Spare Change (27 page)

On Monday morning Olivia was
up at the first light of dawn; she set a skillet of sausages to sizzling and
mixed up a bowl of pancake batter with fresh blueberries thrown in for good
measure; then she woke the boy.  “Get up, Ethan,” she whispered, giving his
shoulder a gentle shake, “it’s time to get ready for school.”

“Do I have to?” he moaned,
wrapping himself in a tighter ball of drowsiness.

“Yes,” she tugged the
blanket loose from his grip. Once he was up and headed for the bathroom, she
returned to the kitchen and set about fixing chicken sandwiches to pack in the
Superman lunch box. After a considerable amount of time, he arrived at the
breakfast table, looking more reluctant than ever. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I don’t have a good feeling
about this,” he mumbled.

“Nonsense.” Olivia placed a
plate of pancakes in front of him. “Now, hurry up and eat your breakfast,” she
said, trying to sound cheerful, “You’re going to love school, I’m sure of it. You’ll
meet new friends—”

“I already got friends.”

“Honey,” Olivia knelt beside
him, “…I know you consider the folks in this building your friends, but we’re a
bunch of old fogeys, you need to meet some kids so you can play with boys your
own age.”

“No I don’t.”

Olivia knew by the look of
determination in his eyes, she could argue the point till the moon settled on
top of the mountain and it wouldn’t change his mind. She also knew that if he
rode his bike to school, he’d end up elsewhere—which is why she insisted on
driving him that first day. Had he ridden the bike, he might have arrived home
earlier; he might have already been off on some errand to the Piggly Wiggly, or
upstairs with his eyes glued to the television—but, with the walk home taking
considerably longer, he turned into the building walkway just as Sam Cobb
stepped from the car. “Holy shit!” the boy gasped, then took off running like a
scared rabbit. He went around the building through the back entrance and up the
stairwell. He burst through the apartment door a full minute before Mahoney and
Cobb arrived. “Say I ain’t here!” he screamed before Olivia could ask how his
day at school had gone.    

“What’s wrong?” she asked,
following him into the bedroom.

“Please,” he begged, “tell
those policeman you ain’t seen hide nor hair of me!” He rolled under the bed,
and just then there was a knock at the door. 

When Olivia opened the door
Mahoney said, “Afternoon, ma’am.”  He smiled, showed his badge, then introduced
both himself and Sam Cobb.  “We’d like a word with Ethan Allen Doyle,” he said
rather pleasantly. 

Olivia could feel a swell of
conscience rising up into her throat—it might be excusable to tell a little
white lie when you had cause; but to do what Ethan Allen asked, was flat out
lying to the law. Once she’d told an officer her speedometer read forty miles
per hour, when in truth it had been waggling somewhere between fifty-five and
sixty—it didn’t work out very well that time and she was reluctant to try
again. Olivia hesitated for a minute, then without perjuring herself as to
whether or not the boy was there, asked, “What business do you have with my
grandson?”

“There are a few questions
we’d like to ask,” Mahoney replied.

“What kind of questions?”

“Has the boy told you what
happened to his parents?”

Olivia nodded, “Somewhat,”
she said, hoping they wouldn’t ask for further details.  

“Well, we think he might
have actually seen what happened the night of the murders.”

“And if he did?” Olivia
snorted, “What then? You’d have him relive that horrible experience? You’d ask
the child to suffer through it all over again?”

“Our intent is nothing like
that—”

 “Regardless of your intent,
I refuse to allow you to badger the boy!” she said, cutting Mahoney off in the
middle of his sentence. “There’s no justification—”

“You’ve got no say in it!”
Cobb, although he had been forewarned to hold back on his temper, stormed. “We
can do whatever we—”

“The devil you can!” Olivia
snapped. She defiantly squared herself in the doorway to block any thought they
might have of getting inside. “I’m Ethan Allen’s grandmother and I’m telling
you right here and now—if the child doesn’t want to talk to you, he doesn’t
have to!”

