Dust (29 page)

Davy broke the tension immediately. “I’m going to bed. Simon, buddy? Ready?”

“Ok!” Simon perked up. “Can you read to me, Davy? Please, can we read the Roger dinosaur book. Maybe Aunt Jo can read to us both, can you Aunt Jo.”

Still staring at Tammy, I nodded and spoke almost dazed. “Yes, Simon. I will. Give me a kiss, I’ll be right in.”

Hyper as usual, Simon grabbed hold of Molly and rushed to me. In his hurriedness Molly swung out and hit into Tammy’s plate, knocking it to the floor.

An uncalled for, gurgling, loud, “Watch out you idiot!” screamed from Tammy.

Burke blasted back, “Hey! Knock it off!”

“No!” Tammy charged. “He knocked over my cake!”

Poor Simon didn’t know how to react, I know he didn’t pay one bit of attention to me telling him it was ‘OK’, finger in his mouth, he peered at Tammy, “I’m sorry, Tammy. I’m sorry.”

“It’s too late now, isn’t it!” she yelled at Simon.

I could have defended my nephew, but Burke took care of it prior to my even getting a chance.

“What the fuck, Tammy.” Burke scolded. “He’s a kid, it’s not his fault.”

Hostile, Tammy argued back, “You’re right. It isn’t his fault. It’s yours!” She said to Burke, and then looked at me. “And hers! Because you let him play with this stupid goddamn
 
… toy!” In her bitter rage, and by no accident, Tammy slammed down her arm into the doll. The fork she held seared through the plastic flesh.

Pop!

As if he witnessed a death, Simon shrieked painfully and long. I sprang to my feet, and lunged for Tammy. Quickly Rod intercepted, leaping forward, blocking me with his body. My blood boiled, I could feel my neck hot, and my face flush. So enraged, I didn’t want to hear Rod’s reasoning. He rattled calmingly something about it not being the place. I didn’t care. Frantically I attempted to get by Rod, pushing my body into his while my hands reached out trying to grab a piece of her. Was I screaming? Saying anything? I don’t know.

Rod was a ping-pong ball. His stance was jolted back and forth as I strived for Tammy, she strived for me, and Burke tried to get Rod out of the way to let us go at it.

Then someone grabbed my shoulders. It had to have been Davy or Tanner. I couldn’t see. But as they pulled on me to bring me back, I felt it slam down into my extended right hand.

A revolver.

Though instinctively my fingers wrapped around the handle, in confusion my eyes shifted fast from the gun, to Rod, to Burke.

“Shoot her.” Burke ordered. “Fuckin’ shoot her right now, Jo!”

The words squealed in his shock, as Rod cried out. “What! No!” Without hesitation, his hand whipped down and snatched the revolver from me. He spun hard to Burke, then unlike I had ever seen him before, Rod took charge of the situation. Storming his voice in an authoritarian manner. “What are you? Fuckin nuts! Shoot her? There are children in this room. Get your goddamn priorities straight!” He pivoted to me. “And you, calm down! You hear? There are ways to handle this.” Before I could respond, Rod turned his body again, and swung out a point to Tammy who was leaving. “Stop!” he ordered. “Don’t you dare leave this room. Where are you going!”

Calm, Tammy turned around. “I’m going back to my room.”

“You are going nowhere.” Rod walked to her. “What you did to this child …” he extended a hand to Simon. “Was incomprehensible, uncalled for, heartless, not …”

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t care?” Rod took another step to her. “We are all down here together. We’re all in this together. You cannot take this mean, hatred attitude toward people, especially a child. Where do you see your justification?”

“Because I lost!” Tammy yelled. “I lost and no one else did!”

“Bullshit!” Rod screamed. “Bull! We all lost!”

“Not like me!”

In argumentative disbelief, Rod chuckled. “You think you can measure loss? You really think that your loss is greater than anyone else’s in this room? Let me tell you something, Tammy. We all lost. We all hurt.”

“None of you lost a child!” She bellowed.

“A child? No.” Rod shook his head. “Two.” He pointed to Tanner. “This man lost two children, and a third is still unaccounted for. You wanna measure pain. Measure it next to his. Is he striking out? Is he deliberately hurting people? No. You are. Why?”

“Because of her.” Tammy looked at me. “Jo.”

“Jo?” Rod asked with a laugh. “Jo makes you hurt people?”

“No, Jo makes me hate.” Tammy raged. “So perfect. She’s got it all. Don’t any of you see it? Happy, smiling, hugging her children. She still has her life! Everyone praises her. Jo did this. Jo did that. She told me. She gave me. If it wasn’t for Jo … God! I’m sick of it! And I’m sick of hearing how prepared Jo was. Let me tell you something, Jo …” Tammy spoke bitter. “You weren’t prepared, and you still aren’t. You can’t prepare for everything. Mark my words.” On her final syllable of angry hostility, Tammy stormed away, leaving us speechless and stunned.

24. Death and Revival
 

My mood pummeled. My entire emotional being felt as if it spiraled into the bile of depression. I didn’t want to lift my head. On the brink of outrage, on the verge of weeping, I just wanted to be left alone with my thoughts and my notebook. I didn’t want to yell, nor did I want to cry. A single word could have offset the internal seesaw I balanced. Walk away. Don’t look at me. Don’t speak. Leave me alone. Just … leave me alone.

