Ashes ashes, p.18
Ashes, Ashes, page 18
It never does me much good to think about Kelly. She’s another bitter memory, and something hope does is start you thinking you’re done making those, bitter memories. That’s how I feel these days, which is good. I can’t much fight them anymore, either. I’m too tired most of the time. Then again, I don’t mind a little tussle here and there. My memories are plenty worn out by now too.
I open the door, turn on the light, step into the cool bedroom, and look over Kelly’s abandoned possessions. A chaise lounge chair, a dresser, a record player, and boxes full of clothes, books, receipts, records, bank statements, and coupon books. Juliette has pushed everything to the sides, clearing an area in the middle for her trainset. I move the train and wooden tracks upstairs and begin hauling things into the basement living area.
I suppose someday it might be appropriate to tell her how Kelly’s postpartum Percocet addiction got so bad I considered giving her an ultimatum, get clean or leave. In the weeks before running off, she slept all day, was up all night. She reclined on this chaise lounge chair, which she stole from the Holiday Inn, smoking Camels, drinking rum, watching Friends reruns, crying in a way I couldn’t stop. I tried. She had a job at the dollar store downtown but only worked ten hours a week. Outside of a few dresses for Juliette, the paychecks went toward drugs and liquor and smokes. Communication was something we just couldn’t ever pull off. I knew it, she knew it. The topics I wanted to get into, her addiction, her coldness toward Juliette, the household budget, were things she didn’t want to hear about. And the topics most important to her, feuds with her mom, Melissa, and constant complaints about body aches, aggravated me because she and Melissa were always feuding about one thing or another and Kelly might’ve been a hypochondriac in addition to a recovery addict. Out of revenge, she started sleeping with a drifter who hooked her up with prescriptions. She even arranged for a girlfriend to give me the details. She was disappointed when the news didn’t faze me all that much. I was focused on my baby girl. What she needed for food, clothes, toys. What I’d do if Kelly wasn’t around. What I’d do if she tried to take Juliette from me. I thought about an ultimatum but I didn’t have the guts to follow through on the threat. So I did what any bright guy would do when he finds out the mother of his child is sleeping with a drifter who gets her Perc. I proposed.
She laughed awfully hard, harder than Friends ever made her. I’d never heard her laugh like that before. Of course, there wasn’t a lot of laughter in the NA meetings we met each other in, and our relationship was built on talking about substance issues and the hardships of her childhood, her emotionally abusive father. The way she carried on almost made the proposal seem feasible, even though there was mockery and resentment in it. Even though it seemed she was laughing at me. I got home from work a few days later and she was gone. I picked Juliette up at Melissa’s. Melissa told me Kelly was going to Colorado to be with her dad and wouldn’t be coming back to Walker for a while.
That was seven years ago. Seven years of hearing that laugh of Kelly’s. Each time the mockery and resentment sounded less like they were directed at me and more like they were directed inward. Like she was laughing at herself. This sound is among the many things in my life I don’t care to remember. Because what use are they to me, to Juliette when she’s old enough to hear more than, “She left.” “You were eighteen-months old.” “I don’t think she’s coming back.”
My baby girl’s right. I did promise to keep Kelly’s things in the room. But whether Heath moves in or not, this stuff can’t be here forever.
I’d been optimistic about the plan, splurging on a day at the zoo before breaking the news to Juliette, but only because it was Emma’s idea.
She’ll be eager to hear how it went, and now that the tantrum’s over, I call her.
“How’d it go?” Emma answers.
“Real good. I was gonna do it on the drive home but didn’t have the chance. She had a fit a bit ago.”
“Oh, no.”
“I expected it. I think she’s asleep now.”
“Have you talked to Melissa yet?”
“Tomorrow. Plus, I need to ask her what she wants of the things her daughter left. I’m not worried about the other part. It’s still better I tell her than she finds out on her own.”
“I know, people can be so cruel. Don’t forget that you’re doing a good thing.”
“We’ll see how it goes,” I say, aiming to clip this part of the conversation. “How was your day?”
“Just got the kids to sleep a while ago. Wine, a little work to do tonight. Are you anxious?” she asks, pulling us right back to Heath.
“Not really.”
“I guess if you’re not worried about the change, what’s the problem? It’s a very good thing you’re doing.”
“I should get going, Emma. I have a lot of work to do to get his room ready. I’m tired.”
“Okay,” she replies, sounding somewhat reluctant to end the call so quickly.
“I didn’t know the zoo would be such a to-do.”
“It’s always a nightmare.”
“I’ve never been there before.”
“The zoo in Saint Cloud?”
“Any zoo. Next time, the five of us can go.”
“Can’t wait.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too,” she says.
I end the call and start lugging Kelly’s stuff out of the basement, some to the garage attic, some to the burn pit next to the shed in the back yard. I move quickly, carrying larger loads than I would if I were in a better mood. It’s true, I do have a lot to get done. And I am tired. But we both know I’m not too tired to talk, not to her anyway.
