All the Roads That Lead From Home (2 page)

***

The little girl, Shauna,
made no noise at all. It was her mother who stomped, clattered, banged doors,
and yelled. Sometime she yelled at Shauna.
Pick that up! Put that down! Go
to bed!
Maggie watched them come and go, Shauna always walking behind,
looking at the ground. She was probably around five. She went to day care in
the morning, and didn’t come home again until six or seven in the evening.
Sometimes a man brought her home and stayed until Jo’s car appeared in the
driveway. One time he didn’t. Maggie watched his rusty Chevrolet blow out smoke
as it went off down the street.

Maggie
pressed her ear hard to her bathroom wall. It was the one place where she could
hear most clearly what went on next door. She heard nothing. A few minutes
later she stood in a scratchy evergreen bush and peered through the living room
window into Shauna’s apartment. Clothes were scattered across the floor. A beer
can lay on its side. A liquor bottle was visible under the couch.

Shauna
trotted from the bedroom to the hall in a pair of hot pink pajamas. She dragged
a chair from the dining room into the kitchen, climbed onto it, opened a
cabinet, and took down a box of cookies. Then, with the box in one hand, she
dragged the chair back to the table.

Maggie’s
firm knock was answered after a long silence by Shauna saying, “Go away!”

“That’s
not very nice. Besides, I know you’re in there.”

“I’m not
allowed to talk to strangers.”

“I’m not a
stranger. I’m your landlady.”

“We don’t
have a landlady!”

“Of course
you do, and that’s me. I’m also your next-door neighbor.” Maggie stood on
tiptoes and tried to see down through the half-moon glass at the top of the
door.

The
silence resumed, though by the time Maggie realized she could use her duplicate
key to get in, Shauna had opened the door. She looked up at Maggie with cold
brown eyes. She was African-American, Maggie realized, seeing her up close for
the first time.

“That man
that was here, what’s his name?” Maggie asked.

“Uncle
Frank.”

“I see.
Well, Uncle Frank shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“I don’t
care.”

“Well, I
do. You come next door with me for a little while.”

“You got a
TV?”

“Oh, yes.
A nice TV. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“You got
Teletubbies?”

“What’s
that?”

“My
favorite show.”

Once
inside Maggie’s apartment, Shauna went straight for the statue. They were about
the same height. Shauna then turned to Maggie and said, “It doesn’t have any
eyes. How come you don’t color it some?”

“Well,
because it’s not—”

“You got
crayons?”

“No, I’m
afraid I don’t. Why don’t you come and watch TV, instead?”

Shauna
didn’t budge. Maggie wondered what she had around to bribe her with. There was
some Halloween candy that was almost a year old, but that didn’t seem like a
good idea.

“Or maybe
you’d like to look at my jewelry box. I used to love looking at my mother’s
jewelry when I was a little girl,” said Maggie.

Jo’s
pickup truck rumbled up the driveway. Shauna ran to Maggie’s front window and
slapped her little hand on the glass. Jo got out with a bag of groceries in her
arms. When she saw Shauna, she yelled, “What the hell you doing over there,
girl?”

Maggie
opened her front door, and leaned on the jamb with folded arms. “Staying with
me. Your friend left her alone.”

“Really?
When?”

“I don’t
know. Half an hour ago, maybe.”

“Huh.
Well, he’s a right SOB, that’s for sure.” Jo closed the door of her truck with
her foot. Shauna trotted out to her.

“Mommy,
you’re late!”

“I know,
baby. I’d have got here a lot sooner if that jerk at the store had taken my
damn check. Know what he made me do? Use the cash machine. Only it was out of
cash, if you can believe that, so I had to find another one.”

“I’m
hungry!”

“Well I’ve
got something for you in here, if you can wait one minute. Now, get the mail
for me.”

Shauna
trotted down the walk to the twin boxes in front. “Nothing!” she called back.

“Nothing
from your dad?”

“Nope.”

“Shit!
Fucking deadbeat.” She turned to Maggie. “Oh, and thanks for watching her. I’d
return the favor if you had one of your own, but seeing as you don’t, guess I’m
off the hook!”

She
grinned, went inside, and Shauna skipped in after her. Maggie stood a few
minutes longer in the silence they’d left, then went to her couch, and sat with
her head in her hands.

***

“So, like this guy, this
retarded guy comes through my line, right? And he’s touching the damn conveyer
belt and saying, ‘It just goes around and around and around,’ and his keeper,
aide, whatever, is looking at a magazine. God! Drove me nuts,” said Sally.

The
overhead light in the lunch room made the dark line beneath her eyes even
darker. Maggie slipped off her shoes. She had ten more minutes of break. She
rubbed her neck, and stretched her shoulders. Her body always felt so cramped
and sore, as if she were hiding in a box.

“What’s
got you so bummed?” asked Sally.

“Nothing,”
said Maggie.

“Don’t
give me that shit. You’re always bummed.”

Sally was
two years younger than Maggie, twenty-eight, and had four children, two from
two different men she hadn’t married, and a set of twins by a man who’d been
married to someone else at the time she got pregnant. The kids stayed with
Sally’s mother most of the time, even when Sally wasn’t working. Sally’s new
boyfriend didn’t like children and couldn’t stand to be around them. Maggie
thought he’d get Sally pregnant one of these days, and then she’d have one more
little bundle to unload on Grandma. It just wasn’t right, all those healthy
babies cast off like puppies to an animal shelter. All Maggie had wanted was
one.

Maggie’s
red sweater was tight and itchy. With her white
Customer Service
smock
she looked like a candy cane. She’d worn it because her boss, Mr. Dominian, had
said to look more cheerful.

