“I didn’t tell her to do anything,” I say quietly, hoping he’ll lower his voice.
“I just got here, Elimi—Ell—Lima, whatever. It hasn’t even been a day. Give me some room to goddamn breathe.”
I reach out and grab his arm. “But where are you going to look for work? Aren’t you coming back with us?”
He pulls his arm back. “The Mainland isn’t the only place that pays boxers. Half the boxers here are better than those Mainland guys and the pay is good. It’s good enough. I just gotta find my way in,” he says. “I’ll just have to show them I can hang with these guys.”
When I return to the table, DJ is sucking on the straw of his milkshake so hard and so fast, I have to pull the whole cup away to get him to slow down. He licks the shake off his face, smacking his tongue against his mouth and smiling like he’s tasting bits of heaven.
I can feel Josephine watching me, and I don’t look up because I don’t know what to say in return. I’m sorry. You were right. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what to do with my life.
40
I CRAWL OUT OF BED AND TURN ON THE LIGHTS IN THE kitchen to find Rowan sitting on the tiled floor, leaning against the cupboards in the middle of the night. His clothes are torn and bloody, and when he turns to look at me, I notice a gash across his forehead and a fat lip caked in dried blood. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since he left us in the restaurant two days ago.
“Rowan, what happened?” I say, wetting a cloth before bending down to clean him up and check his wounds.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m sorry, Elimina,” he whispers with sour breath. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry.”
“Where have you been?”
But he doesn’t answer. He just keeps on shaking his head.
I grab ice from the freezer, place it in a cloth and dab at the wound before holding it to his mouth. I think of that day in the barn when I first saw him cry, and when he pulls me close, wincing at each painful touch, I know he’s thinking of that night as well.
“Sing,” he says.
“Rowan, please. Tell me what’s going on.”
He places his elbows on his knees and drops his head low between his legs.
“Rowan?” I say, sitting next to him on the floor.
“I don’t know how,” he says, looking down and choking on his words.
“You don’t know how to what?”
“I don’t know how to fight anymore.”
I wait for more, and he lets out a long, deep breath.
“I fought hard out there, Elimina. I swear. I know Momma doesn’t think that. I know you probably don’t think that either. You probably don’t think much of me. And you’d be right. But I fought hard.”
“I know you fought hard,” I say, ignoring the way he always refuses to use my new name.
“I did what you said and I used what I felt, and I got them. They thought they could bring this Gutter kid up and that I would just fight bad and mean, that I would lose and everyone would be happy. That’s what the MBC thought. They think we can’t be good at anything. But I proved them wrong. I beat all of them Mainland boys—even the big ones. I was good. Just like folks say.”
“That’s why people love you. That’s why they’re so proud. You did good.”
“Yeah. Too good,” he says. “Turns out . . . they didn’t want me to win. They wanted me to fight, but they didn’t want me to win.”
I lift his face and clean the blood from the fleshy cut on his forehead, handing him the ice. “Hold it on your eye,” I say, and he nods, leaning his head back and holding it gently against his skin.
“They said people would pay a lot to see a Gutter kid get beat up in the ring. So they offered me a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“They paid me to lose, and they said they would send me back if I didn’t do it. I had to let all of their boxers beat me. But only barely. I had to make it believable. My trainer, my debt manager—they were all in on it. They all made money by telling me which round to lose in and how to do it so people would believe.”
I reach out and touch his hand gently where the bruises are purple, the knuckles split and raw.
“I’m a loser, Elimina. And you should know this.”
“Is that why you’re back?”
He shakes his head. “They would have paid me to lose forever. Sent me around as the Great One from the Gutter, only to watch me get beat up. It never got old for them. I mean, I almost had Redemption Freedom. I was close.”
We sit there for a moment as the ice drips in his hand, melting into a puddle on the floor.
