Chapter 20

Touch your belly! Really? Do I want to touch your belly? Jesus Christ! What kind of prisoner asks the guard if he wants to touch her fat pregnant belly?

Do you remember when your wife was pregnant? Shit! The woman still thinks I’m a man, which is probably a good thing because she’s not supposed to know a damn thing about any of us. That was Geronimo’s big scheme and the way these assholes, including Danny, all thought we were going to get away with this deal. No sound, no voices, no touching, no removing the hood, so she can’t identify a single thing, who we are, what we look like, where she’s been. That was the line Danny used to try to convince Rae that everything would be cool.

Rae knew it probably came directly from Geronimo, even though Danny was smart enough to come up with it himself. He was good at that kind of thing as much as she hated to admit it. He was good with the details, and that’s why he’d been so successful with the carjacking and the pot- and amphetamine-selling at the resort and the ski areas back home. He was smooth and he was quiet and he was careful. He never talked about what he did with anyone but her. “Loose lips sink ships,” he used to say, and before that, the only time she’d ever heard the line was from her rowdy girlfriends who used to laugh and say, “Loose lips suck dicks,” when they were hanging at the old Crossroads bar in a booth, acting all smart-assed and scoping out the guys.

Danny had snorted at her version and had explained that the “sink ships” came from World War II and meant that sailors or soldiers who talked too much about missions took a chance of letting the Japs know what was up. Yeah, right—like they were sitting around in the bar shootin’ the shit and watching the game with a couple of Japs and happened­ to mention where they were sailing the next day to bomb Tokyo. Christ! Her version was much better. But Danny knew that kind of shit, history and stuff. It was another reason she’d fallen for him. Quiet and smart. It was maybe the only reason she thought this whole fucked-up kidnapping thing might work out so that they’d both walk away with a load of money and a way out of the life up north.

You and your dreams, Rae. Don’t you know how those go by now?

“Can you take me to the toilet again?” The whiner.

Jesus! Rae thought. She should have known. As soon as you start being nice to them, they just want more. She’d gotten Danny to go out and buy the Boost shit because the woman needed it. Even Rae knew that you can’t keep somebody locked up in a room without food and water for days and not have something happen to them, especially a pregnant woman. So she gives her the stuff, and half an hour later she’s got to pee. And no way is Rae gonna let her piss in that bed and have that smell hovering in the room for however long they were going to be here.

She got up and went over to help the woman up off the bed, wobbly, even with Rae holding a fist of her dress and keeping her from falling over. Stumbling. Can’t put one damn foot in front of the other. Rae guided her. Same thing as your mom, right, Rae? Jesus, who needs that memory?

She’d been, what, seven, eight, nine years old? Staying home alone in the old single-wide they had on Skegemog Point. She’d be alone from the time the school bus dropped her off, doing homework on the couch with the TV on, eating cheese curls and drinking pop even though her mom might have left a tuna casserole in the fridge that day. She’d watch every kid’s show from three in the afternoon until she fell asleep with her orange fingertips in her mouth like a little baby. Then she’d wake up to the sound of the car pulling up, sometime deep into the night. She’d keep her eyes closed when her mom unlocked the door and came in, the glow of the TV the only light in the place.

Rae would listen to see if the steps were quiet, and if the handbag was placed carefully on the counter. The fridge was being opened and closed. There was a rustle of clothing as her mom sat on the coffee table in front of the couch for a long minute, Rae knowing she was watching her sleep, looking at the side of her face, maybe even knowing Rae wasn’t really asleep. Then she’d bend over Rae, kiss her on the forehead, and gather her in her arms and take her back to her own bed. Those were the good nights, the infrequent nights.

Mostly there were sounds of keys fumbling in the lock, a trip, and then a curse when her mom stumbled over a pair of Rae’s sneakers on the doormat. Then the bump of a hip against the counter and the fridge being opened and left standing open, its light competing with the TV for a long minute.

That’s when Rae would open her eyes and get up on her own. “Mama, are you all right?”

And this apparition, known by others as her mother, would singsong slur: “I’m just hunky-dory, Rae-Jay,” using her pet name for Rae. “An’ I brought a treat for my baby ’cause I know they’re your favorites.”

Then she’d tap at the brown paper bag containing the half-drunk bottle of Allen’s coffee-flavored brandy known locally as “fat ass in a glass,” and a package of Double Stuf Oreos. And then it was Rae who would prop up her wobbling drunk mother, guide her through the narrow passageway to the back bedroom, and help her lie down without crashing into a bureau or nightstand or lampshade.

It was Rae who went in the tiny bathroom, soaked a washcloth under the sink, folded it, and placed it over her mother’s forehead and eyes. It was she who would stare at her mother’s profile, the face that everyone called country beautiful. Even as a child Rae could see it, even through runny mascara and smeared makeup: the prettiness, the curse, the ultra-green eyes that drew men in, the rich dark hair that made them stare, the flawless skin that made them want to touch her. Her mother’s beauty was the exact opposite of Rae’s own distinctive strawberry blonde, freckle-cheeked look. And even a kid hears the whispers of the “bitchy broads” at Tom’s Pancake House: “Ain’t her daddy’s girl, is she?”

Even a kid could recognize her own coloring and its similarity to that of another man in town who was not her mother’s ex and whom her mother avoided like vermin.

Still, it was on those drunken nights that Rae would kiss her mother’s closed eyes. It was Rae who had mistaken the smell of whiskey for perfume until she was ten and went to the bar herself one night to find her mother and recognized the odor being wiped off the counter. It was Rae who knew what was going to happen before it happened. Even then. Even now.

Do I want to touch her belly? Christ no!

Do you remember when your wife was pregnant? Jesus!

And Rae led the woman back to the bed, spun her, and shoved her, a little harder maybe than she’d meant to.

Could I at least cut her hands loose so she could feel her own belly? Anything else, Prisoner? What, you wanna go for a jog around the yard? Do a few bench presses with the skinheads in the barbell club? Rae stood speechless in front of the bed. Says she’s a fat, pregnant woman, what’s she going to do? Well, true there. Rae knew that Geronimo would be pissed. She knew she was breaking the rules. Maybe even Danny would be pissed, but fuck it. Look at this pathetic woman lying there with a bag over her head.

Rae reached into the spot where she’d hidden the small razor blade, the same place she’d hidden her thin cell phone, the place where the old northern Michigan cops were too prudish or even too scared to search you when they booked you into county for some stupid-ass violation. She took the fold of cardboard off the blade and rolled the woman on her side and sliced through the flex-cuffs, freeing her hands.

Then she took a step back and watched. Go ahead and try something, she thought, not letting the act of kindness weaken her—I’ll kick your ass.