by Sonja Yoerg
Carole had slept a few hours, maybe five, a collection of uninterrupted time that for months had become the best she could hope for. Lack of sleep left her more muddled than she’d been since Alison was a teething baby. She’d figured it would pass—most things did—and cut back on afternoon coffee. Walt was a heavy sleeper and never knew how her nights went unless she told him. She was reticent to complain. One time she did mention it and Walt told her he’d read that insomniacs get about two hours more sleep than they think they do. “Maybe they’re too tired to remember how long they slept,” she said. And they’d laughed. In any case, it would likely pass.
Carole rinsed the coffeepot, brushed toast crumbs from the counter into her palm and emptied them into the sink. She stood with her hand resting on one of the ladder-back chairs. Her handbag, car keys and a package that needed mailing lay on the table, patient. Walt had abandoned his glasses on top of the Burlington Free Press (both could turn up anywhere, but never apart), and one lens distorted the photo of Henry Kissinger beneath it, stretching his face to frightening proportions. Beside the paper stood the salt-and-pepper set with dolphins on it that Janine had brought back from Florida and the apple-shaped napkin holder Lester had made in woodshop. He’d made a cutting board, too, a silhouette of his head. Carole used it the night he brought it home, but when the knife touched his cheek, she winced and touched her fingertips to the mark. Now the board hung next to the stove above the LaPorte Garage & Auto Body calendar they sent out to customers the Monday after Thanksgiving.
She untied her apron, folded it over the chair and went out the back door to the stoop. Walt crouched over the lawn mower holding a wrench. His hair was thinning on top, but he maneuvered his body and handled his tools with the same broad-shouldered grace that had caught her eye twenty-five years ago. He was a solid man, nothing fussy or sideways about him. Some women, Janine for example, liked men with more sophistication. Carole hadn’t had the experience of anyone aside from Walt, but there was little doubt in her mind that when it came to people, uncomplicated was a scarce and wondrous quality.
“I’m going to the bank now,” she said, “and I’ll mail those parts for you.”
Walt straightened, wiped his palm on his trousers and came over to stand on the step below her. They were eye to eye. “I’m obliged.” He leaned closer, gave her a slow smile. “How about a kiss?”
She pressed her lips to his and turned to go.
He touched her elbow. “How about another one. One for the road?”
She smiled and kissed him again. “Can I go now?”
“Only because my hands are dirty.”
“Not just your hands.”
He winked. “You got that right, sweetheart.”
“I’ll be home before lunch anyway.”
“You’d better go, so you can come back to me.”
“Oh, Walter.” She touched his cheek a moment, then went inside to collect her things.
• • •
Carole waited in line at the post office, chastising herself for not coming mid-afternoon, when it was usually deserted, and wishing there was a drive-through, like at the bank. Her palms were sweaty and she shifted the box from the crook of one arm to the other and back again. Waiting didn’t bother her. She simply wanted to go home. She could have asked Walt to mail it himself, but it had always been her job. How all the little chores had gotten divvied up the way they did she had no idea, but after so many years of being married, it made no sense to change things. It was only the post office.
A fly was crawling along the collar of the man in front of her. It paused and tilted its head, considering the gap to the man’s hair. Its front legs probed the air, testing the distance. Carole’s neck tickled. She brought her hand up to scratch it and was alarmed to see her arm move toward the man’s collar. She pulled it back and held the box tightly in both hands. The man moved to the counter and the fly flew off.
A couple of minutes later it was her turn. She presented the box to the clerk. “Parcel post, please.”
The clerk spoke but someone behind her was talking so loudly she couldn’t hear. She bent over the counter. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t—”
Her words were drowned out. The customer—a man—was practically shouting. So inappropriate to behave that way in public, but she didn’t want to say anything to him, or even turn around. His tone was quite hostile, although she couldn’t make out the words. Carole met the gaze of the clerk. Perhaps he would intervene. The clerk’s eyebrows were raised, questioning, but he stared at her, not at the man behind her, as if waiting for her to speak. His mouth moved and Carole leaned toward him. She couldn’t hear. It was hopeless.
She exhaled in frustration. Walt might have to mail his own packages from now on if the Adams Post Office was attracting patrons as raucous as the ones at the Rusty Bucket on a Saturday night. She twisted slowly so she wouldn’t appear angry, not wanting to give this rude person a reason to say anything to her.
An elderly couple stood in front of a tall woman about Carole’s age. The old man smiled at her kindly from beneath the bill of his feed-store cap. His wife dug in her purse, extracted a tissue and dabbed her nose. The tall woman nodded in greeting. Did Carole know her from somewhere? The shouting had quieted. She scanned the room. A clean-cut man in a navy Windbreaker walked from the wall of keyed boxes and pushed open the door. It could have been him. It must have been.
“Care to insure it, ma’am?”
Carole spun to face the clerk. “No, thank you.” Her voice wavered.
“That’ll be two fifty, then.”
