Belly (19 page)

“I don’t have any,” she said.

“Jesus, why not?”

“Can’t afford to get it fixed.”

“Get your sister to pay, maybe.”

“She’s already giving me money for school, as you know.”

He rolled his window all the way down. “I meant Nora.”

“She doesn’t have any extra,” said Eliza. “They’re paying out all this money to Gene to fix the house.”

“They pay him for that?”

“Of course, you think he just fixes stuff for free?”

Belly looked at his hands. “Yes,” he said. “I did.”

Eliza shook her head. “They’re getting ready to put on an addition, for the new baby. King will need his own room and they
only have the three bedrooms, and with you there, that means they need more. They’ve got to fix it up according to the design
guidelines, you know, whatever those historic preservation people say.”

“Maybe we know somebody at City Hall who can get them around all that rigamarole. I can make a call.”

“Oh, Daddy, don’t even say things like that. You know you don’t have friends there anymore.”

He stared out the window.

“Anyway,” Eliza said. “I’m not going to need a car in Ala-bama. It’s just a little town. I can walk to everything. It’s kind
of like Saratoga used to be.” Belly rolled his window back up. “I was thinking of leaving the car with Ann and Bonnie, so
they could get out of the city.”

“Great,” he said. “Then they can come up here all the time. Go ahead and make my life miserable.”

“Well, I don’t know that Ann would come up here, anyway.”

“I thought you said she was coming for the confirmation, instead of you. Wasn’t that the bargain?”

“Well, yes, I thought maybe she would, but I talked to her tonight and I think she’s not going to.” She turned up the vent.
“I think it was the e-mail you sent her.”

“I asked her to come. That’s all I said. I said we should try and keep the family together and she should come here.” He loosened
his seatbelt. “I told her I missed her,” he said quietly. His heart rate increased, he had trouble breathing, and he told
himself if he cried again he would smash his own face in. He pretended he was his father, silencing him with the old equation:
one punch for every tear, you little weakling.

“It freaked her out, I guess. First of all, she didn’t even know you knew how to use e-mail. She’s never even gotten a letter
from you in her life.”

“That is not true. I sent her a letter once, when she went to college. I even apologized.”

“That was when you went to AA for a month and you apologized to every person you’d ever met. You didn’t mean it.”

“Well, I meant it this time. I just asked her to come visit, but forget it. I don’t care if I never see her again, if that’s
what she’s like.”

“She might come or she might not. She’s deciding.”

“Jesus!” Belly banged his fist on the dashboard. “You’re all so ungrateful. Every one of you.” Every time he blinked he saw
Darren and his daughter, the wreck, the shoes, the car as it fumbled into Congress Park and landed with the front end in the
water, burned strips of metal convulsed into strange silver sculptures on the ground. He propped his eyelids open with his
pointer fingers. “Your mother leaves you and you forgive her, and all I do is send this nice e-mail thing and you all turn
against me.”

“Nobody’s against you. We’re all for you. We all, you know, we forgive you as much as we can. Mom was drunk, but she —” Eliza
stopped. “She was never mean.”

“I wasn’t mean.”

“She never hit us,” Eliza said softly.

And what could he say? She got him. It seemed like that was another man, an episode of
Cops,
someone else’s life or body or mind. It wasn’t he who hit these girls, his lovely daughters, it was a phantom, an invasion,
body snatchers. What could he say?

“Mom didn’t leave us, you know,” Eliza continued. “We knew she was leaving. She told all of us, and asked if we wanted to
come.”

“What? She tried to turn you against me?”

“No, not at all. She just said she needed to get out and that she was going to Stillwater and we could come, but we wanted
to finish high school in the same place.” She took a deep breath. “And, frankly, by that time Mom was getting sober and we
were more worried about you. We wanted to keep an eye on you. We wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Oh, right, you did it for me.”

“I told you we shouldn’t talk about it.”

“You’re making that up. To make yourself feel better. But I don’t blame you. If my mother walked out on me I’d make up all
kinds of lies about it, too. Good job. Very creative. You’re so creative, Eliza.”

