The Passage (2 page)

Then Amy was three and Jeanette was alone. Her father had died, a heart attack they told her, or else a stroke. It wasn’t the kind of thing anyone needed to check. Whatever it was, it hit him early one winter morning as he was walking to his truck to drive to work at the elevator; he had just enough time to put down his coffee on the fender before he fell over and died, never spilling a drop. She still had her job at the Box, but the money wasn’t enough now, not for Amy or any of it, and her brother, in the Navy somewhere, didn’t answer her letters.
God invented Iowa
, he always said,
so people could leave it and never come back
. She wondered what she would do.

Then one day a man came into the diner. It was Bill Reynolds. He was different, somehow, and the change was no good. The Bill Reynolds she remembered—and she had to admit she still thought of him from time to time, about little things mostly, like the way his sandy hair flopped over his forehead when he talked, or how he blew over his coffee before he sipped it, even when it wasn’t hot anymore—there was something about him, a kind of warm light from inside that you wanted to be near. It reminded her of those little plastic sticks that you snapped so the liquid inside made them glow. This was the same man, but the glow was gone. He looked older, thinner. She saw he hadn’t shaved or combed his hair, which was greasy and standing all whichaway, and he wasn’t wearing a pressed polo like before but just an ordinary work shirt like the ones her father had worn, untucked and stained under the arms. He looked like he’d spent all night out in the weather, or in a car somewhere. He caught her eye at the door and she followed him to a booth in back.

—
What are you doing here?

—
I left her
, he said, and as he looked at where she stood, she smelled beer on his breath, and sweat, and dirty clothes.
I’ve gone and done it, Jeanette. I left my wife. I’m a free man
.

—
You drove all this way to tell me that?

—
I’ve thought about you
. He cleared his throat.
A lot. I’ve thought about us
.

—
What us? There ain’t no us. You can’t come in like you’re doing and say you’ve been thinking about us
.

He sat up straight. —
Well, I’m doing it. I’m doing it right now
.

—
It’s busy in here, can’t you see that? I can’t be talking to you like this. You’ll have to order something
.

—
Fine
, he answered, but he didn’t look at the menu on the wall, just kept his eyes on her.
I’ll have a cheeseburger. A cheeseburger and a Coke
.

As she wrote down the order and the words swam in her vision, she realized she had started to cry. She felt like she hadn’t slept in a month, a year. The weight of exhaustion was held up only by the thinnest sliver of her will. There was a time when she’d wanted to do something with her life—cut hair, maybe, get her certificate, open a little shop, move to a real city, like Chicago or Des Moines, rent an apartment, have friends. She’d always held in her mind a picture of herself sitting in a restaurant, a coffee shop but nice; it was fall, and cold outside, and she was alone at a small table by the window, reading a book. On her table was a steaming mug of tea. She would look up to the window to see the people on the street of the city she was in, hustling to and fro in their heavy coats and hats, and see her own face there, too, reflected in the window, hovering over the image of all the people outside. But as she stood there, these ideas seemed like they belonged to a different person entirely. Now there was Amy, sick half the time with a cold or a stomach thing she’d gotten at the ratty day care where she spent the days while Jeanette was working at the Box, and her father dead just like that, so fast it was as if he’d fallen through a trapdoor on the surface of the earth, and Bill Reynolds sitting at the table like he’d just stepped out for a second, not four years.

—
Why are you doing this to me?

He held her eyes with his own a long moment and touched the top of her hand.—
Meet me later. Please
.

He ended up living in the house with her and Amy. She couldn’t say if she had invited him to do this or if it had just somehow happened. Either way, she was instantly sorry. This Bill Reynolds: who was he really? He’d left his wife and boys, Bobby and Billy in their baseball suits, all of it behind in Nebraska. The Pontiac was gone, and he had no job either; that had ended, too. The economy the way it was, he explained, nobody was buying a goddamn thing. He said he had a plan, but the only plan that she could see seemed to be him sitting in the house doing nothing for Amy or even cleaning up the breakfast dishes, while she worked all day at the Box. He hit her the first time after he’d been living there three months; he was drunk, and once he did it, he burst out crying and said, over and over, how sorry he was. He was on his knees, blubbering, like
she’d
done something to
him
. She had to understand, he was saying, how hard it all was, all the changes in his life, it was more than a man, any man, could take. He loved her, he was sorry, nothing like that would happen again, ever. He
swore
it. Not to her and not to Amy. And in the end, she heard herself saying she was sorry too.

He’d hit her over money; when winter came, and she didn’t have enough money in her checking account to pay the heating oil man, he hit her again.

—
Goddamnit, woman. Can’t you see I’m in a situation here?

She was on the kitchen floor, holding the side of her head. He’d hit her hard enough to lift her off her feet. Funny, now that she was down there she saw how dirty the floor was, filthy and stained, with clumps of dust and who-knew-what all rowed against the base of the cabinets where you couldn’t usually see. Half her mind was noticing this while the other half said, You aren’t thinking straight, Jeanette; Bill hit you and knocked a wire loose, so now you’re worrying over the dust. Something funny was happening with the way the world sounded, too. Amy was watching television upstairs, on the little set in her room, but Jeanette could hear it like it was playing inside her head, Barney the purple dinosaur and a song about brushing your teeth; and then from far away, she heard the sound of the oil truck pulling away, its engine grinding as it turned out of the drive and headed down the county road.

—
It ain’t your house
, she said.

—
You’re right about that
. Bill took a bottle of Old Crow from over the sink and poured some in a jelly jar, though it was only ten o’clock in the morning. He sat at the table but didn’t cross his legs like he meant to get comfortable.
Ain’t my oil, either
.

Jeanette rolled over and tried to stand but couldn’t. She watched him drink for a minute.

—
Get out
.

