Winter Loon(27)

WE WATCHED TELEVISION, ME IN my pajamas, my mother in her T-shirt and panties, her hair twisted up in a towel. We ate bags of vending machine chips and the takeout burgers. She smoked one cigarette after the next and drank whiskey from a plastic cup, getting up to peek through the blinds from time to time.

She tucked me in when I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, but the television she left on. I woke to the sound of her talking, and I wondered if I had in fact called my father because I could hear her swearing at him. But when I opened my eyes, I could see the person she was talking to was in the mirror. She was practicing the biting words she would put on him and the faces she would make. “Who does that?” she hissed. “I should have ended you.” It scared me to watch her, scared me to see how angry she was, to see her wrestling with this phantom.

I sat up, rubbed my eyes, stretched long, like a cat in the sun, to get her attention.

“Oh, baby,” she said, her voice now sweet, the venom vanished. “Mama wake you up? I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She scooted me over, put my head down in her lap so she could soothe me. I remember the feeling of my cheek against the flesh of her thigh, the feeling of her hand on my head, her fingers in my hair.

“Maybe we should keep going, the two of us. Just keep going.” Her voice wandered on a journey of its own, and I went with it, closing my eyes. “I could bleach your hair. He wouldn’t look for a little blond boy, would he? Go see the ocean, Hollywood. Where else could we go? Should have been just the three of us—you, me, and Daisy. That would have been better. Way better than this.” I let her take me there, the two of us plus the mirage of that lost baby whose face I only knew in my imagination. I fell asleep again to her whispering that I would have been a fine little brother and we would have been a family, the three of us, without my father to ruin everything.

She was sitting on the bed the next morning, already dressed. Her hands were in her lap, her back was stiff. She stared at the door as if she expected someone to kick it in. When I stirred, she didn’t turn, though I could tell she’d registered my waking.

“Rise and shine,” she said, without even looking at me.

I glanced at the telephone, thinking one more time I ought to call my father, not sure when I’d get the chance again.

“We’re going home.”



HE WASN’T THERE. HIS THINGS were still strewn in the empty living room. My mother gave the pile a good kick, like it was a man down on his knees. She went straight for the cabinet and the bottle she kept there.

“What?” she said, licking her lips after the first sip.

I shrugged, careful, knowing it wasn’t quite over yet.

“Go do something, why don’t you? Get out of my hair. I’ll make you a potpie in a bit.”

I picked up Elizabeth and stroked her, trying to concentrate on her trembling purr, her twitching ears. I found one of her toys, a feather dangling from a stick, and flicked it for her, but she seemed more interested in her favorite spot in the sun on the back of the couch beneath the window. I followed her there and put my nose to the glass. I could smell the dust and limescale. Housefly carcasses were strewn along the sill, black legs up, crooked and stiff. I flipped them over with my fingertips. One was barely alive, no longer able to fly. It walked like a drunk, flinging itself at the window as if it could see salvation out of reach. “You’re dumb,” I whispered to it. “You got wings. You should have used them.”



SOMETIME THAT AFTERNOON, I HEARD the familiar rumble of his truck and ran to the door.

“Dad’s here!”

She pushed herself up from the table and pushed me away from the door.

“Stay here,” she said.

From the doorway, I saw him get out of the truck, a big homecoming-king smile on his face. It faded as my mother approached him. She pushed his chest with both hands. “Where you been?”

“Me?” he said. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you.” He leaned in, then stood back up. “You’re drunk.”

“The fuck I am.”

“You stink, Val.”

“And here I thought you wanted to kiss me.” She dipped her head and threw her arms around his neck.

“Let’s get you back into the house.”

“Oh yeah, let’s go in the house, Moss. You been gone so long.” She practically sang the words, drawing each one out. “Bet it’s been ages since you got laid. You must be stiff as hell.”

She released her hands and pranced around him, laughing, though the sound was forced and menacing. “Poor, poor Moss Ballot. Hasn’t gotten his wood trimmed in ages. Get out of my way!” She pushed him again, then pulled open the truck door.

“You get back in the house, Wes,” she said. “Me and your daddy got business to attend to here.” She fell back on the seat and hoisted her spread legs up in the air.

He grabbed her ankle and pulled her out of the truck. She resisted, screaming and hitting at his arm. Her head thudded against the chrome stepside, and she landed on her back. She scrambled to her feet, yelling, calling him a son of a bitch and more, then ran past him, past me, into the house. She came right back out in a huff and began tossing his things over the railing and into the street, evicting him and his belongings piece by piece.