“Yes,” I say, “of course.”
“When?” she interrogates.
“Soon. I will call her soon.”
“That baby’s not yours, you know,” she says out of nowhere, noticing the tender way I cradle Ruby in my arms, the way I massage her head.
“Why would you say such a thing?” I ask, my voice quiet, hurt.
“It’s like you think she’s yours or something. It’s weird,” and then, “Where’s Willow?” she asks drily, as if her words didn’t just blindside me, didn’t just punch me in the gut, and I say, sullenly, winded by the abuse, “She wasn’t feeling well. She went to bed early,” stating it in a hushed tone so that Zoe will believe.
“The flu,” I say, “it’s going around.”
But Zoe, thinking perhaps about my fraudulent phone calls to Dana, receptionist extraordinaire, rolls her eyes and says cynically, “Yeah, right,” and then she leaves, down the hall and into her bedroom, banging the door closed.
And I return to Ruby, on my lap, rocking until blackness takes over the sky, until there is nothing left to see out that window but a smattering of stars and the electrified buildings here, there and everywhere.
WILLOW
I started seeing more and more of Matthew. Most often we went to the library where we sneaked down one aisle or another to read books, sometimes, and to kiss. We went as early as we could, after Joseph and Isaac had left that Omaha home, because if we waited too long there would be kids from schools filling the study tables at the ends of the aisles, loud and obnoxious, even up by the engineering books where no one else cared to go. But when we got there earlier in the day, around noon, the library was almost silent, kids at school, adults working, and we could move about that aisle as if we were the only souls in the whole entire world. Even the librarians stayed away—since no one ever checked out the engineering books, there were never any books to shelve. Only once did some librarian stop us and ask, with a tone more curious than disapproving, “No school today?” And though I stopped dead in my tracks, my heart forgetting to beat—absolutely certain she was gonna send me back to Joseph—it was Matthew who said, like he’d had this answer all ready to go for a long, long time, “We’re homeschooled,” and that librarian nodded her head and said, “How nice,” and walked away. I didn’t even know what that meant anyway: homeschool. But Matthew did.
And that was the end of it. No one ever asked what we were doing there again: two kids out of school in the middle of the day.
Matthew touched me in a way that was far different than Joseph ever did. Matthew’s hands were considerate, whereas Joseph’s were not. Matthew’s hands moved slow and gentle, but Joseph’s did not. I thought of Matthew’s hands as an eraser of sorts, as if them touching me could erase that image of Joseph’s hands right on out of my mind.
Matthew talked more and more about getting me out of that home. But he said he knew his father wouldn’t let me leave. And Matthew didn’t have the money to take care of himself, much less me. Matthew never told me where he stayed once he left that homeless shelter. Not the truth anyway. He talked about sleeping on a buddy’s couch, or a friend letting him sleep on a cot in some storefront he owned, but when he said these things, he looked away, like when he talked about riding barges on the Missouri River, and I knew that he was lying. Matthew always looked tired. He started looking old. His skin was weathered, like maybe he was living on the streets somewhere, I didn’t know.
But still, he talked about getting me out of that home. He talked about places outside of Omaha he wanted to see. The mountains, the beach. He talked about saving money. He talked about other ways he could get money: stealing women’s purses or robbing a bank. I didn’t think Matthew had it in him, but if it got me out of that home with Joseph and Miriam then, I thought, okay. Just so long as no one got hurt.
Maybe, he said, and one day.
There were times when Matthew wanted to kiss me there, in that Omaha home, in my bedroom. There were times he wanted to lie beside me on the bed for reasons other than to read.
I didn’t know what Matthew did and didn’t know about Joseph, about what he did when he came into my room. I was too afraid to tell Matthew for fear he wouldn’t believe me. It’s my word against yours, Joseph said. No one will believe you.
And besides, Joseph reminded me. I was a child that no one wanted. No one but him and Miriam.
