“It’s not safe living with her like that,” he continued.
With a pang of alarm, I knew right then that I could never tell him anything about what had happened the night before with the truck in the park. “She always has a harder time in the fall,” I said defensively.
He didn’t say anything, so I finally picked my chin up out of the menu. He was looking at me with a mixture of sadness and determination and something else that looked a lot like guilt. “If your dad were alive today, he’d never let you live like this.”
“If Dad were alive today she wouldn’t be like this.”
Donny winced, but I wasn’t sorry I’d said it.
And then he seemed to soften. “Kid,” he said, reaching out to put a hand over mine, “I only mean that I want you to remember that, when you’re ready, my place is your place. Okay?”
I gave him a crooked smile. “That’s the last thing you need. What’ll all your girlfriends think?”
Donny grinned. “They’ll think what a good uncle I am to take care of my brother’s kid, and then they’ll want to marry me even more.”
I rolled my eyes. Donny had a new girlfriend every month, and he was always complaining that they all wanted him to settle down. Donny wasn’t the settling down type—even I knew that, and I was only sixteen.
After breakfast Donny dropped me off back at home, and I went in to face the music. Ma was up and filling the living room with smoke. “Why does my face hurt?” she asked, rubbing the side of her cheek where it had been resting on the linoleum when I found her.
“Don’t know. Where’d you go last night?”
Ma scowled, scratching her matted hair. “Can’t remember. So what’d Donny want to talk to you about?”
I sat down in Dad’s old leather chair. Ma didn’t like me to sit in it, but I was still pretty mad at her and feeling defiant. She cocked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. “He just wanted to take me to breakfast.”
Ma reached out to flick the ashes of her cigarette into the ashtray. “He ask you to move to the city with him?”
I was surprised by the bluntness of her question and the fact that she knew Donny had asked me that. I decided if Ma wanted to be honest, so could I. “Yeah.”
She took a drag on her cigarette. “You’d hate the city. It used to give you panic attacks, you know.”
I didn’t say anything.
“It’s loud and noisy, and you’d have to leave all your friends,” Ma continued, like I had a whole horde of people to hang out with.
I also noticed she didn’t mention that I’d have to leave her, too.
“And it’s dangerous,” Ma added, waving her cigarette at me. “We’ve got no crime here, Maddie. You can leave your doors unlocked and nobody bothers you.”
I folded my arms and looked away. “Unless you’re a kid named Tevon Tibbolt,” I said, thinking again about the truck that had chased me into the park.
It was Ma’s turn to be silent, and when I finally turned to her again, I was shocked to see her crying. But these weren’t drunk tears. These were real. All of the sudden I felt ashamed. “If you go,” she whispered, “I’ll never get to see you again.”
I shook my head at her. She was talking crazy.
“No,” Ma insisted. “It’s true. Donny’s never forgiven me for Scott’s death. He thinks I should’ve told your dad that day to—” Ma seemed to catch herself, and then her tears took over and she covered her face with her hands. I got out of my chair and moved over to the couch to hug her. I felt the guilt coming off her in waves, they crashed into my own and swirled around us in a riptide that tugged and pulled and threatened to tear out my heart.
Finally, Ma’s tears subsided, and I let go of her to grab a tissue. She mopped at her cheeks and smiled hopefully at me. “I know I need to cut back,” she said. “And I promise, Maddie. I promise I will.” She then reached out and took up my hand. “But I need you here. I can’t make it without you. Promise me you’ll stay?”
I looked down at our joined hands, and my mind flashed back to a time when I was five and she’d walked me to the bus stop on my first day of school. I’d cried the whole three blocks, and the minute the bus pulled up I’d pressed myself against Ma’s legs and I’d sobbed and sobbed. I hadn’t stopped until she’d bent down to hug me and I realized the bus had pulled away. “It’s okay, baby,” she’d said to me. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
But the next day was the same. I was terrified to leave her side, and my own petrifying shyness left me feeling like I couldn’t possibly board that bus and go off to some faraway place to sit among strangers.
So we tried again on Wednesday, then on Thursday, and finally on Friday, Ma held my hand just like all the days before, but as the bus rolled to a stop she’d squeezed my hand and looked down at me with a bright, hopeful smile. “There’s the bus to take you to school, Maddie. You’ll have all sorts of adventures, and drink milk and have cookies, and draw pictures, and learn new things. But if you’re not brave enough to get on that bus today, then I’ll understand and we’ll go home and try again next week. But if you can do it today, then I’ll be prouder of you than you could know.” I’d then watched the other kids load onto the bus, and after much hopping from foot to foot, I’d had a moment of rare courage and I’d let go. I remembered so clearly the cold feeling of my palm without Ma’s hand to warm it, and still I’d climbed those big steps onto the bus. Avoiding the driver’s watchful gaze, I’d moved to the first empty seat I could find and shuffled to the window to see Ma standing there with hands clasped over her heart and tears streaming down her face. She was beaming with pride, so happy I could feel it all the way through the walls of the bus, and I knew I was worthy and brave.