“How did you know how to do that?” I ask.
“Work.”
“You work with babies?”
“I work with children of all ages.”
“Where do you work anyway?”
“Are we friends now?” he asks. “Officially?”
“I guess so,” I say. “We see a lot of each other. We’re either friends at this point or we’re married.”
“Margo Grant,” he teases. “You can be Miles Grant,” he tells Mo. Mo pauses for a minute in his sucking to smile at Judah, while I blush profusely.
“Don’t you buy into his charm,” I tell Mo. “He’s a big flirt.”
The sun heats our shoulders with little mercy. I am wishing I had sunscreen for the baby when Judah suddenly decides to answer my question.
“I work at Barden’s School for the Disabled,” he says. “It’s also where I went to school. My mom got me a scholarship, somehow convinced them to put me on their bus schedule even though they have to drive all the way out here to this evil corner of the universe. When I graduated, they offered me a part-time job working with the after school kids and as a teacher’s aide.”
I glance down at the top of his head, impressed. It seems exactly like the sort of thing he should be doing. I am just about to say so when he says…
“I hated going there. I already felt so different, then I was forced to go to a school where everyone was different. And all I wanted to do was experience some normalcy.”
I think about my high school experience—the kids with their guarded, worn eyes. Wanting someone to notice you all the while praying no one does. The urgency to find likeness in your peers and knowing you never will. The desperate and clumsy attempts to dress, and speak, act and tolerate what is deemed acceptable. It was the most humiliating, desperately lonely four years of my life. And yet, had Judah’s body been whole, his legs undamaged by the tumor that stole his ability to walk, he would have stood tall, probably played football on the school’s team. Handsome and popular, he never would have been the kind of boy to exchange words with me. How lucky did that tumor make me? How blessed? To get to know a man like Judah Grant without the social barriers dictating our roles.
“You didn’t miss out on anything,” I tell him. “People are mostly just assholes in high school.”
Judah laughs. “Don’t swear in front of the baby,” he says.
“Sorry, Mo,” I say dutifully.
“Miles,” he corrects.
“Sorry, Miles,” I say. “Mo Miles, Mo Miles…”
All three of us are smiling. So rare, I think. But I am happy. I feel it all the way to my toes, even though yesterday I killed someone.
JUDAH KNOWS SOMETHING. I realize this one day as I am hanging clothes on hangers, and arranging them around the store, the musty smell filling my nostrils and making me feel sick. He’s been different with me ever since that afternoon with Mo. At first I told myself it was in my head—the assessing looks, the silence, the strange questions, but they come too frequently. He’s on to me. He’s been spending more and more time with his father. I don’t like the look of him, or maybe I’m jealous. He comes to get Judah, patiently lifting him into the passenger seat before carefully loading his wheelchair into the back. I wonder how he and Delaney met, as I watch him climb into the driver’s seat, his russet hair lifting in the wind. He isn’t the type to shoot the breeze and smoke a joint on someone’s front porch. He is a serious man; you can tell by the way he hardly smiles, the pristine condition in which he keeps his truck. Even the care with which he handles Judah’s wheelchair says something of the way he lives. Judah is like him. It is strange to realize that the boy I feel most connected to doesn’t really belong here. His only tie being Delaney, probably the only reason he hadn’t left. My eyes follow the truck and the boy out of Wessex, until they burn from brine.
I wait for him to come back, checking out the window, looking for his dad’s car. But he doesn’t come home until three days later, and he looks different. When I see him after that, he is distant. He locks eyes with strangers more than he does me. He peels the skin off oranges, and does not eat them. He picks up a joint and does not light it. He smiles at Mo, and it does not reach his eyes. Where has Judah gone?
At first, I wonder if it’s because of how much I’ve changed. I’ve lost almost fifty pounds. I’m not the girl he met in either shape or mental form. Perhaps my ability to make this change bothers him. While he is stuck in his wheelchair, I am free to walk off my weight. But, no. That’s not Judah. The fortune of others does not turn him melancholy. He doesn’t wish for what he cannot have. That’s what drew me to him in the first place. So I move on. When did it start? I think. When did he start pulling away?
Was it after I killed Vola? Lyndee? I remember the way he looked at me that day after I came back smelling of smoke, with dirt smeared across my knuckles.
I must have reeked of it that night—death and smoke. I hurried back to the eating house and sat at the kitchen table, staring down at the scars on the wood until I eventually climbed the stairs to my bedroom. The next day it all felt like a dream. Sometimes, I almost forget it happened.
The following week Judah tells me that he’s moving to California. I feel all the blood rush to my head.
“What? Why?”
“My dad is going.” He hands me the bowl of popcorn and wheels himself into the living room. “He said I can live with him while I go to school.”
I trip on the rug by the front door, and popcorn goes flying everywhere.
“Jeez, you okay?” Judah bends down to grab my hands. I pull them away from him, my face burning. “You can live with your mom and go to college, too.” I try to say it casually as I scoop kernels from the floor, but there is a slight tremor in my voice. The idea of the Bone without Judah is unbearable. Some days I’m not even sure how I made it through eighteen years of my life without him.
