The Exact Location of Home (12 page)

But when I see the worry in her eyes and the way she twists her hair while she waits for me to answer, I can't do it. Ruby's like the nicest person I know. She'll make this her problem, and it's not. It's ours, and hopefully, Mom's going to solve it today.

I'm going to do what I can, too, I decide. I'm going to find Dad, whether Mom wants his help or not.

“Yeah, everything's okay,” I tell Ruby. “Same situation, really, with the rent and the first of the month and stuff. I probably won't even be here tomorrow.”

“Good.” Ruby lets out the breath she was holding. I'm glad I lied to her. “Let's go play dodgeball.”

“Does Richards play?”

She laughs. “Yeah, but I'm always on his team because I help tutor him in Spanish sometimes in study hall. Stick with me and you won't be on the other end of his dodgeball arm.”

Good. Because today is going to be tough enough without getting my face bashed in by a red rubber playground ball, too.

“Hey! Wait up!” Gianna's backpack thumps against her back as she bounds down the steps to catch me on the way out of school. “I haven't seen you all day.”

“Yeah, well, I've been busy.”

Busy trying to concentrate on classes while I wonder where I'm going to sleep tonight. Busy apologizing to witchy Mrs. Seymour because I was unprepared for English after Richards walked off with my only pencil at breakfast. Busy hiding out at the homework table in the corner of the library by the biographies, using another one of Mr. Smythe's borrowed pencils to finish the science homework I forgot to do last night. Busy
not
running into Gianna, so I wouldn't have to pretend I was having a good day.

Ruby catches up with Gianna, and they start to turn left, the way we always walk home. I sit down on the step.

Gianna stops. She looks back at me and frowns. “You're not walking with us? Aren't you coming for hot chocolate?”

I shake my head. “My mom's picking me up. Rabies shot.”

“Gotcha,” Ruby says. “Here she is.” She nods to the white-and-rust truck like I didn't hear it coming. Mom's needed a new muffler on that thing for a month.

“See ya.” I wave, toss my backpack in the truck, and slam the door.

“Got much homework?” Mom asks as if it's a normal day.

I'm too tired to not play along. “Just math and social.”

“Not too bad.” She flicks on her left blinker and turns out of the parking lot toward the doctor's office. We get caught at the red light just as Gianna and Ruby are walking up to it. I turn the other way.

“How was the before school program?” Mom asks.

“Fine.”

“Was breakfast good?”

“It was okay.”

“What did you have?”

“French toast sticks.”

“Oh.” She turns onto Bridge Street and we pass Rand Park, where I'd be stopping to skip stones if I were walking with Ruby and Gianna. The lake is perfectly calm today, like the face of a mirror. I could get ten skips, no problem. I know what I'd wish for if I believed in stuff like that.

But I don't.

 

At the doctor's office, Mrs. Richards is at her receptionist desk when we walk in. “Oh, Laurie,” she says. “I'm glad you're here with Kirby today. I have some more paperwork for you, and we still need that insurance card.”

“Oh.” Mom's face falls. She rummages in her purse and finally pulls out her wallet. She flips through cards and photos—there's still one of Dad in there—and finally pulls out an insurance card. “Here, I think.”

“Hmm…” Mrs. Richard takes the card and pokes at her keyboard. “You know this expired at the beginning of the summer?”

“Oh. I didn't realize …” Mom blinks fast. She's always been a terrible liar.

“We'll still administer the shot today—we have to, according to state health regulations—but we'll need to send you the bill, okay?”

“Sure.” Mom nods, even though another bill isn't even a little bit okay. And where are they even going to send it?

I get my shot, and my arm is throbbing when we get in the truck. I have to reach across with my left arm to pull the door shut because my right one's so sore.

“So,” Mom says, checking her rearview mirror and pulling out of her parking spot. “Just math and social studies homework tonight? That's not too bad.”

“Mom?”

“Umm-hmm?” She checks over her shoulder and pulls out onto the street.

“Where are we going?”

“I have to swing by the diner and check my schedule for the rest of the week.”

