But when I turn back, Violet’s gone.
I rush to the ledge and when I look down, I see Violet tumbling toward the water as tiny stones and large rocks slip out of her bag like rain.
34
FOR WEEKS, I SLEEP POORLY. EVERY NIGHT, MY EYES STAY wide open as I think about the rocks falling around Violet, about the way her white dress floated up as she went down. When exhaustion hits and my eyes close for a moment, I dream that I’m falling from the bridge, never hitting the ground.
I barely leave my room, taking short rests throughout the day while DJ naps. I watch him learn to smile, roll over and grow his first teeth in a blue room that swallows me whole.
When a long letter arrives from David, tucked in the milk delivery, I hold it against my chest, grateful and ashamed, worried about what he might say now that he knows where I am.
In the letter, David thanks me for writing and apologizes for not writing sooner. “The first letter you wrote seemed meant for Josephine. I didn’t know if it was my place to read it or respond and by the time it came, it was too late. I’m glad to know that you and DJ are okay. I always knew you were brave, L.” I smile at this nickname, the way he bridges my two names in this way.
David tells me about the Freemans and the Hill and about the work he’s doing as a carpenter. I read this good news over and over, feeling both proud and envious. But other than his reference to the letter, there’s no mention of Josephine. I find it so strange that David would share so fully about everything else and say so little about his sister. Was Mr. Gregors still looking for her? Would he be looking for me too?
“I think of you often,” David says in closing, and I wonder if he thinks of me the way I remember him that night we sat together behind the Fieldhouse and on the way to the employer fair.
When DJ falls asleep, I write back to David, adding details about DJ and life in the Gutter, and asking more questions about life on the Hill. “Is it warm there? Are there others like the Freemans? What does everyone do all day?”
I ask about Josephine, and I tell him about Violet and Jewel, about the funeral and the women in white who danced and sang them to their final resting place.
“I find myself sleeping a lot these days, and I’ve been thinking about this word, rest. Because I don’t feel rested here. Maybe I never have. Is it different at the Hill? Do you feel rested there? Much love, L.”
I WAKE UP from my nap, and I can’t find DJ. I pat the mattress frantically, turning things over and checking to see if he rolled onto the floor. I pat the bed again and again, lifting and turning everything, calling his name. When I open the door, I head to the end of the hallway, where I find him sleeping on Geneva’s lap, holding a large wooden spoon.
“Geneva, what are you doing here?”
“I beg your pardon? This is my house.”
I shake my head because that’s not what I meant. I grab DJ quickly, holding his sleeping body close. “Why aren’t you at work? You’re usually at work right now. Didn’t you hear me calling for him?”
“I thought you could use the sleep,” Geneva says. “I opened the door to check on you, and DJ was just lying there, wide awake while you were asleep. So I played with him. And now he’s worn out.”
I straighten my shoulders and take a deep breath. “You shouldn’t come and take him from me like that. I appreciate the help . . . but I don’t need it anymore.”
After Violet’s death, Geneva changed her shifts at the Medical Center to start at noon and finish by dinner. She prepares breakfast for us in the morning and helps bathe DJ at night, but I don’t want her to help me anymore. I need to prove that I can be a good mother, that Miss Charlotte wasn’t right.
“Come with me,” Geneva says, grabbing a cushion from the couch and moving it onto the kitchen floor.
When I sit down at the table, she takes DJ and lays him down on the cushion. She puts a tray of vegetables in front of me and hands me a sharp knife.
“You need to get yourself together,” she says. “I’m starting you off simple. Cut.”
I pick up the knife, grab a carrot and begin peeling back the skin while she tends to the stove.
“Elsa May and the ladies have a job for you, and you’re going to do it,” Geneva says, and I wonder how she knows this when she hasn’t spoken to Elsa May in years.
“Did you hear me? You’re going to be a Runner in the Lower End. Starting tomorrow.”
