The woman who answered was old, and possibly Jamaican, judging by her looks and accent.
“What can I do for you, child?”
“I’m looking for my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“Sylvia Conroy. She lives here.”
“Oh. Wait one minute. I have something for you.”
The woman shut the door. Kathy waited in suspended animation, holding her breath, unable to imagine what it was. A letter? A gift? Or, pray God, Sylvia herself?
The woman returned.
“Here,” she said, thrusting a pile of mail into Kathy’s hands. “If you find her, tell her to change the address with the post office. I’m tired of getting all this nonsense.”
The mail was all junk.
That night, Eddie beat her with a belt for stealing and ditching class. His arm was stronger than his wife’s, and Kathy hurt for days. He let Mrs. Wallace change the lock on the sewing room door so they could lock Kathy in at night. That’s what Eddie did for his daughter. Was it any wonder she didn’t cry at his funeral?
The wake was at the house, with an open bar. Kathy was put to work unwrapping casseroles. When she was done, she went to look for Ray, thinking they could have a talk about what happened next. But he’d gotten to the whiskey. Slumped on the sofa, his face the angry red of a sunburn, he was muttering to some guy in a patrolman’s uniform and barely acknowledged Kathy. She decided to wait. But an hour later when she went to the bathroom, she discovered him passed out in Charlie’s room, snoring like a foghorn, with vomit stains on his shirt.
That was Ray.
The air-conditioning couldn’t keep up with the heat, and the living room was stuffy with cigarette smoke. Charlie was in the front yard tossing a football with some neighborhood kids. She heard yelling and the occasional burst of laughter and thought, Anything’s better than here. She was opening the screen door to join Charlie when Mrs. Wallace grabbed her by the wrist.
“No you don’t. Get in that kitchen and start cleaning up,” she whispered viciously.
She was doomed. Her only option was going to be running away, and runaways wound up as hookers in cheap motels. Was that her fate?
Kathy was scraping food into the garbage when she heard raised voices from the living room.
A tingle raised the hair on her skull. Is that— Could it be?
“You should be in the grave instead of him. Get out of this house.”
“Give me my daughter and I’ll be gone. You’ll never see either of us again.”
The aluminum pan slipped from her hands, clattering to the floor. She ran to the living room. Ray must’ve slept it off, because he was in between the women, trying to keep them from tearing each other apart. Sylvia caught sight of Kathy and screamed.
The next few minutes passed in a blur. Sobbing in her mother’s arms. Throwing her meager possessions into a trash bag as Mrs. Wallace watched with gimlet eyes to make sure she didn’t steal. Then she was out in the hot sun, avoiding Charlie’s eyes as they ran for the taxi idling at the curb. When the door slammed shut and the cab pulled away, Kathy stared out the back window, cackling like a crazy person at her narrow escape.
“Let me see you,” Sylvia said, grabbing her, holding her away, looking her up and down with a horrified expression. “You look like hell, kid.”
“So do you.”
It was true. She was skeletal, wearing a turban that made her look like an old lady.
“I had cancer. What’s your excuse? Didn’t they feed you in that house?”
“Not really. Why didn’t you ever call?” Kathy said, tears leaking from her eyes.
“Babe, I did call. I called over and over, but that bitch always hung up on me.”
Figures. To the end of her days, she’d hate Mrs. Wallace with every bone in her body. Hell, she’d kill her if she ever got the chance, a knife between the shoulder blades, like that evil woman deserved.
“I even wrote to you a few times, care of Ray. And you know how I hate to write letters. Why didn’t you write back?” Sylvia said.
“I never got them.”
“Didn’t Ray visit to check up on you?”
“Once in a while he’d come over, but he didn’t bring any letters.”
“Jesus, that jackass.”
“It doesn’t matter. Everything is okay now that you’re home, Mommy.”
“It does matter, and things are not okay. We got no place to live. I have no job. Everything depends on Ray. He gave me his keys and said we can stay at his place tonight. And I can work for him again, but he doesn’t know it’s gonna be a while till I can manage a full day in the office. The point is, it’s a problem if Ray’s not reliable. We’re depending on him to live, and he better come through.”