Wavy picked a pair of boy’s square-toed boots. Good leather to last her for a while. They were a little big, but watching her walk across the store, half strutting, half stomping, I could tell she liked them.
“You’ll have room to grow,” I said.
She nodded.
Wavy wore her new boots out of the store, left her ratty old ones there. She looked happy. Actually waited for me to help her up on the bike, even though she didn’t need it.
“I need to put in another set of foot pegs. Put ’em up high enough for you, so you don’t have to put your feet on the bike frame,” I said.
She’d looked happy before, but she grinned when I mentioned the pegs. That was worth all the weird looks from Marilyn, to get not one or two smiles out of Wavy, but a smile that lasted the whole ride back from Garringer.
At the farmhouse, I figured we’d read or play games until dinner time, but no sooner did I turn off the bike than Val opened the kitchen door. It shocked the hell out of me. I’d only seen Val out of bed a couple times and there she was with her hair done, wearing clothes and shoes.
“Where have you been, Vonnie? You should have been home from school hours ago,” she said.
Wavy stood on the bottom step, but she didn’t move. I didn’t know what to do.
“Get in here before you catch cold,” Val said. “Now!”
Finally, I got off the bike and then Wavy started up the stairs. When she got to the door, Val said, “Give Kellen his helmet.”
When Wavy didn’t, Val took it away from her. By then, I’d come up the steps and Val handed it to me, smacking it into my palm hard enough to sting.
“She’s supposed to ride the bus, Kellen.”
If she’d gave me a few seconds, I woulda said, “It’s her helmet,” but before I could, Val slammed the door in my face.
8
WAVY
May 1978
All winter Kellen was in charge of grocery shopping. I liked it that way, because he bought exactly what I wrote down. If I wrote “3 cans green beans,” he brought back three cans of green beans. Not one, not ten, not a bag full of things Donal wouldn’t eat. That was what Mama did: bring home cream of mushroom soup when I wrote down “cream of celery.” Grandma’s recipe book didn’t have anything that called for cream of mushroom. Mama couldn’t be trusted and neither could Ricki. She always lost the grocery list and Mama said she was one of Liam’s dirty whores.
When Kellen brought me home from school on Wednesday, I wrote a grocery list out of Grandma’s book. The recipe had Grandma’s fingerprints stained in hamburger blood.
“You’re making something good, I bet. What is this?” Kellen said. He propped his hands on the table, reading the list.
“Meatloaf. For you.”
“Oh, hey, I wasn’t fishing for an invitation.”
“For you,” I said.
In two weeks, school would be over for the summer, and Kellen wouldn’t have a reason to come to the house, except that he liked to eat. If I cooked, he might keep coming to sit at the table with me and let me watch him eat.
While I waited for him to get groceries, I cleaned and set the table. Grandma’s book had pictures showing where forks and spoons went. Water glasses, wineglasses. That’s where Kellen’s beer bottle went.
He came back smelling like the road and sweat. I wanted to bury my face in his shirt and smell him, the way I did when he wrecked, but I wasn’t brave enough, and he was carrying bags of food and scary news.
“I saw Liam on the road in. He wanted to know what I was getting. So I told him, and he said, ‘Is Val making her Mom’s green olive meatloaf?’”
All the happiness crumpled up in my chest like a wad of tin foil. I shook my head. Not at Kellen, but to make it not true.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to tell him. He says he’s coming to dinner at six.”
I laid the potatoes out on the table and petted them like little animals. They were dirty, but good potatoes. Small enough for me to hold them in my hands to peel. Kellen thought of those things.
“What do you want me to do?” he said.
“Stay.”
Going into Mama’s room, I didn’t want to touch her, but she was already awake.
“What is it, baby? Who’s here?”
“Liam not to be trusted,” I whispered.
“Liam’s here?” Mama sat up, her hair all knots and sticking out.
“Coming.”
“He’s coming here? When?”
Mama looked at her alarm clock, but it only flashed twelve, because she never set it after thunderstorms.
“How long until he comes?”
I held up two fingers.
“Two hours. I can get ready. Is there shampoo? And don’t be weird when he’s here. Call him Daddy, okay. Just say, ‘Hi, Daddy.’ Okay, baby? Will you do that for Mama?”
Call him Daddy, when she was the one who said I wasn’t supposed to call him that. She said he was not to be trusted.
Back in the kitchen, Kellen stood next to the table. I said, “Stay,” and he stayed.
He didn’t fuss like Mama. Sometimes he asked me about what I was doing, like why I put bread in the bottom of the meatloaf pan. I liked that he asked and didn’t get upset if I didn’t answer.
He said, “Can I do anything to help?” and he did what I asked. He fed Donal, kept him out of the way when I opened the oven door, and put him in his room before dinner. So he would be safe. Donal was two, I knew that, but I didn’t know his birthday. We never had presents or cake for him, but I didn’t remember having presents or cake until I went to live with Aunt Brenda. Now that Donal could walk by himself, it was harder to keep him safe. At least pretty soon he would be big enough to take care of himself. Next year.