A Hole in the Universe

by Mary McGarry Morris

  “Okay, Ma. Okay, I’ll get you some. See?” she said, fumbling a rock from her pocket. “Just this one, okay? I’ll get it ready, then tomorrow we’ll go down to rehab and get you all signed up, okay? Where’s the pipe, the bottle?” she asked, lifting her mother’s arms, feeling down between the cushions.

  She ran into the bedroom and ripped the blanket off the bed, and the Mountain Dew bottle rolled onto the floor. She stuck the straw back in the side as she ran around, looking for a lighter. Matches. Anything. “Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! Just wait!” she panted, and dumped out her mother’s pocketbook on the couch. The first match hissed out. She struck another one and held the trembling flame to the rock.

  “Here, here it is, Ma.” She put the straw in her mother’s mouth. Her mother’s eyes widened, glaring with such rage that Jada jerked back and held the bottle at arm’s length. “Inhale, Ma! C’mon! Try! You have to!”

  With that her mother’s body shuddered. Head back, spine arched, she stiffened, seized by a groan from deep in her bowels, from a foul and wrenching darkness. Her eyes rolled back and her mouth hung open. She sagged forward and her chin hit her chest.

  “Ma? Ma?” Jada cried, trying to pinch the slack lips around the straw. “Ma! Don’t! Don’t do this!” she screamed, throwing herself at her.

  CHAPTER 26

  The minute the guard opened the door, she changed her mind about showing Gordon the new picture of May Loo. Stiffly erect, he seemed as immovable as the metal table and chairs bolted to the floor. His face under the wire-caged ceiling lights was haggard and gray. Days after his arrest, the papers had been filled with stories of the first murder. She’d vowed not to read them, then spent hours poring over every word, looking for some portentous fact that had eluded her the first time. The details had evoked a new horror in her. She had been too young then. It had barely seemed real: the boy on trial, the murderer in the papers, was not the same Gordon Loomis she had known. But this man, this murderer, was someone she loved, which made her part of the ugliness and her life even more pathetic. As much as she wanted to comfort him, the new, strong voice in her head warned, Keep your distance.You have your own future to think of. And May Loo’s. She couldn’t even be sure of his innocence anymore. The impenetrable calm thickened around him like ice. She couldn’t tell if his was the inertia of shock or disinterest now with his forced half-smile. Her monologue felt like a flimsy boat she could barely cling to as they drifted further apart. Soon it would be over, and they both knew it.

  She had just told him how the drug dealers were out in force again, back on the streets. “And here you sit, but I guess the police think that’s okay,” she said, wanting to agitate him, the guard, someone—or maybe just herself. Anything would be better than his funereal composure. How could he just sit there and let this happen all over again?

  “It’s been cool these last few days, thank goodness. I’ve been painting the spare room.” She didn’t dare call it May Loo’s room. “Yellow walls, with the cutest border—these little ballet dancers. Now I’m going to do the bureau. It’s unfinished.” She had to take a deep breath. “You’ve done a lot of painting. How many coats do you think I should do?”

  He blinked, trying to refocus. “I don’t know. I didn’t paint furniture.”

  She glanced at her watch. This was a waste of time and a day’s pay. Her home visit was next week. She’d lose another day then.

  “You should go,” he said, and she felt guilty in her relief, then sad with the loss of an old hope. When she used to visit him at Fortley, she’d be so giddily nervous that the words would just spill out, then all the way home she’d cringe, remembering every inane thing she’d said, prattling on about people he didn’t even know, places he’d never been to, and never once would he tell her anything about himself. She’d always felt the need to entertain him, as if she might entice him to freedom with the wonders of ordinary living. Or had she just been trying to convince herself each time that it was worth it, that thirty-day span between visits a perilous footbridge made bearable because every experience, no matter how dull or painful, could be reworked, refashioned, polished, and cut for his diversion? And what pleasure the anticipation and telling gave her compared to the flatness she would feel afterward, this same emptiness. Freedom had been a disappointment for both of them.

