The Wrong Family(31)

It was when she was scrubbing the carpet with the T-shirt that she found the string of loose carpet—a run. Juno tried to break the piece off. Yanking on the string, she pulled up an edge of the carpet instead. She hissed a “dammit” under her breath. Today was the kind of day Kregger used to call a dumpshit. Instead of flattening the corner, Juno tugged on it. With some tugging, the carpet lifted away in a perfect rectangle. She turned it over to see a stiff board underneath, hidden by the carpet.

As Juno peered down at the wooden trapdoor, she could smell the laundry detergent, clean and floral. She could also smell something else, something closed and dank coming through the trapdoor. It wasn’t made of the hardwood that ran through the rest of the house; it was a thick slab of nicked oak that looked like it had been there for as long as the house had.

There were two metal latches holding it in place, old and corroded. She had to work them open, jiggling the latches before they would release. Standing up, she used the strength in her legs to yank it open. She felt the grinding in her joints and ignored it: something else had her attention now. A gust of old air hit her in the face, and she screwed up her nose against it. The closet’s lone light bulb hung above the trapdoor, and Juno could see dirt floor and rough pilings. She lay on her belly and peered into the hole. The dark swallowed up most of the space, allowing her to see only a portion of it, but it was clear that this was the house’s crawl space. She didn’t hesitate—sitting on the edge, she lowered her legs over the side.

Juno was on her hands and knees in dirt. Chunks of concrete rolled under her palms, making her flinch as she crawled. A grown man would have trouble fitting through parts of the crawl space, especially where the ground rose in lazy waves. The ceiling of the crawl space was made of wood and dusty with mold. It was like a cave, and it was almost cozy. Ten-year-old Juno would have been delighted at this discovery. The thought was so ludicrous she cackled aloud. It was the ugliest sound she’d ever heard, even uglier than the time an inmate had cut the tip of Rhionette Wicke’s pinkie with a sharpened rock, and she’d screamed like a hyena. Aside from the musty smell, which was probably coming from a few dead rodents, this was a better, safer space than any she’d slept in.

Juno had run out of Advil and the ache was settling in, an ache made worse by the cold. She knew her kidneys were failing, and she also knew homeless women didn’t get new kidneys. She was dying, and she didn’t mind one bit. She had nothing left and that was that; she wasn’t sad, she wasn’t grieving anymore, she was waiting. And she would like to wait somewhere warmer and safer. Last year at this time, a bunch of punk teenagers had pushed her around, and she’d hit her head on the curb trying to get away from them. An ambulance had taken her to the hospital during which the ER doctor had spotted the butterfly wings on her face and told her gently that she likely had lupus. Juno had known her diagnosis for years, but she’d never told anyone, not even her sons. She denied it to the doctor, and he’d known she was lying, but that was her business. The last thing she wanted was some wet-behind-the-ears do-gooder trying to help her live a less homeless life. Juno wanted to die; she just wanted to do it on her terms, that was all. And perhaps this crawl space would be the perfect place.

She crawled back up to the closet and finished cleaning the carpet. The men left for lunch, and Juno hastened to empty the apple juice jug in the guest toilet. She was already in planning mode as she flushed the weekend away. She felt like a wisp today, lithe and not quite there. She was rested, though, by God was she rested. She threw the wet clothes into the dryer and headed for the pantry. She had about ten minutes before the first of the Crouches would start showing up.

The pantry door was already propped open and Juno slipped inside, her eyes moving across the shelves. She took one of Winnie’s reusable grocery bags, a deep canvas tote with the words Fat Mousie on the front, and, shaking it open, she began to put things inside. She looked for multiples, boxes of individually bagged snacks, and took inventory as she went: one sleeve of Ritz crackers, one sleeve of garlic Triscuits, a can of corn, a can of creamed corn, a two-liter jug of water, two bags of fruit snacks, a pouch of Tasty Bites. She eyed a can of chili, but it lacked the pull tab that she would need in place of a can opener.

She knew she was running out of time. She stepped over to the fridge, her breathing loud to her own ears. Yogurt, eggs, butter—things Juno missed. Her stomach grumbled. She searched the vegetable bin and found two wrinkled apples and a green pepper long forgotten, stuffing those into the bag, too, as she reached for the freezer door. The freezer was stocked to overflowing. Juno found a bag of frozen peas and tossed that in. She stopped by the silverware drawer and took a butter knife to unscrew the latches on the trapdoor more easily. That would have to do for now. Her heart was pelting in rabbit time against her ribs. Was she really doing this? She was. Fear and adrenaline were racing at a breakneck pace; she’d spent her first year in prison with the same jacked-up awareness. And your first year on the street, she reminded herself. But nerves eventually went away as you adapted to a new norm.

Back in the laundry room, she grabbed her still-damp clothes from the dryer, snatching a single toilet paper roll from the shelf. Her head jerked toward the direction of the back door—men’s voices. Before they’d even picked up their tools, Juno was inching through the crawl space with the first of her supplies.





      Part Three