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<\/a><\/p>\nWatching the hard earth blaze, I could almost miss Ray. When management at the hotel had been hollering or guests had me running in circles, he\u2019d massage the knots out of my shoulders. The same with when I\u2019d had a few too many the night before, plus he\u2019d handle Carla\u2019s breakfast. He spoke slowly and made pancakes better than a restaurant; it was the only food he could cook without a grill. Thinking about him got me mad again. I couldn\u2019t separate it from the missing.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d come back late last Wednesday and said he\u2019d quit his job. And it wasn\u2019t as if he had other work lined up, just a half-assed plan of doing freelance carpentry out of an old shack he called his shop. Of course I didn\u2019t like it, particularly not when he said I was never reasonable when I was drinking. He started packing, but I refused to back down. I harried him outside, still screaming that his woodwork wouldn\u2019t bring in a cent, until the red glow of his taillights had faded.<\/p>\n
My cell phone rang from inside the house. Jamie wasn\u2019t hollering at me to answer it, so I knew it wasn\u2019t Ray. I got up anyway. It was Trish. She\u2019d worked with me when I\u2019d bartended at Macovy\u2019s. I put Carla to bed before going out to meet her so Jamie wouldn\u2019t have to do it. We were getting a jump on me turning thirty next week.<\/p>\n
I made it home around two. Tripping up the porch steps, I dropped my purse. My cell phone fell out. When I checked it there were no missed calls. I played with the contacts list for a moment before throwing it as far away as possible. It bounced and landed somewhere outside the patch of light coming through the door.<\/p>\n
Jamie sat at the kitchen table and squinted at me. He\u2019d probably fallen asleep. He was twelve and stubborn when he wanted. Before Ray moved in, Jamie would sometimes sneak fives out of my wallet and hide them around the house to be collected later that month when the electric bill came in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you still doing up?\u201d I wanted to know.<\/p>\n
He shrugged and went over to the sink and filled a Cardinals cup with water.\u00a0 He slid it to me across the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked you a question,\u201d I said, ignoring the water. I didn\u2019t want to get up and pee a bunch during the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing, Mom. Why do you care?\u201d he asked and headed for his bedroom.<\/p>\n
The door closed. I stared at it. The quiet buzzed in my ears. Then I decided I wanted to sleep too.<\/p>\n
*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n
\u201cMom? Mom, wake up. You\u2019re going to be late for work.\u201d<\/p>\n
My lips were dry and cracked. Jamie stood over the bed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn\u2019t your alarm go off?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going today.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was probably still too drunk to drive.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou at least need to call in and tell them you\u2019re sick again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know. Pass me the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMom, where\u2019s your cell? It\u2019s not in your purse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shit. I sat up slowly. In the bathroom I washed the caked makeup off my eyes and chugged two glasses of water.<\/p>\n
The sunlight made my head pound. The phone had only gone ten feet from the porch, though it was dusty and didn\u2019t stick out right away. There was a new crack down the screen, but it turned on when I plugged in the charger.<\/p>\n
I woke up again in mid-afternoon. Last night\u2019s pot of pasta sat empty in the kitchen sink. Jamie had probably made sure they\u2019d eaten exactly at noon. He had a knack for being correct about things when there was no adult around. Sometimes I didn\u2019t know how much to treat him like a kid. I rifled through the fridge, but we needed more groceries. I knew they\u2019d complain about fried eggs and toast for dinner again.<\/p>\n
Outside, Jamie was trying to toss a football with Carla. He\u2019d grown enough in the last two months that he could finally throw one single-handed, if he balanced it right. Carla dropped the ball almost as often as she caught it. Then Jamie would run closer, and she\u2019d wrap it in her arms and hurl it back. They stopped when I opened the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi, Mama,\u201d Carla waved.<\/p>\n
I hugged her. They should\u2019ve been in school, but I was in no position to be doing any yelling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrow the ball!\u201d she yelled to her brother and slipped away from me.<\/p>\n
\u201cJamie, I\u2019m running to the supermarket, but when I get back I can give you a hand with your history project.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t need you to. I finished it already.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it wasn\u2019t due till next week.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRay helped me with it before you kicked him out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe chose to leave. And don\u2019t roll your eyes at me!\u201d I told him as I climbed into the car.<\/p>\n
