“Oh, man,” he says softly. “I’m really sorry.”
“They gave us all this paperwork before the appointment, and she didn’t even read it, but I did and I knew she was in trouble . . .” I falter, not wanting to say this, God, I don’t want to say this but it just keeps coming, “because to even pass the interview you have to be clean and sober for six months and committed to staying that way forever, and she wasn’t, she hasn’t been sober since we lived with Beale and that was almost seven years ago. The night before the appointment she drank what, I don’t know, maybe a quart of vodka and took a whole ton of her stupid Vicodin and when we went there the next morning she just blew them all off, like she knew she wasn’t going to make it anyway so why even try. When they explained that there aren’t anywhere near enough donated livers for everyone who needs one, and so they don’t usually give them to addicts who are just going to go out and wreck the next one, too, she just shrugged and said, Well, that’d be me, guys, so let’s just call it a day and grabbed her cane and walked out.” I look at him, miserable. “She just walked out and left me sitting there, and one of the doctors came over and said, You have a rough road ahead of you. Is there anyone in the family you can turn to for help? and I was so freaked that I couldn’t even answer her.”
Evan is very still, listening.
“And then after we got home she went and stole all the money I’d made busing down at the Candlelight and bought a mess more Vicodin.” Oh God, my head hurts. “So I waited till she passed out and grabbed every pill that was left and took them back to her dealer and got my money back.” My breath hitches. “When she found out they were gone we had a really brutal fight, and she told me some stuff I never knew, really bad stuff, and I got so upset that I left. And now she’s in the hospital and is probably really dying this time, and I’m not there and it’s not your fault, it’s nobody’s fault and that, Evan, is my shit life and aren’t you glad you asked?” I meet his gaze with what must be a ghastly smile. “Now, not to change the subject or anything, but do the windshield wipers work?”
He blinks. “Uh, let me see,” he says gruffly, turning the wiper knob.
They swish across the windshield slowly, clearing it.
“Now we can see headlights coming either way again,” I say when he shuts them off. I can’t look at him anymore because I know what I’m going to see, and I don’t want to see it. Not from him. I’m sorry I said anything and I wish I’d never even opened my mouth.
“Good thinking,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, staring out the passenger window.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” he says after a long moment. “So you were heading down to the hospital when I . . . ?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“In this snow? Couldn’t you have called somebody for a ride?”
“I don’t have a cell and there’s no phone where I was staying, so . . .” I shrug. “I didn’t really have a choice. It was either walk or don’t go, you know?” There’s no reason to explain how I was pretty much forced out of the trailer, and bringing Harlow, the infamous derelict town murderer, into this will only make it worse, so I don’t.
I have to go back there, though, and soon. The thought fills me with dread, but my coffee can of money, all seventy-three dollars and forty-eight cents, is still under his trailer, along with little Misty—if he hasn’t shot her yet—and I want them both.
“So what are you going to do?” Evan says hesitantly.
“About what?” I say.
“Well, I mean if your mom . . .” He shakes his head slightly, as if to erase the thought. “Do you have any relatives you can go live with?”
“No, but I’ll be eighteen in May, so I guess I’ll be on my own,” I say, trying to sound as if it’s no big deal and failing miserably because that’s just one more mountain I’m going to have to find a way to climb.
“You’re still in school?” Evan asks, sounding surprised.
“Good old Sullivan,” I say with a crooked smile. “I graduate in June.” If I make it, I add silently, because right now my attendance record is not looking so good.
“You know what you’re going to do after that?” he says.
I snort. “Are you kidding? I’d be happy just to—”
And then a sudden sharp, wrenching groan rumbles outside my window as one of the pine tree trunks rips loose from the sparse, frozen soil on the incline and the truck tips toward me, sending me sliding into the passenger door and Evan, yelling and swearing as his knee collides with the console, across the truck seat and crashing into me.
