The Dwelling

by Susie Moloney

  “No!” she said, too loud and firmly. In his chubby left hand he held a tiny, single-serving tin of pudding. Even as she said it, she looked at the little tin and thought,Such a little bit, would it hurt? and at the same time saw his chubby (notfat he was notfat he was growing) face and his chubby arms and his chubby little fist that gripped the tin with a force that made his knuckles white.

  “Mom—” His round face twisted into an expression of pain and longing. He did not put the tin down.

  She grabbed at the arm that held the tin and squeezed with more force than necessary, her brain crying,He’s just a little kid!, but didn’t stop and grabbed the tin with the other hand and started prying his fingers from it. All the while she kept her voice an octave too high, the words coming out clipped with the effort. “Honey, I…saidno. Supper …will be…ready…in fifteen minutes—” She pried at the fingers, the body attached to them squirming with the effort to keep the can held tight. Sweat formed on his upper lip with the strain. Her fingers dug into his arm, into his fingers.

  “Mom—” he said again, his voice pleading. His eyes squeezed shut.

  He yanked on the arm with all his strength, causing Barbara to marvel at how strong he’d gotten over the last year. With two hands, she managed to wrest the tin away from him, and in the final moment he made a grab for it and she pulled it away, behind her back, like a child. Her voice rose. “I saidno!” She breathed heavily. For a moment they stood in stasis, each heaving, Petey’s eyes squinting with tears, arms reaching out, not to her but the pudding.

  He crumpled to the floor and covered his face with his hands. Heneeded to have that pudding.Needed it. He wanted it. He let out a deep sob and began to wail, crying wordless sobs dragged from far inside. She stood helpless, watching him, her own eyes wide with her results.

  His shirt tugged up at the sides and Barbara saw the big roll of his tummy over the top of his pants and how his shirt tugged up over his middle where the belly button had disappeared years ago, and how white his flesh was and would stay because he would not go without a shirt in the summer because he was fat. His freckled back shook. Round shoulders shook. Hands that seemed little and large at the same time covered his face so all that showed was his red hair.

  She thought about what Dennis would say about this scene, so oft-repeated, especially in the last few months, and the look of disgust that would fill his face. The sound he would make, pointedly, at Barbara.Look what you’ve done. Dennis’s contempt. She felt it as much as Petey must have over that last terrible year.His terrible day, and now this. She was, in that moment, so utterly, utterly sorry. For him. For his wanting, and his look and for herself.

  “Petey,” she said. “It’s okay.” He didn’t stop crying. He sobbed over her words. She couldn’t raise her voice any further. She couldn’t bring herself to cry, she was too tired.

  “It’s okay, honey,” she said. She stuck a finger into the little ring-tab on top of the pudding and pulled the lid off. She opened the drawer beside the stove and found a spoon. “It’s okay,” she said. By then he was looking up. His face was streaked with tears and dirt. The area around his mouth was red, his lip fat. Under his eyes were circles of shadow that she hadn’t noticed.

  “Here, baby,” she said. She filled the spoon with a mountain of pudding, rich and brown and dark and creamy. Chocolate. She squatted and held it out to him. He sat up, eyes round, red, wet. He opened his mouth like a baby bird. She spooned the chocolate in. “Here you go,” she mumbled. Mother words. “There you go.” He ate soundlessly, opening his mouth again after every swallow.

  “It’s okay.”

  She spooned and fed, scraping the last of the chocolate out of the edges until the tin was streaked but mostly clean. Then she grabbed the lid from the counter and scraped the little remaining from that. “There you go,” she said. When they were done she touched his hair and they smiled, defeated, at each other. Sad smiles.

  “Supper will be ready in fifteen minutes,” she said, and stood up, as though nothing had happened. Then she turned back to the stove and had to take the pan off because it had gotten too hot. She started over again. In a moment she heard the TV come on.The Simpsons played out their particular dysfunction and the house began, slowly, by the first commercial, to sound normal again. Fifteen minutes later, when she ran across the empty tin on the counter, she tossed it into the recycling box without notice.

