Sweetgirl (4 page)

He gave himself a look in the mirror when he was dressed and wished he wouldn't have knocked Kayla out so soon. He wished his girl could have seen him in his full winter sports regalia. Shel
ton was a sight, and he would not deny it in the name of false humility.

A snowmobile suit was like a tuxedo for trashy folk, and Kayla would have blushed red had she seen how handsome he could be when he took the time. It was his pectorals, yes, but what about that black visor? Shelton felt like a goddamn mystery in that visor, the sort of mystery a woman appreciated in a man.

But for all the suit's glories and the visor's intrigue, the helmet itself was the real gem. The belle of the ball, as they say. The helmet was aerodynamic, and its modern shaping concealed, or perhaps redistributed, the abnormal size of his head. Shelton had a big, swollen-looking head, which he was sensitive about because he thought it made him look retarded.

He had a learning disability, that much was true, but it was a long way from being retarded and Shelton hated that his head might suggest otherwise. As a child he was picked on endlessly for his head. In elementary school they called him Buckethead and Shel-tard. And while each name had its own cruel merits, his classmates consolidated their mockeries when Shelton grew a mustache in the sixth grade and everybody began to call him Gorilla Head Retard.

Shelton never fought back, despite a considerable size advantage. In fact he was usually the one who laughed the loudest at his own expense. Sometimes he jumped around and made monkey noises, scratched his armpits, and beat his chest. He couldn't help it, Shelton wanted everybody to like him so bad.

Had anybody ever spoken with Shelton about his childhood he might have told them he never quite escaped the echo of those
schoolyard taunts. That he took them with him wherever he went, and heard them most clearly when he glanced in the mirror and saw that big head of his. But nobody ever spoke with Shelton about much of anything, let alone his childhood. Maybe that was why he'd nearly killed John Jameson, his drinking buddy, when he leaned toward Shelton at the bar and said, “Pass me that beer, Jughead.”

Shelton's painful past was so long ago now, but in other ways it felt like it was still happening. Yet all those voices went silent when he slid his helmet on. Shelton looked good and thought maybe he should walk upstairs and a take a picture of himself in the full-length mirror, then text it to Kayla for when she woke.

The issue was he'd have to walk by Old Bo again. He'd have to smell him and remember that he was dead and deal with that whole gamut of troublesome emotions and he simply didn't have the strength to do it. Not now. Not when there was so much else to be done.

Shelton was ready to roll, but why in the world was that Talking Heads song still playing? And where was the damn remote? Shelton checked the coffee table and then patted the pockets of his snowmobile suit, which didn't make any logical sense. He'd just put the snowmobile suit on and the CD had been playing all along, so obviously the remote wouldn't be there. He checked the pockets again, though, just to be sure.

He went into the kitchen next and shooed General Winthrop off the table. The remote was not in the pile of dishes and dirty glasses and he looked at the cat and wondered if he might have run off with it.

“What about it?” he said. “Did you run off with my remote, General?”

The cat exhaled and settled into a curl on the floor. He licked at one of his front legs.

“No,” Shelton said. “You might not be much, General Winthrop, but you are not a thief.”

Shelton opened the refrigerator and closed it. He kicked the keg and it was empty. He paced the kitchen and then walked back into the living room. He squeezed some more gas out of the tank, took a balloon break.

He searched the coffee table again and then picked up the couch cushions and tossed them on the floor. He looked in the couch creases and then beneath the La-Z-Boy recliner. He looked on the mantel above the fireplace and then went back to the coffee table. He picked up an old, upended cereal bowl but there was nothing underneath it.

“Goddamn,” he said.

He picked the couch cushions off the floor and set them back on the couch. He got on his hands and knees and crawled around the carpet. He ran his fingers through the shag and felt for the cool of the plastic.

He had another balloon and then went to the bathroom and looked in the toilet. He walked back into the kitchen and looked on top of the fridge and then inside the dishwasher. He kicked the keg a little harder this time and it was still empty. He opened and shut the pantry door and then walked into the living room.

