LaRose (6 page)

He shut the Cat down when he saw Emmaline and got off. She was used to seeing him in a cassock. Father Travis wore cassocks most of the time because he liked the convenience. He could put them on over T-shirts and work pants. The old people liked to see him in one, and after
The Matrix
the young people liked it too. But right now he wore old jeans, plaid flannel shirt, a brown canvas jacket.

Emmaline smiled at him, surprised.

He glanced around the yards, checking to see if anybody was watching. It was that—the checking—he thought later, that gave it all away. His heart was hidden from his thoughts for days, until he remembered glancing over Emmaline’s shoulder to make sure no one was watching.

They shoved their hands in their pockets and walked the fitness trail that he was making through the woods. They passed the push-up rail, the chin-up bar, before she could say anything.

I didn’t want to give LaRose to them, she said.

Why did you?

The sun glowing in green lake water on a bright day—her eyes were that color.

It seemed the only way, she said. She’s my sister, after all. I thought she would let me see him, spend time. But no. So I want him back. I just saw him. He’s going to think that I don’t love him.

Father Travis was still surprised by what they had done. He thought back to their visit just after Landreaux was released—they had wanted to tell him something. He had heard of these types of adoptions in years past, when disease or killings broke some families, left others whole. It was an old form of justice. It was a
story, and stories got to him. A story was the reason he had become a priest, and a story was why he’d not yet walked off the job. In the evenings, between action movies, Father Travis parsed out the New Testament.

Mary gave her child to the world, he almost said, looking at Emmaline. It all made sense for she was wearing a sky blue parka. The hood was missing the fur band, so it capped her head in a way that reminded him of pictures of the Blessed Virgin. Her hair, parted in the middle, flowed back under the blue material in smooth wings.

You tried to do a good thing, said Father Travis. LaRose will understand that. He will come back to you.

Emmaline stopped and looked closely at him.

You sure?

I’m sure, he said, then couldn’t help himself.
Neither life, nor angels, nor principalities nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, not height, nor depth, nor any other creature will separate you.

Emmaline looked at him like he was crazy.

It’s a Bible quote.

He looked down at the scraped path. Quoting Romans like a pompous ass . . .

LaRose is young, she said, her hungry eyes blurring. They forget if you’re not with them every day.

Nobody could forget you, thought Father Travis. The blurted thought unnerved him; he made himself speak sensibly.

Look, you can retrieve LaRose at any time. Just say you want him back. Peter and Nola have to listen. If not, you can go to Social Services. You are his mother.

Social Services, she said. Huh. Ever heard of rez omerta?

Father Travis abruptly laughed.

Besides, I am Social Services. The crisis school is all a social service. I’d have to get in touch with myself.

What’s wrong with that? said Father Travis.

She shook her head, looked away as she spoke.

You mean I didn’t see it coming? Didn’t know it would be this
difficult? Can’t understand why this is unbearable when there is history and tradition, all that, behind what we did?

She rubbed her face with her hands as if to erase something else.

Yes, I wasn’t exactly in touch with myself. Also, there’s Nola. She gets mad at Maggie, I think. What if she treats LaRose that way?

Father Travis was silent. He still heard individual confessions and knew about Nola’s temper.

As they walked back to her car, a sensation he didn’t recognize kept him from offering the usual offhand comment, to seal things off. He stayed silent because he didn’t want to ruin the confiding way she had spoken to him. Emmaline got in the car. Then she pulled her hood back and rolled down her window. She looked up into his face. Her longing for her son was so naked that he seemed to feel it pressing into him. He closed his eyes.

When his eyes were shut, Emmaline saw, he was an ordinary man with weather-raked skin and chapped lips.

She looked away and started up the car. Her tragic thoughts shifted as she drove off, and she remembered laughing until her stomach cramped as Josette and Snow discussed the priest.

He can’t help his eyes, one of them said.

His sex-toy-robot eyes.

