He was staring at me now with wide, bloodshot eyes, shaking his head. “No, Jack. That’s not what happened.”
“You’re such a liar! You don’t think I get it? She left behind everything for you! She left law school for you, to stay home and be your fucking maid!”
“She left law school because she was sick, Jack,” he said. “Your mother is very sick.”
“No, you’re sick! You’re a drunk.”
“I know I’m a drunk.”
“And you made her leave.”
He inhaled a deep, ragged breath. “I didn’t make her leave. She chose to leave. And she wanted to take you with her again. Throw you and your things in her car in the middle of the night and drive away somewhere where I couldn’t find you, to punish me. Just like she did when you were four.”
Now it was me shaking my head. “No, that can’t be true. She was afraid of you.”
“I may be a drunk and I may get too angry, but I’m not the one who breaks things. She wanted to take you away from me, not just to punish me. To scare me. It worked the first time. I wouldn’t let it happen a second time. I promised myself that. I told her that she had a choice. Either get help, or get out of this house.”
Gunther whined from his spot in corner, all curled up with his head down. My throat tightened. Pain sliced through my chest. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be here another second.
“Fuck this shit,” I said. I grabbed my backpack off the floor and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” he asked. He sounded so old, so tired and broken.
“I don’t know, okay? But I can’t be here! Not with you. Not while you’re still lying to me.”
“Jesus, Jack. At least take some money.” He stood and reached into his pocket, offering me a $50 bill. It gave me pause. We were broke. That was probably as much as he’d made in tips last night. I wanted to take it so bad, to accept it, but accepting felt like giving in.
“I don’t want your money,” I mumbled.
“You need something. What are you even going to do, Jack?”
“I’ll figure it out.” I stood like that for a moment, watching him, as if daring him to stop me.
He didn’t move.
I turned and left him there, slamming the door, running as fast as I could from that awful fucking house that I hated loving. I didn’t stop until I was back at the alley behind my grandfather’s old building, where he’d died and left me here with all of the broken pieces. I slammed my fist against the cheap siding again and again and again, then crumpled to the ground and cried like I’d never cried before.
46.
I should’ve taken the fucking $50 bill.
I didn’t have much money on me. Maybe enough for a night or two at a motel and a sandwich. Maybe I could stay with Mom.
But the farther I got from my house and my dad, the more all of those things he’d said felt less and less like lies. There could be truth in it. Mom was unstable. I knew that. She had issues. But would she really kidnap me? Break everything in her own house, even things I’d made for her? She’d cried when I’d given her that stupid ceramic pig.
No, it couldn’t be the whole truth. I wouldn’t let it be the truth.
I continued down San Juan Boulevard, feeling lost and dazed among the evening crowd. The sunlight was weakening, and everything would be dark and creepy soon.
I thought about going to Jess’s house. Maybe her dad would let me crash on the couch or sleep in her old room. I remembered it vividly, its mint green walls striped with hot pink, its cushy furniture and big comfy bed. I’d let her paint my toenails once, the day her air conditioning was broken and we watched a cheesy horror flick on DVD in our underwear. I even let her practice doing eyeliner on me, even though she poked me in the eye a few times. I didn’t care. She was the most real friend I ever had.
I stopped to take a break, setting my bag down a moment to rest my aching shoulders. I sent her a quick text: Hey, can I come over? And I sat on the ground and leaned against the wall of the 7-11. Then I saw him walk out.
It was the short little man with the twitching eye, the one who’d sold knives on a baby blanket. His scrunched face was dark with sunburn, his clothes tattered and dirty. He hobbled forward and crouched down next to me. His odor was strong, earthy but not unclean.
“Got any spare change?” he asked me. I heard the thickness in his accent, something South American.
I shook my head. The sun made its final descent as everything grew dark. People passed us without even so much as a second look. I wondered what it was like to live on the streets, to watch people pass by with their shopping bags full of good food that they’d take back to their warm and safe homes, where they’d resume their normal lives full of endless trivialities that seemed like luxuries to those who had nothing. I wondered what it was like to feel like your life was empty and meaningless, a sad fading light that no one noticed was fading.
He put something in front of my face that startled me.
