We Were Kings (17 page)

Her eyes appeared swollen and bloodshot, and some dried snot flecked inside her nostrils. He knelt down and checked her foot, pressed at the wound. Maria screamed but she didn't cry. It would require stitches, and they might have to use a pair of tweezers to pull out fragments of glass.

“Don't worry, we'll get it all fixed up and as good as new.”

She whimpered, wiped at her nose and mouth with her thin forearm.

He lifted her up, kissed her on the forehead, cradled her in his arms, and then brought her to the bath. Under cold water, he carefully rinsed her foot and asked her if it hurt, and she said no. “It hurt much more,” she added.

“When was that, honey?” he asked. “Was it still light outside, or was it dark?”

“It just got dark.”

“When I was a kid, if I got a little cut I'd cry for days. You're much braver than I was.” He tried his best to be calming, but inside, a rage grew. It was the same story as before. Claudia had thought she could leave Maria alone again. Just one drink out, maybe two. Just a little alone time with Vinny.

With the wound dressed in gauze, he placed a sock over Maria's foot for good measure, changed her into a clean nightdress, and carried her outside. He would have to walk ten minutes to get to his car, and he started toward it. A cab was crossing over the road to make a three-point turn, and he stepped off the curb and called out, “Hey! Hold up!”

The yellow taxi pulled around on the empty street and came to a stop beside them.

“What's the trouble?” the cabbie asked.

“My daughter,” he said, “she cut herself and I need to take her to the hospital.”

“Mass General?”

“Yeah, that's the closest.”

The cabbie eyed them suspiciously but then reached behind his seat and pulled up the door lock. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Yes. Yes, she is,” Dante said.

In the backseat, with Maria on his lap, he fully registered what he'd said just a moment ago:
She's my daughter
.

He looked down at her face, at the nose that would develop a Romanesque sharpness, perhaps too big for her other features as a teenager but fitting just right once she became an adult; the lips that were Sheila's, the V of the upper lip pronounced and sharp, what some people called a cupid's bow; and the dark, troubled eyes—not Renza's, not Michael Foley's, but his own.

Maria smiled up at him, but the smile was pained and worried. “I'll be okay.”

He felt his throat constrict and his heart hammer at his rib cage. He put a cigarette in his mouth but didn't light it. He felt utterly and completely helpless.

She's my daughter
. The words went around and around and didn't stop until the cab pulled up at the entrance of the hospital.

“How much?” Dante asked.

The cabbie shook his head. “Don't worry about it. I have two daughters myself. I know how it is.”

_________________________

North End

BECAUSE THERE WAS
little food in the fridge, Dante decided that he'd take Maria out for breakfast. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gone to the grocery and filled the shelves, icebox, and pantry.

Both he and Maria had slept poorly—they hadn't left Mass General until midnight. The emergency room had been full of people waiting to see the two doctors on shift. There was a college-age kid who had been hit with a bottle, and his inebriated buddy sat beside him and pressed what had once been a white towel against his friend's bleeding face. There was a frail Chinese woman who had fallen down and apparently broken her arm. Melodious groans came from her toothless, gummy mouth while, slumped beside her, her husband napped with his chin down, oblivious to all the noise. In the same row of wooden chairs, an obese man complained that he was having a heart attack, and when he wasn't cursing the nurses who passed by him without a glance, he had his face buried in his hands and sobbed like a child.

Eventually a nurse came and told Dante and Maria to follow her. She took them to a room where the doctor was waiting. The doctor had bright, young eyes but the rest of him appeared cadaverous, as though the death and illness surrounding him on a daily basis had taken its toll. With long, thin fingers that reminded Dante of a tarantula, the man treated Maria with such indifference, he might as well have been pruning a plant. But the doctor did his job—he cleaned the wound of chipped glass and, with a steady hand, wove a thick black thread in and out of her iodine-stained skin, closing the gash with seven stitches. Through it all, Dante held Maria's hand, telling her to squeeze tight and look at him, not at her foot. Not one tear had rolled out of her eyes, and Dante couldn't quite put into words why, but her bravery broke his heart, so much so that he had to look away from her penetrating gaze.

Back at the apartment, Maria couldn't fall asleep, and Dante read to her for an hour, first a story from
Weird Tales
about a mummy's curse wreaking havoc on a group of archaeologists, and then part of a comic. When she was finally out, he went into the living room, expecting Claudia to come in at any minute. But she never did, and he woke up curled on the couch with the morning sun coming through the open window, the slightest breeze touching the curtain and giving him hope that today might be cooler than yesterday.

Now, in the front foyer of the apartment building, Dante wrestled with the old secondhand stroller that was supposed to fold out. There was rust covering the joints, and he hunched over it and pulled at the handles so hard that one of the plastic wheels jostled out of its hold and clattered onto the tiled floor. He slammed it back in with the heel of his hand and finally extended the cheap stroller so all four wheels touched the ground.

