” Cecily says as she takes a sip of lemonade.
“Really?”
“Every time Geneva had to work and Shirley was off doing something, I looked after him,” Elsa May says. “Rowan spent just as much time here as he did at his home, if you ask me.”
Gutter Child Page 23