Down With the Shine (11 page)

“Hide.” Mom interjects with another option. “Or run. Tried to keep you from him, hoped you wouldn’t get into the shine. No fixing it or fighting it now. Try and avoid him. Won’t go well, he’ll get you regardless, but if you’re fast it might be later instead of sooner.”

“What?” I gasp, trying to make sense of all these words flowing from her. I might as well have saved my breath. Mom’s already grabbed her Niagara Falls mug, nearly filled to the rim with ashes, and is turning away. Still, I can’t keep myself from calling after her, “Mom, I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

This stops her. “Your father, of course. Who else? The one who brought you into this world, and nearly took you right out of it again.”

I can’t believe Mom is talking about Dad for the second time in as many days. This time, I’m not gonna let the opportunity slip away. “You’re talking about when he kidnapped me, right?”

“No.” She shakes her head so adamantly that she wobbles, and Smith, who’s been hanging back, reaches forward as if to grab her. Somehow, though, she manages to right herself. And then she kicks me in the teeth. “I’m talking about when your father tried to kill you.”

Okay, she doesn’t
literally
kick me. But the effect is nearly the same. I stumble, and for the first time, I am glad to have Smith attached to me, because he is immediately there holding me steady.

I take a deep breath and remind myself that my mom isn’t the most reliable source. But she keeps talking, making it impossible for me to shrug it off as typical Mom craziness. “Of course, your father did it to force my hand. He had a pillow pressed against your little baby face and I had minutes to decide whether to save you. So I did, and in doing so, I lost myself.”

“You what?”

Just like that, her back is to me and she’s moving up the
stairs. Once again I have ceased to exist. Funny, it’s always been like this, but now after being given that little bit of knowledge, I am desperate for more. Scrambling up the stairs behind her, I grab hold of her arm, forcing her to swing around and face me. “Mom. Come on already. You owe me a little more information than that.”

Beneath my fingers I can feel her trembling bone covered with only the thinnest layer of flesh, and it makes me surprised she even has the strength to hold her cigarettes. Immediately guilty, I loosen my hold and soften my tone. “Please, Mom. I only want—”

The Niagara Falls mug smashes into my chest, cutting me off. She hits me with it a second time and instinctively I swat it away. The mug tumbles down, hits the stairs, and an instant later the ashes inside explode upward.

A black cloud surrounds us as she leans in and stares at me in this horribly bleak way. “You want. You always want, but I’ve given you everything I’ve got, Lennie. Everything. There’s nothing left in me to give. You got it all.”

I stumble back down the steps, wishing I’d never pushed her. Learning once again that if you never reach your hand out, you never have to worry about it being slapped away.

Meanwhile, Mom scoops her mug back up before spinning around to disappear in a cloud of her own smoke.

I stand there, stunned. And deserted by my entire family, at what I think can be classified, without hyperbole, as the worst moment of my life. If you’d asked me yesterday, I woulda told you that I didn’t count on one of them for a single thing. And I didn’t. Except. I guess I sorta thought if I really needed them, they’d pull their shit together, load the guns, put on their best camo and some Kevlar vests—that’d fallen off the back of a truck—and they’d charge in to the rescue. Instead, they left me here. Alone.

“Hey,” Smith says softly, giving my hand a little shake.

Well, almost alone.

“Gimme a minute,” I mutter, now even more mortified. I’d somehow forgotten he was there, attached to me, and witnessing the whole horrible thing.

Smith sighs. Then, in a whisper-soft voice meant only for my ears, he says, “I know that you already know Teena’s not winning any Mom of the Year awards, so I’m not gonna tell you that, but . . .” I wait, shocked that he’s—even obliquely—referring to the weird mother-son kiss I witnessed. “Some parents are worse than others and ours are, well . . . the worst of the worst.” Smith’s hand squeezes mine, and this time I am glad to feel his fingers interlocked with my own. If anyone had to witness that terrible scene, I’m glad it was him.

My throat is too tight with unshed tears to say
anything, so I simply squeeze his hand back.

Another moment passes. Smith clears his throat. Loudly. “I know you’re having a moment,” he says. “But I’m starving. And I’m guessing you are too.” He takes a step away from the stairs, tugging me along with him. “Let’s get Dyl and then figure out what comes next.”

