The Limit (2 page)

He lowered his arms and sent the basketball my way in a wimpy bounce pass. “You know what? I think I’m going to go home. It’s getting close to dinner.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Lester, moving faster than he had all day on the court.

“Okay, see you guys later.”

They’d hustled to the end of the block by the time I’d missed my way down to 768 points. Finally, I gave up and went inside, using the front door instead of going through the garage.

I headed straight for the kitchen, where a hearty aroma
should
have clued me in to what we’d soon be eating. I didn’t notice one today. Before I had the chance to open the fridge for some juice, Mom stopped me.

“Wash,” she said without turning around. The swoosh of her butcher knife slicing through celery stalks increased to hammering bangs.

“Ease up,” I said, flicking a bit of the water from my hands against the back of her neck. “What’d the celery ever do to you?”

She kept banging, harder and faster, until she reached the end of her stalk.

“I just don’t know what to do with you, Matt.”

“Um . . . buy me a car like Dad’s in three years for my sixteenth birthday?” I offered.

“I’m serious.” She turned around, that knife in her hand looking a little too much like a weapon. “Do you have any idea who I just got off the phone with?”

Of course I didn’t, so I didn’t bother answering. I don’t think she expected me to.

“Mr. Lochee.”

“Oh.”

“And
do
you have a reasonable explanation for why you stopped doing your assignments in his class?”

“Yeah.”

She opened her eyes wider, even as they shot laser beams at me. The knuckles of her hand clutching the knife turned white.

“I figured it out a couple weeks ago.” My words came out fast. “I had one hundred sixty-eight percent in his class. Even if I don’t turn in another assignment for the rest of the semester, I’ll still get a strong A-plus.”

She clicked her tongue. “How can you possibly have one hundred sixty-eight percent?”

“Ask Lochee,” I said, making my voice all innocent. “All I know is what I saw in his online grade book. It’s not my fault if my assignments are so brilliant he can’t stop himself from dumping a ton of extra-credit points into my total.”

“Matt.” Shaking her head, Mom twisted her mouth to hide her growing smile. She tossed the knife into the sink and grabbed me by the shoulders. The shake she gave me was more a hug than an act of aggression. “Okay, listen. Schoolwork is about more than grades. You need to do the work to learn the material, not just to maintain a 4.0.”

3.997, but who wanted to get picky?

Abbie walked into the kitchen. “I’m hungry.”

“You,” I said, twisting to point at her. “If you finished all your work in kindergarten, would you do extra work, or would you go play?”

“Play,” she said, as if the answer were so obvious the question shouldn’t have been asked.

“See?” I said to Mom.

My other younger sister, Lauren, wandered in, her eyes stuck on her cell phone. “When’s dinner?”

“Soon,” said Mom, slipping on a pair of oven mitts.

The second she pulled open the oven door, she growled and leaned so far inside I thought the layers of makeup on her face would melt off and drip into the food. She shook the oven mitts onto the floor and grabbed the rack.

“Mom!” I yelled.

Grimacing, she slid her hands along the inside oven wall. “Lauren, run in the garage and get your father.
Now!” Lauren bolted as Mom plastered her palm against the roasting pan.

“Mom,” I said, “stop touching that!”

A minute later Dad bounced into the kitchen, carrying a giggling Lauren over his shoulder. He slid her to the ground the instant his eyes landed on Mom.

“It’s cold,” she snapped. “Ice cold.”

He reached for the door of the cupboard that contained our stash of chips and crackers. “So call a repairman.”

“And have it break again in a week? No thank you. We’re buying a new oven, and this time we’re not going the frugal route. I’m getting every feature that’s available—just like the model Wendy Beil bought last month.”

“Anything you want, love.” Dad blew her a kiss, poked me in the ribs, and said softly in my ear, “If a new oven’s what it takes to bribe your mom into putting on a killer dinner for the Duprees, then that’s what we’ll have to buy her.” He spoke louder, so Mom could hear. “Order it right away, honey. We’re going to nail that Dupree account. Matt, start shopping for a new bike.”

