Evelyn squinted over the roof of the car and through heat waves at the tourists waddling in and out of the doughnut shop. The air in the parking lot was heavy, a tongue pressing down on her head and shoulders.
“Evelyn!” Her mother’s voice snapped her back to the task at hand. “For heaven’s sake, hold it higher!”
Evelyn straightened her back and repositioned her arms so the beach towel concealed her mother’s bent back. The rear passenger door of her mother’s rusted sedan was open before her, and Martin, her mother’s new boyfriend, lay slumped across the back seat on his stomach with his legs hanging out the door. Her mother, Judy, was using a road map of southern Ontario to scrape the shit off Martin’s legs. His soiled boxers hung heavy around his ankles, and the tops of his dress socks were ruddy with excrement. The tableau would have struck Evelyn as comical were it not for the fact that it included her.
“I need napkins or something,” Judy said.
“You need a hose, is what you need.”
“Evelyn, put a sock in it!” Judy’s voice had an edge to it, so Evelyn sighed and went back to staring at the doughnut shop. She felt sure every one of those doughnut-eaters knew exactly what was going on behind her beach towel.
Evelyn said, “You should have pulled over sooner.”
“Where, Evelyn?” Judy said. “On the side of the highway?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Let me up!” said Martin.
Judy shushed him.
“I need a coffee!” Martin insisted.
“In a minute, dear,” Judy muttered.
Evelyn willed her focus away from the car and let it drift back across the parking lot to the highway. Above the whine of speeding cars, a solitary starling tweeted its heart out, oblivious to Evelyn’s plight. She closed her eyes and isolated the bird song, concentrating hard until everything else around her disappeared.
Prior to meeting Martin, Judy had been single for thirty-two years. Evelyn’s father died when Evelyn was six, and Judy never remarried. The years passed without Judy going on a single date, and she always said she managed just fine with the love and companionship of her one and only daughter.
Evelyn had never dated, either. She lived alone in the basement apartment of a townhouse near an off-ramp just outside Toronto. She kept a goldfish. Its name was Darlin’. She drove from Toronto to Wainfleet every Saturday to spend the night and most of Sunday with Judy.
Sometimes they rented a movie on Saturday nights, but Judy was a fan of swashbuckling epics and Evelyn wasn’t, so mostly they just watched TV. Judy would fall asleep in the La-Z-Boy around ten thirty, and Evelyn would poke her with the remote and tell her to go up to bed. On Sundays, they drove to the mall and had lunch in the food court before Evelyn headed back to the city. That’s the way they’d spent every weekend for fifteen years.
Evelyn worked as a customer service clerk in the tax department at Toronto City Hall. She hated it, but over the years she had developed a method of going into a state of mental and emotional detachment during her morning commute, and this made her job almost bearable. Her office was a dusty, grey-upholstered cubicle; one in a sea of identical grey-upholstered cubicles. Judy liked to call Evelyn at work a few mornings a week to tell Evelyn what she’d had for dinner the night before and relay what she’d seen on Dr. Phil. When Judy called Evelyn at work one day to tell her she’d fallen in love with someone, Evelyn thought she was going to have a stroke.
“Mm-hmm?” was all she could say each time Judy paused to breathe.
When Judy told her that Martin had already sold his bungalow in Cheektowaga so he could move into Judy’s townhouse, she smacked her hand down on her keyboard and yelled, “Jesus, Mom!” Her mouse clattered to the floor.
All work-related activity in the cubicles around hers ceased.
Evelyn didn’t want her outrage to betray her envy. She groped through her shock for something she could be justifiably outraged about. “Wait,” she said. “You met him where?”
“Online,” Judy said in a sulky voice.
“Like, on the Internet?”
“Yes.”
“Like, with one of those dating services?”
“That’s right.”
Evelyn heard someone behind her stifling the giggles. She heard her mother’s monologue in snippets—his name was Martin, he was a seventy-year-old retired electrician, and he was wonderful.
“Does this mean you have a dating profile?” Evelyn shrilled, scandalized.
“Of course, dear.”
“Well what does it say? Did you use your real name?”
“Evelyn…”
“What picture did you use?”