Chapter 10
“MY KNEE,” HE GRINDS OUT. “JESUS, Sayre, don’t move! My knee . . . oh God.” He slams his good hand into the dashboard and tries to push himself up off me. His face is pale and the veins in his neck are corded with the effort. “Are we going over?”
“I hope not,” I mumble from beneath his jacket, which is covering half of my face. “But I think it’s time to get out of here, just in case.” A curious calm has come over me, like everything bad that I’ve ever been afraid of is finally happening and I’m stuck right here in the middle of it again . . . only this time all that fear has somehow turned into white noise because when the worst actually happens, then there’s nothing left to be afraid of, is there?
Or maybe I’m just in shock. That’s also a possibility.
Moving carefully, I push his jacket off my face so I can breathe again.
“I can’t move without twisting my knee,” he says in a strained voice, trying to keep himself propped up off me with only one hand. “I can’t do it, Sayre, I’ll pass out or really screw it up and—”
“We’re not going to screw it up,” I say, touching his arm to get him to pay attention. “Listen. Your good leg is braced, right? Now, I’m going to put my hands here,” I slide the other one up and flatten them both against his chest, “and I’m not going to move anything but my arms, okay? When you’re ready, I’m going to push you up and back real slow, and when you want me to stop I will. I’m not going to move my legs. I’m not gonna bump your knee.” I hold his dark gaze, keeping mine steady. “Okay? Think you can do it?”
“I don’t know,” he says, the hint of panic still in his voice.
“You can,” I say calmly, as his heart races beneath my hand. “We’ll just go easy. Ready?”
He takes a deep breath and exhales. “Shit. All right.”
“I’m gonna start to push,” I say and begin to straighten my arms. He’s heavy and I’m suddenly grateful for carrying all those trays stacked with dirty dishes. “So far, so good?”
“Yeah,” he grunts, jaw clenched. “Keep going.”
I push some more and he braces his good hand against the back of the seat, and hooks the forearm of his bad hand around the steering wheel. He’s sweating, muttering under his breath, and my arms are beginning to tremble because they’re not fully extended yet and I can’t lock my elbows until he—
“Oh Christ, my knee, stop,” he blurts out.
“I don’t think I can,” I say. “You’ve got to keep going, Evan. Sit up!”
And with a Herculean effort he does, pulling himself back into the driver’s seat and slumping against the door. I see his shattered knee bump the steering wheel, hear his swift, indrawn breath and I quick sit up, too, slide open the cab window, and shimmy up and out.
I pull myself over the high side of the dangerously tilted bed to the snowy ground, and reach for the driver’s door. Yank it open, completely unprepared for Evan’s wild yelp and then he comes falling out at me backward, and I try to catch him but he’s panicked, thrashing and heavy, so I can only grab him around the waist as his bad knee whacks the side of the truck, as he slides all the way out and we both go down.
Chapter 11
“EVAN?” I SQUIRM OUT FROM UNDER him. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think—”
&
nbsp; He’s unconscious, and his leg is lying at a hideous angle.
“Okay, oh God, that’s bad, that’s really bad,” I whimper, leaning over him, my hands fluttering over his knee but too terrified to touch it, so instead smoothing the blood-matted hair off his forehead. The cut is nasty, puffy and angry looking, but it’s still not as bad as that grotesque, swollen knee. “Evan? Come on, no sleeping. I need you. You have to fix your leg. I really don’t think it should be crooked like that. Wake up.” I pat his cheek over and over, and finally stop, my fingertips resting on his skin. “No, you know what? It’s all right. Better you don’t wake up until I figure out what I’m going to do with you.” I look around, frantic because we’re out in the snow and the wind, on the ground with the teetering truck right next to us, and we have no blankets and he can’t climb but he can’t just lie out here or he’ll freeze to death.
I look up at the truck. It’s tilted bad but—
Lights sweep the trees in front of me.
Headlights.
My heart leaps and I scrabble around on my knees and look up the bank.
