Carved in Stone

by Julia Shupe

  Carlton fought against the sob that threatened to choke him. He was nine years old, not a baby anymore, and embarrassed to be acting like one. But he couldn’t help himself; he knew what this meant. If he didn’t sway her, he’d never see her again.

  “No, mom,” he begged her. “You’re wrong. Frank doesn’t help you do anything. He doesn’t care about you, mom. I do. Me. I’m the one who’s always been there for you. Look at the things Frank makes you do, all those terrible things with those terrible men, the things that make you cry, or make funny noises. He gives you the pixie dust, too, and that’s bad. I don’t think the pixie dust helps. I think it hurts. The pixie dust makes you sick.”

  Bending down, she pulled on his fingers, trying to loosen his grip, but failing. Her foul breath washed over him in waves. He turned his face and tried to lock his fingers, stared at the sidewalk and focused on the concrete, at an ant that was making its way to her foot.

  “Let go, Carlton. You need to let go. This is for the best. You’ll see.”

  For the best? Was she kidding? Leaving him alone was for the best? He knew things had gotten bad, but this was the last thing he’d expected her to do. Mommies—the good ones—didn’t do things like this. Being separated from people you loved was never a good thing. Being alone was never for the best.

  Or was it?

  He knew that lately, things had been bad, but had they become so bad she’d stopped loving him? How long had she be thinking about this? Making plans? She was leaving him at the doorstep of a scary orphanage, and Carlton knew about places like this. This was where parents left their children behind, and if the children were lucky, other mommies would take them. But some children, of course, weren’t lucky. Some were stuck in that place forever—unless they ran away. Right now, Carlton didn’t know which sounded worse. How would he feel if another mommy took him? Would she be nice, or mean? Would she treat him like a slave? And what if he was taken, and then his mommy got better? How would she know where to find him? Wasn’t she worried about that? Had he been such a bad boy that he really deserved this?

  He reflected over the last few years. Things had been bad, but he’d always been there for her. He’d done his best to fill her many voids, the empty places his father had left behind. Sifting through his memories, he tried to recall a time he’d been bad, or talked back, but most of the time he didn’t say much at all. Most of the time, he stayed out of her way, particularly when she put the pixie dust up her nose.

  A few years back, before she started caring about it so much, his father had left them unexpectedly. One day he’d been there, and the next day he wasn’t. He’d packed up his things, his clothes, his shoes, and most of their food, and walked out the door, never to return. Carlton had been younger, just five years old at the time, but he still remembered it like it was yesterday. The memories were fragmented and odd, like bursts of sound, and flashes of color, like a movie playing behind his eyes. He could recall angry shouting and sharp blows from angry fists, but never any kindness or love. His father’s punishments had always been severe, his words always cruel and condescending.

  But when he left, things quickly got better, like a cloud had finally been lifted from their lives. That was how it had been for Carlton, at least. Hadn’t it been the same for his mother?

  He thought about his father as he stared at her shoes. It had been hard on her, but he’d never understood why. For days at a time, she had cried in her room, refused to leave her bed, comb her hair, or brush her teeth. She had refused to eat, pushed her food around her plate, made gelatinous peaks of mashed potatoes with a spoon. Pulling at the skin that was hanging from her arms, and pushing at the folds around her tummy, she had frowned, saying he’d left because he thought she was ugly. But she wasn’t ugly, Carlton thought; she’d never been.

  Well, he corrected himself. Not ugly back then. Back then she’d been beautiful and perfect. Her sadness hadn’t made any sense. He’d never understood her pain and suffering, or why she wasn’t able to pick up and move on, get a job like Tommy’s mom from the apartment downstairs, go for a walk, or take Carlton for ice cream. She used to eat ice cream all the time, he remembered; chocolate peanut butter in the summer, and butterscotch with strawberry topping in the winter. She’d said it was for Carlton’s benefit, of course, but he’d always suspected that she liked it just as much. He figured it felt soothing against her split, swollen lips.