Mahoney still trying to win
her over to their way of thinking, said, “All we want to do is ask a few
questions, we’ve no intention of pressuring him.”

“I’m sorry,” Olivia said,
looking only at Mahoney, “but, he doesn’t want—”

Hell bent on being the lead
interrogator, Cobb snarled, “Look, lady, you got nothing to say about it—the kid’s
a runaway, we’ll get a warrant!”

“Just you try it!” Olivia
slammed the door with such force that a screw holding the hinge in place,
popped loose and rolled across the carpet. Despite the boldness of her words,
her heart was pounding like a Salvation Army kettle drum.  

After several minutes of
waiting for her nerves to settle down, Olivia sucked in a deep breath, threw
her shoulders back and marched into the bedroom calling out for Ethan Allen. At
first there was no answer, not even the sound of his breathing—it was so quiet that
she could have believed he had run off again; but when she stooped and peered
beneath the bed she saw two wide open eyes looking back. “Come out from under
there,” she said, “we need to do some talking.”

“Are they gone,” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, “but, I
believe they’ll be back.”

“I gotta get going,” Ethan
Allen said, cautiously wriggling out from under the bed. “If I’m here when they
get back…”

Olivia found it surprising
the boy would admit to being afraid of anything. He had a papery covering of
bravado and a sassy mouth, but if you peeled away those things you’d find a
scared little boy trying to act tough. Olivia knew all about such pretensions,
she’d stuck her nose in the air and marched out of her daddy’s house as if she
weren’t afraid of the devil himself but she’d been trembling inside. Once the
boy scooted partway from beneath the bed, she reached down and took hold of his
hand, “Don’t worry, Ethan,” she said as she tugged him to his feet, “there’s
nothing to be afraid of.” 

“That’s what you think!” he
answered.

“Police officers don’t harm
children,” Olivia said in a voice meant to reassure the boy and do away with
his unfounded fears. “They’re probably just following up, checking to see
you’re okay and getting the proper care, that’s all.”

“That ain’t all!” he
shouted. “That policeman wants to slit my throat!”

“Why on earth would he want
to do such a thing?”

“’Cause then, I can’t tell.”

“Tell what?”

“Nothing. Just trust me; I
gotta get out of here before they get back.”

Olivia took hold of the
boy’s shoulders and twisted him around so that he was facing her. “No, Ethan,”
she said, “…it’s time
you
trusted
me
.  You have got to tell me
the truth about why you’re so afraid of those policemen.”

“You’re better off not
knowing,” he warned. “Believe me, Miss Olivia, you’re much better off not
knowing.”

“Miss Olivia?” she echoed
solemnly. The name took her aback. It somehow seemed so formal, proper in every
aspect and meant to please, but with no affection attached—surely he’d made a
mistake saying her name in such a way. Although she didn’t remember him ever
before referring to her in that manner, neither did she recall him using any
other name. Now that she thought back, she could picture the way he would wait
until she was facing him to speak, he’d never once used a name. “Ethan,” she
sighed, “don’t you think you should be calling me Grandma?”

“But…you said...”

“I was wrong.” She pulled
him to her chest and hugged so hard he began wheezing. When she finally
loosened her grip, she lowered herself to the floor alongside of Ethan Allen
and said, “Your Grandpa was a wonderful man, a man who knew far more of life than
I ever did. His heart was the size usually afforded to three men. And, it was
filled to the brim with love, way more than is needed for sharing.” She brushed
back a tear and took the boy’s hand in hers, “I’m absolutely certain,” she
said, her voice soft as a fluff of cotton, “that he was the one who brought you
here, Ethan. Having you is almost like having your dear sweet Grandpa back
again. You’ve got Charlie’s smile, the same blue eyes…” she looked down at the
boy and knew her ability to love was not dead, it simply needed a reason to
live. “So, you see,” Olivia said, her smile growing wider, “I believe your
Grandpa’s intention was for us to be together—to take care of each other the
way he’d take care of us if he was here. Who are we to argue with an intention
such as that?”

