Authors: T. Greenwood
Grace (6 page)
Elsbeth handed her six dollars and Gracy grabbed the bunny from the counter, squeezing it.
“It was a girl,” she said. “I already had her.”
“Oh,” Elsbeth said, feeling her face grow hot. She figured she’d be smart to just shut up before she made things any worse.
As she got Gracy back into her booster seat, she thought about the days right after Trevor was born, when her body looked and felt so different. She remembered staring in the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door, stunned to see a woman’s body instead of a girl’s. She remembered how cheated she felt. How devastated. She also remembered wondering if she’d made the wrong decision. Thinking, as Trevor wailed and flailed in his crib and she could do nothing but sit helplessly on her bed and cry, that maybe she should have given Trevor up to someone who would make a better mother. It was in those days, so long ago now they were hazy, dreamlike, in her mind, that she began second-guessing her entire life.
In the car, she pulled the sunglasses out of her pocket, peeling the UV sticker off the lens. She peered into the rearview mirror at Gracy, who was cooing softly to the rabbit, a swipe of chocolate and peanut butter across one cheek. Elsbeth looked at her own reflection and put the sunglasses on, and as she tilted her head to the left and then the right, she thought about the bathing suit in the catalogue, about sunshine and the ocean, and she realized exactly what she needed to do.
They needed a vacation.
And so instead of driving home, she pulled out of the lot and drove to the grocery store. Even though she’d already blown their grocery budget for the week, she got two thick pork chops from the butcher and a frozen Sara Lee cheesecake. The kids could have fish sticks, but she would need to make something special for Kurt. On the way to the register, she grabbed a seven-dollar bottle of Chardonnay.
Elsbeth knew that if she was going to convince Kurt to take a vacation, she would need to start planting the seeds early on. Like the tulip bulbs she planted last winter. She couldn’t just come out and ask him; that would never work with Kurt. He’d come up with a zillion reasons not to before she even finished asking. She would need to be patient. She needed to be smart about it, subtle. She had to do in a way that made it seem like it was
his
idea.
his
idea.
O
n Fridays after work, Kurt usually went to the store to pick up his dad’s groceries for him: a carton of eggs and a jar of instant coffee, two loaves of white bread, and three cans of deviled ham. Then he’d go to the liquor store for a carton of Kools and a handle of Seagram’s Seven. If Kurt bought anything else (fruit or vegetables or milk), they would only go bad in his fridge. He stopped by to check in on Pop every Friday night on his way home from work, and once every month he took him into town to the barber and then out to Rosco’s for lunch. The home health nurse came by twice a week to make sure he was taking his meds. Maury Vorhies, one of Pop’s neighbors, came on Monday nights to play cribbage. Kurt had asked him to keep an eye out on Pop as well.
n Fridays after work, Kurt usually went to the store to pick up his dad’s groceries for him: a carton of eggs and a jar of instant coffee, two loaves of white bread, and three cans of deviled ham. Then he’d go to the liquor store for a carton of Kools and a handle of Seagram’s Seven. If Kurt bought anything else (fruit or vegetables or milk), they would only go bad in his fridge. He stopped by to check in on Pop every Friday night on his way home from work, and once every month he took him into town to the barber and then out to Rosco’s for lunch. The home health nurse came by twice a week to make sure he was taking his meds. Maury Vorhies, one of Pop’s neighbors, came on Monday nights to play cribbage. Kurt had asked him to keep an eye out on Pop as well.
Sometimes Kurt could hardly believe this was the house he had grown up in. It was like the cancer that had slowly rotted out his mother’s belly. At first, you couldn’t tell from the outside what was happening on the inside, but in the last year or so, the rot and decay and stink had started to spill out onto the front porch, the yard, the driveway, and beyond. And now that the snow had melted, he realized just how much crap there was outside. As he walked up the cracked walkway to the porch, he knew he was going to have to say something to Pop about the mess before the neighbors did.
Kurt had tried numerous times to help his dad clean up, but Pop had only gotten upset. Taken it personally. He was a
collector,
he said. Why couldn’t Kurt just respect that and leave his shit alone? Kurt, of all people, should understand the value in other people’s junk. Hadn’t the salvage yard put food on his table his whole life? Hadn’t it put this very roof over his head? The problem was Jude Kennedy
was
a collector, but he didn’t collect antiques or snow globes or even those little spoons from all over the world. He collected
everything
. The bloody Styrofoam trays that cradled his ground beef, the plastic rings that embraced his beer, the junk mail that filled his mailbox. Advertisements for oil changes and grocery store fliers were as valuable to him as his dead wife’s china and his own Purple Heart. The house had always been full, but when Kurt’s mother was alive at least it was clean. Now it was filthy. There was one path that you could walk through, which led from the front door to the La-Z-Boy where his father spent most of his days and all of his nights and then on into the crowded kitchen and, finally, into the bathroom. Every time Kurt visited it seemed to get just a little bit worse; the pathway just a little bit narrower. He wanted to help him, to just empty the place out, give him a fresh start, but at this point he wasn’t even sure where to begin.