“My doctor thinks it will be good for me to be there. I’ll be in Los Angeles,” he says. “Everything will be easier, even getting from one place to the next without getting soaked.”
“It’s just a little rain,” I say limply. I make to eat a piece of popcorn I find on the floor, and Judah knocks it out of my hand.
“Stop it,” he says. “We can make another bag.” I watch as he goes back to the kitchen. I want to cry. I want to beg him to stay. I eat the rest of the popcorn I find on the floor. When he comes back, I am slipping on my coat to leave.
“What are you doing, Margo?”
“I’m going home.” I reach to open the door, but he throws an un-popped kernel at my head. It bounces off my forehead, and I glare at him.
“We had plans!” I yell at him, and then I cover my mouth with my hand, hoping Delaney didn’t hear my outburst from her bedroom.
“To get out of the Bone,” Judah says.
“Together,” I insist. “I can’t do it alone.”
He stares at the blank TV screen, absently pushing pieces of popcorn into his mouth. I want to confess about eating the popcorn on the floor, but I know he’ll be really upset with me.
“You have legs,” he says finally. “I have to go where I have an extra pair of legs to help me. At least for now … until I’m done with school.”
“I can be your legs.”
“You need to be your own legs, Margo. Look, I don’t want to be a burden on anyone’s life. I want to be able to do things for myself. My dad has money. He said that if I come out to California with him, he’ll pay for my school. He wants to buy me one of those custom cars that I can drive. A cripple’s car.”
When I don’t say anything, he glances at Delaney’s bedroom door and lowers his voice. “He stopped paying child support when I turned eighteen. I suddenly became really expensive. I can’t be a burden to her. I have to be able to work, carry my own weight.”
I look down at my legs, and suddenly I hate them. I hate that they give me an advantage over Judah.
“Stay,” he says, as I turn back to the doo
r.
“Why? You’re just going to leave. Why should I waste my time?”
“You think it’s a waste of time to be with me?”
I don’t know how to answer him without sounding pathetic.
“You can leave too. Anytime you want. I know someone in the city who will give you a job.”
“And where will I live? How will I know where to go and what to do?”
“You learn those things,” he says cautiously. “You don’t have to be trapped here.”
I don’t want to learn those things without him. He’s stolen my dream, and I feel stupid for ever having it. Of course someone like Judah would never run away with someone like me. Of course he wouldn’t want to share a life with an ugly, unaccomplished girl from the Bone. It was all talk to lift our spirits, and now he is going to move away and leave me with a brain high on ideas that will never be fulfilled.
“When are you leaving?” I ask.
Judah looks away. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I repeat. “That’s why you’ve been so weird lately.”
I break our connection. It happens in the blink of an eye. I snap it in two and forget it was there. He calls after me when I leave his house, but I keep walking. I survived eighteen years without Judah Grant. I didn’t need him. I want to be fireproof. Nothing should have the power to break my heart.
The eating house is quiet when I let myself in. I sit at the kitchen table with a glass of milk, staring at the gas stove and entertaining the idea of leaving the Bone. If he can, I can. My milk grows warm, the condensation on the glass long gone. My fingers stay wrapped around the glass, my brain rifling through my options. Every possibility seems bleak without Judah: staying, leaving, living. But, no. I won’t be the type of woman who lacks in courage. I didn’t survive just to fold to the familiarity the Bone offers. I push my untouched milk aside and stand up, my chair scraping loudly against the wood. The house stirs around me. The floorboards above my head creak with the weight of invisible feet, the refrigerator begins to hum, the light bulb on the porch starts flickering in the early dusk. It’s awake, I think. Just like that.
I imagine my mother’s ghost walking into the kitchen, standing over my shoulder, trying to push my back into my seat. Stay in the Bone, stay in the Bone, stay in the Bone.
I feel like my lungs are constricting, like everyone who has ever lived in this house is ganging up on me, filling me with their fear. I walk backward to the front door, looking accusingly at the air around me. My hand reaches behind me for the doorknob. I can feel its grooves, its rust, its connection to the house. I try to turn it, but it jams, moving neither left nor right. I yank at it. The ghosts are moving in. If they reach me, they won’t let me leave. I am crying without tears, but then I hear my name on Judah’s voice. The knob is unstuck; I fling it open and stumble out into the night air. Judah is at the bottom of the three steps, calling my name. I run down to him and find myself kneeling at his chair, crying into his lap. He touches my head, warm hands and compassion, which only makes me cry harder.
“What is it, blondie? People are going to think you’re giving me a blow job.” He makes no move to disturb me. I feel his fingers massaging my neck and scalp as he lets me cry. My hurt is compounded. I’m unsure from which direction to approach it. It feels like everyone is leaving me, like everyone always has, and yet I’m not sure I care. But, I do care, because I’m crying, and it hurts. I don’t blame them, that’s the difference. I’ve grown to expect it.
“I’ll come back for you, Margo. I promise.”
I shake my head. No, he won’t, but that’s okay too. This is our goodbye.
“Judah,” I say, pulling my head back to look at him. “I’m only nineteen years old.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I kind of already know that.”
“I’ve only really known you for a few months.”