Her hand trembled as she found her purse, pulled two ones from it and laid the bills on the counter. She clicked open the change compartment, concentrating on the shapes of the coins—the largest, two of the largest—and not on the garbled voice, which had returned. The clerk’s palm was outstretched and Carole dropped the quarters into it with a nonchalance she did not possess. One of the coins hit the counter and rolled on its edge away from her. She didn’t wait to see where it landed. She snapped her purse shut, muttered her thanks and hastened toward home.
Mornings were best, they really were, but they didn’t last long.
• • •
Alison rushed at her as soon as she came through the door. “Mom! I need to talk to you.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes! I mean, sort of.” She looked over her shoulder, then at Carole, and dropped her voice. “We need privacy.”
Alison’s urgency agitated Carole. If only she’d stayed in the car until her nerves had settled over the incident in the post office. She needed quiet, but Alison was distressed about something.
“Mom, please.” Alison dragged her into the living room.
Carole sat on the couch, put her handbag to the side and unbuttoned her sweater. It was so hot. She took a deep breath and focused on her daughter.
“Tell me what’s wrong, Alison.”
“We really need to go shopping. It’s important.”
Shopping. Stores. People. Her chest constricted. She made herself look at her daughter, see her. “I know you want new clothes for school. I remember you told me you did. But I don’t think I can go shopping with you today.” There. She said it. Alison would understand. They could go another time, once she had slept, when her thoughts weren’t so muddled.
“It’s not just that, Mom.” She stared at her feet. “I need a bra.” She lifted her face to Carole, her cheeks flushed, eyes moist and pleading. “Can we please go buy one?”
Murmuring voices hissed, sinister and low. Carole tried to wall them off, push them away. She concentrated on her daughter’s face—that open, trusting face—and her heart lurched. The voices grew louder, demanding. Carole shook her head to dispel them.
“No? Why not, Mom?”
“We’ll see, okay?” Tears ran down her daughter’s cheeks. Oh God, wh
at had she done? “Don’t cry, Alison. We’ll see.” She brushed away Alison’s tears and kissed her cheek.
The murmuring grew louder. The sounds were indistinct but pressed hard, edging to violence. Painful, insistent, piercing. A scream rose in her throat and she choked it off. She pushed herself to standing, left the room and climbed the stairs, holding on to the railing. She shut herself in the bedroom, pulled the curtains closed, sat on the bed and clamped her hands over her ears, rocking, biting her lip so she would not cry out.
6
Alison
Alison listened to her mother hurry upstairs and shut the bedroom door. How could her mother just leave her here? Didn’t she care? A hollow opened in Alison’s chest, crowding out her lungs. She pulled up her knees, wrapped her arms around them and sobbed. She didn’t want to go to school without a bra. If Delaney noticed she needed one, then so would everyone. How come her own mother didn’t notice, or even care? Alison had begged her for help and all her mother had done was tell her not to cry. Then she’d walked right out of the room. If you didn’t want someone to cry, then you should do something for them. If you cared. If you loved them.
Her father came in from the kitchen holding a sandwich and sat next to her.
“What’s wrong, sunshine?”
She wiped her nose on her sleeve. She couldn’t tell him about needing a bra. She just couldn’t. “I need stuff for school. Clothes. Nothing fits.”
He took a bite of his sandwich, his eyes on her. “Sounds like a problem we might be able to handle.”
“But Mom won’t take me shopping.”
“Is that what she said?”
“She said, ‘We’ll see.’ Same thing.”
He smiled a little, which annoyed Alison. “Your mother’s got a lot on her plate.”
“She went to town this morning! Burlington isn’t that different. She just doesn’t care.”
“Now, Alison, you know that’s not true.” He was quiet a minute. “Tell you what. I’m sending the boys into Burlington tomorrow for parts. They can take you to Gaynes. You pick out a few things.”
She didn’t want to shop by herself. She wanted her mom. But what choice did she have? She only had a few days left. “Okay. Thanks.” Her dad handed her half of his sandwich. She peeked under the top slice. Bologna. Her favorite.
• • •
Burlington was an hour away, mostly along Interstate 89, running beside the Winooski River. The river behind Alison’s house, Mad River, flowed into the Winooski, so that big, wide river belonged to her, too, in a way. Light rain fell and the branches of the oaks and beeches hung heavy against the sky as if the trees were tired from holding them up all summer.
Her brothers were playing Three Dog Night and The Who way too loud on the cassette player. Every time Lester would sing along, Warren would tell him to shut up, which Lester did, but then he forgot by the time the next song came along. She wasn’t used to spending much time with them. Six years younger and she might as well have belonged to a different family. They had played with her when she was little, especially Lester. He liked her stuffed animals, and he took out her Barbie more often than she did until their father put a stop to it. “He might not be a genius, goddamn it, but he’s still my boy.” He said that a lot. It was sweet.
They pulled into the parking lot of Gaynes Shoppers World. Alison got out and checked her front pocket to make sure she had her money. She looked up and Warren was already driving away.
“Hey!” The brake lights came on and she caught up. Lester had the window down and she held on to the doorframe as if she could stop them from leaving again. “When are you coming to get me?”
Warren peered over the tops of his shades. “When we’re ready.”
“When’s that going to be?”
“You wanted to go shopping, and now you’re shopping. Lester and me have got other business.”