It’s the plow truck, slowing because of the branches in the road, and with a hoarse, desperate animal sound I push myself up and start waving my arms and shouting, “Help! Help! Down here! Help!” I reach up into the truck, grab the steering wheel and lay on the horn. The blare splits the night, splits my skull, and down on the ground Evan shifts and groans but I keep it going, keep shouting until the truck stops. I can hear the rumbling idle and it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. “Down here! Help! Please, help us!”
And then a big, husky figure appears at the edge of the road and I let off the horn in time to hear the guy say, Sweet Mother of God. I run out next to Evan’s still form and yell, “He’s hurt! We need to get to the hospital! Please don’t leave us here!”
“Stay right there,” the man says and starts down the bank. “I’m coming.”
“Oh, thank you,” I say, only it comes out like a prayer and that’s when I realize I’m laughing and babbling and the relief is so huge it makes my head spin.
“What’s wrong with him?” the guy asks, picking his way carefully down the slope.
“He might have a concussion and a shattered knee and broken fingers but I don’t know if that’s all,” I say, sinking down in the snow next to Evan and cradling his cold, limp good hand between mine. “He just fell out of the truck and passed out.”
“Good,” the guy says, striding the last few feet and crouching next to us, “because he isn’t going to like this part at all.” He slides his beefy arms under Evan’s back and the curve of his knees, and ignoring my frantic warnings, grunts and rises, lifting him like he’s nothing more than a little kid. “You go on up ahead of me.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, and reach into the truck, grab the keys, slam the door, and start up the bank. “I know you. You’re Red Ganzler, right?” I would recognize him anywhere, partly because we’ve met before and partly because he looks like a lumberjack with his buffalo plaid jacket, fuzzy orange beard, and huge, meaty hands. But he’s not a lumberjack, he’s on the township road department and is the youth minister over at the Methodist Church, a fact my mother always thought was a real hoot, seeing as how he was a stoner in high school and the first thing he did when he got back from fighting in Iraq was to go on a five-day bender, the highlight of which was his skinny-dipping at noon in the creek off the Main Street Bridge, singing “California Girls” at the top of his lungs and unabashedly sloshing out of the water when the openly amused police showed up.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he says, huffing along behind me. “Listen, when you get up to the truck, clear off the backseat so I can lay him down.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to find the best footholds because Red has no free hand and if he slides backward or falls . . . “Be careful here. It’s really slippery.” I stop, watching him struggle, and when he gets close I grab his arm and try to help pull him along.
“Keep going, I’m all right,” he says, glancing at me.
“Okay.” I scramble the rest of the way up the bank and run to the truck, yank open the back door and with one sweep shove the crushed cigarette packs, empty Yoo-Hoo bottles, magazines, Yodels wrappers, old coffee cups, and newspapers down off the seat and onto the floor.
“Watch out now,” he says, coming up behind me.
I dart around the other side of the truck, open the back door, and climb in. Red leans over and eases the top half of Evan onto the seat. I wedge my hands under Evan’s armpits and pull until he’s as far in as he can get.
“I hate to do this,” Red says, grimacing and shaking his head, “but I’m gonna have to bend his knees to shut the door.”
“No, wait,” I say and making sure his head is still far enough in the truck, quick climb in and shut my door. “Here,” I say, shrugging out of my jacket, wadding it up, and sticking it against the door. “Now let me see if I can pull him higher.”
“No, you’ll hurt yourself,” he says. “I’ll do it.” He climbs into the back of the truck as I scramble between the front seats and plop into the passenger side. Red takes hold of Evan and, grunting with effort, slides him up until he’s propped against my coat and both of his legs are stretched out on the seat. “There.” Red shuts the door, then comes around and climbs back into the driver’s seat. He picks up the township walkie-talkie and tells them he’s coming in and taking two kids from an accident scene to the hospital. Waits until he gets confirmation and then says, “Now let’s get moving.”