“But I just got—”

He wasn’t listening.

“Lauren, what do you want, baby? A new phone?”

“Okay,” she said, her thumbs going crazy on her current one.

“Can I have a pony?” asked Abbie.

“Absolutely.” Dad rubbed his hands together. “I’m going to buy a set of custom titanium golf clubs and finally step up to a country club membership.”

“Will!”

“I’ll buy you anything you want too, Becca.” Dad blew her another kiss. He pumped his fists and shook his hips in a weird, embarrassing, grown-up-person sort of dance as he headed for his room to change out of his golf uniform.

Ten minutes later the five of us sat around the table over bowls of freshly nuked frozen stew. Bored, Dad turned the conversation away from Abbie’s description of her day in kindergarten.

“So, what’s the news from middle school? Anything as exciting as a boy bringing his dead pet cricket for show and tell?”

I let out a snort. “Hardly. Middle school puts me to sleep.”

“What about that girl they snatched?” Lauren asked.

Mom dunked a corner of bread into the juices of her stew. “Who snatched what girl? Did the police come? I’m surprised I didn’t hear about this.”

“She wasn’t kidnapped. I don’t know
who
took her,” said Lauren, chatting away as calmly as if discussing how one of her little twelve-year-old friends had a crush
on a certain boy that week. “Those people who take kids whose families go over their limit came and got her.”

Dad’s fork clattered to the table. “Is this true, Matt? They took a kid from middle school?”

“I guess,” I mumbled. Stupid Lauren. I wish she’d think before she talked. Dad was sure to start fuming about our overreaching, too-powerful government, blah, blah, blah.

“Middle school kids.” Dad shook his head. A second later his fist came down hard against the table, making a splatter of milk fly out of his glass. The rest of us jumped. “I knew it. They suck us into a bad idea—make us accept it—and then crank up the rottenness another couple of notches. It’s only been what—two years since they started this workhouse program?”

“A year and a half,” Mom corrected.

“Either way, not long at all,” said Dad. “The whole stinking program is just going to get worse and worse.” Dad flung his napkin onto the table. A corner of the white fabric landed in his bowl, soaking up the brown liquid.

Mom took another careful bite of stew and lowered her fork slowly to the table. “I just can’t imagine any parent choosing to send one of their children to that place. What’s the name of the family the girl came from?”

“I don’t know,” said Lauren. “She went to Lakeview.
Goes. She
goes
to Lakeview. At least she will again when they let her come back. The kids are supposed to come back someday, aren’t they? I mean, we’ve never known anyone who’s come back, but we’ve also never known anyone who got taken. They really don’t take many kids there, do they.”
Stupid, stupid Lauren. Dinner isn’t supposed to be so tense. Can we just drop this subject?
“I wish we did know someone. I’d love to find out what goes on inside those workhouses.”

“No you wouldn’t,” I said. No one really knew, of course, besides the families who’d been directly affected—and I didn’t think it was a subject they loved to brag about. I could sure imagine what went on inside the workhouses.

“Did you say the girl went to Lakeview? That would explain it, then.” Mom dug into her stew. “Those people who live in the Lakeview boundaries haven’t got the sense of a donkey. We can’t expect them to be able to manage their accounts. I suppose the government had no choice but to step in. Honey, will you please pass me the pepper?”

“
I SWEAR SOMEDAY SHE’S GOING
to . . . where
is
that key?” Mom dug deep into her duffel-bag-size lime-green purse while my sisters and I waited on the porch in front of our grandmother’s house. Mom ended up dumping the contents of her purse onto the padded seat of a wicker chair before she spied the elusive key to let us in. “Mother? Where are you?”

“Rebecca, is that you? I’m in the living room.”

“I’m here too, Nana.”

“Me too!”

“Matt and Abigail came too! What did I do to deserve such a plethora of visitors?”

