More Than Enough (20 page)

“Maybe you should go, Billy,” she said.

“Am I supposed to apologize now, beg for forgiveness or something, so that we can all get back together? Is that what I'm supposed to do, Mary?” He was smiling, trying to act as though none of this mattered to him, as if his question were facetious. But his smile was thin, and he couldn't seem to keep it.

“No,” she said.

He looked down at himself and brushed off the front of his wet jeans, even though there was nothing on them. Then he began shivering. “Jesus am I cold,” he said. He just stood there, holding himself.

“You should go home and change, Billy,” my mother said.

“I want to know what I'm supposed to do. What should I do, for Christ's sake, Mary?”

“You're shouting,” my mother said.

“I'm sorry,” my father said in a softer voice now. “So tell me.”

“There's nothing to do. I don't want you to do anything. I just want you to go home now.”

My father sat down Indian style, the way a kid sits, in the wet dirt beneath him, and beat the ground once with his fist.

“We're not going to ask you in, Billy.”

My father looked up, and I saw that he wasn't angry with her, that he no longer had the strength to be angry with her. He was shaking his head and pulling his long wet hair back. He tried to hold her gaze, but he couldn't. He had to look back down. “Is that right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

We were all quiet for some time, and I looked behind me, because I no longer wanted to look at my father sitting like that on the ground, hugging himself. The section of the sky above the mountains was a glowing pink while another section of it was black with clouds. I faced them again. “She was lying,” I said to him, because somebody needed to say something and because I was pretty sure what I was saying was the truth. “She does too love you. She can't help loving you.”

My mother looked at me and I thought I saw anger in her eyes, but her voice wasn't angry when she said, “That's not enough. It never changed things. Not in all the years we've been together it hasn't. I could go on loving him forever and it wouldn't do a thing.”

My father smiled at me. “Thanks, Steven,” he said. “Thanks for being on my side. Thanks for believing in me.” He looked behind him then at a blue-and-white Salt Lake City Police car that had just pulled onto Mars Drive from Milky Way Boulevard and quietly came to a stop, its motor still running, on the opposite side of the street from us. Its windows were tinted black and reflected a portion of Curtis Smith's front yard. “I'll be damned,” my father said quietly, looking over his shoulder at the car. “It looks like your rich friend called the cops on me.” He was worried enough to speak quietly now, too quietly for his voice to be heard by the cops inside that car. I looked at the house again, this time sure that we were being watched and that whoever was watching us had the law on his side and was a powerful person for that reason. “I wish you would go in there and tell your friend not to do that. I am not a criminal, for Christ's sake.” He looked back at the cop car again and picked up a good-size rock out of the garden dirt beneath him, weighing it in his hand. “I suppose that would be a stupid thing to do, wouldn't it?” my father said to himself.

“Yes, Billy,” my mother said. “That would be a stupid thing to do.” He let the rock drop from his hand. “Go now,” she said. She reached out to him with the keys to the Buick. “You take the car,” she said.

“No!” he shouted. “Hell, no!” The cop didn't like the sound of my father shouting because she—a lady cop—stood out of her car, walked around to the other side of it, the side closest to us, and leaned against it. She was blond and wore her hair inside her cop hat and had one of those belts with weapons on it. “I am not a criminal,” my father whispered viciously. “I am doing nothing wrong here. Nothing.”

“This yard doesn't belong to you, Billy,” my mother said in a soft voice. “This is private property.” You could barely hear the cop's radio, the static and sounds of voices speaking out of it.

My father stood up, water dripping from his backside. “I'm not feeling too well,” he said. In fact, he looked sick. His eyelids were purple, and his face was white. He looked too skinny and maybe hungry. “So I'm going to leave. But I'm coming back. I'm not giving up.” He looked at Jenny. “How's that watch, Jen-Jen?” he asked. “You still like it?”

“Yes,” she said.

“What time is it, then?” he asked.

She looked at her watch, which she hadn't done for a while now. “It's thirty-five minutes after six.” She smiled at him, but there was something stiff and formal between them.

