sat up straight again.”It’s awesome,” I said. “It’s like this family’s the way it should be, finally.” I ran my fingers through the angora on the back of the teddy bear. “Are you going to get married?”
“Probably. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” I said. “Definitely.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “Oh, sweetheart, do you have any idea how happy I am to have you home again?” I heard tears in her voice.
“Not as happy as I am to be home.”
“I worry about how this year’s changed you. Hardened you.”
The last thing I felt was hard. “I think it softened me,” I said. “I’m nervous about what happens now, though.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d confided in my mother. It felt both strange and good.
“We’ll take it one step at a time,” she said. “And I’ll be by your side every minute.” She ran her hand over my cheek. “I forgot to tell you that I made an appointment for you for Thursday with the court-ordered therapist.”
“Already?” I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Not yet.
“They said you needed your first appointment within a week of your release. And I have an idea for your community service. Do you want to hear it now or maybe tomorrow or later this—”
“Now.” I hadn’t thought about where I would do my community service. Topsail Island wasn’t exactly crawling with opportunities. Plus, the idea of maybe running into all those hurt and pissed-off people was enough to make me nauseous.
“My school,” Mom said. “Douglas Elementary. I spoke to Ms. Terrell—you know, the principal?—and she said you could help out in one of the classrooms. She’s already talked to the first-grade teacher, Mrs. Hadley, who you’ll love, and she said she’d like to have you.”
“Really? I’m an ex-con, Mom.”
“Don’t use that term. You don’t really think of yourself that way, do you?”
Yeah, actually, I did, even though the word made me think of disgusting old men. “That’s what I am,” I said.
“Well, Ms. Terrell didn’t seem to think it would be a problem. She and I have talked a lot this past year and I think she understands who you really are and what led you to do what you did. Would you like that? Working at the school?”
“Yes,” I said. “As long as the teacher, you know, thinks it’s okay.”
I loved that my mother had figured it out for me. Made all the arrangements. She’d left me to take care of myself for most of my life, and this felt good. Plus, she’d made a good choice for me. I wanted to make up to everyone for the fire, but how could I do that when I was afraid to walk out my front door? Little first graders had to be the safest possible choice. They wouldn’t know who I was or what I’d done.
The next best thing to a stuffed teddy bear.
Chapter Six
Keith
MY MOTHER COULD ANNOY THE CRAP OUT OF ME SOMETIMES. She hovered over me, like I was going to die if she didn’t keep her eye on me every second. I almost did kick the bucket after the fire, so I guess that gave her the right to freak out, but it could really get to me. So when I came home from the beach and she wasn’t there, I was glad. And after a couple hours, when I could heat up my own mac and cheese for dinner and eat it in front of a Simpsons rerun without her giving me grief about it, I was still liking it.
The Simpsons was still on when I heard someone on our deck and then a knock on the door. I opened it and saw a couple of guys out there. One was on the other side of our screen door, the other back a ways, holding a camera. The sun was starting to go down behind his head.
“Keith?” the guy closest to me said. “Today Maggie Lockwood was released from prison. As one of the fire victims, can you tell us how you feel about that?”
It took me a couple of seconds to realize what was going on. Reporters!
“No fuckin’ way!” I slammed the door shut in his face, then walked around the trailer yanking down the shades. Like I needed this! Where was my mother? She would’ve answered the door and told those bastards to take a hike off the end of a pier.
When The Simpsons was over, the news came on. I never watched the news, but I wanted to make sure they didn’t say anything about me. They didn’t. Not by name, anyway. But the first thing they showed was this mob outside the prison and Maggie coming out the door, looking pale and scared. The crowd was vicious, shouting and holding these protest signs and everything. I loved it.
“You deserve it, bitch!” I shouted at the TV.
I watched the news awhile longer, then looked at the clock on the stove, which I could see from the couch. Almost seven-thirty. Where was my mother? She probably told me she was going out with Dawn or something and I forgot. I didn’t listen all that much when she talked. But by eight o’clock, which was when she always helped me with my physical-therapy exercises, and she still wasn’t home, I got…worried is the wrong word. Mad. I was mad she hadn’t left a note or anything. She knew I forgot things she told me, and if she was going to miss eight o’clock, then she should have left a note or a message on my cell or something.
I sat in the living room and dialed her cell number. It rang and rang and finally cut to her voice mail.
“It’s eight o’clock,” I said. “Where are you?”
So I called Laurel to see if my mother had said anything to Andy. A sign of total desperation—me calling Laurel. After I talked to her, I called Dawn. Frankie answered the phone and tried to make chitchat with me.
“Just put Dawn on,” I said. I didn’t know what Dawn saw in that dude.
She sounded worried when I said Mom wasn’t home. Dawn’d had no plans with her, and my mother didn’t have much in the way of friends, really. She’d been best friends with Laurel all those years and then this last year she’d been glued to my hip, so she didn’t get out much. Dawn said she hadn’t talked to my mother since the day before at Jabeen’s Java, where they worked together.
I tried to do my exercises by myself. I got out the exercise bands. My mother would pull against them while I pulled back, working all the muscles in my arms and trying to keep the scar tissue from tightening up. It was brutal shit. Without my mother there, I wrapped the bands around the leg of the heaviest chair in the living room, but every time I pulled on the band, the chair moved. My mother would always kind of cheer me on. You can do it. I know it hurts. Keep going. I hated her rah-rah stuff, but without it I wasn’t doing all that good.
I sat like I was supposed to, with my legs stretched out wide on the floor, and got the red band into position on my left arm. I pulled, leaning way back, and the damn chair flipped over on my ankle.
“Goddamn it!” I managed to push the chair off my foot. I threw the band to the floor and stood up, grabbing my cell phone again, punching the number for my mother’s phone.
“Where