“I was in a fight that I was supposed to lose with this Mainland kid,” he says. “Cory Flake. He was a terrible boxer, and I was supposed to let him win. I mean, it wasn’t hard to fake losing. But this guy was bad. For the whole fight, he kept whispering, ‘Gutter, Gutter, Gutter.’ He kept whispering it under his breath like he knew he was going to win. Even though he was terrible. He really believed he was better than me. And I let him win. Just like they wanted. He grinned when it was over, like he earned it. And I was so mad. I’ve never felt angry like that before, Elimina.”
I take the cloth and soak up the small puddle. I wring out the cold water in the sink while Rowan remains seated on the floor.
“After the match, I went to the bar. I’m walking down the street, and this guy calls me Gutter under his breath. He was skinny, really cocky, like Cory Flake. Only he was just a regular guy. And I snapped. That’s what it felt like in my head, Elimina. Like one of those branches that breaks apart in your hands.” He snaps his fingers, letting the click sit in the air for a moment.
“I turned and punched him hard, and I kept punching and punching. I just remember thinking, I don’t have to lose now. I can win this fight.”
I lean back against the counter, while Rowan stares down at the floor. “Is he okay?” I say, but Rowan shakes his head.
“He survived. But only barely, which some say is worse. His head and his mind aren’t the same, you know. He was a good-looking guy, well known. Some important government kid.”
“So that’s why they sent you back.”
He bobs his head up and down, like he doesn’t quite believe it yet. “The MBC told me I couldn’t fight anymore. I’ve been banned. That’s why Momma’s so mad. I’ve got nothing. Less than nothing. They took all the money I made. Everything but the cash I had tucked away.”
Rowan puts his hands on the floor and rolls to his side, and I move to help him stand up. “You have nothing?”
“All the money I earned since I started boxing is going to that guy and his family,” he says.
I place my hands over my mouth. If Rowan has all of his debt, it means that unless we send DJ to an academy, he’ll inherit all of our debt.
“And now. Now I’m just a fucking loser. I got in the ring with a guy in the Lower End last night or tonight. I can’t remember. He was untrained. Bad feet, weak block. But I couldn’t beat him. I couldn’t beat this kid. It’s like I didn’t know how to win anymore.” He pulls me close, gripping my arms. “I get why Violet did what she did, Elimina. I get it.”
“Rowan, stop it. Don’t say that,” I say, pulling away.
He leans into me and grips me tightly, burying his face in my chest and weeping the way DJ does when he’s tired himself out.
When I lift my head, I see Geneva standing in the shadows, watching us from beyond the light as Rowan sobs. I think about what Ida said back at the academy—how the hardest battles to fight are the ones that come for our minds. And I close my eyes and hold him tighter.
41
ROWAN SPENDS MOST OF HIS TIME BOXING IN THE LOWER End. There are rumors about his gambling that I try to ignore because money is hard to come by and he rarely offers anything to help with the costs of raising our child.
Elsa May tells me that Rowan is visiting other women in the Upper End, taking clothing, jewelry and the leftover subsidy their dead h
usbands left behind in exchange for favors she can’t bear to mention. Lola Ferguson, who lives five doors down, sees him more often than I do—a woman who’s the same age as Elsa May and Cecily but who, according to the ladies, “likes them young.”
Rowan’s behavior makes everything worse with Geneva, who feels the shame of seeing what happened with Rowan Senior happen all over again with her son. For all of his boxing accomplishments, Rowan Senior was known for being familiar with women who didn’t mind knowing they weren’t the only one.
But if Geneva was to blame for Rowan Senior, then I am to blame for her son, and she takes every chance she can get to remind me of my failures as a wife and a mother.
“You better keep an eye on that man of yours,” she says, shaking her head as she sits on the couch on the sixth night of his absence—his longest so far.
When DJ is asleep, I sit down to write a letter to David, only I don’t know what to say or how to start. I want to tell him about Rowan, about what he’s like and how it feels to live with Geneva, but I just send a poem from the blue book about a weary, troubled woman instead.
