All the Roads That Lead From Home

by Anne Leigh Parrish

  The railing was under construction. Renovation, actually. A guard was being placed that would prevent climbers from being able to jump unless they snuck by at either end. She stood there, aware of the challenge, but also of a change in the light around her. It was growing brighter. Dawn was underway. She’d never been awake at dawn before, never seen the sun rise. The first and last, she thought, then felt the idea was trite.

  Then the light rose enough so that an icicle hanging from a dark ledge of shale was illuminated. It seemed to glow. Kirsten had never seen anything so beautiful. She didn’t understand how the light had reached the ice before falling on anything else. Soon other icicles were coming to life, turning a faint, warm yellow.

  “My god,” she said, holding the rail with her gloved hands.

  “Are you all right?” a man’s voice asked. She turned. All there was of him was his thick coat and wool hat. He asked the question again.

  “Look at the gorge. Look at the light. Isn’t it amazing?”

  The man turned. He didn’t seem to know what she was talking about.

  “It’s damn early to be up and about,” he said.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “I work on campus. I have to be there by six. That’s why I’m out here, freezing my ass off.”

  She said nothing.

  “What are you doing out here, if you don’t mind my asking?” he asked.

  Suddenly, she no longer knew. She was cold. And tired, and very hungry. She continued to look at the icicles and realized the man wasn’t going to walk off until she went, too. She gazed down, hearing the water rush, held by the dawn, feeling as if she herself were lit from within.

  Our Love Could Light the World

  The old lady had died some time that spring. No one knew exactly when, because she’d been shut up in a nursing home forever, and then one day the son came around with a mover and that was that. The whole place was cleaned out. Minor repairs were done to the outside. As to the inside, it was hard to say for sure. People up and down the street who’d been there long enough to remember the old lady remembered a cramped, ugly kitchen, with Formica counter tops and a vinyl dinette set. While she was gone no one had lived there. The son came by every now and then and made sure things were okay, and people wondered why he didn’t just take charge and sell the place. It wasn’t as if she’d ever come back, the old lady. Once you went into a nursing home that’s where you stayed. Until the funeral parlor, and that little plot of ground you hoped someone had been good enough to buy for you in advance.

  Then the Dugans moved in. Although the street wasn’t particularly close-knit—no block parties or pleasant pot-lucks—the neighbors welcomed them. Their efforts were ignored. The Dugans had moved seven times in the last ten years, and the idea of putting down roots was just plain silly. Soon, the neighbors made comments. Not only were the Dugans unfriendly, they were noisy and didn’t collect the shit their dog left wherever it wanted, usually in someone else’s yard.

  Mrs. Dugan left every morning at exactly seven-thirty. She got into her car, a rusty green Subaru, wearing a suit. Her hair was up in a bun. She even carried a briefcase. No one knew what she did. One man said she worked in a bank. The woman across from him said she sold insurance.

  Mr. Dugan didn’t work because he’d hurt his back years before on a construction site. The disks he’d ruptured eventually went back in place, but not before causing permanent scarring and calcium deposits which caused pain that ranged from annoying to agonizing. He was never without pain, in fact, and had a standing prescription for Vicadin which mixed badly with alcohol. That’s why he was reduced to drinking only beer, instead of his beloved whiskey. You had to give your body the space it needed, he told his kids. No two ways about that.

  Five children made up the family. The eldest was Angelica, a fat, teenage girl with a nose ring and short, spiky green hair. She ruled her siblings with a steady stream of insults. Her favorites were “dumbass,” “dumbshit,” and “horsedick.”

  The next in line was Timothy. The cast in his left eye was a painless affliction. He wasn’t aware of it until people stared hard, then looked away in embarrassment. A baby-sitter once told him it was a gift from God, proof that Timothy was special. The baby-sitter was an old woman whose saggy chin sported a forest of short, white hairs.