In the supermarket, I felt shaky and leaned against the handle of the cart as I pushed it down the aisle. The girl working the register in the express line looked pregnant.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou a Rattlers fan?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
The Rattlers were the high school football team. From what I remembered, all the kids in school were fanatics. She kept chewing her gum as if she hadn\u2019t heard me. I recognized that deafness and shut my mouth.<\/p>\n
Carla played with her peas during dinner. She refused to eat them until Jamie ate all of his and told her how good they were. Even then she seemed skeptical, as if she\u2019d forgotten we\u2019d had the same meal two weeks before.<\/p>\n
I put her to bed early. The door to Jamie\u2019s room was open, which didn\u2019t usually happen. I poked my head in. He wasn\u2019t there. Leaning against the bed was the blank poster board I\u2019d bought him for his project on railroads. It was still in the plastic wrapping.<\/p>\n
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I cut my shift at the hotel short and drove across town to the construction site where Ray worked. He\u2019d gotten rid of his old apartment when he moved in with us last year. This was the best place I knew where to find him, but I still didn\u2019t know how I\u2019d ask him back. I wasn\u2019t too happy about wandering around the piles of debris in the heels and tight skirt all the receptionists had to wear, but there hadn\u2019t been time to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe ain\u2019t here, Suzanne.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pete Williams leaned against a sign for McCarthy & Son Construction Co. He was the first person whose door I\u2019d have knocked on if I\u2019d been desperate enough to look for Ray the night he left. Pete kept his hair in a buzz cut to hide premature balding.<\/p>\n
\u201cRay quit. Or got fired, depending on how you look at it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFired?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYep, he stuck up for J.T. against old McCarthy\u2019s son.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho the hell is J.T.?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new kid. Should still be in high school. Physical work ain\u2019t his calling but he tries hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now I remembered hearing Ray talk about him. The younger McCarthy gave him a hard time. Ray had come home worked up over it more than once.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurns out the McCarthy son was having him work the last hour of each day unpaid to make up for being clumsy on the job,\u201d Pete continued. \u201cTried to make it sound like he was doing it out of fairness to the other workers who got more done, but Ray called him on it. The son of a bitch told Ray to leave if he didn\u2019t like how things were being run.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAny idea where he\u2019s staying?\u201d I asked after a few seconds had gone by.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast I talked to him he was headed for Albuquerque. Figured you all had a row by the way he was so set on going. Never even came by to pick up his paycheck. You could probably take it you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not my money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you think he would\u2019ve wanted you to spend it on Jamie and Carla?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want it, Pete. I\u2019ll see you around.\u201d<\/p>\n
*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n
On the way out of town, I stopped at Macovy\u2019s. I didn\u2019t get out, just sat in the car. Inside, men fiddled with the brims of their baseball caps as they waited for the alcohol to kick in. Most of them would clear out in an hour or so. They just wanted to tip back a few before going home to their old ladies, who\u2019d count the empties. I\u2019d made more money there, but the kids liked my job as a receptionist better.<\/p>\n
The day shift wasn\u2019t too rough, and for a while I didn\u2019t keep alcohol in the house most nights. But then it got old. There\u2019d been a couple times when I\u2019d called in sick after I was already supposed to be there. It\u2019s like a seesaw. You\u2019re either up or you\u2019re down.<\/p>\n
At home, I let myself into Ray\u2019s shop. It had been an old shack with a hole in the roof that I\u2019d never much bothered with until he came along. He\u2019d hauled a lot of rusted scrap metal out of it that first month. At the beginning he\u2019d made it look worse. He\u2019d move one piece of junk only to find out it had been supporting two other pieces of junk, and everything would fall over. It almost seemed as if the shack just wanted to be left to its tumble-down self, that it didn\u2019t want to be improved.<\/p>\n
Now it was full of light and sawdust and smelled of wood. I ran my fingers along a board. Once he\u2019d fixed the place up, I used to come in some afternoons with Jamie. He liked watching Ray so much he\u2019d forget to act rude with me. It felt like a slice of peace until Ray started up a drill or circular saw.<\/p>\n
