Nothing to Lose

by Alex Flinn

  The nurse started talking to Mom. “What’s wrong, Mrs. . . .?”

  “Monroe,” Walker filled in. “Lisa.”

  “Lisa.” The nurse nodded. Her name tag identified her as Sherri Mastin. She moved away from Walker to the other side of my mother. “Talk to me, Lisa.”

  Mom glanced at Walker again. She wouldn’t look at Sherri Mastin, and I remembered what she’d said, about wanting to be a nurse once. Finally she said, “My stomach. It hurts a little. It’s not a big deal.” She closed her eyes, and a tear seeped out of the side. She looked at Walker.

  “It’s okay.” Walker came around and patted her shoulder. “You want me to tell her what happened?”

  “It’s better if I hear from the patient.” Sherri Mastin got down on her haunches, making eye contact with my mother.

  Mom shrank back. She looked at Walker. “I … I…”

  “Can’t you see she’s in pain?” Walker demanded.

  “I need to know what happened,” Sherri Mastin said, while Mom snailed further and further into herself on the orange chair.

  “I can tell you what happened.”

  It was my own voice. They all turned toward me. The nurse met my eyes, and I knew beyond doubt that she knew. Knew and was trying to get my mother to say it. Maybe she would tell the police, and they would finally do something about Walker. Well, I could tell her.

  “He hit her. That’s what he does—hits her in the stomach so no one can see, so there won’t be any bruises.”

  “That’s not true.” Walker’s voice was calm. “Michael, I know you’re as upset about Mom as I am, but it’s important for the doctors to know what really happened.”

  “That’s why I’m telling them.” I looked at Sherri Mastin. “He hit her. He hits her.”

  “Were you there when this happened, Michael?” Walker’s voice was calm.

  They were both looking at me again. Walker’s eyes were understanding, fake understanding. And Sherri Mastin’s eyes held that different understanding, that knowledge.

  “Tell the truth, Michael,” Walker said.

  “Just tell us what happened,” Sherri Mastin said. Her voice was so kind. I wanted to go to her, have her arms around me like a mother’s. I started to say I’d been there. I’d seen Walker hit Mom. I was going to lie. It wasn’t really a lie because I knew it was true.

  “No.” It was my mother. “No. My husband has never hit me.” Her voice was stronger, like the lie gave her nourishment. “The bathroom floor was wet, and I slipped. I slipped.”

  There were tears in her eyes. I wondered if it was just the pain, or if it was the betrayal.

  But before I could think too much about it. Walker had her in his arms, and Nurse Mastin was walking away, saying, “We’ll run some tests. It will be at least an hour.”

  I ran after her.

  “She’s lying,” I said. “He did it.”

  She turned to me. “Were you there?”

  “No. I didn’t need to be there this time. I was there a hundred other times.”

  “Why didn’t she leave him then, that other hundred times?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She won’t leave him this time, either.” She started to walk away again.

  I ran after her. “What is wrong with you people?” I was screaming. “I’m telling the truth. How can you ignore it like that?”

  I wanted to grab her, smash her to the floor, hold her ears, and make her listen to me.

  She said, “Honey, how can I not ignore it? I have over a hundred patients a night—traffic accidents, gunshot victims, heart attacks, and maybe half a dozen domestic cases like your mother’s.” I started to say I didn’t care about her other patients, but she held a hand up. “Sometimes the guy just dumps her at the door. That’s the best because maybe, maybe she’ll talk to me then. Or talk to a social worker if I can find one. Maybe she’ll take a pamphlet for Safe Space and he won’t beat the crap out of her when he finds it. But usually it happens like that.” She gestured at Walker. “He’ll sit there, telling the story with that arrogant, smart-ass look on his face that says I can make this dumb bitch do what I want until I want to smack him. And she sits there like a dumb bitch, and I want to smack her, too.”

  “So you don’t do anything?”

  “I can’t make them talk. But I try, like I tried with your mother. I try to get the story and put it on her chart. Try to get a record for the future in case—”

  “In case he kills her?”