I resist, for just a few more seconds, and then I lift my chin and swallow it all down—the same way I’ve always done.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”

W
e can’t find Dyl.

We spend half an hour hunting through the garage, which is basically a junkyard for broken TVs, microwaves, fridges, and even a few toilets. When it’s clear she’s not hiding behind or inside any of these things, Smith suggests letting the dogs out to find her scent.

Before I can say, “Worst idea ever,” he swings the fence open and encourages the dogs by saying, “Go get her, boys.”

Smith apparently has only experienced dogs via TV and movies where they’re all Lassie save-and-rescue types. Witnessing the shock on Smith’s face when the dogs don’t immediately rush off in search of Dyl and instead knock him to the ground is a rare moment of actual non-suckage. Of course, two seconds later they knock me down too.
And then they lick us. Not in a sweet loving way. No, they want the cheese that is still all over us, and they don’t stop until we are good and slobbery.

Then, as we peel ourselves off the ground, they go running in ten different directions, which is pretty impressive, ’cause my uncles only have five dogs. We finally convince them to return to the backyard by waggling hot dogs at them—the only treat enticing enough to make them give up their freedom.

Smith and I celebrate recapturing the dogs by spraying each other with my uncles’ hose. We even bring down some shampoo and soap, and get all sudsy right there in the front yard with our clothes on and everything. This is followed by an awkward trip to the bathroom that involves humming and closed eyes.

Finally, we sit on the front stoop drying out our clothes, eating Dinty Moore straight from the can, and hoping Dyl will wander back on her own. Smith also intermittently hollers her name and various neighbors curse back at him and offer many anatomically impossible threats of what they’ll to do him if he doesn’t shut up.

I grow increasingly tense as my uncles’ souped up truck doesn’t come roaring down the street to deposit them back at home. If they somehow found their way to Michaela’s, it’s easy to imagine at least twenty different terrible things
that could happen to them.

In short, it’s not the best afternoon ever.

“Maybe she’s back at my house,” Smith finally says, but in a way that makes it sound like he doesn’t really believe it. I don’t think it’s likely either, so I shrug. “Or maybe,” Smith continues, “she’s hooking up with a great guy she met on the internet.”

“Wow,” I say. “Waaaay too soon to be making jokes about that.”

“Who’s joking? Anyone dumb enough to do that once—”

I interrupt, talking over him as loudly as possible, just to make him shut up. “Dyl made a mistake, you moron. She wasn’t trying to get killed. Someone lied to her and she fell for it. She dared to have feelings and some shitbag used them against her. How is any of that her fault? Why is it stupid to trust someone? To like someone and want them to like you too?”

I stop there, since it is obvious from his smoldering glare that Smith doesn’t want to hear any of this. Clearly, anger is Smith’s comfort zone. I can see it on his face, the way he blames me and blames Dyl and is so fucking furious with everyone and everything. This is the exact type of look that used to make my heart leap into my
throat, because even though it was sorta scary to see this black core inside of him bubbling up and threatening to spill over, it was also sorta hot. I guess the fact that I thought this was hot says a lot about what’s inside of me as well.

But at this moment, I am too worn out to feel anything.

“Stomach bothering you, Smith? ’Cause you look a little . . .” I make a face indicating distress. “Sometimes the Dinty Moore can hit ya that way.”

He closes his eyes, no doubt disgusted by my puerile sense of humor and wishing he could be stuck to anyone in the world but me. . . .

And then he laughs. It’s a choked sort of laugh, like he doesn’t want to give in to it.

“Come on,” I say, before we can get into it again. The two of us seem to do best when we keep moving; it’s only when we stop that we dwell on things that are probably better left alone.

Tugging at his hand, I draw Smith back inside the house. He follows without resistance as I lead him into the kitchen, pull out the coffeemaker, and begin the process of brewing up a big pot of caffeinated sludge.

“You’re making that kind of strong,” Smith notes as I fill the filter to the brim with grounds.

“Yep,” I reply. “That’s kinda the point. It’s only”—I
twist around to get a peek at the clock on the microwave—“two thirty and my spine is already getting that liquidy feeling, like it’s not gonna hold me up much longer.”

“So you want me to pour it down your back when it’s done brewing?”

I smirk. “Maybe. Anything to stay awake.”