“Evelyn, honestly!”
Evelyn held her head in her hands and said, “Oh God.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Evelyn,” Judy snapped. “You should be so proactive.”
Evelyn didn’t go to Wainfleet that weekend. She expected Judy to call her at work the following Monday, but Judy didn’t call. She didn’t call Tuesday, either. Evelyn told Darlin’ she was looking forward to finally having her weekends all to herself.
Mina stopped by Evelyn’s desk one day a week later. Mina was the team leader for Accounts Receivable. She reeked of hairspray, and the horny bent toes sticking out of her high-heeled sandals sported cherry-red nails that looked capable of splitting packing tape. Mina kept up a friendly act, but she was always scoping out whether or not a better conversation was taking place elsewhere.
“Heard the big news about Judy,” Mina said, glancing over Evelyn’s head at the people chatting by the photocopier. “How’s her new love life going?”
“Fine for now, I guess,” mumbled Evelyn, busying herself with shuffling the papers on her desk.
“I think it’s great that she met someone. You must be excited for her.”
“I guess.”
“So what about you, Evelyn? When are we going to hear all about a special guy for you?” Mina’s eyes levelled squarely with Evelyn’s.
“I’m too busy to date,” Evelyn said.
“Too busy doing what?”
Evelyn blushed. “I just want to focus on my career right now.”
“Oh,” Mina said in a tone that made Evelyn feel small. “I see. You just want to be the best clerk you can be, is that it?”
“That’s right,” Evelyn said.
Three more weeks passed with no word from Judy. Evelyn told Darlin’ she’d never felt so alive. No more interruptions at work, no more lame movies, and no more taking care of needy old Judy. On Saturday nights, she rented movies she actually wanted to see, and watched them alone with an air of self-righteousness.
Since Judy’s announcement, Evelyn found the gaps in her memory representing her father had been knocking around in her skull. Evelyn’s father’s name was Dale. Dale Pratt. Evelyn knew nothing else about him, and there’d been no pictures or mementoes of him in their house when Evelyn was growing up. It was an emotionally difficult subject to bring up with Judy. The most Evelyn had been able to cobble together was that Dale had died suddenly due to a terrible and mysterious illness. That had satisfied Evelyn’s curiosity up until the day she’d started working for the city. She’d gone for a coffee on her first day with Mina, and Evelyn had provided her usual answer to Mina’s usual questions about family. “I was raised by my mom—my dad died when I was very young.”
“Oh,” said Mina, her eyes growing wide. “I’m so sorry! How awful!”
Evelyn shrugged and sipped her double-double.
“What did he die of?”
“It was very sudden,” said Evelyn. She enjoyed being nonchalant.
“Was he ill?”
“Yeah, sort of. It was a mysterious illness.”
“What kind of mystery illness?” Mina asked. “Like a cancer?”
Evelyn was now in uncharted territory. She hadn’t ever been asked this many questions about Dale before. People usually changed the subject after the “mysterious illness” line.
“I guess so,” Evelyn had said. She was astounded at Mina’s questions, and bewildered by her own lack of answers.
Mina was floored. “You mean you don’t know?”
Evelyn shook her head and looked at her lap.
“You mean your mother never told you?”
Evelyn blushed and shrugged.
“Evelyn,” Mina said, “how can you not know how your father died? He’s your father!”
Once Mina put it in those terms, Evelyn couldn’t fathom not knowing such a thing. She was embarrassed by the way Mina was staring at her. Evelyn knew that look. It was the look you gave stupid people when you couldn’t believe how stupid they were.
Evelyn went home that weekend on a mission to find out about Dale Pratt. She was setting the table when she brought it up.
“Mom, what did Dad die of?”
“What?” Judy asked, and the air in the kitchen immediately went brittle.
“What did he die of?”
“Your father loved you very much. He was a warm and affectionate man.”
So far, the conversation was a carbon copy of every other time Evelyn had asked about Dale. This is where she usually gave up, because she felt so bad asking Judy questions that Judy obviously didn’t want to answer. Judy’s discomfort made no sense to Evelyn because, if Dale really was a warm and affectionate man who loved her very much, Judy would have enjoyed reminiscing. Maybe, thought Evelyn, Judy’s heart was still broken.