I want to tell Geneva that I’m too sick or that I’m too tired, because both of these things feel true. But instead, I just nod and grab another carrot to peel.
35
I REST MY FOREHEAD AGAINST THE WINDOW AS THE BUS DIPS and curls toward the crowded streets and tall buildings of the Gutter’s Lower End. The journey takes an hour, and when we pull into the Lower End bus terminal, people pour into the Corridor like a fast-moving current that’s forceful and strong. I place my hands around DJ, who’s strapped against my chest, as tightly packed bodies bump us in the rush.
“Keep him in there,” Geneva said, showing me how to wrap DJ in a way that would allow me to carry him safely and feed him whenever I want. “Don’t take him out unless you absolutely have to.”
Her voice was firm when she said this, not annoyed or irritated, and it was this statement and this tone that terrified me the most about taking the job as a Runner in the Lower End for Elsa May, Cecily and the twins.
The young man who used to be their Runner got a job at the factory, and while they were hesitant to send a woman to do the work, and while Geneva wasn’t thrilled with the idea of DJ going along with me, all five women agreed that I was capable, and that doing the work would provide a helpful solution to their problem—Geneva was looking to get me out of a rut, and the Subsidy women were desperate.
Without a Runner, they would have to wait until later in the month to get their Subsidy—when all the checks that aren’t picked up in person are put in the mail. And it was well-known throughout the Gutter that Subsidy checks marked for Upper End legacy homes had a strange way of disappearing or getting delayed along the way.
In the Corridor, guards are stationed on every corner of the narrow lanes that break out from the main row. As I make my way through the marketplace, toward the cone-shaped building at the far end, I spot a Gutter man in all black sitting on a low wall, chatting to a small group outside the Subsidy Office. A woman in black encourages others to join as two Mainland Guards watch them both closely.
THE LINE TO get into the Subsidy Office curves down a narrow side street, even though it’s the third day of the month, and when I join the end of the line, I see the words “SOSSI” and “RESIST” spray-painted above me in black on the cracked brick wall.
According to the ladies, it’s best to come on the second or third day of the month, when those who need the checks most are already enjoying their monthly allowance.
“Every Sub is told not to leave a penny in their pocket at the end of the month. Did you know that?” Geneva said on the day Shirley and Roger packed up a truck with their belongings, bound for the Lower End. “Gutter folks think the government tracks everything. And they panic about it all the time. Especially Subs. ‘Spend every last bit,’ they say. People who are sick and dying in the Medical Center worry about how much money they have on them. And not because they want to save it or because they need it. It’s because they want to find a way to spend it before the month ends. They think that if they have anything extra, the government will start giving everyone less.”
I think about Geneva’s words as the Subsidy Office line shuffles forward into a large room with grimy floors. When I reach the front of the line, a teller calls me over just as DJ starts to wake, stirring and twisting like he’s tired of being confined. I pull out the documents for Elsa May and the ladies, plus six additional Upper End legacy families who hired me when Elsa May took me around the neighborhood. With every new name, the teller sighs, her long nails gripping each sheet like claws.
“These folks can’t come down themselves?
” she says.
“They’re quite old.”
“They’re not that old,” she says, looking at all of the paperwork. “They’re just legacy. Legacy families don’t like to come down to the Lower End. It’s like we got something they’re worried they might catch.”
DJ wiggles and squirms, and I try to feed him, thinking he might be hungry, but he tightens his lips and turns his head.
“You know, my momma got sick and had to travel an hour both ways just to get help,” the teller says. “Took twice as long when the checkpoints were slow or when the road just up and disappeared during rainy season. Shouldn’t be too worried about catching anything if you can just walk up to the Center whenever you feel like it.”
DJ squeals, his face reddening, as the teller examines each document. Occasionally, she looks up at the long line and sighs so it’s clear that I’m a bother to everyone.
“Ain’t nobody running for folks around here, but you Upper End Runners just think we got all the time in the world. You don’t see how long this line is?” she says as I stand and rock DJ.