“That's a very nice outfit,” he said, gesturing at my sister's new uniform. “Does that mean you made the cheerleader squad?”

“No,” Jenny said, almost shyly. “I'm on the drill team. I'm a Billmorette now.”

“Wonderful,” he said. “Congratulations. That's really…” He couldn't finish his sentence. He looked at me and then at Jenny again, and then looked quickly over his shoulder at the lady cop, who was watching us. “Does one of you want to come home with me?” he asked. Jenny held more tightly to our mother.

“They're going to stay with me for now,” our mother said.

“I'm just asking for one of them.”

“No, Billy,” my mother said.

“Steven can make his own decisions.” He looked at me. “You're old enough to decide what you want to do.” He was confident that I would come with him. I could see that right away. But he looked so cold and unwell, and I glanced over at the cab and saw that scary driver moving behind the wheel to his music. I didn't want to get in that cab and I didn't want to be near my father, near his hopelessness, near his bone-cold chill, near his inability to stop what was happening that day.

“He's staying with me, Billy,” my mother said. She put her hand on my shoulder, and I felt her fingers trembling. But I also felt her strength, her determination to keep me.

“Don't,” I said. I shook my shoulder free and took a step away from her.

“Steven,” she said.

“He can decide for himself,” my father said. “What do you say, Steven?” He looked at me.

“I don't know,” I said.

“What does ‘I don't know' mean?” he asked. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Mom says I have to stay.” I looked up at her, and she put her hand out toward me again. But I moved another step away. I didn't want her to touch me. I really didn't. “I'll be home later tonight. We'll all be home later tonight.”

“You're going with her?”

“I'm just staying a few more hours.”

“You're choosing to go with her?” He was shaking his head at me.

“I'm not choosing anything.”

“Jesus,” he said.

“Don't you do this to him, Billy,” my mother said.

“I'm not doing anything to anyone.” He looked at me and said nothing. He just nodded, as if I knew what that meant, before he turned around and went back to his cab.

I watched him as the cab drove off. I almost ran after him. I almost shouted at him to wait. I wanted to tell him that I had changed my mind, that I was going with him. Instead, I stood there and watched until the yellow car drove down the hill. When it disappeared, the lady cop got back in her car and my mother walked up behind me and put her hand on my back. “Don't touch me, please,” I said.

She took her hand back and stepped away from me.

*   *   *

My mother was shaky after my father had left and needed some time to just sit. So she made us all get back into the Buick and started the engine and ran the heater on high until we warmed up. A white mist covered the windows through which Curtis Smith's house slowly lost definition. You could just barely make out the cop car as it pulled away from the curb and drove down Mars Drive. “Why was he looking at me like that?” I asked.

She was tapping her fingers on the steering wheel and thinking about something. “He's just upset. He'll get over it.”

“He won't get over it,” I said.

“He'll get over it.”

“Why was he mad at me? I'm not the one he should be mad at.”

“I'm sorry,” she said then, though she didn't sound sorry. She sounded angry. “I'm sorry if I've involved you too much in all this, okay?”

I looked out the window and let my mother know I was going to remain silent, which really pissed her off.

“Okay?” she said in a fierce whisper.

“Whatever,” I said. It was the right word to say this time. It was satisfying as hell to say, in fact.

My mother wiped the mist from the rearview mirror, looked at herself, and forgot all about whether or not I accepted her apology. “I've ruined myself,” she said. “I can't see anybody looking like this.” Her tears had melted her cosmetics away. She began cleaning her face off with Kleenex and handing me the bright, bruise-colored clumps of tissues, which I had no place to throw except on the wet mat at my feet, where they made a pulpy mush of color. She redrew her face, pausing to clear the fog from the mirror a few times. When she'd finished, she turned around to show Jenny and me. “How do I look?” she asked.

“Okay,” Jenny said.

Our mother wiped a large peephole in the fogged window and looked out at the house. “It's not why you like him?” I asked her. “The house, I mean.”

“Does it have a pool?” Jenny asked. She was looking out at it, too.

