counter. We never bought anything, of course, it was just our shortcut to the duck pellets. But we’d seen the advertisements, hay bales appetizing as sponge cake, glittering streams, oak trees with not one leaf out of place. We’d dodged the free samples they sprayed at you, the new line of perfume that was supposed to make you smell fresh and untamed.
She tried to comfort me, upbeat until the last. “Don’t let it get to you,” she said. “It’s just some stupid perfume. They sold it, she bought it. So what?” She handed me the skillet, but I took it without feeling its weight.
The intake girl had bought the new perfume, the perfume called Outside, whereas my sorry ass lived outside, the outside that smelled like diesel oil and sawdust, smelled like rendered guts and compost, smelled like the shit pile. So then I knew for sure that the nice intake girl would be back. I knew that she would win.
KAREN
I should have been there. I was always there. Helen might be off with Rudy, Lily might be at the hardware and salvage store, but me, I’d made up my mind to quit the clinic, to bring in firewood, to lever up the house where it fell down the hill, patch rotten boards, thaw frozen water pipes, fix the duck shed, dig out drainage. I’d raised Perley day by day until he left me for that damn school. I’d made up my mind to ignore the lonely days when they came. I’d made up my mind to stay with my pack. So I should have been there. Should have been but wasn’t.
I was always there but that day I saw in the nickel ads that I could take down a shed in Alexander Township. I could take down the shed and get all the wood from it, plenty to finish the chair and the bunk in Perley’s camper, extra for garden beds, firewood, a new porch step. Maybe some interesting pieces to whittle into spoons, chains, skulls. Could be hardwood, sometimes you’d even find walnut mixed in. I went off that afternoon to have a look. But when I made it there, there was no there. Someone had been there before me, and the shed was gone, leaving only a shitty foundation, black from years of a coal-burning stove. I drove back, leaking oil through gusts of snowflakes, hoping stew would be ready when I got home, hoping they’d stoked the fire, maybe strung a tarp, because we were still eating outside, the house full of trash and snakes. But when I got home the campfire was out and they were all inside. I could smell pancakes and everyone was busy, I mean everyone was absorbed, I mean Lily handed me a bowl of burnt stew, but no one would talk to me.
Except Perley. Perley wasn’t busy. He sat on the sofa with keen eyes, staring at me, his mouth sealed shut. He had chocolate on his face. I pretended I didn’t see it. I was tired of being the villain.
“What happened today?” I asked, spooning stew into my mouth. “Did I miss anything?” But no one would talk to me.
Except Perley, who said, “Lots of stuff happened. That’s the thing about days. So many things happen every day. So many things that it can be hard to remember exactly what things happened. So it’s impossible to be bored which is what you taught me.” Then he shut his mouth again, watching me.
“Thank you, Perley,” I said. “Thanks for reminding me.” I took a bite of the stew, scalded mulch.
And why even tell this part of the story, when me knowing or not knowing makes no difference? Should have been there but wasn’t. I’m nothing. A non-thing. So why even talk about it? Why talk at all?
Why talk at all except to report that the sheriff’s deputy showed up the next day with a teenage kid, made-up heavy as a drag queen, stinking like the inside of a funeral parlor. I stood at the door of my house but they wouldn’t look at me. I talked to them but they wouldn’t talk to me, because they said they would only talk to the legal parent. They said they would only talk to Perley’s mother but they didn’t mean me. And I heard unhygienic, evidence of neglect, criminal activity—a fucking vendetta, claimed Helen—lack of supervision, possible lack of adequate nutrition. So no one needed to tell me what had happened yesterday