  “I was going to say in case she leaves. But, yeah, there’s those others, too.”

  “What others?”

  “The ones it’s too late for.”

  She glanced back at my mother and Walker. I looked too. He was still holding her, rocking her.

  When I looked back at Sherri Mastin, she’d walked away. I screamed after her.

  “Don’t you care?”

  She stopped, looked at me, and with a gentleness in her voice that came from knowledge, she said, “I can’t afford to care anymore.”

  She turned and walked away. I watched her back, down the hall. When she was gone, I turned toward Mom and Walker. Instead, I saw Kirstie waiting in the doorway with Karpe.

  I ran to her.

  THIS YEAR

  “I know you were there, Michael.”

  Angela says it gently, like when I was eight years old and confessed to Mom that, yes, I was the one who’d uprooted the marigolds from in front of Old Lady Cagle’s trailer—only to find out that Mom had already apologized and made arrangements for me to replant. I look at Angela, almost expecting her to pat me on the head and say she’s proud of me for admitting it—like Mom did.

  “Did Karpe tell you?”

  “No. I just knew. You don’t get very far in this business if you can’t see the facts behind people’s stories.”

  “So I guess this changes everything.”

  “It changes nothing. Yes, it’s possible—probable—your mother’s lawyers will want to speak with you about what happened that night. But you’ve committed no crime.”

  “But I was there. I …” I stop, unable to hear my words. Instead, I hear the screams, the sickening crunch of the fire poker breaking Walker’s skull, the thud as his body hit the floor. My mind is red, red as my mother’s bloody face and hands. But my own hands are clean.

  Now I’m looking down at my shoes, rocking back and forth. Angela’s beside me, her hand on my shoulder. “Listen,” she says.

  I say nothing, remembering the blood on my sneakers. I’d washed them before I left.

  “Did you help her plan to kill him?”

  I try to pull away from her. “No one planned anything. We—”

  She keeps holding onto me. “Shh! Did you help her cover it up?”

  “No. No. I just left.”

  “It’s not a crime to watch someone die, Michael. Strange as it may seem, you can watch just about anything. There was a case in New York where a whole neighborhood saw a girl murdered, and nothing happened to them.”

  I stare at my shoes. But I think. Didn’t it? Didn’t everything change forever for them? Through the haze of blood and screams, I still see my mother’s face and Walker’s lifeless body.

  “You’ve been running for a year now, Michael. Has it helped?”

  I shake my head. “I want to tell them,” I say. “I can’t hide anymore. I want to do what I can for her.”

  When Angela doesn’t say anything, I add, “I’m sure.”

  She nods. “I’ll call Child Services. And then I’ll call your mother’s attorneys.”

  “I’m ready.”

  LAST YEAR

  “I have to get out of here,” I said.

  Karpe looked across the waiting room. “But aren’t we going to—”

  “No. I need to go.” I was already pulling Kirstie’s arm. She didn’t argue with me.

  When we got to the parking lot, Karpe asked, “Am I taking you home or to school?”

  “Neither.”

 
; “But there’s school in”—Karpe checked his watch—“in two hours.”

  “You don’t have to take me all the way to the fair. Just dump our asses at the Metrorail. We’ll find the way.”

  “But I meant you have school in two hours.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m not going there. I’m never going back there again.” I walked faster toward the car, then turned to Karpe. “Look—thanks for picking me up. It was a pal thing to do, especially after the sucky way I acted yesterday. If you dump us at the train station, you should make school. I’m sorry… I’m sorry I made you lose sleep.”

  I was sorry about other stuff, too, but Karpe said, “Screw sleep. Michael, if you told someone, maybe—”

  “I just did tell someone. It didn’t help. Nothing will help.”

  “My dad’s fiancée’s a lawyer,” Karpe said. “She could, maybe…”

  But I shook my head.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Kirstie told Karpe.

