“I’m almost done with my homework.”
Something was making Rusty act crazy tonight. Maybe she was getting her period. Maybe she had a spirit living inside her, too, like Natalie. Maybe it was only a matter of time before the dead moved into all their bodies.
Rusty came in for a hug. Surrounded by her familiar Mom scent, Miri thought, There’s so much I wish I could tell you, Mom, but I can’t.
—
THE MOVIE WASN’T as bad or as scary as she’d thought. After, at the White Castle, Miri ordered only fries and a Coke, while the others ate hamburgers. She didn’t warn them about eating horse meat. They’d laugh at her, she knew, so she explained that she wasn’t that hungry, probably because of the roast chicken Irene had served for Sunday dinner. Jack picked up the check for all of them.
Jack was proud of his ’48 Dodge panel truck, keeping it clean and in good shape, his equipment stored in fitted wooden boxes. Miri and Mason sat on a little rug on the floor in the back and necked on the way home, sometimes falling over when the truck took a turn, making them laugh. Once, Christina slid open the little window between the front and back to look in on them. “What’s going on? Are you two okay?”
“We’re fine,” they said at the same time.
“You’re sitting up?” Christina asked.
“Like soldiers in a row,” Mason said, tightening his fingers around Miri’s.
—
JACK AND CHRISTINA DROPPED Mason and Miri off at her house. It was too cold to sit outside on the steps so they crept down to the basement, something they’d done a couple of times before. It was dark and dank even though Henry had painted the walls and the floor in a pale blue color and the oil burner kept it warm. A single bulb on a pull string gave them light. Piles of cartons were neatly stacked, along with summer furniture for the porch. They sat together on a beach chair until it collapsed, sending them both to the concrete floor, laughing. After that, they unwound a summer rug and lay down on it. The sisal was itchy but it would have been a lot itchier if they weren’t fully dressed. They had to be very quiet. Had to whisper. Miri wasn’t sure what would happen if they were discovered. Henry would probably be okay with it, and Irene never came to the basement. But Rusty—she never knew with Rusty.
“Let’s play Trust,” Mason said.
“How do you play?”
“You’ve never played Trust?”
“No. I’ve never even heard of it. Is it a board game?”
He took her hand and smiled. “You tell me something you’ve never told anyone else. Then I tell you.”
“You tell me first,” Miri said.
He turned toward her, propping himself up on an elbow. “My mom…” he began.
He’d never told her anything about his parents. He’d never mentioned either one of them except to say the kaleidoscope had been his mother’s. She figured they were dead or he wouldn’t be living at Janet Memorial Home.
“My mom,” he began again, “she took off after my dad slugged her so hard he knocked out her front teeth and broke her nose and cheekbone. She said next time he’d kill her. ‘I’ll come back for you, Mason,’ she promised the night she came to my room holding a small suitcase. ‘I’ll come back for you and we’ll go away together.’ I was eleven and I believed her. Instead they found her on the railroad tracks the next day. She either fell or jumped and the train rolled over her. At the time, nobody bothered to tell me. Easier if I didn’t know, they thought. Jack finally told me. He said it was an accident but I think she jumped.”
Miri didn’t know what to say.
“Before she left,” Mason continued, “she lay down next to me on my bed and said, ‘He won’t hurt you. He’d never hurt you. You just stay out of his way when he’s drinking. Get out of the house. Go with Jack. Go anywhere. Just get out of his way.’ I ran the night he came after me with an ax. Picked up Fred and got the hell out of there. That’s the night Jack took me to Janet.”
Miri could not stop the hot tears. She covered her face.
“Hey, come on, don’t…” Mason said. “It’s okay.”
She shook her head. “It’s not okay.”
“Yeah, it is. Look, I’m here, aren’t I?” He kissed away her tears.
Then it was her turn. What could she possibly confide that was anything compared to his story? How simple her life was next to his. How easy. She had just one secret to share with him. “My mom was never married. The guy who got her pregnant with me…his name is Mike Monsky and the day I got my haircut I met him. My mom doesn’t know. No one does except my aunt, an aunt I never knew I had.”
There, she’d said it. She didn’t call him her father—because he didn’t even know her, had never taken care of her, had never even seen a baby picture of her. What kind of father would that be? Better than one who chases you with an ax, she thought. But it’s still cutting you up inside, isn’t it?
Give her something special for Valentine’s Day
NIA’S LINGERIE