Don’t Let Me Go(27)

“What did that horrible man say to you? When did you even see him?”

“Just now. Out in the hall. I was coming in the front door with Felipe, who was teaching me the Spanish word for door — which is puerta, by the way, just in case you didn’t know that — I didn’t know that, until just now, so I thought maybe you didn’t know that, either. I don’t know how much Spanish you—”

“Grace,” Billy said. “Focus.”

“Right. Mr. Lafferty was in the hall. And he looked at me, and he looked at Felipe, and he shook his head, and he said all we were doing with my mom was just enabling her.”

“Oh,” Billy said. “I’m surprised you know that word well enough to get depressed over it.”

“Well, I didn’t. Exactly. But he just kept talking. And then it was pretty easy to see what he meant. Like, he kept saying he’s known a lot of people who have problems with alcohol and drugs, and he said they almost never get better, but when they do it’s because they have to. When they’re about to lose something they just can’t stand to lose. He said even their house or their car or their job probably isn’t enough, because some people’ll just go live under a bridge so they don’t have to get better. He said it’s always when they’re about to lose the person they’re married to, or their kids. He said that before, when the county was about to come get me and take me away, she might’ve had a reason to clean up her act. But why should she now? He said that you and Rayleen and Felipe are taking over all her responsibilities for her, so why would she get better? She doesn’t even have any reason to try. So I guess that’s enabling.”

“Right,” Billy said, finding her depression contagious. “That’s enabling.”

“He’s not right, though, is he?”

Billy didn’t answer.

“I mean, he’s a jerk, you said so yourself, right?”

“Not in so many words,” Billy said.

“But you don’t like him.”

“Not even a little bit.”

“So he’s wrong. Right?”

Billy looked at the rug and didn’t answer.

“OK, never mind,” Grace said. “Let’s just get to the dancing lesson. That’ll make me feel better.”

“Oh. The dancing lesson. OK. Prepare not to feel any better. I’m not really comfortable with letting you dance on my kitchen floor any more.”

“Why? Because of my mom?”

“Yes. Because of your mom. Because I don’t take it well when people come to my door and yell at me.”

“She didn’t exactly yell.”

“But she will the next time. Because the next time she’ll figure she asked me nicely once already.”

“But she almost always sleeps through stuff like that,” Grace said, right on the fine razor’s edge of whiney.

“Right. Almost always. We just have no way of knowing when we’ll hit the exception to the rule. And, frankly, that’s the kind of suspense I’m just not cut out to live with.”

Grace sighed.

Billy noted her lack of resistance. He knew what it meant, too. She was getting to know him unfortunately well. Well enough to know there was no point trying to reason with his anxieties.

They sat, side by side, slumped on the couch, for a long time. Without talking. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe more. Just staring out at the sheeting rain.

“This day sucks,” Grace said.

He looked over to see Grace’s hand clamped firmly over her own mouth.

“It’s not that bad a word,” Billy said. “I mean, as words go.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s that I complained.”

“So? Everybody complains.”

“Rayleen says I never do, and that’s one of the things she likes about me.”

They fell back into silence, and the watching of the rain, for a moment or two.

Then Billy said, “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Thanks. Maybe I’ll just dance on the rug. It’s better than nothing.”

“OK, go get your shoes on. I mean, go get my shoes on.”

He didn’t even watch this time, as she plunged into the drawn-out process of trying to make his old tap shoes fit. He had been that completely sucked down into the darkness of the mood.

What seemed like too short a time later, he looked up to see her do a stomp, followed by a flap step, followed by falling on her butt.

“Ow,” Grace said.

“Careful,” Billy said, lifelessly. “It’ll be slippery on the rug.”

“Great time to tell me,” she said, pulling herself to her feet.

She flapped another time or two, testingly, still leaving her weight on her planted foot.

“This sucks,” she said. “Oops. I complained again.”

“One more time and I’m telling Rayleen.”

Grace’s face fell pathetically.

“Really?”

“No, not really. I was kidding you.”

“Oh. Don’t kid. I’m not in the mood. This doesn’t work at all. It’s too slippy. And I miss the taps.”

“Me, too,” Billy said. “Only I’ve been missing them since before you were born.”