Three Good Things (4 page)

“Leni! Hang on a minute.”

I break into a trot. But within seconds Jake overtakes me. He runs backward down
the driveway, facing me. “Why did you leave like that?”

“Like I said. I’m allergic to chocolate. Just being in the same room with it, I
could go into antiseptic shock.” I read about it on Wikipedia a few days ago.
“My
tongue would swell. I wouldn’t be able to breathe—”

“Garbage!”

“I am allergic. To chocolate and celery and tapioca pudding. And red peppers and
pineapple on pizza—”

“It’s anaphylactic shock, by the way,” Jake interrupts. “Not antiseptic.” He turns
to walk alongside me. “And I’m allergic to raisins and egg whites and squid and cheese
that’s been aged more than ten years and red M&M’s.”

“Now you’re full of it,” I tell him.

“So why
did
you leave in such a hurry?” He sits down on the bench at a bus stop to
tie his runners. It’s a miracle he didn’t trip running backward like he did. “Dinner
wasn’t that bad, was it?” Jake asks. “Steph noticed we forgot to put out the cheese.
Is that why you left? Because there was no parmesan for your pasta? Or maybe you’re
allergic to that too.”

I can’t help but smile.

He grins back. Then he gets serious. “Are you going to tell me?”

I look back toward his house. “You have no idea, do you?”

He frowns. “Idea about what?”

“About my life.”

He shrugs. “What about it?

“Our spaghetti comes out of a tin or in a little frozen package. Right now we’re
staying in one room in a motel. Who knows where we’ll be this time next week. I haven’t
been to school since…I don’t know. Maybe four years? The last time I sat at a kitchen
table to eat was at my grandfather’s. I don’t know how long ago. Mom talked back
to the tv news the whole time. Grand ended up taking his dinner into the garage just
to get some peace.”

Jake is watching me carefully. “What are you saying?”

“That happy family stuff? Back there?” I nod toward his house. “You take it all for
granted. Everyone around the table together. A nice meal. Chatty conversation. Parents
who don’t wig out every time someone cuts them off in the car or doesn’t wrap their
sub the right way.”

Jake stands up and puts his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

“Why should you? It’s not your life. It’s my life. Always on the run. With a crazy
mother and no money and no idea when it is all going to change. Or end. Knowing that
if it does end, it won’t end well.”

“What about your grandfather? Can’t he help?”

“He worries. He really does.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

Jake doesn’t get it. And, really, why should he?

“If he worries, it means he cares,” Jake says.

“Sure, he cares.” It’s true. I know that. “But he’s not about to do anything about
it.” I slump onto the bench.

I haven’t done anything either. I could have begged, pleaded, insisted that he take
care of us. What have I been waiting for? For Mom to figure out what a mess she—we—have
made of things?

There’s not much chance of that happening.

Jake plucks at my arm. “Come on. The bus is coming.”

“I’m not taking the bus.”

“It’s cold. Come on. Let’s take a ride.”

“Where are we going?”

He pulls his chin back to his chest as if I’ve said the stupidest thing ever. “Is
there somewhere else you need to be right now?”

So we ride the bus, and I tell him everything, or as much as I have the stomach to
tell. The more I tell him, the quieter he gets. He does not look out of the window
once while I tell him about Mom’s pills and her moods and all the things she has
been afraid of and all the reasons she gives me for moving from one place to the
next and how hard it is to never make a friend.

I don’t know the last time I ever told anyone this. If I ever have.

I tell him about the room we rented with the damp creeping up the wall. And the motel
with so much dog hair in the carpet I could weave my fingers in it and pull it away
in hanks. And the landlord I punched when he squeezed me against the wall in the
hall one day to feel me up.

The more I talk, the more intently he listens.

“Doesn’t sound like any fun.” His voice is quiet.

He could say what a rotten mother Mom is. Then I’d have to defend her.

He could ask what we live on. And I would have to explain that if we didn’t use Grand’s
address, we’d not even get welfare.

He could tell me that a diet of subway sandwiches and donuts is not good for a person.
And I could ask him how anyone can eat decently with no way to cook real food.

But he only asks, “Do you think this is the way it will always be?”

I swallow hard. Put one hand in my pocket and finger the little piece of paper. “Mom
figures that lottery ticket is the answer to everything. As if. It’s just another
of her crazy delusions.”

When Jake puts an arm around my shoulders, I let myself lean against him. “It sounds
awful,” he says. He smells of straw and wood chippings and ferret. Of all those creatures
he takes care of.

