Heft - By Liz Moore Page 0,103

the living room. Lindsay said, Dad. We need your help.

He sat down across from me on his couch. I was in an easy chair. I hadn’t seen him since the Thanksgiving football game, and I don’t believe I had ever looked him in his face before. It was a nice face. It looked like Lindsay’s. Open. I told him everything I could tell him. I see, he said, over and over again.

He said, This must have been very hard for you.

I can see why he is a good superintendent and probably a good father.

I could see him thinking about his son. I do not know his son’s name. Lindsay’s brother’s name. I felt bad for her. She was looking at the wall next to my head, and it was very clear that she was remembering him. It occurred to me that it was wrong of me never to ask her his name and never to tell her to put her head on my shoulder and cry.

Mrs. Harper came home later with Lindsay’s two sisters and looked surprised to see me. Do you guys want pizza? she asked, and there was nothing I wanted more, but I told her I had to go. Mr. Harper shook my hand when I left and held it.

Kel, he said. You’re going to be fine. OK? OK? You’re going to be fine.

•

When I walked out I forgot where I had parked my car for a minute. On the street, said Lindsay, from inside the door. When I turned around she was a dark shape in the window. Behind her was her brightly lit house.

I went to Dee’s. I tried to call him on my way but he didn’t answer. So I just went and rang the doorbell. Rhonda answered the door. She had dyed her hair blond and there was a purple streak in it. There was a new gap in her teeth that you could see when she smiled. She’s known me since I was born.

Oh, baby, she said to me. Oh, you poor kid. She put both big arms around me and then put one on the back of my head. It wasn’t awkward, it felt good. She hummed to herself. She was always fucked up when we were kids, always with a different guy. My mother used to say she had a reputation in high school. When I slept over at Dee’s, sometimes we heard her fighting loudly with whatever man she had over. Dee would cover his head with a pillow. I would pretend I was asleep so he would not be embarrassed. I would not tell my mother for fear of her not letting me stay there anymore.

Dee told me she’d found Jesus, and sure enough there was a big cross around her neck, and when she told me to come in I saw a poster on the wall that said Footprints. It was about God carrying people around.

Dee’s not home from practice yet, she said, but he will be soon. Sit.

She gave me a turkey sandwich.

Thanks, I said. My mouth was full.

Then I spilled my guts for the third time that day, and Dee came home in the middle, and I just kept talking.

Dee’s mom was crying now, she was a mess, and Dee said Mom, Jesus, wipe your nose, and his mom said Don’t say Jesus, baby.

I said, In her note she told me that my father wasn’t my real father.

I expected her to cover her mouth in astonishment, but instead she nodded sadly and said, I know that. I knew that.

I sat. I felt betrayed. I put both of my elbows on my knees.

Kel Keller, she said, as if she were thinking about him.

I wanted to ask her the most important question I had but I felt like I was losing my breath. So instead I asked her a secondary question. How did you know? I said.

Well, said Rhonda. Right around the time she got pregnant, she called me up scared. She didn’t wanna tell your grandparents. I said, Is it Kel’s? And she said, No, I haven’t seen Kel in a year. They dated in high school but they broke up after that.

Rhonda was sitting on the sofa across the room from me. There was stuffing coming out of it. She was covering her belly with a cushion. She was still teary-eyed. Dee got up suddenly and went into the kitchen and came out with two Yoo-hoos, one of which he tossed to me.

Oh, Charlene, said