“Pop, what’s changed? We had this conversation two weeks ago. I told you, I am not ignoring them on the street.”
“Then you do what you need to do to not be on the street when they are. What’s changed is that immediately after that last conversation, you went right to your room and out the window. I’ve thought about it; I put you right back in there, but there’s no guarantee you’ll stay.”
“I didn’t go out the window. I went out the front door. You were in here congratulating yourself on another fine job of putting your foot on my neck.”
“Well, Annie, we’re down to it. My foot is on your neck. Your contact with those people, other than what needs to happen with Frankie, is finished.”
This is crazy. My fuse isn’t even lit. “And if it isn’t . . .”
“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to find another place to finish out the year.”
I smile. “You figured a way to throw me out without throwing me out. I’ll bet you’re a really good businessman.”
If this were one of those old-time cartoons, Pop would turn bright red and his head would explode. “That’s enough!”
He still hasn’t figured out that I don’t care. My head is with Walter and Wiz—and Frankie—and hopefully Sheila and maybe even Nancy. “Did Momma have anything to say about this?” I ask.
“This has nothing to do with her. This is my decision.”
“You know about the Nineteenth Amendment, right?”
“What?”
“Women’s right to vote.”
“You just can’t stop with the smart mouth, can you? Annie, what’s happened to you? Do you realize what’s at stake?”
I nod very slowly. “My self-respect. My happiness.”
“Your college education,” he says. “As it stands, I’m on the hook for that.”
I have never felt this calm in this kind of storm. “Well, I’m taking you off. You know what makes this so easy?”
He glares. In this instant it is so clear how Pop’s entire self-image depends on his capacity to be the boss.
“That you think you’re putting my future on the line. That’s a hammer no kid should live under.”
The muscle in his jaw turns into a marble.
“So, I’ll get my stuff.” I lean forward. “And by the way, poor people go to college all the time. It’s not easy, but if they really want to, they go.”
I rise to leave, and am startled to see Momma just on the other side of the paned glass door. So she was in on this, too. That breaks my heart.
I open the door to slide past her. “Stay right where you are, baby.”
Pop starts to get up.
“You stay where you are, too, baby.”
“Jane, this has nothing to do with you. This is me holding Annie responsible for her own future.”
Momma actually picks up a book from the nearest shelf and hurls it right at his head. “You arrogant son-of-a-bitch!” she yells. “What do you mean it has nothing to do with me? This is my house and my daughter and if someone’s leaving, it’s you.”
Pop is unflappable. “Jane, I know you mean well . . .”
And Momma hurls another book.
“Stop that!”
“Then shut your mouth!”
“You need to understand, this is a pivotal time in Annie’s . . .” and he’s ducking another book. The first two were paperback. This one’s a John Irving hardback.
“This is a pivotal time in your marriage,” Momma says in a low voice, reaching for another book. “A time in which the next two words out of your mouth better be ‘Yes, ma’am.’ And the three after that better be ‘I’m sorry, Annie.’”
Pop is a highly regarded business man in this town and he really doesn’t like being pushed around, and he remains true to his jock philosophy that the best defense is a powerful offense. “Jane, you’re about to get into territory that’s very hard to retreat from.”
“It’s impossible to retreat from,” Momma says, “and you will by God not see me take one step backward. I just gave you two short, easily learnable lines that could have led to a two percent chance of saving your marriage and you blew them. By the end of this day, one of us is going to be out of this house.”
The only sound is that of her retreating footsteps.
Pop is stunned, but only for a moment before going after her. He says, “Now look what you’ve done,” as he passes me.
I’m putting things into my duffel when I hear the knock.
“Hey, Marvin.”
“Somebody dropped a bomb right into the middle of my family.”
“Sorry, pal. It was me.”
“It was Mom,” he says.
“I’m sorry anyway.”
“I’m not,” Marvin says. “I was hating the idea of growing up, thinking I’d have to act like my dad to succeed.”
