She can’t stay here all day, so she counts to ten and when she hits ten, she runs, her boots loud on the pavement.
“Mama.”
Her knees turn to water and she trips, slamming face first into the truck. Her nose explodes with bright, hot pain. When she pushes herself upright with a gasp, she sees the boy only a few feet away now. He’s missing his shirt and his little face is smeared with dirt. She wants to pick him up, wrap him in a blanket, and kiss his cheeks. She wants to tell him he’s okay, that it’s all right, that he’ll be safe now.
“Mama, please!” His words are like snakes slithering out of his mouth and she screams without sense or thought, pawing at the door to open it. She scrambles in and slams the door, dropping the keys when she tries to get them into the ignition. Sobbing with fear, she feels for them, her eyes so filled with tears she loses sight of the boy. Where is he? Where--
The boy hits the door and she shrieks. Where there’s one, there will be more, they will be here and they’ll be hungry and—her fingers find the keys and she snatches them up, breathing through her mouth because her nose is plugged. She gets the key in the ignition as the little boy paws at the window.
“Mama? Mama? Hungry! Please?”
She pauses, not turning the key. What if he’s real?
She doesn’t want to look at him, doesn’t want to see the glassy, death-fogged eyes, but what if he’s real? “Start the car, stupid,” she growls at herself and does, the roar of the motor startling in its violent assault on the silence around her. She shifts into gear and steps on the gas, wincing when she hears the boy hit the side of her truck.
She looks in the rear-view mirror and see that he’s fallen, though he is already struggling to rise.
What if he’s real?
More importantly, what if he’s not?
2
Then
When Lana stepped out onto that narrow, car-lined street, I was struck again by her beauty. The late afternoon sun highlighted her hair, setting it on fire with reds and oranges. I’d known her over twenty years, and she was still gorgeous. Her green eyes sparkled as she leaned down to peer in the window, making rolling motions with her hand even though we haven’t had anything but electric windows forever. I buzzed the glass down and grinned at her.
“Are you coming or not?”
“Do I have to?” I loved her or I would not be here about to do this thing.
“Yes. Come on. It’s for the boys.”
For the boys, yes. For Jackson and Tucker I’d do about anything. Even this. I heaved an annoyed sigh and buzzed the window back up. My blue tennies splashed in a sun-gilded puddle littered with autumn leaves. It was warm but the forecast predicted a temp drop below freezing tonight. Another thing to hate about this whole thing—the threat of snow.
“You look like a woman going to her own funeral,” Lana said as she slipped her arm in mine and we made our way up to the shabby door decorated with a wreath covered in plastic pumpkins and leaves. My lip curled and I got her elbow in my ribs. “Stop it. Like you’d do any better.”
I acted offended but she was right. I was not crafty, at least not in the arts and crafts. Give me an asshole bureaucrat wanting to keep one of my LGBTQ kids out of this program or that housing and I got all kinds of sneaky. I also got mad, but that was a whole other story.
“Rod has changed.”
“According to Rod,” I muttered.
“According to everyone who knows him. And his wife April seems like a sweetheart.” Lana’s dark brown hair brushed her expressive eyebrows and I brushed it away from her forehead to plant a kiss on the exposed skin. “What’s that for?”
“For you being sweet and positive in the face of impossibility.”
She snorted and then lifted her fist to knock.
I steeled myself for the encounter, not as optimistic as she was for Rod’s transformation. I remembered Lana’s anger and the boys’ tears when, for the fifth Christmas in a row, he didn’t show, didn’t send presents, hell, didn’t even call. Chasing the next high, the next drunk, that was all he’d ever done.
The door swung open and I was shocked by how filled-out my kids’ biological dad had gotten. No longer gaunt and trembling, he had actual flesh on his bones. “Lana! Dee! You’re early. April, they’re early!” He stepped back and we moved into a small entryway. To our left was a small kitchen and a narrow hallway extended off in front of us. April was a short woman with blond hair, a big nose, and a wide, gap-toothed grin.
“He’s been doing nothing but talking about you,” April said as she shook Lana’s hand. “You and the boys. Come on in. Please. I made cookies? And tea? Would you like some?” She looked between the two of us anxiously.
“Sure,” I said and got a nervous wisp of a smile before she slipped past us to fill green glasses with tea.
“I have Mom’s stuff in here, in boxes. It’s a bit messy but you’ll understand, right?” Rod showed us into a cozy room filled with an overstuffed brown sofa, a warn recliner, and a wall full of dolls. “April’s a collector,” he said and grinned as if that was the cutest thing a woman could ever do and I almost, almost thought warmly about him. For a second. “How’s the social work, Dee? Saving a lot of kids?”
I nodded and sat on the couch with Lana, hating the way it tried to swallow me up. “Mostly I tell them how awesome they are, give them some tools, and then they save themselves.”
“Right. You were … right. I had someone like that on my team in
