by Lynne Hugo
Finally, I went back down to the kitchen. A bunch of cans and boxes were on the table. He’d put away the refrigerator stuff and left the rest out. Well, I stood like a stupid statue for a few minutes and then I just started putting it all away. It was my idea, though.
Even though I knew perfectly well it wasn’t going to happen, I went outside and filled the big platform feeder with sunflower seeds after the kitchen was all straight. I used up all there was left from before Mom died, out of the big bag that was in the garage. Grandma always fussed about field mice going after it, but Mom said that was one seed she could buy cheap if she bought the really big bag. I wanted never to use them up because it makes it seem longer that she’s been dead if they’re gone. You can’t use sunflower seeds in some of the other feeders. I knew that much, but I remember Mom saying the mourning doves like to eat off a flat place, and the doves like these. You wouldn’t think they’d be so picky with free food, but hey, they are. There were tiny husk things, like empty shells, on the ground all around the feeder, with little tufts of grass poking up through them here and there. I sat down under the feeder with my back against the hard metal pole and waited for Grandma. I kept my right hand out so a bird could get in it, even though I knew perfectly well there was no way.
thirty-nine
“I’M DONE WITH IT,” Alex announced to Big Al. He slammed his locker shut after depositing the convenience-store tuna sandwich—halves neatly side by side in a slanty clear plastic container—he’d bought on the way in.
“Done with which?” Big Al said, squinting. He’d driven right into the rising sun on his way to work—it was like that every morning from early summer until the time change in October—and was still squinting in the factory dimness. Adjusting the brim of his cap made no difference but he did it anyway. Alex looked bad to him, hollowed-out and, come to think of it, unshaven and sort of dirty. “Where you stayin’?” he thought to ask. Dink had gone out for a smoke before starting time and sometimes Alex would tell Al something if Dink weren’t around to mock him.
“I got a place,” Alex mumbled.
“Where?”
It was no good if Big Al was going to corner him, so Alex answered the first question. “Done with the Daddy routine.”
As if he knew there was more to it, Al asked, “What’d she do?” Still Alex didn’t tell Al that Detta had started the fire. Not that he could prove it anyway, but he knew. What he didn’t know was why he was keeping it to himself.
“I dunno. Haven’t seen her since I took her to Cora’s.” Alex had spent the day after the fire looking for a trailer and, when he gave up on finding one furnished, had been thinking about a furnished apartment. The fire department had given him a number for emergency services and for the Red Cross but he hadn’t called either one. What were they going to do? He didn’t have insurance, it was that simple. What he had was the cash he’d been carrying when the fire happened, which happened to be about a hundred eighty of his last paycheck. The rest of everything plain burned up. He’d just sleep in his truck until he got a paycheck on Friday and then he’d have deposit money. He’d spent a good part of the money in his wallet on groceries for Cora’s place, but hell, if Rebecca had cancer, well, Jesus God, how much more trouble could rain on Cora?
There was a one-room efficiency—not much more than a motel room—over on M Street, and he supposed he could take that for a month and see if he could stand it. He’d come to work today so as not to lose more pay, and what else could he do, anyway?
“So why you saying you’re done with it?” Al checked his watch; three minutes until they had to be at their stations.
It had come to him, was the truth. Alex just woke up—stiff from lying across bucket seats with the gear shift in his back—knowing he couldn’t hack it anymore. He knew it when he went to McDonald’s and got two Egg McMuffins and a large coffee, and he knew it when he washed his face in the restroom there, combing his hair with his fingers and wishing he’d bought a toothbrush before he came to get breakfast. Detta had fought a war of attrition before the big boom, and she’d flat-out won.
“Ah, y’know,” he said vaguely. “She’s better off.”
“What if they go after back child support and all?”
Alex honked as he did when something unexpected struck him funny and he didn’t remember to suppress audible laughter. “Oh good. Let ’em. In fact, I think they oughta go after all my property, too.”