“You knew you wouldn’t though, right?”
He points at my heart. “Whoever said you were nothing but a jock.”
I point back. “Better not have been you. What’s going on out there?”
He smiles. “Dad’s at the bedroom door. He was hollering, now he’s pleading. I was using their bathroom when she locked him out. When I came out, she was logging onto the bank website.”
“What do you think will happen?”
He shrugs. “Whatever it is, my life will be better. If they break up, you and I live with Mom here or wherever she goes, and all of a sudden he has to be nice to me because I become a bargaining chip. If they stay together, Mom doesn’t let him expel you and he goes on living vicariously through your athletic exploits—though he won’t enjoy it as much—and treating me like the gay son he never wanted.”
I laugh. “You have to start bringing home a girlfriend.”
He sticks out his lower lip and snorts. “I don’t care if my dad thinks I’m gay. I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m gay. Some of the nicest guys I know are gay, and all of the assholes I know are straight.”
“Remember your logic course. Just because all assholes are straight, not all straight guys are assholes.”
“Hell yeah. I’m cool, for one. Not so much my dad.”
“You’re not giving him much slack.”
“He reeled it all in,” Marvin says, “when he tried to get rid of you.”
Chapter
Fourteen
“Appreciate the ride,” Walter says as Leah pulls in front of his place. We treated him to dinner and a showing at the Magic Lantern of a documentary on Bill Russell, the legendary center for the Boston Celtics of the late fifties and all of the sixties.
“Any time,” Leah says. “You know the good places.” Who’d have thought Walter was a basketball fan.
“Put it on my gravestone,” he says, opening the door. “And the next time you all have a ‘hero’ talk at your book club, add Mr. Russell to the mix. The man never backed down. You all can have your Jordans an’ LeBrons and Kobes. Give me the old-timers.”
“Big surprise you’re an old-timer’s fan,” Leah says. “What are you, like a hundred and ten?”
Walter is right about Bill Russell. According to this documentary, the guy stood for justice as much or more than any athlete of his century. The documentary inspired me; I’m going to see if I can get the group to read Second Wind. If I have trouble, Leah will push it through. I mean, Bill Russell started out in the NBA when the unwritten rule was that you kept more white guys on the court than black; when northern teams traveled to the south only to discover they needed two sets of team accommodations. Russell, arguably the best player in the world, threatened to sit out, or leave, whenever and wherever equality wasn’t embraced. Leah is a black swimmer, and while she doesn’t face that kind of discrimination, she’s aware there have been two—count ’em, two—American black Olympic gold medalists, and she knows plenty of history to understand why. When the starter gun fires, every other swimmer in the race sees second place as a win.
We watch Walter saunter up his walk, then Leah takes me home, where
things have remained in flux. No one actually left after the big fight, but it’s been chilly around here for the past week and a half. I still have a room and a place at the dinner table, but Pop doesn’t speak to me unless he has to, and his wife and son are barely speaking to him. Momma and Pop are in counseling, but I’d hate to be the therapist. In the late night, I’ve heard bellowed versions of “. . . all I’ve done for that girl!” accompanied by “. . . undermining my authority,” followed by a door slamming and the sound of footsteps fading toward the living room. I have a feeling Pop is going to get tired of sleeping on the couch. The one word I hear over and over from Momma is “narcissist,” which until recently I’d never even heard. I guess the best definition is, “It’s all about me; like, all about me.” I mean, how else can you explain the fact that he doesn’t understand what a big deal finding Frankie was. The minute he heard he was safe, all he wanted was to make sure nobody related to Frankie ever got back into our lives.
When I asked Momma if things would be better if I found a place, she said, “Things will get better when Jack gets his head out of his ass, and he best speed it up. You just hang tough, sweetie.”