  She asked if he needed anything. No, he said. Dennis and Lisa had brought a few things from home. She stood up. Could she check on the house for him? No. She couldn’t get in anyway: Dennis had locked everything up, he said too defensively, irritating her again. Could she water the lawn, then? It hadn’t rained all week. Things were getting awfully dry. How cruel and sadistic to goad him like this, to pick at his scabs. What about his roses? His precious roses, that’s all he cares about. The roses . . . He thought a moment. No, he answered hesitantly, they should be all right. She could water them, she said. Every day on her way home from work, she could swing by. Free as she was in her car out there in the world, where living things still needed care. Just tell her what to do—should she spray them with the hose—

  “No!” he interrupted, as if it were painful to hear. If she wanted to, if she didn’t mind, that is, then she should fill the watering can and water only the base of the bush. For about a minute—he usually counted slowly to sixty. Anything else? Well, if she had time, there was a special mixture he’d made. The bottle was on the back steps, and if she could spray the whole bush once a week, he’d really appreciate it. She asked if that was the fertilizer. No, the fertilizer was in a tall can in the garage; measure out an eighth of a cup into the cap and spread the granules around the base.

  “Just pour them out? That’s all I do?”

  “Actually, I use the hand cultivator. It’s on a nail in the garage, and I just kind of scratch it around.” Demonstrating, he clawed the tabletop with his fingertips. “Just work the granules in a little, then water. And be sure and take some roses. The pruner’s in the garage, right next to the cultivator. The key’s under the bottom step.”

  “I don’t want to cut your roses, Gordon. You worked so hard on them.”

  “No, the more you cut, the more they grow. It makes them stronger.” He smiled.

  “Does that work for people, too?”

  “Maybe. For some people.”

  “But not for you, though, right?”

  “I don’t know.” He stiffened.

  “Why? Why don’t you know?” Are you that numb, that dead inside?

  “Because I don’t think like that. I can’t. I never have. I wouldn’t dare.”

  “So in other words, this is fine. It’s just the way things are, and you don’t have a damn thing to say about it!” She didn’t want to cry.

  He leaned forward and gripped the sides of the table, trembling, as if to wrench it up from the floor. “What can I do? There’s nothing I can do. Nothing. Nothing but wait.”

  “You could talk to me! You could tell me what you’re thinking! What you’re feeling. Something, goddamn it!”

  He stared, bitterly, as if she had demanded something vile of him. “They never should have let me out, all right, that’s what I keep thinking. That I should have stayed. At least then they’d be looking for the one that did it. I let her down both ways. First by not helping her and now by being here. You want to know how I feel? I feel like this loose gear that just kind of rattles around in space, and every now and again I crash down into someone’s world and ruin everything.”

  “Gordon.” She closed her eyes.

  “It’s true. I just don’t want to mess yours up any more than I already have.”

  “You haven’t messed anything up for me, Gordon—far from it.”

  “Like the adoption. May Loo. You shouldn’t even be here. Think how this looks.”

  “Things like that don’t matter to me. I know they should, but they don’t. I’ll do everything I’m supposed to, and if it works out, then great! But if it doesn’t because of you, Gordon, because you’re in my life, then that�
�s too bad. That’s just the way it goes, you know? Here,” she said, fumbling open her purse. She handed him the color photograph. “I wanted to show you. I just got it.”

  “She’s smiling!” He almost smiled himself.

  “I know. Isn’t she cute?”

  He nodded.

  “No, tell me. Tell me what you’re thinking right now as you look at it.”

  “I . . .” He looked up in panic.

  “Tell me. Say it. Please.”

  He held it closer, studying it. “I’m thinking . . . I’m thinking how lucky this little girl is because pretty soon she’s going to have you with her every day for the rest of her life.”

  For a moment neither one spoke or looked at the other. “Thank you,” she finally said.

  He nodded and held out the picture.