  Twin girls, Marta and Maggie, came just after Timothy. Mr. Dugan had objected to the German name, Marta. He thought the German people were fat, pretentious slobs. Far too young to ever have been directly involved in the Second World War, his sentiment stemmed from a boss he once had, Otto Klempt, who told Mr. Dugan he was the laziest worker he’d ever had in his storeroom. Oddly enough, Marta was rather like Mr. Klempt in temperament, harsh and scornful. Maggie was quiet on the surface, yet full of deep longings and desires she was afraid to share. One day, she was sure, she’d be on the stage, and very, very rich. Her husband would do everything for her—in her later years she’d see that she developed this idea from watching her mother bully her father—and she’d take every gesture with the same mysterious smile she gave her other fans.

  The youngest was Foster. The name was based on a statement Mrs. Dugan made, that if she had any more children they’d end up in foster care. Foster had been born with a twisted leg that gave him a definite hitch in his stride, but otherwise did little to slow him down. He was a pleasant child, despite the generally sullen atmosphere of his household.

  All in all, the five children didn’t particularly care for one another, and they didn’t dislike each other, either. One thing they knew was that they stood as a pack against the rest of the world, a term that had special significance after one of their neighbors came home to find them all roller skating in his driveway, where they’d apparently knocked over his trash cans in the process, and called them a pack of wild dogs.

  He was punished for that. Paper bags full of dog shit, carefully collected over the week from their mutt, Thaddeus, were set afire seconds before a frantic knock on the door, made by Maggie, their fastest. Answering the call, the neighbor found the growing blaze and reacted as anyone would, by stamping it out. HAHAHAHAHA, the children thought to themselves, individually, in the privacy of their own thoughts, for that caper, like all their others, was born in committee, yet appreciated alone.

  Angelica felt the lack of community most. We don’t have enough family time, is what she concluded. She’d seen families spend time together. Across the street, the Morrises were always having cook-outs, and batting balls, and playing badminton. The children—two, maybe three—laughed a lot. The mother never yelled, and the father had a strong, steady gait. She knew her own family could never be like that, yet she wished they could.

  Mrs. Dugan came home from work tired. She was often crabby, too. She worked in the sales department for a small company that sold manufactured homes. Her job was to walk clients through their purchase options. The people she dealt with had all fallen on hard times, or were old and looking to down-size. None had the flush of optimism. Mrs. Dugan thought she herself had once been full of hope and ambition which, over time, had been whittled away. She decided to give herself a kick in the pants, and when the chance came to represent the company at a regional conference, she put in her bid, and even took her boss out for lunch.

  She was chosen. She walked on air. Mr. Dugan didn’t like the idea of her spending three days down in Wilkes-Barre. He was glum, and snuck sips of whiskey from a flash he kept on a shelf in his closet.

  “Three days, Potter. One, two, three,” said Mrs. Dugan. She couldn’t wait. She loved her family, and she hated them, too, and lately the balance had been tipping towards hate.

  “And just what is it you plan to do at this conference?” Mr. Dugan looked like he was about to put his head through a brick wall, something Mrs. Dugan used to admire about him and now found exhausting.

  “Attend presentations. Walk around the convention floor. See what other vendors are doing to improve sales.”

  “Sounds
boring.”

  “Only a boring person would say that.”

  The stone face melted. His mouth turned down.

  “I’m sorry, Potter. I didn’t mean that. You’re not boring.”

  “Yes I am, or you wouldn’t have said it.”

  He took himself off to the small back room he called his den and lay down on the couch. He watched the dust dance in the light. Maybe three days wouldn’t be so bad. Three days wasn’t all that long. He could get a lot of good drinking done in three days. The thought cheered him.

  Over dinner, Mrs. Dugan laid out the program.

  “Angelica, you’re in charge. But you don’t do all the work—share it equally. Start getting ready for school. There’s only another week left. When you’re not doing that, I want you each to clean your rooms. When you’re done with that, take turns weeding the garden.” The neighbors complained most about the garden. “And make sure Thaddeus gets his walks regular. I don’t want to come home to a house full of dog poop.”

