History of Wolves(56)

Leo took that in, then rejected it. “But he’s got his head on straight. You know him. He’s very, very advanced for his age. He’ll be fine. He’s going to be fine.”

I shook my head. “He’s still so—” Defenseless, I meant. “Such a little kid.” I tried to corral some evidence to back me up. “He doesn’t even know how to read.”

Something about that, the fact that Paul couldn’t even sound out “train” in his very favorite book, made tears spring to my eyes.

Leo didn’t seem to see them. He put his wet hands on his hips, settled into the argument. He looked more comfortable now, back in terrain where he knew he could triumph. “Well now, that’s not strictly true, Linda. You know that. He can read a little. He can read ‘Paul.’ And ‘no.’”

“He’s memorized those words!” I was veering far past the point.

“I’m sure that’s not fair. What do you do when you read? Do you sound it out? What?”

I shook my head, bewildered. “Listen, Leo—”

“Now, Linda—” He reached out and cupped my hands in his wet palms. He was pressing them now, squeezing my fingers. His voice grew musical, the way it had with Patra. He’d gotten my hands wet, like his. He insisted, “You’ve been an enormous help. Now I’m just going to pop back in? See what he might be up for next? Excuse me a moment. All right?”


I left Leo and went into the main room, where the dishes from breakfast were still on the table. Drops of maple syrup had congealed to amber beads on the plates. Pancake crumbs were scattered in wide constellations across the wood table, the bamboo placemats, the maple floorboards.

Patra, still in her T-shirt, was cleaning the litter box. She was on her knees in the kitchen. With a blue plastic shovel in one hand and a white garbage bag in the other, she looked like a little kid playing in the sand. She glanced up at me, pushing hair from her eyes as I came around the kitchen island.

There must have been something in my face she didn’t like, because she took one look at me and started scooting back on her knees across the tile.

“Patra,” I said, coming forward.

She stood up, kitty litter embedded in her knees, pressed into her red skin in a gray mosaic. I took a step toward her, but she put the island between us. She held onto the white laminate counter.

I came around the island toward her, and she circled the same direction, moving away from me.

“Patra,” I said again.

“It’s okay?” she asked, pleading. As if I could do that for her, as if I could spare her.

“I think maybe—”

“Maybe?”

“He needs something. Like, from the drugstore, or—”

“Don’t tell Leo,” she interrupted.

I retreated from what I might have said. “Like Tylenol or something?”

“Leo says, control your thoughts. Think of Paul as a new day.”

“I can go to the drugstore for you, okay?”

“And who can stop a new day from coming?”

“I should go get something I think.” I licked my dry lips. “Patra? Patra?”

I’d been creeping faster than she was moving away the whole time. Now I was just inches from her. There she stood, with her reeking morning breath and kitty-litter knees. I could tell by the look in her eye that she was riding just the surface of her brain, bobbing on that choppy surface of hope and worry, so on impulse I kissed her on the lips, hating her purely in that instant, wanting to do more than that, to hurt her, to slap her, to get something back. Her lips were cool and flat, unresponsive. They didn’t seem like lips.

“Just the Tylenol,” she said, stepping sideways. Not really taking me in—not really a mind at all, just a bobbing boat on a wave.

“This is fucked,” I said softly.

“What?” she said.

She was too miserable to hurt though. Her T-shirt barely covered her panties. She was, every bit of her, limbs—gangly and thin, almost naked. The scar on her lip seemed to pulse red, then white. I was that close. I was close enough to see that.

“Fine, then,” I told her.

I walked across the room and worked my socked feet into my tennis shoes on the skewed welcome mat. Then I spun the handle on the front door, opening it up to the harsh bright rectangle of summer. Looked back once at Patra, in her wrinkled T-shirt by the counter. She was soundlessly twisting her lips—slowly, weirdly—mouthing thank you in a way that made me want to turn back and force her to speak out loud. But then I was gone. Outside on the driveway it was hot already. I took a few steps into the woods, as if on my way home, and then, abruptly, squatted down and lifted the granite stone on the edge of the trail. Worms waved blindly up. Tiny, translucent beetles moved in stupid circles. Everything was squirming and pulsing piteously, but there were the bills Patra had left, weeks ago. They were sodden and damp, but they were real money. I stuffed them in my pocket and took off at a sprint.





15


FOR THREE YEARS AFTER HIGH SCHOOL I TOOK CLASSES AT ITASCA COMMUNITY COLLEGE IN GRAND RAPIDS. I worked at a pizzeria-bar called The Binge that had brown vinyl booths and wine-bottle vases plugged with plastic carnations. The only requirements for the job were to wear black shorts, even in winter, and to keep the salad bar stocked with chopped lettuce and shaved carrots. During that time I saved money for a down payment on an ‘88 Chevy Corsica, and in the years after I bought that car I lived in Duluth, where I worked retail and cleaned houses on the side. Sometimes on my days off, I’d walk down to the water and wait for the lift bridge to go up, for ore ships and sailboats to slink out of the harbor. I didn’t stand on the grassy knoll with tourists but crossed the bridge and sat in stiff baymouth sand. The fourth spring I was there my dad died. After the funeral in Loose River, after I crashed my Corsica in the trees and sold the car for parts, I found a job at a temp service in the Cities. The temp service placed me at ManiCo Barge, where I answered calls from hoarse-voiced men hauling scrap steel and corn down the Mississippi. My job was to arrange their schedules, give the anticipated arrival and departure times of their trips, sometimes take calls from their wives and make their excuses. I ate packed lunches in the break room with the other temps, and at the end of each day, I walked to the bus stop downtown on salt-strewn streets. Through the scratched windows of the bus I watched snow fall in fat orbs under lights, all across the river.