Breath Like Water
Page 35
“He’s getting ready,” I lie, hoping she don’t hear him snore.
She shades her eyes and looks off toward the woods. Our land ends at the tree line. Government owns the rest.
“He’s such an idiot, not selling up when he had the chance.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He’s had offers, but you Lesters are always holding tight to things you oughta let go of.”
“There something you’re trying to say?”
“You oughta tell Bobby Ray to drop all this custody stuff. We’re moving, and he can’t stop it. He’s only making things worse, getting the courts involved.”
“You can’t go taking a kid away from her family. This is Decca’s home. She belongs here.”
“She belongs where I say she belongs till she’s eighteen. Just ’cause you and Bobby Ray are happier than pigs in shit, living in the same place you always lived, don’t mean other people can’t want more for themselves, Sammy. Just ask Denver.”
“This ain’t about me,” I snap. “Or Denver.”
“Sure as hell ain’t. But if you got anything in that head of yours besides air, you’ll get gone, too. Word is those people that been buying up the bluff are close to a deal with the corps. Before you know it, the whole lake’s gonna be a damn resort, and what’ll you do then?”
She shakes her head. “Won’t be nothing left for the old families. Trust me, you don’t wanna be the last one at that party.”
“I ain’t leaving the lake,” I tell her. “Not ever. Can’t nobody make me.”
“Guess not, if Reed couldn’t,” Rainne says. She lifts her hair and fans the back of her neck with her fingers. “That’s why he enlisted, right? Wanted out of here so bad he went to fucking Fallujah or whatever, just to get away.”
Rainne couldn’t find Fallujah on a map, and she don’t know nothing about Reed. I been trying so hard not to think about him, and here she is, throwing him in my face, the fact that he left me. Blood rushes to my face. So much for not letting her get to me.
“That’s such bulls—”
“Decca,” Rainne says in warning. My sister comes running down the hall, clutching her backpack so hard her knuckles look like little gray pebbles.
“Sorry, Mama,” she pants. “Can’t find Waldo.”
That’s a stuffed elephant Dad won for Decca at the state fair last year. Denver named him Waldo ’cause we’re always looking for him.
“Too bad.” Rainne hates Waldo. “Come on, let’s go. We got a busy day.”
“Of what?” I ask.
“Errands.” She gives me a look that says None of your goddamn business.
“Why don’t you leave her here while you take care of all that? We’ll find Waldo, and you can come get her this afternoon.”
Decca wraps her arms ’round my leg and presses her sweaty face into my thigh.
“Denver’s out fishing,” I say. “Maybe we’ll join him for a bit.”
Decca’s face lights up. “Yeah, Mama, can I?”
“No,” Rainne barks. “You been here too long as it is. Say your goodbyes and get in the car.”
Rainne walks off toward Duke’s truck, which is parked halfway on the gravel driveway and halfway on our patchy brown lawn. One of our pink plastic flamingos is bent under the weight of his front tire. He flicks a spent cigarette out the window and it lands on the dry grass. What a dick.
I get down on my knees in front of Decca, whose face is screwed up like she’s fixing to sob her guts out. Can’t have that. Duke hates it when she squalls and it makes him nasty to her.
“Don’t you cry now,” I say. “Lesters don’t cry, and your mama won’t like it.”
Decca sniffles. “Mama says we’re moving away. She says pretty soon I won’t see you no more.”
I gather her to me and squeeze tight. “Can’t nobody keep us from seeing each other, you hear?”
“Promise?” Decca asks, sticking her pinky out.
I shake my head. “No promises.”
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you never promise a kid anything.
“How about hope instead?” I offer.
“Okay. Hope.”
I link my pinky with Decca’s and we shake on it. Then I take her in my arms again and give her the fiercest hug I’ve got in me.
“Hoping real hard, sweet pea,” I whisper. I twist her baby-fine blond hair gently ’round my finger. She looks more like me than she’s got any right to. Denver and I don’t look a thing alike and we got both parents in common.
Decca’s like me in a lot of ways, which is why I hold out my palm and say, “Backpack.”
She glares at me. “I didn’t take nothing.”
“Don’t make me use this hand for something else.”
She makes a face, but she gives over the bag. I go through it till I find what I’m looking for.
“You know the rule,” I say, grabbing her arm just hard enough so she knows I mean it. I slip my phone in my pocket. Ain’t the first time she’s lifted it. “No stealing. Especially from family.”
“Sorry,” she says, pouting.
I sigh. What kind of person will she grow up into, if there ain’t someone around who knows her tricks?
Dad clears his throat. He’s standing over us, hair sticking up in the back. “What’s going on?”
“Mama’s here,” Decca tells him. “I gotta go now.”
Dad lifts Decca off her feet and cuddles her to his chest. She loops her arms ’round his neck and buries her face in his shoulder.
Puts a lump in my throat to see them loving on each other like that. My childhood memories of Dad are slippery as dreams, but he’s trying with Decca, and if that don’t make up for how he was when I was her age, at least it reminds me of all the good he’s still got in him. Makes me glad he came back to us.
“I know you don’t wanna, baby girl,” Dad says, smoothing a few sweat-drenched strands of hair off Decca’s forehead. Ain’t even eight o’clock and must be ninety degrees already. “But it’s just for a little while. The judge is gonna fix it so you can visit whenever you want.”
“Don’t,” I say. Decca will cling to that white lie till it’s crushed to dust in her pudgy fist.
Dad ignores me. “You can come and stay with me and Sammy all the time. We’ll go down to Tulsa to see the animals at the zoo. Maybe Denver’ll come, too. Would you like that?”
Decca nods. She’s always open to bribes.
“First you gotta go with your mama and be a real good girl, you hear?”
“Do you promise—if I’m a good girl—can I stay with you?”
“Decca—” I say, but Dad cuts me off.
“Yes, baby,” he says. “I promise.”
Copyright © 2017 by Anna Jarzab
ISBN-13: 9781488056949
Breath Like Water
Copyright © 2020 by Anna Jarzab
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