Times and Seasons (15 page)

Cathy
had hoped Mark’s disposition had improved, but the moment he was ushered through the door into the visitor’s room, Cathy knew that he was in a worse mood than he had been the time before. She got up and reached out to hug him, but he shrugged her away.

“What do you want?”

Too weary to fight, she plopped down in the chair. “Mark, don’t treat me like that. I’ve worried about you all week, and—”

“You know what the guy in the bed next to me did?” he butted in.

She tried to follow his change of subject. “What, Mark?”

“He’s a thirteen-year-old kid who stabbed his brother.”

She felt the blood draining from her face.

“And he’s out to get me.”

She tried not to respond the way he was hoping. “He’s just bluffing.”

“Well, you know, he’s used to people calling his bluff.”

She wondered where the closest bathroom was. She felt an urgent need to throw up.

“I used to think I was different from the kids in places like this,” he bit out, “but now I know we have something in common.”

She shouldn’t egg this on, she thought. It wasn’t healthy. But she wanted to have a conversation with him. If she didn’t engage, she didn’t know how she would maintain a relationship with him.

“What do you have in common, Mark?”

“We all have scummy mothers.”

The urge to swing her hand as hard as she could and slap him across the face overcame her, but she stopped herself. Suddenly, the blood was pumping back through her face again.

She got up. Clutching the back of the chair, she bent down. “Mark, do you want me to keep visiting you or not?”

“I don’t care,” he said. “Why don’t you just stay home from now on?”

He was bluffing, she knew, but if that was the game he wanted to play, she suddenly felt she had the strength to play it. She got to her feet. “Mark, I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back until I’m strong enough to handle these visits. I don’t know when that will be.”

He didn’t say anything, just looked down as if he didn’t care. Her throat constricted, and she found herself unable to speak again. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Annie and Rick are coming later. Try not to abuse them, okay?” Without saying another word, she left him sitting there and headed out of the visitation room.

Cathy wept as she drove to Steve’s house, hoping she would find him at home. He had every right to go out and find something else to do. What made her think he would be sitting around pining over her? But when she got there and saw his car in the driveway, she was grateful.

She knocked hard at the door. After a moment, he answered. “Cathy!”

All the emotion she’d been trying to contain in the visitor’s room at the prison just came pouring out. “I don’t want to hear
I-told-you-so. I just miss you and realize that you’re the one I want to run to when I have to run somewhere.”

He pulled her hard into his arms and crushed her against him.

“He called me scummy. He said I was just like all the other mothers. He hates me. I left him there, just sitting at that table. He didn’t care.”

He slid his fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry, Cathy. So sorry.”

“And I told him I’m not going back until I shore up strength for those conversations. I don’t know how long I can stay away, and I’m not playing games, trying to make him think I could turn my back. I just…don’t know what to do.”

“I know. I understand.” He kissed her forehead and wiped her tears. “Whatever you do…I’m behind you. Not criticizing, Cathy. Not comparing. I’m sorry for what I said about Tracy not acting like that. I don’t know how she’ll act when she’s fifteen.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “This can’t be easy for you, either. None of it.”

He took her hand and pulled her into his kitchen. “Have you eaten?”

She tried to think back and realized she hadn’t eaten since the half bagel she’d had for breakfast. “No.”

“Then our first order of business is for me to feed you,” he said. “Sit down.”

Then he began preparing a meal that she had no appetite for. But something about eating it and having him care for her gave her a warm sense of comfort. She found the tension leaving her body, though the grief kept its foothold. She wondered if she would ever get over it.

When she’d finished eating, she found that she felt better. “I didn’t realize how much food could help. I’ve had a headache for days. I think it’s finally going away.”

He touched the lines on her face as if his fingertip could erase them. “But those lines are still there,” he whispered.

“They’re going to be for a while, Steve,” she said. “I hope you can get used to them. I can’t feel good when Mark is there.”

And she was thankful he didn’t demand that she did.

Mark
brooded as he sat in the schoolroom off the main room of Building A, waiting for mail call. Mail call was one of those privileges that you had to earn. Some of the kids only got mail once or twice a week because they hadn’t worked hard enough to earn the privilege on the other days.

Since they claimed he hadn’t been “cooperative” at his job in the cafeteria, they’d taken his mail privilege away for the past couple of nights. It qualified for cruel and unusual punishment, he thought. Since his mother hadn’t visited Wednesday night, he really felt the need for some mail, some contact with the outside world. He must have several letters saved up from her, Rick, and Annie. Maybe even Brenda and her kids. He wouldn’t be surprised if Sylvia had written from Nicaragua.