“Betty Sayer comes down in her wheelchair. She gets herself into the line and all the way up here. On her own. Doesn’t ask for any help or complain about anything. And plenty more like her. But these legacy folks, they gotta send someone else to do it for them cuz they got all that extra money.”
When the teller slides the checks and the paperwork toward me, I prop DJ on my hip and place the papers inside the bag while she watches.
“You know, we really don’t recommend bringing children here,” she says.
I open my mouth to apologize, but the teller is already looking past me, waving for the next person in line.
ELSA MAY AND the other ladies pay me in cash, and when I sit down to write a letter to David, I spread all of the bills out on the bed like a fan. Fifty dollars, after bus fare and a small snack.
“I know it’s not a lot, but I understand why Geneva works and why you must love what you do at the Hill. I get it now,” I write as I look at the bills. “It’s not much, but it’s mine. And I don’t have to give it to anyone, David. I can’t even describe how this feels.”
I think about what Ida said back at Livingstone about the way Sossi people were meant to live, how the Gutter System changed us. And when I look down at the money, curved across the mattress, I vow to work hard, so that one day I can pass some of this on to DJ.
36
ON THE DAYS BETWEEN LOWER END RUNS, I VISIT UPPER End customers and offer discounts and meat rolls from a popular bakery in return for referrals. In addition to Subsidy runs, I take on special deliveries throughout the month, bringing groceries door to door with DJ strapped to my back or against my hip as he grows thick and stocky like his father. And I keep all of the money I make in a box.
During my second trip to the Lower End, I stop in for a short visit with Shirley after finishing at the Subsidy Office. When I return home, I sit down to write another letter to Rowan.
“Shirley tells me that you’re doing well on the circuit, and there’s a woman named Harriet, who sells lemonade, who says that for a while, no one could beat you. Does it feel good to know that people here are cheering for you, that they love you and wish you well? Does it help to know that you have fans back home, or does it add pressure?”
I tell him about my job and all the money I’m saving, and about the people in the Lower End who look at DJ and see Rowan Senior.
“Can you please just write something . . . anything . . . so that I know that you’re okay? Yours, Lima.”
FOR MY THIRD run to the Lower End, I take an earlier bus to avoid the crowds. Even though the marketplace is less busy, the Subsidy line is still slow, and as I lean over the stroller Geneva gave me to use on my runs, I check on DJ, who’s stuffing a toy car in his mouth.
“Watch it,” a woman says when we collide.
I start to apologize, but when I see the short woman with thick black hair, I stop with my mouth wide open, unable to hide my surprise. “Josephine?”
“Elimina? What are you doing here?”
She looks down at DJ, who wiggles his legs and flaps his arms at both of us. “Is he . . . yours?” she says, looking back up at me. “Is this why . . . ?”
“This is DJ,” I say, nodding. “Duncan Jackson.”
Josephine leans down closer to DJ and shakes her head. “Well, he certainly looks like his father.”
I place a hand on DJ’s head, trying not to show the hurt that comes whenever someone says this. It’s hard to see his father present in our child’s face when he’s absent in every other sense.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” Josephine says. “I knew you didn’t stand a chance the first day you met him. I tried to warn you.”
“And then you left. And we were alone,” I say, shrugging my shoulders like this is a story with only one possible ending, one she should have known. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the Hill with David?”
She looks down, and I can’t tell if she doesn’t want to talk about it or if she just doesn’t know what to say.
“I missed you,” I say.
Josephine reaches out her hands, her eyes brimming wet, and when I lean my face into her shoulder, we cry so hard that DJ cries too, and we force ourselves to stop.
JOSEPHINE AND I head to Johnny’s Restaurant, a small place across from the Subsidy Office, where they sell three meat rolls for a dollar. When our order is ready, Johnny brings the food to our booth while Josephine holds DJ on her lap.
