The kitchen smells like warm peanut butter when I come back downstairs. Ma is at the stove, poking at two pancakes with a spatula and fiddling with the TV channel with the other hand. Angus is standing atop one of the kitchen chairs next to the stove. He is on his tiptoes, leaning precariously over Ma’s arm. A tuft of hair sticks out from the back of his head like antennae.
“Angus,” I say. “Get away from the stove.”
He pulls back, whines. “But I’m watching Nanny cook the pancakes! She said I could look for the bubbles!”
“Right now.”
Ma looks over at me, annoyance knitted across her face. “I’m right here next to him, Bernadette. He’s fine.”
“You’re not even watching him!” I nudge her hand away from the TV. “What channel do you want?”
“Twelve. The news.”
“Angus.” I use my warning tone, still flipping the channel. He whines, louder this time, and does that droopy thing with his eyebrows. “Do not make me say it again. Away from the stove.”
“Oh, Bird.” Ma whispers her disapproval as Angus gets down slowly and drags his chair back over to the table.
“Don’t ‘oh, Bird’ me.” I yank out a chair across from Angus, give him my best I’m-still-in-charge-here-buddy stare as I sit down. “I’m his mother, Ma.”
“I know, I know,” she says, managing to sound agreeable and dismissive at the same time. She slides Angus’s plate in front of him and leans in for a kiss. He gives her a big one, right on the cheek, while staring pointedly at me. Traitor.
I get up to pour myself some coffee, concentrate on keeping my voice casual. “So I’m going to be working some double shifts over the next few days. Get a little extra money. Mr. Randolph said he could use me one day this week, and I’m going to ask Mr. Herron . . .”
“Doubles?” Ma interrupts, flipping another pancake. “Why? You don’t need to do that.”
“Well, the opportunity’s there, Ma. It’s stupid not to take advantage of it. It’s more money.” What I don’t say, of course, is that the extra money will be going toward the new apartment. The only thing that Ma knows about my future plans right now is that I’m “saving up.” She has no idea about the place on Moon Lake or that in less than two weeks, Angus and I will be moving out of here for good. It’s shitty of me, I know, especially because the reality is that our leaving—or at least Angus leaving—is going to be hard on her. I hadn’t wanted to get into it with Mrs. Ross earlier because, frankly, it was none of her business, and also because it would have extended a conversation I didn’t want to have, but now I feel the same twinge of guilt I did in her office. Ma hates being alone, has always hated it, especially in this house. Even before Dad died, she used to make sure she was out doing something at church or at a friend’s house if she knew neither of us would be home until later. And having Angus in the house has brought a level of joy into her life that I don’t think anything else has been able to after losing Dad.
But I can’t stay. And I’d rather not face that hurdle until I absolutely have to.
She turns back to the stove, and then leans in suddenly, staring at the television next to it. “Is that James Rittenhouse?”
“James who?”
She points at the screen with her spatula. “James Rittenhouse. His father owns a construction company, doesn’t he? Or at least he used to. He worked on our house a while back, when the roof needed to be retiled. Or maybe it was the chimney.” She squints again at the television. “Is that him?”
A flash of white heat travels through my belly as the image of a slight, scruffy-looking man dressed in a green T-shirt and brown cargo pants appears on the screen. He is being led down a set of steps by two grim-faced policemen, each one holding an elbow. His hands, cuffed at the wrists, hang down awkwardly in front of him, and his head has been shaved smooth as a pool ball. Behind him, the sky is the color of a bruise, the sun still hours away from rising.
“Oh my God,” I say. “That is James.”
“You know him, too?” Ma asks.
“I used to work with him. A long time ago. At the Burger Barn.”
“You never told me that.” Ma puts a hand on her hip. “How did I never know that? I came over to see you at that place a number of times. I never saw him anywhere.”
“He was the cook.” I am still staring at the screen, my words coming from some small, faraway place inside. “He worked in the back. You wouldn’t have seen him.” He looks older somehow, although how is that possible? It’s only been six years since I spoke to him last. I move closer, trying to discern his features. But he is looking down at the ground, shying away from the camera, as if the light is hurting his eyes. He walks with a shuffle, as if his feet are bound, but there is nothing around them, no chain or rope in sight.
“Well, what happened?” Ma has turned back to the pancakes, flipping them deftly. “What’d he do? Are they arresting him?” Ma has always been a huge fan of local gossip, although she tries hard not to indulge in it, especially during Lent.
“Shhh!” I turn up the volume as a female reporter begins speaking:
“Police arrested James Rittenhouse early this morning after an altercation at a local bar led to a man being seriously wounded. The victim, whose name is not being disclosed pending further investigation, is currently in the critical care unit at New Haven Hospital with severe head injuries. Police say James Rittenhouse, who was heavily intoxicated at the time, has admitted to the crime and will be held at the county prison until formal charges can be filed . . .”
My mouth falls open, listening. Critical care unit? Severe head injuries? James?
The television camera pulls away as one of the patrolmen leads James toward the back of a police cruiser. Just for an instant, he lifts his head. He has the same narrow nose, although the ridge of it has a wound across the top, dark and thin as a parenthesis, the same flat cheekbones and deep-set eyes. But they look exaggerated under his bald head, larger somehow than the rest of him. And why is he bald? Where has all that beautiful reddish-brown hair gone?
“. . . Police say Rittenhouse will be held in the county jail without bail until his arraignment . . .”
“Holy shit.” I put my coffee cup down, shake my head. “Without bail?”
“Holy shit!” Angus yells, grinning widely.
“Angus!” It’s hard to say his name sharply when I am stifling a giggle. “Don’t. That’s not a good word.”
He looks at me defiantly. “Then how come you said it?”
I make a point not to look at Ma, who is standing both arms akimbo in front of the stove, glaring at me. “Well, sometimes grown-ups say things they shouldn’t.”
“Like when we were coloring in my Nemo book and you said, ‘Fuck’?”
Ma gasps. Her back goes rigid. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Bernadette!” Then she turns on Angus. “You listen to me, young man! If I ever hear you say that word again in my house, you will stay in your room for a week! Is that understood?”
Angus’s hand goes up to his neck; his fingers start pinching the smooth skin, and his eyes well with tears.
James is momentarily forgotten as I come around quickly to his side of the table, and pick him up. “Don’t lay into him like that, Ma. That was my fault.”
Ma’s face is set tight. “Well, somebody has to.”
“Ma.”
She looks at the clock. “You’re going to be late dropping him off.”
I shift Angus against my hip. He has buried his face into my neck, arms clasped around my shoulders, away from Ma. “Come on, Boo. We have to go.” On the TV screen, the police cruiser, which looks like some kind of enormous white fish in the darkness, drives away. It’s impossible to see anything inside the dark windows, but knowing James is in there leaves a bitter, coppery taste in the back of my mouth. For some reason, I wonder if he is hungry.
“Wait!” Ma says as we head for the door.
“What?”
“I just want to get him a clean shirt. There’s a huge stain on the hem of the one he’s wearing now.”
She’s halfway up the steps by the time we make it out the front door. I catch a glimpse of her again only when I adjust the rearview mirror of my old Toyota Camry; she is standing in the doorway, waving something furiously above her head.
From the distance, it looks like a white flag, almost like a tiny peace offering.
Except that I know better.