Figuring this wasn’t the
time for explaining the only thing he knew of Grandpa Doyle was the dollar bill
that arrived at Christmas and on his birthday, Ethan simply nodded, and said,
“Okay.”

“Okay, Grandma,” Olivia
corrected, “I
am
your grandma and I’d be real honored if you’d call me
that.” 

“Okay,” he hesitated for
what seemed to be a long moment, then finally spat out the word that somehow
had gotten stuck sideways in his throat, “Grandma.”

 Olivia gave him an
affectionate hug; then she whipped right back into asking why he had such a
fear of the two police officers. “You’ve got to tell me the honest-to-God
truth,” she said, “whatever the problem is, we can deal with it together.”

“You don’t understand,” he
moaned, “if I was to tell, I’d be sent to reform school, or stomped dead as a
doornail.” Ethan’s eyes began to fill with water.

Olivia, flabbergasted by
such a statement, asked “By who?”

“That policeman, and his
daddy—Mister Cobb.” 

“Officer Cobb is an
unpleasant person, no doubt about it,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean he’d
harm you for telling the truth.”

“You just don’t get it,”
Ethan said, a look of skepticism on his face, a look that was way beyond his
years. “Those Cobb’s know I saw what happened that night and no matter what I
say, they’ll claim I’m lying. Who do you suppose people are gonna believe,” he
asked, “a policeman and his daddy or a kid?” 

“If you tell the truth,”
Olivia answered, “I’d believe you.”

“Yeah, and how you gonna
know if what I’m saying is true?”

“I trust you,” she said. 

“That’s it? You’re just
gonna go by trust?”

Olivia gave him a smile and
a nod.   

“Then what?” he asked.

“Then we’ll figure out the
best way to deal with whatever needs dealing with.”

“You’re not gonna hand me
over to them?”

“Ethan,” Olivia said, her
voice clear and straightforward, “those policemen would have to shoot
me
dead, before I’d let them take you away.”

“Honest?”

“Honest!”  Olivia drew a
crisscross over her heart.

 A look of dread settled
over Ethan’s face when he began to speak. “I lied,” he said solemnly, “I lied
when I said I was asleep and didn’t see nothing. I saw it all.”

Olivia said nothing, just
waited for him to continue.

“That day Mama and Daddy
were fighting fierce. ‘Ethan,’ she told me real secret-like, ‘you slip out back
and stay there till I get away from your Daddy, soon as I do, we’re going to
New York City with Scooter.’ I did just what she said. Me and Dog went out back
of the woods and hid in my fort. I waited all afternoon; then finally Mama came
out and stuck her suitcase in the car. Daddy came running out right behind her,
yelling how she wasn’t going nowhere. He smacked her to the ground and she
didn’t get up. After a spell, he picked her up and carried her inside the
house. I figured Mama must’ve been hurt, elsewise she’d of called him every
name in the book.”

“Who’s Scooter?” Olivia
asked.  

“The policeman’s daddy,”
Ethan answered his eyes full of fear. 

“Oh.  Were he and your mama…”

The boy gave a knowing nod
and continued on. “Later on, I snuck around back and looked in the window—Mama
was stretched out on the bed like maybe she was sleeping off a headache. They
was always fighting, Mama and Daddy, and lots of times she went to bed for a
while after so she’d feel better. When I saw she was sleeping, I figured she’d
be along later.” He hesitated for a moment then with the saddest look
imaginable, said, “Mama wasn’t at all mean the way Daddy thought; she just had
her heart set on going to New York City so she could be a singing star.” After
that he slid back into telling the story. “I was waiting in my fort when I saw
Mister Scooter’s car come up our drive, then I snuck closer to see what was
gonna happen. I figured for sure there’d be shit flying if Scooter started
mouthing off about going to New York, ‘cause Daddy wasn’t in the mood for no
foolishness. He didn’t say nothing about New York, just told Daddy he needed to
talk to Susanna—that’s Mama’s name—and pushed his way inside the door. In no
time at all, he was screaming to the top of his lungs about how Daddy had
killed Mama…”