Neither looks at me as they mount the front steps and fumble with the keys.
I stay where I am, silently counting the bricks in the steps and the cherry red geranium petals scattering the sidewalk beneath the urns flanking our porch. I count in lots of four, my gaze tracing corner-to-corner box shapes for each small group, and it isn’t long before my heart slows and the trembling stops.
My parents will call Tony’s and try to place a delivery order, but it’ll be refused. Tony has caller ID and once he recognizes the last name, he’ll say he doesn’t deliver to our “area.” He does, however, deliver to the rest of the complex. It’s a daring discrimination, one that has earned my reluctant admiration.
My mother doesn’t know Tony shuns us because she doesn’t want to know.
But both she and my father are about to find out.
The good citizens of Estertown don’t take kindly to child molesters or to the carrier families who deliberately host the virus and reinfect the community.
I glance across the court at the condo catty-cornered to my building.
Andy, who has ordered and received countless pizzas from Tony’s for me, is sitting in his living room window. His bare chest gleams in the dying daylight. He shivers and lifts his bottle of Jim Beam in silent luck.
I nod because he sees, and knows.
Chapter Three
I slip through the front door in time to hear my mother’s incredulous, “What do you mean you don’t deliver to this area? Since when?”
Silence. The phone receiver crashes down.
“Well.” My mother’s voice is quick with indignation. “Apparently Tony doesn’t care if he loses valuable customers!”
I wander into the kitchen entrance. My father is sitting at the table beneath his shimmering WELCOME HOME! banner. My mother stands by the fridge. The room is overcrowded and smells of soured nerves.
My mother spots me. “Meredith, did you know Tony’s stopped delivering to our area?”
I turn away from her to the overhead cabinets. “Since when?” I say, removing my bottle of multivitamins. “I ordered a pie for lunch yesterday and they didn’t have a problem delivering it.” Actually, Andy had ordered it and we ate it together, but my parents don’t know that and I see no reason to tell them. “So why should they quit delivering to us now?”
The silence demands the obvious conclusion.
I remove my bottle of C vitamins, E, B complex. Flax seed oil, lecithin, calcium, lutein. Power supplements. Line them up in alphabetical order. Uncap them and shake one pill from each, recapping the bottles as I go.
“What’re you doing?” my father asks.
I remain silent, taking a glass from the cabinet and focusing my attention on ensuring my survival.
“It’s nice to see that your father’s homecoming hasn’t affected your little rituals,” my mother says with spite, but she reaches into the fridge and hands me a cold can of V8 anyway. “She won’t talk when she’s taking her vitamins. I don’t know why, so don’t even ask.” Her laugh is strained. “I’m sorry, Charles, I didn’t mean to snap. I just wanted everything to go so smoothly for your homecoming and instead it’s such a…” She stops, breathing deeply to compose herself. “You’re home again and that’s all that matters.”
I cough, then continue swallowing vitamins. Four pills, four sips of vegetable juice. Four is the number of reality, logic, and reason plus the essence of mind, body, and spirit brought to the material plane to form a square. It’s a strong number, one with substance, and I’ve felt safe in it ever since that first night in the hospital.
“You know, there’s something I’ve been wanting to do and now seems like the perfect time,” my father says.
The vitamins rattle in my cupped hand. I put them in my mouth and swallow.
Chair legs scrape the floor and his sneakers squeal as he rounds the table.
If he touches me—traps me in his arms and pulls me against him—if that golden baseball nudges my skull and his belt buckle brands my spine, then—
A muffled, sucking sound breaks my panic.
“Oh no, Charles,” my mother protests. “It’s your first night home!”
“It’s fine,” he says. “I need to get back into the swing of things anyway and besides, I want to see if I’ve lost my touch. Now, what do we have in here to work with?”
Frigid air sweeps my ankles and I risk a glance over my shoulder.
My father’s rummaging through the freezer.
Memories flash and I see him in our old house’s kitchen….