Thing is, even if she’s never outright says it, sometimes I get the sense she’d rather I didn’t bring Heath in like this. Whether in Walker or at her place in Brainerd, where most of her bookkeeping contracts are, we and the kids will be happy together someday. We’re both committed to it, we’re both people who get what we’re committed to getting. Derek and Marybeth like me, and Juliette adores Emma. Heath is a hitch in the plan and though Emma would never admit it she’d feel different about what I’m doing if he were flesh and blood. I heard it again just now on the phone, in her insistence that what I’m doing is “a good thing.” Like it’d sure be generous to offer your home to a sibling in need, but to do it for a stranger, well, that’s really special.
Maybe I’m being too sensitive. I probably am and she’s just bummed that our dreams are on hold.
Maybe it’s all in my head and she truly understands and isn’t bummed at all. I really am tired.
Tomorrow, I think, his life starts over. A fresh start here with me. Give him time, he’ll blossom in Walker. It’ll be a long road.
Second-degree manslaughter. Seven years in prison, where he grew four inches but on account of stress never had much of an appetite. He weighs the same today as he did at seventeen. Over the years, his hairline receded, the limp that resulted from his gunshot wound became more noticeable, tension in his shoulders gave him a slight hunch and chronic neck pain, and his eyes, bulging from his emaciated face, took on an almost neon hue. His rare and brief attempts at smiling make him seem cynical. Even a little nuts.
The last three years he’s lived in a halfway house in Minneapolis. Understandably, he didn’t make many friends there. He spent his idle time reading fantasy books in the tidy room he shared with a convicted murderer. When I visited, we’d go to a nearby Starbucks and do the same things we used to do in the visitors area of the correctional facility north of Minneapolis, play cards and chat about Southern classic rock. ZZ Top, The Allman Brothers, The Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd. And books. I’m a slow reader but have worked my way through both The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the series A Song of Ice and Fire.
I used to ask about his plans for life after parole. He never had much to say about the future, so I quit asking. It hurts to see him all out-of-it, kind of sedated, and I still can’t tell if he’s this way because of shame or the side-effect of his anti-anxiety medication or the anxiety itself or some combination of these factors. I think back on the first time we lived together, before either of us met Miss Bonnie, before the sexual abuse. I think back on the enthusiastic and trusting and innocent child who seemed to look up to me for no other reason than I showed no signs of minding being called Bunkie. The idea that he’s permanently numb, as a consequence of his own crime or not, does something to my soul that I don’t like.
I’ll say, though, he has a sense of humor. It’s dry and quiet and gives me hope.
After dusting the cobwebs from the corners of the ceiling and hanging the framed map of Minnesota that Kelly left behind, I carry a couch from upstairs down to Heath’s room, put fresh sheets and a blanket on the couch.
Before falling asleep I decide I have been too sensitive about Emma and Heath’s move to Walker. I chide myself for conjuring up sentiments and views she hasn’t put into words herself and likely doesn’t actually own. I tell myself it’ll be good for Juliette to have Heath around.
And I’m reminded that Kelly is an only child, so Juliette, who’s never asked many questions about Murphy, will finally meet one of her uncles.
Juliette
The morning school bus ride is cold. Paul takes all the bumpiest roads he can find and so we fall onto each other’s laps. Then during guard-the-pin in gym class, Marlon Torpler smacks me good right on the thigh with the ball and my leg stings and it’s red. Later Mrs. Grindle gives us all popcorn and Torpler rips one real loud and blames it on me. My face is hot, and I almost start crying and I yell at him until Mrs. Grindle puts us in the timeout corner. Then on the bus ride home one of the Carson twins pukes and since my window won’t open, the bus stinks the whole ride.
I know who’s to blame for this cruddy day. When I get home Daddy’s friend is sitting at the kitchen table like he’s just part of the family now. Swapped in for Mom. Daddy said his friend is younger than him. He doesn’t look younger. He looks like an old, creepy, bony, giant spider. A spider so old he can’t grow hair anymore where he’s supposed to and that’s the only reason he even looks sort of like a human. His eyes are the worst part because they stick out far, and they are the color of pickle juice.
Daddy says, “Juliette, this is Heath.”
“Spider, come with me quick,” I tell Daddy’s friend.
He looks at Daddy, then back at me. He frowns and points at his chest.
“Yes, you, Spider.”
“Juliette, be nice,” Daddy says.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. Mr. Spider, come on, please and thank you, I wanna show you something.”
I lead Spider down the hallway and stand just outside my room. “This room is my realm. Everything in here is under my domination. My people all respect their queen and listen to my rules. You can’t go into my realm. Don’t even look at it. You’re doing that now. Stop it!”
With a little sleepy grin, he throws his hands up and steps back and looks back down the hallway at Daddy. I shut the door.
Halfway through dinner Daddy sends me to bed early for calling Spider by the name I gave him. I don’t mind. Spider was bugging me by being there.
But that’s just how Spider is.
And he turns more spidery every day. No matter what’s for dinner he always takes a slice of white bread and wipes his plate clean and folds his bread in two and scarfs it. Spaghetti or macaroni or split pea soup from the can. And he’s always reading books that are big as shoeboxes with dragons and swords on the cover and his voice is way too soft and he won’t say much unless I ask him two hundred questions all in a row. Or else sometimes, he’ll just sit there with his eyes glossed over and his lips moving but nothing coming out of his mouth.