The irony was, with all the energy he'd just spent he could have walked over and shut the damn power off by hand, could
have done it a hundred times. Shelton realized this and felt like a fool, felt for a moment like he was still Gorilla Head Retard, jumping around the schoolyard and acting ape.

Then he looked at Kayla and thought it might disrupt her sleep to shut off the Talking Heads anyway, and what did he care since he was about to fire up the sled and go find Jenna? So it turned out the entire remote incident was a waste of time. Shelton told himself not to dwell on it and blew himself up another balloon.

Shelton had some joints rolled and tucked away in his top-secret drawer in the kitchen, which was also where he kept his Glock with the fancy laser sight. He grabbed the gun and a few hog legs for the road, then blew Kayla a kiss good-bye. He flipped down his visor and walked into the storm. If he didn't know better, he might have thought he was a hero.

My feet got cold sitting there in the cabin, waiting. I thought it would be good to get out of my socks, to warm them for a bit by the stove, but I didn't want to move and risk waking the baby. She needed her rest and I needed the quiet. I did not like the idea of Jenna crying out while Portis was gone and Shelton Potter was out there lurking in the night. I felt lucky to have Jenna calm and was not willing to risk so much as a flinch if it might wake her.

I may not appear to be the feminine, caretaking type, but I have always been good with babies. I had the reputation around town as a tomboy, which is what they call you in Cutler when you don't wear makeup but are also not a lesbian.

My sister, Starr, had a new baby boy out in Portland and we were already thick as thieves. Tanner was only six months old and I hadn't met him in person, but I went to the library every
Saturday so we could Skype and I swear that baby wouldn't stop smiling once he set his eyes on me. Starr kept saying she would pay for my plane ticket if I came to visit, but I didn't have the heart to tell her I couldn't—that Mama had fallen off again and couldn't be left alone.

Starr and her husband, Bobby, had been out west about eight months and were just getting settled. Bobby's uncle was a big-deal contractor out there and had nothing but work for Bobby since they landed. They put a down payment on a house, with some help from Bobby's uncle, and the last thing I wanted was to worry Starr about what was going on back in Cutler.

Mama was sober when Starr left and I didn't see any reason to tell her otherwise. Starr wanted me to go with her, to move in with her and Bobby, but I told her we might as well pour Carletta a drink ourselves if we both took off and left her all at once. I told her we needed to give Mama a real chance to make it this time and she finally backed off when I swore up and down I'd call the second Mama slipped.

I never did call, though. Starr preferred not to speak to Mama directly, so whenever she asked I told her Carletta was doing fine and made up some bullshit about how she was still waiting tables and going to meetings.

I don't know if Starr believed me, but I don't think she wanted to outright accuse me of lying. Not when she was out in Portland with a new baby and couldn't do anything about it anyway.

The bigger deal was school. I hadn't been to class since October, when I went full time at the furniture store to keep Mama
and me afloat. That was the one thing Starr would not abide. I was officially a high school dropout and if Starr found out she would go scorched earth and probably file for custody. Either that or drug my ass and crate-ship me to Portland herself.

I was thinking about Starr and how well she was was doing, about how much I missed her, when it hit me who the girl in the farmhouse was: Kayla Hawthorne. She'd been in Starr's grade all through school and a total train wreck from the jump. I didn't recognize her at first because she looked about a hundred years old, but the fact was she couldn't have been a day over twenty-two. Kayla Hawthorne had been to jail herself and already had a two-year-old in Porcupine County she'd lost to the state.

I looked at Jenna and realized how glad I was to have her with me. If I wasn't certain about that before, I was now. She was out of that farmhouse and safe in my arms and that was no small thing.

I listened to the creak of the floorboards beneath the rocker and lost myself in her slow, steady breathing. I watched the rise and fall of her chest and followed a few brambles of vein that traced down her neck. I listened to the firewood crackle and focused on the beautiful baby in my arms.

Eventually I fell out and must have slept hard because I'd forgotten where I was by the time Portis burst through the door all angry and soaked with whiskey. I sat up startled and found Jenna crying in my arms.

“You parked that truck on a goddamn slope,” he said. “The snow just piled in there and set. It's up to the wheel wells, which isn't to mention that you're five feet off the trail to begin with.”

