The white house glowed in the falling darkness. The streets were quiet and empty. Still, I crept along the bushes and kept to the shadows until I was under the dining room window. A square of warm yellow light. Through the summer screens, I could hear the sound of cutlery against ceramic, and actually felt a rush of nostalgia. A few muttering voices. I felt like a creep skulking about like this, but I had to know. I had to see it for myself.
Carefully, I peeked through the window. Dinner was just wrapping up. Norma was bustling around the table cleaning plates. Harris was barricaded behind his paper, as usual. Merle was there, looking fatter and more piggish as he shoveled food into his mouth.
Beside him, Shane sat in a wheelchair, pulled up close to the table. His chest under his shirt looked caved in. His hands were bony claws, his face sallow and skeletal. He stared down at his untouched food. The sharp cunning expression I’d remembered had slipped off like an old mask. He was giving up, second by second. If he survived the year, it would be a miracle.
My chest tightened at this picture of decay. For the millionth time in four years, I wished everything had been different between me and Shane.
My eyes moved across the table to my youngest brother, now eleven years old. I searched for signs of health. I wanted perfection. No disability, no disfigurement, no residual effects of the trauma I had inflicted on him four years ago.
I waited and watched as Norma fussed over him more than she ever had when I lived there. Little touches all the Salinger sons craved: hair ruffled, a hand resting on his shoulder. Garrett’s sweet smile seemed unchanged. My heart clenched when he jumped out of his chair to carry his plates to the kitchen.
Perfect.
Tears of relief blurred the scene in front of me. I slumped against the wall, sliding down until I hit the ground.
“He’s okay,” I whispered. “Thank God.”
I held onto the comfort. A scrap of food to a starving man. My public defender had told me how bad it’d been for Garrett while I was locked up. I was locked up because it had been so bad. A coma for two weeks, reconstructive surgery on his broken nose, cheekbone, then rehab. So much suffering for such a little kid.
Nothing would ever erase the feeling of my foot striking Garrett’s face. All my strength had been behind that kick. True, I’d been fighting for my life against Merle’s choking grip, but four years locked up in prison seemed fair for causing Garrett so much pain and suffering.
Four years away from Jo.
Jo.
I’m coming, I thought and had every day since I’d busted out of the correctional facility. I’m coming, Jo, just hold on.
I crawled around the back of the house to the detached garage and sat beside it, waiting for the hours to pass. My spare key was under a terra-cotta pot by the garden, right where I’d left it four years ago. I held it in my hands, turned it over and over in my fingers as the night grew quieter. I waited there until the lights in the Salinger house went off. Then I waited a little more to be sure.
I rose from my crouch and crept to the side of the house, back to the dining room window. They’d left it open. I detached the screen with a minimal amount of noise, though every sound was amplified when you were breaking the law.
I snuck up to my room that was just as I’d left it; I don’t think anyone had stepped foot in here since I was sent up. I knelt under my bed, moved a loose floorboard and pulled out a small lockbox, breathing a sigh of relief it was still there. Inside, was my life savings from when I’d worked at the auto shop. Harris had always paid me under the table for his tax purposes. I had $1,112. Not a fortune, but enough to take Jo away with me.
I snuck back through the house, replaced the screen on the window, and crept back to the garage where my old red Chevy truck was parked. Would it still run? If no one had driven it in four years, the battery would be shot and I’d be screwed. But looking through the window, I saw an empty coffee cup in the holder next to the gearshift and yesterday’s newspaper on the passenger seat.
Maybe they used the truck for errands. Maybe they were going to give it to Garrett when he turned sixteen. Another thing I might take away from him, but it couldn’t be helped. Jo needed me and I couldn’t wait. Already it felt too late.
Fuck it, it was my truck anyway. I’d paid for it with my hard-earned money. The truck was mine.
I unlocked the truck’s driver’s side door, slid half my ass onto the seat, one foot on the break, the other still on the driveway. I slowly let out the brake and the truck rolled backward. The sound of tires crunching over the gravel was so loud, I was sure the upstairs windows would start lighting up any minute.