collector,
he said. Why couldn’t Kurt just respect that and leave his shit alone? Kurt, of all people, should understand the value in other people’s junk. Hadn’t the salvage yard put food on his table his whole life? Hadn’t it put this very roof over his head? The problem was Jude Kennedy
was
a collector, but he didn’t collect antiques or snow globes or even those little spoons from all over the world. He collected
everything
. The bloody Styrofoam trays that cradled his ground beef, the plastic rings that embraced his beer, the junk mail that filled his mailbox. Advertisements for oil changes and grocery store fliers were as valuable to him as his dead wife’s china and his own Purple Heart. The house had always been full, but when Kurt’s mother was alive at least it was clean. Now it was filthy. There was one path that you could walk through, which led from the front door to the La-Z-Boy where his father spent most of his days and all of his nights and then on into the crowded kitchen and, finally, into the bathroom. Every time Kurt visited it seemed to get just a little bit worse; the pathway just a little bit narrower. He wanted to help him, to just empty the place out, give him a fresh start, but at this point he wasn’t even sure where to begin.
Most Fridays, he’d sit with his father in a spot cleared off on the old couch and watch a basketball game or baseball game or just old episodes of
Law & Order
. Pop would draw hard and long on one Kool after another. The air was minty and thick; there was a layer of ash on everything. Kurt would catch him up with what was happening down at work as well as stuff happening in town. He brought drawings that Gracy had made, with
GRANDPA
scrawled across them in waxy crayon. He was usually there at least a couple of hours. But tonight, he’d promised Elsbeth he’d be home by suppertime, so he’d have to make it quick.
Law & Order
. Pop would draw hard and long on one Kool after another. The air was minty and thick; there was a layer of ash on everything. Kurt would catch him up with what was happening down at work as well as stuff happening in town. He brought drawings that Gracy had made, with
GRANDPA
scrawled across them in waxy crayon. He was usually there at least a couple of hours. But tonight, he’d promised Elsbeth he’d be home by suppertime, so he’d have to make it quick.
“Hey, Dad!” Kurt said by way of warning as he slowly cracked the unlocked door. He knew his father sometimes left the door to the bathroom open, and he didn’t want to embarrass him by walking in while he was struggling to use the contraption they’d gotten at the medical supply store after the stroke.
“C’min.” His father’s voice crackled, scratchy and deep like the crush of fallen leaves, and Kurt pushed the door open as far as he could. Something was blocking its full arc. The light was dim inside, but it looked like a ratty footstool.
Jude wasn’t in the bathroom but in the recliner, already wearing his pajamas. He didn’t usually lounge around in his nightclothes; despite the state of his home, he still showered every day, used a straight razor to shave, and wore clean, pressed Dickies and collared shirts. This attention to hygiene and grooming was a relief to Kurt.
“You okay, Dad?” Kurt asked, making his way through the messy living room to the kitchen with the bag of groceries.
“What’s that?” he asked. Growing up, Kurt used to be able to tell when his father had been drinking from the soft slur that signaled three or four or more cocktails. But ever since the stroke, Pop
always
sounded drunk. The only way Kurt could monitor his drinking now was by measuring how much was left in the bottle when he got there on Friday nights.
always
sounded drunk. The only way Kurt could monitor his drinking now was by measuring how much was left in the bottle when he got there on Friday nights.
Kurt returned to the living room after shoving the perishables in the fridge and tried not to look at the mess on the counter and in the sink. Last week’s bottle had about a finger left in it. “I said,
Are you okay?
”
Are you okay?
”
“Why don’t you ask that bitch from across the road?” he said.
“Theresa?” Kurt asked, sitting down on the couch next to a stack of newspapers and his father’s breakfast plate slick with congealed eggs and bacon grease. Theresa Bouchard had been in Kurt’s class in high school. They’d even gone out once or twice, but after graduation, he’d never called her again. Now she was a single mom, raising five boys, or maybe it was six. The rumor was every single one of them had a different father, though they all looked the same to Kurt. Dirty little buggers with hair in their eyes and runny noses.
Pop’s eyes were glassy, and there was a sweating tumbler between his legs.
“What’d she say?” Kurt asked.
“Said she’s gonna call the county, get the house condemned.”
“What?” Kurt asked. He felt sucker punched. “For what?” Though he knew exactly for what.
Pop shrugged. “Complainin’ about rats and raccoons. One of her snot-nosed kids come over and says he got bit.” He reached for a new cigarette and lit it with the tip of the one still burning between his lips. “When I was a kid, that was called trespassin’. Those little shits are always comin’ around, stealin’ stuff. They’re lucky I don’t shoot ’em.”