In spite of himself, Big Al chuckled. He meant to ask again where Alex was staying but the warning whistle blew. He hiked his jeans up and hurried out of the locker area to get the stack of invoices detailing the stock they were to pull and load.
LATER, AT MORNING-BREAK time, Alex and Big Al sat with Dink who wasn’t particularly surprised at Alex’s decision to defect on fatherhood. “Only thing you got to worry about’s the truck,” he said. “There’s ways to hide anything else y’got.”
“That there’s voice of experience,” Al explained, bobbing the bill of his cap toward Dink.
Dink, who was known for being able to dish it out but not take it, immediately got defensive. “Hell, the bitch would’ve taken my Jockeys if I’d listed ’em as property. You got no idea…”
Al ignored him and aimed at Alex. “I thought you was doin’ okay. Takes a while with kids.”
“Yeah, so says Daddy of the Year,” Dink came back at him. “Second world title, right after Bald Man of the Decade.” He ran his hand through his own lush hair, as thick on top as on the sides, even if it was graying early. “Jeez, I need a haircut again.”
Al tipped back on the back chair legs. “Some people got nothin’ to be proud of except somethin’ they had no part in bringing about. Pathetic if you ask me.”
“Speaking of parts, is mine straight?” Dink tipped his head down and pointed to the side.
Al ignored him and turned to Alex, who’d stayed out of it. “Man, I’ll tell you one thing. You best be callin’ your mother-in-law and makin’ arrangements. I wouldn’t just let it go. Y’know…that legal stuff. Right now, you got the responsibility.”
“Ex. My ex-mother-in-law.”
“Yeah. Your ex-mother-in-law. You told her this?”
Alex took a long drag on his cigarette. “Trust me, the two of ’em will be thrilled never to hear from me.”
Big Al leaned forward. “No, man. You trust me. That ain’t the way the law works. You call. No need to be adding some police knocking at your door to your pile of trouble.”
Dink hooted, and Alex let out a half honk before he shut it out. “Like he’s got a door left to knock at…” Dink laughed, and the cavernous loading dock reverberated with it.
But Big Al’s advice was usually sound, and that was especially true when Dink disagreed with it. Alex decided that trouble with the court would be a real pisser after he was the one who started this whole mess by suing for custody. Why had he done that? All he remembered now was the business about back child support, but must’ve been there was more to it. Some fantasy about another chance. As if there were such a churchy thing as redemption. Of course, his father had been right all along. He could feel the old man reaching out of the grave to slap him upside the head for being stupid.
After work, he waved off Big Al’s invitation to come home to supper with him. “Patsy’s a hell of a cook,” Big Al said. “Why not? You got a date or sumpthin’?”
“Got…stuff I gotta do.”
“Tomorrow, then? She said today or tomorrow is okay.”
Alex didn’t have a ready rebuff. “Yeah,” he squirmed. “Sure…uh, thanks.” He hated being the object of pity. He’d met Al’s wife at a company picnic. She’d sized him up through eyes narrowed beneath a puffball of teased bangs, and though she’d been perfectly polite, Alex knew she’d seen right through to the worst of him. A supper in her house would be just dandy if he wanted to confirm his identity as a total loser.
As he drove to Dave’s Speedway Eat ’n’ Gas Stop to fill his truck, he remembered th
ere was a pay phone on the side, by the restrooms. He dreaded it, but he might as well get it behind him. He didn’t know what to say.
It was too much to have hoped they wouldn’t be home. He cleared his throat. “Ah…Cora? This is…uh, Alex.”
There was a hesitation before she said, polite as ever, “Yes, Alex. Did you want to talk to Lex…Detta?”
“No, that’s okay. I just called to say, uh, I hope it’s okay for you to keep her.”
Another hesitation, this one on a surprised intake of breath. “Well, of course. Of course. Uh…do you know for how long? Are you still looking for a new place?”
“No.” He meant no, he didn’t know for how long. Forever was what he had in mind.
“So you found one?” Cora said, puzzled.
Alex twisted the silver phone cord with his left hand, then shifted the phone to his other ear. Stalling.