  Around the table the faces were still. The children had never been away from their mother before. Plans of mischief were being born, right there, as forks were lifted to mouths, and pieces of inedible pot roast were slipped unseen to Thaddeus below the table. Angelica knew where her mother kept some extra money. That would come in handy when she took off for the mall. The twins planned to stay up all night watching TV. Timothy and Foster would live on ice cream and candy. They’d been handed a vacation, and they intended to make the most of it.

  Mrs. Dugan packed her bag in a state of excitement and fear. She didn’t have very nice clothes, although they were respectable. Which of her four blouses would go best with the brown suit? Where she’d never given much thought before to her appearance at work, she was now overcome with self-criticism and doubt. She had to look the part. She was an executive on the move. Secretly she yearned for a promotion, more money, and to get the family out of rental homes and into a place of their own. That thought made her sit down suddenly on her bed. The promotion might come, as might the money and home ownership, but the people who lived there would be the same—lazy, unkempt, and bad-tempered.

  “Change your mind?” Mr. Dugan asked when he found her there some time later, still sitting. Some strands of her naturally blonde hair had escaped her bun and floated around her small, pretty face.

  “No. Just taking a break.” And with that she was up, finished packing, put her bag by the front door so she wouldn’t forget it in the morning, then shouted for her children to get ready for bed.

  ***

  The sunlight that first day—Tuesday—said it would be hot. The house was not air conditioned. If they were lucky, the children could get their father to drive them out to the lake and swim. They liked going to the lake. One look at him passed out in the den put an end to that particular plan. Angelica said they should give Thaddeus a bath. The others agreed. A small, dirty plastic wading pool was put to use. Thaddeus didn’t think any of it was a good idea, and bolted from the tub the moment soap was applied and his fur scrubbed. He escaped the yard in no time, an easy feat since there was no fence, and bounded across the street where Mrs. Hooper was trimming her rose bush. Thaddeus stopped right in front of her and shook, sending water and suds everywhere. Mrs. Hooper shrieked and called the dog an ugly name, called the children watching from their porch an even uglier name, and then threatened to call the police when Angelica turned around, bent over, and dropped her pants. No one came to fetch Thaddeus. Everyone knew from experience that he’d return eventually, which he did, the moment a can of dog food was opened in the kitchen.

  After Thaddeus enjoyed his lunch and dropped soapy water on the floor, boredom returned. Foster applied a Band-Aid to each of his eyes—top to bottom—and groped his way through the living room where Timothy was on the floor coloring.

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Angelica asked. She was sitting in their mother’s stained easy chair, flipping through an old magazine.

  “Want to know what it’s like being blind.” Foster tripped over someone’s jacket, collected himself, and continued, arms outstretched.

  Maggie passed him in her ballet shoes. She was practicing standing on her toes. It hurt a lot. She thought of hovering over the dusty wood-planked stage to the silent, tense awe of the audience.

  “Watch out, dumbass!” Angelica said when Maggie lurched across Timothy. “Jesus, what’s wrong with everyone today?”

  Pizza was ordered for dinner. After all dimes, nickels, and stray pennies were gathered from every pocket, drawer, stray sock. Mr. Dugan grieved. “Where the hell’s my wallet?” When he couldn’t find it he sat at the kitchen table and stared into space. The children recognized this mood. Their mother was both the cause and cure. She’d called to say she’d gotten there safely. Timothy had answered the phone. There was noise in the background, a man’s voice, the sound of tinny music. Mr. Dugan took the receiver and told everyone to leave him alone so he could have a civilized conversation, for once, which he did for about forty-five seconds before Mrs. Dugan hung up.

  At noon the following day, Angelica went to dress and had no clean underwear. Foster lacked a clean shirt, and Mr. Dugan’s sock drawer was empty. Monday was laundry day, and Monday was the day Mrs. Dugan had packed her bag. She hadn’t done the laundry. Her oversight was painful to Mr. Dugan, because it strengthened his suspicion that his wife was essentially dissatisfied with her life.He called the children into the kitchen and told them to start washing clothes. Maggie took charge and trotted down the basement stairs. She returned to report that there was no more laundry detergent. A debate ensued. Could dish soap be used? What about shampoo? Angelica told everyone to shut up, ordered her father to find his damn wallet, give her some money, and wait until she returned from the store.

