Chapter 128
The man looked like he might be in his early thirties, so slightly younger than the woman. He also had dark hair, which was perfectly groomed, parted on one side and combed to the side. He was also standing. Wearing a suit jacket and matching slacks in a soft gray, his black tie said he was a professional, though Elliott had no idea what his line of work might be. His hat rested on the table next to his mother’s arm, and she had an overflowing ashtray in front of her. Something told him that wasn’t apple juice in her tumbler. The other two were not drinking or smoking, and the luster of their skin implied that, if they did either, it wasn’t habitual, the way that it was for Arlene Harold.
“Hello, Elliott.”
The woman’s voice was familiar in a sense he could not place. She smiled at him, but not the same way she had Jimmy. When she looked at Jimmy, it was with the twinkle in her eye one might have when addressing a small child. For Elliott, she reserved the knowing look of a mutual adult.
“Hi,” he said quietly, not sure he could find his voice at first. “Mom, what’s… what’s going on?” Something about the way the air hung in the room let him know whatever these people had come to discuss, it wasn’t the sort of casual conversation one had with friends over a cup of coffee.
“None of your business.” Her response shouldn’t have been a surprise to him, but his eyes did widen when he turned to her. In a year or two, he’d be taller than his mother, and then he hoped she’d start to realize he wasn’t a little kid anymore, but that had yet to sink in. “Get out of here!”
With a sigh, the woman said, “Boys, why don’t the two of you head into your bedroom for a while? We have a bit more talking to do, and then we’ll be sure to let you know what’s going on.”
“The hell you will,” his mother said before taking another deep puff on her cigarette and blowing the smoke at the woman’s back.
“Is everything okay?” Jimmy asked, looking at their mother.
When she didn’t answer, the man said, “Everything is fine, son. Go ahead.” His smile was reassuring, and the boys looked at each other briefly before heading toward their bedroom.
There was no more talking until the bedroom door shut. “What do you think—”
“Shhh!” Elliott insisted, holding a finger to his mouth to quiet his brother. Their bedroom shared a paper-thin wall with the kitchen. He kicked his way through his brother’s broken toys, the ones Elliott had begun refusing to clean up for him when he’d started school, and pressed his ear against the wall, hoping to hear what the adults were talking about.
Jimmy sighed but followed suit. It was difficult to hear at first as the two strangers’ voices settled into trying to be reasonable. Whenever their mother spoke, it was easier to hear. Elliott hoped they’d all get angry soon enough so that he could make out more of what was being said, but it was hard to understand anything except for his mother’s angry responses.
The woman was speaking, something Elliott couldn’t decipher, followed by his mother’s declaration of, “Like hell you are.”
Then, the man said something, the only part of which Elliott could decode sounded like, “Even take care of them….”
“How the hell would you know?” Arlene said back, angrily. “You people think you run the world, but you don’t. My daddy warned me about you. Coming into my house, trying to take my kids.”
At that, Jimmy inhaled sharply, and Elliott told him to be quiet again, but he felt his insides lurch up as well. These two strangers were here to take them away? Was that possible? He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, he’d spent much of the last seven or eight years wondering what it might be like to sleep on a bed with clean sheets, one where there weren’t holes in the mattress and cockroaches crawling over his face at night. He wondered what it might be like not to have to worry if there’d be dinner that night or if his mom would be passed out when he got home from school, or what he might do when he was too big for his pants if the lady from the thrift store couldn’t bring any that fit. Looking at Jimmy, he thought it might be nice if he lived someplace where there was enough meat for him to put some muscle on his scrawny bones.
On the other hand, as much as he hated his mom, he loved her. Because she was his mom. It didn’t matter that she called him names all night long; that she was usually passed out drunk by the time the neighbors were sitting down for dinner around the table; that she hadn’t washed his clothes or a dish since that night Bob had left. No, there was absolutely every reason in the world for him to hate Arlene Harold—and also every reason in the world to love her, because if it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t even be alive.
Elliott looked down to see tears in Jimmy’s eyes. “It’ll be okay,” he said, even though he wasn’t sure it would be.
“Do you think it’s true? That they’ll take us?” Jimmy asked.
For once, lying didn’t seem like the right thing to do. “I don’t know. It sounds like Mom don’t want them to.”
Jimmy’s head sagged, and he swiped at his nose with the back of his hand.
Confused, Elliott asked, “Jimmy, you wanna stay here with Mom, don’t you?”
The tears streamed down the little boy’s face, and he sniffled again, trying to control himself. Elliott leaned down so he was closer to his brother. “What is it, Jimbo?” he asked. “What’s the matter with you?”
Between sobs, Jimmy managed to eke out, “I don’t wanna.”
“You don’t wanna what?”
“I… don’t… wanna… stay.”
Shocked, Elliott stood back up, not sure how to handle that information. It took him a moment to clarify. “You don’t?”
“No. I don’t.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“But what about Mom?”
With another sniffle, he replied, “She ain’t never been no mom to me.”