Making
an effort then, are you?
Donny had asked
that morning as they got ready to go. She said nothing, only pulled her hair
brush through and through again.

Maggie
helped herself to a cigarette from Sally’s pack on the table and lit it with
Sally’s lighter.

Sally
yawned.

“Jesus.
What a night. Kyle’s teething and I was up with him three times,” she said.

Maggie
didn’t reply.

Sally
looked at the clock on the wall, and then at her watch. She lit a cigarette for
herself, and slid the pack into the pocket of her smock. “So, you guys going to
try to get pregnant again?”

Maggie
exhaled a plume of smoke.

“You still
want to, don’t you?”

Maggie
shrugged.

“
Can
you?”

“So I’ve
been told.”

“So,
what’s the problem?”

Maggie
considered the red ember of her cigarette.

Sally
leaned in towards her. “Is it Donny?”

Maggie
shook her head.

“Then it’s
you. You’re off sex. Is that it?”

Maggie
crushed her cigarette into a yellow, ceramic tray that bore the store’s name in
loopy red letters. Ever since losing the baby she couldn’t stand for Donny to
touch her. At first they both thought it would be temporary, but it wasn’t. She
said she wasn’t ready, and he offered to use a condom, but she refused. In the
last year they’d made love maybe four or five times.

“Can’t you
just shut your eyes and pretend he’s someone else? Some hunk?” Sally asked.

Donny was
actually very good-looking.

“Get
plastered, first. Rent a dirty movie. Wear sexy underwear.”

“Oh, shut
up.”

“You have
to do something. He’ll dump you, if you don’t. Men don’t like dry spells.”

Maggie
knew Sally was right, that Donny wouldn’t put up with it forever. But she
couldn’t make herself feel something she’d forgotten how to feel, something
that had become alien, so weird she found it stupid even to try.

***

The ice cream left a thin
brown trail that ran from Shauna’s lower lip, down her chin, onto the little
hand clutching the cone, and then into her lap. Maggie passed her a piece of
tissue from the box on the seat between them.

Sliding by
the car windows were trees aflame with autumn color, and the air—the whole
world—seemed to glow.

Maggie was
babysitting. It was Saturday. Jo had called that morning to say she had a
chance to take an extra shift from four to eleven. “Best time for tips,” she
said. Maggie held back. She didn’t want to seem overeager, so she said she
needed to check with Donny to see if he’d made plans. He had. To play golf with
guys from the dealership. Maggie called back to say sitting would be fine, just
this once.

“Cool,”
said Jo.

Maggie
picked up the phone again.

“Did you
change your mind?” Jo asked.

“No, of
course not. Listen. Does Shauna have something to keep her busy? Some toys,
maybe?”

Jo
laughed. “I used to be like that before her. Wondering how to keep us both from
going nuts. Sure, I’ll send her over with stuff to do.”

Maggie’s
refrigerator had sour milk and a six-pack of beer. For lunch she’d finished the
Chinese take-out Donny had brought home the night before.

“I don’t
know. She’s not a picky eater,” Jo said when Maggie called a third time.

“But I haven’t
been to the store yet.”

“I’ll make
her a sandwich, then, okay? It’s not that big a deal.”

They were
at Maggie’s door promptly at 3:30. Jo had fresh highlights in her hair, polish
on her nails, and cherry gloss on her lips. Work, my eye, Maggie thought. A
date was more like it.

Shauna sat
down at the table and ate the sandwich she’d brought with her. Her jaw worked
slowly, and she hummed as she went along. Then she took out some paper and
crayons from her Barbie backpack, spread them out, and started to draw.

Maggie
asked her if wanted some tea. Shauna stared at her, then shook her head. Of
course she didn’t want tea, Maggie thought. What kid drinks tea?

She went
in the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. She glanced at Shauna every now
and then while she waited. All of a sudden, she wasn’t there. Just as Maggie
turned off the stove, something shattered. In the bay window Shauna stood
holding a crayon. Maggie pushed passed her and looked at the chalky fragments
of statue on the floor. She knelt, and lifted the broken face with the red,
sloppy leer Shauna had given it. Beside it the trunk of the mother was now a
gray, empty space.

It was
hollow! No wonder it tipped so easily! Month after month it had stood there
taking up room, being a nuisance, and filled with nothing at all.

On all
fours Maggie gathered the pieces together, then she sat and looked at them.

“You gonna
spank me?” asked Shauna.

“No, of
course not. Just help me sweep this up.”

When they
finished, Maggie said they were going for a drive. The note she left Donny
said, “I’ve gone to fall into Fall.” He was always saying how she’d fallen in
on herself, like an old barn in a field, though she doubted he’d see the
connection. He might not even notice that the statue was gone, either. These days
his eyes were either always down, or aimed at some distant point beyond her and
the walls around them.

Shauna
rolled down her window and threw her cone onto the road.

“What are
you doing?” Maggie asked.

“I
couldn’t eat any more.”

“Well, you
shouldn’t have done that. It’s littering!”

“You don’t
have a trash bag in here.”

“No, but—”

“I got to
go to the bathroom.”

At the
next exit Maggie turned into a small park she had visited as a child. The
willow trees bent towards the water, and the wind covered the surface of the
lake with white arcs. The air had turned cooler with both the hour and the
season, and she wished she had a coat.

The
bathroom was a low, concrete building with hundreds of small spiders suspended
in webs across the ceiling. Shauna was scared of them, so Maggie said she’d
stand guard and swat any that tried to come near. Finally Shauna used the
toilet, then refused to wash her hands. Maggie let it go. A car pulled in next
to hers and the passenger got out. She laughed and staggered towards the
bathroom. The driver, a man, looked just as drunk. His head was thrown back and
he laughed too, his shoulders heaving up and down.