He waited as they called out the names one by one, and people cheered as they got their letters from home. He watched as Lazzo, who had the bunk next to his, scrambled up to get the letter from his girlfriend. Even Beef, who seemed like a guy who
would mock anyone who foolishly wrote him, got two or three envelopes. But they never called Mark’s name.

As the other inmates shuffled out of the room, Mark sat stunned. He had been
cheated
out of his mail! They were holding out on him. How else could this have happened? How could no one in his family have written, none of his friends, none of the neighbors?

“Nothin’ for you, man?” Lazzo asked him, slapping his own envelope against his palm.

Mark got up and started out of the room. “I hate mail. I didn’t want it, anyway.”

Lazzo followed him in and pulled his bed covers back. With a groan, he dropped onto the bed, propped his feet up, and began reading his mail.

Mark lay down and stared at the ceiling. “My mom’s boyfriend probably talked her out of writing. He can be a jerk.”

He heard Lazzo folding his letter back up, cramming it into the envelope. “So what has that dude done to you? Beat you up?”

Mark gave him a sour look. “No, he doesn’t beat me up.”

“Beats your mom up, then?”

“No!” he said, getting angry. “He doesn’t do anything like that.”

“So why is he a jerk?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” He kicked his covers away and turned on his side, wishing they’d turn the lights out.

He shouldn’t have been so hateful to his mother. That had been a mistake. He had to admit that he missed her. He hadn’t gone a day in his life without her, except for the weekends when he was at his dad’s. And now here he was, locked away from everyone he was used to.

They were forgetting all about him, and he didn’t blame them. Some people could only take so much before amnesia set in. It was how they stopped hurting, like painkillers or alcohol.

He wished he could forget. But he was stuck here, with no one but himself…and the other forty-nine convicts in his room.

Brenda
sat—weak and dejected—on the steps of the front porch, watching the insurance adjuster’s car pull away. Behind her, she heard the front door open, and Daniel stepped out. “What did he say, Mom?”

“Deductible is what we thought,” she said. “A thousand dollars for each vehicle. Thank goodness the truck still runs. I can drive it beaten up.”

He looked sincerely distraught. “I’ll get a job,” he said. “I’ll pay for fixing both of them.”

“I don’t want you to get a job,” Brenda said, reaching for his hand. She pulled him down next to her. “You’re too young.”

“Why am I too young? It’s summer and I don’t have anything else to do, anyway.”

“Daniel, do you know how many hours you’d have to work to make two thousand dollars?”

“I’m willing, Mama,” he said. “Please. Dad’s never going to let me learn to drive if I don’t take responsibility for what I’ve done. I don’t want you to give up on me.”

“I haven’t given up on you,” she said.

“Then why did you ask Dad to teach me to drive?” Daniel said. “I don’t want him to. He’s still mad about the wreck. Besides, you’re a lot more patient than he is.”

It was one time when Brenda wished she didn’t have that gift. She didn’t have the patience to get back in a car with Daniel, and putting him behind the wheel of their only running vehicle seemed crazy.

“Look, Daniel, I think we all need a little more time before we get you behind the wheel. Why don’t you just stop worrying about it for a while? Your dad and I will take care of the thousand dollars to fix the van. We can wait on fixing the pickup.” She kissed his cheek and stroked his hair back. “At least neither car is totaled. But we can’t get the van fixed until we have the deductible.” She patted his knee and got up. “We’ll figure something out, honey.”

Feeling very tired, she went into the house.

Daniel
opened the driver’s side door of the wrecked minivan and sat behind the wheel. He felt like a failure. He couldn’t believe he’d done such a terrible job of driving his first time out. He had always pictured himself driving flawlessly with one elbow out the window and his wrist on top of the steering wheel. He had pictured the radio playing and himself turning corners as smoothly as a Nascar driver. He had even pictured himself getting his own car and driving Joseph, Rachel, and Leah around when his mother didn’t have time. Maybe even going on a date or two.

His dreams were shattered now.

“What’s up?”

He turned and saw Rick, Mark’s older brother, crossing the grass.

“Hey,” Daniel said.

“Looks pretty bad.” Rick stepped to the front of the van and evaluated the damage. “I saw some man over here. Was that the insurance guy?”

Daniel moaned. “He said we have to come up with a thousand dollars for each.”

“Tough luck,” Rick said. He came around the van, dragged the passenger door open, and slid into the passenger’s seat. “You know…I was watching out my bedroom window when you were driving, and I could see right off what you were doing wrong. First off, you were nervous, and it was showing.”