  But those were things that they used to do, before Frank, and the pixie dust, and all the short skirts, before the shiny new shoes with scuffed heels and broken straps, before the clouds of perfume, and the late night visitors. Why was it so hard for her to forget Carlton’s father? She’d never seen him clearly. He wasn’t sure she’d ever tried. Things were better when George Tubbs went away. She just refused to remember all the nasty things he did, which didn’t make sense; he had done them to her.

  While Carlton was the victim of his father’s nasty words, his mother had suffered his fists and his feet. He would blacken her eyes and split her lips with his knuckles. He’d slapped Carlton once or twice, and once, had locked him in a closet for two days, but his mother had suffered the worst of the abuse. Why was she always forgetting about that?

  He peered up at her face, his eyes blurred with angry tears. After so much pain, life had delivered them a miracle. His father had left, and things got better. Why had she wasted such an amazing opportunity? Shivering, he remembered that dark closet now, how cold it had been, and how hungry he’d become. When he’d needed to pee, he’d used an old T-shirt, peed in the corner, and then wiped himself with an old dusty sock. His father had been heartless, and Frank was no different. She was following the same old pattern.

  “Frank’s just like Daddy,” he choked, his voice barely a whisper. “Why can’t you see that? You don’t need Frank, or anyone else, and you don’t need the pixie dust, either. It’s not magic, mom. It’s poison.”

  “Carlton,” she hissed. “That’s enough.”

  “No! I’m telling you the truth. It’s poison! Just because you call it a funny name doesn’t make it nice. It’s nasty, and stinky. And it makes your nose bleed.”

  “Carlton, stop it right now.”

  She pushed at him, rougher this time, her fingers trembling, and snapping like claws. She tried to pry his hands apart, but she’d become too weak. She couldn’t fight back. He focused on her feet and held on for dear life. Her toenails were too long. He couldn’t help but notice. And where the pink polish had chipped and streaked, a crescent of brown fungus peeked through. The skin on her heels was flaky and peeling, and the cracks were etched with brown dirt—old dirt. Her feet were as filthy as the rest of her body: stinky, wrinkled, and misshapen. But they were her feet, he thought, and he loved them. He loved them the same way he’d always loved her. He laced his fingers tighter, and willed those feet not to turn and walk away.

  “Laurie,” a voice called out. “You’re here. You came. How are we doing? Can I help?”

  Carlton’s heart was a fist inside his chest. He craned his neck toward the sound of the voice. An older woman had emerged from the orphanage, and strangely, she seemed to know his mother’s name. Mouth agape, he lifted his tear-stained face, the pieces of the puzzle finally falling into place.

  His mother had planned this all along. He was certain of it.

  It wasn’t like she had said it had been. She’d made it sound like an abrupt decision, like she’d awakened that morning, and decided to get better, like she’d had this great, spur-of-the-moment idea. She’d made it sound like a moment of clarity, like a natural step in the road to recovery. But it wasn’t. It was a well-laid plan. It was calculating and cunning. She’d probably come here several days ago, met this woman, and made these secret arrangements.

  Carlton crumpled around his mother’s dirty feet. This was it, he thought. She was leaving him for good. It wasn’t like the other times, when she’d left him alone for a handful of days. This time, she meant it. She’d planned it in
advance. This time, he’d be forced to live the rest of his life with strangers.

  He curled his fists. She thought he was stupid. She thought he believed she would actually come back. Well, he didn’t. He’d worked it all out in his head, probably better than she thought he ever could. He’d never see her after today, because once she left, she’d be free of him at last, free to run to Frank, free to sniff all the pixie dust she could stuff up her nose, free to drink from that bottle she kept hidden in the freezer, or the one she kept hidden in the back of her sock drawer.

  He uncurled his arms, ever so slowly, suddenly sickened by the thought of touching her. Her feet were so ugly, so battered, thin, and gray. Pushing himself away from them, he regarded her with a fresh set of eyes. He’d just needed a new perspective. He’d been looking at her, but he’d never really seen her. She’d been right all along—what she said: she was ugly. Her skin was baggy and wrinkled, her clothes hanging from her body in thick folds. Nothing fit right. Nothing matched anything else. Her gnarled feet were pushed into worn sandals; her toes hanging over the edge and clutching the ground like a monkey would a branch. Looking at her suddenly made him feel sick.

