Fostering Death (9 page)

I debated going over to the front window and peering in. I tried the doorknob. It turned in my hand.

Suppose Kelly or the kids were sick? Suppose the old furnace had belched carbon monoxide and they were all lying unconscious? Suppose her ex had gone berserk and killed them all?

Suppose I went in without being invited and got picked up for breaking and entering?

The door opened, solving that problem. Chris, Kelly’s eight year old son, stood there. He was half-dressed, and his hair was uncombed.

“What are you doing home?” I asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“I guess,” he said. “But Brianna won’t get dressed, and I can’t leave her alone.”

“Alone?” I was alarmed. “Where’s your mom? And the babysitter?”

He shrugged. “The babysitter couldn’t make it last night. Mom stayed home.”

“Where is she now?”

“Upstairs. Asleep.”

“You mean she didn’t get up to help you and Brianna get ready for school?”

He shrugged again. “Nope. I mean, I can fix us breakfast and stuff, but I can’t
make
Brianna get ready for school. She’s only in first grade, you know. And she hates school. She says she’s never going again.”

First graders shouldn’t hate school. Something was wrong. From what I had seen of her, I suspected poor Brianna had some kind of learning disability. Kelly didn’t want to hear that, though, especially from me. When I’d brought it up, she told me they were her kids, not mine, and I should mind my own business. She was right—they were her kids.

“Can you see if you can get Mom up?” Chris asked, opening the door wider.

“I guess I can try,” I said, hoping an invitation from an eight year old would count if someone did call the police.

The house was chilly. I knew Kelly kept the heat down to try to save money.

Brianna sat in her pajamas on the living room floor, a half-empty bowl of cereal next to her. A small spill of milk puddled on the hardwood floor.

“Why don’t you two finish getting ready for school?” I said, heading to the kitchen to get a paper towel to wipe up the milk before it ruined the finish on the floor.

“I’m supposed to bring in a permission slip for a trip,” Brianna said, not moving. “Today’s the last day. If I don’t bring it in signed, today, I’ll have to stay back with the kindergarten kids when everybody else goes. And it costs money.” She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“On the dining room table. Where I left it for Mom.”

A small mountain of papers and mail, opened and unopened, sat on the dining room table. I started to sift through it.

Brianna appeared beside me, her feet bare on the cold floor. “The paper’s blue,” she said, reaching into the stack and pulling out a paper.

A field trip to a children’s museum next week. Sure enough, the last day for the permission slip to be in was today. It cost five dollars.

I pulled out my wallet. I hadn’t stopped at the bank with my paycheck, and I didn’t have a whole lot of ready cash, but I suspected that Kelly, after not working last night, would have even less. I took out a five and paper clipped it to the permission slip.

Chris came in, holding a long stick with some round balls hanging from it. “This is my science project,” he said. “We were supposed to write a report on the solar system or make a project. We could make a poster or a model and bring it in. I made a model, but it doesn’t have a sun. I made that in school. The rough draft was supposed to be turned in yesterday, but the teacher said I could bring it today.”

“Rough draft?”

“Yeah. You know, the trial version. Then we make a good one.”

The project was flimsy and misshapen. It was pretty obvious he hadn’t had much adult help with it. But he’d done it, and the next version might be better. “You got something to wrap that in?” I asked. “If we take it outside, I wouldn’t want it to get wet or broken.”

“We could use a beach towel,” he suggested.

“You go get a beach towel. Then get dressed.”

He looked at Brianna’s permission slip with the money clipped to it. “Do you think I could get ice cream at lunch today?” he asked.

“How much?”

“Seventy-five cents.”

I pulled out my meager supply of pocket change and counted out six dimes and three nickels.

Brianna was sifting through the remaining papers on the dining room table. “What’s this?” she asked, holding one up. “It looks important, and when it came, Mom got mad.”

I took it from her. It
was
important. A notice of a custody hearing for the kids. I scanned down the page. It was for a week from Monday. At ten o’clock at the courthouse.

The kids weren’t in school. For sure the court would ask for a report from the school. How would this look?

“You go get ready for school, too,” I told Brianna.

Putting the paper by itself on the table, I went upstairs to Kelly’s bedroom. The hallway was dark. An empty Southern Comfort bottle lay on the floor outside the closed door. I knocked.

Kelly’s sleepy voice came from inside. “What now?” she asked. “Can’t you get your own breakfast?”

“Kelly, it’s me. Jesse.”

“Jesse? What are you doing here? Go away.”

“Kelly, the kids need to get to school.”

“What?” I heard her feet hit the floor. The door opened a crack.

A sour odor of alcohol and unwashed clothes seeped out the opening.

“The kids are late. And you have a notice here about a custody hearing in a little over a week. It won’t look good if they’re missing school today.”

The door opened wider. Kelly looked like she’d been in a train wreck. “What am I gonna do?” she wailed.

Like I should know. But I tried. “Take a quick shower. Get dressed. Drop the kids off at school.”

She nodded, then put her hand on her forehead. “I feel sick,” she said.

I looked at the bottle by my foot and then at her. No time to mince words. “Hung over?” I asked.

Kelly’s shoulders drooped. “I guess.”

“I’ll see if I can’t find some instant coffee,” I said. “Take an aspirin. But get ready. The kids are late as it is.”

In the kitchen, I heated a mug of water in the microwave and packed lunches of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, juice boxes, and apples. I could hear water in the sink running upstairs. The kids drifted in. I sent Chris to comb his hair and helped Brianna with her boots.

