“We’re going to need your cooperation,” Moroney boomed into his loudspeaker. “Everyone move to the sides and we can begin!”
It was a pretty standard small-town parade, with the fire trucks blasting their horns, and the tractors pulling hay wagons filled with waving Boy Scouts, and Sam Dickenson of Dickenson Tractor Supply waving from his flagship vehicle, which was decorated with fairy lights. Moira rode alongside one of her clients down Main Street, doing something that made the horses raise their hooves up as if they were marching. Mack waved at her, glad that she hadn’t canceled because of Bill.
Zoë grabbed his arm. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” she said, pointing at one of the last floats.
“What do you think it is?”
“A Porta-Potty on wheels, lit up with Christmas lights and—oh, my God—is that supposed to be Santa in there?”
“It’s a little free advertising for Jerry Bix, who rents the units out.”
“Nobody objects to having a portable toilet on parade?”
“Even small-town folks understand irony, Zoë.” A little embarrassed by his own harshness, Mack turned away from her, watching the tractor pulling the Arcadia Preschool float as it chugged down the street. A few elf-hatted parents and teachers threw hard candies into the crowd.
The toddler on his hip struggled to be put down, so he could scramble for Tootsie Rolls and sucking candies along with the older kids.
“Go,” he said, “go!”
“Sorry, little guy, I don’t want you to get run over.”
“No!” The boy’s face screwed up as if he were about to explode.
“Hey, now, no crying. Look, the parade’s just about over.” Two girls walked in the rear, twirling batons. One of them waved at Mack. “Mr. Mackenna, you still giving lessons? You weren’t at the school when I went back.”
It was the plump blond girl, the one whose poetry book he’d swiped. “I started my own driving school.”
“Good, because I don’t like that Jim Moroney at all,” the girl said, nearly dropping her baton. Her friend said something that made her duck her head and giggle, and then they were gone, moving on ahead with the rest of the parade.
“More,” said the toddler in his arms, craning his neck. “More fire truck.”
Mack gave the kid a squeeze. His cheek smelled like curds. “I know, but those fire trucks got to go fight some fires.”
“Fight,” agreed the kid, pumping his fist in the air.
Moroney was back, shouting at everyone to come around town hall for some hot chocolate and Christmas cookies. “And don’t forget to look at the exciting new plans for the development behind the post office!”
Just then, someone grabbed the loudspeaker. “Don’t forget to tell them about the paybacks you took to approve those plans.”
“What the…” Moroney turned around, startled, as Frances continued addressing the crowd.
“Not to mention the laws you broke in order to pander to these big developers.”
“Somebody get this crazy lady off of me,” Moroney bellowed.
“Look,” said a child in the crowd, “Santa’s hurting that lady.”
“Get off, Frances,” shrieked Maya, breaking away from her mother.
“Oh, shit, Mack, she’s going to get hurt.”
Mack looked around but couldn’t see Bronwyn. Still carrying the little boy, he joined Zoë, who was looking furious as two police officers tried to pull Frances away. They were hampered by Gretchen, who had joined in the tussle and was shouting, “Ask Moroney what happened to the bald eagle nest off of Route Eighty-two! Ask him about the impact the development is going to have on the town’s school system!”
Moroney tried to twist away from Gretchen. “Get off me, you lesbo freak!”
“You’re the freak,” shouted Maya, and then Skeeter was there, trying to get in between Gretchen and Moroney. Mack felt useless, but he couldn’t help anyone without endangering the kid in his arms. “Hang on,” he said. “You’re not scared, are you?”
“No,” squealed the boy, bouncing with excitement. “This is fun!”
An off-duty state trooper, not recognizing Skeeter as a townie, took one look at his black leather jacket and brought out his billy club.
“Police brutality,” shouted Frances.
“Maya, get over here,” yelled Zoë, but the fight had spread, as might have been expected in a crowd with so many present and former police officers and firefighters. “Mack, I need help!”
Finally spotting a frantic Bronwyn in the crowd, Mack handed the little boy over to her and shouldered his way into the melee, but he couldn’t find Maya. He did see Moroney, who was pointing a finger at Frances as a cop Mack didn’t recognize closed in on her.
