by Tawni O'Dell
“His name was Dimwit,” Kenny volunteers.
“Dmitri, you idiot,” Fanci turns on him. “It’s a foreign name like Jonathan.”
“He didn’t hurt her, did he? Or the baby?”
“They were friends,” Kenny says confidently.
“Not really friends,” Fanci corrects him. “They got into a fight, but they definitely knew each other.”
Kenny tugs on my J&P jacket to get my attention.
“I wanted to hit her with a bottle like you said, but Fanci wouldn’t let me.”
“You’re too little,” she tells him, then glares at me accusingly. “I would’ve hit them with my stick but you made me keep it outside.”
“Thank God for that,” I say. “You can’t go around hitting men with sticks.”
“Why not?”
“Because they hit back.”
I usher them both inside my house.
A delicious rich spicy smell that can only be chicken paprikash hits me the moment I open the front door. A big pot is simmering on my stove.
Fanci sees where my eyes land.
“He showed up with a bag of groceries and started cooking,” she explains. “He said he was making it for the ballerina cop, whoever that is.”
“It smells good,” Kenny informs me.
We all walk over to the stove. I raise the lid.
“It sure does,” I agree with Kenny. “Maybe we should have some.”
I get some bowls and plates down out of the cupboard and direct Fanci to the silverware drawer.
“Why don’t you set the table? I’ll be right back.”
I go check out Shannon’s room.
All of her belongings are gone. If I didn’t know Shannon I might say the room was hastily abandoned. The bed is a mess; the drawer made into a temporary crib is still sitting on the floor. But I know it would never have occurred to her to clean up after herself just as it would never have occurred to her to leave me a note. Both acts would have required her to think about me.
I walk over to the drawer and pick up the pillow I had stuffed inside it to make a mattress. I bring it to my nose and breathe in deeply. It smells like baby.
I never thought for one minute that she would try to leave so soon. I thought I’d have at least a couple days to talk her into keeping the baby and sticking around for awhile. I could barely walk from my hospital bed to the bathroom during the first twenty-four hours after Clay’s birth, let alone get in a car and drive.
I glance around the room and feel the same helpless, hopeless emptiness and failure I felt eighteen years ago after Shannon disappeared the first time. I was hoping for an answer then, just as I’m hoping for one now, but nothing comes to me other than the thought that maybe eighteen years ago wasn’t the first time she disappeared. Maybe Shannon disappeared a few days after her birth, or at least an important part of her did, the part that would enable her to survive the loneliness; maybe the furnished part of her soul took wing with the rest of our mother’s soul that day as it flew away from us to live with the angels while our mortal selves remained behind taking our naps.
Fanci and Kenny are sitting at the table when I return to the kitchen.
I spoon the chicken into their bowls, and they fall upon it eagerly.
I get some for myself, too. My junk food binge this morning made me feel sick the rest of the day and I haven’t eaten since. Now I’m hungry on a purely physical level where my body is telling me I need to eat, but I can’t enjoy the taste of the food. Right now I don’t feel like I’ll ever enjoy anything ever again.
“Did Shannon and the man leave together?” I ask them.
“They left at the same time in different cars,” Fanci replies as she reaches across the table and pulls pieces of chicken off the bone for Kenny and drops them into his bowl of peppery red sauce.
“What did they fight about?”
“The baby.”
“What about the baby?”
“He said he wanted to help pick out the family she’s gonna sell the baby to. He said if she didn’t let him help he’d stop any adoption she’d try to do.”
“Did he say how he was going to stop her?”
“He said he could do it because he’s the mythological father,” Kenny interjects.
Fanci flashes him an annoyed look. The broad sweeps of silver around her dark eyes remind me of a raccoon’s mask in reverse and give her a slightly sinister, wily appearance.
“Biological father, you moron,” she corrects him. “Mythological is a kind of story. Remember? Like the story I read you last night in People magazine about Britney Spears having a baby.”
“Is she gonna sell her baby, too?” Kenny wonders.
I freeze with my fork halfway to my mouth.
“He said he was the baby’s father?”
They both nod.
Fanci continues, “Then your sister said, ‘Don’t remind me. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to get pregnant with someone I know.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Are they gonna sell the little baby?” Kenny asks suddenly with his mouth full of chicken and red sauce dripping down his chin.
“I thought you said it was against the law,” Fanci says. “You said I couldn’t give you Kenny to pay for a ride because it was against the law.”
“Using your little brother for cab fare and deciding to let someone adopt your baby in exchange for a lot of cash are completely different things.”
“How?”
“It’s too complicated to explain,” I reply, starting to feel a little frustrated, especially because I can’t readily explain, even to myself, why they’re different. “They’re both wrong,” I add. “They’re both morally wrong, because in order to sell something or trade something you have to own it and a person can’t own another person.”
“But another person can own you,” Fanci quotes me.
“You’ll learn more about that when you start dating,” Kenny adds sagely.
My cell phone rings.
It’s so unexpected, the sound makes me jump.
