The Railroad (11 page)

“It’s not like I thought you give a shit where I was,” she said from below me.

I turned. “What?”

“Do you think I don’t know that you don’t want us here? So I went out to try to do something nice for you and now Megan is crying.” She gestured toward my ratty flower bed where she’d planted some seeds that she must have found somewhere in the bowels of chez Moosehead.

She grabbed Megan’s hand, suddenly, and hustled past me into the house. I stood staring at the door, wondering how I’d suddenly become a villain. While I pondered what to do I heard the guest bedroom door slam.

*
       Twenty minutes later, I knocked on the door. “Can I talk to you?”

Megan made a horse noise. Silence followed.

“Hello?”

The door opened. Megan was looking at the floor. Eileen gave me a cool stare.

“I just wanted to apologize. I got worried about you and Megan wouldn’t even...”

“Megan is just a little girl. You can’t expect adult behavior from her. I guess you haven’t been around children much.”

“That’s probably true. But I...”

“I know that I owe you. But please, for the short time we’re here; don’t ever scream at my daughter again. She’s been through enough. I hope you can manage to respect that.”

I felt the righteous indignation that had driven me out the night before ooze out of me like blood from a wound. I felt like a piece of shit. Eileen must have realized that fact. She simply smirked and closed the door.

*

The door remained closed for the next hour or so and all my staring at it didn’t make it open. I stewed angrily, turning the TV up just a bit too loud to show my disdain. What followed was a bit of mental ping pong; one moment I felt like a monster for yelling at a child; the next I felt angry and unconcerned; at least I told myself that. The mental gymnastics were fueled by a few glasses of single malt which also was an expression of my disdain. What I found was that disdain doesn’t work well when there is no one to see it.

After I calmed down I came to the reasonable conclusion that, even though I was being an asshole to Megan, I was also being asked to deal with a lot. Even if I’d been a well-adjusted person, having Megan in the house would be a trial. I vowed to myself that I’d simply stay away from her. When she got difficult, I’d go to my room or leave the house. If staying in a motel once in a while would help me maintain my sanity, that was what I’d do despite how much I’d resent being pushed out of my own house.

There was still enough guilt floating around to make me feel uncomfortable, especially with the source of that guilt only yards away. Sighing, I decided that it would be best for me to leave again until things became less strained. This time I had the wisdom to pack a small bag in case I decided that I simply wanted to take a room in the Holiday Inn where I was sure I’d be drinking.

*

I went out that night and the next few nights after that. I drank, I ate, and I had some meaningless conversations. Sometimes I drank alone. It was fine with me. There were moments when I almost wanted to thank my boarders; they’d gotten me out of the house and I felt a lot less depressed getting up with my hangovers in a hotel room than I did at home. There was breakfast right down stairs and the décor was a lot better than at chez Moosehead. I considered that I might find a cheap hotel deal and spend at least half my time there.

Leaving them alone didn’t bother me quite as much since I had the bright idea of giving them my number at the hotel; I’d hear of any disaster within minutes. I’d stumble home every couple of days and take grocery orders and that covered the essentials. All in all it wasn’t a bad lifestyle considering my alcoholism and severe neurosis.

I came home one evening, about 5 days into my new hotel binge, and found that neither Eileen nor Megan was there. In a panic, I searched the whole house, the backyard and the surrounding area and couldn’t find them.

There was no sign of violence or forced entry and the door was locked. I doubted that if Eileen’s husband had found her that she would have let him in. Or the police; they would have had to break down the door as well. I took another look around the house, hoping that I’d find some evidence of what had happened to them. All their belongings were still in the bedroom, looking pretty much like they hadn’t packed up and left. I couldn’t decide whether that was a good or bad sign; they might have had to leave suddenly and leave everything behind, perhaps against their will. Or it might have meant that they hadn’t left in a hurry and that there was no crisis.

Another fifteen minutes of thought didn’t bring me any closer to a conclusion. I stared out the window a few times, hoping that I’d hear their voices or see the lights of a car. After a few minutes of that I returned to the backyard hoping that they’d be out there.

I ran out of hope after that. I knew I couldn’t call the police so I just had to sit there with my worry. It hit me suddenly that they might be gone for good and that I’d have no way to look for them or get the authorities involved to help find them. I cursed myself for being away so long and then cursed both of them for putting me in this position in the first place.

I paced around for a while longer until I decided to give up. I wasn’t responsible for them and they might have had a good reason to leave, I told myself. It made me feel only slightly better.

*

A few hours later I was awakened from a light sleep by the sound of knocking. I bolted up from the couch and took stock of my surroundings, disoriented. I realized that I’d fallen asleep on the couch with the TV on, and that I was in my living room and that someone was knocking at the door.