“What?” I said.

“You're stuck,” he said. “That truck ain't going nowhere.”

“I thought I stopped in time,” I said. “I didn't think I went in too far.”

“You were wrong.”

“Can we dig it out?”

“We ain't digging nothing,” he said.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Don't be sorry,” he said. “We don't have time for it. But how many times have I told you not to park on a slant in the goddamn snow?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I don't think you've ever told me that.”

“That's bull,” he said.

Portis stripped off his snowmobile suit and told me to pack some jerky in his rucksack. He told me to get two bottles of whiskey and pack those too.

“Where are we going?”

“Get the bottle of clean water,” he said. “And take that for her formula.”

“Portis,” I said. “Tell me where we're going!”

“Hurry up and pack,” he said.

Portis cut the hood off his snowmobile suit with a buck knife while I set Jenna down and packed the ruck. My hoodie and shirt were nearly dry on the woodstove and after I pulled them on Portis tossed me a sweatshirt.

“It's big,” he said. “But it's clean.”

It was baggy and gray. It said
RESTORE THE ROAR
above a faded Detroit Lions helmet. It seemed these were the woman
clothes Portis had promised, and I pulled the sweatshirt on over my hoodie and winced a little at the smoke-soured cotton.

Portis had cut two holes in his hood and run them through with rope. He told me to come over with the baby, handed me the hood, and said to set Jenna down inside it. He looped the rope over my head, then arranged it on my shoulders. When I said the fit was right he tied it off. I looked down at Jenna, nestled and secure inside. She was no longer crying.

“That's your papoose,” he said.

The crown of the hood was lined with fur and it made a nice edge and kept Jenna tight to my midsection. Her legs were dangling out a bit, but Portis fed them into a wool sock and said I could shield her inside the sweatshirt too.

Jenna gurgled.

“She should be warmer in this,” he said. “Easier to carry.”

“Portis,” I said. “Please tell me where we're going.”

“To my truck,” he said. “And then to the hospital to get this baby some help.”

“Why are we packing all this shit?”

“Because we've got to take the long way.”

“Why do we have to do that?”

“I'll explain it while we walk,” he said. “Being as it's the long way, we'll have plenty of time.”

He handed me a flashlight and tucked some extra batteries into the pack.

“The storm's hit a lull,” he said. “We can make decent time if we leave now.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “For dragging you into this.”

“Don't be sorry,” he said. “You ain't dragging nothing. You done right when you took that baby, and you done right when you came to me. Generally, you always have done right. Whatever wrong you done been long canceled out.”

“I don't know about that,” I said.

“I do,” he said. “Sure as anything. And either way it don't matter, it's my job to help you.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Why's that?”

“Because,” he said. “We were almost family once.”

We walked into the dark and the night. I was none too happy to be back in the cold, but at least Portis was right about the storm. The snow had stopped and the wind was quiet along the river.

Portis had put the snowmobile suit back on and wore a knit hat where the hood had been. There was a trowel clipped to his waistband and a knife sheathed beside it. He carried a flashlight in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. His rifle was strapped to the ruck with rope.

I had Jenna in the papoose and her backpack was slung over my shoulders. Portis led and I followed the trail his snowshoes carved along the bank. I kept my own flashlight pointed straight ahead and walked.

The long way to the truck meant we had to walk south to the footbridge and cross the river to get into the eastern half of the hills. Portis said you couldn't get back into that brush on anything but foot and that it was too dangerous to stay where we were, west of the river, or to try and get out on the main road. Portis sus
pected Shelton and his boys would be all over the trails shortly, assuming somebody cared enough to realize Jenna was gone.

Once we crossed the bridge we would hike northeast up the hill toward Trout Pond. Portis kept his fishing shanty there in the winter and said we would need some rest and warmth before we made the final push. His truck was parked at Scutter's Point, a clearing where the east and west sides came briefly together above the river. I'd been right about Portis being up there to check some traps, though he never admitted to the drunkenness I was sure had separated him from his old Ford Ranger to begin with.