His legs sprout from beneath faded shorts and the golden baseball swings around his neck. We’ve just come in from outside, where he’s been teaching me how to play softball. “Don’t take it so hard, Chirp. We’ll try again tomorrow—”
I slump against the wall and stare at my dusty sneakers. My fingers ache and my palms are blistered. “I wanted to get a hit today.” My bottom lip trembles. “If I got a hit, then you would like me the way you like the boys who get hits.”
He goes still. “How do I like the boys?”
“Better,” I say, wanting to sound snotty, but my voice crumbles.
“Hey, don’t cry.” He crouches and draws me close between his knees. Strokes my back as I burrow into the hollow between his neck and shoulder. “You’re my girl. I’ll always like you better than any old boys.”
“Really?” My voice is muffled and my mouth moves against his salty skin. He tastes like a giant pretzel. This amuses me and I pretend to bite him, raking my new rabbit teeth across his skin and giggling. “Yum, you taste good, Daddy.”
He pulls me tighter, but his body is suddenly too hot.
I squirm free. “How many strikes do I get before I’m out?”
My father rises and turns away. “Three,” he says, and his voice is gruff. “That sound good, Chirp?”
“That sound good, Chirp?”
I jam the last four vitamins into my mouth and guzzle the rest of the juice. It dribbles down my chin, splashes the front of my shirt. I don’t wipe it off.
“Meredith, your father’s talking to you,” my mother says. “He’s going to barbecue chicken. Doesn’t that sound delicious?”
I lean past her and plunk the glass in the sink. “I’m going out.”
“Out?” my father says. “Now? What about dinner?”
“I already ate,” I say, running the faucet. The cold water bubbles into the glass and gushes back up, splattering the stainless steel. I ignore it, knowing my mother will attack the droplets before they can dry and leave unsightly spots.
“Stop it, you’re making a mess,” she snaps, reaching around me and turning off the water. “What is wrong with you today?” She grabs a dishtowel and looks down at her new dress, splashed across the belly where she’s leaned up against the spattered countertop. “Oh no, this is silk! It’s not supposed to get wet!” She blots frantically at the spots. “I hope you’re satisfied, Meredith. Welcome home, Charles!” She throws the towel on the floor, bursts into tears, and clatters from the room.
Her bedroom door slams. It doesn’t lock, though, and the implied invitation throbs in the silence.
“That wasn’t a very nice thing to do,” my father says after a moment, making no move to follow her. “If you’re mad at me, don’t take it out on her.”
“I rinsed a glass,” I say in a monotone, and turn to leave because my father and I are not supposed to be alone together, ever, and we all know it.
“Wait,” my father says, rising and crossing the kitchen. He retrieves the crumpled towel and lays it on the counter next to where I’m standing. Casually blocks my path as I try to slip around him. “Come on now, what’s with you? I know it’s been a while, but it’s not like I’m a stranger.” And then, softer, “Are you holding a grudge against me? If you are, then we’re gonna have to work it through because I am home to stay.”
His heat sparks the dry kindling in my chest and I stand helpless, eyes closed behind the hair curtaining my
face, trapped between him and the firestorm….
“Mmm, dessert time.” My father brings a teaspoon of sweet baby custard toward my mouth. “Open up, Mer.”
I do, wiggling and banging my hands on the highchair tray.
He chuckles. “You look just like a hungry baby bird.” Leans over and kisses my nose. “You’re a charmer, little chirpy bird.”
I burble and open my mouth for more….
“It hurts that you never came to see me,” he says quietly, touching my arm. “Three years is a long time. Don’t you think we should forgive each other and move on? I love you, you know. That has to count for something.”
My blood boils beneath his fingers. One by one, the vessels split, sear, and shrink away. If I don’t release myself, I will spontaneously combust.
“C’mon,” he says, and it’s not his wheedling tone or his plea for forgiveness that sickens me. It’s the look I catch when I peer through the curtain, the way his thumb is rubbing soft, rhythmic circles on my arm. “How about giving your old man a break here, huh, Chirp?”