  When she met his gaze, he saw indecision there. Perhaps she was suffering a moment of crippling guilt. Her eyes clouded over, and her chin began to tremble. She mumbled something unintelligible—to herself, not to him. Or maybe she thought she was speaking to his father. Over the years, she’d done that sometimes.

  “I can’t,” she stammered, her eyes frozen on Carlton’s face. “I can’t make this work. Can’t take care of you like I should.” Her hands fluttered, opened, and then closed. She wiped viscous fluid from the corner of her nose.

  The moment hung heavy in the air. He couldn’t breath, and when she finally addressed him, her voice broke with emotion. “I’m sorry, Carlton, but it’s better this way. I know what I’m doing. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  The woman to Carlton’s right tapped her foot against the pavement. “That’s right, Laurie. It’s all for the best. Get yourself right and then come back for Carlton.” Her voice was kind, but her eyes were apathetic. Carlton wondered how many times she’d made that speech—how many times today, in fact. “He’ll be fine here, Laurie. It’s just like we talked about. But you’d better be going. It’s never best to draw things out.”

  Laurie Tubbs set her eyes upon her only son’s face. Her gaze skimmed his body, like she was memorizing its every line and curve. At first, watching her, he thought he might cry, but after a moment, the sadness abruptly faded. Funny, he thought, how things changed in an instant. In a single moment, something inside him had darkened. Something had stilled and gone quiet. In his head, a switch had flipped, and the truth, when it came, surprised him. All one had to do, he realized with awe—no matter how farfetched it sounded—was make a decision, and then stick with it. Right or wrong, it all came down to that. Decide on something, and the rest fell into place. So what, he wondered, was he deciding right now? What truth would he cling to when he shoved her aside?

  Emotions, he decided, were much like rooms. Some were dark and frightening, filled with chains and shadowy corners, while others were damp and swarming with hornets. But they all had windows and doors, he realized, and if you wanted to, you could simply close one. You could slam it shut and leave a part of yourself behind. You could crawl through a window and never look back, pretend certain things hadn’t happened.

  Just a moment ago, Carlton thought his world was ending. But now, standing there, challenging his mother’s watery gaze, he saw the truth of what happened. His world wasn’t shrinking. It was expanding. He was free. The possibilities, for Carlton, were endless, and it all began with a choice.

  He eyed the sore at the corner of her moth, and next, the fading yellow bruise on her temple. He remembered how lazy she was, when she would stay in her bed for days at a time, and when she’d left him alone for a week. Every nasty memory came rushing back in an instant. He remembered how the walls had closed in around him, and how quickly he’d run out of food when she had gone. There was even that one night, he recalled with a start, when the hunger was so strong he’d been desperate. He’d eaten the only thing left in the house, which incidentally, was a can of Frank’s bitter smelling beer. It had tasted awful, and smelled even worse, but he’d downed it, and been sick for the rest of the night.

  Glowering at her, he recalled the scavenging, the smelly dumpsters they’d foraged by moonlight, the spoiled cans of food, the moldy loaves of bread, the empty the jars of peanut butter he’d found and scraped with his fingers. How many times had he dined with the rats? A few of those times, he’d eaten rotted food. He remembered how his stomach had cramped and twisted, and how the room had tilted strangely before rushing at his face.

  Saliva abruptly flooded his cheeks, and for a moment, he thought he might vomit. His fingers twitched as he scrutinized her face, and his eyes were drawn to the indentation beside her left eye. It was an old injury from the pixie-dust fairies; it was one of the times she had sniffed too much. She’d passed out mid-sentence and fallen to the floor, smashing her head into the corner of the coffee table. He remembered pressing a musty rag to that wound, the blood, and the weeping—his weeping, not hers.