Josette and Snow had a thing about male robot/cyborg movie characters. They had an ancient Radio Shack VCR-TV in their room, and picked up old movies for it at yard sales and discount bins. Their collection included
Westworld
,
RoboCop
,
The Black Hole.
They rifled through video sale bins hoping for their favorite,
Blade Runner.
They’d made drawings of robots and cyborgs—smooth, perfect, doomed for feeling something, maybe like Father Travis.

He’s got replicant eyes!

No shit, Father Travis could be a replicant. Batty!

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe
, they intoned together.
Attack ships off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate.

Their voices dropped to exhausted rasps.

All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in rain. Time to die.

They lolled their heads over and Emmaline had cried out, Quit this! She frowned now. Like any mother, it made her uneasy to see her children feign death.

The Iron girls. Snow, Josette. The Iron Maidens. They were junior high volleyball queens, sister BFFs, heart-soul confidantes to each other and advice givers to their brothers. They were tight with their mom, loose with their dad. With their grandma they got bead-happy and could sew for hours. Snow was going to be the tall, intense one who had trouble concentrating on her schoolwork and whom boys only liked as a friend. She was in eighth grade. Josette was going to be the smart one who despaired about her weight but magnetized clumsy desire among boys whom she liked only as friends. She was in grade seven.

Landreaux dropped his daughters in Hoopdance to shop and drove back to take Ottie to dialysis. The girls went straight to the one drugstore. They walked in with a puff of snowy cold. A store clerk with flat dyed red hair and glasses on a chain asked if she could help them.

No thanks, said Josette, and you don’t need to follow us around either. We have money and we’re not going to steal.

The woman pulled her chin down into her neck and kept this odd posture as she turned away and walked to the cash register.

You didn’t have to say that, said Snow.

Maybe I’m too defensive, said Josette, fake-meek. Attached to the drugstore was a gift shop full of decorative flowers and knickknacks, which their mother did not like. But they did. They went through and admired all the ceramic snow babies, the glitter fronds, the stones cut with words. Dream. Love. Live.

Why not Throw? said Josette. How come they don’t have one that just says, Throw?

You don’t get inspiration, do you, said Snow.

That’s not inspiration, that’s mawkish.

Ooooo! Snow licked her finger and made a mark in the air. Vocab word.

They went back to the other section. There was a small selection of windshield scrapers and emergency flashlights, maybe for their dad.

Better things at the hardware store, said Josette.

Let’s test perfumes for Mom.

No, lotion.

You get that. I’ll get perfume.

All of the good perfumes were locked up under the glass counter with the eyeglass lady’s hands resting on it.

Shit, now we’ll have to deal with her, said Josette.

I’m the good one, said Snow. I’ll do the talking.

Josette rolled her eyes and made an oops face.

Snow walked up to the clerk and smiled. How are you today? Snow used a bright inflection. We’re looking for a really nice Christmas present for our mother. Our mom is so special. Snow sighed. She works so hard! What do you suggest?

The woman’s stabbing glare bounced off Josette, who was bent over the glass, scanning. The woman’s hand hovered among the jewel-bright boxes, spray bottles, and plucked up a tester of Jean Naté.

Too white-bread, said Josette.

Snow pointed at Jovan Musk.

That doesn’t smell like Mom. She’s more, I don’t know, clear.

Maybe Charlie, or Blue Jeans?

So casual, though.

They meditated, frowning, on the array.

I wanna get something special. I have my job money, said Snow to the counter lady. Maybe something from a designer or movie star.

The woman displayed a box. White Diamonds. Elizabeth Taylor.

America’s number one fragrance, said the woman, reverent.

Who’s Elizabeth Taylor? asked Josette.

Duh, Cleopatra?

They’d both pondered the cover of the VHS at the video rental.

Plus friends with Michael Jackson?

Oh yeah. Josette sniffed the spray nozzle. Fancy. I like this.

Enjoli, in a hot-pink box, decorated with an embossed golden flower.

But Mom’s not this spicy. I mean, she smells good.

It would clash with Dad’s Old Spice.

So would the Wild Musk?

Maybe Wind Song.

