the day I die you will be my baby,’ avowed Angela.
When Tully left with Damien that day, she felt as if she would be really happy not seeing Angela or Julie again till the day she died.
In July, Tully became aware of a pattern in Tracy Scott’s trailer that displeased her. Tracy would leave with her man Billy about seven in the evening and not get in until late the following morning.
‘Tracy,’ Tully said one day. ‘I thought our agreement was for five or six nights a week.’
‘Yeah, and?’
‘Well, it’s more like seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. At first you were “running errands” early in the morning, but now you sleep for six hours and are away the other eighteen.’
Tracy Scott was defensive. ‘I’m paying you, right?’ she said rudely. ‘What do you want, a raise?’
‘No, Tracy, I don’t want a fucking raise,’ said Tully. ‘Your little boy misses you. You are never with him. And no, you are not paying me to work around the clock.’
Tracy didn’t get it. ‘He is well taken care of, ain’t he? He’s got clothes and toys and food. And he loves you – ’
‘No,’ Tully interrupted. ‘He likes me. He loves you.’
‘Look, Tully,’ said Tracy intensely. ‘I’m trying to work out my life, you know what I mean? If I work out my life, it’ll be good for me and it’ll be good for Damien. If Billy comes to live with us, it’ll be good for everybody. I mean, where is Damien’s dad? I don’t fucking know. And I don’t give a good goddamn. I don’t want that bastard back. But I do want Billy. What’s the big deal? It ain’t like I don’t come back every day. What’s the big deal, Tully? It ain’t like you got anything else to do.’
Tully sat outside on the trailer steps and watched Damien dig a hole in the ground with his little shovel.
It ain’t like I got anything else to do, thought Tully. Nothing else to do. Nothing at all. Well, she is certainly right. Nothing else to do but look after her kid, her unkempt, ill-behaved kid, who bites his nails and throws things and spits and curses. I’ll look up little Damien in the State Correctional Facility for Youths in about a decade. Why not? I’ll have nothing else to do. Nothing at all. No money, no job, no home. That woman pays me just enough to entertain and feed her boy. I live in a trailer with a child who’s not my own. I keep house in a trailer. My God, what’s happened? What has happened?
In mid-July, Tully and Damien waited all night for Tracy and her man to come home, but they did not come. Not that day, nor the next. Little Damien was cranky and cried a lot. Tully was plenty cranky herself. All of a sudden, things began to feel totally out of control to her. Here it was July, five weeks in the trailer, five weeks of more and more responsibility with a three-year-old, and now Tracy was not even coming home. Tully woke up with the boy and spent all day with the boy and went to sleep with the boy and when she woke up the next day, she was still alone and still with the boy.
Finally Tracy Scott and Billy came back. Tracy hugged her son, apologizing profusely. ‘I’m sorry, honey, I’m sorry, baby, Mama had to go with Billy to Oklahoma, and do you know where Oklahoma is? It’s so far away.’ Tully, who heard this, wondered if Tracy herself knew where Oklahoma was. She doubted it. Tattoo-covered Billy just stood there and smoked.
A week later, Tracy disappeared again, for about four days this time. Little Damien bit his fingernails to blood and started to strike out at Tully. Tully retaliated by snapping at him or ignoring him. They rarely went to the pool or to Manhattan anymore. Tully stopped seeing Julie completely. On Sundays Tully and Damien still went to church.
Mostly Tully just sat in the chair and watched Damien play. They watched the trains go by, not ten yards away, and cars go by on Kansas Avenue. Across the street was the back of Sears Automotive and Carlos O’Kelly’s, a Mexican cafe.
When Tracy came back, she was less apologetic and more defensive. It seemed to Tully that Tracy Scott was almost resentful that she had to come back at all.
‘Listen, Tracy,’ said Tully, not leaving anything to chance. ‘Next time you go away for more than twenty-four hours, maybe you can take Damien with you.’
‘Oh, that’s really great, that’s just great!’ exploded Tracy. ‘And who’s gonna take care of him on the road, huh? Who?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tully. ‘Let’s see. Maybe, hmm…you?’
‘I already told you,’ Tracy whispered, almost hissed. ‘I’m in bars, clubs. I can’t take care of him.’
‘He is your son, not mine,’ said Tully. ‘You pay me ten bucks a day to be a mother for you and I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it. I want to go back to our old arrangement. You’ve got to find it inside yourself to do the right thing, Tracy.’
‘Oh, yeah? And what the hell would that be?’ said Tracy belligerently.
Tully was tired. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘During the day, I don’t want to watch him anymore.’
‘Then you can’t live here, if you don’t want to watch him anymore,’ said Tracy.
‘That’s fine,’ said Tully. ‘You’ve made it very easy for both of us. I don’t want to work for you anymore.’
Tracy hastily apologized. She said Tully got her all hot and bothered over nothing. ‘Of course you can live here. And just look after him at nights, that’s okay. I’m real sorry.’
Tully reluctantly stayed. For about seven days, she went out at nine in the morning and did not come back until six at night when it was time to watch Damien. For seven days, Tracy Scott took care of Damien while Billy slept in the bedroom, or smoked, or went out without her.
After seven days of watching Damien, Tracy Scott went out to watch her Billy be a musician and did not come back the next day. That’s it, Tully thought. That’s just fucking it! As soon as she comes back, I’m out of here so fast. A day went by, then two, then three. Then four, then five, then six.
After eleven days, Tully began to suspect that perhaps Tracy Scott went so far that she couldn’t find her way back to her trailer and her son. And every day for those eleven days, as Tully sat there in a stupor, waiting for Tracy to come back, she thought, I got nothing else to do. I. Got. Nothing. Else. To. Do. And she looked down at the little boy and thought, there is nothing else I can do. Because what am I going to do with him?
After thirteen days, she remembered how Hedda took in a boarder about ten years ago, to help pay the bills. A seven-year-old boarder. The State of Kansas paid Hedda a sum of money, including extra for his food and clothes, and the seven-year-old boarder lived with them for about eight months. After eight months, the child’s parents claimed back Hedda’s boarder, and Hedda, helped out by the arrival of Aunt Lena and Uncle Charlie, refused any more boarders from the state.
The State of Kansas foster home program. Tully remembered it existed, just in time.
She left Damien with Angela Martinez for a few hours one afternoon and drove over to Docking building, across from the Capitol, going up to the fourth floor, to Social
