Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,81

have. I still had a loan out on my car. I think that meant I had full coverage instead of just liability. Right? I’d asked for that, right? I couldn’t remember.

He pulled out another pad of paper and tore off a ticket, handing it over to me with my license, registration, and insurance card.

“Sir,” I said, seeing the $70 amount on the ticket but not accepting it, trying to make sense of how I deserved this. I stared into his tiny blue eyes. “What will this mean for me financially?”

He looked at me, and then at Mia, who’d also turned her head to stare at him. “I don’t know, ma’am,” he said, annoyed, and then extended the ticket toward me, adding, “You can fight it in court.” But I knew that meant I’d have to fight him. A police officer. This heartless man, placing a ticket in the hand of a sobbing mother who’d almost lost her child, who couldn’t afford to replace the car, let alone pay the ticket.

I stared at the ticket for being illegally parked and looked up to see the tow truck approaching.

“Ma’am! Do you have anyone to pick you up?” the police officer asked. Judging from his tone, he must have asked more than once.

“I don’t know,” I said. Everyone I could think of calling was at work and miles away. The cop suggested I get a ride with the tow truck, but I again asked if that would cost money and he again said he didn’t know. “Why doesn’t anyone know how much things cost?” I said, crying again. He shrugged and walked away. The fireman had taken my cleaning supplies out of the back of my car, along with the car seat and Mia’s bag with Hello Kitty on the front for weekends at her dad’s.

We stood on the side of the road, watching our car get pulled up the ramp of the tow truck, the back tire sideways and dragging like a broken limb. At my feet in the grass was my tray of cleaning supplies, a bag of rags, and two broken mop handles. Mia still hung her arms around my neck. The scene started to clear. We were about to be left.

20

“I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT”

Why would you do that?” Jamie yelled into the phone, his tone getting higher, more urgent. “Why would you stop on a highway? How could you be so fucking stupid?” The exact words I’d been repeating in my head already. In his voice, even.

“Okay, I’ll call later,” I said before I hung up.

Mia started crying. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted him to come get her. I felt a familiar sinking in my stomach, fear that he might use this to get custody, that this might be the thing that won him the case he always threatened me with whenever I did something he didn’t like. He wanted me to have to pay him child support. He wanted me to suffer.

Grandpa’s light blue Oldsmobile crept through the traffic still backed up from the accident. A few cops waved him in. Even though he was shorter than the shortest cop, who’d handed me a ticket, Grandpa was all business when he got out of the car, nodding at the handful of first responders who remained. But when he walked up to us on the side of the road, his face was red, flushed. I thought for a moment he might be angry with me. “Are those things coming with us?” he asked, pointing to the pile of belongings awkwardly stacked on the shoulder of the highway. I nodded.

After I clipped Mia’s car seat into place, we climbed into the huge car, and Grandpa said he needed to get gas. We pulled into a gas station and parked next to the pump. Grandpa looked at me for a second and then looked back at Mia. His eyes started to water.

“I don’t have enough money,” he said, his face reddening again.

“I’ll pay,” I said, reaching for the door handle.

“Maybe I’ll go get us some coffee,” he said. “You probably need some coffee? I just switched to green tea. Do you want some green tea?”

I wanted to joke about needing a few shots of whiskey but realized I’d be serious in my request. “Sure, Grandpa,” I said, forcing some kind of grin. “Coffee would be great.”

Grandpa cared for my grandma through most of their marriage as her schizophrenia progressed, and her death a year and