She looked for a minute like she was going to cry, and Belly sat back smug, a vague sense of accomplishment rapidly fading
to regret.

Then Eliza said, “Did they give you shaving cream in prison? Could you have razors?”

He looked at the window.

“I was just wondering. About things like that.”

“Under supervision,” he said. “You used razors under supervision.”

“Oh, Daddy,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Whatever,” he said.

“Did you use those meditation tapes I sent you?”

“My Walkman broke,” he lied.

“You poor thing. How did you listen to music?”

“Oh, there was the heavy percussion of guys banging their tin cups on the bars.”

“No, really.”

“Really.”

“It wasn’t like that, Belly. It was federal prison.”

“How do you know what it was like? Did you ever come down to see me?”

“I sent you things.”

“Right.”

They passed the dump again, and he noticed no putrid smell rising from the grassy knolls of garbage, and he wondered at all
the changes and technology and how they could keep a landfill from stinking and how they could get the whole town to come
out to a Wal-Mart on a Thursday night and what had happened here?

“You know, I just couldn’t make it all the way to Pennsylvania with Audrey and everything.”

“Who’s Audrey?”

“My dog, Belly. You met her yesterday.”

“Right. The dog.”

“She needs insulin shots twice a day, and Henry has his very strict diet.”

“The only vegan on the Atkins diet. That’s all much more important than visiting your father in prison.”

“Yes,” she said. “But Nora always told me about it. And Ann. She told Ann, too.”

“Who cares about Ann? Apparently she doesn’t like it when her old man’s nice to her.” He rubbed a smudge on the car window.

“Ann was glad to hear about you, though. Bonnie gave her the full report.”

“What does that mean?”

“All that stuff Bonnie was asking you.”

“What about it?”

Eliza glanced at him for a minute before looking back at the road. They drove by the other big Catholic church in town, St.
Xavier’s, and the little city park called the East Side Rec—the “poor man’s park” to townies—and it was dark now but still
the air was suffocating. All the marijuana had evaporated and no more beer circled in his veins.

“That was all stuff Ann wanted to know. She was getting the scoop for Ann.”

Belly said, “Oh,” and he wanted to know more but then again he didn’t, and he leaned his head against the plate glass and
watched the town roll on by.

“I’m leaving tomorrow, Belly.”

“I know.”

She squeezed his hand but he made his fingers limp.

“You can come down and visit me if you want. You and Nora and the boys. We can have a family vacation.”

“Right.”

“It’ll be just like Florida,” she said, and when she smiled he saw for the first time tiny crow’s feet stretching from the
corners of her eyes.

Belly said, “Sure it will,” and he patted her shoulder.

“How did you meet Loretta, anyway?” Eliza asked him. “I never figured out that part of the mystery.”

Belly sighed. “After your mother left, I just spent more and more time at the bar and Loretta starting coming in there—she
was dating the bouncer, you remember him, that kind of fat Malazzi kid? She used to like big guys before me. Goombahs. And
I just noticed her after all those years of not really looking at her.”

“That is such… .” She hesitated, then said quietly, “Bullshit.”

“What’s bullshit about it?”

“You were seeing Loretta years before Mom left.”

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were.”

“I absolutely was not.”

“Oh my God.” Eliza pulled over.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m having a heart attack.” She put her hand on her chest. “Belly, you are going to drive us all mad.”

“Drive the car.”

“Just give me a minute.”

“Drive, dammit.”

“Are you honestly telling me that you didn’t start seeing Loretta until after Mom left? I mean, honestly you’re telling me
that, but what I want to know is if that’s what you actually believe, because if you believe yourself you are in some serious
trouble. I mean, go ahead and lie to me, but don’t delude yourself like that. That is just scary.”

“Will you drive the car, please? Will you please drive the car?” He pounded his fist on the dashboard again, and this time
a small whitish indentation formed in the aging gray plastic.

“I’m driving, I’m driving.” She pulled back on the road. “Don’t worry. You’ll be out of here in five minutes.”

“I have a minor fear of small, enclosed spaces. You can imagine.”