“You son of a bitch,” said Mack, closing in on Moroney. Miraculously, marvelously, all his fear was gone, replaced with a clear, sharp fury. Then he spotted Maya. “Jesus, your mother’s going mental, get over here and let me…” Moroney clocked him when he wasn’t looking, and Mack stumbled back, falling into someone’s arms.
“You okay?” It was Zoë.
Mack shook his head. “No, I am not fucking okay. He sucker punched me. Again!”
“That’s not fair,” yelled Maya. “Get him back, Mack!”
“I can’t,” said Mack, standing up and spitting on the sidewalk. “He has a weak heart.”
“Oh, I do, do I?” Moroney punched him again, knocking Mack to the ground this time. The crowd drew silent, and suddenly Mack found himself next to his ex-boss, in the middle of a circle.
“Punch him back,” someone shouted—it sounded a lot like Deanna from the diner.
“He doesn’t have the guts,” taunted another female voice. Jess.
Moroney circled him, slowly rotating his fists. “Come on, Mack,” he said. “You want to prove something? Go on and prove it.” He’d pulled down his Santa beard.
“You want to hurt? Fine.” Mack gave him a short, fast jab that sank into the pillow strapped to Moroney’s stomach.
“Ha,” said Moroney. “You call that a punch?”
And then Mack lost it, and did what he hadn’t done in years and years. Fought like a Ranger, deflecting Moroney’s punch with his left hand, simultaneously punching out with his right, then dropping to kick out with both his legs, knocking the older man to the ground.
He circled the man, ready, and as Moroney struggled to his feet, Mack moved in again, chopping near the windpipe with his right, sending his opponent crashing back down the the street.
“Jesus, Mack, stop, I think he’s really hurt!”
Mack knelt down. Moroney was lying with his eyes closed, his breathing fast and shallow. For a moment, Mack thought, Good. And then, right behind the satisfaction came another feeling: fear. And he remembered why he’d made the switch to being a medic. Not because it was hard to kill but because it wasn’t. Because he’d been afraid that if he kept on soldiering in a war zone, he might not be able to make the transition back to civilian life. He’d be like the assholes who came off the interstate doing ninety miles an hour and didn’t apply the brakes until they plowed someone down on Main Street.
“Shit,” he said. Assess the patient’s condition. “Jim, can you open your eyes? Tell me where it hurts.”
“Don’t you dare touch me,” said Moroney, his voice a hoarse croak. “My chest…ah, Jesus, I need a doctor.” A thin snow had begun to fall on his ruddy face, making the scene even more heartrending.
Mack looked up at the surrounding crowd. “Is there a doctor here?” No reply. Shit. He searched the faces staring down at them until he saw her. “Zoë, can you get my medical bag from the back of the car?” He threw her the keys.
“On my way,” she said.
“You’re going to be okay,” he reassured Moroney, who was lying with eyes closed and jaw clenched. “Where does it hurt?”
“It’s going to hurt you, Mack,” Moroney promised, and when he opened his eyes, there was no pain in them, only a sharp, c
alculating look, coupled with a gleam of malicious satisfaction. “You think you’re going to have a driving school after this? I’m going to press charges, asshole. I’m talking assault and battery on a government official, and considering the fact that you’ve had Special Forces training and knew that I had a potential heart condition, maybe we can even argue for aggravated assault.”
It was such a perfect revenge, Mack wondered if Moroney had planned it. A criminal record would mean he couldn’t teach driving. Jesus, it might even mean he couldn’t work as an EMT. Aggravated assault on the town supervisor was going to get him banned from the town squad, and beating up a former patient wasn’t exactly going to thrill any other potential employers. And the hell of it was that Moroney probably hadn’t planned anything, Mack had just dived headfirst into this cluster fuck. Shit. There was a reason he didn’t like crowds. Whenever you had a large group of people gathered together, you could never fully anticipate the repercussions of your actions, and you sure as hell couldn’t control them. Keeping his face carefully blank, Mack watched as Zoë returned with his medical bag.
