Telling Charlie the truth had felt good in the moment, but she would pay for it for sure. With her short hair and plain features, Mrs. Wallace had the persnickety air of a mean schoolteacher, but Kathy could see that she was far more dangerous.
Eddie emerged from the bedroom.
“Hey, son, so you met your—”
“—my sister. I know, she told me. We’re gonna play Nintendo until supper.”
“Fine by me.”
Eddie got the last word, if only because he didn’t hesitate to use his fists. Charlie opened the door to his room, shooting a triumphant glance at his mother. There was rage in her eyes as they settled on Kathy. She prayed in her mind, Please, God, make my mother better. I can’t stay here with this crazy lady. But she knew better than to hold out hope. God didn’t like her, and her prayers were rarely answered.
13
She shifted on her feet, perspiration trickling down her back. The hand-me-down black dress was scratchy and way too hot for the weather. The priest droned on. Everything he said was a lie, and everybody in the cemetery knew it. Pillar of the community. Respected in the neighborhood. Public servant. Really? Then why was Eddie’s casket closed? She’d heard the whispers, seen the story in the paper. He crossed the wrong people and paid with a bullet to the back of the head. Family man. Right. When the priest said that, a few mourners cast pointed glances in Kathy’s direction. She quaked at the thought that Mrs. Wallace would see them. But no, thank God, she was way up in the front, narrow shoulders tossed back in a prideful way, her face like stone. She didn’t look sad so much as pissed off that her life was disrupted. The only person crying out of the whole crowd was Charlie—surprising, given how he talked about his father when his parents’ backs were turned.
Kathy stood off to one side with Uncle Ray, who’d insisted that she come. Your dad would’ve wanted you there, he claimed. Like Eddie gave a crap about her. But Ray even went to bat with Mrs. Wallace to allow Kathy to attend, and for some reason, she gave in. Probably to force Kathy to stand in the stifling heat while people gave her dirty looks and whispered slander about her. Eddie did her no favors by taking her into his home, then leaving her at the mercy of his sadistic wife, who punished her endlessly for the crime of being born. Kathy got the back of Mrs. Wallace’s hand on the regular, the burnt ends of whatever the family was having for supper, slimy cold cuts in a baggie for her school lunch. If she dared complain, she got called a shanty Irish slut on a good day. On a bad day, she got the belt. She lost weight. She lost hair. She lost what little spark she’d had. Became a pale ghost girl riding the school bus, sitting unnoticed in the back of an unfamiliar classroom. Eddie didn’t stand up for her through any of it. Not once.
Bad as things had been, they’d be worse now that he was gone.
The service ended. Uncle Ray left her side, going up to the casket with the family to throw down a handful of dirt. Was he crying, or was that sweat running down his face? Both, she decided, with a rush of fondness. He wasn’t much, a beer belly sticking out from a rumpled suit jacket and a pink scalp showing through graying hair. But Kathy loved him anyway. Ray had a good heart and did his best to help her. If his best wasn’t enough, well, at least he tried. Nobody else did. He was the only family she had until Sylvia came back. If she came back.
Kathy worried about that, day and night. Ray always claimed that the treatments were working, that it wouldn’t be much longer. If that was true, why had months gone by without a single phone call from her mother? She worried Ray was lying, that Sylvia was already dead. Or worse, that she had gotten better but didn’t want the bother of a child. She was back in their apartment, moving on with her life. And Kathy was doomed to live with the Wallaces forever. It was her worst fear, and it took such a grip on her imagination that she became convinced of it. To the point that, a while ago, before Eddie died, she went back to the old apartment, certain she’d find her mother there and determined to confront her.
Eddie kept his wallet on his bedside table. One morning while the grown-ups ate breakfast, Kathy slipped into their bedroom and lifted ten bucks. At lunchtime, she walked out of school, using the money for a bus to the mall and another into Boston. It was February, gray and bitter cold. She waited on the street outside their building, stamping her feet to keep them from going numb, until a lady came along with a key. Following her inside, she breathed in the familiar smell, dust and paint and last night’s dinner, and thought her heart would explode from the longing. At the door of her apartment, she leaned on the buzzer, her vision clouded with tears.