Mom paused in the wide opening to the living room, slamming one high-heeled shoe into the hardwood floor as she jammed her hands against her waist. “You tripped over that mutt of yours and nearly killed yourself, Mother. That’s what you did.”

“Phsssh,” said Nana, waving her off. “Oh, Lauren came along as well. How nice.”

“Hi, Nana,” said Lauren, not bothering to glance up from her phone. “I hope your ankle doesn’t hurt too much.”

“It will be fine. Eventually.” Nana lay lengthwise on the sofa. When she tried to push herself up, a sharp grimace twisted her face.

“You are not all right,” said Mom, hustling across the room. “Let me get a look at that leg.”

An insistent yipping came from farther back in the house. The guilty mutt.

“Poor Buffy. Matt, would you mind taking her out to the backyard? It’s so hard for me with this”—Nana flicked her hand toward her ankle—“inconvenience.”

“Inconvenience?” Mom’s voice quickly reached the high, shrill level saved especially for times of stress. “You haven’t even begun to think this through, have you?”

“Don’t worry about it, Nana.” I hustled into the kitchen. The little ball of white fluff that was Buffy bounced around in front of the wide glass door like a rubber ball while emitting high-pitched barks that sounded like a hinge in desperate need of a good oiling. As soon as I slid the door open a couple of inches, she squeezed through and raced circles around the backyard. I followed with much less enthusiasm.

Hunching under my jacket against a sharp breeze, I waited while Buffy did her thing. I’d just picked up a stick for her to chase when Lauren and Abbie joined me.

“They’re fighting,” said Abbie.

“Annoying,” said Lauren with an eye roll and slight twitch of her head. Her hands were shoved into the pockets of her hoodie—resting her thumbs for once.

Abbie’s eyes sparkled as she skipped across the back porch. “Where’s Buffy?”

We played with the dog for a few minutes—until a biting wind forced us back inside.

Insistent voices carried loud and strong into the kitchen. Lauren stuck in her earbuds, pulled out her phone, and plopped into a chair at the table. Abbie let herself get absorbed with Buffy. I decided Nana needed a glass of milk, so I poured one and took it in to her.

“I’m not backing down, Mother. You’re going to the hospital.”

Nana smiled as she reached for the glass. “Thank you, Matt. You’re so thoughtful.”

“Matt, go find a pair of Nana’s shoes. We’re taking her to the emergency room right now.”

“Sit down, Matt.”

I plopped next to Mom on the big ottoman in front of the sofa. “Rebecca, you and your children are free to go wherever you want, but I’m staying right here—in my home.”

“Your ankle could very well be broken.”
Mom slapped the back of her hand against my shoulder. “Tell her, Matt.”

I made my voice come out high and animated. “It very well could be broken.” I flipped long imaginary hair over my shoulder.

“You’ve got her down!” Nana pounded her good leg as she chortled.

Mom slapped me again. “Stop it. This is serious.” Her laughter weakened her words. “No, listen. Mother, what if something is seriously wrong with your ankle?”

“What if it isn’t?” Nana thrust her chin into the air. “Then I will have given up everything for nothing.” She shook her finger in Mom’s face. “You know exactly what will happen if I let you take me to the hospital. They’ll stamp my charts with a big, red ‘Unfit to Care for Self’ label and cart me off to the home for the dead and dying.”

What? No. They wouldn’t take Nana away. People were supposed to be sucking in their last breaths before they had to go there. At least that’s what I’d always thought.

“They’re called residences for the advanced in years, Mother. They’re very nice institutions.”

The home for the dead and dying is what I’ve always heard it called—unofficially of course.

“Hrmph!” Nana turned her face to the wall.

Mom leaned forward to stroke her arm. “You don’t know for sure that they will classify you as unfit. This is just a temporary injury.”

“Are you living with a sack over your head?” Nana shot back, jerking her arm away from Mom’s touch. “They jump on any little excuse they can find. Those government people can’t wait to haul off one more aging person and tuck us away in some little rat hole so they can claim our homes and all our property. Well, I’m not ready to give in. Not yet. Not without a fight.”