The Rules of Survival (13 page)

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Authors: Nancy Werlin

BOOK: The Rules of Survival
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“Oh,” I said. It was all I could say. “Oh.”
We sat awhile in silence.
“I’ll think about it all,” Murdoch said. “I don’t know how yet, but I’ll figure something out.” His voice was calm. “Just give me some time—oh, and your father’s and your aunt’s phone numbers. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. But to hear that he needed time and phone numbers wasn’t what I had expected. Disappointment filled me.
I had expected him to
do
something.
26
 
PROPERTY
 
I managed to slip into school late without much trouble. I could forge a decent please-excuse-Matthew note from Nikki whenever I needed to. But I was unable to concentrate that day in my classes. It was as if there was urgent music playing in my head:
What will happen? What will happen now?
What would Murdoch do? All I knew for sure was that he wasn’t going to call state Social Services, because I insisted on that. “I don’t think too highly of them, actually,” was what Murdoch had said, to my relief. “They’ll be a last resort, but only that.” I told him that Aunt Bobbie and Ben were useless, but he shook his head. “I’ll meet them and judge for myself,” he said. And so, I let him overrule my doubt. I wondered what he would say to them. I wondered how soon he would come back to me and tell me they were useless after all. Would he insist on Social Services after that? Or would he
do
something? My stomach churned.
It didn’t feel normal at home that afternoon, even though I did my best to suppress what I was thinking and feeling. Callie was preoccupied. It turned out that Nikki had been right about her. (She had gotten her first period. I didn’t really want to know this, Emmy. You were the one who told me.) She was suffering from stomach cramps and was more sullen than I’d have believed possible; she spent the afternoon lying on her bed reading an Agatha Christie—although I never saw her turn a page—and I couldn’t get a single civil word out of her. You, meanwhile, had turned headstrong and talkative. You were the one who was worried about Murdoch that afternoon, the one who quizzed me about whether or not I’d seen him and if he was all right. And—it turned out—you were the one I had to be most careful with.
I didn’t want to tell even Callie about what Murdoch had said. Anyway, she was impossible to talk to while she was in this female mood of hers. So I hoarded the information and the hope. “Murdoch’s okay, it was Rob that got hurt, like we thought,” I said to you and Callie. I didn’t even mention the smashed truck windows; I didn’t want to make a long conversation out of it. When you kept on with your questions, I said, “Look, Em, that’s all I know,” and I pretended to do homework. But like Callie with her mystery novel, I didn’t turn many pages of my textbook about the Civil War.
“Can we call him?” you persisted, after a few minutes. “I need to talk to him.”
“No. He’s going away for a few days. He already left,” I lied. “He’s fine,” I added.
“But I want to see him,” you wailed.
“Too bad,” I said, under my breath. I don’t think you heard me. I debated telling you again not to talk about Murdoch in front of Nikki. I knew it would have to be done. But not now, I thought. Not without Callie to help.
I stared down at my history book. April, 1862. Battle of Shiloh. Tens of thousands of men died. Thirteen thousand of them were Union soldiers; eleven thousand were Confederate. I read the same paragraph over and over but I couldn’t seem to remember the numbers for more than a few seconds.
I found myself wondering again about Julie the neighbor—was she really Murdoch’s new girlfriend? Or a more casual friend? I tried telling myself it didn’t matter; that what mattered was Murdoch’s promise to help us. And as I thought about that, I realized that I believed it: Julie wasn’t important. If it wasn’t Julie with Murdoch, it would just be somebody else. We were on a new road with him now, and who he dated had nothing to do with it, nothing to do with us.