“In the back,” she said. She looked over at me. “No, Steven,” she said. “That's not why.” She seemed to pause and think about her answer carefully. “It's certainly not why. But I can't say it isn't important. The fact that he knows how to put his life together and keep it together is something to consider.”

I saw Jenny's face fall. She was looking down at her lap. “Maybe I don't want to meet him now,” Jenny said.

My mother put her hand on Jenny's cheek. “It will be okay,” she said. “I promise.”

“It's not going to be okay,” I said.

She thought of something. “He's a pilot,” she said. “Curtis has a small plane. I'm sure he'd take you up in it.”

“I don't care if he has a stupid plane,” I said. “I don't care what he has.”

“I just thought you might like to know.”

“I don't want to meet him,” Jenny said.

“You can stay in the car. How would that be?” My mother knew exactly what she was doing, since any kind of isolation was the severest form of punishment to Jenny. She hated more than anything to be excluded and left alone.

“I don't know,” Jenny said.

“I'm not going,” I said. “I'm staying with Jenny.”

“Okay,” my mother said. “You stay in the car, then.” My mother stood up out of the Buick and slammed the door. For an instant, both Jenny and I watched her from our seats. Then Jenny burst out, not even bothering to close her door, and sprinted to my mother's side. I should have stayed in my seat. I should have sat right there. I should never have moved. But I was afraid of being left in that car. I was every bit as afraid of loneliness as Jenny was. I was afraid of losing our mother. And so I picked up my white garbage bag and zipped my coat, walked around to Jenny's door, locked and closed the goddamned thing, and followed them.

Six

CURTIS SMITH'S DOORBELL MADE
the sound of an imperial gong. Jenny clung to our mother, their arms entwined. I hugged myself, cradling my arm in its sling, as if my injury were the most precious thing in the world to me, while a rain so fine and insubstantial that it hardly seemed to exist tickled my face and neck. “His children's names are Andrea and Curtis Junior,” she whispered. “They're staying at Curtis's house this week, so you'll be meeting them.”

“Don't expect me to be nice,” I said.

She reached over and squeezed my good shoulder firmly. “I do expect you to be nice, Steven.” She looked at me for a moment, and I could tell that she was embarrassed or worried. “Why don't you go put that garbage bag in the car, kiddo? I don't think you need to carry it around, do you?”

I looked down at it. I sure the hell wasn't going to give it up. It gave me something to do with my good hand, for one thing. It gave me something to hold on to. “I like it,” I said.

But there was no time for an argument because the door opened then, and a man shorter, fatter, older, and no better dressed than my father stood in the doorway. He had his kids—Andrea and Curtis Jr.—on either side of him. I could tell they were scared—all of them. The little kid, Curtis Jr., who had a soft, fat face with blue eyes and who was squirming beneath his father's arm, must have been five or so. Before anything was said, the boy started picking his nose, and Curtis took his son's hand and held it tightly. “No,” Curtis said. The boy was dressed in these brown corduroy pants and a white oxford with one of those polo ponies on the chest—Ralph Lauren for little kids. The girl was taller—she might have been ten or so—and was staring down at her shiny-as-hell black shoes with a fine strap through which the pink of her stockings seemed to burn and give off light. She wore this dress that came down just below her knees and was the color and texture of cotton candy. She hated us. I could tell that without even seeing her face.

“Hi,” Curtis said to all of us. Nobody answered. Even my mother remained silent. Curtis looked at me, and I was shocked to recognize his eyes. Shallow and blue, they were his mother's, and I thought about how we each knew the other's mother, only he loved mine and I—or so I told myself—hated his. He was, as far as I could see, a slob. For one thing, both his children—probably thanks to his ex-wife—were better dressed than he. He wore blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up once over a pair of spit-shined cowboy boots, the brown leather textured like rattlesnake skin, and a shieldlike belt buckle with a chunk of turquoise in the middle. His arms were muscled, but his belly stretched the green fabric of his polo shirt a little. His hands were thick and short, like paws. In one, he still held his son's nose-picking hand while the other held the door open with powerful, stubby fingers. His thin blond hair was a burnished, reddish gold. His teeth were very white. “Would you like to come in?” he asked.