“What are you mumbling about?”
“Nothing. Sorry, Juliette,” he says.
“It wasn’t nothing, Spider.”
“Nothing important.”
“Why don’t you talk?”
“Shy, I guess,” he mumbles.
“What for?”
He shrugs.
I whisper, “Are you a moron? There’s this kid in my class named Torpler. He farts and blames it on me. Are you like him?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe Torpler and I would get along good.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.
Me and Spider sit in the cab of Daddy’s truck whenever the three of us drive around town together. It’s just big enough for me but it’s way too small for him. He’s all folded up with his knees almost to his chin. He holds his book between his legs by reaching his arms underneath them. Never seen such a thing.
“What are you reading?” I ask him on the way to the grocery store. “Is it Dandy Log Legs books?”
“No.”
“How come you don’t go to church with us?”
“Maybe someday I will,” he says. He goes right back to reading.
“How come …?”
“How come what?”
“How come you don’t go with us?”
“To church?” he asks.
“Duh! Gosh!”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re the wackiest, Spider.”
“No, he’s not,” Daddy says. “Be nice. And please use his real name.”
“It’s okay,” Spider tells him.
“Juliette,” Daddy says.
“Sorry, Daddy,” I say. “Sorry, Spider,” I mutter to him.
I know I’m supposed to like him. I just can’t and there’s nothing to do about it but give him the meanest scowls and put rocks in his work boots and sit real close to him on the couch when he’s already stuffed himself into the end of it. And when he’s talking to himself, I sneak up behind him and get on top of a stool and flick his ears. Sometimes he doesn’t even move his head the tiniest little inch even when I get him good.
Soon he’s my slave. All he does is work for Daddy and read books and do what I say. If I’m thirsty, he gets me a glass of water. If I’m hungry for a snack, he makes nachos by putting chips and shredded cheese in the microwave. And he never changes the channel on the TV if I’m already watching something.
Sometimes he looks all mopey and droopy and heavy like an ugly flower that doesn’t have much color. The reason is that Daddy’s the only one in town who doesn’t think Spider’s the worst. Grandma thinks he’s the worst. I even overhear her whispering about Spider to her friends on the phone. “Scum,” she says.
That’s why Thanksgiving is so weird and sad. I usually go to her house for turkey. Except since Daddy won’t go unless Spider goes and since she doesn’t want Spider to go, I eat at home. Daddy can’t cook a turkey and Spider probably doesn’t even know what Thanksgiving is, so I have turkey sandwiches with meat from the deli at the grocery store instead. It’s the saddest thing ever that I can’t be with Grandma because I know she’s home alone watching football and she can’t eat a whole turkey herself, can she?
That night there’s a knock on the door. I’m standing in the kitchen.
Spider creeps downstairs to hide in his room. Daddy opens the door. It’s Grandma holding leftovers and pie.
“Dorian, honey, we have to talk,” she says.
“Go to your room, please,” Daddy tells me. But I don’t wanna leave the kitchen.
She tells him she’s held her tongue long enough, and now I really don’t wanna leave.
“Go to your room,” he says again. I don’t move.
“Dorian,” she says, “I’ve heard some bad things. My heart is breaking thinking that something might happen to my grandbaby. Something you and I would regret for the rest of our lives.”
“Melissa—”
“Not like he was a drug addict or something. What he did—”
“Let’s not talk about it now. Juliette, room!”
“That’s just it, it’s so bad that we can’t talk about it in front of Juliette. Tell me you think he’s right in the head. I don’t trust him one bit.”
“Juliette!” he shouts. His voice breaks like I’ve never heard it do before.
I run to my room and slam the door. They’re talking out there but I can’t really make out the words.
When she’s gone, I come out. Spider stays downstairs all night. Daddy brings him down a slice of pie on a saucer. He comes right back upstairs with it. At bedtime I set all the people in my kingdom up on the dresser and put on my gown and warn them that the kingdom must be on alert for any evil forces that might try to invade it.
“Your queen has learned that Lord Spider’s armies are on the move. They’re mean and ugly and wicked. We must be on guard like never before. Any deserters or traitors will be punished with death. Your choices are scorpion bath or beheading.”
“Juliette, you ready for bed?” Daddy asks.
“Just about!”
“Don’t be afraid,” I tell them. “Your queen will protect you from any invasion. Our enemies will wish they never came here.”
I stroke their heads to calm them. I brush Millie’s hair until Daddy comes into the room.
“Where are your jammies?” he asks.
“The king has them in his chambers.”
“Put them on, please,” he says.
“Okay. Is something wrong, Daddy?”
“Would you just get ready for bed like I asked you to?”
Dang, he’s mad about something. Probably something Spider did. I brush my teeth fast as ever and change out of my gown and into the jammies that have planets on them, and I crawl into bed. Daddy comes in and sits by my feet. It looks like something awful has happened to him and he’s about to tell me all about it. He doesn’t know how to cry. Never learned, maybe.