“Not yet.”
“Where are you staying?”
“A friend.”
“Maybe you could give me that phone number? I mean, since you have custody, there are things I can’t sign for, in an emergency, you know.”
“Uh, he…there’s no phone there. You can get me at work.” Any idiot knew that wasn’t enough.
He could almost hear Cora trying to figure out what to say. “Well, um, maybe a neighbor’s then? I don’t mean to press you, Alex. I’ve just…well, I’m aware that medical emergencies don’t always punch a time clock. I just want to be responsible about her.”
He finally got it out. “Look, okay, you’re right. I’m no kind of father. I’ll call you again. You just keep her, all right?” And he replaced the receiver in its hook with less than a slam, but more force than was required to break the connection.
FOR HER PART, Cora was left standing at the stove where she’d been frying up chicken parts for supper when the phone rang, holding the receiver in her hand and staring at it. She put it back up to her ear, unbelieving, but indeed, Alex had hung up. She made her way—carefully, without her cane which was propped in the doorway to the hall—to the wall where she hung it back up and returned to the meat crackling toward golden in cooking oil. Even then, she just stood a moment, considering.
Outside the window, mourning doves were at the platform feeder and an enormous blue jay at the other. Cora hadn’t seen a hummingbird yet, even though there was lots of red and pink in the bedding plants. Christine would want the hummingbirds to have their sugar water, like Christine had wanted Lexie to be with her. Cora sighed. Sometimes it was so hard to know into the secret heart of things, what lay on the other side of obvious.
“Lexie!” She threw her voice upward, toward the second floor where Lexie was listening to an Aerosmith tape instead of setting the table as she was supposed to.
“Lexie!” Louder. “Come on down here.”
A succession of heavy thuds descending the stairs. How could such a small, lightweight Snow White girl sound like the Seventh Army in her stocking feet? Cora had been wondering on that one since before Christine died. “I said I’d set it! I don’t see why I can’t do it later, as long as it’s done before supper, why does it matter when I do it?” Lexie’s voice was a long whine.
Cora ignored the complaint. “That was Alex.”
“I hope you hung up on him. No way I’m going to another stinking firetrap.”
“So you’ve said. No, I didn’t hang up on him. He hung up on me.”
That got her, Cora saw. Lexie’s eyes, a startling clarity of blue in the light from the kitchen window, widened. “What? What happened?”
“He called to say you could stay here, honey.”
“For good?”
“He didn’t exactly say. But he did say something like, ‘you were right, I’m no kind of father,’ and he wouldn’t give me a phone number where he’s staying.”
Lexie ignited. Her ponytail bobbed as her body jerked—almost as if she’d been shot, Cora observed, the same bullet-jolt that made her flat refuse ever to go again after Marvin had taken her squirrel-hunting the first season they were married, his idea of a romantic way to spend time together. “I knew he never wanted me,” Lexie shrieked. “I hate him so much. He never never wanted me.” She stomped out, down the hall and back upstairs.
Cora was so taken aback she turned off the gas under the chicken even though the meat would absorb too much grease. What was that about? How was she to understand if it meant something at all, what under the sun it might mean?
forty
I REALLY THINK GOD hates me. When I screamed and prayed about the fire, the way it jumped up the dishtowel hanging on the stove and the ugly shit-tan curtain at the kitchen window, did He help me? I tried to get water on it, but it was too fast and too smoky and it took too long to fill the glass with water each time. And nobody was home in the next trailer, and not the next one after that, and when I went to Ramon’s ’cause it was practically as close as the third one, Rosa didn’t come to the door right away. I don’t think she was even going to let me in! So in that way, it was Alex’s fault. And why was the fire department so slow? I don’t care if they are volunteers, they have molasses instead of blood in them. By the time I even heard sirens, we could see fire in the living room, and it was in the bedroom already by the time they got to the hydrant.