“C'mon, get in.”

Maria was leaning on the wall under the mailboxes, and, with her arms crossed over her chest, she shook her head no.

“I know you're a big girl, but because of your foot you can't be walking.”

“Horsey ride,” she said.

“No horsey ride. My back can't take it, and you're too big for it anyway.” He reached out his hand. “C'mon, don't be a brat now.”

Stinking of aftershave and pomade, a man leaving for work opened the inner door, said, “Excuse me,” and eyed Dante standing beside the wreck of a stroller. Dante's patience was stretched thin already, and he stared back until the man left, letting the front door slam shut behind him.

“We don't have all day,” Dante said, and she finally relented. He helped her into the seat. When she leaned back, her shoulders were pinched by the two metal bars that led up to the curved handles. The canvas material bowed under her weight.

“Where we going?” she asked, even though he'd told her twice already.

“To see Auntie at work and get you some pancakes.”

They crossed out of the North End toward Causeway Street. It was still early in the morning, yet the sunlight was as harsh and bright as if it were high noon. The lack of food in his stomach and the lack of sleep made all the edges of the city bleach and blur in the glare. Everything looked like it did on a television set with the tint turned all the way up.

Pedestrians drifted by them on the sidewalk, turning toward them with apparent amusement. Perhaps it was the loud clacking from the carriage wheels. Or how Maria was too large for the seat. Or maybe it was Dante's downtrodden appearance as he pushed her along, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips and his wardrobe not much finer than a bum's down at the Pine Street Inn.

“Don't let your feet hit the ground,” he said to Maria, who kicked her legs up and then lowered them dangerously close to the concrete. Again, she was testing him.

They passed under the elevated tracks that led from North Station to the Lechmere stop. Shafts of dirty sunlight came through the tracks and girders and lit the street in strips, giving Dante the sensation that they were descending underground and witnessing the last of the outside world before darkness completely took them. The windows of the stores and shops were opaque, and trying to see inside as he passed, Dante witnessed his own greasy silhouette in reflection. A man with a horribly thin face and yellow, syphilitic eyes stood inside a doorway. He whistled through his teeth, raised a hand, and waved for Dante to stop. “Hey, buddy, come here. I need to ask you a question.”

Above, a train pulled into the station with a thunderous roar, and the conductor announced the stop but the speaker on the platform was so damaged that the words were lost in feedback. As the train moved out, metal tearing against metal, Maria put her hands over her ears and pressed to quell the noise. Cars honked at one another, the sounds of their horns echoing in the air heavy with exhaust.

There was a hump of a homeless man curled up on the sidewalk on a piece of cardboard, his face black with beard and a foul smell coming off of him. Maria turned her head and stared at the bum as Dante maneuvered the carriage closer to the curb. A small flock of pigeons shot up from the gutter, their plumage the same color of the soiled concrete, and flew up to the shit-caked rafters under the rail. Maria watched their ascent, and then she started to clap, her applause muted by all the noise around them.

Back out in the sunlight, Dante winced. A block down, he spotted the sign of the diner Claudia worked at, the Hopscotch.

An older woman held the door open for them, and as he moved forward, the wheels locked up. He lifted the stroller with Maria inside it and settled it down in the alcove next to a gumball machine filmed over with dust. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and the smell of burned bacon dimmed his appetite.

There were two waitresses weaving among the booths along the wall and the ten tables that were squared up on the linoleum floor. They were seated right away, but they waited for five minutes before someone came to take their order.

“So what'll it be for the young lady? Apple or orange?”

“Orange, please. And coffee for me.”

The waitress's hair was blue-black and it was tightly knotted in the back. She listed the specials and Dante couldn't help but notice a cold sore, the size of a raspberry, on the side of her mouth, poorly veiled by the lipstick she wore heavily. He lost his appetite completely but he ordered scrambled eggs and rye toast for himself and blueberry pancakes for Maria. He watched her walk away, the blue skirt wrinkled and her panty hose loose behind the knee, as if they were two sizes too large. Glancing up, he expected to see Claudia coming out of the kitchen.

And maybe this is her now,
he thought as a waitress came through the doors, but when she raised her head, he saw a pale-skinned girl barely eighteen tying a checkered apron around her waist.

Where the fuck is Claudia?

In the wooden kid's chair, Maria was restless, taking her fork and stabbing at the place mat. He told her to simmer down but she paid no attention. Funny how the stroller was too small for her but the chair she was sitting in was too big. No wonder she was in such an awful mood; nothing seemed to fit her right.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She shook her head and he could tell that boredom was going to lead to one of her tantrums. He reached into his pocket and found the worn nub of a pencil. He handed it to her, and, still frowning, she started doodling on the paper place mat. He lit a cigarette, tugged at it with deep breaths. Ash flaked down to the table and he wiped at it with the side of his hand.

