The School on Heart's Content Road (15 page)

Erika says nothing. She fetches another pastel sock and a handful of washcloths.

“You mentioned before that they don't have insurance,” the young Sass offers quickly. The armholes of her dress are cut deep into the shoulders and her arms are tanned and shapely. Not a churchy dress. Her hair is in a blonde Pebbles do. Not churchy hair.

Patti replies, “Well, yes.”

Sass says, “With the way things are these days, seems most people don't have insurance.”

“It's nothing to be ashamed of,” says the white-haired Nan kindly. “My daughter doesn't have health insurance either.”

The young Sass nods energetically.

This conversation: third person all the way, like Erika isn't around. But, after all, she is keeping her back to them, isn't she?

Patti looks at the house. Her eyes sweep over to the Lockes' car, parked near the kitchen door. “Where is Donald, not at work?”

Erika says, “Tuesdays he's nights.”

Patti's sunglasses turn toward her friends. “The hospital would treat him whether they have insurance or not. They wouldn't turn a child away. I called them myself and they said Erika and Donald only need to apply for a red card and MaineCare.”

“It's true,” says Sass. “A hospital wouldn't be that mean to turn you guys away.”

Erika turns and puts her eyes wide on each of them. “Yeah?” Then goes back to pinning washcloths.

“They'll let you charge it,” says Sass eagerly. “Unless you are
real
poor, then the hospital part is free if you aren't eligible for MaineCare. But Jesse himself is probably eligible, even if you aren't. He's under eighteen. Even so, you only have to pay the doctor, maybe. And probably anesthesia if . . . you know . . . if
that
is necessary.”

Erika pins the washcloths slowly. She does not want them in her house. She does not want them in her yard. But Erika is a soft person, not one to offend.

“Maybe you could save him!” Sass urges. “Maybe it's not too late.”

Patti sneers. “My sister is a conspiracy theorist. There's all this rumor among her friends that the hospitals are grabbing people's houses. Or the state is. Or something.”

“Oh, the state wouldn't do
that,
” says Nan.

“We have friends,” says Erika without turning, “who the hospital
said
they put a lien on their house. And MaineCare too.”

“Probably a bluff,” says Patti with a chuckle. “Playing on their
ignorance
.”

Sass's voice gets a little thrill to it. “Oh, Erika, why don't you call now? Every minute matters.”

“Because,” says Patti, “my sister is stubborn and. . . .” She picks fretfully at the yellow bow of her gift. She stares deeply into this bow and says, “This whole discussion is disgusting.”

Sass says softly, “They really won't take the house, Erika.”

“And so what if they did!” snaps Patti. “It's just a piece of real estate!”

“Maybe she can mortgage the house,” Nan suggests. “They don't have to sell it.”

Erika hangs another washcloth carefully. There's the rustlings of the children inside the house, those who will still be alive next year. She says, “Jesse would die even
with
treatments.”

Patti laughs. “He has a ten-percent chance!”

Erika speaks only to the striped pink and white washcloth and two clothespins. “A five-percent chance of living five more years.”

A car passes. The horn toots. Friends of Donnie's.

Patti sighs. “They could discover a miracle in five years.”

“They?” Erika asks the dark sock she is now hanging.

Patti's eyes behind her sunglasses are unseen. Her voice comes out like a cheery TV ad. “Erika acts like her own baby is just a piece of furniture. It . . . it is hard for me to understand. Five years of time, Erika! Five precious years! But oh, no, you are not looking at five years as precious. You sit there juggling numbers like your child is just a card game or lottery . . . or something. My God!”

“I do not want him in
this
world,” Erika's voice says firmly, into a
long stunned silence. She finishes with the last washcloth, turns, and sees Donnie in the doorway in his old sweatpants, blue with white double stripes on the outsides of each leg. And gray T-shirt. She has two fantasies right now. One, that Donnie will keep filling that door, like a brave soldier, and keep
them
out. He will not be his usual wishy-washy self and let people walk over him. He looks so strong from this distance, even without his mustache. The way he stands, the hard fed-up look in his eyes. She imagines he is who she once thought he was.

And she imagines Jesse as he actually was six months ago. Standing in the kitchen. His sly, mischievous, fun little white-baby-teeth grin, cheeks blooming with perfect health, pointing up at his half sister, Elizabeth, who would be fixing his Barney cup with Kool-Aid, and he says, “Mine is reddy,” which means either
ready
or
very red
. Even his mistakes seemed so smart. And his delight with everything. His delight: yeah, it was from the same place forgiveness is made. And no one else's forgiveness matters.

Next day, suppertime.

Little girls stand at the table and pick from plates. There's enough chairs, but they don't use them. Elizabeth, the oldest, says “I want one of those” as she watches the parade of products on TV. Donnie says, “Sit down. You're not a cow.” He says this only to Elizabeth, his seven-year-old daughter by his first marriage, singling her out. She gives him the finger.

