I write: Not yet. Am currently in hell, but will leave as soon as possible.
We go back and forth for a little while, and then I set off down the hallway, toward the noise and the people. I pass Josh Raymond’s room, and the door is ajar and he’s inside. I knock and he squeaks, “Come in.”
I go into what must be the largest room for a seven-year-old on the planet. The thing is so cavernous, I wonder if he needs a map, and it’s filled with every toy you can imagine, most requiring batteries.
I say, “This is quite a room you have, Josh Raymond.” I am trying not to let it bother me because jealousy is a mean, unpleasant feeling that only eats you from the inside, and I do not need to stand here, an almost-eighteen-year-old with a really sexy girlfriend, even if she’s not allowed to see me anymore, and worry about the fact that my stepbrother seems to own thousands of Legos.
“It’s okay.” He is sorting through a chest that contains—believe it or not—more toys, when I see them: two old-fashioned wooden stick horses, one black, one gray, that sit forgotten in a corner. These are my stick horses, the same ones I used to ride for hours when I was younger than Josh Raymond, pretending I was Clint Eastwood from one of the old movies my dad used to watch on our small, non-flat-screen TV. The one, incidentally, we still have and use.
“Those are pretty cool horses,” I say. Their names are Midnight and Scout.
He swivels his head around, blinks twice, and says, “They’re okay.”
“What are their names?”
“They don’t have names.”
I suddenly want to take the stick horses and march into the living room and whack my father over the head with them. Then I want to take them home with me. I’ll pay attention to them every day. I’ll ride them all over town.
“Where’d you get them?” I ask.
“My dad got them for me.”
I want to say, Not your dad. My dad. Let’s just get this straight right now. You already have a dad somewhere else, and even though mine isn’t all that great, he’s the only one I’ve got.
But then I look at this kid, at the thin face and the thin neck and the scrawny shoulders, and he’s seven and small for his age, and I remember what that was like. And I also remember what it was like growing up with my father.
I say, “You know, I had a couple of horses once, not as cool as these here, but they were still pretty tough. I named them Midnight and Scout.”
“Midnight and Scout?” He eyes the horses. “Those are good names.”
“If you want, you can have them.”
“Really?” He is looking up at me with owl eyes.
“Sure.”
Josh Raymond finds the toy he’s looking for—some sort of robocar—and as we walk out the door, he takes my hand.
Back in the living room, my father smiles his camera-ready SportsCenter smile and nods at me like we’re buddies. “You should bring your girlfriend over here.” He says this like nothing ever happened and he and I are the best of friends.
“That’s okay. She’s busy on Sundays.”
I can imagine the conversation between my father and Mr. Markey.
Your delinquent son has my daughter. At this moment, she is probably lying in a ditch thanks to him.
What did you think would happen? Damn right he’s a delinquent, and a criminal, and an emotional wreck, and a major-disappointment-weirdo-fuckup. Be grateful for your daughter, sir, because trust me, you would not want my son. No one does.
I can see Dad searching for something to say. “Well, any day is fine, isn’t it, Rosemarie? You just bring her by whenever you can.” He’s in one of his very best moods, and Rosemarie nods and beams. He slaps his hand against the chair arm. “Bring her over here, and we’ll put some steaks on the grill and something with beans and twigs on it for you.”
I am attempting not to explode all over the room. I am trying to keep myself very small and very contained. I am counting as fast as I can.
Thankfully, the game comes back on and he’s distracted. I sit another few minutes and then I thank Rosemarie for the meal, ask Kate if she can take Decca back to Mom’s, and tell everyone else I’ll see them at home.
I walk across town to my house, climb inside Little Bastard, and drive. No map, no purpose. I drive for what feels like hours, passing fields of white. I head north and then west and then south and then east, the car pushing ninety. By sunset, I’m on my way back to Bartlett, cutting through the heart of Indianapolis, smoking my fourth American Spirit cigarette in a row. I drive too fast, but it doesn’t feel fast enough. I suddenly hate Little Bastard for slowing me down when I need to go, go, go.
The nicotine scrapes at my throat, which is already raw, and I feel like throwing up, so I pull over onto the shoulder and walk around. I bend over, hands on my knees. I wait. When I don’t get sick, I look at the road stretched out ahead and start to run. I run like hell, leaving Little Bastard behind. I run so hard and fast, I feel like my lungs will explode, and then I go harder and faster. I’m daring my lungs and my legs to give out on me. I can’t remember if I locked the car, and God I hate my mind when it does that because now I can only think about the car door and that lock, and so I run harder. I don’t remember where my jacket is or if I even had one.
It will be all right.
I will be all right.
It won’t fall apart.
It will be all right.
It will be okay.
I’m okay. Okay. Okay.
Suddenly I’m surrounded by farms again. At some point, I pass a series of commercial greenhouses and nurseries. They won’t be open on Sunday, but I run up the drive of one that looks like a real mom-and-pop organization. A two-story white farmhouse sits on the back of the property.
The driveway is crowded with trucks and cars, and I can hear the laughter from inside. I wonder what would happen if I just walked in and sat down and made myself at home. I go up to the front door and knock. I am breathing hard, and I should have waited to knock so I could catch my breath, but No, I think, I’m in too much of a hurry. I knock again, louder this time.
A woman with white hair and the soft, round face of a dumpling answers, still laughing from the conversation she left. She squints at me through the screen, and then opens it because we’re in the country and this is Indiana and there is nothing to fear from our neighbors. It’s one of the things I like about living here, and I want to hug her for the warm but confused smile she wears as she tries to figure out if she’s seen me before.