Thinking of Mina, and of how she might be able to save face if she went to work on Monday with more information, Evelyn soldiered on. “What kind of illness was it, exactly?” she asked.
“Your father was a wonderful man, Evelyn.”
Judy was beating eggs for their quiche. Evelyn watched her back jiggle. Most of their important conversations were carried out in this fashion—Judy at the counter cooking or cleaning, Evelyn scrutinizing Judy’s back for body language that would either corroborate or contradict whatever Judy said. A quickening of the egg-beating told Evelyn that she was pushing her luck.
“You mean, like a cancer?”
“It was very sudden.”
“You mean, like—”
“Evelyn!” The egg-beating ceased entirely. Judy leaned against the counter and gripped her forehead with both hands.
Evelyn hurried out of the kitchen on her tiptoes and hid in the TV room until Judy called her in for dinner. They ate in silence.
Four weeks after her Martin announcement, Judy called Evelyn at work and, as if no time had passed since their last conversation, asked Evelyn to join her and Martin on a road trip to Casino Niagara. It was Evelyn’s turn to work the customer service desk, which she, like all the other staff, loathed. Evelyn turned her back on the lineup of people at the counter and tried to maintain an air of cool indifference.
“It’ll be a fun way for you and Martin to get to know one another,” Judy was saying.
“But I don’t gamble.”
“They have a lounge there, Evelyn, with wonderful performers. And Martin really wants to meet you.”
Evelyn wondered when Judy had started hanging around in bars watching lounge acts. She guessed it was probably around the same time Judy started trawling the Internet for men.
Judy said, “We can have a drink and watch the show.”
“A drink?” Evelyn was incredulous. Judy never even had a rum ball at Christmas.
“You know what I mean, dear, you can have a drink and I’ll have one of those v-i-r-g-i-n-s.”
“I don’t know, Mom.” Evelyn wanted to say no. She glanced over her shoulder. The woman at the front of the line was leaning on the counter, giving Evelyn the eye. “I can’t really talk right now,” Evelyn said.
“We don’t have to talk. I’ve told Martin all about you and he can’t wait to meet you. Why don’t you come down on Friday after work? You can stay over and we’ll make a day of it.”
“Mom, I said I don’t know!”
The woman at the counter sighed and said, “Does anyone work here?”
The man behind her said, “Sure as hell don’t look like it.”
“Evelyn, don’t be difficult,” her mother was saying. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Mom!”
Judy hung up.
Evelyn stared at the receiver in disbelief.
“Lord,” the woman at the counter bellowed at the ceiling. “I sure hope one day I get paid with tax dollars to stand around yakking it up on the phone. Sure would be nice!”
The man behind her said, “Sure as hell would.”
Evelyn took a deep breath. “Can I help you?” she said in a flat voice.
“I doubt it, honey,” the woman said, turning around to wink at her smiling audience, “but it would be nice if you tried.”
The next day, as Evelyn merged with the highway traffic and headed towards Wainfleet, she felt optimistic despite her frustration with Judy. She had realized Judy might have a particular taste for a particular kind of man, and that Martin might reveal something of Dale in their similarities. Granted, she wouldn’t be able to appreciate or even recognize those similarities, since she had no impression of what her father had been like. Evelyn had decided to look forward to meeting Martin anyway.
Evelyn pulled up in front of Judy’s townhouse and sat in her car with the engine running. She stared at the new lawn ornaments that blighted the yard. An American flag fluttered in the pudgy fist of a gnome at the end of the driveway. On the lawn, a ceramic frog held a crisp brown geranium plant in its smiling mouth. A white plastic lamb in Judy’s flower bed strained beneath the weight of a bronze plaque that read No Bloody Swearing.
Judy appeared at the front door and scurried down the driveway to meet her. “Sweetie, did you get my message about the macaroni salad?”
“Yeah—Mom, what is all this?”
“Oh, it’s just Martin.” Judy said with a wave of her hand. “Isn’t he terrible? Listen, did you stop and pick up the salad like I asked?”
