He had ten minutes before he would have to walk to school. He always left time for these ten minutes.
Quinn had flocks of winter birds, strange and colorful. Jake had found a book at the thrift store and could identify them all: snow buntings, waxwings, black-capped chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches, brown creepers. They were fast and beautiful, and like Jake, they were constantly aware of threats. As far as he knew, Frank’s feral cats had never caught a winter bird. The cats caught the occasional robin or sparrow in the spring, but never these creatures.
He scattered seed and stepped back as the birds came swooping down.
Jake stood in the front yard and waited for the fashion show, the colors of the birds bright against the dirty gray sky and banks of snow.
* * *
When he got home from school, Bert was gone, but a weight remained in the trailer house, a heaviness in the air, as they waited for his return. Krystal cleaned silently and furiously, checked the kitchen window every fifteen minutes.
Now that Frank and Misty were gone, Krystal was Jake’s only friend. Before Bert, she had attempted all sorts of things to get him involved with other kids, but he had refused Little League, Cub Scouts, church camp. His mother was his peer group. Krystal was allergic to any kind of pet, so for Jake’s ninth birthday, she bought him sea monkeys, and they waited for the tiny kingdoms to materialize just like in the advertisements, all that activity in a cheap green aquarium. The sea monkeys had died together in a clump; his new friends turned out to be nothing more than suicidal brine shrimp.
Krystal was a flighty, chatty sort of woman; years of being a nurse in a small hospital had made this worse. She talked to fill up space, narrated every activity, even though Jake was right there and had no need for her bedside manner. She remained silent on the story of Jake’s biological father, a man she never spoke to, even to demand child support. He probably didn’t know that Jake existed. There was only one story, and he had heard it since he was three years old, so he just accepted it. His mother was not smart enough to be a liar. Jake’s father had been a physician visiting from the East Coast, flown to the hospital in Ellis to consult on a special case. Somehow, in the three days he had been in town, he managed to both seduce and abandon her. At least Jake knew from where his excellent time-management skills had been inherited.
Like his mother, Jake devoured books, and when they read, the chattering stopped. For a time, they shared novels. Jake was a precocious reader. Eventually, he discovered Jackie Collins, while his mother switched to terrible Southern romances. Krystal was drawn toward stories of debutantes overwhelmed with lust, and she talked incessantly about sweet tea, fans, tiny purses, and grand cotillion balls. Her own son was the closest thing to a prissy debutante in the entire town.
Krystal found her own terrible romance, and she waited for him now. It was too early for Bert to be at the Dirty Shame, so there was no telling where he had gone. Jake lay on the couch and worked his way through Valley of the Dolls. In the kitchen, Krystal smashed potato chips to adorn a tuna fish casserole.
When the knock came, Jake looked up at his mother. Bert did not like visitors, did not like his wife to answer the door. Krystal’s hands were covered in shards of Ruffles, and she stared at Jake helplessly. She was usually the one who told people to go away. Jake dropped his book, just as the baby started crying in her high chair, and Krystal pivoted on her feet, back and forth, unsure of what to do. Jake rolled his eyes.
Standing on the front porch was the woman from next door. He knew she was Frank’s daughter, because gossip in the trailer park moved fast, and because he had spied on her from the roof.
A towel hung over her shoulder. She held a shower caddy in one hand. He hadn’t been able to ascertain if she was pretty when he had spied on her, but up close, she was dazzling. Under the towel, she wore a tight black T-shirt. Her legs were shackled in the tightest acid-washed jeans he had ever seen. She smelled like fried food. He approved of all of this.
“Hello there,” she said, and leaned down to shake his hand.
“Hi,” said Jake.
“I saw you on the roof,” she said. “You seemed like a good omen, so I came here.”
Jake had never been called an omen before, but he liked it.
“Welcome,” he said. Krystal emerged from the kitchen, the baby in her arms, still crying. Jake watched as his mother stared at the blonde in shock, and shoved Jake back from the door with her free arm. She had never pushed him before, but the look on her face kept him from protesting. Maybe this was his mother’s true bedside manner.