  “No, that’s yours to keep. I have another one,” she lied.

  After work she drove straight to his house. The watering can wasn’t on the back steps or in the garage. Probably stolen, she thought, trying to keep the hose low while she counted to sixty, though it was too late. Her first explosive aim had already drenched the bush. Next, she sprayed the leaves with Gordon’s soapy mixture. He hadn’t told her how much to use, probably the whole bottle if it was weekly. By the time she was done, bubbles floated everywhere, fat and shimmering on the wet leaves, across the weedy yards, down the street. Working the fertilizer into the soil was quick but messy. She stood up, knees, hands, and feet muddied, her cloth sandals probably ruined. She should have changed first. Using the pruner, she cut the fullest blooms. She rinsed her scratched, stinging hands under the hose, then gathered up the cut flowers. What was the pleasure in that? she wondered, slamming the trunk shut. She glanced back at the twisted hose. Why coil it back up on the hanger when she’d just have to take it down again? She patted her arms dry with a tissue. The scratches stung, but it was a good hurt.

  The next time she came, she tried not to wet the leaves, but somehow they were soaked again. What difference could it possibly make? They’d get a lot wetter when it rained. She turned off the water. She had to get home and sand the dresser before the second coat.

  “Hi,” said a voice from behind.

  “Oh!” she gasped. “Jada, you scared me.” The girl just stood there with her hands in her pockets. “So what’s going on?” Delores said as she yanked the muddy hose into a pile. “How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “I saw you. You were out here the other day, too.” Jada’s eyes shone flat, the way light hits a mirror.

  “Yeah, I told Gordon I’d do this, but it’s not my thing. Look at my hands, look what his roses did. They attacked me,” she said, trying to laugh.

  “He’s still in jail, huh?” Jada asked, following her to the car.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.” Delores got in.

  “You think he did it?” Jada asked through the window.

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Well, he didn’t,” the girl said as if she hadn’t heard her.

  “Do you know who did?”

  Jada shook her head.

  “How do you know it wasn’t him, then?”

  “Because. Because I just know. Gordon, he wouldn’t do that. He’d get mad, but he’d never, like, do anything.”

  “Yeah, like the night I let you in, why’d he get so mad? What was that all about?”

  The girl’s answer was a weary shrug. She asked Delores where she was going. An appointment, Delores lied. She could tell Jada wanted something. “Well, I better get going.” She started the engine, but Jada moved closer to the window.

  “You live on Lowell Street, right?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Remember you said I could come there sometime?”

  “Yes, uh-huh.” What if she showed up during the home study interview?

  “Well, I was over there, near your house, I think, but I didn’t know which one it was, what number.”

  “Well, we’ll have to do that. I’ll come get you sometime.” She shifted into gear and started slowly ahead. “See you!” She waved out the window but stared straight ahead so she wouldn’t have to see Jada still watching her drive away. At the corner she glanced back. Jada was crossing the street. Sometimes you just have to keep going, the voice assured her. You have to help yourself first. She’s not your responsibility. The world is filled with girls like her. Nobody else is breaking their neck to help her so why should you?

  She pulled into her parking space and turned off the engine but couldn’t get out of the car, didn’t have will enough or strength. Why did there have to be such pain in the world? “Why? Why?” Her fist made a dull thud on the wheel. Why, when she was so close to fulfillment, was there this emptiness, this loss, as if the child had been already plucked from her arms? The rusty fire escape on her building spanned four stories but ended on the second floor. In a fire, the only way down to the street would be to jump. “Unsafe emergency egress,” the home study worker would surely note in the report. It wasn’t just adultery and a convicted killer in her life, but knives in the kitchen, scalding water in faucets, loose treads on the stairs, trucks that tipped over, tornadoes in the night, rabid bats in the attic, stray bullets, toxins in the water, in the air, and all the invisible hazards of loving too much, trying too hard, and never knowing what was enough or when to stop.