“I mean tonight. Where are we going to stay? Did you find us a new place?”

“Well, yes.” She pulls into a parking spot along the curb by Alan's, turns off the car, and turns to me. “Sort of. For now.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Social services is working on something more long term. For now, we're going to be staying at the Community Hospitality Center.” She says it fast, maybe hoping that if the words zoom by quick enough I won't realize what she's talking about. But I do.

“That church homeless shelter? Mom, are you out of your mind? I'm not going there. I'd rather sleep in the truck again.”

“That's not an option. It's going to be below freezing tonight.”

“But you'll have me sleeping in a homeless shelter with a bunch of crazy people and drunks?”

I've seen them standing outside the Community Hospitality Center when I go by on my paper route. There's always one lady with a grocery cart from ShopMart full of plastic bags. I don't know what's in them. There are two guys who stand leaning against the wall, in clothes so dirty you can't even see what color they meant to be any more. This other guy, Brother Vinnie, people call him, is always talking to himself. If you say anything to him, he screams, “Mind yer own business, will ya?! This is between us!”

“Kirby, that's not fair. Plenty of people—”

“Plenty of people go there because they
have
to. We don't have to. We don't have to have this problem at all right now but we do because you're too stubborn to call Dad and ask for help. This. Is. So.
Stupid
.”

I can't stand it any more. I grab my backpack and practically burst out of the truck and start walking home.

I get past the diner. Past the CornerMart where Mr. Mulcahy waves as he's getting in his delivery van. I don't wave back. I'm halfway up the next block when I remember.

Home isn't up there any more.

I stop at the curb and turn. Slowly.

Back down the block, I can see Mom standing by the drivers side of the truck. Just standing there. Not looking mad or sad or upset. Just standing there. Waiting for me to remember and come back.

So I do.

I get back in the truck and slam the door shut and put my head down on the dashboard. It's cool against my forehead. I close my eyes.

Mom gets in, too. I don't look up when we pull away from the diner. I don't look up when we drive down Washington Street, past Gianna's house. I don't look up when we turn at the corner at our old apartment. I don't even look up when I feel the truck stop. The engine goes quiet. Then Mom's keys jangle as she drops them into her purse.

“Kirb.” I feel her hand on my arm right above my elbow. It's warm. “I know you don't understand why your father isn't helping. But trust me, getting in touch with him right now won't help. It just won't. And I really need …” Her voice breaks and her hand goes away.

I look up. She's blinking as fast as she can but it doesn't stop the tears.

“I need you to be with me through this,” she says quietly. “You're all I have.”

For a minute, I'm angrier than I was before because she's making it so hard to be angry, and I
am
angry. I am.

But I need her, too.

I step out of the truck and look up at the steeple of the Lakeland Unitarian Church. It looks taller today than it has all the times I've come by on my paper route. Like it's more of a big deal. I guess it is today.

Mom hands me a duffel bag from the truck bed, slings her bag with her nursing books over her shoulder, and lifts her suitcase. We walk along the side of the building until we reach the door of the small brick addition the church added on a few years ago with funds they raised to help the poor.

That's us now.

The poor.

I look over at Mom and catch her staring at the Community Hospitality Center sign on the door like she's thinking the same thing. This is a place for the poor. The unfortunate. The homeless.

I open the door and we walk through.

Spaghetti sauce.

The smell wraps me in a warm blanket as soon as I get inside. At first I think we've gone in the wrong door and crashed somebody's church supper.

But then I see the people sitting in the folding chairs, hunched over their plates on the tables. Grocery cart lady is there on the end with her cart parked next to her. I see a couple other guys I've seen in the line outside. There's Brother Vinnie, dipping his bread into the sauce and looking over his shoulder like he's afraid somebody's going to steal it.

And there are kids. Small kids. One little dude with blond hair and a spaghetti sauce face—he must be about five or six years old—keeps missing his mouth with the spaghetti and is wearing a lapful of it. His mom, a girl with a ponytail the color of sand, looks like she's barely out of high school. She licks her napkin and tries to wipe the sauce off his face while he squirms.