Kurt lifted his chin and rubbed his hand across his head. “Well, let’s get it cleaned up, then. If it’s just the trash out front, I can make a couple trips to the dump this weekend. Let me put some of those boxes on the porch into the garage. What else?”
“Be a good kid and get me a fresh drink?” his father said then, holding out his cup to him like a beggar, shaking it so the remaining ice cubes tinkled inside. His eyes looked as watery and viscous as the whiskey.
Kurt went to the kitchen and made a weak cocktail, loading it up with ice. He turned on the faucet to water it down, but the pipes only clanged and hissed. Jesus. “Pop, did your water get shut off?” Kurt was seething. His father always seemed to wait until the last possible moment to let him know there was a problem.
Pop stared at the television.
Kurt rubbed his temples. “Jesus, Dad. Why didn’t you tell me? We can pay your water bill. How much do you owe?” Kurt had no idea how he was even going to pay his own water bill this month.
“Bah,” Jude said.
“Dad, this is serious. If Theresa calls the county and they find out you don’t have running water, you’ll lose your house. What will you do then?” Kurt asked, though he knew exactly what he would do then. He’d have to move in with him and Elsbeth. Christ. He knew he was going to have to call Billy and ask him to send a check.
“Listen, Dad,” he said. “I’m gonna bring Trevor over this weekend and we’ll work on the yard. And I’ll figure out what to do about the water. But you’ve got to let me help. You can’t get all sentimental about stuff. It’s time to hoe out. I’ll call Bill.”
“Don’t you even think about calling that little prick,” his father grumbled, slamming the cocktail down on the end table.
“He’s your son,” Kurt said.
“He’s no son of mine.”
On his way home, Kurt called Billy on his cell, knowing he wouldn’t pick up. It was Friday night. Billy might be out after work. Kurt tried to imagine him sitting down in some dark bar, loosening his tie, ordering a drink. He tried to picture the contents of his briefcase as he rested it against the bar stool, but Kurt had no idea what he carried inside, what a lawyer’s trappings were. Billy was five hundred miles away, but it felt farther than that. It felt like a whole lifetime between here and there. Between them.
“I need to borrow some money,” he said into the silence. “Not a lot. Call me back.”
By the time he pulled into the driveway at home, the nerves in his legs were raw and thrumming.
T
revor sat down on the couch next to Gracy. She was watching
SpongeBob,
hugging a stuffed bunny he hadn’t seen before. She put her little feet up on his lap without taking her eyes off the TV. There were holes in the toes of her tights, and her big toes were both sticking out. He didn’t know how she could stand it. He tickled her toes, and she wriggled and giggled.
revor sat down on the couch next to Gracy. She was watching
SpongeBob,
hugging a stuffed bunny he hadn’t seen before. She put her little feet up on his lap without taking her eyes off the TV. There were holes in the toes of her tights, and her big toes were both sticking out. He didn’t know how she could stand it. He tickled her toes, and she wriggled and giggled.
“Stop it!” she squealed.
“Color with me?” she asked. There was a TV tray in front of her, paper and crayons all over it.
Trevor’s mother was busy making dinner in the kitchen: The smells hit him like a punch in the gut. Ever since the fight the other day, he’d been skipping lunch, avoiding the cafeteria completely, eating vending-machine peanut butter crackers in the art room during lunch period. Now his head felt swimmy with hunger, his stomach knotted tight.
“Dinner!” she called.
The table looked fancy, with candles and the good place mats she usually only put out for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She dished fish sticks and green beans onto his and Gracy’s plates and big juicy pork chops onto hers and his dad’s. The smell of it all made his mouth fill up with saliva. It was all he could do to keep from shoveling it in with his fists.
His dad sat down and scowled. “What’s all this for?” he asked.
His mother shrugged, smiling and pouring some wine into two tumblers. “You’ve been working so hard lately, we
both
have, I just thought it would be nice for us to have a nice family dinner.”
both
have, I just thought it would be nice for us to have a nice family dinner.”
She smelled like flowers, and her hair was still wet. When Trevor got home from school, she’d asked him to watch Gracy while she took a bath. She was in there a long time, and when she came out she smelled sweet, the steam coming off her like hot roses.
“How was your day?” she asked, and her voice sounded funny. Too high, like a cartoon version of herself.
His dad just nodded, and his mother looked at him hard, like she wanted something. Like he was supposed to be able to read her mind. She did that to Trevor too. But his dad didn’t say anything, he just started to saw at his pork chop.
His mother took a deep breath, like she was filling herself with air, and he wondered, for a moment, if she might just float away. He imagined her lifting off the ground, like a ghost, slipping out like shower steam through a crack in the front door.
Gracy was trying to explain some sort of project with lima beans they were doing in her kindergarten class. Trevor remembered doing that in kindergarten too, the beans wrapped in wet paper towels, their sprouts curling like tapeworms inside their plastic bags. It was supposed to teach them something about life cycles.
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