Portis figured it was after two in the morning and that we'd be lucky to get the baby to the hospital by breakfast.

“It is my fervent hope that we will have this situation sorted before the lunch crowd arrives at the Elias Brothers,” he said. “If I am in one of those luxurious vinyl booths and eating a farmer's omelette by ten
A.M.
then I will consider this little escapade of ours a success.”

In the rush I'd forgotten to ask Portis for some wool socks. I knew one of us should probably go back for a pair, but I felt like an idiot for forgetting them and didn't want to slow us down.

There was no telling what Shelton might do if he caught up. People said he could be sweet, almost docile, but then his temper would flare and shit would get serious.

He'd done his year for nearly killing John Jameson at the Paradise Junction. They were drinking at the bar when Jameson said something to set Shelton off. Nobody knew what Jameson said, but twenty minutes later he was on a stretcher and Shelton was in the back of a squad car, cuffed.

Jameson spent two days in critical condition and in the deep quiet of my heart I had hoped for him to die. In fact, I'd never hoped for a thing so hard in my life. I was ashamed of myself but I couldn't help it. That hope was so deep and true that I couldn't beat it back—not even with my horror for having birthed it.

If Jameson died, and he was no model citizen himself, then Shelton went away, and maybe for life. They'd stop pumping so much crank out of the north hills and Carletta would have a fighting chance. There'd always be dope around, but I did not believe it was any coincidence that Mama's worst episodes always included Shelton somehow.

In the end Jameson pulled through. Children die of cancer every day and yet the black-hearted Jameson was permitted to carry on with his alcoholic drinking and pursuit of underage girls. I used to use this fact to fend off the Jesus freaks at school, who occasionally got so desperate for souls they decided to slum it and came trolling for mine.

Shelton did a year, and nearly fifteen months later—walking through the cold with Jenna bundled in my arms—I still wished John Jameson would have died. I wished it more than ever.

“I don't know where she could be,” I said. “Mama.”

“You'd do better not to think about it at all.”

“Her car was right there at the farmhouse.”

“Well,” Portis said. “She was never one to stay put.”

“I keep thinking she's froze to death, buried out here in a bank of snow.”

“She's not frozen anywhere,” he said. “Your mother's just off somewhere stoned. Like always.”

I put my light on the river and I could see the water moving low and fast between the frozen patches. I could see the big trunks of the pines around us and the open spaces where the snowmobile trails cut through and it was clear why Portis wanted to get us across. It was going to be a long, hard trudge, but we needed to find some cover.

He was right about the river and he was probably right about Mama. She had a knack for surviving things she shouldn't, but more than that I knew I would have sensed it somehow if she were dead. I picked up calling her Carletta from Starr, but I still called her Mama, too. We were bonded like that, by blood and bone, by spirit, and I would have felt it the moment she fell away from me. It would have brought me straight to my knees.

Jenna was asleep and I watched the thin mist of her rising breath. I was glad she was resting but did not like the way her limbs hung loose in that carrier. I thought of how bad skinny she'd looked in her diaper.

“She's too scrawny,” I said.

“Babies supposed to be fat,” said Portis. “The fatter the better.”

“She's malnourished.”

“And that's a goddamn shame,” Portis said. “I believe I could kill somebody, leave a baby alone like that.”

“I don't even want to think about it,” I said.

“The irony is,” he said. “It happened to you just the same.”

“Hardly.”

“You don't think?”

“I never got left in a meth house, Portis. Not like that.”

“Don't get too hung up on the details,” he said.

“Details?” I said. “Or facts?”

“Child ain't the one supposed to be chasing after the mother,” he said. “Supposed to be the other way around.”

I felt myself tense, but fought the urge to fire back. Portis would never budge on Carletta and there was little profit in arguing the subject with him further. Besides, he'd never seen Mama sober and had no idea how good she could be when she was clean.

Just that summer she'd put together five weeks off of everything and I'd never seen her look so good. There was color in her cheeks and her hair thickened and bent into the curls I remembered brushing out as a girl. I wished Portis could have seen her, picking little blooms from the spit of weeds along our drive and tucking them behind her ears.