want you to go,’ repeated Hedda dully.
‘Ma!’ Tully screamed. ‘Get out of this room right now so I can get out of this house! Do you hear me?’
Hedda did not move.
‘Because I’ll tell you something, and you might be surprised to hear this. If you try to stop me, if you come near me, or if you go crazy on me, I will kill you. I will shoot you dead, do you understand?’
Hedda stared at her daughter.
‘I will shoot you like a crazy rabid dog in the middle of the street and spare you the rest of your life!’ screamed Tully, panting. ‘You might think I have some bad feelings for you, but Mother, I hate you. Hate you! Now get the fuck out of my room!’
Hedda stretched out her hands and took two steps toward Tully.
Tully lifted the gun, cocked it, and before Hedda could move any further, pointed and fired a foot away from Hedda’s face. The explosion was deafening, but the bullet slipped into the wall near the door, making only a small neat hole in the Sheetrock. Tully shuddered.
Hedda stood motionless. Tully recocked the gun and said, ‘Ma. Get out of my room, because next time I won’t miss.’
Hedda did not turn around, but backed up toward the door, opened it, and staggered out.
Tully put the gun down, went over to the phone, and yanked the cord out of the wall, not giving Aunt Lena a chance to call the police. Thirty minutes later, Tully got into her not so new car and drove out onto the Kansas Turnpike.
It was night, and Tully drove and drove, heading west, with $800 in her pocket and a gun.
Everything hurt.
She suspected that something in her was broken: either her nose, or her ribs, or both. She didn’t know. And then KW AZ put out a tornado alert and Tully stopped the car.
It was unbelievably windy, particularly here, she thought, in the middle of Kansas in the middle of the Great Plains. The highway was pitch-black. The prairie must be all around me thought Tully. There were no stars, and no other cars. There was only Tully, two hundred miles west of home, and a tornado. She pulled over to the shoulder on I-70, ran down the slope, found a ditch, collapsed in it, and promptly lost consciousness.
2
When she came to, it was morning and raining. Her body ached and her wrists throbbed. She crawled up the embankment, got into her car, turned around at the next exit, and drove 150 miles east, back to Manhattan, to DeMarco & Sons. Her quest for the west had brought Tully as far as WaKeeney on the Central Plain.
In Manhattan, Robin took care of her. Tully spent forty-eight hours at Manhattan Memorial, where the doctors reset her nose for the second time in her life, bandaged up her two cracked ribs, and put a half dozen or so stitches in each of her wrists.
She stayed with Robin for two weeks, until the middle of June. Tully didn’t really want to stay with Robin, but she didn’t have much choice. He was at work most of the day, anyway. She drove around and shopped and spent some time at the library. Sometimes she went to Topeka to see Julie. Tully did not see Julie very often.
In the evening, Robin and Tully went out to dinner or to bars or movies or nightclubs. Once, Tully entered a dance competition with a handsome Kansas State dance student, and when they won, she said to him that she’d never met an Irish guy who could dance, and he told her he’d never met anyone who could dance like her. They won two hundred dollars. He gave her half and bought her a drink. Later that night, she and Robin had a ranting, jealous fight.
The following day, Tully called up the student and drove over to the off-campus house he was sharing with three other dance students. The two had sex in the afternoon. Tully left, concluding that he danced much better than he fucked.
For two weeks Tully didn’t know what to do with herself. She often just drove out onto I-70 and turned around somewhere around Salina.
Once Tully drove to Lawrence to visit Mr and Mrs Mandolini. Lynn never came back to the house on Sunset Court, but stayed with her mother until Tony could get them a place out of town. They moved to Lawrence and now lived in a one-bedroom apartment off Massachusetts Street. Tony commuted every day, continuing as assistant manager at Penney’s. Lynn Mandolini was no longer working. Tully didn’t see Mrs Mandolini. Tony said his wife was not well, and the bedroom door stayed shut. Tully did not stay long.
Before she left, Tony put his arm on her shoulder and asked, ‘Who is J. P.?’ showing her the Will Section in the Topeka High School 1979 Yearbook.
When Tully found her voice, she was going to tell him, but the look in his eyes reminded her of the look in George Wilson’s eyes in The Great Gatsby.
So Tully didn’t tell Mr Mandolini who J.P. was, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head instead.
They were silent for a moment, and then Mr Mandolini said, ‘I’m sorry, Tully. This is hard for us. But if you should ever need for anything…’
Tully smiled colorlessly at him.
When she came back to Robin’s house, she packed her milk crates and left him a note: ‘Dear R. I’ve gone back to Topeka to work for Tracy Scott. T.’
Tracy was very pleased to see Tully. She set her up in a tiny little room in the back and offered to pay her a ‘little extra’ if she helped clean up.
A little extra, thought Tully. I don’t think she has a little extra to buy her kid a toy, much less pay me. ‘Not to worry,’ said Tully.
It was a scorching summer. Kansas weather was changeable; it had something in it for everyone. But this summer, whether it poured or shined, whether there were thunderstorms or tornadoes, it was always 105 degrees.
Tracy was rarely home during the day, even though during the day she was supposed to be home. Tracy usually caught a quick breakfast and then went out ‘on errands,’ staying out longer and longer. Her boyfriend Billy the musician was sapping all her energy. Tracy got dolled up in the morning and said she’d be back by lunch but wouldn’t return until six o’clock, when she’d change her clothes while Billy waited in his van. Then she would fly out, kissing Damien good-bye.
Tully frequently took Damien to Blaisdell Pool, where she taught Damien how to swim. After the pool, they would often visit the World Famous Topeka Zoo or ride on the carousel. Every Sunday, Tully went to St Mark’s with Damien. A few times on Sundays, after going to church, Tully, Robin, and Damien would go to Lake Shawnee. Sometimes on Saturdays, Tully would drive to Manhattan with Damien to watch Robin play soccer.
Tully rarely saw Julie.
‘Tully, why don’t you come around no more?’ asked Angela Martinez one afternoon. ‘My daughter misses you,’ Angela added as Julie looked down at her barbecued hot dog.
‘I’m very busy, Mrs Martinez,’ Tully said, patting Damien on the head. ‘It’s not so easy taking care of a little child.’
‘Don’t