“I'll be right back,” he said. “You stay put, hear me? Don't get out of the chair.”

He followed the waitress with the blue-black hair and tapped her on the shoulder before she went through the swinging door into the kitchen. “Excuse me, miss.”

“Yeah?”

“Claudia Cooper works here, right?”

“Yeah, she does. Or
did,
I should say.”

“Did?”

“Claudia hasn't been in all week. Didn't even give notice or nothing. Just walked out and didn't come back.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Why you looking for her? She in trouble?”

“No, she's not in any trouble. But you see her, let her know her brother was looking for her.”

When he returned to the table, he saw that Maria had knocked over her glass. The orange juice pooled on the tablecloth and dripped onto the floor. He pulled out napkins from the dispenser and tried mopping up the juice, but it only seemed to make the mess worse.

Dante looked toward the kitchen, and through the ticket window he saw one of the cooks staring at him. When the cook noticed him looking back, he quickly returned his attention to putting the finishing touches on a plate for pickup. In that moment, Dante knew that the waitress had told everybody that he was looking for Claudia.

Five minutes later, the food arrived. Dante got out of his seat and cut up Maria's pancakes, took the syrup and poured it on until she cried, “Too much!” He kissed her on the top of her head, returned to his seat, lit another cigarette, and ignored the rubbery-looking eggs and the burned toast on his plate. The coffee was weak, as if they had used yesterday's grounds, but he drank it anyway. The waitress came and put down the bill. He did his best not to look at the cold sore on her lip.

“Not hungry?” she asked. “Our food ain't
that
bad.”

Dante shook his head and smiled. “I lost my appetite.”

Back on the sidewalk, Dante tried to fold out the carriage but it wouldn't budge. He got down on his knees, laid it on its side, and pulled at the handle.

“Piece of shit!”

As soon as he said it, the handle snapped off at the point where the rust was thickest. Standing straight, he picked the carriage up and tried to right it, but it leaned at an angle. It was useless now, junk.

Standing a few feet away, Maria was laughing, but he found nothing funny about it. There was a line of trash cans against the building. He grabbed the stroller, swung it high, and tossed it. It spun in the air and crashed against the barrels, knocking over one of them, its lid popping off and clattering like the cymbal from a drum kit. A flurry of flies shot up from the stinking trash. A rat scurried out toward the shadows under the elevated tracks.

“Time to get on the horse,” he said. He knelt down so Maria could crawl onto his back, and when he stood up, he felt a knuckle of pain knock at the base of his spine. Her little hands, sticky from the syrup, pulled at his neck.

And they were off, back under the elevated tracks, dodging the bum laid out on the sidewalk, going past the pigeons flapping their filthy wings, past the junkie swaying in the doorway like some destitute marionette, and then out into the sunlight on the other side, that much closer to home.

He jostled her up higher and told her to hold on to his shoulders and not let go.

“The Apache are right on our tail and they're shooting arrows by the hundreds. They want their scalps back and they'll string us up for the vultures if they catch us.” He neighed like a horse and she kicked at his hip to propel him forward. Both of them were laughing, and it lasted all the way back to their neighborhood.

When they got back to the apartment, he was drenched in sweat, lungs gasping for air. She needed a bath, so he ran the water in the tub, sat Maria down on the toilet seat and checked the wrappings on her foot. Dried blood appeared on the gauze like a blot of red ink. He'd have to clean it up again. “I'll be right back,” he said.

Claudia's bedroom door was partially open and he tried to remember if it had been opened or closed before they'd left for breakfast. Her dresser had two of its drawers halfway pulled out. Some clothes were scattered about her unmade bed. It was obvious she had been in a hurry.

In the kitchen, he fired up the burner, filled the kettle, and poured coffee grounds into the press. A pack of smokes was on the kitchen table and he recognized they weren't his. Reaching for them, he saw the note that had been left there.

Dante, I'm sorry about this but I had to get away for a while. Vinny and I are heading to the Cape for a few days, maybe a week. There are lots of things to talk about when I get back. I spoke to Mrs. Berardi just now. She says she'll help watch Maria when you're gone at work. Sorry again. Love you.
—
Claudia

On the side of the note, somebody had sloppily drawn a sad face, two
X
s for eyes and a downturned frown. And next to that was a crooked heart with an arrow stabbed through it and the words
Love you too
.

Dante knew that it wasn't Claudia who had drawn the face and the heart and written
Love you too
. It had to be Vinny who had doodled on the note while Claudia was in her bedroom packing up her suitcase. Dante crumpled up the piece of paper and dropped it back on the table. In his head, he could see the two of them in a car right now traveling down Route 6 over the Sagamore Bridge to the Cape, not a care in the world. As he lit a cigarette, he heard Maria cry out for him, suddenly and with an urgency that could only mean she was in pain.