“Mrs. Zigonski?” A tall thin guy with shaggy white hair and a white beard steps up to us. “Ted said you'd be here around dinner time. I'm Rob Thomas, the site director here. It's a pleasure to meet you.” He reaches out to shake Mom's hand, as if he's doing business with her at a bank instead of checking us into a shelter.

“Thank you,” Mom says. She looks surprised, too. “When I talked with Ted at the office earlier, he wasn't sure what kind of … uh … space you'd have available tonight.” She looks around, probably wondering the same thing I am. The building's not big. Where are all these people going to sleep?

“Actually, your timing is good. One of our family rooms opened up this afternoon.” Rob Thomas looks down at a clipboard in his hand and taps his pen on it twice. “We've been full for the past two weeks, since it started getting colder.”

Brother Vinnie shuffles up to us in boots so old the toe isn't even attached to the sole any more. “New recruits?!” He looks at Mom and me. “You better leave my stuff alone.” He pats the brown duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “Understand that, boy?” He glowers at me. I nod.

“I'm sure you have nothing to worry about with these fine folks, Vinnie. You're in bunk fifteen tonight.” Rob Thomas pats Brother Vinnie on the shoulder and guides him into the hallway towards a door that says “Men's dorm.”

“Sorry,” Rob says. “Vinnie and the guys stay in the dorm. It can get a little noisy in there sometimes. And a little rough, frankly, despite our best efforts. That's why we established family rooms a few years ago.”

Mom nods. “Thanks. It will be nice to have some privacy.”

“It's not private exactly.” Rob Thomas checks his clipboard again. “The rooms are set up with four bunk beds, so you'll be with another woman and her son. Hey, Heather!” He calls to the girl with the sand colored hair. She leaves the little boy at the table, rolling his bread up into a tight little dough ball in his hands, and comes over.

“Heather, this is Laurie Zigonski and her son, Kirby.”

“I go by Zig,” I say.

She lifts her eyes from the floor for just a second, says, “Hi” so I can barely hear it, and drops her head again.

My mom holds out her hand. “It's good to meet you, Heather. You have quite a fine young man over there.”

Heather looks back at the table where the boy is trying to stuff the whole bread ball into his mouth at once. When she turns back, she's smiling a little. “Thanks,” she says, and shakes Mom's hand. Heather's is red and chapped.

Rob Thomas looks down at his clipboard again just as the door opens and two older teenagers come in. One has long black hair and an army jacket. The other one has short, spiky brown hair and a gray T-shirt and jeans. A worn out guitar case is slung over his back. Rob glances up at them, holds up a finger, and turns back to us. “So you'll be in room five tonight. Heather, you'll show them where the bathroom and showers are?” She nods and Rob jogs over to talk to the new guys.

“Thanks for offering to … uh … show us around,” Mom says.

Heather nods again and looks like she wants to say something but doesn't know what. She sticks her hands in the front pockets of her jeans and pushes them in deep, like maybe that's where she left all her words.

Finally, she tells Mom, “This place is okay so far, in case you're worried about it. I was. They say they're gonna find us an apartment pretty soon. Me and Scoop here.” She nods to the boy at the table. He's holding his napkin up to his face and has stuck his tongue through it.

“Scoop?” I say.

“His name's Anthony James,” she says. “But we been callin' him Scoop since he got old enough to talk. He's like a newspaper reporter, askin' all kinds of questions.”

“It's just the two of you then?” Mom says.

“It is now. We left,” Heather says. She blinks fast, like Mom does when she's trying not to cry. It doesn't work for Heather either. A tear slips out. When she pulls her hand from her pocket to wipe it away, I see bruises on her wrist like Aunt Becka's.

Mom sees, too. Her eyes cloud over, and she puts her hand on Heather's shoulder. “I'd like very much to visit with you and your son, but I'm thinking Kirby and I should wash up and have some food while it's hot. We'll see you in the room later on.”