  They had supper in the dining room.

  Much, much later, Petey pawed through the bottom drawer of his dresser, through long underwear, big winter socks and less-loved pajamas looking for his Hyper-Cat PJs. He found the bottoms and pulled them out, shoving back in the New York Yankees pajamas that came out with them. The top was harder to find, squished up by itself in the back corner. He stuffed everything as flat as he could and closed the drawer.

  He told his mom what had happened after school, but he didn’t tell herall of it. He didn’t tell her about all the F-words that had been said as a precursor to the fight. He didn’t tell her that he punched Andy first. He knew that was bad. Ithad been bad. He couldn’t help it. Andy hadpushed his buttons. All the kids had been looking, new kids. They all stared and wondered what he (new kid, fat kid) would do.Why’d you come to our school, blubber belly? That was what had done it. A full day of keeping his head down and hardly saying anything and feeling so bad and scared. A school full of Andy Devrieses and that had justpushed his last button. But it had started the fight.

  His tongue found the raw place on his bottom lip and stroked it. It wasn’t as fat as it had been and now only hurt when he touched it. His mom said she didn’t think he’d get a shiner, but there was a little bruise on his cheek. He pulled off his T-shirt and put on his Hyper-Cat top. Hyper-Cat would kick Andy Devries’sass. Burn him with his eye lasers. Hyper-Cat, of course, would never have been in a fight in the first place, and not only because he could fly himself the hell out of there, but also because he was a good guy and only fought back. He didn’t start it. Petey sighed. He kicked off his jeans and scraped his socks off each foot using the other. He left his underwear on and pulled Hyper-Cat over his legs.

  Hyper-Catwas on after school, right before supper, afterThe Magic School Bus, at home. Here he had to settle for the stupid show with Pokémon. He hated that show. They still hadThe Magic School Bus, even though Petey was getting too old for it; he had watched it so long it was a comfort to him. He liked Ralphie. These pajamas were his favorite because they were Hyper-Cat and because they were new, so they fitted him. He was growing like a weed. Everyone said so.

  The TV was still on downstairs. There was nothing on, though. In a few minutes his mom would shut it off and come upstairs to tell him to brush his teeth, like he didn’t know, and then she’d tuck him in. Since they’d moved into the house, she’d stayed upstairs with him for a while before he fell asleep, because it was a strange place. That was good. Itwas a strange place. He didn’t like going to the bathroom. He had to go when she was upstairs. The feet on the tub were creepy. When he sat on the pot, he made sure his feet were tucked under.

  It hadn’t been that bad tonight. His mom had been quieter than usual, but she was a little mad at him, maybe, because of the fight. The bad thing was, his dad didn’t call. Petey hadn’t talked to him since they moved in on the weekend and the last thing he’d said was that he would call and see how school went. Since it didn’t go that good, maybe it was okay he didn’t. The good thing was, Grandma Staizer didn’t call either. His mom and her mom didn’t get along too good. Sometimes his grandma Staizer said mean things. They didn’t sound mean, just the words, but they were mean. (Sometimes when she told Petey howbig he was getting, it sounded like howfat he was getting. He knew that.)

  Petey and his mom had spent the night before their move at Grandma Staizer’s. She hadn’t let him call his best friend Jeremy—just to say good-bye again and hear his voice—and he’d been pissed off about that, although Petey could tell that his mother was hanging on by a thread, a
s she had even in good times, in her mother’s house. Bugging her would have pushed her buttons. From upstairs after he was supposed to be sleeping, Petey heard the conversation that had been steeping all evening.

  “How are you supposed to put things back together from four hours away?” Grandma Staizer asked.

  “It’s three hours, Ma. And it’s over.”

  “Nothing’s ever really over, Barbara.”

  “He’s banging someone else, Mother. That makes it pretty over.” Petey didn’t know what she meant by “banging,” but he knew from her tone and inflection that “he” was his dad.

  “You should watch your language, young lady. Anyway, how do you really know that? Did you catch him? Red-handed?”