“Wait!” I cry as he shifts gears and we creep closer to the roadblock. “My stuff!” I throw open the door and slide out, run to where my bags and my ruby velvet blazer still sit, grab them, and am scrambling back up into the truck before the snow starts to sting my bare hands. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. We still have to get down there in one piece.” He studies my face for a moment, recognition dawning in his eyes. “Sayre, right? Okay. I knew I knew you. You all right?”
“Yeah, just freezing,” I say, shoving the bag and purse down by my feet but keeping the blazer on my lap. The lacy, fragile snowflakes are already melting and leaving glistening, tearlike droplets on the worn velvet. I brush them away before they soak in.
“Well, we can fix that,” he says and turns up the heat. Shifts the truck back into gear, and lowers the plow. “Did you make that roadblock?”
“Mm-hmm,” I say, holding my hands out in front of the heating vent. “We needed to make someone slow down long enough to see us.”
“Smart,” he says.
“Thank you,” I say as the truck surges forward and all that debris I’d dragged out into the open is enveloped by a rising mountain of snow and swept aside in one steady push.
Without Grandma Lucy
SOMETHING SET MY MOTHER OFF TWO days after Grandma Lucy was buried, but I didn’t know whether it was discovering the bowl of leftover ambrosia salad in the refrigerator, or the “Children Learn What They Live” poem by Dorothy Law Nolte I’d brought home from Sunday school months ago and posted on the refrigerator with little fruit magnets.
It didn’t really matter, as the end result was the same.
“Now what the hell is this shit?” my mother said, the covered bowl in her hand, the poem plastered in front of her on the fridge door.
I was sitting in my chair at the kitchen table because it was lunchtime, I wasn’t even eight years old yet, and I guess I still thought someone was going to feed me.
“‘If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn,’” my mother read, and her lip curled in scornful amusement. “Oh, for . . . Hey, Candy, did you know that if a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight? And if he lives with fear, he learns to be apprehensive?”
Candy pushed herself up off the couch and wandered into the room holding a can of Bud. “Yeah, so?”
“Wait,
there’s more,” my mother said in a false perky voice and held up a finger. “ ‘If a child lives with encouragement, he learns to be confident, and if he lives with acceptance,’ guess what?”
“What?” Candy said, smirking.
“He learns to love,” my mother cooed, and with a sharp snort, pulled the poem off the fridge, scattering magnets all over the floor. “If this is the kind of artsy-fartsy bullshit my mother’s been feeding you all this time then you’re gonna be in for a really rude awakening, kid,” she said, glancing at me. “Welcome to real life.”
“That’s from Sunday school,” I whispered.
“What?” my mother snapped.
I could feel the tears gathering in my eyes because she’d crumpled up my paper and now there were banana and apple and grape magnets all over the floor. Candy was wearing Grandma Lucy’s pink flowered bathrobe and had already spilled beer down the front of it and that was the last present Grandpa ever gave her and now it was ruined. The sink was full of empty, smelly, crusted casserole dishes from all the neighbors and no one was washing them or making me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut into triangles with potato chips and pickles and that’s what I always had on Thursday, but no more, no more, just like no more good night kisses or clean clothes left folded on my bed or Cricket the parakeet because no one remembered to give him water, so he died of thirst on the bottom of his cage with his tiny, gentle feet curled into clawed fists, and instead of letting me say a prayer and bury him, my mother just took his body and tossed it into the garbage. “Sunday school,” I said again, sniffling and not much louder than the first time.
“Jesus Christ, don’t you ever do anything but cry?” my mother said, tossing the poem onto the counter, setting down the covered bowl, and peeling back the tinfoil. She stared at the ambrosia salad for a moment too long and then with one fierce motion the bowl went flying across the kitchen past Candy and hit the wall, splattering mushy pineapple and marshmallows and maraschino cherries and Cool Whip everywhere, knocking Grandma’s clock to the floor, and breaking the bowl in two. “You know, I’ve always hated that shit,” my mother said into the resounding silence, and started to laugh.