My heart beat wildly as I walked to the door imagining the worst: that the police had found Eileen and Megan and had come to talk to me. Or that her husband had somehow found out that she was in my house. My fears spiraled out of control as I walked those few steps to the door.

Through the peephole I saw the two of them, bundled up in layers of clothing. I jerked the door open. For a moment Eileen and I stared at each other. Her eyes widened as she saw me with my hair all askew and my eyes wild with fear.

“Can we come in?” she asked finally.

I listened to my heartbeat slow. “Of course,” I said backing out of the way.

As they walked in I noticed that Eileen’s hand was under her daughter’s arm; the child was walking slowly. “What’s wrong with her?” I hissed.

Eileen barely gave me a glance. “She’s sick.”

“Where the hell have you been?” I shouted.

Eileen spun around. “Shut up! She doesn’t need to hear you screaming!”

They moved away from me toward the bedroom. Without thinking I followed, watching as Eileen removed Megan’s coat and helped her into bed, clothes and all. I could see that the girl was shivering.

“Oh god,” I whispered.

“You don’t need to get involved,” Eileen said without looking at me.

“What’s wrong with her?”

 “Strep.”

“Oh shit. We have to get her to a doctor.”

“She’s already been to one.”

“What?” I gasped.
“She’s seen a doctor. You don’t need to worry.”

“How did you go to a doctor?”

She pulled the covers up to Megan’s neck, and then stroked her head. Finally she looked up at me. “She had to see a doctor.”

I shook my head. “Didn’t he ask questions? Didn’t you have to tell him who you are? Did you use your credit card?”

“I have some cash for emergencies.”

“He’s still…” I struggled for the term I’d learned from a friend’s sister who was a social worker. “He’s a mandated reporter. He’d have to report you to the police.”

She snorted. “It’s a she. And she isn’t reporting anything.”

“Why not? You can’t be sure of that.”

She stood up and gestured me out of the room. “We have to let her sleep.”

I walked out in front of her and went to the couch. She stood in front of me looking down. “You don’t need to worry about this. Or about anything. Just to calm you down, I’ll tell you that she started getting delirious and I got worried. I found the name of a woman’s shelter in the phone book and took a cab there.”

“Weren’t you worried about the cab driver recognizing you?”

“Mike, sometimes you’re an asshole. I had no choice. And we were bundled up. We both had scarves over our heads. I went to the shelter and told them my story. Most of them knew who I was from the papers. They got a doctor to come to us.”

“What did she say?”

“That Megan has strep. She gave us some pills and…well. Not that I have any place to go but you’ll have to put up with us for another week or so until she gets better.”

I stared past her into the bedroom; Megan’s breathing was somewhat labored. “Oh God. I’m sorry,” I said lamely.

She shrugged. “I’m grateful to you for giving us a place to stay. You’re not responsible beyond that.”

I felt like a piece of shit; I just stared at her. “I’m going to see how she’s doing,” she muttered.

“Is there anything I can get for her?”

“No,” she answered as she closed the door.

Chapter Six

The next morning found me with a hangover. There was no way I was going to fight the guilt I felt the night before; I’d found it impossible to relax. Sleep finally came after about a half a bottle of bourbon.

I stumbled out of bed to find Eileen and Megan on the couch. Eileen was sitting up. Her daughter had her head in her lap and was staring listlessly at the TV. Her breathing was better than the night before but I still heard some wheezing. Eileen looked up as I came out; Megan continued to stare at the kid’s program she was watching.

“Is she okay?” I asked, trying to keep the sound of guilt out of my voice. Despite feeling responsible for what had happened, I still felt some resentment that this responsibility had been foisted on me. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of knowing how I felt.

“A little better,” Eileen said simply. She turned away.

For some reason I felt the need to
do something.
“Uh…does she need any special kind of medicine?”

“We got medicine last night.”

“Well that’s doctor medicine. I mean something to make her more comfortable.”

“I gave her aspirin. It’s bringing the fever down. I don’t think there’s much more that I can do for her.”

I nodded, trying to pull some information from the dustbin of my brain. It was while I was downing a Hot Pocket to calm my queasy stomach that it came to me. I went into the bedroom and put on some proper outside clothes.

Eileen looked up as I went to the door. “I’ll be back in a second,” I told her. She just nodded and I doubted she believed me.

An hour and a half later I walked through the door with one arm wrapped around a giant plastic bag and the other holding a much smaller bag. Eileen stared at me but said nothing. I put the big bag down on the floor by the dining room table. Then I went into the kitchen with the smaller bag. I put water in a mug I took from the cabinet and then went to work. I pulled some bags of herbs out of the small bag and placed a small portion of the contents of each bag into a tea ball that I’d bought years before. Then I filled the mug with water and placed it in the microwave. In a minute and a half the water was heated and in went the tea ball.

