For the first time that morning, Annie saw Mrs. McCurdle’s stoniness begin to crumble. She slumped like a punching bag that deflates after being hit one too many times. Mrs. McCurdle turned the gas off and shuffled over to a chair near Annie. Annie moved back slightly. The smell of Mrs. McCurdle in a room with the windows shut was more than she could take.
Annie removed some forms and brochures from the folder and pushed them toward Mrs. McCurdle.
“There are some programs that you can apply for that might pay for some of her care, but you will be responsible for most of it.”
Mrs. McCurdle licked her cracked lips and let out a sigh. She shifted in her chair. “We don’t have no money to pay for Sally’s care. I stay home with the chil’ren, and my husban’, well, Joe takes off from time to time to look for work. Lord knows where he is now.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. McCurdle. You do own this house and you have an income from the pigs and chickens you sell, so your daughter is not eligible for coverage under the new law.”
Mrs. McCurdle digested this and looked as though she were going to speak again when a faint choking sound came from upstairs.
“I gotta go check on her,” she mumbled. She placed her hands on the table, hoisted herself up, and left the room. Annie heard her footsteps on the stairs.
Alone in the kitchen, Annie could hear the children in the woods and the pigs snuffling outside. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Annie had had enough. She craved a shower and an icy drink. She got up, slung her bag on her shoulder, and picked up the papers. She went to the stairs and called for Mrs. McCurdle. Not getting an answer, she decided to go up, which was not an easy task since some of the stairs were missing.
When Annie reached the top, she found Mrs. McCurdle in a narrow room. Before Annie even entered, she could hear the sound of assisted breathing. She hated the thought of facing what was in that room with Mrs. McCurdle, but there was no turning back now since Mrs. McCurdle had undoubtedly heard her. Mrs. McCurdle was fumbling with the covers on the hospital bed next to her. Annie dragged her eyes to look.
The girl was covered in worn, but clean, blankets that couldn’t hide how wasted away she was by her neuromuscular disorder. Her skin was waxy and sallow. Her dark hair was cut short with unevenly shaped bangs, but it looked as though someone brushed it regularly. Most of her face was obstructed by the tubes that kept her alive. Her eyes were closed and Annie knew from the case file that the girl had been comatose almost from birth. How she had survived for her eleven years like this was not something Annie wanted to think about.
“Pretty much like this since the day she was born,” Mrs. McCurdle said. “I knew somethin’ was wrong when I had her in me, but what could I do? One thing I did do, though, was make sure this one was born proper—at a hospital, with a doctor. I heard that they can’t jus’ turn you away, insurance or no insurance, at the county hospital if you’re with child. So I went down there with Joe when I felt her comin’.
“They didn’t look none too happy to take me; no sir, they didn’t, but they had to. Put me on a metal table with one nurse and a doctor who didn’t look any older than what he was deliverin’. ‘Push,’ was all he said to me. But I barely had to. Sally jus’ slid right out.
“The doc, he had a horrible face when he saw her. Like I said, he was a young ‘un and I guess he couldn’t stomach it. She was scrawny as could be and didn’t let out no cry. The nurse went to find another doc and they took my baby away from me. All’s I could see was her black hair stickin’ up and her eyes squeezed tight.
“The other doc came and then they called Joe into the room. They told us Sally—I had it set in my mind to call her that soon’s I laid eyes on her—was gonna have to be hooked up to some tubes and they was gonna test her. Joe jus’ stood stock still and nodded his head. I asked what was wrong and they told me they wasn’t quite sure yet, but they thought Sally’s muscles and brain wasn’t workin’ right. I cried. I knew somethin’ was wrong since she was in me but I still cried when they tol’ me.
“But I made my mind up to keep her and take care of her. She’s my own and I didn’t think it right to give her away to be someone else’s problem. They wheeled me into a hallway and left me there. Overcrowdin’ they said. Beds are for rich people is what they meant. But I didn’t mind. I jus’ wanted to look at Sally. Joe came over and asked if I was okay, then he said he was goin’ out for a smoke. Didn’t come back from that smoke till at least a week later.