His repairs and efforts filled the place. Ray made things easier. He hardly ever got mad, just when he was bone-tired and I\u2019d been needling him because the whiskey had been needling me. Then he\u2019d get fed up and spend a night or two sleeping on Pete\u2019s couch. He never yelled at the kids and didn\u2019t push hard to change me. The way we lived staggered on, held up by his kindness. He was a good person by instinct; as long as he was helping someone it almost didn\u2019t matter what for.<\/p>\n
Over dinner I told the kids Ray wasn\u2019t coming back. I said it didn\u2019t have anything to do with them, that it was my fault. I knew Carla would cry and Jamie would sulk, but I also knew years down the line this would be the choice we\u2019d needed. I hoped they\u2019d ease into seeing it that way, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you even try, Mom?\u201d Jamie asked. \u201cDid you talk to him or just decide this on your own?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe left town. It\u2019s pretty clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he was planning on coming back, he\u2019d have told me by now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s bullshit! You don\u2019t know because you didn\u2019t ask him. I want him to stay!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I\u2019m not always the parent you want, but do you really think having Ray around is going to fix things?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to change. You\u2019re just going to get drunk again!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWatch yourself now. I aim to try, Jamie, and that\u2019s better than having Ray here making you think everything\u2019s okay when it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it isn\u2019t! We can\u2019t even rely on you to lock the doors at night!\u201d<\/p>\n
Jamie\u2019s voice wasn\u2019t steady. His lips quivered and he looked younger than usual. He jumped up and knocked over his chair but didn\u2019t stop to pick it up before running out of the kitchen. Carla wailed. I held her until the sobs turned into hiccups.<\/p>\n
Jamie\u2019s door was thrown open but the room was empty. The poster board from yesterday was gone. Down the hall, a light shone from inside my room. I stood outside the door a moment, trying to figure out what he was up to before going in. He was talking to someone. We didn\u2019t have a landline so he had to be using my cell phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t leave me with her,\u201d came Jamie\u2019s wobbly voice. \u201cI\u2019ll run away!\u201d<\/p>\n
I smacked the door open with the flat of my palm. Jamie squatted on the floor with the phone crushed to his left ear. He saw me coming and tried to run, but I grabbed his arm. He knew I would take the phone away, probably thought I\u2019d hang up on Ray too.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeave me alone!\u201d Jamie shouted.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t say anything, but I didn\u2019t need to because I was stronger than him and pried his fingers off the phone, one by one, even as he bellowed and swatted at me with his right hand, even when he lost his grip because of his own tears and sweaty palm, even when he bit my arm and drew blood.<\/p>\n
Jamie barreled from the room. The porch door slammed. His feet pounded down the steps and into the desert. Then there was only silence.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve done more harm to myself drunk, but the punctures from his fresh, adult teeth stung so bad I cried. There were a lot of things about our life Jamie didn\u2019t like. I knew that. But I\u2019d never thought he could hate me. It took a while before I remembered the phone in my hand. I looked down at the screen. Ray was still waiting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t really talk right now,\u201d I said, wondering how loud the shouting and crying had been. \u201cJamie ran off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSuzanne, it\u2019ll be alright. He\u2019s becoming a teenager. You can\u2019t change that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me what happened with McCarthy?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause that wasn\u2019t the issue and it wouldn\u2019t have made a difference at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t mean to yell so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI figured. I\u2019ve been looking for work,\u201d he said. \u201cIt looks like I have some options. The city pays better but-\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I know, it\u2019s not just about the money for you. Maybe you should find a place in Albuquerque,\u201d I told him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the hell?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ve got to fix things with my kids and you being here won\u2019t mend anything, just bury it for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI help.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it quietly, but I knew what he was doing, trying to calm me down. It was the voice he used when I was drinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want my kids to be scared to count on me. You make it easy to avoid dealing with things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSuzanne, I can understand why you want to quit but I don\u2019t see why you have to cut me out.\u201d<\/p>\n
I could talk to him all night, and nothing would change. Ray would just stay with us and I\u2019d keep drinking while he took care of everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry. I think if you could, then I wouldn\u2019t need to,\u201d I told him and hung up.<\/p>\n