  Karpe dropped us at the Vizcaya Metrorail station. It was nearly five, and the Wackenhut guard was hoisting the metal gate when we got there. I paid for both of us, and we climbed the stairs and waited for the first train.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Kirstie asked when we got on.

  “No, I want to forget everything.”

  She wrapped her arms around me in reply.

  Sometime in the early morning, there was a rainstorm. Thunder and wind shook the walls. I rolled over and looked around the dim room in confusion, seeing the outline of a yellow window, then the whole room coming into sharp focus with a lightning bolt. I felt a cool hand on my shoulder and remembered where I was, with Kirstie in her narrow, yellow-covered bed.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Sleep. It’s only thunder.”

  “But…”

  “You can stay with me as long as you like.”

  I rolled over and went back to sleep.

  I woke Friday morning, alone in Kirstie’s trailer, but knowing what I would do. I’d go with them. Everything I had in Miami was long gone already. Everything I had now was here. Monday morning, when the carnival packed up and left town, I would leave with it. Wherever they were going, I’d be going with them.

  I looked at the old windup alarm clock on the TV table by Kirstie’s bed. Almost noon. It took me a second to realize it was still Friday, still the day after the party and the hospital. The day before seemed so long ago. Even school. I felt a pang, realizing I’d never go to school again. But I had a new life with Kirstie now.

  When I stepped out to look for her, a cold shower hit me. I wiped it from my eyes.

  “Oops,” Kirstie said, not apologetic at all. “Just cleaning up a little.”

  She held a hose and was hosing something off the side of the trailer. I ran down the steps and kissed her. I was soaking wet but she didn’t pull away.

  “Well, good morning to you, too,” she said when we finally pulled apart.

  “I’m staying,” I said. “You were right.”

  “I so often am,” she said, smiling. “You’re sure? I wouldn’t want to be contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “I love you.”

  I stopped, I’d been avoiding the words for a week. Now they were stuffed into the space between us, like an exploded airbag. Separating us. I held my breath. Please don’t think I’m a stupid kid. Please let this moment go by. She didn’t have to say it back. I’d have settled for her not laughing.

  But part of me needed her to love me too.

  “You don’t have to say that,” she said. “It’s not required.”

  “I know it’s not, but I love you. You’ve changed my life. You’ve saved me.”

  “You saved yourself.” She turned away. When she looked back, she said, “We’ll talk to Corbett about a job for you.”

  It was amazing how quickly it happened. In the next two days I talked to Corbett about an under-the-table job, and Kirstie set me up with a fake ID that said I was eighteen and gave my name as Robert Frost. I started on a mustache.

  I slept in Kirstie’s bed. I didn’t ask her to tell me she loved me. She didn’t tell me, either.

  The other carnies acted differently since I was staying. Some, who’d treated me like a harmless tagalong, now looked at me suspiciously. Others, who’d treated me with suspicion, were friendly now that I was staying. I didn’t go home for two days. But I knew I had to go back, to say good-bye. I planned to do it Sunday, the day the fair closed.

  I woke early that morning and put on a borrowed souvenir T-shirt. I’d get my clothes from home too. I tried not to wake Kirstie, getting up. We’d been up until after three, and the fair opened early that day. I stood, watching her in the dim light. Eighteen days I’d known her. Eighteen days ago I’d been a mess, trapped with Mom and Walker, unable to move, unable to leave, worrying every day I’d snap, feeling like I had nothing to lose by doing it.

  Now it was all changed. I had Kirstie. I had friends, too, a job, a life ahead of me instead of just behind. And more than that, I’d made a decision. I wasn’t trapped anymore. I was a man in every sense of the word.

  But was I? I felt guilty about leaving. Yet I knew there was nothing I could do by staying. Maybe my staying even made it worse. So many of the fights Mom and Walker had were about me in some way. Because of me. It would be better if I left. I was kidding myself if I thought I could help by staying.