I found myself thinking that it was sort of the same as with Nikki. It had never mattered, except for Murdoch, who Nikki dated after she kicked Ben out. Men were always around, but they came and then they went. True, sometimes they were mean; sometimes we had to watch out for them. But still, fundamentally, they didn’t matter, not to me, and not, I thought, to Nikki. They didn’t belong to her the way we did. They weren’t her property.
Property. My mind lingered on that word. Property. Yes, that was the truth: We were Nikki’s property. We were—I looked down at my book about the Civil War—we were like her slaves. She owned us. The whip could come smashing down at any time, and there was nothing we could do about it except try to dodge; try to take care of each other.
Some slaves had run away. If I’d been on my own, I realized, I might have done that.
Behind me, you sneezed. “Matt,” you whined. “I’m bored! Why won’t you play with me?” You sidled up next to me and started trying to climb onto my lap.
I tried to ignore you as you leaned over and breathed into my face. I was filled with longing—to be on my own . . . not to need anybody at all, nobody’s help . . . not to have to beg . . .
The phone rang, startling all three of us.
“Matt, you get it,” Callie said to me over her shoulder, as she huddled deeper into her blankets.
“No, me,” you said, racing toward the living room. “Me, me, me!”
I went, too, but you got to the phone first. “Murdoch?” you said into it the second you got it to your mouth. “Is that you, Murdoch? This is Emmy!”
There was a strident note to your voice. I knew it was probably not Murdoch. What if it were Nikki? I tried to take the phone, but you twisted away from me and folded yourself over it. “Murdoch?” you said again, loudly. Then you were silent at last, listening. Your lower lip stuck out more and more. After a few seconds, wordlessly, you uncurled and handed the phone to me. You didn’t go far away, though, and you stuck your thumb in your mouth—a habit you’d stopped a few months back.
“Hello? This is Matthew,” I said uncertainly.
“Oh, good. Matt, it’s Aunt Bobbie. Um, listen. I’ll be there in half an hour, okay? I’ll come upstairs.”
“What’s going on?” I said. “What’s happened?” Aunt Bobbie rarely called, and rarely heaved herself upstairs to our apartment. “Is something wrong?” I added.
“Well, yes, but it’s going to be okay. She’s going to be just fine.”
“Just tell me, Aunt Bobbie,” I said. “This is about Mom?”
“Um, Matt? That man Murdoch—was Emmy expecting him to call? How strange. Anyway. He appears to have, well, hurt your mom, but I promise, she’s going to be absolutely fine, and he will pay. Men just can’t get away with that kind of thing nowadays. Beating up women. Your mother has already talked to the police and everything. And she’s going to be fine, I have to stress that. Just fine. So don’t worry, Matt. I’ll see you kids very soon. How about I bring ice cream? Chocolate chip?”
“Okay,” I said.
“I’ll be right there,” said Aunt Bobbie reassuringly.
“Okay. Bye.” I hung up. No, I thought. I don’t believe it. No. It’s not possible. It didn’t happen. He seemed so controlled today. He didn’t seem like he—
But I thought about what Aunt Bobbie had said. Maybe it was possible. Murdoch had been angry. I thought about the Cumberland Farms store. In that moment, Emmy, I didn’t know what he might have done.
I had this moment of clarity, though. My stomach clenched on me. I thought:
But if he was going to do it, why hadn’t he actually
done
it?
I turned and saw you crouched down against the wall, eyes closed tightly. What had you heard from Aunt Bobbie? What had you understood? But there was nothing I could do for you or anyone right then. I walked past you and went to sit down in the living room. I stayed there and didn’t let myself think anything at all until Aunt Bobbie showed up.
27
 