“It was my first time.” He should have known Rick would see him. He should have waited until the older boy had gone to work.

“You have to have a light touch,” Rick said, demonstrating with his hands, “just barely touch the accelerator until you get used to it. Just ease into the accelerator and the brake, real slow like.” He nodded to Daniel. “Go ahead. Put your foot on the accelerator. Just push it down real slow.”

Daniel did as he was told. “Man, if I just hadn’t punched the accelerator when I meant to punch the brake.”

“Yeah, big mistake,” Rick said, “but I bet you won’t do it again.”

“I won’t have the chance,” Daniel said. “My parents will probably never let me drive again. I’ll be forty-two years old and still riding my bike. I’ll have to get my mother to come drive my kids to school.”

Rick chuckled. “Come on, it’s not that bad. We’ve all had our wrecks.”

Daniel glanced over at him. “You?”

“Sure,” Rick said. “My mom tried to teach me how to drive, and you’ve never heard such yelling in your life. The first day I got my driver’s license, I scraped a pole on my way out of the parking lot.”

“No way,” Daniel said, a grin illuminating his eyes.

“I did,” Rick said. “I did great through the driving test and he gave me my license. Man, I was all proud, struttin’ around. And then we got back in the car, and I took off driving a little too fast and took a corner too close. Next thing I knew, there was this terrible sound—concrete scraping metal. My mom almost
had a heart attack. And then there was that time I ran into the garage and busted my headlight. That was back when I just had my permit.”

Daniel was captivated. “You hit your own garage?”

“Yeah, there’s still a black mark there to this day,” he said. “I thought Mom would never let me drive again. And then she turned me over to my dad, and he never had time to teach me. When he did, he had this idea that he could do it in three easy lessons. When I didn’t learn just like he wanted me to, he went ballistic.”

“How’d you finally learn?” Daniel asked.

“Dr. Harry,” Rick said. “Miss Sylvia told him all the problems I was having, and he took me to the parking lot at the city auditorium for several Saturdays in a row, and we drove around there until I got the feel of things.” Rick’s eyebrows shot up. “Since Dr. Harry’s not here, you and I ought to do that.”

Daniel gaped at him. “Really? You would teach me?”

“Only if your parents said it was okay. But in the parking lot, you couldn’t do too much damage. And you could drive my car.”

“You would trust me with your car?”

“Sure,” Rick said. “I’m supposed to be teaching Mark how to drive anyway, and since he’s not here, I might as well teach you.”

Silence settled like bereavement between them. “How’s he doing?”

“Not so good,” he said. “He got beat up the other day. They busted his lip. You know Mark. He’s going to fight this kicking and screaming. If he settles in there before a year is up, it’ll be a miracle.” He looked out the cracked windshield. “Man, I can’t believe he would be so stupid.”

“Yeah, me either,” Daniel said.

“I can’t stand the thought of people knowing that my kid brother’s in jail. Makes our family look like a bunch of losers.”

“You’re not losers. You didn’t do anything.”

As if he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, Rick opened the door and got back out. Daniel followed and met him in the yard. “So when are you going to take me driving?”

“I don’t know,” Rick said. “Talk to your folks about it. Then I’ll talk to them, and we’ll see.”

Daniel slid his hands into his pockets. “I was thinking that maybe I could get a job, and then the state would give me my hardship license so I could drive there and back. That way I could make the money to fix the minivan and maybe buy my own car.”

“A job, huh?” Rick asked, a thoughtful grin creeping across his lips. “You ever thought of bagging groceries where I work?”

“Are they hiring?”

“Sure, they’re always hiring. And I have a little clout. I’ve been there three years. I can get you hooked up.”

Daniel looked up at the house. “I don’t know if my parents would let me.”

“Talk to them,” Rick said. “You can convince them. You’re a smart kid. You know, you’re gonna want to date sometime soon, and a car would help things out.”

Daniel’s face blushed pink. “Where am I ever going to meet a girl?”

Rick shot him a grin. “We have some cute ones checking groceries,” he said.

Daniel’s eyes widened. “Yeah, I’ve seen some of them.”

“Talk to the folks about the driving and the job, then get back to me. I can work you in,” he said. “And if you want an application, I’ll bring one home from work.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said. “Bring one. That way I can fill it out and have it ready to turn back in as soon as they say it’s okay.”

“All right.” Rick held out his hand, and Daniel slapped it. “It’s pretty fun most of the time. And sometimes you get tips.”

“Tips?” It sounded too good to be true. “Thanks, Rick. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem, man,” Rick said as he went back across the street.