“How long have you been here?” I say, eating a roll and breaking off small bits for DJ.
“Longer than you,” Josephine says.
“Did you know I was here?”
She shakes her head, and I think about the day she left Livingstone, how she made me believe that she was sick and that she was sad to see David go, how I could never tell what was true with her.
“I wasn’t faking, Elly,” she says, and I turn away frustrated because she always seems to know everything that’s on my mind just by watching me. “That last day. At Livingstone. I didn’t lie to you. Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“I meant every word I said. It’s just that . . . I wasn’t sad about David. I was sad to be leaving you . .. . I was sick to death about it. That part was real.” She leans over and places one hand over mine. “And it wasn’t because I couldn’t trust you. It wasn’t even because I thought you’d tell, even though that’s what I told the boys. I knew you wouldn’t do that. I just couldn’t tell you I was leaving. I couldn’t say the words.”
I look up at her, and when she bites down on her lip, I do the same, my throat sharp and stuck with all of the things I want to say but can’t.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Elimina.”
“It’s . . . it’s Lima now,” I say softly, and she nods.
I swallow hard, focusing all my efforts on feeding the meat roll to DJ, who smiles and licks his lips with every bite.
“I hope Mr. Gregors didn’t give you a hard time,” Josephine says.
“He took the coat back.”
Josephine covers her mouth. “You loved that coat,” she says.
“I did,” I say, and when we both laugh, DJ laughs too, which makes us laugh even harder.
When Josephine asks how I got here, I tell her about Riverside and Violet and the day on the bridge, hoping she’ll do me the same and tell me why she’s not at the Hill. But when I finish talking, Josephine just nods, like she has nothing to add.
“What happened, Jose?”
She leans back against the booth, holding DJ close while he tugs at her hair. “David’s fine, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s always fine,” she says, and for the first time I hear hurt and bitterness at the mention of her brother instead of need and adoration.
“That’s not what I meant,” I say.
I want to know why they’re not together and what happened at the Hill. But just as I’m about
to ask, a young boy enters the restaurant and heads our way.
“Auntie,” he says, “I was worried. I was asking everywhere for you.”
“I’m fine. I just ran into an old friend,” she says.
The boy has tight curly hair and skinny legs, and when he climbs into the booth, Josephine pulls him close while DJ stares.
“William, this is El—this is Lima and her son, DJ,” Josephine says.
William says hello, but he keeps his eyes on DJ, holding his small hands and squeezing the folds of his legs like they’re dough. “Hi, baby DJ,” he says in a small voice, and DJ smiles and flaps his napkin like a flag.
“Would you like something to eat, William? My treat,” I say.
He looks over at Josephine, and when she nods, I give him one dollar and he runs to the counter to place his order.
“William is a family friend,” she whispers. “Found him living in an abandoned apartment all by himself after his parents died. I’ve been looking out for him since I got back.”
“So, you’re here for good?”
She nods. “Have you heard from Rowan? Is he coming for you? They’ve got rules about that, you know. He can’t just abandon you and go off to the Hill by himself.”
“I haven’t heard from him since Livingstone. But he’s still boxing,” I say, as I look out the window at the busy streets and crowded marketplace.
“So it’s still possible? Your plan to go to the Hill?” she says, but I don’t say anything.
I was supposed to go to the Hill to be with her and David, and I’m not sure what to think now that she’s here.
When William returns with three rolls, Josephine takes one and breaks it up for DJ, while William scarfs down the other two.
“If he’s doing what he’s supposed to, I imagine it shouldn’t be too long,” Josephine says. “I mean, how hard can it be to punch Mainlanders for money, you know? If they gave me that job, I’d be rich.”
JOSEPHINE TAKES US to a park in Block 1 with a playground built out of slabs of concrete and metal pipes. On the way, DJ falls asleep in the stroller, and when we arrive, William makes friends with a long-haired young boy while Josephine and I sit on an old bench.
Gutter Child Page 25