I feel the difference it makes to share someone else’s words, how it makes me feel less alone, and I sign the bottom, “Missing you terribly, Love L.”
WHEN I FIND out that I’m pregnant again, I feel so ashamed. I stop writing to David, and I skip my visits with Josephine, rushing back to the Upper End to lie down in a blue room that seems to get smaller and tighter every day.
When I tell Rowan that we’re having another baby, he smiles—as though a baby offers proof that he’s still a man and that we are a family, when neither of these things feel true. He is broken, and I am breaking too.
I don’t tell Geneva about the baby, but when she finds me throwing up in the bathroom, she lays into Rowan about how he ought to find himself work and how we better be out by the time the baby arrives. “I’m not raising two more babies when the two I have are such disappointments,” she says.
There’s so much hate and anger in her voice, like she’s yelling at Rowan and the husband who left her at the same time.
“You are a no-good mess of a father,” she says.
“Don’t worry, Elimina. I’ll find us a good place,” Rowan says when he crawls into bed and finds me crying.
But this doesn’t help at all. If we move, we won’t survive long on the money I make. If Rowan can’t find a real job, Subsidy life will be the only life DJ and the baby ever know. And the heaviness of passing down all of our mistakes presses hard against my bones.
“I want to give them something better, something more,” I say to Rowan, choking back tears.
“We will, we will. We’ll give them everything,” he says, holding on to my belly and kissing my shoulder, like everything is going to be okay.
WHEN I RECEIVE another letter from David, I open it alone, treasuring each line as though it might hold some cure for my unhappiness. He writes about the progress he’s making on a house he’s building for himself on the Hill, and I read each word slowly, trying to imagine his life in this whole different world.
“It’s a small place. But it will be mine,” he says.
The letter is full of happy thoughts and good news about the generosity of the Freemans, who have promised that if he works for them until he’s thirty, they will give him Redemption Freedom.
“So soon, L. I can almost touch it,” he says. “Please write back. I’ve been so worried about you since you sent that poem.”
I cry so hard when I read these words because I have nothing good to send back to him. But when I think about all of the letters I wrote to Rowan, waiting for a response, I force myself to write something.
I tell David about the gambling rumors and the stories surrounding Lola Ferguson. I tell him about the baby, and all of the pain and fear that I’ve been feeling, and I beg him not to be angry.
“Please, don’t worry, David. I’ll be okay. I miss you terribly. Love, L.”
I WAKE IN the middle of the night to the sound of cardboard scratching across the carpet as DJ sleeps next to me. I blink my eyes, thinking it’s Rowan, but when I see Geneva dragging a box from the closet, then returning for the trophies on the shelf, I sit up. “What are you doing, Geneva? What time is it?”
She hesitates for a moment, but she doesn’t answer. She just pulls the boxes down the hall, closing the door behind her. I climb out of bed and follow her outside, where she’s dumped all of the trophies and the boxing gloves into a metal garbage bin that she’s pulled onto the front lawn.
“One day, when we have our own place, we’ll put them up on display,” Rowan had said to DJ soon after he arrived, handing him a medal he won on the Mainland, which DJ rammed into his mouth.
Geneva pours gasoline over everything. She lights a match and tosses it into the bin, and the flames rise so high she laughs while I shield my face from the warmth.
When Rowan comes running down the street in an oversized pair of sweatpants a few minutes later, I can tell by the smirk on Geneva’s face that she knew he was with Lola Ferguson, whose bedroom window looks out on her front lawn.
“Ma, what the hell are you doing?” he yells, breathing heavy, sweat dripping off his chin.
“I should never have let you box,” she says as she watches the flames chew up everything.
I stare at the fire too, pushing my hair back over my shoulder as everything crackles and burns.
“Are you crazy, Ma? Do you want the whole house to burn down? Elimina, get some water.”
But I don’t move. I just watch the trophies bend and curl as Rowan runs into the house. He returns with a pot of water, which he pours frantically over the flames. Everything sizzles, and when the smoke settles, Rowan curses and kicks the bin because it’s too late. Everything is destroyed.