Matthew and my library trips continued throughout the fall and into winter. There were weeks, maybe more, when Joseph stayed home and didn’t go to work. Winter break, he said, and there he was in that house with me all day long and I didn’t see Matthew at all. But I thought about him. I thought about his hands on me, his lips on mine, the way he said my name. Claire. The snow fell from the sky, thick and heavy, coating the lawn with a layer of white. I stared out the window at that never-ending snow and thought of snowmen and sledding and snowball fights with Momma and Daddy back in Ogallala. But here, the snow was just another reason to stay inside. The temperatures were cold, in and out of that Omaha home, the windows drafty, the heat set to no more than sixty-eight degrees. I was cold all the time.
Joseph went back to work, and Matthew returned. Winter continued on and on for nearly forever, and though the calendar had turned to March, the weather outside resembled anything but spring. Cold and gray, icicles clinging to the rooftops of the homes on our block.
And then, one early March day, Matthew came to fetch me to the library, excited to show me some new program he’d discovered on the computer. He was excited that day when he arrived, more animated than I’d seen him in a long, long time. The sky was the color of charcoal, the breath from our mouth that kind that flowed into the air like smoke.
But what Matthew and I didn’t know was that Joseph wasn’t feeling well that day. We didn’t know as we hopped on that blue bus and headed past the Woodman building, that Joseph was lecturing over at the community college, and starting to feel a headache coming on, and that, as we pulled our chairs up to the computer, he was thinking about cancelling his afternoon classes so he could go home and rest. There was no way we could’ve known as we put change into the vending machine for a bag of chips, that he was packing up his stuff in his black backpack to go, or that, as we later settled down in the engineering aisle to peer through the books and to kiss, Joseph was in his car, driving home.
The house was quiet when we came in, the cold wind all but pushing us through the front door. Matthew was talking about his mother, about Miriam, about how, if he was ever a vegetable like her, he’d just want someone to shoot him, to take him out of his misery.
I was stunned, staring at him with my mouth gaping wide, so that I didn’t see Joseph parked on the edge of the corduroy recliner, gazing at us with his hawkish, hostile eyes. He was unmoving, still like a statue. Matthew froze in the doorway, and that’s what made me freeze, too, made me turn to see Joseph, with a lamp base in his hands, the flocked lamp shade tossed to the ground beside his big, heavy boots.
What happened next, I could hardly explain. Joseph’s words were eerily calm as he asked us where we’d been.
“A walk,” Matthew said, and Joseph said nothing, twirling that lamp cord around and around in his hand, giving it a slight tug to check the tension.
And then Joseph wanted to know where I’d gotten the clothes, the clothes Matthew hung onto between visits so that Joseph wouldn’t see.
It had been a long time since Joseph and Matthew had laid eyes on one another. Joseph had no way of knowing that while he worked, Matthew was in and out of that very home.
Joseph wanted me to say it, to tell him that we’d gone for a walk because lying lips, just like the thoughts of the wicked, were an abomination to God. He wanted me to say it aloud. He wanted the words to come from my mouth.
And they did.
And then he looked toward his son and said, “What did I always teach you, Matthew? Bad company ruins good morals. Isn’t that what I always said?”
And then it hap
pened, just like that. Joseph was moving across the room, striking Matthew with that lamp base again and again on the side of the head. There were words my Momma only ever muttered under her breath hurled at the top of their lungs.
I tried to stop Joseph, to get him to stop beating Matthew, but he knocked me down to the cold, hard floor. It took a minute to get my bearings, to get back up on my feet, but before I knew it, Joseph had me on the floor again, and this time, there was blood oozing from my nose, thick and red and sticky.
It happened so fast.
The sound of the lamp base against solid bone.
A streak of crimson blood soared through the air, splattering on the oatmeal-colored wall.
Epithets muttered between gasping breaths: son of a bitch and bastard and prick.
Random objects used as weapons: the telephone, a vase. The TV’s remote control. Breaking glass. A cry. More blood.
