folding chairs, a podium atop a riser, refreshments. The other winners, spiffed-up Type A’s, sat with their Type A parents. “Think she’ll show?” Maureen asked. I said I wasn’t going to hold my breath. When I spotted Mrs. Jett in the crowd, I walked over to her. “Thanks for coming,” I said. “It’ll mean a lot to her. If she gets here.”
Mrs J. said she was rooting for Velvet, too—that she rooted for all of her ISS kids. “Come sit with us,” I said.
A woman in a red and purple caftan mounted the riser, tapped the mic, and asked if we’d all be seated so that the program could begin. There was still no sign of Velvet.
She arrived, boisterously, during some seventh-grade girl’s cello intercession. Her entourage consisted of an emaciated woman in black leather pants, late twenties maybe, and a stocky young man wearing a prom gown. The prizewinners and their parents craned their necks to watch the commotion. Velvet was wearing zebra-striped tights, a black bustier, an Army camouflage jacket, and her silver boots. A torn bridal veil hung from her rhinestone tiara; she’d attached plastic spiders to it. No doubt about it: the three of them were high on something.
The caftan woman stood and asked them twice to please respect the other readers. When it was Velvet’s turn to read, she kept looking back at her friends, exchanging private remarks with them, and breaking into fits of laughter. Maureen reached over, took my hand, and squeezed it.
Instead of reading “Hope Cemetery,” Velvet rambled nonsensically about freedom of speech, Kurt Cobain, and “asshole” teachers who try to brainwash their students. I sat there, ramrod straight, paralyzed by her betrayal of herself and me. When she left the podium, she lost her balance, stumbling off the riser and crashing into the lap of a frightened fellow prizewinner, one of the middle school boys.
I stood and left. Waited in the car for the others. Told Ivy and Mo, when they came out, that I’d rather go home than out to dinner. Never again, I promised myself. Never, ever again.
VELVET NEITHER WITHDREW FROM SCHOOL nor showed up for the rest of that year. Maureen said she heard she’d left town. But the following year, she reenrolled after midterm exams and resumed her relationship with Maureen. I spotted her name on the absentee list as often as not. I hardly ever saw her, and when I did, neither of us spoke. So when she emerged from the woods behind our house that morning, climbing the picnic table to be safe from dogs who were never going to hurt her, it was the first exchange the two of us had had in over a year.
I ran all the way out to Bear Creek that morning, ate a PowerBar, took a whiz, and ran all the way back. Maureen’s Outback was in the driveway. She was at the kitchen table, working on our bills.
“How was your run?” she asked.
“Hard,” I said. “How was your breakfast?”
“Hard. She’s trying, though. She just got a job with an industrial cleaning company. But it’s night shift work, so—”
“Yeah, well, just remember, Maureen, you’re not her fairy godmother. You can’t wave your magic wand and fix her fucked-up life. And if you think you can, you better put a check on your ego before she body-checks it the way she did mine.”
“That was terrible, the way she treated you,” she said. “But she’s reaching out to me, Cae. I can’t just write her off. The last thing that kid needs is more rejection.”
“I’m going to grab a shower,” I said. It was either leave the room immediately or risk telling her about Velvet’s come-on for no better reason than because I was pissed about her innocence of what I’d protected her from.
I was toweling off when Mo entered the bathroom. She put her arms around me and rested her forehead against my chest. “I need a friend,” she said. I lifted her face to mine. Kissed her. Kissed her harder.
We made it over to the bed. I lay there, watching her undress. She got in and pulled the covers over us. Snuggled beside me. Kissed my shoulder, my mouth. Ran her fingers across my chest, my belly. “Suck me,” I said.
She looked at me, puzzled, then repositioned herself to oblige.
I was impatient with her gentle preliminaries. “Come on,” I said. “Do it!” She pulled away. Got off the bed. Grabbed her clothes and started for the door. “Hey,” I said. “Where you going?”
Her back to me, she said it over her shoulder. “I’m your wife, Caelum. Not your whore.”
“Fuck this,” I said. Reached down and started jerking myself off. I mean, I had to get release from somewhere. Sophie was on the side of the bed, watching me. “Get out of here!” I screamed. “Get the fuck—” I whacked her with a pillow and she fled.
After I’d ejaculated the anger out of me, I lay there with my puddle of regret. I’d apologize later, I told myself, but for now…I grabbed a magazine, got through a paragraph or two of some article that held no interest, and let my fatigue rescue me….
MO WOKE ME OUT OF a sound sleep. She was seated beside me on the bed. “I’m so sorry, Caelum,” she said.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I was being a total asshole. You had every right to—” She was shaking her head.
“Ulysses just called. He stopped in to get his paycheck this morning and found Lolly out in the yard near the clothesline. She was talking incoherently. Trying to put her socks on her hands.”
“What…”
“He got her back inside and called nine-one-one. I think she’s had a stroke.”
Chapter Three
FIGURING IT WAS BETTER IF they talked with someone who could speak “medical,” I had Maureen call the hospital. She tried twice but couldn’t get past “Louella’s resting comfortably” and “Someone from the medical team will be calling” and “Can you verify that her insurance provider is Blue Cross/Blue Shield?” And goddamnit, by the time the medical team did call, Mo’d gone out.
“Mr. Quirk? This is Dan, one of the nurses over at Shanley Memorial.” Over at? Three Rivers was two time zones away. “I’ve been caring for your mother today and—”
“She’s my aunt,” I said.
A pause, a shuffling of paperwork. “But you’re her next of kin, right?”
“Yes. Why? Did she…”
“Oh, no, no. She’s hanging in there, Mr. Quirk. Dr. Salazar will be speaking to you in just a few minutes about her test results. But first, I wonder if you could answer some questions for us about Louella’s medical profile.”
“Yeah, well, the thing is, my wife’s a nurse, so she’s more on top of Lolly’s medical stuff. I can have her call you back.”
Dan said he was going off-shift soon. Whatever I could help him with. “Okay,” I said.
No, I wasn’t sure what medications she was taking. No, I didn’t know which medical practice she’d switched to after Dr. Oliver died. (I hadn’t known he’d died.) Surgeries? None that I could recall. Yes, she smoked: one Marlboro a day, after her evening meal; she’d done that for years. No, she wasn’t much of a drinker. A beer every now and then. Brandy on special occasions.