Eliza turned onto East Avenue, the line between the old and new parts of town, and kept looking at her father out of the corner
of her eye. “Well?” she asked him. “What about it?”

It was Loretta he craved, Loretta he loved, Loretta who reaped the profits from his life-on-the-side, Loretta whose rabbit-fur
coat and designer clothes he financed with the betting, Loretta who hid out in the apartment above the bar while he still
lived with his family on Phila Street, who waited for him every afternoon with open arms and a flat stomach and breasts that
called him awake, Loretta who delivered the weekly winnings and skimmed her share off the top. Even after tragedy carved a
deep scar in their connection, he wanted her.

“I did not start seeing Loretta until after your mother left.”

“Then why was Darren picking my sister up after dance class that day? Weren’t you with Loretta that afternoon?”

Belly opened the door and a rush of hot air blew in.

“Christ, Dad, shut that, shut the door. What the hell are you doing?”

“Stop the car. Stop the car. I’m getting out.”

“Stop it, Belly,” Eliza screamed. “Close the door. You’re going to kill yourself.”

“Pull the fuck over,” he said. She stopped the car on the corner of Spring and East Avenue and Belly stepped out into the
blistering night. He slammed the door and headed down his daughter’s street and he hummed that Dixieland tune hovering in
the back of his fading memory, just grabbed the notes from the ether to keep from thinking about anything. He did not want
one single thought to circulate through his brain. He wanted a drink and that was the only thing in the whole world that he
desired.

H
e sneaked in the front door of Nora’s house and walked through the living room and TV room to the kitchen. Nora had replenished
his Piels supply. Voices wafted in from the side porch and he peered through the screen door to see Nora and Eliza surrounded
by a halo: Nora was smoking a cigarette, a lit one. Their voices rose and fell like a mountain range. He shouldn’t listen,
he knew he shouldn’t listen, but he stood with his shoulders pressed against the doorjamb and he sipped his beer and eavesdropped.

“He didn’t even have deodorant,” he heard Eliza say.

“He can get that stuff himself. He can walk to the Rite Aid,” said Nora.

“It’s not there anymore. They tore it down.”

“Whatever,” Nora said. “Menges and Curtis is still there. He’s a grown man.”

“Nora, I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”

“Listen, you can criticize me when you take him in. Let’s see what happens when he gets old and decrepit and needs his diapers
changed. Let’s see who takes care of him then.”

Belly took another beer from the fridge and downed it in one desperate slug and opened another, slowly, so they wouldn’t hear
the pop.

“I would, Nora. I would take him in but you insisted.”

“You’re leaving, Eliza. You’re leaving and you always knew you would, so don’t pretend to be the saint.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What a coincidence that you’ve decided to go back to school just after Belly gets back. I wonder how that happened?”

“This has nothing to do with Belly. This is about me, about my marriage going downhill and about my art. If you don’t want
me to go, I won’t go. Say the word and I’ll stay here and help you with Belly. With the kids.”

“No. Don’t. I’m sorry. I don’t mean anything. I’m tired. It’s a stressful time and I’m saying things I don’t mean. I’m happy
to take care of him. I have the room, I already have the chaos. What’s one more child?”

They both laughed.

“Well, it’s true,” Eliza said. “You have the bigger house. And after you’re done with the renovations you can sell this place
for a mint and get a nice big place in Geyser Crest with a real yard and a bigger driveway and you can park all your SUVs
there.”

“What are you talking about? I wouldn’t sell this place.”

Belly took out beer number four.

“Oh, I just figured you’d rather live in the ’burbs,” said Eliza. “You always seemed to aspire to that traditional sort of
life.”

“You know what? We’re trying to fix this place up, all right? I realize I am now surrounded on all sides by rich people who
are making Spring Street look like Main Street at Disneyland, but I can’t quite keep up. It’s hard when your husband works
a million hours and you have three little kids. But of course you wouldn’t know about that.”

“That’s what happens, I guess, when you have that ’50s life. The housewife thing and all.”

“Fuck you, Eliza.”

“Don’t talk to me that way, Nora. I’m your sister.”

“Don’t give me that high-and-mighty crap. You’re not any better than me.”