“Thanks,” he said. “Listen, I think you’d better let Skeeter take you all home.”
“Sure,” said Zoë, looking so calm and practical that he felt a misguided wave of affection. “Are you going to take him to the hospital?”
“No,” Mack said, as the ambulance pulled up. He glanced sideways at the off-duty state troopers, who were muttering something about assault and battery. Either the troopers hadn’t seen Moroney hit him first, or else they didn’t care. Maybe they just liked Moroney. Maybe he was paying them off with favors. On the other hand, Mack reasoned, it could just be that cops take a dim view of a guy with serious hand-to-hand combat training whaling on a fat bastard in a Santa suit. Mack thought about arguing his case and felt a sudden wash of bone-deep fatigue. He became aware of a throbbing pain in his right knee where he’d landed badly on the pavement. “I think I’m headed for another state-operated facility.”
Zoë turned in the direction of his gaze, taking in the huddle of confabbing state troopers, Moroney’s malignant glare, and the general aura of impending doom. “Maybe I should remain behind,” she said.
“That’s all right. I think I know a way to placate the authorities.”
She hesitated, and Mack had the urge to kiss her good-bye. He resisted it. “Go on, Maya is probably freezing.”
“You’ll call me later and tell me what happened?”
“Sure,” he lied. He figured that Zoë would find out eventually, either from Skeeter or Moira. And although he was pretty numbed out at the moment, he wasn’t above feeling a mean stab of pleasure at the thought of her remorse when she learned he’d reenlisted.
Twenty-six
T hroughout the next week, Zoë found herself unable to fall asleep. She would stand in the doorway of Maya’s bedroom, watching her daughter’s slender form sprawled atop the covers, and fight the urge to curl up beside her. She hadn’t heard from Mack since the night of the parade. At first she’d waited for his call, and then, when the time had arrived to take Bronwyn back to the train station, she’d run outside without her coat, anxious to hear what had happened.
But it had been Rudy who had pulled up in her driveway, scratching the back of his neck and looking like he knew more than he was saying. At first Zoë had worried that something terrible had happened to Mack—a ruptured appendix, or some unexpected injury from the fight with Moroney. But then Rudy had said, No, Mack wasn’t sick, he’d just said he couldn’t come.
With no explanation.
Zoë changed the channel on the TV set. Infomercial. Cop show rerun. Reality show rerun. She watched for a moment, trying to figure out whether these were people who had been famous, wanted to be famous, or simply found it entertaining to air their dating, dressing, or child-rearing problems in public. Zoë had never understood why reality TV shows were so popular. Dishing out servings of reality was what journalists did, as they attempted to relate the story of an event with as much objectivity, accuracy, and relevant detail as possible. But there was nothing particularly real or instructive about stage-managing confrontations between prim has-beens and promiscuous wannabes. It catered to the worst, voyeuristic tendencies of an audience. I’m going to turn this program off, thought Zoë. In a minute. As soon as the drunk ex-starlet finishes having her tantrum.
The program broke to a commercial, and Zoë changed the channel and found a news program recorded earlier in the day. “Can your cat give you an incurable disease? You and your family might already be infected and not even know it. That story and the tragic tale of the hit-and-run granny in just a moment, but first, here’s a look at a new trend—video therapy sessions for people in remote, rural areas.”
Oh, yeah, that would work, thought Zoë. I feel so lonely and isolated, Doctor. Why do you think you feel this way, Zoë? Wait a minute, you’re not in focus.
She changed the channel yet again, and found herself watching a Spanish soap opera. As far as she could tell, the man in the pirate shirt had been kidnapped by the woman in the leather pants, who either wanted to force the man to confess or have sex with her, or possibly both.
Too bad she couldn’t try that with Mack. Because as cheesy as Amor de mi vida was, Zoë felt fairly certain that the show wouldn’t disappear a major, recurring character without providing at least some kind of lame cover story to explain the sudden absence. And Mack had become a major, recurring character in her life, something she hadn’t fully grasped until he’d dropped out of contact. I have an abandonment theme going, thought Zoë, surprised to find that Mack had secured himself a place alongside her father and Maya’s biological dad, forming an unholy trinity of men who had profoundly disappointed her.