Where in the world did I put that red sweater?

Never in my life did I imagine I could feel so much turmoil toward one individual. What kind of place had Tammy put me? What sort of position had she placed me in? Neither answer was one I wanted to accept. Neither answer was one I liked.

At that moment in time I hated her … I pitied her.

I spoke to Nicky to thank her for repairing Molly. Burke hadn’t tossed out the box, and she found a plastic patch inside. A blow up doll came with a repair patch. I shuddered to think what reasons the manufacturers justified for placing a repair patch in the box to a blow up doll.

My whispering, ‘thank you, Simon will be happy’, was an invitation to Burke I did not extend. He was waiting—obviously—to approach me. Burke had no patience, and he was taking whatever chance afforded.

He handled it simply. Sitting down next to me before the fire, Burke exhaled. I expected him to have an explanatory conversation with me. While I brooded in my fucked-up friendship world, every other adult assessed and deliberated on the Tammy occurrences. I wasn’t dumb as to what they discussed, nor was I deaf. I knew what Burke was going to say. However, I didn’t expect with his outward breathing, he would expire all tact from his body.

Blunt.

“She goes,” Burke said. “I want her out. I want her out soon. When the rads drop, and temps rise, Tammy goes. It’s been decided. Majority rules.”

I didn’t even get a vote? To be honest ...I didn’t want one.

It’s out of my hands. Those were the words I wrote in the notebook. Breaking away from my daily notation to Mona, I wrote my feelings. I needed to write to her—no, I needed to talk to her. Why couldn’t she be in the shelter with us? Why did she have to go to Tulsa? Of all days.

The shelter had finally hit the level of peacefulness. Burke doing something out of character, lounged on the couch reading a book. I don’t recall ever seeing Burke read a book in all the years I knew him. But he proclaimed he wasn’t tired, and even if he was, he wasn’t going to bed until I did. What? Did he think I was going somewhere? Leaving? I hadn’t left my fireplace seat on the floor in two hours. I had written over three pages to Mona. I could hear her when she saw those pages. She’d look, chuckle, comment in a sarcastic way, “well, someone was having a bad night when they wrote this.’ I was.

“Hey,” Tanner whispered as he sat down next to me. “Mind if I sit here?”

I shook my head. What was I gonna say? No? He was already seated.

“Are you writing to Mona?” he asked.

“Are you gonna make a snide comment?”

“Jo,” he said softly. “Don’t bite my head off. I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re right.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“The notebook?”

“Tammy.”

I chuckled once. “What’s there to talk about?”

“About how you feel. What's going through your mind.”

“If I said …” I turned and faced Tanner. “If I said I despised her, what would you say back to me?”

Tanner shrugged. “Good?”

“Good. You would say good?”

“Yeah, then I’d follow up with it’s about time.”

Shaking my head, I turned from him.

“Jo. I’m not saying you should have despised her your entire life. I am saying, that things were said and done that warranted you losing all feeling for her. You need to despise her now, if not for her actions and words, but for a clear conscious in two days.”

“When conditions change and we throw her away.”

“We don’t throw her away.” Tanner reasoned. “She’s breaking, Jo. She’s gonna snap and soon. I don’t want to think of what she could be capable of doing.”

“She lost an arm, Tanner. How much of a threat is she.”

“She only needs one hand to use a weapon.”

Muffled, and from behind his book, Burke tossed out his comments, “Thank you! I couldn’t have said it better. Listen to Tanner he’s reasonable.”

I spun to look at Burke. “Can you mind your own business?”

Burke lowered the book. “No.”

Grumbling, I returned to facing the fire.

Tanner’s finger touched upon my notebook. “What would Mona say, Jo?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” Tanner said. “Didn’t you tell me you two were psychically linked? Didn’t you say you write to her because you know you’re sending her some sort of message? That she feels, right now, what you write?”

Burke laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”

My eyes fluttered and I spewed out, “I hate when he does that. You know what the problem is? He’s pretending to read. He’s not because there are no pictures in a Tom Clancy novel.”

“Jo?” Tanner waited for an answer.

“Yes.” I nodded. “We are linked. And I know she feels something from me.”

“Then feel something from her. She’s a friend. What would she say?” Tanner asked. “Link to her, Jo.”

He did it again. Burke had to comment, “Maybe they are psychically linked, and the reason Jo can’t tell you what Mona would say, is because there’s no Mona right now to link to.”

“Mind you own goddamn business!” I yelled.

“No!” Burke retorted. “Talk somewhere else. Wait. Ha! You can’t.”

Murmuring ‘asshole’, I faced Tanner. “She would say Burke is right. She would say get her out. But I don’t think Mona would wait. She would want her gone now.”

“Let’s listen to Mona!” Burke cheered.

“Shut … up.” I snapped.

“Jo,” Tanner snickered. “He’s trying to help you. In his own way, he’s taking your mind off of things.”

“I guess.”

“Tell me about Mona.” Tanner requested. “Let’s talk about her.”