The Wrong Family(48)
The man was leaning over her, bearing down. Juno lay on a park bench opposite yellow and blue playground equipment. She read his expression, noted the tight pull of his mouth, and realized he meant to do her harm. Juno tried to shrink back, but he kept leaning down into her face, saying terrible things. Her eyes darted around, looking for help, but none came. Overhead, clouds of charcoal rolled like the sky was about to split. To her right was a playground surrounded by pines so tall they disappeared out of her vision, poking at the gray thunderclouds. Could she use the covered slide as shelter? She’d done it once before, her bottom half curled into the mouth of the yellow tube, the rest of her lying on the metal pedestal that fed children into the slide. It was covered by a plastic roof that resembled the turret of a castle. There was just enough coverage from the trees that passing cops couldn’t see her. And then this man—this stranger—shouted her awake. He looked disgustedly at her as he shouted his next words: “Go!”
He released her abruptly, casting a look over his shoulder at the little girl. Juno fell backward, hitting her head on the bench, and then landing on her back on the concrete. She felt the pain burst in her head as she had then; sharp and blinding so that her vision blurred.
“Go!” he shouted again.
“Leave me alone,” Juno screamed, thrashing on the concrete. Couldn’t he see that she was struggling...that she didn’t want to be here any more than he wanted her to be here.
As the first drops of rain fell over the playground, he called her horrible names. But she wasn’t those things; she was a woman with nothing and no one, but surely she wasn’t just the sum of her mistakes. Must he take her bench, too?
“Cunt,” he’d said as he strode quickly away, snatching up his daughter like she was a cardboard prop. The little girl, no older than eight, met Juno’s eyes even as she hung over her father’s shoulder, bouncing with his steps.
Don’t see me like he does, she begged silently with her eyes. The child looked unsure, her little eyebrows drawing together. It happened so quickly Juno had to replay the moment several times in her mind to fully appreciate it. The girl lifted her hand and waved. It could have been that she was steadying herself as her father navigated the playground, lugging her back to the car, but Juno didn’t think so. She saw the girl’s little palm lift in a bumpy salute before she looked over her shoulder to where her father was carrying her. That little hand hung in Juno’s mind as she lay back on the bench gasping for breath. The porcelain palm of that child, accepting her with an innocent concern.
“I’m sorry,” Juno said. “I’m not what you think.” She wasn’t just telling the child with the deep brown eyes: she was telling everyone who was willing to listen: I’m not what you think. I’m scared, too. I’m sad, too. I want my family, but they don’t want me.
She woke with a start. The child was gone, the angry father was gone, Chad and his Simpsons undies were gone...the crawl space grinned at Juno. Her fever had broken.
She sipped timidly from the can of apple juice and thought of Pattie Stoves. Coy, shy Pattie—who wore Chanel N? 5 because her mother told her men couldn’t resist it, and who knew how to line her eyes in just the right way to speak to a pastor. Pattie Stoves, who had been cheating on her husband with the minister of her church. She’d spoken more of their rendezvous than she did of her children. By their third session, Juno had gotten the distinct impression that Pattie didn’t want help from a therapist at all; what she really wanted was a girlfriend with whom to share her secrets. It was a bragging thing, her coming into Juno’s office and telling her every detail in that hush-hush little voice. Around their third session Juno came right out and asked the million-dollar question Pattie had been skirting around for the last two sessions.
“Are you here, Pattie, because you feel guilty on account of having sex with your minister, or do you feel guilty about cheating on your husband?”
Pattie Stoves had mulled over that one for a few minutes, her gold sandals and gold-painted toenails bopping along with her thoughts.
“The first one,” she said sadly. But Juno didn’t see any sadness in her eyes. Pattie was enjoying her affair. She described her minister in great detail, drawing a picture of a very fit golden boy who’d been pressured into marriage right out of college, and had nothing but Jesus in common with his wife. Pattie herself was nothing to write home about, but she had the sort of body that could pass for much younger, and Juno noticed that she dressed to emphasize it. After a year of biweekly counseling with Pattie Stoves, Juno felt like she’d been reading a particularly saucy romance novel, one in the taboo genre. One Sunday, when Pattie was visiting family out of state, and Kregger took the boys on a fishing trip, she’d put on a dress and gone to the church—Juno had learned its name from one of her sessions with Pattie. She arrived late and sat in the back pew, holding a Bible she’d stolen from a Motel Six a few years ago. Pattie’s minister was exactly as Juno pictured him. She wondered if Pattie was the only parishioner he was having an affair with.
When she’d looked around the church, every female eye was unblinking as they watched him deliver a sermon on... Juno couldn’t even remember what. After that, her obsession had taken a slight turn, veering away from Pattie and her high-schooler tits and toward Pastor Paul Blanchard himself. Pattie told her that Pastor Paul liked to go to Tip Top Donuts on Wednesday mornings to do his devotions and spend time in prayer. Tip Top was at least thirty miles away from the church, closer to Juno’s side of town.