“Or,” Smith says, “we could stretch out on those big couches and take a little nap while we wait for your uncles to show up and Dyl to wander back.”

I turn to stare at Smith in disbelief. “One doesn’t nap in the middle of a shit storm.”

Smith laughs, which I think is a concession, but no, Smith never concedes. “No, the shit storm has passed. We are now up shit creek without a paddle. Which means we’re stuck and might as well go gently down the stream. Think about it,” he says, pulling me back into the living room toward my uncles’ admittedly super-comfy couches. “A power nap. Fifteen minutes, tops. We rest our eyes and wake up refreshed with a big pot of coffee ready to be slurped down for an extra boost.”

He flops onto the couch, taking me with him. I’d like to say I put up a fight. Instead, a little sigh escapes me. Smith leans into me and I lean right back, letting my head rest on his shoulder. “Gently down the stream,” I murmur
softly as my eyes start to drift closed. “Life is but a dream.” Then I have a sudden and terrifying vision of Larry with foam dribbling out between his lips. I jerk back up.

“Yeah, no, not tired,” I lie.

“Lennie, you just yawned like ten times.”

“Not ’cause I’m tired.” I pause to disguise a yawn as an annoyed sigh. “I’m bored, actually. It’s been nonstop action all day and now this is . . . well, it’s kinda boring sitting here.”

“Okay, I got a better idea,” Smith says. He reaches forward and after digging around a little pulls a little blue ukulele out from under the pile of stuff that lives under the coffee table.

“How’d you even see that under there?” I ask. “Uncle Rod got that a few years ago to impress one of his lady friends. When it failed I think he blamed the ukulele and banished it.”

“I have good eyes,” he replies with a grin. “And now for some bedtime, er, power nap music.” I open my mouth to argue, but Smith is already positioning the ukulele so that the neck is in his free hand while the body rests between our two legs. “I’m gonna need some help from you.”

“Sorry.” I tuck my free hand behind my back. “I’m not musical. I’d probably break it.”

“Come on, Lennie.” He gives the baby guitar a little jiggle as if to show it won’t bite. “All you gotta do is strum when I give your hand a squeeze.” His fingers, locked around mine, tighten, demonstrating how it works.

Reluctantly, I squeeze back. “Fine. But don’t blame me if it sucks.”

Ignoring my whining, Smith begins to pluck at the strings and then reaches up to twist the tuning knobs until, I guess, it sounds the way it should. Then he looks at me. “Ready?”

I shrug. “Yes?”

Smith grins in response. “Okay, let’s practice your strumming first. Just run your fingers—”

I cut him off. “I’m not a complete idiot. I know how to strum a guitar.” To prove my lack of idiocy, I do exactly that. Or I try to. It’s actually harder than it looks to gauge the right pressure to apply in order to hit all the strings in one smooth movement. But after a few minutes I get the hang of it and start to feel pretty confident that I’ll be able to handle my end of things.

Then Smith begins forming chords. He goes slowly at first, while we both get the hang of him squeezing my hand and me responding with a strum. Amazingly, when Smith picks up the speed, I find myself falling into a rhythm and even anticipating the hand squeezes.

At first the music coming from the guitar seems like random sounds. Nice random sounds, but not a song. Until something changes and it begins to sound familiar. I can’t quite place exactly what the song is until we reach the chorus and Smith begins to softly sing along.

“I wanna hold your ha-a-a-and. I wanna hold your hand.”

I stop strumming, caught between laughter and . . . something else.

Smith stops singing and looks up at me with his too-intense eyes. “Bad song choice?”

I swallow. Shake my head. Try to say something else. Try to break eye contact. Try to keep pulling air into my lungs.

And fail on all counts.

I remember Uncle Rod struggling to play this ukulele and how ridiculously small it had looked in his giant hands. Still, he’d stayed at it longer than I had expected him to, and when I asked why, he’d grinned and said, “The ladies can’t resist being serenaded with a love song, Lennie.”

I’d snorted my derision. “Please,” I’d said to him. “I would never fall for that.”

But, of course, I’m sucked in after only one line of the song.

Smith’s free arm comes around me, drawing me closer while our eyes lock. A kiss is coming. It’s a foregone
conclusion at this point, but we both draw out the moment, letting the anticipation build.

And it turns out I was right.

We weren’t really that tired after all.