I think Pop believes that if he continues with the silent treatment, I’ll come around with a big apology, and I have apologized for escaping to Revel right after he grounded me to my room, but I can’t apologize for my life; if I’m going to make that one, my apology needs to be to me. My draw to my mother, and to a lesser extent, to Sheila and even Rance, was a real thing. Maybe it wasn’t good for me, but it was— and is—real. I’ve told myself a million lies, way more than I’ve told Pop—how that need wasn’t really important and how stupid I am for even having it and how I’m tough enough to live this double life.
And it’s worn me out. It’s hard enough remembering what lie you last told so you don’t rat yourself out with the next one, but it’s hard-times-ten making yourself believe that what you want to be true is true when it is so clearly not.
Marvin is still rooting for the crack in the family fabric to split wide open. “Every other weekend with him would be just about right,” he says.
We’re at a back booth in Morty’s—Wiz, Walter, and me—having early—as in before school—breakfast. “Official business,” Wiz said when we ordered. “Eat up. Could be our last meal on the state’s dime.”
I say, “Are you in trouble?”
“Let’s just say it’s possible I could have thought this out better,” he says, smiling. “Officer Graham knows Frankie’s reappearance isn’t legit, but he’s playing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ I’m supposed to talk with the regional supervisor at work later. We came up through the system together and she thinks a lot like I do, but this won’t pass the smell test for her. Jeff Humphries from the paper is hounding her for answers I won’t give him. That guy can smell a rat.”
“What are you telling him?” Walter asks.
“Stonewalling with my original story: Got a text from an unknown party, went downstairs, found Frankie in the lobby, tried to locate his absent mother, and when we couldn’t, placed him in receiving care.” Wiz laughs. “Way too pat for Humphries.”
“Bet he gets tired of hearing that,” I say.
Wiz nods. “We’ve done a faster-than-ever home study, got an emergency license. The caseworker is assigned, and we’re setting up therapy. This would be a good time for a local serial killer or a hotel fire to give Humphries something else to do.”
Walter runs his face over his hand. “I hate to throw in a wrinkle. . . .”
“There are gonna be a few,” Wiz says. “Sooner the better.”
“This is a big one. I went out to the Crawford’s yesterday; checking up and keeping contact with the little bugger and . . . it looks like they’re not gonna be able to keep him.”
Wiz eyes close. “Shhhhhhh . . . What happened?”
“Economic reality,” Walter says. “They’ve been juggling finances to keep their mortgage paid up, and it finally caught up with them. Looks like they’re gonna lose the place. Where they’re gonna land is . . . unknown.”
Wiz closes his eyes and sighs. “I best go get him, then,” he says. “Sooner the better. You wanna go with me, Walter? He’s going to need a familiar face.”
I say, “I can go, too.”
“You’ve got school.”
“I’ll call the attendance office in my sick voice, tell them I’ll bring a note in the morning.”
“Why not?” Wiz says. “When this all falls apart, contributing to your truancy will be the lesser charge they can drop.”
The waiter brings our breakfast and we dig in. After a bit, Wiz puts his fork down. “Where in the world are we going to put him?”
We drive in a state car several miles north of Spokane to a farm outside Colbert. Walter has called ahead, and a man whose age looks to be somewhere between Wiz and Walter meets us in the driveway. He’s apologizing as we get out of the car.
“No sweat, Orland,” Walter says. “Couldn’ta seen this coming, right?”
“Wish that were true,” Orland says. “I’ve been robbing Peter to pay Paul for too long, hoping I could keep it going, but no can do. Julia’s pretty embarrassed.”
Wiz holds up his halt! hand. “It’s okay, Orland; you’ve got your hands full, and you bought us time.” He introduces me, and Orland invites us in.
“Annie!” Frankie shoots across the kitchen in an attempt to bowl me over.
“Hey, bud! I haven’t seen you forever!”
“I gots to move again,” Frankie says. “Do I get to go with you? To Marvin’s house?”