Me, on the floor, in the tornado position, feeling the ground shake as though an earthquake was passing through.
And then Isaac was there, too, home from school or work I assumed, and Isaac and Joseph were beating Matthew so badly I don’t know how he managed to stay on his own two feet. I was crying out loud, Stop! And Leave him alone! But no one was listening to me. Matthew groped for a candlestick and managed to connect with the side of Isaac’s head, immobilizing him for a split second.
Isaac lost his balance and staggered, thrust a hand to his own head.
And when Matthew raised that candlestick, Joseph managed to knock it right on out of his hand.
I don’t know how long it went on. Thirty seconds? Thirty minutes? It seemed like forever, that I knew for sure.
And there was nothing I could do.
“So this was in self-defense, then?” asks Louise Flores. “Is that what you’re implying?” She thrusts up the sleeves of the scratchy cardigan and fans a spare sheet of paper against her head. She’s sweating. The day outside must be warm, spring morphing into summer. Beads of perspiration form on the bridge of her nose, in the wrinkles of her raisin-like skin. I see the sun through the lone window, pouring across the dismal room and filling the darkness with light.
“Yes, Ms. Flores,” I say, “of course.”
I still see Matthew when I close my eyes: the sight of him with blood streaked throughout his dark brown hair, running crossways down his face. He looked like he was ten years old that day, there in the living room, with Joseph and Isaac ganging up on him. I hated that I couldn’t do anything to stop it, but even worse, I hated what I knew Matthew was feeling: powerless and weak. His eyes gazed past mine and I knew that more than anything, he felt ashamed.
“After some time,” I admit to Ms. Flores, “Matthew left. He didn’t want to, you know. He didn’t want to leave me there in that home with them. But there was nothing he could do.”
I tell her how Matthew managed to drag himself out the front door and leave that ugly March afternoon.
I see it, still, Matthew all but crawling out the front door. I hear Joseph and Isaac laughing.
I hear them heckle Matthew as he crawled away.
“To where?” she asks. “Where did Matthew go?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know.”
I picture it: his sorry eyes settling on mine before he turned and moved out that door. Joseph and Isaac laughing mockingly, taunting Matthew out the door.
They figured they’d won.
But I knew this was far from through.
“And then what happened? Once Matthew had left?”
I pull back my hair and show her the crater Joseph left behind when he pummeled me with that lamp. He waited until Matthew was out of sight—Isaac still snickering, still calling Matthew a pussy out the front window—and he turned to me with the meanest eyes I’d ever seen in my whole entire life. He picked the lamp base up from the floor—dented at both ends—and smacked me point blank on the side of my head. I don’t remember it hurting so much, but I do remember its crippling effects: the way my body lost all feeling, lost its ability to stand on my own two feet, the way I crumpled to the floor and Isaac stood, watching and pointing. Laughing. I remember the blackness that crept in from the edges of my eyes until I could no longer see, the ugly words and voices in the background that ebbed until all was silent.
When I awoke I was in that bedroom of mine, on the bed, on top of the patchwork quilt, the door locked from the outside.
CHRIS
I’m in my Denver hotel room, washing up for bed, dead tired.
I’ve got the smallest room in the hotel, but even that goes for over two hundred bucks a night. The view out the window could be any other city, any other night. To me, it all looks the same anymore, big buildings, thousands of lights.
I’ve got on some pajama pants, blue seersucker, a little snug, an undershirt. On the bed sits my open laptop.
The day’s newspaper, the Denver Post, which I picked up on the way out of the airport, lies ignored. The furthest I got was a front page blurb on the weather—cold—and the day’s lottery numbers.
I didn’t win.
I’m tired, the exhaustion marking my face. I stare at myself in the mirror and think that I am looking older. That I am getting older. That I can’t keep up this pace much longer. I’m ruminating on other jobs: college professor, maybe management consulting, as I brush my teeth. I’m imaging myself at the front of a crowded auditorium, standing before the podium, lecturing on global capitalism before a bunch of cocky kids who used to be me. Back when I was consumed with money. Money, money, money. I’d take a huge pay cut teaching, that’s for sure, but Heidi and I would make due, I think, spitting toothpaste into the bathroom sink.