I’ll admit that I was letting the suspense build; I knew that Eileen would be more than curious. Once the herb mixture had steeped for a while, I took the cup to the dining room table. With a flourish I pulled the big bag off the floor and pulled it off of whatever was inside it, revealing a giant stuffed gorilla with a doctor’s coat and a stethoscope. Then I picked up the steaming cup with my free hand and went to stand in front of the couch.

Eileen stared openly. Megan moved her head slightly to look at me and the gorilla.

“Does Megan have any immune system problems?” I asked.

Eileen’s eyes widened. “No.”

“Okay. There’s Echinacea in this.” I leaned forward. “Megan, I know I’ve been out a lot but now all of my time is going to be spent making you better. Is that okay?”

The only reaction was a slight turning of the head. “Okay. This is the doctor.” I placed the gorilla in Eileen’s lap so that it was sitting up and facing Megan. “Now the doctor wants you to drink this. It’ll make you feel better. Less pain. You may want to sleep but that’s okay.”

“What’s in it?” Eileen asked.

“My cousin is a homeopathist. I know what you’re thinking. I thought she was a nut until I had a really bad cold and she bugged me until I drank this. Then I found out what was in it.” I handed it to her. “Let Megan drink it slowly. It probably doesn’t taste that good so I might have to get her some soda.”

Eileen looked at me and at the cup, weighing the situation. Then she shrugged and stood up, guiding her daughter into a sitting position. Kneeling before Megan she put her hand behind her head. “Take a sip, baby, slowly.”

Megan didn’t seem very interested in the proceedings but did what her mother asked. Twenty minutes later Megan was lying drowsily against her mother's side, clearly sleepy, but more alert. She seemed interested in the show she was watching. I was in a kitchen chair a couple of feet from Eileen, watching the little girl. Ten minutes later, Megan was sleeping, her breath not at all labored, her body relaxed.

Eileen spent the next few minutes stealing glances at her daughter, a confused look on her face. Then she turned to me and gave me an odd look. “You’re a strange man, Mike.”

“I won’t argue.”

She nodded. Then she chuckled softly and shook her head.

*

I’d bought a good supply of the herbs; they carried us through a few more days. By then Megan showed signs of recovering. She’d get tired after a few hours of being awake but she was a lot more involved in what was going on. When Eileen was tired or needed a break, I’d sit with Megan. After the first few times, Megan put her head on my lap and fell asleep.

About five days later Megan had recovered completely. To my complete surprise I found that I was expected to let her lie on my lap for at least two hours a day, despite the fact that she wasn’t sick anymore. This was her idea, not her mother’s, and not mine.

As much as I had detested the little brat only a couple of weeks before, I found that with her on my lap I became sleepy and more relaxed than I had in months. After a while I had my appointed “lap hour”, usually during one particular kid’s show that was in syndication and was on seven days a week. I was shocked by the whole thing, but stopped examining it after a couple of days.

*

One day I was about to sit down on the couch in preparation for the lap hour, when Megan stopped me, “Could you make me hot chocolate? With milk please?”

I was taken aback. Where had this polite child come from? “Okay,” I answered. From the corner I noticed her mother staring at both of us. Something told me that this wasn’t something that needed to be analyzed so I went with the flow and made the hot chocolate without any comment. When I came back, Megan directed me to put the cup on the lovely scarred coffee table I’d bought years before. She got on the floor and waited until I sat down. Then she leaned back on my legs and took small sips of the hot chocolate while she watched the show.

*

Morning brought a breakfast filled with bad food and silly little girl games. Lunch saw us playing one of the many board games I’d stocked up on over the years, many of which I had stored there once my mother decided to clean out her basement. Megan got to the point where she would announce what our daily activities would be and demand that we participate. It was a nap at eleven, lunch at 12:30, a game of operation at two, a movie at four. If I plead tiredness, she’d drag me from the couch to the floor where we’d set up our games. I actually found myself sleeping less and getting up earlier. Even the alcohol seemed to be taking a back seat to family-hood.

One night shortly before Eileen was to make her next call to
The
Railroad
, she gave me a pretty elaborate shopping list. She was going to make her famous Veal Oscar. She fussed over the list for a half an hour and finally, grudgingly, relinquished it to me. Megan looked wistfully at me as I left the house, though I couldn’t tell whether she missed me or if she wanted to take a ride and get out of confinement.

Something happened that night. I suppose that it shouldn’t have seemed so strange; the sexual tension between Eileen and I had been growing for days and we were almost never out of each other’s sight. It started out rather innocently; Megan made herself busy with a show that she watched each night at 6 and Eileen and I worked in the kitchen. We sipped at some wine I had bought, something that, contrary to my earlier purchases, had a cork.