LIAR
 
Aunt Bobbie came in clutching shopping bags that contained not only the promised ice cream, but three frozen pizzas. Her eyes darted around, noting where you sat rocking gently, thumb in mouth, on the floor of the kitchen.
“Does she know?”
Aunt Bobbie mouthed, as she jerked her head in your direction with what she probably thought was discretion.
I shrugged. You would have heard whatever I said on the phone. “I haven’t told my sisters what you said yet.”
Aunt Bobbie nodded. “Where’s Callie?”
“Bedroom. She’s not feeling well.”
“Oh.” Aunt Bobbie occupied herself with putting the ice cream into the freezer, and with taking out the pizzas and folding up the grocery bags neatly. “Oh,” she said again. She clearly didn’t have a clue how to proceed.
I was so tired. “Let me get Callie,” I said. “And you can just tell us what you know.”
Aunt Bobbie’s gaze flickered toward you again, clearly thinking about trying to shield you somehow. Or maybe remembering how you had answered the phone, half an hour ago—“Murdoch?”—and wondering about that.
“All of us,” I said. “Emmy, too. She’s smarter than you think.”
I went and got Callie. Our apartment was small; sound carried. I knew she’d have heard the phone and whatever I had said into it as clearly as you had. The only strange thing was that she hadn’t come to ask questions right away. I guessed she was really feeling sick.
At least she was sitting up on her bed when I got to the bedroom, her face taut and wary and very, very pale. “Mom?” she said.
“Something happened to her. But I guess she’s going to be okay. Come on. Aunt Bobbie, uh, brought pizza and ice cream.”
Callie grimaced. “I’m never eating again.”
In the kitchen, I got you up off the floor and into a chair. Aunt Bobbie bought herself time by turning on the oven to preheat, taking the wrappings off the pizzas, and then placing each of them on an individual sheet made from two layers of tin foil. “There,” she said. “That’ll work.”
I couldn’t stand her fiddling around anymore. “Aunt Bobbie told me,” I said to my sisters tensely, “that Murdoch beat Mom up today.”
“Good,” you interrupted fiercely.
There was a little silence while we all looked at you. Then I cleared my throat. “Mom’s going to be fine. And I guess she’s talked to the police about Murdoch.”
More silence.
“Where is she?” said Callie to Aunt Bobbie.
“Your mom was at the hospital for a while and then she went to the police station. She called me from there and asked me to check in on you kids.” Aunt Bobbie paused. “That’s really all I know.”
“How’s she hurt?”
“Well, I haven’t seen her.”
“What’d she say?” Callie persisted.
“Just that she was going to be fine. I guess she’ll be home later. We’ll know then.”
We sat there a while longer. The oven buzzer sounded. Aunt Bobbie got up to put the pizzas in. I watched her set the timer. She didn’t seem to want to sit down after that. She fussed with the top of the stove, cleaning away crumbs.
Aunt Bobbie was doing everything she could think of for us, and that pretty much meant food. But it wasn’t even four o’clock yet. Way too early for dinner.
I kept looking at the clock. I had been with Murdoch until nearly noon. And when I left, he’d been on the phone with one of the guys on his crew. I’d heard him say that he needed a ride out to Newton, where their current job was located, and would this guy come pick him up?
Meanwhile, Nikki should have been in Boston, at her own job at a medical office.
A few questions occurred to me. First, when you head out to beat up a woman, would you really have one of your employees drive you there?
Also, would you march into an office building in broad daylight and beat someone up right in front of whoever was there?
“When exactly did this all happen?” I asked Aunt Bobbie.
“Well, today.”
“When today? An hour ago? Two hours ago?”
“Sometime this morning, I think,” Aunt Bobbie said. “Nikki called me right before three. She was at the police station then.”
I frowned. “Were there witnesses? Anybody see this happen?”
“I don’t know,” said Aunt Bobbie. “I guess. I don’t really know. I didn’t think to ask anything like that. I was just concerned that she was okay.”
I could feel Callie looking at me. You were looking, too.
“Why are you asking these questions?” Aunt Bobbie said. “You sound like a policeman, Matt.”
I shrugged. “I just wondered.”
And this is where Aunt Bobbie surprised me for the first time. “Nikki was a big liar when we were kids,” she said thoughtfully. “I can’t even remember how many times she got me in trouble, saying I’d done things I hadn’t.”
“Liar,” you said intensely.
I remembered Murdoch taking Aunt Bobbie’s phone number that morning.
I’ll meet her and judge for myself,
he’d said.

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