| |
Turns out I’m pretty good at working. I work hard. Lola works hard. Every day at the end of my shift, she gives me an envelope with my earnings from the day. I tuck a small portion of the bills away, into the small box belonging to my mom, the one that used to be taped, but now is not. I still haven’t dug through the contents. I had wanted to know her all of my life, and now that she’s dead, and I can open all her secrets, I don’t want to know her at all. My money is in an envelope, amongst the other envelopes that my mother placed there somewhere along the way. Someday, I am sure I will sit down and spend some time with her, but for now, I use her stuff to hide my stash, my just-in-case money.
Warren is part of a new band. They call themselves the Hellions, and they are playing every weekend at a dive called Cheaters. Elliot broke up Elliot’s Child because he had a wife and kid to take care of and had to get on with “being an adult.” Warren had said the words with contempt and anger, but I get it. I respect Elliot for that. He’s working out at the factory, where Warren works, and when he was offered management training, his wife talked him into it. He could have up and left his family, could have kept on doing the band, trying to make it big. He could have left her trying to figure out how best to raise their kid, but he didn’t. He stuck around. Every time Warren pops off about Elliot, I stand up for him. “The Hellions are good,” he had said once, “but it’s not like Elliot’s Child. They had a spark.” I don’t know what ever happened to the demo they made.
The Hellions are loud and thrumming, and the three times I’ve gone to the club, I’ve had to step outside—the music just felt like noise and gave me a headache. Cheaters is in St Louis, so every weekend Warren is gone most of the night, since the club doesn’t close down until two a.m., and then there is break down and driving home, which is a good hour. More than once, he has just stayed over and come in during the late part of the morning. The first couple of weekends I was awake all night, worrying that he wouldn’t make it home, wondering why we chose an apartment an hour outside of the city.
Life settled and fall almost didn’t happen. One afternoon it just seemed that all the leaves on the trees were gone, and the next day there was snow. Our apartment has old-fashioned radiators in every room, and the one in the living room is in front of the windows. I spend many an hour sitting on a folded blanket on top of the radiator watching out the window at the people coming and going below. Warren’s shift at PET goes from seven until three in the afternoon, and I work from eight to five at Lola’s. More than once, I came home to find him sprawled out on the bed, snoring, exhausted from the life he is living, exhausted from trying to get the Hellions to where Elliot’s Child was, while working full time at PET. We are both tired, and I try not to think that he is seeing somebody else or that he isn’t in love with me anymore. He almost never touches me these days. I know he’s just tired. We’ve had a good share of fights, and I would leave him in bed, sleeping as sound as a baby to pace the floors of the living room, feeling frustrated and insecure. He just never touches me anymore.
I think that if I could do better at the house stuff, he would want me more. Nobody really wants to eat microwaved dinners every night, and boiling water isn’t really cooking a meal. I tried fried chicken and made the coating so thick and crunchy that it just fell off, and the chicken tasted like the Crisco I had used to cook it in. The coating was burnt, but after one solid bite, I could see the meat was all still pink at the bone. I didn’t think about having to thaw it out. The whole meal had gone into the trash, and he had stormed out, because I acted like it was somehow his fault that I couldn’t cook. When he came back, hours later, he smelled like smoke and whiskey, and I knew he had gone to the bar.
Most evenings I spend alone because he’s either working overtime at the factory, practicing with the Hellions, or drinking at the bar down the street. I’m so irritated by him. He always leaves the toilet seat up and absolutely never puts on a new roll. He leaves toothpaste spit and globs of shaving cream in the sink. At first when he started going to the bar after work, he was sweet—all “Are you sure you don’t mind?” and “I just hate to leave you, baby.” But now he just goes, and I stew and fester and go to bed early, putting the pillow to my back and sleeping as far on the edge as I can so he doesn’t come in with his breath smelling like booze and cigarettes and think he can kiss me. I’m exhausted from working all day and almost glad he isn’t there. Being a grown up, so far, sucks.