  I opened the trailer door and stepped outside. The air was cool and clean smelling. The light hit Kirstie’s face, and she sort of cringed against it. I started to close the door behind me.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going home. I mean, I’m going to my mother’s house.”

  “Don’t leave.” Her still-sleepy voice was like a little kid’s.

  “I’m not leaving. I’m just going to pack my things, to say good-bye.”

  She was sitting up now. “Don’t. Please don’t. If you go, they’ll suck you back in. They’ll make you stay, and. . . .” She fumbled with the sheet now, pulling it around her.

  “I have to. I’m not staying, but I have to say goodbye. Don’t you wish you’d said good-bye to anyone?”

  She looked away. Finally, she said, “I said good-bye to Erica that day when I left her at the funnel cakes. She didn’t know it was for forever, but I did.”

  “But…”

  “If I’d said good-bye for real, I couldn’t have left. I could have left Dad, that’s for sure. But not Erica.”

  “Well, I am leaving.” Though, even as I said it, I felt my resolve slipping. “I don’t know what will happen to my mother, but sorry, I need to tell her I’m going so she won’t put out an APB. And I need my stuff.”

  “Cricket can loan you clothes. Life’s all about leaving things behind anyway. What’s a few T-shirts?”

  “Cricket’s, like, five-four.” I let the door close and walked close to her. “I need to do this, Kirstie. But I’ll be back.” I sat on the bed and put my arms around her. She felt motionless as an ice block. “I’ll be back.”

  “I love you too, Michael.”

  I looked at her, and for the first time, she wasn’t the girl I knew, strong, confident, able to take on anyone even if she had to use a knife to do it. She looked scared, waiting for my answer.

  “I’m coming back, Kirstie. I promise.”

  Then I walked to the door and opened and closed it again before I could change my mind.

  THIS YEAR

  I find Karpe in his room, the trig test forgotten, watching television.

  “They know nothing, nada.” He points to the screen even though the news isn’t on anymore. It’s nine thirty, and he’s watching some show on the WB.

  “I told Angela,” I tell him. “I told her I was there the night it happened.”

  “They tried to talk to some carnies, but none of them would comment. They didn’t want to be on television.” He hears what I said and adds, “Do you feel better, telling?”

&
nbsp; “Not a whole lot. I don’t think I’ll ever feel better.”

  “You sure are hard on yourself.”

  “Shouldn’t I be? I mean, I lived there two years, watching it happen, watching him beat her up. And now, I’m still watching. Do you have any idea how shitty that feels?”

  Karpe reaches for the remote and snaps off the television.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Right.”

  “No, really. I know. When my parents first got divorced, I lived with my mom awhile. And she had a boyfriend who … had problems.” He looks away. “That’s why I moved in with Dad. I was in all kinds of therapy at the time, and the main thing they were telling me was it wasn’t my fault. But I never totally believed it, you know?”

  I nod. It reminded me of what Kirstie had said. “When did it happen?”

  “When I was eleven. Sixth grade. That’s when they got together.”

  I realize what he’s saying. “The year we stopped being friends.”

  “Right. I pretty much disconnected from everyone that year. I never blamed you or anyone. You couldn’t have known.”

  “But you knew about my mom,” I say, remembering how Karpe befriended me when everyone else was ditching in droves. Karpe had known, too, for the best reason. He’d experienced it himself. I’d been so sure no one could understand.

  “I suspected,” he says. “I knew the signs. But I didn’t really know until that night at the hospital. That night with … what was her name?”

  “Kirstie.”

  “Kirstie. That night when you left with her.”

  “I wish I’d never gone back to the house.”

  “Why did you?”

  “I barely even remember anymore.”

  But I do remember. I remember so strongly that I feel like I could go back, change direction, if only I thought about it hard enough.

  LAST YEAR

  It took me the whole morning to get to Key Biscayne. I wondered if Kirstie was right, if I should just disappear without a word. I had enough money now to buy a carny’s wardrobe, and I was staying with Kirstie anyway. But finally I decided that no, I had to say good-bye.