  “It wasn’t his hand that was the problem, Ma.”

  His grandma made a terrible sound in her throat at that and snapped, “Yourmouth, girl!”

  It was quiet for a few minutes. Then Grandma Staizer said, “You have to turn a blind eye. Men are men.”

  “Oh,Ma.”

  “All men do that sort of thing once in a while. You have to be patient. You’re his wife.”

  “Not anymore. I am officially not his wife anymore, Ma. I am divorced. It is over. Please, please,please, for my sake, let’s let it go, okay? Let it go.” And for the hour or so it took Petey to fall asleep, she had. It was a good thing she never called.

  He tongued his lip and wondered about asking for a snack. He and his mom had had fruit cocktail while they watched a show she liked, but he still felt hungry, for something good. He didn’t really like fruit cocktail. He had wanted to say as much, but his mom wasn’t going to hear it. He still wouldn’t tell her the names of the boys at school (he told her he didn’t know them) and she was at herwit’s end over it. She said that the parents had to beinformed. When she said it like that, Petey got an image of parents in suits around a big board table like on TV, and his mother standing at the front with charts and an overhead projector explaining,So, as you see, your son beat the crap out of my son and that is unacceptable behavior even though my son threw the first punch. Is everyone on the same page? Then briefcases would snap shut and everyone would be on their way. He couldn’t tell her. And there was no real way to explain to her that it was a different world on the playground and in the hallways. Bad kids beat the hell out of someone at lunch and morning recess and then went home after school and had a piece of chocolate cake and watched cartoons. Parenting was something parents did. Kids were bastards.

  And he had to go back tomorrow.

  The very thought of school tightened his belly and made it feel like there were cold rocks in it. His face pinched up and felt like it hurt, and not because of his lip, either. He guessed he would get his tomorrow. Probably not at recess. Probably after school. And then every day for a while until they got bored or forgot or soccer started. Scenarios of future poundings ran through Petey’s mind. Andy Devries and Marshall Hemp were known quantities, not so much individuals in Petey’s mind as types. There had been a kid at the old school, Gregory Johnston, a big, ugly kid with few friends, who had beaten Petey up. Not just Petey,anyone smaller (but in the same grade—there wererules) or smarter or stupider—harder to find. He was another type. The Andys and Marshalls were different yet the same. Andy and Marshall were the kind that smiled and smart-mouthed the teachers to make them laugh and then got away with all kinds of things. They never got into trouble, or if they did, it was small trouble. They were different kids on the playground and inside the school. Inside the school it was all grins and winks and “Thank you, Mrs. Waddell”; on the playground it washey fat kid. They had big smiles with white, even teeth and nice clothes and all the Pokémon trading cards and Nike running shoes. Teachers smiled back at them and never looked through them when they were asking a question. With those kids it was always “Yes, Andy?” With other kids it was a glance and a glance away followed by a curt “Yes?” Or if she was busy, it was “What?”

  Probably Gregory would pound Andy, but even if Andy pulverized Gregory, even if Andy started it, Gregory would get into trouble. Those kinds of kids were always in trouble.

  Anyway, in a fight between Gregory and Andy, Gregory, Petey decided, would win. But he would never go near Andy Devries. Andy Devries wasn’t smaller or dumber or fat. He was smarter, but he was beautiful and that, for reasons Petey didn’t even attempt to figure out but just accepted as the way things were, made him exempt.

  Petey scooped up the clothes that he had dropped to the floor and stood for a moment looking around with them in his arms. He couldn’t remember where he was supposed to put them. At the other house the laundry hamper was in the bathroom, but this bathroom was too small. He thought maybe it was his mom’s room. He started off in that direction.

  Just before the door, he heard a small click. Not markedly, but unconsciously. It was enough for him to turn in reaction.

  The little wooden door to the cubbyhole was swinging open, very slowly. He watched it, standing there, his arms full of his clothes from the day, the T-shirt with the grass and snot stains rolled into the middle, his jeans and socks a shell surrounding it.

