We Begin at the End(26)

He stood, still dazed, made his way through and ducked the tape, and in the house he saw Boyd from state and two cops from Sutler County.

“What is it?”

A cop turned, eyes loaded with anger. “The kid … the boy.”

Walk stepped back, hit the wall and felt his legs weaken, braced for what would come as his vision tunnelled.

Boyd waved them back a little.

And then Walk saw him, squinting up, a blanket around his shoulders.

“He’s alright?” Walk said.

Boyd checked him carefully. “The bedroom door was locked. I think he was sleeping.”

Walk knelt by the boy, who looked anywhere but at him. “Robin, where’s your sister?”

*

Duchess pedaled three miles, traversed dark roads that led from her town. She held her breath as cars came at her, dipped their beams or flashed or sounded their horns. She could have taken the pretty streets, a mile added, she was tired enough.

The Chevron on Pensacola, blue sign on gray pillars. She leaned her bicycle against a coal-bin and made her way across the lot. An old sedan parked bad, the owner stretching the pump.

Robin would wake six years old, she would not let him wake to nothing.

Eleven bucks, taken from Star’s purse. Duchess hated her, mostly, loved her now and then, needed her totally.

In the gas station was a cop and he stood at the coffee machine, dark tie and slacks, neat mustache, shield on his chest. He eyed her and she ignored him, then his radio crackled and he threw a couple of dollars at the counter and headed out.

She walked aisles, passed towering refrigerators, signs that called BEER and SODA and ENERGY.

No birthday cakes, just a pack of Entenmann’s cupcakes, the kind with pink frosting. Robin would be pissed about that, inside at least, he wouldn’t say anything that might be deemed ungrateful. She picked up a pack and found some candles. Six bucks left.

Behind the counter was a kid, nineteen, maybe, acne cheeks, too many piercings.

“Do you have toys?”

He pointed to a rack that had the sorriest collection of plastic Duchess had ever seen. She carefully studied a magic set, a stuffed rabbit, a pack of colorful hairbands, and a figure that bore a libellous resemblance to Captain America. She clutched it tight, it was a find. It was also seven bucks.

She took it with her back to the cakes, saw she had the only pack that could pass as something special and cursed her mother once again. She stood beneath yellow strip light, so dim it drained the fight right from her. She thought of lifting the candles but saw the kid behind the counter watching on, like he could read the tortured turns of her mind. She squeezed the cake box, just enough to dent it.

At the counter she argued it, showed the kid the damaged cake, asked him to take a buck off. At first he refused, then the line started to grow and he took her money with a scowl.

She hitched her bag over the handlebars and set off toward home, pedaling slow as another cop car passed her, lights on and siren harsh against the warm night.

Later, when she knew, she’d look back at that last ride and wish she’d felt it, the last night of anything at all. She’d wish she’d taken the long route, along the coast, noticed the endless water and night songs, the perfect glow of each lamp on Main. She’d wished she’d breathed it deep and held it, the last moment of her normal, because if it was bad before, and it mostly was, it was something altogether different when she made it back to her street, and watched the neighbors part for her bicycle, like she’d commanded them, like she was all powerful.

When she saw the cop cars her first instinct was to turn. An hour earlier, when she’d picked up her bicycle and wheeled it down the side of the house she’d made a stop outside Brandon Rock’s place. She’d found a stone, sharp enough, walked up his driveway, lifted the cover from the Mustang and dragged it down the door and fender, so hard and deep she could see the silver beneath. He hit her mother. Fuck him.

But this was too many cars, too much noise, more than Walk and that look he gave her.

She dropped her bike, dropped her bag, kicked out at a cop when he tried to move in front of her. He backed off, she knew that wasn’t normal.

She ran at the house, ducked the tape and another cop, cursed at all of them. All the bad words she knew.

She found her brother and calmed, with Walk looking on, his mouth set straight but his eyes giving everything, all of it. They wouldn’t let her in the living room, no matter the way she flailed her arms at Walk, the way she caught him by the eye, the words she used, the feral way her brother cried.

Walk half-carried her out into the yard, where the people could not see her. He set her down in the dirt and she called him a motherfucker and beside them Robin sobbed like tomorrow would no longer happen.

Strangers all over, men in uniform, men in suits.

When they thought she’d calmed she broke and ran and ducked them. She was fast enough to make it through. At the door and inside, through a home reduced to a single scene.

She saw her.

Her mother.

She did not fight when the arm closed around her, no longer kicked out and cursed, just let Walk carry her like the child she was.

“You and Robin can stay with me tonight.”

To Walk’s cruiser, Robin holding her hand tight. Neighbors stared on, a TV camera lit them up, Duchess did not have the strength to glare. She saw Milton at his window, met his eye before he turned and moved back into the shadow.