by my feet as I walk by. I crunch them with my shoes like I used to do as a little girl when I would trail behind Prue when we walked to as she walked to the market each day. One of the reasons Israel comes to get me when I work evening or night shifts is the fact that we don’t live in the best of neighborhoods. You don’t bother picking out your dream home when you know you won’t be there long, and anyway, we can’t afford much rent between my coffee shop tips, Meli’s babysitting, and Prue’s food cart. Will works as a handy man but he doesn’t find much, and what he does he uses to constantly improve Israel’s car, which he loves and covets. Israel works as a medical intern, which is a fancy name for saying he doesn’t get paid period. But maybe by the next time we travel, he’ll know enough to set up his own practice and then we can all live in a house that’s on the right side of the tracks, so to speak. For the time being though I almost love our dilapidated brown house with the sagging porch and peeling paint. Well, as much as I almost love anything; I am like most Lost, distancing myself from attachments to the point of coldness. I put up walls that nothing can scale because I fear the loss that inevitably comes. Even my love for Prue and Dad – while strong and fierce and loyal – has realistic and practical elements to it. I wonder if I will ever love anything or anyone with complete abandon. If I will ever feel safe enough to do so.
The breeze whips itself up into real wind and more leaves are ripped from their branches where they spent the summer growing, rippling down to earth in lovely arcs and patterns. If the sun was shining more, they’d be glinting and I could see their bright colors; as it is, everything seems to be a distinctly different shade of gray. Like a black and white film; like Dorothy when she’s still in Kansas.
I make my legs move faster in spite of being tired. My hunger and my dislike for the dark compel me to get home quickly. I don’t like the way everything is becoming gray and sinister and the way I seem to be only living person in the world right now. Usually this street has someone on it – where is everyone tonight, I wonder uneasily. The wind is really blowing now; most of my hair has come loose from its ponytail and is whipping around my face. The dilapidated street is still empty and void; there are no children out playing softball or kick the can, no cars pass me, and no one waves a friendly hello as they check their mailboxes. All I hear is the wind whistling past and the sound of my own breathing and my footfalls on the pavement. Shhhhhh, says the wind, hush.
Chapter Eight
Prue has not fixed squirrel pie for supper – hallelujah – but instead has pulled out practically everything that is wrapped in foil or wax paper in the refrigerator and announced that is ‘help yerself to leftovers night.’ Then without so much as a goodnight to anyone, she stomps off to her room and slams the door. I’m not sure Prue has ever simply closed a door; she always slams. I think now of the father she mentioned earlier – her Da – and if he ever tired of shouting at her not to slam the doors. I smile at the image I’ve conjured in my head of a teenage Prue, stomping around and giving bossy orders to all of humankind, and of her father, longsuffering and perhaps anxious to marry her off to an unsuspecting boy. I load up my plate with rice, okra, jambalaya, sweet potato pie, and one fat tamale, and take my plate to the couch where Meli and Will are already eating. Will nods at me and waves his fork in a strange bowing gesture, which is about as much conversation as I’ve ever had from Will, and Meli launches into a soliloquy about her day. I try to listen, I really do, but with a start I realize that Israel isn’t home. I swallow my bite of tamale in a hurry and interrupt Meli to ask Israel’s whereabouts.