“After a day they sent me home, but Sally stayed in the hospital. I visited whenever I could but I wasn’t ‘lowed to hold her. She was all taped up and had tubes comin’ out of her every which way. After ‘bout a month, they said she could come home but she’d need to still be hooked up and a nurse’d have to come in to look after her. I told ’em I had no money, but I guess they already knew that. They sent a woman and she had me sign some papers. I didn’t know what I signed and I didn’t care. I was just happy my baby was comin’ home.
“They brought her to the house in an ambulance. I had fixed this room up for her. Painted them rabbits on the wall myself. All the other kids is together in one room, but my Sally, she’s got her own. The nurse came every day in the beginnin’ to take care of her and I done my part, too.
“But Sally hasn’t but once so much as opened her eyes. I don’t even know what color they are. I like to think they’re blue, like mine. She hasn’t ever spoke a word. A noise here and there. It ain’t been much of a life for her, but I done my best. Maybe if I had some money I coulda done more for her, but I don’t, so I didn’t. No sense in cryin’ ‘bout it now.”
Mrs. McCurdle stiffened up and faced Annie. She had a look that if Annie had to put a name on she would call resolute.
“Might as well give me those papers to sign.”
Annie didn’t know what to say, so she mutely pulled them from the file and handed them over with the pen she’d had at the ready since she entered the house. Mrs. McCurdle signed at all the x’s and turned back to her child. Annie watched her gently stroke Sally’s head with her raw, beefy hands.
Annie walked down the stairs as quietly as she could manage and left through the back door since it was the fastest way out. From an open window, she heard the metallic, unmistakable sound of an oxygen tank being turned off. Then there was a squeal almost identical to the one she heard when she arrived, but she knew it didn’t come from any pig this time.
Annie knew what had just transpired upstairs as sure as if she had seen it. She froze, but the desperate need to leave thawed her and she took off, tripping over a bucket of pig’s blood. She scrambled up, fumbled for her keys, and ran for her car. She flung open the door—red streaks marring the white paint, started the car, and sped off down the hill and onto the road. But she only got about a quarter of a mile before she had to pull over. Her vision was blinded by tears. Annie rubbed her eyes with her sticky hands and shook with soundless sobs.
A FORTUNE
Joy Monica T. Sakaguchi
It was a Sunday when I saw the kid and the man with the bulging wallet. I remember because Sunday was usually the only day that I don’t work. Not for religious reasons . . .well, maybe it is. I don’t go to church, but I do need a day of rest just like everyone else.
I started pickpocketing when I was only five. That’s when Pop first showed me how easy it is for a small kid to get his tiny hand inside a man’s coat without even touching the material. By the time I was seven I had an easy time snatching people’s wallets right from beneath their damn noses. I used to save the wallets until I saw my pop once a month and then shove them in his hands. Boy would he yell at me.
“Hey, stupid, how many times I gotta tell you not to keep the wallets? Whatcha gonna tell your ma if she finds them? That your old man’s got you stealing for him?” Then he would proceed to whisk the green bills from the thin partitions. Usually he would hand me a couple of bills and I would absently stuff them in my sock without counting it. Of course I should have counted the mo
ney. I just didn’t want to know how much Pop thought I was worth.
My ma tried to raise me well. I have to give her credit for trying to make me an honest boy. She’s this ugly lady who wears a black curly wig and cries constantly. I only call her ugly—and only I can—because I inherited her looks. Crooked teeth, oily hair, and bony knees are my curses.
I remember she cried a lot because she was always worried that I would turn out like my “stinking, rotting, lout-of-a-father.” I never could figure out who she wanted me to turn out like. Uncle Barney? The only job that I ever knew he had was working as Santa Claus once a year. It’s not like he was any good at it either. Good ol’ Barney couldn’t walk straight thanks to the flask of whiskey he kept hidden inside his red Santa suit. He once told me that the pillow he had to wear was like a shelf for his liquor. What did I know? I stopped getting excited at the sight of Santa Claus walking through our trailer door when I was five and Santa pulled off his beard and asked me to get him a stiff drink.