“I said yes! But, Mom…”
Judy came around to the passenger side and grabbed the bags from the seat.
Evelyn recalled a fight they’d had when Evelyn was eight and they’d driven down to Florida with one of Judy’s bridge partners. Pink flamingoes were everywhere in Florida, and Evelyn had begged her mother to buy one for their lawn back home.
“Absolutely not, Evelyn,” her mother had said. “Lawn ornaments are for trailer trash.”
Evelyn tried to remind Judy of this.
“Oh, have a sense of humour, Evelyn,” Judy said. “I’ve been telling Martin how much fun you are, what a wonderful sense of humour you have—now, don’t you go making a liar out of me.” She hustled up the driveway, opened the screen door, and called into the house, “Martin, honey! She’s here!” She held the door open for Evelyn. Cigarette smoke wafted out past Judy’s smiling face.
“Jesus, Mom, is he smoking in there?” Evelyn hissed.
Judy ignored her. “Martin is so excited to see you. Martin?”
The hallway was cluttered with an unspeakable number of knick-knacks. A stuffed and mounted fish, its gills furry with dust and cobwebs, leaned against the wall. “Are you kidding me?” said Evelyn, pointing at the fish.
“Well, sweetie, it’s not fair to Martin if he can’t bring any of his things into the house. It’s called compromise.”
A torrent of phlegmy coughs erupted in the den. Evelyn’s heart sank as she walked down the hall towards the noise.
Judy got to the den first. “Martin, didn’t you hear me, sweetheart? Evelyn is here to see you.” She had to yell over the television. Martin was watching golf, and had the volume turned up so loud that even during the quiet moments there was an audible hum.
Evelyn stopped in the doorway beside Judy. A pudgy man with an enormous polyester-clad belly sat prone in the La-Z-Boy. He wore a foam baseball cap and large, clip-on shades that were so dark they looked opaque. There was a rhythmic whistling and popping that Evelyn surmised was his breathing. A lit cigarette dangled from his mouth. The air was blue.
“Evelyn, dear, this is Martin.”
Martin gave no indication that he was aware of anyone else in the room.
“Martin, honey,” Judy shouted, “this is Ev-e-lyn!”
Evelyn stared. Martin didn’t move.
“And look, honey, she brought your favourite! Macaroni salad!”
The crowd on the TV burst into applause, and the noise was deafening.
“Are you hungry, dear?” Judy hollered, smiling at Evelyn. “I’ve got your favourite dish warming in the oven…”
Judy trailed off as she disappeared toward the kitchen. Evelyn pried her eyes off Martin and followed her mother down the hall. She felt sick. She sat down at the kitchen table. Judy was rambling on as she wiped the kitchen counter, her back to Evelyn.
“…and when we got to the deli counter, I wondered if maybe I should try the chorizo sausage instead of the fennel.”
Evelyn fiddled with a corner of a placemat and stared at Judy’s back.
“And Martin, gosh he’s so funny, he says to me, he says, ‘Well, why don’t you just try ’em both?’ and I laughed.” She paused to draw a ragged breath and then continued, “Because, I mean, chorizo and fennel? Together?”
Judy opened the oven door and bent under the weight of a large ceramic casserole dish.
“So then I turned to the woman behind the counter, and she knows I always get the fennel because I’ve been shopping there for, heck, must be going on fifteen years now! She’s the one I told you about, Evelyn, the one whose daughter-in-law—”
More coughing from the den. Judy raised her voice. “Whose daughter-in-law works in the City of Welland tax department, remember I told you? What was her name now, I can’t remember…” She stood at the table with one oven-mittened hand on her hip and the other on the lid of the casserole dish. “I can’t for the life of me think of her name…”
Evelyn knew the girl’s name was Caroline, but she didn’t say anything. She watched her mother stare off into space.
“Anyway,” said Judy. “Where was I?” She looked at Evelyn. Evelyn looked at her. Evelyn wanted to ask what that hideous slob was doing in Judy’s living room. Evelyn wanted to remind Judy of her self-righteous stance on lawn ornaments, mounted fish, and cigarette smoke.
From the den, above the roar of the television: a wet-sounding belch.