Kelly appeared in the doorway. She was wearing jeans and a sweat shirt. Her long dark hair was brushed and pulled back into a ponytail that hung down her back. Her face was covered in uneven red blotches. Her eyes were bloodshot and bleary.

I mixed the instant coffee into a mug and handed it to Kelly. She frowned at it, but she took a drink.

“Sign this,” I said, shoving Brianna’s permission slip and a pen at her. She signed it.

“Where are your car keys?” I asked. She reached for them on a hook by the back door.

“Give me your project, Chris.” I took it from him, leaving his hands free to struggle with his backpack.

We all looked pretty pathetic. But staying here and feeling sorry for ourselves wasn’t going to help any of us. “All set? Let’s go.”

We trooped out the back door to the garage. The kids climbed in the back seat of the old station wagon.

“You drive,” Kelly said, holding out the keys. “My head’s killing me, and I can’t see straight.”

“You know I don’t got a driver’s license,” I said. “I can’t drive.”

“You can drive,” she said. “You drive a forklift all night at work. It’s not that different.”

“I’m not going to take the chance on violating my parole with something stupid like driving without a license. You’ll have to drive.”

Begrudgingly, she climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car. I closed the back door behind the kids and got in the passenger seat.

Chapter 7

T
HE
K
IDS
H
AD
E
NOUGH
sense to keep quiet as Kelly drove.

At the school, she parked in a visitor’s parking space in the lot. “Go ahead, kids,” she said. “You’re not that late.”

“Somebody needs to sign us in,” Chris said, his voice trembling.

“I can’t let them see me like this,” Kelly protested. “Jesse, can you take them in?”

“Does it have to be your mom who signs you in?” I asked Chris.

“The babysitter does it sometimes,” he said.

“Okay. Let’s give it a try.”

We got out of the car. Kelly closed her eyes and rested her head on the steering wheel. I took each kid by the hand, and we walked across the parking lot to the front entrance of the school. It was a series of huge glass doors with a camera mounted on a light post to scan the area. What kind of security did they have for schools these days?

“How do we get in?” I asked Chris.

He looked at me like I was crazy. “We walk in the front door,” he said. “But we got to go to the office because we’re late.”

We went to the office.

The waxed floors in the long hallway gleamed in the sunlight. The office was behind a windowed wall. The glass was clear and shiny. A faint smell of school pizza trickled my nose.

Put me in mind of my life with the Colemans, when I went to a well-run and polished school like this one. After my father got out of prison and took me back, I went to a chaotic inner city school where the floors were filthy, the walls cracked and worn, and whatever windows weren’t boarded over were streaked with grime.

A few well-dressed people were waiting at the front desk. I stood back patiently, wishing I’d had time to shower and change out of my dirty work clothes. I was pretty sure I smelled of oil and sweat.

At least the kids were well dressed and smelled fresh.

One of the ladies—her desk plaque said “Mrs. Rivers”—leaned forward and looked at me, frowning. “May I help you?”

I stepped forward. “I hope so, ma’am. I brought Brianna and Christopher Mathias to school. I’m sorry they’re late.”

Her eyes narrowed disapprovingly. “Are you the children’s father?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Jesse’s my Mom’s boyfriend,” Brianna offered.

Mrs. Rivers sniffed. “Really.” She handed me a clipboard and a pen, saying, “Please fill this out.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The children are late. You need to sign them in.”

Carefully, I wrote their names on two spaces, then put my name in the next column. I looked at the clock and wrote in the time. 9:57.

She handed little slips of orange paper over to the kids. “Give the late pass to your teacher,” she told them.

“Should we go to our lockers first?” Chris asked her.

“Yes. Go to your lockers. Do you have lunch money?” She looked at me meaningfully.

“Jesse made our lunch,” Brianna offered. “I got Very Berry Juice.”

The kids went out into the hall and turned a corner.

I started to follow them.

“Just a minute, Mr.…” Mrs. Rivers looked at her clipboard. “Damon.”

I tried to look innocent, which I have found could be surprisingly difficult. “Yes?”

“I need to know the reason the children are nearly an hour late.”

I didn’t want to get Kelly in trouble. What should I say? “Their mother’s sick,” I said. Being hung over is a kind of sickness.

Mrs. Rivers glanced at one of the women who was in the office, nodding to her. This woman stepped forward and held out her hand. “I’m Mrs. O’Neill, the PPW assigned to this school.”

“The what?” I asked.

“PPW. Pupil personnel worker. It’s my job to help the students when they’re having difficulties or miss a lot of school.”

“Kind of like a truant officer?” I asked, hastily rubbing my hand on my pants leg before I shook her hand. I hoped mine wasn’t covered with too much dirt or oil.

“That’s part of my job. But I’m here to try to help, not to get people in trouble.”

That didn’t sound hugely accurate to me—in my experience, everyone who works for the government is just waiting for people to mess up. But this wasn’t really my concern. I was just trying to help Kelly out by getting the kids to school.

“I take it Mrs. Mathias isn’t available right now to speak to me.”

I thought of Kelly, sitting in the car, head on the steering wheel, asleep. She’d probably have a reverse imprint of the Ford logo on her forehead.

“No, ma’am.” No point in saying she was just outside. “That’s why she asked me to bring the kids in.”

“I see. Will you ask Mrs. Mathias to call me and make an appointment?” She handed me a business card.

I stared at it for a minute. No one had ever given me a business card before.