It is Thursday night, and Warren has just left, and I am looking at the long hours of the night ahead when my eyes land on my mother’s box. It’s just a plain cardboard box, with the remnants of tape striped in an x over the top. I’m two-thirds of the way to pissed at Warren, as usual, and I know moving here was a stupid thing for me to do. Living with him is a mistake. Nobody buys a cow when the milk is free; isn’t that what people say? He doesn’t love me. Not really. How could he? I don't even know how to make chicken. If he loves me, wouldn’t he be here with me tonight instead of down the street with the guys?
That’s the fatal flaw, not being “enough.” Nobody will ever love me. I will never be enough. I crawl across the floor to where her box is sitting. That was her fatal flaw, too. She was never enough. It was like she stopped growing up somewhere along the way, and it was all the grown-up bits that were missing. Just like me. I open the box, moving my envelope of cash out and setting it aside. The manila envelope has the metal clip spread, sealing the flap. I straighten the metal and slide the flap over it, opening the envelope. My stomach lurches. Inside are some papers, the top one torn from a spiral notebook, probably from one of my school notebooks. “Dear Alison, if you are reading this, then I am probably dead, or you have been snooping around my room. But probably dead. It’s okay. I didn’t do the living thing very well, in case you hadn’t noticed.” I almost hear her voice, and my hand draws up to my mouth, touching my lips. It is such a shock that I sit there on the floor and bawl, sobbing great heaving sobs until I have to set the paper down and go blow my nose and wipe my eyes. I may not be ready for this, but I’m going to sit down and read what she has to say to me, even if it takes all night.
The letter goes on to tell me that her name had been Carlisle and that she grew up in a small town called Sorento, which is on the Illinois side of St. Louis. “My parents still live there, and if you ever get that way, they would probably love to meet you.” I have grandparents. Oh my God. I have grandparents, and they live in a town that is on the Illinois side of St. Louis. Isn’t that where I am, the Illinois side of St. Louis? “I reckon you already know that I ran away cause I thought I was pregnant. I married your daddy, and we moved to a small town just the Illinois side of Kentucky. He had family down that way, and he probably still runs around there. I can’t think of the name of the town right now. He wasn’t a bad guy, and if he isn’t dead, he’d probably like to see you.” I skim into the next paragraph looking for his name, but she fails to mention it. I read through what I have read already, about my grandparents being in a town called Sorento and their name is Carlisle, because that had been her name. Excitement sputters because she has only given me half-bits of information. Just like she did all of her life, except now she let me get so close that I can taste the answer.
The letter is not the only thing in the envelope. I shake out the contents, and several photos flutter out, into my lap and onto the floor. I pick one up and turn it right side up—a formal pose of a young couple in gown and suit. It’s me, but then my eyes adjust and of course it isn’t me; it’s my mother at prom, dressed in a pale dress in the black and white photo. I let my finger touch her chin, my chin. Her hair is swept up on top of her head and ringlets break free, framing her cheeks, accentuating the pale skin of her neck. The boy beside her is squarely built with broad shoulders and a smile that quirks up, as if the photo captured him right in the midst of saying a joke. I drink in the image, sucking it into my eyes until it is seared in my brain. He looks older than she is, but not yet really a man—older like Warren looks older than I do. She could be seventeen, but no, she has to be younger because I would have been nearly a year old when she was seventeen.
Thunder claps outside, and a flash of lightening streaks the window, and when the flash is gone, so are the lights. Outside the window, a utility pole has been sheared by the lightening and toppled over into the street in front of the apartment. Rain splatters against the glass; the lightening has split the cloud and now its contents pour down. All down the street, buildings have gone black. I wait. The lights will come on again, I think, but when there is no flickering, I shuffle the contents of the envelope back inside of it, put the envelope and my money stash back in the box. I close the lid. It will have to wait for another day.
The window wavers with water, and I sit on the deacon’s bench, watching out into the storm. The image from a long ago prom burning bright in the dark. Even that makes me angry, that she got to do prom and I never did.
I could never have normal anything because she did everything wrong.