The Last House on Needless Street(10)

‘Those things are full of fat and preservatives,’ she said. ‘Our lunch is nutritionally complete. All the vitamins you need are in these jars. And it is inexpensive.’ She spoke in her nursing voice, which was a little deeper than her regular voice, the consonants more clipped. Mommy looked after sick kids in her job at the hospital. She knew what she was talking about. So you didn’t argue with the nurse voice. Daddy was between jobs. Like it was a dark gap he fell into, and now he couldn’t climb out. He ate his prunes and rice pudding without a word. The jars looked tiny in his large brown hands. He took out his coffee Thermos.

Nearby, a baby was being fed by an impatient red woman. The label was blue and white. With a cold stab of horror I saw that the baby was eating the same creamed rice as my father. ‘Put it away,’ I said to Daddy. ‘People will see!’

Mommy looked at me, but said nothing. ‘Finish your lunch,’ she told him gently.

When we were done Mommy put the jars away neatly in the cooler. ‘You know where I am from, Teddy,’ she said.

‘Locronan,’ I said, ‘which is in Brittany. Which is in France.’ That was all I knew. Mommy never spoke of that place.

‘There was a boy in my village.’ She looked out across the lake, and no longer seemed to be speaking to me. ‘His parents had died in the big influenza. It cut through Locronan like a knife through butter. We all gave him what we could. But we did not have very much ourselves. He slept in our barn, with the donkey and the sheep. I don’t recall his name. In the village they called him Pemoc’h, because he slept where the pig would sleep. Each morning Pemoc’h came to our kitchen door. I would give him a glass of milk, and half a loaf of bread. Sometimes I gave him dripping from the Sunday beef. Each evening he came again. I gave him scraps from the table. Turnip tops, cracked eggs. He always thanked me three times. Trugarez, trugarez, trugarez. I can never forget that. Sometimes he was so hungry that when he took the food his hands shook. For that poor food he worked all day for my father in the field. For years, he did this, and his thanks were never less than heartfelt. He was a grateful little boy. He knew how lucky he was.’ She got up. ‘I’m going to do my thirty minutes,’ she said. Daddy nodded. She walked away, her dress blue against the blue sky. Mommy never felt too hot.

Despite the coffee Daddy fell into a deep sleep with his hat over his face. He slept a great deal, now. It seemed like every waking moment was exhausting to him. The red woman stared at us. She had noticed the three of us eating baby food for lunch. I tried to imagine that she was red because she had been fatally scalded and would die soon. I wished for her death with all my might, but the afternoon just went on. Small teal ducks played at the far edge of the lake, where the treeline marched right down to the water’s edge. Daddy snored. He wasn’t supposed to sleep while watching me.

Not long before, by this lake, a young boy had disappeared. They brought the kids from the group home there on weekends sometimes. Maybe they still do. This boy didn’t get back on the bus at the end of the day. Sometimes I gave myself pleasant chills, imagining what happened to him. Maybe he chased a pretty red bird, or a deer, until he was out of sight of the crowds, by the deeper reaches of the lake. When he stumbled and fell into the cold there was no one to hear his cries. Or he wandered under the vast green canopy of the forest, until all his mind became green and he faded into the dappled light and became something else, something other than a boy. But he probably just hitched a ride back into the city. He was trouble, everyone said so.

‘Here, Teddy.’ Mommy’s touch was soft on my head, but I gasped and started as if she had hit me. She put something into my hand and after a moment of sun blindness I saw what it was. The little cat seemed to arch her back in pleasure against my palm.

The rush of gladness was so strong it actually felt like pain. I stroked her with a finger. ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘kitty, kitten!’

‘Do you like it?’ I could hear the smile in Mommy’s voice.

‘I love her,’ I said. ‘I’ll take care of her so good.’ Worry ran through my enjoyment like a vein. ‘Was it expensive?’ I knew that we were poor right now, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to know.

‘It is all right,’ she said. ‘Do not worry about that, for goodness’ sake. Are you going to name her?’

‘She’s called Olivia,’ I said. To me the name was classy and mysterious, exactly right for the wooden cat.

This small extravagance seemed to lift everyone up. I played with Olivia and I didn’t care any more what other people thought about us. Mommy hummed, and even Daddy smiled and did his funny walks, pretending to trip over his own shoelaces and fall down in the sand.

Mommy’s rule was always to get the most out of a trip, so we dawdled until almost everyone else had gone. The shadows lengthened and the hills began to eat the sun. Bats were darting through the dusk by the time we left. The car was a furnace, holding all the heat of the day. Daddy had to cover the scalding seats with a towel before I could sit down in back. I put Olivia carefully in my pants pocket.

‘I will drive,’ Mommy said gently to Daddy. ‘You did it this morning. Fair is fair.’

Daddy touched her face and said, ‘You are a queen among women.’

She smiled. Her eyes still held that distant look. It was years later that I noticed she never let Daddy drive after noon, after he started drinking from the coffee Thermos and doing the funny walks.