Zoë overslept the next morning, and Maya shook her awake. “Mommy, we have to get ready for parent-teacher conferences.”
“Oh, God, what time is it?”
“Almost nine.”
Zoë surged out of bed. That was another thing she disliked about the country; there weren’t any garbage trucks to wake you up on time. Fifteen minutes later, she was dressed and ready, if still not quite as wide awake as she would have liked.
“Is Mack taking us, Mommy?”
Zoë stared at her coffeepot, willing it to brew faster. “No, honey. I called him but he didn’t answer.”
“And you left a message?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you speak to Moira, Mommy? Because she said I could come over and help as soon as school let out.”
“I left a message for Moira and for Mack, but neither of them has called me yet. Which is why Rudy is going to drive us to your school today.”
“I just don’t understand it,” said Maya, sounding miserable. “Why would they both just not call us? Maybe their phone’s not working.”
“Maybe. We’ll try them again later.”
“Because it’s probably the phone. You know what the country is like.”
Zoë gave her daughter what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Maya was wearing Moira’s usual outfit, a brown turtleneck, flannel shirt, Wrangler jeans, and waterproof hiking boots—all purchased at the local Tractor Supply Company for so little cash that Zoë had bought herself a pair of jeans and a cowgirl shirt as well. “Now, you look like a local,” Mack had told her. That had been less than two weeks ago. What the hell could have happened in the interim?
Zoë smoothed her daughter’s blond hair back from her face, noticing that the shade was beginning to darken, from age or lack of sunlight, or both. “Sometimes things change, and people come into your life, and sometimes things change, and people fall out of your life.” Not a lesson she’d wanted Maya to have to learn more than once.
“I just don’t like changes that I don’t even know are coming.”
“Neither do I, baby.”
Rudy arrived in a pickup truck filled with seasonal lawn decorations. Zoë wasn’t sure if they were all destined for his own house or whether he was in
tending to sell them for additional income. He surveyed their lawn, which was still covered with a foot of snow, except for the path Zoë and Maya had inexpertly shoveled to the back door. “You don’t have any holiday decorations up,” Rudy noted.
“Not our holiday,” Zoë pointed out.
“Don’t you have something Jewish you can stick on the lawn? Or a light-up reindeer with moving head. That’s not Christian.”
“Oh, can we have one, Mommy?”
“We’ll talk about it another time.” On the drive to the school, Zoë ripped open the envelope she had retrieved this morning from the mailbox, belatedly remembering that she had to check it. Zoë shook the envelope and out tumbled her daughter’s report card. Taking a deep breath, Zoë glanced at Maya, reassuring herself that the girl was engrossed in reading her book before opening the report. Zoë did not want Maya asking her to read it out loud, as experience had taught her to expect a lot of phrases such as “not making enough of an effort” and “continues to have trouble in decoding and recognizing core words,” all of it sweetened by a closing assertion that Maya was charming, gregarious, and had a great sense of humor.
“Hey, Mommy,” said Maya, “what are you reading?”
“Just some work papers,” said Zoë, unable to believe her eyes.
English
Maya is making remarkable progress in her ability to analyze stories. She shows real insight and thoughtfulness as well as a solid grasp of the literature we are covering in class. Her reading is also improving by leaps and bounds, and given her enthusiasm, and interest, by the end of the year Maya may be at or near grade level.
“Mommy,” said Maya, “what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
“Because I’m so happy,” said Zoë. “Because I’m reading your report card.” And because, although she didn’t say it out loud, her big gamble had paid off. Maya was catching up, and they would be able to go back home to Manhattan. She didn’t need to learn to drive, she didn’t need to figure out how to fill the empty hours when Maya was gone and she wasn’t working. Maya was going to be all right, and so was she. They were going back to the city. They could start looking for a new apartment immediately, maybe something closer to Bronwyn, maybe a two-bedroom in a brownstone for a change, with a little garden out back.