“Chirp is dead,” I hear myself say and watch the flat words destroy his pleasure. “You killed her, and now you have to deal with me because I’m what’s left.” I push past him and walk out the front door into the gathering dusk.
Chapter Four
I hesitate, heart pounding, and when he doesn’t follow, hurry around the blind side of the condo. We have the last unit next to the Dumpster court.
Bad things are happening. It’s not my imagination and it’s not paranoia. It’s real. My gut hasn’t stopped roiling since he got here, and it’s not because of the past. I know every inch of what’s done; what scares me is what he seems to know is coming.
I think of my mother throwing that fit and flouncing off, expecting my father to follow and comfort her in the privacy of her boudoir. He didn’t, though, at least not in the moment that mattered, and that’s not good.
I need to move so I run past Andy’s mother’s creaky, ancient Cadillac squatting like a broad-hipped hussy in all her Civil War-esque mottled blue and primer-gray glory. The condo association hates this car, claims its presence negatively affects the quality of life here at Cambridge Oaks, and has been searching for a way to ban it from the complex, but just like the Dumpster lid, the car thwarts them. It’s inspected, registered, and insured, and there are no ordinances—yet—prohibiting ugly vehicles from parking amidst glossy ones.
What they don’t know—and don’t seem to care about—is that Ms. Mues has a valid reason for driving a clunker. It’s the perfect nosy-neighbor repellant. Everyone ignores her because at Cambridge Oaks, the only thing worse than the presence of a junk car is the possibility of someone noticing you talking to its owner.
Andy opens the door as I reach the top of his back steps.
The porch light burned out over a year ago on the day they moved in, Andy arriving on a stretcher, fresh from graduating Estertown High and becoming a tragic statistic. His mother told me she took the sudden darkness as a sign from Jesus and will not go against His will by lighting a path He’s seen fit to cast into shadows.
Andy’s mother worships Jesus the way Memphis worships Elvis.
“I saw,” Andy says. His pupils are black wells rimmed with irises the color of walnut shells and his skin is moon-pale because he rarely leaves the house. He scans my face and backs up to let me in.
“I know,” I say, slipping into the dark, smoky kitchen. Scented candles and patchouli incense flicker in a dozen places. “I need to take a shower. Bad.”
“Go for it,” he says, as if this is a perfectly normal request. “Just move all the stuff out of the way.”
“Thanks.” I slip past him and down the shadowy hall. Ms. Mues’s bedroom is opposite the bathroom, but it’s Friday and her door is shut, so I don’t bother her.
Andy’s bathroom has the same layout as ours, but that’s where the similarity ends. Instead of fluffy white towels, marble tiles, and a whirlpool tub, their bathroom has worn green carpet and a fish shower curtain hanging crooked off the rod. But it’s clean and there’s patchouli soap, so I move the chair out of the tub, undress, and spend a grateful five minutes scrubbing the feel of my father’s fingers off my skin.
I count the wall tiles as I dry off, first absently and then with growing concern. The numbers are unsettling, with blocks of four leaving a row of strays totaling one horizontally or seven vertically.
One is the primary number from which all others grow. It’s an upsurge of power and the beginning of all things. One is the first day of the week. One is the loneliest number.
Seven, on the other hand, is the number of completion. Seven deadly sins, seven virtues, seven vices. On the seventh day, God rested.
The odd numbers disturb me, so I stuff my towel in the hamper and return to the kitchen.
Andy turns from watching out the back door window. “All clear.”
“Good.” I head for the smoldering incense and cup my hands, pulling the rich, earthy scent over me four times. I’m not self-conscious about it; Andy knows almost all of me, has explored my private places and tended my bruises. There’s little I could do to drive him away. “Want to order a pizza? I’ll buy.”
“It’s Friday,” he reminds me, flipping his braid back over his shoulder. “There are two slices left from yesterday. I’ll warm them up for you.” He motions me into a seat and rolls his wheelchair to the fridge.