  He stared at her gaunt face and his stomach turned sour. Just go, he thought. Get the hell out of here. If you don’t care about me, why the hell should I care about you?

  The feelings were strange; the words even stranger, but the strangest thing of all was that he meant them this time. She was filth. She was nothing but trash. Why had it taken so long for him to see it?

  He worked up spit from the back of his cheeks, moved it to the front, and then launched it with his tongue. And as he watched the thick glob sail through the air, he could scarcely believe he had done it, and when it fell on her toes, he felt himself smile. He could do this, he thought: he’d always been good at taking care of himself. He was young, but he had a lot of experience. What the hell did he need her for anyway?

  “Carlton!” his mother yelped, sucking in a breath. She gaped at her foot, and lifted it into the air, and he couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She was hopping and dancing, while staring at the loogie. She was acting like he’d set her on fire.

  The fat orphanage-mother frowned.

  Ignoring them both, Carlton turned toward his new home. Lowering his head, he walked past his mother, and past the frumpy woman who was now his caretaker. She was nothing to him. She never would be. She was a stand-in, a poor substitute, a person he was supposed to accept, love, and obey without question. Fuck that, he thought. He’d obey his own rules.

  Though his hands were empty, he held his head high. He didn’t have a bag, a pillow, a blanket, or even a toothbrush. No clothes, no toys, no spare pair of shoes.

  Children were gathered at the entrance, openly staring, their expressions ranging from shock to indifference. When he approached, they made him a path through the middle. A taller boy smirked, and then stuck out his foot, and spinning on his heel, Carlton swung a clenched fist. He caught the kid square across the jaw, and the boy yelped. It wasn’t even a hard hit, Carlton thought savagely—nothing compared to what his father might throw.

  Taking a seat on a spiral staircase, he peered at his mother through the spinning motes of dust. She was hugging herself, leaning over, and crying, rocking back and forth in the arms of that stupid woman.

  Good, Carlton thought. Let her suffer. It serves her right.

  “Nice punch,” a boy murmured from behind his left shoulder. “That your mom? She leaving you here?”

  Carlton couldn’t find his voice. Right now, he was too angry, too restless, and amped. Narrowing his eyes, he made himself a silent pledge. One day, he thought bitterly, if it takes all my life; I’ll get you back for this. I’ll find you, and make you pay. Have fun with Frank while you can. Rot out your nose with that smelly pixie dust. Get drunk. And you better enjoy it, too, because it won’t last forever.

  “Nah,” h
e answered, finally turning toward the boy. “She’s not my mom, just some ugly old bitch.”

  The boy nodded before his eyes glazed over. Carlton was sure he’d known the type.

  That was the day Carlton made himself a promise. He’d never tell her he loved her again, and if she ever came back, he’d refuse to go with her. She was dead to him now, which was strangely exhilarating. Her day, he knew, would surely come. He’d see that it did. She’d get her comeuppance. He’d dream of the myriad ways in which to hurt her. Her suffering would be tailored specifically to her. His vengeance would know no bounds.

  He’d come to this orphanage a scared little boy, but now he felt different. He’d become someone else. It was almost as if someone else had taken over.

  Chapter 8

  After turning the key, I quickly disengaged the alarm.

  “Linda!” I said, half a yell, half a whisper. “Linda, where are you?”

  My sister’s voice had frightened me. It was something in her tone; in the way the words had caught in her throat. Or had I imaged all of that? Had my fear been caused by something else entirely? By a field of dead girls in shallow graves without their feet, or by tufts of shorn hair: red, brunette, and bloodstained blonde? Whatever the cause, fear propelled me to action. I took Gil’s car and made it clear across town in twenty minutes. With the cherry on the hood, I almost caused two accidents.

  I was worried about her, but I had a right to be. Linda was great with Danny. She was loving, conscientious, fun to be around, but it had taken her a long time to get where she was. It was the culmination of a lot of hard work, the result of endless introspection and self-denial. It was also tenuous, like leaves in the wind. It was something I didn’t yet trust.