I hope against all hope that it’s Clay calling to say he’s thought it over and he forgives me for lying all these years and he doesn’t hate me, or it’s E.J. calling to say he’s thought it over and he forgives me for using him last night and treating him like shit this morning and we can still be friends, or it’s Shannon calling to say she’s thought it over and she forgives me for failing to make her love me and we can still be sisters.
“Hello? Shae-Lynn? It’s Gerald Kozlowski.”
I’m too disappointed to say anything.
“Please don’t hang up,” he adds hurriedly. “Hear me out first.”
“Make it quick.”
“How is Shannon?”
My first instinct is to lie to protect her and the baby but then I realize there’s no point to any of it anymore. Kozlowski isn’t the enemy. The only person she needs to be protected from is herself.
“As far as I know, she’s fine. She had the baby this afternoon. I went out for an hour and she flew the coop.”
This doesn’t seem to surprise him.
“What kind of head start does she have?”
“A couple hours.”
“I don’t suppose I could convince you to go after her? I’d pay quite a bit.”
“I’m not interested. Plus she may or may not be traveling with Dmitri. I have no desire to run into him again.”
“What do you mean? Has he convinced her to sell the baby to Mickey?”
“I don’t know what he’s thinking about. I only know he expects to be involved in the adoption decision. Probably so he can get his cut of the profits, too. Apparently, he’s the father.”
This information silences him for a moment.
“You’re kidding me. That doesn’t sound like something Shannon would do.”
“You mean get pregnant with someone she knows?”
“They met when we were working out the adoption with Dmitri’s employer. I had no ide
a they became involved.”
“Well, apparently they did, and he knows it’s his baby. I’m assuming the reason he came after her was because he wants his share of the money, too, or he’ll contest any adoption she tries.”
“What a bastard.”
I almost laugh out loud at this statement coming from Kozlowski.
“Do you think we can call a truce long enough for you to drive me to the airport tomorrow? I can’t get a ride from anyone else.”
“We’ll work out something,” I tell him.
I let the kids finish their meal, then I drive them home.
The drama of Shannon’s flight and Fanci and Kenny’s company kept me distracted, but once I return to my empty house I’m powerless to keep the thoughts of Clay and Cam at bay.
I’m so sad, I don’t feel any of the things I usually feel when I’m sad. I have no desire to drink or hurt myself or hurt someone else or have sex with someone I know I’m going to leave. I’m numb. After a lifetime of not crying, I think it might be nice to finally cry, but I can’t. There’s no moisture in my body. My insides have turned to ash.
I go to my bedroom closet and bring out a box of Clay’s old school papers and art projects and spread them all over my bed.
I pick through macaroni necklaces and Popsicle-stick picture frames, reports on George Washington and time lines of dinosaurs, Thanksgiving turkeys made from the outline of his hand and Mother’s Day poems written on paper doilies sprinkled with gold glitter.
One of his worksheets from second grade catches my eye. I remember it immediately. It’s about jobs. The questions list different jobs and ask the children why each one is important.
Policemen are important because:
Clay has written: they help people.
Farmers are important because: they feed people.
Teachers are important because: they teach us things.
Doctors are important because: they make people feel better.
Bus drivers are important because: they take people where they want to go.
I’m reading each of his responses when I hear someone pulling into my driveway. I jump up from my bed and rush to the window.
E.J.’s truck comes to a stop beside my Subaru.
I leave the room and go answer the door with the worksheet still in my hand.
“I figure one of us is going to have to be the adult and I know it’s not going to be you,” he announces the moment I open the door.
I imagine he rehearsed it and decided he was going to say it fast before I had a chance to say anything stupid first.
“Come on in.”
I turn and walk to the couch expecting him to follow. I plunk down on the cushions feeling like my entire body is made of lead.
He takes a seat next to me.
“We had a pretty good thing going,” I tell him. “I don’t want to screw up our relationship by being in love and having great sex.”
“Sure,” he says, frowning. “I can understand that. Who’d want to be in love and have great sex when they could just hang out and argue and drink beer instead?”
“Exactly my point.”
“So this pretty good relationship you’re talking about. What is it exactly? A friendship?”
“I guess.”
“Okay. Why is it we can’t be in love and have great sex and still have our friendship?”
“What planet are you from? When does that ever work?”
“It works for my mom and dad, although I don’t particularly like to think about the great sex part with them.”
I don’t say anything. I sit and stare at the floor, not even aware that I’m still holding Clay’s worksheet.
“Lib and Teresa have been together for a long time. They seem happy,” he adds.
“It won’t work for us.”
“How about we won’t be in love but we can still have the sex and the friendship?”
“You have to choose one.”
“Oh, no. No, no.” He shakes his head and holds out his hands like he’s stopping traffic. “I know how this works. There’s no right answer. If I choose the friendship you’re gonna start ranting about how I don’t like having sex with you and if you were twenty-five and blond I would’ve picked sex. And if I pick the sex then you’re gonna call me a macho pig and tell me I don’t appreciate you as a human being and I only see you as a piece of ass.”