I sit in my regular spot and watch as he removes a paper plate from the lowest shelf. I’ll be the only one eating tonight; Friday is fasting day and Ms. Mues allows nothing but wounded souls and spirits to enter her home while she and Andy undergo purification. I light a cigarette and blow rings that dissolve upon impact with the incense smoke. “So what do you think?” I ask.
Andy puts the pizza in the microwave. He turns to face me and his eyes blur with sorrow. He grips the Jim Beam bottle tucked into the V of his groin, lifts it, and drinks.
Now I know it’s going to be bad.
He wedges the bottle back between his thighs and rolls toward me. Stops when we’re knee to knee and takes my free hand. Bows his head, murmurs a soft prayer. Releases me and sits back. “Your father’s not reformed or repentant, Mer. He’s eager. He’s gone without for three years and he’s hungrier now than he was before.” His bare shoulders twitch and goose bumps pox his skin. “Sooner or later he’s gonna want to get off and not with your mom, you know? He hardly even looked at her. It’s all about you.”
I nod, vaguely nauseous, and draw on my cigarette. Burn my lips on the close heat and stub the filter out in the ashtray. “He says he loves me. I was hoping I’d be too old for him now. I mean, I look different, I smell different…but when he called me Chirp, I knew.” I light a second cigarette. “It’s not over. He said we should forgive and get on with our lives, like I’m partly to blame! And then he tries to lay a guilt trip on me by telling me it hurt because I wouldn’t go see him in prison.” I jerk my fist and the smoke trail arcs. “I felt like saying, ‘Good, I’m glad it hurt. I hope it kills you.’ But I didn’t because he was smiling, Andy. He was enjoying it.”
The spokes in Andy’s wheelchair twinkle as he crosses the kitchen and brings me my pizza. “What did your mother say?”
“She’s useless,” I say, sprinkling salt from the three holes bored in the top of the Virgin Mary’s head on the slices. Joseph is pepper, less generous with only two holes. The ceramic figures do double work as Ms. Mues uses them in her mantelpiece manger scene at Christmas. I’ve never had the heart to tell her that five is the number of uncertainty.
Andy sets a paper cup of tap water down by my napkin.
“Thank you. I can’t count on her at all,” I say, chewing each bite eight times. “At least your mother did something when she found out. Mine won’t even acknowledge it. She keeps calling it a mistake, like it was nothing more than taking a wrong turn somewhere. She’s acting like everything’s fine and nothing ever happened, like all this time my fat
her’s been off on some business trip instead of locked up in prison. I hate it.”
“I thought you guys were getting a new social worker,” Andy says, taking the plate as I gnaw the last of the sauce from the crusts.
“We’re supposed to meet with someone next week, but you know what a joke that is. They’ll read the history and go over the same stuff, ask me if everything’s okay—”
“Yeah, right in front of your parents, so what’re you supposed to say? ‘No, get this sick bastard out of my house before he starts again’?” Andy snorts. “And why do you even have to say it? I mean, c’mon, they already know he’s an equal opportunity molester, it’s all in the file; you, the boys….”
“Actually, I found some psych stuff online about crossover offending. Going after any kid that moves no matter if it’s a boy or a girl, I mean.” I grimace and wipe my mouth. “How bad is it that there’s actually an official category for guys like him? I mean, how many are there anyway?” I rise and throw my napkin in the garbage. “All I can say is they chose to let him out in three instead of nine and if anything happens to me, I swear it’s on them.”
Three, the number of growth and expansion, the result of one and two.
Three strikes. Three is a crowd.
“All right,” Andy says quietly. “Come on.”
I follow him out of the kitchen and back down the hallway. The light’s off and won’t be turned on again until after midnight, but I’ve walked this route a hundred times, counting my steps and the whispery, whirring revolutions of Andy’s wheels.
And I wonder, not for the first time, how Ms. Mues can dwell in darkness fifty-two times a year and still see so clearly while my own mother, a creature of sunlight and shine, sees nothing at all.
We crowd into the bathroom to wash our hands. Close the door so as not to disturb his mother, who is still secluded in her bedroom, communing with Jesus and anyone else who decides to show up.