Of course, when I told Grandma what I thought about God, she said—On the other hand, maybe He saved your life. Well, that’s garbage, because he didn’t save my mother’s life, and personally, I don’t think He’s going to much bother with Rebecca’s either.—And what about the stillborn baby you’re always bringing up, Grandma? I wanted to say that, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to make her think God hates her, too, even though I think He does.
And now this: She gets up this morning, goes off to see Becca, goes off to see Jolene, comes home and trips on the stairs. I didn’t even hear her fall, but there she was lying on the floor and yelling for me. Like a banshee, which is what she always says about me, how I don’t have to yell like a banshee.
Of course it took me like ten minutes just to get her into a sitting position.—My knee! She was moaning and grabbing it.—I’ll call an ambulance, I yelled and got up to go for the phone, but that made her fall back (I forgot I was sort of holding her up) and she yelled—No, no ambulance. I don’t want one. At this point we were yelling at each other not so much like we’re mad, but like we both need hearing aids (which I swear she does, anyway) and she started to cry. Then I started to cry, and she grabbed my hand and then my shoulder, and she tried to get up and couldn’t. So then I was down on the floor with her and we were holding onto each other and crying.—Get me some aspirin, she finally said.—And some tissues.
So I propped her up by helping her swing her butt around and putting a sofa cushion between her and the stairs. She was right there underneath the swirly wood of the end of the banister, in her beat-up navy-blue pants and a shirt so old it’s gray except for where she spilled coffee on it this morning, and there it’s tan. Her eyes were all red and her hair was like thunder and she looks so old and so pathetic to say nothing of so fat, I had no idea what I was going to do. All those dead relatives were grinning at her from over her head and it gave me the chills. I brought her the tissue and the aspirin, but of course, I didn’t think about water, so then I had to go get that. She blew her nose and stuck the tissue in her sleeve, which I think is the most disgusting thing Grandma does other than take her teeth out, and it sort of shook me out of being upset about the dead relatives hovering over her. I love her, though. I love her a lot. I need to say that right now.
—Can you get up? I said. Knowing the answer perfectly well.
—Let’s try, she said.—Get my cane. So I got her cane from where it was propped in the kitchen. The wood floors are slippery. When I wear just socks I can slide half the hallway. She had shoes on, though—the old-lady ones that look like brown lace-up tires—so I’m not sure why she fell.
She held on to the cane, completely awkward because the handle is too h
igh or it’s on such a slant that it’s useless, and I got to one side of her and wedged my hand under her armpit and lifted. Completely hopeless. She didn’t get a quarter of an inch off the floor, so help me.
—This isn’t working, she said.
(Duh, I thought to myself.)—I’ll call Becca, I said.
—Becca? She can hardly lift a glass, let alone me.
—Okay, well maybe Mr. Dudley? That’s our one neighbor, a farmer.
—Honey, he’ll be in the field ’til after dark. He’s cultivating the soy. And Pamela works at the Washington Supply.
—Jolene and Bob. I’ll call Jolene and Bob! Why didn’t I think of that first?
—Okay, she sighed.—That’ll work.
Well, of course, Jolene was sweet as pie to me, and she and Bob broke land speed records getting to our house. I was thinking okay, now I’m out of the woods, Jolene’ll take over and I’ve practically never been so happy to see anyone come barging right in without knocking.
It took the three of us to get her up because she couldn’t help and couldn’t put any weight on the one leg. Grandma was gasping and grunting and broken out in a sweat by the time Bob and Jolene, one on each side of her, got her to the couch in the living room.
Jolene’s glasses slid to the end of her nose and she couldn’t push them back up because it took both her arms to keep Grandma steady. Then Jolene sent me to get a cold washcloth, and she washed Grandma’s face and neck. I should have thought of that. Grandma said it felt good.
Jolene said—We need to take you to the hospital, and I’m thinking, thank God the voice of reason, it’s so obvious, but Grandma freaked out.—No, no, no, she said.—I can’t, Jo, I just can’t. And damn if Jolene doesn’t sit on the couch next to Grandma and just look at her hard and sigh and say—Okay, love, I know. I know. But don’t you think you need an X-ray?