We’d put the condo on the market, maybe rent for a while. Maybe Zoe could go to public school, even though I know that won’t fly. But maybe. Hell, maybe we’d move to suburbia, buy a single family home with a fenced-in yard, get a dog. We’d take the train in to work. Live the real American dream.
It could work.
I’m thinking what it would be like to be home for dinner, what it would be like to lie in bed beside my wife, every night. I’m picturing Heidi that afternoon at that Asian grill, the way she leaned in close to me, pressed her lips to mine. The way she laid her hand on mine, the way she uttered those words You must be so tired, Chris, concerned for once about me, her husband, and not just foreign refugees from around the world. Mindful of my needs and not just those of homeless girls and stray cats.
Maybe something was changing.
I pine for the olden days: Heidi at that benefit dinner in her vintage red dress, dancing with me after everyone else had left the building, after the dimmed lights had been flipped back on and the catering staff was cleaning up the room. She was a college student at the time, and so she had nothing more than a dorm room to her name. I was right out of school, paying more in student loans than the national debt. I was dirt poor, living in a studio apartment in Roscoe Village, which we took a cab to, running wildly up the steps of the walkup apartment, me, forward, and Heidi, gracefully, in reverse, undressing each other along the way.
We never made it to the bed, but fell to the floor right behind the door.
By morning, I expected that she’d be gone. Because certainly someone that amazing, with her beautiful brown eyes, wouldn’t want a thing to do with me in the light of day.
But I was wrong.
We stayed in bed half the day, watching the pedestrians who moved up and down Belmont through the windows. That and The Price is Right. Then later, when we finally did get up and get dressed, Heidi sporting my Bears sweatshirt, thrown over her own red dress, we went shopping for antiques, buying an old beer tap handle because it was the only thing we could afford.
Heidi stayed with me for three days. Living in my undershirts and boxer shorts, surviving on takeout and delivery. I went to work in the morning and when I came home, she was there.
She was easygoing in a way I thought she’d always be, but that was long before
Zoe and cancer and the heavy weight of reality. I think about that weight, how it must deplete her. I think of Heidi, caring more about the rest of the world and everyone else’s insatiable needs than she does her own.
I stand in the bathroom in that Denver hotel, thinking to myself, I miss Heidi, when there’s a knock on the door, a light rat-a-tat-tat, and I know who it is before I ever glance through the peephole.
I open the door and there she is. Not Heidi, of course. Though there’s a split second of what-if? What if it is Heidi, flown all the way to Denver to see me, abandoning that girl and her baby who have consumed our home, swallowing my wife whole. What if she made arrangements for Zoe to stay with Jennifer, hopped a flight out to Denver and now here she is, to spend the night with me?
But the scene that greets me instead is something else entirely, Cassidy Knudsen letting herself into my room. She’s wearing leggings, black and tight, with some sort of baggy tunic whose V-neck exposes the basin between her breasts, a valley, a ravine set between neighboring hills, the skin soft and pale, up for grabs. She wears some sort of pendant necklace, with a long copper chain that forces the eyes to the V of that tunic, forces the eyes down to where the charm sits tucked beneath the shirt, at the end of the copper chain. The makeup on her face is barely there, save for the bright red lipstick that seems to have become a matter of course, the norm. There are heels on her feet, four-inch heels, red, like the lipstick.
She lets herself in, as always, without waiting to be invited.
And there I stand, in my pajama pants and undershirt, still clutching a toothbrush in my hand.
“I didn’t know you were stopping by,” I say, “or I would’ve...” my voice drifts off and I’m not sure what to say. I glance around the room to see the day’s clothing in a pile on the floor, the seersucker pants that cling to my legs like plastic wrap.