“Mom,” Evelyn said, “why is he wearing sunglasses in the house?”
“What, dear? Oh, I remember—the sausage!” Judy’s face came back to life. She lifted the lid, placed it on the counter, removed the oven mitts, and opened the fridge. “So I tried both! And you know something?” She turned back towards the table holding a bottle of white wine and a bowl of greens. “It actually works!” She laughed and put the wine and the greens on the table beside the casserole dish and the macaroni salad, then spun around to open the cutlery drawer.
“You bought wine?” asked Evelyn.
“Yes,” Judy said, rummaging for the corkscrew. “I thought we’d celebrate.” She found the corkscrew and reached up into the cupboard for wineglasses.
“Celebrate what?”
Judy handed Evelyn the corkscrew. “You’ll have to open it, dear,” Judy said. “I can never manage those things.”
Judy pulled her chair up to the table and sat down with a contented sigh.
Evelyn hadn’t moved.
“What’s the matter, did I not get you a glass?” Judy made a move to get up.
“No, Mom. Just sit. I’ve got one.”
“Well, then what are you waiting for, silly? Open the wine!”
“Isn’t he going to eat with us?”
“Who, Martin?” Judy laughed and made a face. “No, honey, Martin eats his dinner in front of the TV. I’ll fix him a plate when we’re done.” Judy reached for the salad. “These greens are those organic greens that you buy in the big plastic containers? You know the ones?”
“You let him eat in front of the TV?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Evelyn, honestly!”
Evelyn took a deep, uneven inhale and sighed.
Judy placed her fork on her plate and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “Evelyn, honey.” Her voice was quiet but firm. “Martin is a wonderful man.”
The silence between them seemed to draw the roar of the television down the hall and into the kitchen. Evelyn stared at her plate.
“These greens really are lovely,” Judy said, her voice back to its brusque, clipped tone. “Have you tried these before? I forget the brand name, but I’m sure you could find something similar in the city…”
More coughing from the den. Evelyn reached for the wine.
They left for the casino the next morning, right after breakfast. Judy drove because Martin was on migraine medication that prevented him from driving, although Evelyn noted that he was apparently still free to smoke cigarettes and suck back coffee from a Thermos. Evelyn sulked in the back seat.
After ten minutes on the highway, Martin fell asleep with his head pressed against the door, and his whistling and popping became groaning and choking.
“How does a man who drinks that much coffee fall asleep at ten a.m.?” she whispered at Judy.
Judy clamped her lips into a tight line and gave Evelyn a stern look in the rear view mirror. “I hope people are more understanding with you when you’re a senior citizen.”
“It’s a valid question, Mom. He’s had about three pots of coffee.”
“Evelyn, please!” Judy hissed. “Keep your voice down!”
Evelyn flung herself back in her seat and glared out the window.
“I think maybe someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Judy whispered. “That’s what I think.”
“I think that’s some crazy migraine medication, that’s what I think.”
“Young lady!”
Evelyn crossed her arms and slouched.
Judy read out loud the signs they passed. “Speed kills.” She laughed. “Well, you’ve got that right!” She smiled and winked at Evelyn in the rear view mirror. Evelyn rolled her eyes.
Evelyn had only one memory of her father. Or rather, she suspected it was a memory of her father, but the circumstances that unearthed the memory were such that Evelyn knew better than to ask Judy if she was right.
The memory came to her one February morning when she was on her way to work. It was early enough that it was still dark outside. She stopped to use a bank machine and saw a homeless man asleep on the floor inside the vestibule. A grimy baseball cap lay upside-down on the floor beside him. Someone had tossed in a crumpled five-dollar bill. Evelyn hesitated with her hand on the door, but when she stuck her bank card in the slot and the door buzzed, the man didn’t stir. Evelyn figured he was unconscious and wouldn’t be any trouble, so she pulled open the door and walked into a solid wall of stench. It was a mixture of urine, body odour, and the sharp musk of booze leeching through sweaty, unwashed skin. It stopped Evelyn in her tracks, door in hand, and made her throat close.
