“Uhm-hmm.”
I listened back and forth. Not wanting to interrupt. Not even breathing, it seemed. Waiting to find out this something I had never known before. Never heard before. This something about my very own daddy.
Momma laughed then. Threw back her head and laughed. “We hadn’t even taken a sip of Coke,” she said between gasps, “when Daddy walked into that restaurant.”
Now Aunt Linda laughed, too. “Their faces,” she said. “Everyone’s faces.”
“What?” I said, daring a word. “What happened?”
Momma and Aunt Linda were laughing so hard that they fell onto to each other on the couch. Held each other up.
“Daddy,” Momma said, and like that she was crying and laughing at the same time. And I saw that Aunt Linda was, too. “He came in with a shotgun. The whole room went quiet. Dead quiet.” Momma wiped at her eyes.
“Are you kidding?” I said. “Are you kidding?”
“He made us both get into the truck,” Aunt Linda said. “Right that very second, he made us get up from the booth. He told those boys we were his and drove us right on out of there.” Aunt Linda’s laughter had settled some. “I didn’t ever see Matthew again,” she said. “You sure can’t blame him, though.” Then she and Momma were rolling all over themselves again.
“I don’t think that’s funny,” I said. “Not at all.”
When they quieted some, Aunt Linda said, “He ran off every one we brought here to the house.”
Momma looked over my head.
“Every one.”
When I thought the story was done, my momma said, soft as a flower, “I sure did love my Daniel boy.”
And that was that. Neither Momma nor Aunt Linda knew where he was now. His family packed up. Moved on away. But not before he got Momma pregnant.
Being daddy-less was one more thing that made me see my life wasn’t a thing like anyone else’s.
Especially at school.
As we bounced along on the bus, I told Aaron I didn’t like school. That I didn’t know Jace Isom from class that well. But it was a lie. A bold-faced lie.
“You sure? He has way long hair? And he hung out with me and my friends during lunch? He’s a bad ass.”
I shook my head no. As we drove farther from town, the bus thinned of people. Not too many families live out in the boonies like we do. “I’ve seen Jace plenty,” I said. “Heard him in class. But I don’t know him.”
“Hmm,” Aaron said. He nodded like he was thinking of how to convince me that I did, really, know Jace Isom.
“He pointed you out to me. Talked about you.”
My heart thumped. I could hardly stand to think of this. Hardly bear to remember. Class. Me looking. Like Vickie did. Like Alison. Not saying a word. Thinking I might, thinking I maybe—in another life—that I might have the courage.
And Jace, walking right up to me. Right into my space. The wind blowing outside a bit. The summer almost here, May halfway over.
The girls watching. One of them giggling behind her hand.
And Jace stopping right there in front of me and saying, “You crazy or what? Why are you looking at me? Why?”
“Umm.”
“You’re ugly and stupid.” He leaned close. “And crazy.”
Behind him Vickie and Alison laughed louder.
“You hear me? Don’t look at me anymore. You’re giving me the creeps.”
“I won’t,” I had said.
That day I walked home. Tears coming down my face. Me not making a sound.
But I kept my promise and didn’t look in Jace’s direction again.
Now the sun splashed through the bus window. Beside me, Aaron said nothing.
“What did he tell you?” The words seemed thin as butterfly wings. I took my eyes off the road long enough to give Aaron a glance. Now he stared out the window. “What did he say?”
“Stuff.”
And there it was again. The differences. I knew they were coming. Breathe easy. Take slow breaths. “Like what? Bad things?” Thump-thump my heart said. “What kind of stuff?”
What was I doing? Why did I care what anyone thought? Why did I have to know?
For a moment Aaron didn’t say anything. Then, “He said that you’re always alone. That you don’t have friends.” He shrugged. “That you made out with him and that he dumped you.”
“What?” I shook my head. Made out? “Not true. Not true.”
Part is. You were alone, no friends. None. Alone.
Again Aaron was quiet. “Lacey, I’ve heard people talking where we live. I’ve seen a few things.”
A few things?
My face turned hot. I knew what he was talking about. What people whispered at school about me. I knew they said I was weird, how I sometimes napped during class. How everybody should stay away from me. But I hadn’t known the mean things had seeped out of my classroom to the other ninth grades.
“You don’t have to look for Momma with me.” It was all I could say. It felt like embarrassment colored my whole body bright red. Colored my words. Even my thoughts felt hot. But when I stared down at my hands I saw they were their normal color, though white at the knuckles.
What had he seen? What did he know?
I didn’t want to imagine. But my mind ran ahead. Maybe, just maybe, Momma had been on Aaron’s lawn. Maybe he had seen her wandering in the neighborhood. Maybe he had even heard her cries in the night. Had he seen her in her nightgown? Seen me trying to help her up the steps when she cried so she couldn’t even stand?
Those houses were down the road from us a bit.
“Lacey.” Aaron shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I don’t give a crap about what people say.”
Sure, I thought. “I had a friend before,” I said.
He nodded. His eyes were so brown.
Did he know how that ended? The memory of that sleepover brought tears to my own eyes all these years later. For a moment I was back in the middle of that night, shivering in the cold.
I sure wasn’t going
