LACEY SAT DOWN ON THE sofa, she smiled at Jake. “Hello, Jake.”
Jake buried his face against Ben.
“Say hi to Lacey,” he urged.
Jake pressed closer to Ben.
“It’s okay, she just wants to chat. She’s a nice lady.”
Shevaunne brought Lacey a cup of coffee. “I also made some banana bread.”
“Oh, no!” Lacey patted her thighs. “Not for me!” Then she turned back to Ben and Jake. “Let’s talk about daycare. How’s that going? Any issues?”
“He seems happy. He lets me drop him off, no tears,” Ben said. “He’s waiting for me when I pick him up. I don’t know much about in between.”
“Are you making friends, Jake?”
He kept his face away from her.
“Is there a special toy you like?”
Ben closed his arm around Jake. “How about that bulldozer I see you with all the time?” In truth, he’d seen Jake with it once, when he’d come early. Otherwise, Jake was always waiting, backpack ready, shoes tied, sitting apart from the others.
Shevaunne offered ’round the banana bread; she had indeed made it, from a mix, purchased by Ben. But she seemed genuinely pleased with herself, as if she’d produced not Betty Crocker but a delicate French patisserie. Lacey hesitated, then grabbed a piece. “It just looks too good.”
“I really enjoy baking,” Shevaunne smiled. “Cookies, cakes, pies. The secret for a good pie crust is lard—you have to use lard.”
Ben took a bite of the bread. “This is delicious.”
“Thank you, honey.”
At first Ben thought it was the bread, somehow Shevaunne had made banana bread that smelled like runny shit. For a long moment, no one said anything, though Ben could see Lacey had noticed the smell; she’d gently put the bread down beside her mug.
“Oh, Jesus,” Shevaunne mumbled. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”
Jake felt soft in Ben’s arms, floppy. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” He scooped the boy up. “We’ll be right back.”
He carried Jake into the bathroom, ran the taps in the bath. Jake could not stand up, so Ben lay him down like a baby, peeled down his trousers, gently, gently, saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay, no one’s mad.” There was shit everywhere, an explosion all over Jake’s thighs and genitals. Ben winced and heaved. The smell, the stench. Standing up, he splashed his face with cold water. Blinked hard, splashed again. But the smell had him. He remembered the smell, the shit and fear, the fear shit, a special combination. He kept his eyes open. He kept them on his reflection in the mirror, not there, in the dark behind him where moved the hump-backed and slow, their hot anticipating breath in the cool cellar.
Ben placed his hands flat on the countertop; he felt the heave jolt right across his shoulders, the bile in his mouth. He spat it out. He took a gob of toothpaste and rinsed it around his mouth. Jake had crawled away from him, inched into the corner by the toilet, crumpling into himself—he might keep crumpling into a smaller and smaller boy and eventually disappear. But in crawling, he’d smeared the feces all over the bath matt, all over the linoleum. Ben crouched down. “Jake, Jake, it’s all right. I’m not going to punish you.”
He lifted the boy up in one strong, sure movement and put him in the bath and ran it full with warm water. “It’s all right, it’s okay, we’ll sort you out.” Here he took the boy’s shirt and jeans right off, the shit fragmenting and floating to the surface in clumps, like moss. “I love you. I will not stop loving you. I want you to know that.” Ben washed him just with the water, then drained the tub, ran it again and washed him with soap. When this was done, when Jake was clean, he wrapped him in a towel, then took him to bed. “She’s not going to take you away. I promise, I promise.”
*
Jake was asleep, or perhaps simply lying with his eyes closed—he had not moved or spoken. Ben closed the door to his room, stepped quietly back into the living area. Lacey was already standing, handbag on her shoulder, her clipboard pressed to her chest. She sucked in a breath. “How is he?”
“Why don’t you ask her?” he nodded at Shevaunne.
Shevaunne took a cigarette out of the packet, pointed it at Ben. “Kids have bowel problems. They have accidents.”
He thought he would heave again so he looked away from her.
Lacey was at the door. “Let’s reschedule? I have toys for him that might make it easier.”
Shevaunne put the cigarette in her mouth. She knew better than to light it, so she spoke with it hanging from her lips. “Those dolls? I don’t want him playing with those fuckin’ atonomical dolls. They made him worse.” Then she smiled, her teeth in a hard line. “No smoking in the house or the car, Lacey, don’t worry.”
Ben swallowed his reflux. Then he turned to Lacey. “We’ll be here, whatever you need from us.”
She nodded, gave a little purposeful nod to Shevaunne. “How are the meetings?”
“Fine. Yeah. Really helping me become a better person.”
It would have been easy for anyone less vigilant than Ben to miss the way Lacey’s eyes lingered on Shevaunne’s. He watched her out the door, her dainty shoes tip-toeing across the dirt driveway. She glanced back, and he knew she was looking at the mold stains, the loose siding, very likely rodents nesting in the walls. What a place to raise a kid.
Before Lacey’s car was even out the drive, Shevaunne had her hand in his direction, touching him, scraping him, her fingers like dry twigs. She smiled, dry-smoking her Marlboro. “Come on, I made a cake.”
He reached into his back pocket, brought out the spindle of smack, and put it on the counter between them. She grabbed for it, but he held it fast with his fingertip.
“We have a deal.”
“The deal is you’re my dealer, I do what you want.” She hung her arms from her shoulders like a puppet.
“The laundry.”
“I will. After. C’mon. I can’t do the laundry now, I’m all wiggy.” She pouted while trying to retain her smile, or at least its jocular intent. He wanted to hit her. It was a craving, just to slap her, and then punch her and then maybe smash her head against the wall. She would make no sound. She would be more like a doll, and he would hit her and hit her and punch her and kick her. He would smash her and there wouldn’t be blood, there wouldn’t be any mess, because she wasn’t a person, she would just be dead.
He took his finger off the spindle. She laughed and did a little jig.