As she stood there trying to force air back into her lungs, Evelyn very clearly recalled being rocked to sleep in the arms of a man who was humming a lullaby with his lips pressed against her hair. She could feel the warmth of his breath on the top of her head, and the hair on his forearms against her cheek. She felt her body relax, and a wave of blissful sleepy-headedness washed over her so that she had to grip the door frame of the vestibule. A gust of frigid air blasted in through the open door and the homeless man’s five-dollar bill scuttled across the tile floor. He raised his swollen, dirty face and let loose a stream of obscenities that snapped Evelyn out of her reverie. She gasped and stepped backwards out of the vestibule, letting the door close, her mittened hands clamped over her mouth.
Evelyn was revisiting this memory in the back seat of Judy’s car when Martin snorted awake from his nap.
“I need the bathroom,” he said.
Judy glanced over at him. “You’re awake!”
Martin said, “I need to go.”
“In a minute, dear, there’s a truck stop with a doughnut shop just a couple of miles ahead.”
“Now!”
“I said in a minute, dear.”
Evelyn saw him dig his nails into window ledge of the car door. “Mom, maybe you should speed up.”
“I’m already doing two kilometres over the speed limit, Evelyn.”
“I think he really needs to go.”
“I’m quite aware of the situation, thank you very much.”
“Well then, why don’t you—”
“Evelyn!”
“Whoopsie-daisy,” Martin said.
Evelyn and Judy were silent.
“Whoopsie-daisy,” Martin said again, louder this time.
“Oh my god,” Evelyn said.
“Martin,” Judy said. “Have you had an accident?”
“I told you,” he said.
“Oh my god.” Evelyn held one hand over her nose and mouth and lowered her window with the other.
Judy tightened her grip on the steering wheel. When she’d sped up by another five kilometres, she snapped off the radio so she could concentrate. They drove on in silence, wind thundering through the open windows, hair whipping their cheeks. Martin held his ball cap on his head with one hand and clutched the car door with the other.
When they pulled into the crowded truck stop, Judy slowed down in the row immediately in front of the doughnut shop, looking for a spot.
“What are you doing?” Evelyn yelled. “You don’t have time to look for a spot—just park!”
“Well, I don’t want to walk in this heat.”
“Jesus, Mom, just park the car, will you?”
“Just park,” said Martin.
Judy let out a tight sigh and drove straight to the back row, where there were plenty of spots. Judy pulled into one, and Evelyn flung her door open before Judy had shut off the engine.
“Evelyn,” Judy yelled. “You can wait until the car has stopped!”
“I’m out of here.”
“You can wait for us!”
“For what?”
“Just wait!”
Martin was fumbling with the car door and trying to pull himself out. Judy hurried around to the passenger side to help him. Evelyn stood behind the car, facing the doughnut shop with her arms crossed. She wanted to disappear.
“Oh, dear,” Judy said. “Oh, Martin, I’m so sorry.”
Evelyn shook her head so that her hair hung down on either side of her face.
“Here,” Judy said to Martin. “Let’s see if we can get you cleaned up first.” Judy held open the back door and helped ease Martin into the seat. “Just lie down, sweetheart.”
“God, Mom, can’t you just take him to the bathroom!”
“Evelyn, he can’t do this alone, and I can’t go in there with him. Can you stop being so self-centred for once in your life and just help us!”
“He’s your boyfriend—you help him. I’m going for a walk.” Evelyn started to walk away.
“Evelyn!” Judy yelled so loud that there was an echo off the concrete, and some of the people milling around the front of the shop looked in their direction. Evelyn froze.
Judy stood up, planted her hands on her hips, and glared over the roof of the car at Evelyn. “I cannot believe how childish you’re being. You are a grown woman, Evelyn!”
Evelyn looked down at the pavement.
“There’s a towel in the trunk. Bring it over here and hold it up around me. I want to clean Martin up so he can at least walk inside with some dignity.” Judy bent back down and Evelyn heard Martin’s belt buckle jingle. She wanted to run, but instead she sighed and popped open the trunk.
When Judy had done what she could with the road map, she walked over to the doughnut shop to steal a roll of toilet paper from the restroom. That left Evelyn alone with Martin, who was in an excessively awkward position. Evelyn held the beach towel aloft and stared at the cars out on the highway.