After a glass each we were at the height of silliness, throwing little pieces of food at each other, hiding kitchen implements that the other needed, singing songs too loudly. Megan even came in one time to stare archly at us, as if she wasn’t sure she approved of her mother’s behavior. Then she just walked back out to the living room and watched her show.

It was the mushrooms that did it. Mushrooms, for the uninitiated, are the funniest of foods. They look phallic and they make excellent missiles. I was cutting up some onions when I felt a resounding
phung
on the back of my head.

“Score!” Eileen shouted, waving here spatula in victory.

“Your child is going to come in here and she’s going to be disappointed in you.”

“Nothing new there.”

We both stood in silence as the importance of what she’d just said hit us. But somehow it didn’t set either of us into a permanent funk. Eileen began singing to the small boom box I had in the kitchen. It was some “Hits of the sixties” thing I’d bought for a dollar at a local flea market. Jay and the American’s "Come a Little Bit Closer"
had come on and Eileen began to belt it out while dancing to the tune. When I joined her, she sneered at my singing voice and turned up the music.

“Turn it down, Mom!” a voice shouted from the other room. “I can’t hear anything!”

Eileen, seemingly drunker than I thought, responded oddly by dancing to the kitchen door and closing it. “I want to sing!” she told me, smiling somewhat idiotically.

We began an odd ballet. We were sharing various kitchen implements and when one of us put one down, the other would inevitably come to get it. The first few times it happened we were sober and graceful enough to avoid collision. Finally, it happened.

I had leaned over her shoulder to get something from the counter when she turned around and banged into me. I staggered back against the sink and managed to recover myself. “My, you’re delicate,” she told me, her face very pink.

“And you are a klutz.”

“Oooh! Big New York word. Klutz.” She let it roll off her tongue. “Not a word I grew up with. We don’t say such words in the suburbs.”

“Well I never go to a mall.”

“Oh! Touché!”

We smiled at each other for a moment, and then went back to cooking. The next time she came back to the counter for a knife, I gently backhanded her across the mid-section without looking around. She stumbled back and caught herself on the sink just as I had. Her eyes showed theatrical mock-astonishment. “You are a violent man!” she screeched. I turned around and was immediately pelted with another mushroom. I shook my knife at her but continued working on cutting broccoli.

It degenerated into a game then; each of us would get a nudge from the other when we went toward the counter which would immediately be followed by the victim lobbing some piece of food at the other. Finally it degenerated into a food fight.

When Megan finally came in there were pieces of broccoli sticking to the walls and floors. Mushrooms were lying in the mixing bowls, perched on the top of the refrigerator, in the sink. We were both panting and laughing. Megan looked from one to the other, her eyes widening. “What are you doing?”

“Cooking,” I answered simply. Then both her mother and I began to laugh.

“You’re both drunk!” the little girl observed, horror dripping from her words. This made us laugh even more. The door slammed suddenly and she was gone.

“I guess we aren’t being nice,” I pointed out.

“True,” Eileen agreed.

Then we began to giggle again. After about five minutes of that we went back to cooking.

For a time things seemed to have returned to normal when, out of the blue, Eileen took another swat at me as I walked by to get a garlic crush. I staggered back for a second and then stood back up and launched a poke in her side. I guess between the wine and my flush of excitement, I used a little too much force; she backpedaled and seemed in danger of falling.

I grabbed her without thinking and pulled her toward me. That was the end.

She stared up at me, her hair across her face, looking very vulnerable and frazzled in an appealing way. We locked eyes that way for a moment and then we were kissing.

What can you say about a kiss like that? I had just come from months of self-exile. She had started her journey into an unknown future after what might have been years of fear and self-loathing. Everything went into that kiss. When it was over it left both of us shaken and frightened.

“Oh god,” Eileen said.

Half an hour later I walked out of the kitchen carrying the salad. The rest of the food was already on the table. Eileen was drinking coffee and wearing a prim and controlled expression. I wondered if there was red creeping into my face.

I spent the next hour using Megan as a barometer, stealing glances at her to see if she had noticed anything. Sometimes I thought I saw an odd set to her jaw but that could have been guilt coloring my judgment.

Eileen and I did our best not to look at each other. Occasionally our eyes would brush, and we’d immediately look away. To my relief, Megan spent most of the hour discussing the ins and outs of the TV show she’d just watched. I nodded appreciatively and managed to throw in a remark once in a while. Her mother did the same; things seemed to be okay and I felt myself relax.

I had allowed myself a glass of wine, thinking that the heat was off. Then Megan asked me if I was sick.

“What?” I countered, immediately suspecting that something was wrong.