  The door swung fully open, right to the wall and stopped as if held there. Petey waited for the next logical thing to happen.Something’s coming out. He did not think this pointedly, but assumed as much in the way a child of eight will follow things through to a literal conclusion. He waited, staring into the dark gape of the closet, so dark that the two boxes of toys (mostly kid stuff now) were buried in shadow. He couldn’t even see them.

  For a long time, nothing came out.

  He heard it before he saw it. Coming from inside the shadows was the familiar sound of plastic wheels on bare floor, and while he stood there, a hot-wheels car (Corvette Stingray, his dad bought it for him, it was hisdream machine) rolled through the cubbyhole doorway, across his bedroom floor and slid under the dresser, disappearing. He heard it gently hit the wall.

  He recoiled for a second, belatedly startled, then worked through it easily. Petey was good at logic. Good at math. He was developing that kind of brain.

  The door had swung open because the house had a lean. The car, loosed from the box (could have happened at any time), shifted with the motion of the door opening and rolled out. These things were not indexed in the thought, but assumed in one smooth motion of logic. Then dismissed.

  Petey walked over to the wall and, shifting his load to free a hand, he snuck his fingers between that and the door and swung it back shut. He latched it with the old-fashioned latch that looked like the one he remembered being on the jam cupboard (which never had any jam in it but just stupid jars and Tupperware) at his grandma Parkins’s old house. She was dead now. He snapped the latch shut, a good solid sound.

  There was a brief moment of consideration and, against logical thought, Petey listened for sounds inside the closet. There were none. The door felt warm.

  He took the clothes into his mom’s room and found the hamper.

  “Mom?” he called down the stairs when he was finished. “I’m ready.”

  * * *

  Barbara sat on the stairs outside his room for a few minutes, just as she had when he was little, although back then there had been no stairs, and back then there would have been other sounds in the house: Dennis working on something in the basement, the intermittent sound of a power tool, the TV on, muffled curses coming from the little room off the bathroom after he’d gotten his computer and spent hours learning how it worked. It was quiet in this house.

  Let tomorrow be better.She’d tucked him in and they’d read a comic book together.Scooby Doo. They would have done better than that, but most of the books, his and hers (and some of Dennis’s, but just the ones she liked, god knows he’d never miss abook), were still in boxes in the living room. He read a panel, then she read a panel and they’d read the thing together in that way. While he read, she watched his face, brows sometimes furrowing, puzzling out a word. He was not a great reader. He was better with numbe
rs. Sometimes, if it was funny—he liked it when Scooby spoke with his distinctive lisp, and Barbara tried her best to imitate it—his face would open up with a smile and he would look so carefree and joyful, however briefly, forgetting everything and Barbara would be amazed by his beauty. How did others not see it?

  He’d been a beautiful baby, with soft pink skin that would take years to pale and freckle, and lovely red hair. His cheeks had always been full, and she could remember pressing her cheek against his just to feel the pillow-fat softness. She’d left his hair long, long after she probably should have cut it and only did after Dennis insisted that he was starting to look like a girl. The curls were gone with that haircut and he had begun then to look like a boy, and by the time he was three or four, she realized for the first time that he was going to grow up and not be a baby forever. That sort of thought had crept up on her every year. The one thing he had retained from babyhood was his long dark eyelashes, brown, not black, but thick and dark enough to pass as black. They were from Dennis. So was the weight.

  She had pressed him after the comic book to tell her the names of the boys in the fight. He had explained that it would ruin his life if she called their parents and halfheartedly admitted that he had lost his temper.

  They’d called him names. He wouldn’t say what names, but she suspected well enough.

  They talked about sticks and stones, brave, hard words for an eight-year-old to remember. Throughout the conversation, which got very quiet and introspective, she had remained upbeat and calm, but could feel her heart breaking, looking down at his round, beautiful face. His eyes had been downcast, his long lovely lashes shadowing his cheek, and had not looked at her until the end when he kissed her good night, smiling as he had when they’d read the comic book.