“This is why Pops left and why we’re leaving too,” Rowan yells, slamming the pot on the ground. “You’re crazy. Totally nuts. And you’re going to make her crazy too.”
I look at Geneva and then at him, wondering if this is true. Is this how crazy feels?
“Let’s go, Elimina!”
“Where are you going?” Geneva says, stepping toward him, and I wonder how she does it—how she stands up to him without any fear, just like she does when she talks to the guards. “Who the hell is going to take you in? How are you going to pay for food or rent? You going to be Subs like your sister?”
“I have money,” he says, and she laughs.
“Today you do. Today you have Lola Ferguson’s money, but what about tomorrow, Rowan? What about tomorrow?” she yells.
Across the street, Elsa May peeks her head through the curtains, while other neighbors step out of their houses to examine the source of the noise. But Lola Ferguson’s porch remains empty, her bedroom dark, like she wants us to believe she’s not there.
“Where are you going to go, Rowan?” Geneva shouts, and he turns around and points at his mother, taking a few steps closer to her.
“Pops was right when he walked out on you,” he says, and when Geneva takes a swing, Rowan grabs her arm and pushes her away with a small shove.
“That’s it, Ma. I’m done,” he says, storming back into the house.
Geneva stands on the lawn, and for a moment I stand with her, staring at the mess of burnt trophies and what’s left of an old pair of boxing gloves before joining Rowan in the house.
42
OUR FIRST APARTMENT IS LOCATED IN THE SOUTHWEST building of Block 15—the block farthest from the Corridor and closest to the factory. It’s filled with painters, musicians and artists who sleep in and stay up late, and factory workers who put in long shifts and return to the Upper End on Friday nights.
We arrive with a few bags piled on Rowan’s shoulders and DJ slumped in the stroller when the sun is barely lifted in the sky. When I see the mural on the side of the building, I cry because I know right away that this is the block where I was born and Rosalind died.
During the day, the painting looks like mo
ving bodies, black and yellow, graceful and strong. But at night, neighbors say the dancing wall bends and curls in eerie ways, like terrible monsters reaching out in the dark.
Rowan leaves DJ and me alone in the empty apartment to search for furniture. When he returns, he brings a stained couch he found in a drop-bin and a mattress from an abandoned apartment down the hall.
I don’t tell Rowan about Rosalind or about what happened in the alley. But I can’t help but feel that I am reliving my past. Like my entire life is moving backwards.
When I ask him why he picked this building and this block, Rowan tells me that he almost picked a different place because the mural makes the building look poor.
“It’s why it’s got the cheapest apartments,” he says with a disapproving shake of his head. “Like everyone who lives here is too poor to get anything more.”
“Well, we are poor,” I say, looking down at the clothes I pulled from Rowan’s drawers, everything baggy and long. “And we can’t afford anything more.”
I reach for a cup from a bin of dishes that a neighbor brought over while Rowan was out and he grabs me by the arm, pulling me hard, so the cup crashes to the floor.
“Don’t you ever say we’re poor,” he shouts. “I got this place for you, didn’t I? Can’t you just be grateful for once?”
When Rowan leaves, I look out the window and watch as he disappears into the shadows. I think about his words and his expression, about the feel of his hand pulling me hard, and I wonder if Rowan is just like those murals, someone who is two things at once, depending on the light.
JOSEPHINE LIVES ONE block away from our apartment, and when I knock on the door, she answers wearing a black dress with her hair braided in skinny rows. It’s been three months since I’ve seen her, and I bring a small bag of meat rolls and hold them out in front of her as my first attempt at apologizing.
“Well, look who it is,” she says, snatching the bag and leaning against the door frame.
My heart breaks because I recognize the expression on her face right away. It’s the same way I felt when I came home from the employer fair—like she misses me and hates me for how I disappeared without any warning.
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