I glance at Wiz. “You’ll get to see Marvin sometime soon,” I say, “but we’re not going to his house right yet.”
“Is my mom still gone?”
“We’re lookin’ for her,” Wiz says. “Got a feeling . . .” and he lets it trail off. He learned a long time ago not to say wishes out loud to little kids.
Walter drifts into the living room, and I hear muffled voices. In a minute or two he appears in the doorway and motions to me. “The missus wants to meet you.”
Julia Crawford is dressed in an army T-shirt and camo pants—real government issue. Julia must have been a soldier. She shakes my hand and smiles kind of sheepishly. “I’m so sorry. . . .” She nods toward the doorway, toward Frankie’s nonstop chatter. “He talks about you all the time,” she says. “Are you going to be there for him?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And if you have any influence over that sister of yours . . .”
I laugh. “Well, I make her pretty mad, if that counts.”
“See if you can make her mad enough to be real in his life. I can see”—and she nods at Walter and points toward the kitchen—“there are a lot of people who love this little troublemaker, but this boy needs his mother. Even if she can’t take care of him—he needs her somehow.”
I feel the pang. “Somehow is about how he’ll get her, if at all. I’ll see if I can make her mad enough to act different.”
Julia pats my hand. “All right then. You all clear the road for Frankie. Little guy’s gonna need a wide one.”
My gut tells me I should be angry, thinking of this one more loss, but the Crawfords did us a solid, as they say—I mean, they could wind up as accessories, right?
“Isn’t it illegal in this state to talk on your cell while driving?” I ask. Wiz has two wheels in the gravel on the edge of the road as he tries to dial and drive.
“Add it to the charges,” he says, and corrects back onto the pavement. “Aiding and abetting a kidnapper, lying to the police, ignoring my superiors, and talking on a cell phone while driving. Should get two life sentences at least.” He finishes punching in the numbers. Geez, doesn’t he know about Contacts? Or Siri?
This side of the conversation:
“Hey, honey . . . Yeah, I’m driving but I’ve got the earphone in (liar). . . . Listen, remember how you said our life was getting boring—kids gone, go to work, come home, have a drink and din
ner, watch TV, go to bed, repeat? . . . Well, I think I have an idea how to break some of those boring habits. . . . No, I want it to be a surprise. . . . No, just promise you’ll give it a try, or at least hear me out. . . . Hey, have I ever disappointed you? . . . Okay, there was that . . . yeah, and that. . . . Okay, okay, but this will be an adventure. . . . Yeah, if it doesn’t work out, we can get divorced. . . . Love you, too, bye.”
He looks to us. “She has a real sense of humor.”
I say, “Does that mean Frankie’s going where I think he’s going?”
“It does if you think he’s going to my place,” Wiz says. “We’ve had our foster license for thirty years, took in a few over the years. I figure the safest way to keep Frankie from ratting us all out is to give him a place to rat where no one can hear.”
“He’s a load, Wiz,” I say. “You remember what he does, right?”
“Everybody in the department knows what he does. In my division ‘Frankie Boots’ is a verb. But my wife was a child therapist before she got her nursing license; she’s got some tricks up her sleeve. Plus, I live on the back road to Coeur d’ Alene, so he’ll still be out of sight. Won’t tell the press where he is because of confidentiality. The farther we get away from the original event, the better our chance of it all dying down.”
“So what’s the next problem needs solved?” Walter asks.
“Permanent placement,” Wiz says. “My wife can take time off, but that won’t last forever. I thought we’d have no trouble expanding the Howards’ license, since Annie’s there and they’re familiar with Frankie, but they seem resistant. Annie, do you know anything about that?”
“I know a lot about that.” I give him the short version of the battle on the home front.
“Well, we gotta work this one problem at a time,” Wiz says. “The principal at Frankie’s school is on board, so nobody there will be talking to the press, but in the Twitter and Facebook world, rumors fly. Eventually we’ll have to answer some.”