By the time classes finish, I’m wiped. I doze off on the subway ride home, head against the glass. Wake up with a start right before my stop, wondering for a second where I am. The walk to Franklin Estates wakes me up a little, the cold fall air making my lungs ache. Crossing the quad to our apartment tower, I see a couple of kids playing basketball in the parking lot. TB waves to me from his usual post, slouched in a beat-up lawn chair outside his townhouse. I don’t wave back—I just hurry into the lobby of my building.
The elevator smells like cat piss. The old lady riding in the elevator with me has her nose wrinkled up and her eyes locked on the changing numbers above the door. Like she can make me and the tangy stench go away, just like that. When we get to her floor, I hold the door open for her. She doesn’t thank me, just shuffles out. Never meets my eyes. I could get mad, but it happens every day. Kid with big muscles, mean face, hoodie, jeans. I fit the profile.
When I get to the apartment, I realize I’ve forgotten my key again. I bang on the door until I hear the rattle of the dead bolts on the other side. The door swings wide open, and there’s my little brother staring at me with big eyes.
“Runt, dammit. What I’d tell you?” I say.
“About what?” he says, knowing he screwed up but not how.
“You always use the chain. Never throw the door open like that.” Not that the little chain would stop some of the real predators around here. But the boy needs to at least try.
“Sorry, Dar,” he says quietly.
“Good little man,” I say, wrapping my palm over his head and giving it a little shake. “Where’s Mom?” He nods toward the kitchen. Our apartment is small, but bigger than some in the building. Two bedrooms. Runt and me in one, Mom in the other. Kitchen opening into a living room with a red couch we got from the thrift store and hauled up in the freight elevator. A small table for eating. Mom’s tried to make it cheerful with some posters she found at a garage sale—pictures of sand and palm trees, happy people spending money.
I drop my backpack on the hallway floor and stick my head around the corner.
“Dar!” says Mom, her head surrounded by a cloud of steam. She finishes draining a pot of pasta and clangs it back on the stove. “You’re just in time to wash up for dinner.” I nod and muscle into the bathroom beside Runt. Make him wash his hands right. By the time we get back, Mom has put two bowls mounded with noodles and sauce on the table. She pulls off her apron, and I see she’s wearing her uniform.
“Sorry, guys. I’m going to have to run to the drugstore. Judy called in sick, so I’ve got an extra shift.” She leans in to give Runt a kiss, then over to me. “Dar, you make sure the dishes get cleaned right—” She stops short, staring at the purple bruise on my forehead. “Explain what happened. Right now.”
“Aw, Mom. It’s nothing. Gym class. Basketball. I smacked into someone. I was watching the ball, not where I was going.”
She tenderly pushes back my short hair. Testing the bruise with her cool fingers.
“What did the nurse say?”
“The school nurse?” Is Mom testing my story? “Never saw her. The teacher didn’t think I needed to.” I push her hand gently away. “Seriously, no big deal.”
She drills into me with her eyes.
“You know I sent you to that school to get you away from the rough stuff, right?” I nod.
“But you’ve got to make it work. I find out you’re fighting again, even if it’s on the basketball court, I’ll—” She stops and shakes her head. I bet she doesn’t know what she’ll do, because there aren’t a lot of options left.
I stare down at the noodles, cooling in their bowl.
“I get it, mom,” I say. “This was just an accident, okay?”
She sighs, then checks her watch. “I’ve got to run. We’ll talk about this later.” She shrugs on her coat and trades her slippers for work shoes.
“Do what I said. Clean up. Get your homework done. Riley’s got some math—”
“I’ll take care of it, Mom. I will.”
She opens the door, then looks back at me. “I know you will, Dar.”
Runt is pretty good for the rest of the evening. He works hard, scrubbing down the counters while I wash the dishes. I swear the boy doesn’t have an Off switch—he talks nonstop, and I just have to pretend like he’s a radio or something. Tune him out. We get his homework done, and then I let him watch TV in his pajamas. I sit at the table and work on my essay. History. The start of World War I, assassinations, terrorists. We were assigned a country to write about, and I was given Switzerland. I didn’t even know where it was at first, but it’s actually kind of interesting. I’m on a roll with the writing when Runt suddenly speaks up.
“I just saw Dad on the news,” he says, still watching the glowing screen in the corner of the living room.
“What?” I stand up from the table and go over to the couch. It’s the eleven o’clock news—already? How’d that happen?—and it’s a clip about Newhaven Penitentiary. “You did not see him.”
“They showed a bunch of guys in the courtyard, and he was right there.”
I sit down, pushing him over to make a little room. But the clip is over, and now they’re talking about the weather.
“It’s a big place, Runt. And those guys all look the same in the blue jumpsuits.”
“No, I know it was him!” he says. “It was!”
“All right, okay.” I hold up my hands. “Don’t cry about it. It was him. Fine.” We both watch the weather map, full of colors and lines. Rain tomorrow, getting colder.
“How’d he look?” I ask.
“Well, he was in the background,” Runt says, looking up at me uncertainly. “But I think he looked proud.”
“Proud?” I say. “What do you mean, proud?”
“You know that look he had when I drew something nice and he’d put it on the fridge? Like that. Proud.”
I study Runt’s smooth face in the blue light of the television, watching to see if Dad appears again. Then I reach out and pull his little body close to me. “Damn straight he’s proud. Proud of his two men, right?”
Runt looks up at me seriously. “You shouldn’t swear, Dar.”
I just laugh. “Time for bed, Runt. Too much TV is gonna rot your mind.”