  “Let me go, let me!” Foster was hopping up and down. The store was a ten-minute walk, yet Angelica doubted Foster’s ability to successfully choose and pay for a bottle of detergent on his own. Foster was only eight. She told Timothy and the twins to go with him. Safety in numbers, she figured. With four of them, not much could go wrong.

  She jotted down some other necessary items on a list. Milk, bread, eggs, frozen fish sticks, ice cream, chewing gum, and mayonnaise.

  “I want a candy bar,” said Marta.

  “Me, too,” said Timothy.

  “You get this stuff, first. If there’s money left over, fine.”

  The children left. Angelica put the dirty dishes in the sink. The sink was full, so placing them was tricky. She passed by her father’s den.

  “Angie! Hey, Angie! There’s a guy on TV eating goldfish! What do you think about that?” he called out.

  “That’s pretty neat, Dad.”

  In her room—which was hers alone after a bitter fight with Mrs. Dugan about who would sleep where—she applied black nail polish with great care. She loved painting her nails. She loved painting other people’s nails. She once painted all the nails of her siblings—including the boys’—a fiery red. The effect was stunning. Mrs. Dugan called her an idiot, and demanded that it be removed at once. Mrs. Dugan had lost her sense of humor, Angelica realized. There was a time when her mother laughed, danced about in her bedroom slippers, and bestowed gentle affection on her family.

  Next, she checked her cell phone. It was a cheap phone, gotten at great personal cost of begging and wheedling. Mrs. Dugan had been unmoved by Angelica’s repeated statement that all the kids at school had cell phones. In the end, a cheap, poorly made cell phone with chronically bad reception found its way into Angelica’s loving hands. She liked to send text messages on it. There was one boy she sent messages to. The boy, Dwayne, had been in her math class the year before and she thought he was fabulous. She hungered for Dwayne the way she hungered for mint chocolate-chip ice cream. The messages she sent were bland, non-committal things like, TV. sucks today. What’s up? His replies were equally bland: Nothing, and baseball practice, and cleaning out garage. Yet into each she read a special mea
ning, a deeper truth that when added up in time would prove that he felt for her what she felt for him. There was no message from Dwayne. He hadn’t texted her for two whole days, and her nerves were about to snap.

  She texted her sometime best friend, Luann. no mssg. from D. means what? Luann texted back, phone’s probably off. or battery ran down. Luann’s brutal logic was painful, not comforting at all. If Dwayne cared so little about staying in touch that he turned off his phone, or let the battery die, then what Angelica feared—that this relationship was completely one-sided—was true.

  She shoved the phone in her pocket and went downstairs. The house was quiet. Her father had switched to a game show, and the sound of clapping and cheers was like a party from another planet. Planet Party, she thought, and wanted to write that down. Every now and then she made notes of random thoughts thinking that they, like the messages from Dwayne, would one day contain a brilliant and tragic truth about the human condition that only she was sensitive enough to see and appreciate.

  The children hadn’t returned from the store. The clock said they’d been gone almost an hour. She was furious at the idea that she might have to go looking for them.

  “Boneheads,” she said, and ate a slice of cold pizza left over from the night before.

  Twenty minutes later, Angelica saw the four children walking slowly up the street. Foster was in the lead. Behind him, Timothy carried a single bag of groceries. The twins followed, with an old man in between them. Each girl held one of the old man’s hands. The old man was shuffling along, bobbing his head. His white hair was bright in the sun. He wore a plaid bathrobe over blue pajamas, and bedroom slippers.

  “Jesus Christ,” she said. She looked in on her father. He was asleep on the couch. The television set was on and a muscular young woman in work-out garb was jogging on a treadmill with a forced smile on her sweaty face. Angelica felt what she always did when she saw a body like that—deep, agonizing envy. She was thirty pounds overweight, and the last time she’d been to the doctor she’d been warned of the dangers of developing diabetes, which more and more young fat people were.