“Let me up,” Martin demanded in a wobbly voice.
“Who’s stopping you?”
“Where’s Judy?”
“She’s in the bathroom.”
Martin considered this. Then he said, “I didn’t mean to end up like…for it to happen like this.”
“What do you mean?” Evelyn felt nervous. She didn’t like how Martin was suddenly earnest and communicative. “You mean how you made a mess?”
“Yeah.”
She wanted him to stop talking.
Martin kept at it. “I didn’t mean for any of this to—”
Evelyn cut him off. “Never mind!”
“I tried to do the right thing, but I just—”
“Try harder next time, will you?” Evelyn said.
“I did try.”
“Well, try harder.”
Evelyn was relieved to spot Judy picking her way around the cars. Evelyn watched her and thought about how Judy so rarely lost her temper or faltered in her cheery act. After all the years and all the loneliness she must have felt, she was still always plucky and determined. Evelyn thought it a shame that Judy had made all that effort to remain upbeat in order to end up here, like this, with Martin. She wished she could be proud of her mother, but instead, watching her stride purposefully towards the car with a roll of toilet paper tucked under her arm, Evelyn felt only disappointment and pity.
“Everything okay here?” Judy asked.
Evelyn dropped the beach towel. “You tell me,” she said. “Does it look okay to you?”
Judy pursed her lips and stepped past Evelyn. Evelyn raised the beach towel up again and went back to watching the cars on the highway.
“Here, sweetheart,” Judy murmured. “We’re almost done.”
“Judy?” Martin warbled. “Judy, I can’t.”
“Sh-sh-sh,” Judy whispered. “You’re going to be fine, Martin.”
“I don’t…I can’t do this!”
“Just don’t think about it, darlin’. Right now, we’ve just got one thing to deal with, and that’s this, and I’m helping you. One thing at a time. Okay? We’re almost done.”
Evelyn had heard that very same speech from Judy innumerable times growing up. All the nights Judy sat up with Evelyn at the kitchen table until way past bedtime so that Evelyn could practice her multiplication tables. It made Evelyn sick to hear Judy use those words—Evelyn’s words—on that horrid mess of a man.
“I tried to tell her, Jude,” Martin was crying.
“Oh, Martin, not now…”
“I tried to tell her—”
“Martin, stop it!” Judy snapped. Her hands were shaking as she pulled Martin’s pants from the car door and fed his limp, bare feet through the leg holes. His socks were in a ball beneath the car with his underwear. “Now roll over and pull up your pants.”
Martin heaved and grunted. The car shook. Judy straightened up and turned to Evelyn. Evelyn looked down and busied herself with folding the beach towel. “Let’s go if we’re going,” she said. She walked around to the open trunk and tossed in the towel.
“I need my coffee,” Martin said.
“All right, Martin. Enough,” said Judy.
Evelyn recognized the opportunity to escape. “Fine,” she said, walking towards the driver’s-side door so she could reach his Thermos. “How does he take it?”
She stood up and turned the Thermos over in her hand. Some of the letters had worn off.
Dale M. Pr t ectrical—We ight up y r life
“Tell them to fill it up only halfway,” Judy was saying. “He takes it black.”
There was a ringing in Evelyn’s ears that made everything sound far away. Her scalp felt tingly. She walked away without a word, gripping the Thermos so tightly that the skin on the back of her hand felt like it would split. She didn’t ask if Judy wanted anything, and she didn’t care. Evelyn knew Judy would say, “No, thank you,” even though she really wanted a cruller. Evelyn knew that the Thermos would stink of booze even though Judy would insist that it didn’t. Evelyn knew everything, and she thought it ironic that this should feel as though she was losing her mind.
The kid behind the counter jerked his head back and wrinkled his nose at the smell of the Thermos. He eyed Evelyn over his shoulder as he poured the coffee.
“Is that everything?” he asked warily as he handed her the half-full Thermos.
“Sure as hell better be,” said Evelyn. She tossed the money on the counter, slapped the lid on the Thermos, and walked out of the doughnut shop towards her family.