I put my whole mind on Jamie and pushed myself off the floor. Down the hall, onto the porch, into the desert, I called but heard nothing.<\/p>\n
The moon was over half full. I could see enough to avoid tripping over the stones and scrub brush at my feet but not farther out to where I might be able to separate the shape of a twelve-year-old from the staggering shadows of warped, old rocks.<\/p>\n
I kept looping back to the house. Even once I\u2019d put her to bed, I didn\u2019t want to leave Carla alone for long.<\/p>\n
After I\u2019d been shouting for a while, I couldn\u2019t think about Jamie anymore because it closed off my voice. Instead, I brought up small pieces of Ray that were comforting, like when he\u2019d let Carla sit on his lap and steer his truck up the driveway. As long as I blotted out the whole of him, it was alright.<\/p>\n
At midnight I stopped tracing circles through the desert and tried to guess where Jamie might have gone. Most of the trails off our porch lead back to themselves. Of the two that go anywhere, one goes to the Tub, a sandstone bowl that rises six feet up out of the desert, and the other goes to a two-lane interstate. Everything else just peters out into sandstone and scraggly plant life.<\/p>\n
Back in the house, I used a kitchen knife to widen the leg holes of the toddler backpack Carla used to ride in when she was younger and we\u2019d all go for walks in the desert. She was cranky when I woke her up, but she fit. It was a heavy load though.<\/p>\n
Off the porch again, I chose the trail to the interstate and then followed its shoulder to the bus stop. He wasn\u2019t there. Heat and nausea spread though my body. A couple hours would have been enough time to have gotten a ride into town. But there was no one he could stay with without me finding out about it. I lowered Carla in her backpack onto the bus stop bench and sat down beside her. Car headlights washed over us. The backpack forced Carla\u2019s limbs to stick out rigidly, like a plush teddy bear, and I left one hand on the shoulder straps to keep her propped upright. Her round, child\u2019s eyes took in the passing vehicles.<\/p>\n
Going to the Tub before getting the car and driving around town could give him more time to hitch a ride to somewhere else, like Albuquerque, but Carla had finally accepted the backpack. I went over places to search in town as I hoisted her up again.<\/p>\n
My shoulders felt tight. I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d be able to carry her home. She\u2019d have to walk, but I climbed up the Tub with her anyway.<\/p>\n
Jamie lay cupped in the palm of the cold stone. He\u2019d curled up into a ball. I don\u2019t think he realized I was there until I lifted Carla from the backpack and wrapped my arms around him.<\/p>\n
I told him I was sorry. Ray would come back. I\u2019d ask him to. I said it over and over, voicing the sounds softly to soothe us both. After a while he joined in with his own words, saying he was sorry too, that he loved me, that it didn\u2019t matter. I kept my left arm around his shoulders and hugged Carla with my right.<\/p>\n
If you lean back against the curve of the rock, you can feel the earth holding you up and hear the wind whispering secrets as it whittles the stones into fantastical shapes. Carla\u2019s eyelids drooped. I started telling her stories about the desert. They\u2019d been told to me once and I\u2019d made sure Jamie had heard them too. I began one about Coyote, the trickster, but Jamie took over and turned it into a different story. He still hasn\u2019t learned to like Coyote, who\u2019s never plain good or bad. Jamie\u2019s favorites are the ones about the early days when people were still learning how to live in the world.<\/p>\n
We listened to the words take shape. Jamie\u2019s voice grew, blending with what I remembered, and the stories seemed outside time somehow. I couldn\u2019t resist adding in twists that didn\u2019t exist. I thought I\u2019d annoyed him, but he kept going, weaving my attempted plot changes into the larger story, tying together the loose ends I\u2019d thrown him.<\/p>\n
Carla fell asleep but Jamie kept talking. I wondered when he would discover that making life better wasn\u2019t just about dealing with the hard parts of other people. He wanted Ray to come back so bad. I hoped he\u2019d forgive me.<\/p>\n
I thought how it could be when he was in high school wanted me at his football games. He\u2019d do fine in class and wouldn\u2019t drink. It would be different with Carla. This part of her life would fade into the myths of early childhood. I\u2019d have to keep an eye on her, but at least she\u2019d never have a reason not to believe in me. I pulled her closer in from the cold and shivered thinking how the possibility of changing it all was already branded into me.<\/p>\n
The white moon bared the skeleton of the land. Tomorrow it would be fleshed out as its red hues returned with the heat. I imagined how we looked from far away, curled up together in the pale expanse of desert, and it seemed then that I\u2019d never drink again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Watching the hard earth blaze, I could almost miss Ray. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2499"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2708,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499\/revisions\/2708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a><\/p>\n