Mickey comes in from somewhere, screen door thwacking, and sees the finger raised and then Donnie standing with his coffee by the refrigerator, tie loosened, top shirt-button unbuttoned, but his light-color hair still neat. And on Donnie's bare, pink, hairless face, a look. Full-blown fury. And Donnie's eyes slide over to Mickey's proud light-stepping walk, the knees, the T-shirt that reads
BLAME IT ON EL NIñO
, the slim hips.

Neither Erika nor Britta have seen the finger. And so they don't know of it, and they don't see Donnie's face, nor the brace of his shoulders.

Mickey prances over to Erika and taps her shoulder. She turns from the pan of stewed tomatoes, big spoon in her hand, and into her free hand he presses a wob of money and she breathes, “Thank God.”

And Britta. She coos.

So Mickey is standing between Donnie and Erika, and he reaches for a glass from the drainer and Erika pushes the money into the front pocket of her shorts, against that warm place near the hip bone, and Britta is looking up at the side of Mickey's face, at the pale, very soft, very sparse beard appearing there, and the glass slips from Mickey's fingers and smashes into the sink and this gives Donnie's right arm a life of its own. Fist smacks Mickey hard. Mickey's mouth looks instantly thick and bright.

“Donnie!” both women howl, for they are absolutely shocked, this being the first time Donnie Locke has ever struck anyone or anything.

And two of the girls burst into tears, two of the four who live here, while the two neighbor girls slink toward the door.

“Tense! Tense!” Donnie hollers. “Fucking tense, okay?”

Silence from the corner, the pallet of blankets where dying Jesse lies, breathing in an odd way.

Mickey doesn't shout back at his brother, nor does he cry, nor does he cringe, nor does he leave the room, but just goes over to the table and sits, facing the TV, which is showing a pale rerun of a large boisterous family living a lite life.

Breakfast of champions.

Early morning. All the TVs are on, two downstairs, two upstairs. All with the news, three different networks flickering with high-tech efficiency, more efficient than God. Or at least equal to God in its power to bend the knee.

Donnie is in a kitchen chair, T-shirt and jeans, bare feet, legs stretched out, eyes faithful to the screen. Reportage on a trial. Ads. Urban crime. Ads. Welfare “reform.” Ads. Tax “reform.” Ads. A plane crash with forty-four dead. Ads. A weirdo less-than-human man eats his sexually assaulted boy victims. Ads.

Summer presses on and on at the screened windows and door. Humidity and miles of weedy-smelling flowers, miles of crickets creaking in pauses and crescendos, a rhythm innate and old and creepily genius. And a car passes.

Donnie's day off, so he can let his mustache grow for one day, but its blondness keeps it invisible.

Mickey comes down from his little attic room, wearing a fresh but wrinkled T-shirt. A camo print. The militia look. Jeans. Sneakers with double lacings and his light, proud, catlike walk. And his mouth, still swollen. Bruised berry-blue. A badge. Smacked mouth has given him more arrogance, not less. And his beard shows more now, a bit reddish.

No women. No kids. Only the old deaf dog and Mickey and Donnie.

Donnie keeps his eyes on the TV screen, one bare foot rubbing the dog's back.

Mickey finds one of the brand-new boxes of cold cereal in the cupboard just as that very same brand of cereal explodes full-blown onto the TV screen, golden flakes raining from above into a bowl, then bluish milk and a lot of high-feeling music. Mickey picks open the box, which is glued too well, and it rips.

Back to the news. Music is just as high-feeling as the cereal music.

Mickey pours a bowl of flakes. Fetches the milk—milk he has provided with his own earnings. He settles at the table to eat. Donnie and Mickey both watch an update on the “drug crisis” in America. Drugs. Guns. Victims. A three-year study. Experts speaking from their desks before walls of books. And a spokesman at a microphone telling the whys of the president's “crime bill.” Mickey munches. Donnie's jaw twitches.

Going to the discount store, six-and-a-half-year-old Jane Meserve speaks.

I wear my new dark pink sunglasses. Dark pink is where you see out through. White is around the edges, which are plastic, shaped like two hearts. And I wear my best earrings, which are like Manda Blake's on the news. Gordie has dark glasses too, but just plain. Not heart shapes. His have metal around them with gray tape stuff to fix where they broke once. But he only wears his for when he is driving into the sunshine.

The discount store is called
ROBBINS
because it's their garage fixed up, it's in East Egypt and Gordie says this is my last chance. He says, “Tantrums do not turn me on.” If I ask for ONE LITTLE THING, he will hate me. And I will not be “allowed” in a store “till the end of time.”

You would not believe all the piles of stuff
he
buys. Screws and wires and little metal-shape things. And he is really friendish with all the
people at the store. He laughs and they laugh and there's jokes and weird mental talk about “sole electricity” and “passion sole” and some companies everybody hates who send you bills which have made us “too dependent and helpless.” All so boring.

I take off my dark glasses. I just go around and look at stuff. This stuff is cheap, called
regulars
and
overloads
. It's good stuff, not just nails. I pick up some sheer lip gloss and feel it. And some Profusion, which there's only one bottle left and has a ripped label. On a big spinning thing are earrings, and there is a two-sided comb that would be so easy for Gordie to buy if he noticed my sad eyes.