I lean against him for as long as I dare. When I pull away, he leaves his arm draped
lightly over my shoulder. “Can’t your grandfather help at all?” he asks.

“I told you. He worries. But it’s just words.”

“Someone has to be the grownup. Take care of things,” says Jake. “It shouldn’t have
to be you.”

I’ve thought that a hundred times, but it sounds different coming from someone else.
“You’re right.” I hear how quiet my voice is. So I say it louder. “I know. You’re
right.” I stand, push past Jake and head down the bus aisle.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to call my grandfather.”

Jake holds my hand as we wait for the bus to stop. Then we jump down onto the sidewalk.

I pull my phone out of my pocket, flip it open, then close it again. “I need
to call
Grand.” I look around. “But not here. I should go back to our room.”

“Where are you staying?” he asks. “You didn’t say.”

“The Lion Motel.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Jeez.”

“What?”

He looks at his feet. “Nothing. It’s just…well, I hear it’s—”

“A dive?”

“Okay. A dive. I’ve heard all kinds of stuff. I’ll walk you.”

“You go home.” I may have told him everything. Or most of it. But that didn’t mean
I wanted him to see Mom asleep in our grimy room with the Shopping Channel blaring
in the background.

“Will you call me? Let me know what your grandfather says?”

“Sure.”

When I don’t move, he says, “You need my number.”

“Oh. Sure.”

He reels it off, and I punch it into my Contacts.
Jake
comes between
Grand
and
M
Dr
. Three numbers are all I have in my phone. That’s one more than I had yesterday.

It’s a small thing. A good thing. “I’ll call you.”

As I head back, I catch myself practicing aloud what I will say to Grand. No one
messes with a crazy person talking to themselves in the dark.

But I shut my mouth and keep on walking.

“Everything okay?” The motel manager ducks out of the office as I pass.

“You scared me!”

“Thought maybe you’d done a moonlight.”

I look toward our room. The car’s gone. But light shines between the closed drapes.

“Your mom left a while back,” he tells me. “Seemed a bit upset.”

“Upset how?”

“I heard yelling. In a real hurry she was, when she left.”

She could have been shouting at the weatherman or a game-show host. “I’m sure she’s
fine,” I tell him. Then I ask, “How did you know this?”

“I keep an eye out. Many people who come here, they are, well…” He looks around.

“Are what?”

“I could tell your mom was—”

“Nuts? My mom
is
nuts. As you have obviously noticed.”

He frowns. “That’s a bit harsh. She did seem a bit erratic.”

Erratic
is right. “Is there anything else?” Most of the time, I feel like I can’t
cope with my mother. But when anyone else notices? All I feel is their judgment.
Of her. And me. I should be able to control her, I hear them thinking. “Look. I
better go.”

“Of course. You go,” he says. “And I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You mean well,” I say. It’s probably true.

“I mean for scaring you like that.” He smiles gently.

My gut twists every time I come back to a dark, empty place. It’s as if Mom leaves
something dark and toxic behind her.

There’s no sign of her. But the tv is blaring and the bathroom light is on.

I avoid looking toward the office as I head out again.

If there’s one thing Mom likes better than a playground, it’s a playground at night.
I make the rounds,
but the place is empty. Everything is in shadow. A swing creaks
in a breeze. A piece of paper rattles across the ground. I sit down on the bench,
pull my zipper up to my chin and shove my hands into my pockets. “Where are you,
you silly cow?”

I’m talking to myself again. I clamp my mouth shut. But everyone does it, don’t they?

When I scuff my feet on the ground, I discover a hole in my runners. I check under
the bench to make sure Bandit’s not on the loose. “What am I doing?” My laugh sounds
crazy in the dark.

I bite the inside of my cheek until it hurts so much that tears fill my eyes. I try
to swallow the feeling that I’m losing it. Any day it will be me yelling at servers
at the coffee shop. Making rude remarks about people to their faces.

It’s no wonder Grand always keeps us at arm’s length.

On the street, a cop car slows down. I hold still until it moves off, its light smearing
the dark.

I do another slow circuit of the playground, and then the community center. When
I poke my head into the arena, all I see is a dad standing over his kid, yelling.
I hear echoing voices, skates banging against boards, the hiss of skates on ice.

At Tim Hortons, the customers are all lit up in the windows. Even though I don’t
see Mom, I go in and ask for the washroom key. When the server in a dorky hairnet
gives it to me right away, I tell him, “I changed my mind.”