So I’ve pretty much been pickpocketing all my life; even after my old man skipped town without so much as a damn note or phone call for his only son. I don’t keep the wallets anymore, but I do keep the cash. Literally. I have this huge cardboard box full of money that I have hidden in the room I rent. I don’t know how much is in there, but it’s a helluva lot. One day Pop will show up again. I’ll hand him the boxful of money, he will throw me some bills, and then I’ll just stow them away without counting them. That’s what I think.
Like I said, it was a Sunday when I saw this man and his son walking around an outdoor fish market. I’d just had a meal across the street at a Chinese restaurant. The food there sucks but they’re pretty generous with their fortune cookies. It’s like they have to make up for the lousy food by burying their customers in cookies and all the packets of soy sauce you can carry. That’s fine by me. I love those stupid fortune cookies. Today mine read, “A change in your daily routine will lead you to treasure.” I memorized it and shoved it in the back pocket of my faded camouflage pants. I like to read them to my ma when I visit her at the trailer, but she usually doesn’t get it. She always thinks I’m trying to tell her she was a bad mother. I don’t know where she gets ideas like that. I just want to share my fortune.
The kid caught my eye first for some reason. He was about seven, and he wore a blue cap that covered most of his neatly trimmed blond hair. He followed his dad quietly. Almost too quietly for a kid his age. From the moment I saw him I felt that there was something familiar about him. His dad was one of those really yuppie-looking guys with thin hair covering his head. He wore a stiff white shirt, loose jeans, and loafers with no socks. His back pocket was bulging with the promise of greens, so even though it was Sunday, I followed them.
I stayed close, but not too close, as he went from fish to fish with the boy at his heels. Every so often the father would turn to the boy and yell at him.
“My god, Jeremy, can’t you keep your damned shoes tied for five minutes?” he would say, or, “You stay close to me. I don’t want to have to go looking for you if you decide to wander away.” The kid just kept his eyes down and did as his father asked.
My opportunity to filch the wallet came when the kid dropped the bag he was carrying and three large salmons slipped out of their wrapping and onto the floor. The father bent over and pinched the boy’s arm. “You stupid, clumsy—! Do you know how much that cost!” He hissed some other things, kind of low so that no one else could hear, just like those yuppie parents tend to do.
The way he was bending caused the wallet to peer out of his pocket and stick straight up in the air. This one would be easy. I moved real close and pretended to inspect some fish piled on a mountain of ice. With my left hand I swiftly eased out the eelskin wallet. He never noticed a thing. I took one last look at the boy, who was holding his red arm, and disappeared.
About an hour later I returned to the fish market to leave the wallet somewhere. Sometimes I’ll do that so the owner will get back his I.D. and pictures and stuff. It’s risky, but I was kind of worried that the kid would get more flack once the father found out his wallet was missing. That peckerhead would get back his credit cards, but not his three hundred dollars in cash. He didn’t deserve it.
Then I saw the kid. He was alone, leaning against the wall of a liquor store with his head down. He wasn’t crying or anything; in fact he barely moved. Every so often he would stick out the tip of his shoe and grind the concrete, as if he were putting an insect out of its misery. You’d think a little rich kid like that would be all in a panic; instead he was just hanging out as if he didn’t belong anywhere or to anyone. I don’t know what compelled me, but my feet just sort of walked over to him before I told them to. I put my hands in my pockets and stood next to him.
“Hey, kid, you lost?” The boy looked at me from the corner of his eye but didn’t answer. “If you’re lost, maybe I can help you.” I was acting really crazy, because before I realized what I was saying I asked, “Do you want to come with me?” I heard myself talking and I swear I sounded like a stinking kidnapper. I’ve never had a problem stealing wallets, but stealing lost kids is out of my territory. It’s just that, it must be nice, you know, to be found. Anyway, I figured if he cried or screamed or something, I’d just walk away. He didn’t. The kid just nodded his head and peeled himself off the wall.