He laughed, shaking his head, and took a sip of whiskey.

—
That’s funny
, he said.
You telling me that from the floor like you are
.

—
I mean what I say. Get out
.

Amy came into the room. She was holding the stuffed bunny she still carried everywhere, and wearing a pair of overalls, the good ones Jeanette had bought her at the outlet mall, the OshKosh B’Gosh, with the strawberries embroidered on the bib. One of the straps had come undone and was flopping at her waist. Jeanette realized Amy must have done this herself, because she had to go to the bathroom.

—
You’re on the floor, Mama
.

—
I’m okay, honey
. She got to her feet to show her. Her left ear was ringing a little, like in a cartoon, birds flying around her head. She saw there was a little blood, too, on her hand; she didn’t know where this had come from. She picked Amy up and did her best to smile.
See? Mama just took a spill, that’s all. You need to go, honey? You need to use the potty?

—
Look at you
, Bill was saying.
Will you look at yourself?
He shook his head again and drank.
You stupid twat. She probably ain’t even mine
.

—
Mama
, the girl said and pointed,
you cut yourself. Your nose is cut
.

And whether it was what she’d heard or the blood, the little girl began to cry.

—
See what you done?
Bill said, and to Amy,
Come on now. Ain’t no big thing, sometimes folks argue, that’s just how it is.

—
I’m telling you again, just leave
.

—
Then what would you do, tell me that. You can’t even fill the oil tank
.

—
You think I don’t know that? I sure as by God don’t need you to tell me that
.

Amy had begun to wail. Holding her, Jeanette felt the spread of hot moisture across her waist as the little girl released her bladder.

—
For Pete’s sake, shut that kid up
.

She held Amy tight against her chest. —
You’re right. She ain’t yours. She ain’t yours and never will be. You leave or I’m calling the sheriff, I swear

—
Don’t you do me like this, Jean. I mean it
.

—
Well, I’m doing it. That’s just what I’m doing
.

Then he was up and slamming through the house, taking his things, tossing them back into the cardboard cartons he’d used to carry them into the house, months ago. Why hadn’t she thought it right then, how strange it was that he didn’t even have a proper suitcase? She sat at the kitchen table holding Amy on her lap, watching the clock over the stove and counting off the minutes until he returned to the kitchen to hit her again.

But then she heard the front door swing open, and his heavy footsteps on the porch. He went in and out awhile, carrying the boxes, leaving the front door open so cold air spilled through the house. Finally he came into the kitchen, tracking snow, leaving little patches of it waffled to the floor with the soles of his boots.

—
Fine. Fine. You want me to leave? You watch me
. He took the bottle of Old Crow from the table.
Last chance
, he said.

Jeanette said nothing, didn’t even look at him.

—
So that’s how it is. Fine. You mind I have one for the road?

Which was when Jeanette reached out and swatted his glass across the kitchen, smacked it with her open hand like a ping-pong ball with a paddle. She knew she was going to do this for about half a second before she did, knowing it wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had, but by then it was too late. The glass hit the wall with a hollow thud and fell to the floor, unbroken. She closed her eyes, holding Amy tight, knowing what would come. For a moment the sound of the glass rolling on the floor seemed to be the only thing in the room. She could feel Bill’s anger rising off him like waves of heat.

—
You just see what the world has in store for you, Jeanette. You remember I said that
.

Then his footsteps carried him out of the room and he was gone.

She paid the oil man what she could and turned the thermostat down to fifty, to make it last.
See, Amy honey, it’s like a big camping trip we’re on
, she said as she stuffed the little girl’s hands into mittens and wedged a hat onto her head.
There now, it’s not so cold, not really. It’s like an adventure
. They slept together under a pile of old quilts, the room so icy their breath fogged the air over their faces. She took a job at night, cleaning up at the high school, leaving Amy with a neighbor lady, but when the woman took sick and had to go into the hospital, Jeanette had to leave Amy alone. She explained to Amy what to do: stay in bed, don’t answer the door, just close your eyes and I’ll be home before you know it. She’d make sure Amy was asleep before creeping out the door, then stride quickly down the snow-crusted drive to where she’d parked her car, away from the house, so Amy wouldn’t hear it turning over.

But then she made the mistake one night of telling someone about this, another woman on the work crew, when the two of them had stepped out for a smoke. Jeanette had never liked smoking at all and didn’t want to spend the money, but the cigarettes helped her stay awake, and without a smoke break there was nothing to look forward to, just more toilets to scrub and halls to be mopped. She told the woman, whose name was Alice, not to tell anyone, she knew she could get in trouble leaving Amy alone like that, but of course that’s just what Alice did; she went straight to the superintendent, who fired Jeanette on the spot.
Leaving a child like that ain’t right
, he told her in his office by the boilers, a room no bigger than ten feet square with a dented metal desk and an old easy chair with the plush popping out and a calendar on the wall that wasn’t even the right year; the air was always so hot and close in there Jeanette could barely breathe. He said,
You count your lucky stars I’m not calling the county on you
. She wondered when she’d become someone a person could say this to and not be wrong. He’d been nice enough to her until then, and maybe she could have made him understand the situation, that without the money from cleaning she didn’t know what she’d do, but she was too tired to find the words. She took her last check and drove home in her crappy old car, the Kia she’d bought in high school when it was already six years old and falling apart so fast she could practically see the nuts and bolts bouncing on the pavement in her rearview mirror; and when she stopped at the Quick Mart to buy a pack of Capris and then the engine wouldn’t start up again, she started to cry. She couldn’t make herself stop crying for half an hour.

The problem was the battery; a new one cost her eighty-three dollars at Sears, but by then she’d missed a week of work and lost her job at the Box, too. She had just enough money left to leave, packing up their things in a couple of grocery sacks and the cartons Bill had left behind.