Grandma wears that.

The woman behind the counter brought out an elegant box hiding behind the others. It was a lavendery pinkish box, one of those expensive indeterminate colors. A blackish gray band. The bottle fit firmly in hand, a band of embossed diamond shapes, neatly swirled glass. Eau Sauvage. The woman sprayed a little on a Kleenex, waved the tissue in front of their noses. Waited. The smell was green and dry. Faintly licorice. Maybe a hint of cloud. A trace of fresh-cut wood? Crushed grass. A rare herb in a rare forest. Nothing dark, nothing hungry. Something else, too.

Most people think this one smells too plain, the lady said. It’s not like any other perfume. Nobody buys it. We only have this one bottle.

Snow watched Josette, her eyes wide. Josette breathed the scent in again.

I wish things could be that way, said Snow.

So pure, said Josette, putting down the bottle. Must be pricey.

It’s a bit expensive, yes, said the woman. She seemed embarrassed by the amount. I just work here. It’s not my store, she said.

Yeah, said Snow. It’s kinda too much. I was saving. But, well.

It can be for a man or a woman. Eww Savage.

Eau Sauvage, said Josette, with an exaggerated French accent. We gotta have it. She turned to Snow, eyes sparking.

Smell!

This is it, said Snow.

Josette had an old-lady-type money pouch hidden deep in her purse. She took it out. Snow hugged her passionately.

Then right there, in front of the counterwoman, they began to cry because they both knew: the trace was there. The cologne also smelled like LaRose’s clean hair on a cold autumn day when he came in and Emmaline would bend over him.

Oh, you smell good, she used to say. You smell like outside.

Leaving the drugstore, Josette and Snow talked about the outside smell and decided they were psychic with each other like in a witch coven.

Or maybe our people had these powers before the whiteman came.

Yeah, said Snow, and we lived five hundred years.

I actually heard someone say that.

Me too. And we could change the weather.

I believe that one.

Great, said Snow. Let’s do it now.

I shoulda been named Summer, said Josette. All you can do is make it snow.

It was blustery. They were walking toward the place they would meet their father. He had agreed to pick them up after he got Ottie settled back home. They were going to sit in the Subway, maybe split a twelve-inch turkey with American cheese, on whole wheat, for their complexions, with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and sweet onion sauce dressing. For sure they would. They were hungrier than usual and had enough money left for the turkey sub if they just drank water.

It’s better for us, said Josette, who loved Sprite.

They showed us in health class, said Snow mournfully. Just a can a day you get diabetes.

Landreaux never bought soda because he didn’t want his kids to lose their feet. When he put it like that, they’d squint as if in pain, Yeah, Dad. They drank forbidden pop at Whitey’s. Now, waiting for their father, they stared down at their sub sandwich wrappers and looked amazed.

I ate that so fast.

How’d that happen? Josette burped.

Gross. Now what?

We’re broke so we sip our healthful waters.

And wait for Dad.

They met each other’s eyes. Nobody at school had been very mean. Everybody in their school had something awful happen someplace in their family. Everybody just got sad for everybody, usually, or said tough shit, or if you were a girl maybe you gave a card. There were no cards for what had happened. But one of her girlfriends had beaded Snow a pair of earrings and she knew it was to say what there were no words to say. There were no words to say to their father, either. At least no words they wanted to say. In the car, maybe they’d be silent. Maybe they’d ask about Ottie or Awan or another client. Maybe they’d say something general about schoolwork. They’d avoid true feelings because it could go real deep real sudden with their father. He would get into that seriously real mode like when he did a ceremony. Where you let thoughts and feelings buried inside you come out into the circle so other people could pray and sing to help you. But, the girls agreed, they weren’t into having that kind of energy leak out of their dad when things were going on like normal. So when he drove up in the Corolla they eye-spoke. Josette would ride shotgun because she was good at keeping him on topics like haircuts, car batteries, winterizing the windows of the house with Saran wrap. And if it seemed like he might veer south, she could always ask him to tell her again what was wrong with drinking pop.