The kid followed me all the way to my home. I managed to sneak him in the house without Mrs. Alexi seeing me. It didn’t really matter since she barely spoke or understood any English and didn’t care what I did as long as I paid the rent on time. She was an old lady from Russia with stringy gray hair who spent most of her time making quilts and watching television. For the most part she’s a decent lady, but if she saw me on the street I don’t think she’d recognize me.
“Make yourself at home, kid.” He sat down on my bed looking very uncomfortable. Then the kid did the strangest thing. He took off his cap and with his small hands he folded it in half and smoothed it down, then neatly laid it on the bed next to him. I wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Hey, you hungry?” I asked. The kid nodded his head. I went to the kitchen and made a couple of bologna sandwiches and poured a glass of milk. Mrs. Alexi was cool about sharing her food as long as I cleaned up after myself. Even if I ate the whole damn kitchen, as long as I didn’t leave any crumbs behind it’d be fine with Mrs. Alexi. I brought the food into my room and watched as the kid nibbled on his sandwich. “So can you talk?”
“Yes,” he answered, concentrating on his sandwich.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you never go home with strangers?”
“Yes.”
“Then why’d you come home with me?” He just shrugged his shoulders and gulped down his milk. I really didn’t know what I was gonna do with him but it was nice having company. Then I had an idea. “D’you wanna see something?”
“Okay.” He looked interested, so I wasn’t embarrassed when I pulled out a box full of little white pieces of paper. “See, I save these every time I get a fortune cookie. Do you save things?”
“I have some baseball cards.”
“Yeah, but these are better. Do baseball cards tell you, ‘Love and happiness will be yours in abundance’?”
“No.” He giggled. Then he picked one up and read slowly, “‘Time is of the es-es-essence, use it wi-se-lee.’”
“Hey, that’s a good one,” I laughed. “You can keep that.”
He loved the fortunes. We spent half the night cracking up over them. The kid was great. He didn’t get bored with the fortunes like most kids would. Like me, he seemed to enjoy reading them out loud, and was even eager to see what the next one said, and the next one, and the next one. About eleven o’clock he started getting sleepy, and I found myself getting a little drowsy too. It was a nice, peaceful numbness that I was feeling. I looked at him with his clean hair and clothes and his lopsided smile and I wanted to cry. I never cried, not even when my old man left. All of a suddenly, I
began gathering the fortunes and stuffing them in a crumpled brown bag.
“I want you to have these, kid. All of these.” I was frantic to make sure I got every last one. I opened shoe boxes and dumped hundreds of little pieces of paper into the bag. Then I rummaged through all the back pockets of my pants and pulled out every fortune I could find. I got down on my hands and knees and pulled trash from beneath my bed and sifted through magazines and books and other junk until I got every last slip of smooth paper. “I mean it, kid. I want you to have my fortunes. You know why? You deserve it, kid, you earned it.” I pulled one out of the bag. “See this? This old guy named Confuses could predict the future or something. Here it says, ‘Long life will be yours.’ I want you to have that one especially, because you deserve a long life.”
The boy was sitting curled up on the bed looking scared because of my craziness. I didn’t mean to scare him, I just wanted him to know what he was worth. I opened my top drawer and grabbed a handful of fortunes and then put them in his lap. “Hey, kid, don’t be scared. These are fortunes.” The boy hid his face behind a pillow. “I know you think you don’t deserve these, but you do. I know what you are, kid. You’re tremendous.” The next thing I knew tears began to fall down my face. “Do you hear me! Do you? You’re special. You’re not stupid!” I don’t know what came over me but I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. I just wanted to make sure he knew what I was talking about. Really knew. Then the kid was crying too. I pulled him to me and hugged him while I was sobbing like a stinking baby.
“You’re tremendous, kid. You have to believe that.” I don’t know if he understood me because I was crying so hard. Just crying and rocking back and forth saying, “You’re tremendous, tremendous.”