“If you want to think of it that way…”
I stare at him. The way he’s looking at me is causing me shame. But I’ll say it. I’ll say it all, despite the wrongness of my feelings.
“What are you saying?” he asks.
“That I love you. That I love you deeply. I’m in love with you.”
The smile falls from his face. For a moment, he’s exposed. Horrified. I pull back, but his hands are on my arms, holding me prisoner in his lap.
“Let me go,” I say.
He does. I step back, out of his reach.
“Don’t come back here. No matter what happens. Promise me.”
“Margo…?”
“Just promise me.”
“Why? Why would you make me promise that?”
“Because,” I say. “If you come back, I’ll come back.”
He stares at me for a long time.
“I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I’m sorry for all of this.”
I’m backing up again. It feels ironic, familiar. Back into the eating house I go, the word goodbye eating the flesh of my lips. Wanting to be said, wanting to never be said. Get it over with, I tell myself.
“Goodbye, Judah.” My voice is clear and strong.
“I can’t say it, Margo.”
“Don’t,” I tell him. “Just remember one thing. You left me.”
And then I’m back in the house, and I’ve closed the door on Judah, and on the small chance I thought I had at love. And what an idiot I was to think I had that chance.
“It’s just us now,” I say to the eating house. “You can have me.”
A REPORTER IS SPEAKING about a baby koala born at the zoo near Seattle. I focus my whole attention on that story—the birth of a koala on the day Judah leaves the Bone. It’s only after he leaves that I look out the window at the empty street, but all I can think about is the koala. I want to see it. I want to go to the zoo, just like Judah promised me we would. As I leave the room and walk up the stairs, the news story switches to the murder of Lyndee Anthony. The clear voice of the reporter travels with me for a while, and then my thoughts drown it out. “Police are still searching for—”
When you start life, you have high hopes. Even if you’re born in the Bone, with a mother who wears a red, silk robe all day long, and sells her body to men for a nice crisp hundred dollar bill. You believe in the unbelievable. You see fairies in your empty pantry where the cans are supposed to be, and the rats that scramble across your bedroom floor are messengers from the gods, or your own personal spirit animal. And, if you’re really creative, you romanticize the rags you’re wearing. You’re Cinderella, you’re Snow White, you’re…
You’re a dead girl walking. But, for a time, you’re blind to it, and that’s a good thing. And then it’s taken—slowly … slowly … slowly. The loss of innocence is the most severe of growing pains. One day you believe you’re Cinderella, and the next all your imaginary glimmer falls away, and you see yourself as just another poor fuck, sentenced to live out your days in the Bone. Your innocence leaves so violently. It hurts to understand that no one is going to rescue you. No one can give you freedom. No one can give you justice, or vengeance, or happiness, or anything. Anything. If you’re willing, and if you’re brave, you take it. I have to get out of here.
The day after Judah leaves, I take six thousand dollars of my mother’s money, and I buy a car from an ad I find in the paper. It’s the first time I’ve ever bought a paper, and it takes me ten minutes to find the section where used cars are sold. An impulse buy, but I trust it because it’s what I need right now. It’s an open top Jeep, black and older than I am, but in pretty good shape. The owner is Mr. Fimmes, a rickety old vet with arthritis and a set of dentures that he pops in and out of place with his tongue. The Jeep belonged to his son before he died in an accident climbing Rainier. He’s not the sentimental type, he tells me. He kept it around because his wife wouldn’t let him sell it.
“She died of cancer six months ago, so I figured now’s the time…”
I tell him I’m sorry for his loss as I poke around in the glove box. I find a moldy box of
cigars and a pocketknife that looks expensive. I pull out the knife and offer it to him. “You might want to keep this.” He shakes his head. “Told you. Not the sentimental type.”
“Oh,” I say lamely, thinking of all the boxes of my mother’s things in the attic. Would I be able to give those away as easily?
“I hardly drove it, and it’s in pretty good shape.” He pops his dentures in place to tell me this, then pops them back out again. It’s tough looking and impractical since it rains so goddamn much. But I don’t mind the feel of rain on my face, and it’s better than buying a beat-up, gang-banger car from Alfie’s Car Lot. Everyone knows Alfie deals everything Mo does not. The lot is just a side business. Cars traded for drugs, cars bought to hide cash. Those cars have bad juju. I hand Mr. Fimmes the cash and drive away. I go slowly, my foot hovering nervously over the brake. I watch old Mr. Fimmes in the rearview mirror, thinking at any moment he’s going to figure out I can’t drive and call the whole thing off. I’ve only driven once before, when Sandy let me drive her car around the Rag’s parking lot after hours. I’d been good at it then, but there had been no other cars around. So this is it. I’m teaching myself. I take the back streets, slamming the brakes too hard at the stop signs, and almost knocking over someone’s mailbox when I make a turn.
I’ll be the only person on Wessex Street, besides Mo, who owns a car. This makes me a target. Judah was suspicious of me, so why wouldn’t these strangers be? Either way, I don’t want anyone to know I have it. Sandy says I can leave in in her garage for a few days. I drop it off at her house and catch the bus home. It feels good. I bought a car. I’m a total grownup.