All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(16)

“She’s supposed to ride the bus, Kellen.”

If she’d gave me a few seconds, I woulda said, “It’s her helmet,” but before I could, Val slammed the door in my face.





8

WAVY

May 1978

All winter Kellen was in charge of grocery shopping. I liked it that way, because he bought exactly what I wrote down. If I wrote “3 cans green beans,” he brought back three cans of green beans. Not one, not ten, not a bag full of things Donal wouldn’t eat. That was what Mama did: bring home cream of mushroom soup when I wrote down “cream of celery.” Grandma’s recipe book didn’t have anything that called for cream of mushroom. Mama couldn’t be trusted and neither could Ricki. She always lost the grocery list and Mama said she was one of Liam’s dirty whores.

When Kellen brought me home from school on Wednesday, I wrote a grocery list out of Grandma’s book. The recipe had Grandma’s fingerprints stained in hamburger blood.

“You’re making something good, I bet. What is this?” Kellen said. He propped his hands on the table, reading the list.

“Meatloaf. For you.”

“Oh, hey, I wasn’t fishing for an invitation.”

“For you,” I said.

In two weeks, school would be over for the summer, and Kellen wouldn’t have a reason to come to the house, except that he liked to eat. If I cooked, he might keep coming to sit at the table with me and let me watch him eat.

While I waited for him to get groceries, I cleaned and set the table. Grandma’s book had pictures showing where forks and spoons went. Water glasses, wineglasses. That’s where Kellen’s beer bottle went.

He came back smelling like the road and sweat. I wanted to bury my face in his shirt and smell him, the way I did when he wrecked, but I wasn’t brave enough, and he was carrying bags of food and scary news.

“I saw Liam on the road in. He wanted to know what I was getting. So I told him, and he said, ‘Is Val making her Mom’s green olive meatloaf?’”

All the happiness crumpled up in my chest like a wad of tin foil. I shook my head. Not at Kellen, but to make it not true.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to tell him. He says he’s coming to dinner at six.”

I laid the potatoes out on the table and petted them like little animals. They were dirty, but good potatoes. Small enough for me to hold them in my hands to peel. Kellen thought of those things.

“What do you want me to do?” he said.

“Stay.”

Going into Mama’s room, I didn’t want to touch her, but she was already awake.

“What is it, baby? Who’s here?”

“Liam not to be trusted,” I whispered.

“Liam’s here?” Mama sat up, her hair all knots and sticking out.

“Coming.”

“He’s coming here? When?”

Mama looked at her alarm clock, but it only flashed twelve, because she never set it after thunderstorms.

“How long until he comes?”

I held up two fingers.

“Two hours. I can get ready. Is there shampoo? And don’t be weird when he’s here. Call him Daddy, okay. Just say, ‘Hi, Daddy.’ Okay, baby? Will you do that for Mama?”

Call him Daddy, when she was the one who said I wasn’t supposed to call him that. She said he was not to be trusted.

Back in the kitchen, Kellen stood next to the table. I said, “Stay,” and he stayed.

He didn’t fuss like Mama. Sometimes he asked me about what I was doing, like why I put bread in the bottom of the meatloaf pan. I liked that he asked and didn’t get upset if I didn’t answer.

He said, “Can I do anything to help?” and he did what I asked. He fed Donal, kept him out of the way when I opened the oven door, and put him in his room before dinner. So he would be safe. Donal was two, I knew that, but I didn’t know his birthday. We never had presents or cake for him, but I didn’t remember having presents or cake until I went to live with Aunt Brenda. Now that Donal could walk by himself, it was harder to keep him safe. At least pretty soon he would be big enough to take care of himself. Next year.

Once the potatoes were cooked, Kellen mashed them, and he never got tired and had to rest like I did. All ten pounds of potatoes mashed at once.

While Kellen mashed, I prayed. Let Liam not come. Make Liam stay away. He always said he would do something and then never did it. When I was little, he said he would take me to the zoo. He never did. So let him stay away. Stay away.

Kellen turned the meatloaf out of the pan on the platter, and then he understood what the bread was for. It soaks up the grease. I laid the carrots around the meatloaf and Kellen put the potatoes in a bowl. The table looked perfect when Mama came out of the bathroom. Her hair fell in shiny brown curls over the shoulders of her silky red kimono. She was so pretty, but her face pinched up when she saw the food and Kellen.

“What’s this?” she said.

“Wavy made dinner,” Kellen said.

“Where’s Liam? She said he was coming at six.”

“It’s six now. She made meatloaf.”

It didn’t matter how much I prayed for Liam to stay away, if Mama was going to say his name without the protection. She made him come, whistling as he walked across the porch. Smiling as he walked in without knocking.