  Jada opened a Coke and lit another joint. Nothing hurt this way, not even hunger or fear. But here she was safe between the two doors as long as she could keep them closed, one leading into the street, the other into that silence where the mound under the sheets was her whole life. At first she kept checking in the hope it was another drug-deep stupor and when it wore off her mother would begin to stir. Except for last night’s buy, Jada had spent most of the last few days sleeping on the couch. Every time she tried to think about walking to Uncle Bob’s, she got exhausted and fell back to sleep.

  She crawled back onto the couch. Pretty soon she’d have to tell someone. Delores had taken off too fast, as if she knew and didn’t want to be told. There was enough food for a couple more days. She wondered how much a bus ticket to Florida cost. She could always sell the extra crack. She figured she had sixty dollars’ worth, anyway. She had packed some clothes in an old suitcase Inez had thrown out. But leaving took more energy than she had right now, even though she knew she had to get far away before Social Services got here.

  Someone was banging on the door. Polie. Last night she had almost told him, but then she’d been afraid of what he might do to her, so she went downtown like nothing was wrong and passed some rocks for them. She opened the window instead of the door. “What is it?” She leaned dizzily on the sill.

  “You gotta come. Ronnie just got a call.” He gestured back at the idling Navigator.

  “I can’t.”

  “Twenty-five bucks he says he’ll give you.”

  “Where?”

  “The South Common.”

  “Forget it.” She closed the window and locked it. She’d almost been arrested there last time. That’s how little she was worth. Better her than their other runners. He was banging on the window. A long, white car pulled up behind the Navigator. Polie was yelling for her to come out, there wasn’t much time. Delores came up the steps behind him. He spun around. Jada pressed her ear to the door.

  “What’s wrong?” Delores demanded in a high tone.

  “What the hell do you care?”

  “I’m a friend of Jada’s,” Delores said, and Jada’s grin felt as if part of her face were leaking down the door. “Is she in there?”

  “Look, just get outta here, will ya?”

  “Are you serious?” Delores laughed.

  “I gotta talk to her about something important.”

  “Well, so do I!”

  “Look, I don’t think you understand. I don’t have much time here, and I gotta see her, so get the fuck outta here before something happens.”

  Delores took another step, hands raised as if to rea
dy herself for whatever came next. “Are you threatening me?”

  “No. I’m fucking telling you,” he said, coming toward her.

  She put her cell phone to her ear. “Nine, one, one,” she yelled, still dialing as he grabbed it and smashed it onto the porch floor. He ran down the steps.

  “Delores!” Jada opened the door as Polie got into the Navigator and drove off. She hurried out, picked up the cracked phone, and listened, afraid a voice in her ear would demand to know what the problem was and where. When she came back, Delores stood just inside the doorway, trying to catch her breath. “It doesn’t work.” Jada held it out. She kept glancing past Delores, as if at any moment the bedroom door would swing open.

  “The battery’s dead,” Delores gasped, hand at her heaving chest. “What was that all about? What did he want? What was so important?”

  “I don’t know. He’s just an asshole, that’s all.”

  “Was it about your mother? Is she home?”

  She saw the sweaty woman’s shrewd eyes move between the closed doors. Like her, Delores had that extra sense, she just knew things, things beyond the telling. “He had a buy he wanted me to do. But I said no and he got mad.”

  “A buy. You mean drugs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you hungry, Jada?” Delores asked, hugging herself.

  “I think so. I don’t know, I forget.” She slipped the statues into her pockets.

  Jada had eaten half her French fries before they pulled out of the McDonald’s lot. Delores hadn’t ordered anything. She felt sick to her stomach. The girl’s head kept nodding back and forth, her rabbity cunning distorted by this glassy-eyed euphoria. She was high, but there was something else, something that had filled Delores with dread the minute she had stepped over the threshold. It clung to her still, like grease on her skin. She shouldn’t have gone back. Now that she had, she barely knew what to say, much less what to do with the girl. “Do you need anything while we’re out?”