If the key’s still here, my mother’s not inside.

I feel him watching me as I leave. “Where can she be?” I ask myself.

A man stands aside to let me pass. “I’m sorry?” he says.

I don’t answer.

She’s done this before, taking off with no notice. Dozens of times. Sometimes for
an hour. Sometimes for a whole day—or three. And when she gets back, she is mad,
as if I am making a fuss over nothing.

When I run out of places to look for her, I head back to the room.

I plan to call Grand. I should call Grand. I had it all figured out, what I was going
to say.
Someone has to be the grownup. And it can’t be me
.

I think of how Jake moved between his furry and feathered creatures. Petting, stroking,
murmuring. And how hard it is for me to touch my own bitter-smelling mother, to pick
up after her, to hear her nighttime mumblings, her daytime rants.

Where
is
she?

I slump onto the bed and pull the covers over my head. The tv drones in the background.
I wish I had something warm and soft to hang on to.

I don’t know how much later I am startled awake by Mom looming over me. “Where is
it? What did you do with it?”

“With what?” I squint up at her.

She whacks me with her shoe. “The ticket.” She pulls off her other shoe. She bangs
them together. “I was keeping it safe. You were the last person wearing my shoes—you
know what I mean.”

“Calm down.”

“Where is my ticket?” Her cheeks are flushed.

“It’s somewhere safe.”

She yanks the bedspread so hard I hear it rip. “I went to claim the winnings. You
made me look like a real jerk. I emptied my whole purse. Then I remembered it wasn’t
there. You should have heard the guy. Just because I took off my shoe—”

“Please don’t tell me you hit him.”

“Why would I hit anyone?”

“You just hit me.”

“You deserved it. I checked both shoes. No ticket. Where is it?”

I can imagine the scene. Mom dumping the contents of her purse on the counter. Adding
her shoes to the pile. Ranting and raving while the poor store clerk edges away,
reaching for the phone, a panic button.

I guess it wasn’t that store where the lady was so nice to me. The way she managed
those two kids, she could have handled my mother. I pull myself up against the headboard.
“So what happened?”

“When?”

“After you took off your shoes?”

“I put them right back on again. It’s cold out, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I mean, in the store?”

She waves a hand in the air. “They said they would call the cops. For what? It’s
a crime to take your shoes off?”

“Did the police come?”

“I passed a squad car on my way back here. But nothing to do with me.” She drops
into the armchair, mumbling to herself now. “I remember putting it in my shoe. Maybe
another shoe. Another pair.”

I don’t bother to point out that she doesn’t have another pair.

“If someone else finds that ticket, they will be living the high life while we—”
Mom looks around. Suddenly her voice evens out, as if we were having a completely
normal conversation. “Have you had supper? I’m starving.”

“Have you taken your pills?”

“Why are you asking me that now?”

“You’re acting like someone who is behind on their pills.”

“I have to take them with food. You know that. You coming to find supper, or what?”

She doesn’t give me time to tell her about supper at Jake’s or to follow.

She’s forgotten about the ticket. Again. There are benefits to having a mother with
the attention span of a flea.

I stand at the door, staring into the night. The motel sign swings in the dark. A
shadow of something—a cat, a rat, a ferret?—streaks along the sidewalk opposite
me.

I half-expect Jake to appear in the dark.

Mom stalks past the car and across the motel forecourt without looking back. I step
outside. Then duck back in. “Just go, then, why don’t you,” I mutter. “And don’t
come back.”

Hours later, when I hear the door handle rattle, I stagger across the room.

“Jake!”

“Hi.”

I’m aware of my crumpled clothes, my messy hair. The thick, stale taste in
my mouth.
“What time is it? How did you find me?”

He checks his watch. “Almost ten. You told me where you were staying, remember?”
He comes in and closes the door. He looks around. “You alone?”

I look around.

Yes. I am alone.

I slump onto the bed.

He comes closer. Stands so close I feel the warmth from his legs on my knees. “What’s
wrong?”

When tears fill my eyes, I look away. “If you must know, my mom’s gone.” I bite my
lip to stop my chin from trembling.

“Gone?”

“She left.” My phone buzzes from somewhere under the covers.

“You going to get that?” he asks.

I stare the bed into silence. Grab the phone from under the covers and shove it in
my pocket.

I will talk to Grand soon. I will make him listen. Make him do something more than
just worry.

But right now… “Will you help me find my mother?” It is so hard to ask.

“Sure.” And it seems so easy for Jake to answer.