I don’t contradict him.
“Why can’t I see you as a human being and a piece of ass?”
“It can’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Because nothing ever works for me.”
Except for one thing, I continue silently to myself. There was one thing I thought I had succeeded at, but I was wrong about that.
He puts his arm around my shoulders.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think I may have lost Clay,” I tell him in a whisper.
“What are you talking about?”
I look down at the very last question on the worksheet.
Who do you think has the most important job?
Through my tears I see Clay’s answer written by a careful and determined seven-year-old’s pencil: Moms have the most important job because moms make people.
Chapter Thirty-One
THE HORRIBLE GIRL FLOWERS and the animals feeding on them are gone. They’re only here in summer and now it’s fall.
The field has become a park and the crisp air is full of kaleidoscopic eddies of autumn leaves that break apart and scatter: Some are blown against benches and monuments, some get stuck to the damp pavement, others are forced into piles by men dressed in white uniforms wielding gold rakes, while others hover in the air like butterflies in front of my outstretched hand.
They are a riot of color: pumpkin orange and rain slicker yellow, eggplant purple and mushroom brown, pale ginger and dark crimson, tawny and pink and the red of a warning flag. Some covered in bright green veins or streaks of salmon or tiny yellow spots like a rash.
They’re so beautiful, I want to take them home with me and keep them forever. I start collecting them and stuffing them into the pockets of the coat I’m wearing. I can’t stop myself even after the pockets are full. I keep pushing them down deeper, crushing them, until I begin to hear muffled screams.
I pull my hands out of my pockets bristling with leaves and all of them have the wailing faces of infants.
I’m startled and frightened and even repulsed. My instinct is to throw them away and I do, flapping my hands to shake them off. They’re swept away by an air current, somersaulting and swirling, all the while screaming. I start to chase after them even though I’m not sure I want them, but the wind picks up and soon all the leaves have been lifted off the ground into a gigantic colorful sobbing swarm.
I WAKE WITH a start. My heart is thudding dully behind my eardrums. It sounds like it resides inside my head now instead of my chest.
My son is gone, is my first thought. It’s a completely foreign one: one I’ve never faced before except in maternal nightmares where he swam out too far in a great gray sea and I couldn’t get to him, or he ran out in front of a speeding car and I couldn’t get to him, or he went to work in black tunnels of rock miles beneath my feet and I couldn’t get to him.
My son is gone. It’s true but it can’t be.
I push the thought away and try to return to a time before I knew the truth, back to that slice of blissful ignorance between sleeping and waking before anything is clear.
I remember feeling this same brief sweet moment as a child where I wasn’t conscious enough yet to know my mom was gone. I’d wake up and lie still in my bed with my eyes closed and know she was going to come to me as soon as I called, and as cold, awful reality began to seep into my thoughts I’d still cling to this hope the same way I’d try to fall back asleep on those rare mornings when I woke up from a good dream.
Nothing is clear anymore. My thoughts become more and more muddled.
My son is gone. My sist
er is here. My sister is gone. My sister is back. My son is gone. My sister was never gone because my sister was never here. I have a niece. My niece is gone. My son is gone. E.J. was gone. E.J. is back. E.J. is here and different. Cam Jack is back. My son is gone. Cam Jack was never here. Cam Jack has always been everywhere. My son is gone.
I open my eyes and roll over and find a warm male body in my bed.
My son is gone. My sister is gone. Her baby is gone. E.J. is here. E.J. is here in my bed.
His eyes fly open suddenly, like my stare is a physical presence that just poked him in the ribs.
We find ourselves staring stupidly at each other in the faint half-light of barely six in the morning. I can only hope I don’t look half as goofy as he does.
He gives me a lazy, loyal, bad boy grin, the smile of a man who’d risk robbing a bank for me but could never be convinced to drive out of his way to find me an ATM without a service fee.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say back.
He reaches for me and pulls me on top of him. I stretch out over his body, placing my lips against the wiry roughness of the stubble on his chin, pressing my breasts against the hard flatness of his chest, rocking the softness of my belly over the tip of his erection, draping my smooth legs over his hairy ones: I’m a blanket of female.
His hands run up and down the length of me, lingering in the small of my back, sliding over my ass, pulling me up and positioning my hips so he can push inside me.
Afterward, I stay on top of him with my head against his chest listening to his heartbeat and feeling a ticklish solitary drop of juice from our coupling trickle down my inner thigh.
I’m drifting back into sleep when E.J. sits up suddenly.
“Shit. Look at the sky.”
I look over my shoulder at the window and see the pale gray sky and know immediately what he means.
I roll off him and he bolts out of bed.
“Are you going to be late?”
“Hell, yeah.”
He starts darting around my bedroom looking for his underwear.
“What about your lunch?” I ask him, the familiar panic from my childhood descending over me like a hood.
All my other thoughts are blocked out; I’m blind except for the image of my father’s disappointed, disapproving face scowling down at me.