“Picking up parts,” Lester said, nodding. “For Daddy.”
“Now, Lester, my man, I thought we agreed you were gonna call him Dad like I do.”
Lester put his hand to his mouth and chewed on his first knuckle. It made a horrible sound, like stepping on a frog. “I forgot.”
“I know you did. That’s why I’m reminding you.”
Alison patted Lester on the shoulder. “It’s okay. I call him Daddy. He doesn’t mind.”
Warren gave her a look that said what she did wasn’t worth discussing. He straightened up, ready to move on. “Back in a while.”
“Crocodile,” said Lester as they pulled away.
Alison stepped back with a sigh and hurried into the store.
It seemed bigger than when she’d been there with her family. The air was stale and smelled of plastic and popcorn, and the air-conditioning gave her goose bumps. She felt like she didn’t belong. Someone would think she was a lost kid and announce it over the loudspeaker.
She headed for the girls’ section, her flip-flops slapping on the tile floor. She found the dresses in her sizes and read the price tags. The cheapest was $13.99. She pulled the money out of her pocket, checking for the third time how much she had. Thirty dollars from her dad and three from selling blackberries. She could get the cheapest dress, a pale blue one with a white tie down the front, and maybe have enough for a couple of shirts and a bra, minus whatever the stupid tax was. How much were bras anyway? Well, it didn’t cost anything to try stuff on. She grabbed the dress in the next size up, too, worried the ten might be too short for school, and went to look at shirts.
Two moms and two girls were rifling through one carousel, so Alison crossed to the other one, conscious of being on her own. She went through the shirts and fell in love with a teal green one with big white buttons. She stared at the tag until her eyes swam, hoping the $10.99 would become $5.99. She took it anyway, plus a yellow-and-orange plaid short-sleeve one on sale. It was meant for summer, but she didn’t care. And if there was a God, bras would be free.
She found the Intimates at the back of the store. An old lady was digging through underpants in a bin, and picked up a pair so enormous it could’ve been a flag. Alison hustled past and let out a big breath when she saw the Teens sign. There were bras on hangers and bras in boxes, and all of them had sizes made up of numbers and letters, which made no sense. If only she’d paid attention to Delaney and her magazines. She wished, more than anything, for her mom. Her nose stung with tears. She grabbed three different sizes of the Teenform ones—the girl on the front looked about her age—and practically ran to the dressing room.
Alison scanned the tiny room, nervous about undressing with other people nearby, and heard her mother’s voice telling her not to touch anything. How could she avoid the floor? Levitate? She stripped off her shirt. Good thing the first bra seemed like the right size because it took her ten minutes to figure out how to put it on. The size ten dress was a little short and the size twelve was baggy and too long. She went with the twelve, figuring she might fill it out eventually. The shirts were perfect.
The lady at the checkout craned her neck to look past Alison as if she might be hiding her mom under the counter. “That’ll be $31.39.” Alison handed her the crumpled bills, then picked out a hair clip for ninety-nine cents from the checkout display and put it on the counter. The lady sighed like Alison had asked her to start her life all over again, then rang it up.
“Thanks.” Alison took her bag and pocketed the change.
“Thank you for shopping at Gaynes Shoppers World.”
Outside, the hot, damp air meant to smother her. She pushed her hair off her forehead and searched the lot for her brothers’ black Chevy Nova. Nothing. For a while she leaned against a pole and stared at the parking lot entrance but got tired and plunked herself on the curb. At first she was content to watch the cars and people go by—she had her new clothes!—but after what must have been an hour, a shivery feeling crept up her arms. What if
they’d forgotten her?
“You waitin’ on someone, red?”
A man stood in front of her jingling his keys. He was old, but younger than her father, with slicked-back hair and pointy shoes. Who wore pointy shoes? She didn’t want to talk to him because he was a stranger, but she didn’t want to be rude, either. You could get into trouble for either one. She also didn’t appreciate being called “red” so she kept it short.
“Uh-huh.”
He squinted at her. “You sure you don’t need a lift somewhere?”
Her insides were squirming, which she was pretty sure had to do with her inner voice. “I’m sure.”
The man studied her a long moment. “Your loss, red.” He walked off.
He’d made the curb seem like the wrong place to be, so Alison walked to the kiddie rides on the other side of the entrance and found a seat between the spaceship and the pink horse. A ball of worry and anger set up in her chest and got bigger and tighter by the minute. Kids wanted rides and she had to keep getting up. Some of the parents looked at her sideways, like she was too big to be near something meant for little kids. If her mom had come with her, she wouldn’t be feeling like a freak. She wouldn’t be stuck here, worried and pretending not to be.
She didn’t have a watch but knew she’d been waiting more than two hours, maybe closer to three. She was starving. Sniffing back tears, Alison slumped against the neck of the pink horse and closed her eyes. A word came to her from the dictionary: “aggrieved.”
“Hey, squirt! Let’s go!” Warren wheeled his arm in a circle to hurry her.
Alison jumped up, relief running fast down her limbs, her eyes flooding. She wiped them away and climbed in. Her thighs stuck to the seat as she tried to scoot across behind Lester. Now that she was safe and on her way home, she was furious.