The Way Back from Broken (3 page)

“Hey, why don't you talk to my mom for a while? She's good with this stuff. You know, she's been there.”

“But I had a dream!”

“Jacey, Martin Luther King had a goddamn dream. You had a nightmare. So did your mom.”

“My baby brother was not a nightmare!” she shrieked.

Rakmen held the phone away from his ear. Jacey's screech transformed into wild, rolling sobs. He had nothing for her. There was no stopping the plates. Rakmen handed the phone to his mom and pulled the covers over his head.

The wet warmth of his own breath filled the claustrophobic space under the blankets. He heard his mother crooning something soft and soothing. He willed her to leave.

Jacey howled his name as if she could drag him to her through the phone. Rakmen flattened his hands against his ears and listened to the rush of his own blood. From inside the cave of blankets, Rakmen heard the distant shattering of one more plate before the call ended. He held his breath and waited for his mom to get up and go.

Instead, she tore away the covers. “Come on.”

“You can't be serious.”

She made one of those faces.

“We don't know them. We don't even know where they live.”

“
La señora
was in group tonight. That's all I need to know.” His mom's voice was hard. “They live close.”

“You're crazy,” Rakmen muttered, groping for the blankets.

“Oh no, you don't. You're coming with me. I don't know what is going on over there, but that little girl wants you. You know I know where her mama is right now. Let's go.”

“You can't be serious.”

“
Si, mijo
. Get dressed.
¡Ahorita!
” She flicked the overhead light on as she left the room.

He groaned and slid out of bed. When she spoke Spanish, you pretty much had to do what she said. As Rakmen pulled on his jeans, he stumbled into the desk and sent his biology folder crashing. His notes scattered across the floor. Nothing good would come of this.

. . .

Pelting raindrops glowed in the halogen lights of the Plaid Pantry on the corner as his mom parked in front of a boxy, brown house. Dandelions and crabgrass grew in the cracks crisscrossing the front walk. A single pot of pansies was on the front step.

“Can't I wait in the car?”

“No,” his mom snapped.

“She's my teacher. This is weird.”

“The little girl wants you.”

“Why?”

“She can tell you're a kind person.”

Rakmen ducked his head, breath in his throat. His mom might as well have punched him.

“Let's go,” she said, propelling him out of the car and up to the door. Rakmen hung back, slouched against the rain, while she knocked, waited, and knocked harder.

“Leah!” she called through the door. “It's me. Mercedes. From Promise House.”

The solid door squealed open a crack. Mrs. Tatlas's pale face seemed to float in the dim light. The plate crashing and crying had done a job on her. She looked like a wadded-up paper towel. One white-knuckled hand clenched the door frame. Her eyes darted between them. “What are you doing here?”

“Jacey called,” said his mother, trying to squeeze under the eaves and out of the rain. The barely contained hysteria in Mrs. Tatlas repelled Rakmen. He stood as far back as he could. An icy finger of rain snaked down his neck, and he shivered.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

His mom shrugged and ventured a half-smile. “I guess she found my number in your phone and seemed to think that you might need someone to talk to.”

“And you came in the middle of the night?” Disbelief laced her words. “You both came?”

His mom shrugged again, and Rakmen fought the urge to bolt to the car and lock the doors behind him. Jacey slid into view behind her mother, eyes fixed on Rakmen's face like tractor beams. He stepped back involuntarily, wanting to move out of range.

“Can we come in?” his mom asked.

Mrs. Tatlas swayed slightly. “I don't . . . It's really late.”

But Jacey pulled the door open wide.

Mrs. Tatlas was in her pajamas. Under the thin blue T-shirt, Rakmen could see the outline of her breasts. The flannel bottoms were torn in one knee, and he could see flesh there too. She was like a body at a crime scene, no longer capable of modesty. He wanted to cover her with a sheet. Instead he looked away.

Mrs. Tatlas stepped aside for them to enter, shut the door behind them and turned on Jacey. “What have you done?” The girl hid behind those scraggly bangs. She wore a patterned nightgown. Dogs or rabbits. An animal of some kind. Her bare feet unnerved him.

“Look,” said his mom. “It's no big deal. Everybody needs somebody to talk to sometimes.”

Mrs. Tatlas lifted her hands, and for a second Rakmen thought she might slap Jacey, but instead her arms dropped to her sides, too heavy to hold. “My husband, George, is working tonight, and I—”

“Come on. Got any tea?” Rakmen's mom guided Mrs. Tatlas into her own kitchen, leaving Rakmen and Jacey in the dark entry hall.

He sat down on the staircase. The carpet between his feet was stained. Something dark. Something old. Another family's mess. Next to him, Jacey's fingers crumpled and uncrumpled the fabric of her nightgown against her thighs. He could hear the faint, wet sound of her chewing on her hair.

In the kitchen, the faucet went on then off. The kettle went on the burner with a metallic clunk, followed by the whoosh of gas. “Broom?” his mother murmured. A moment later, he heard bristles on linoleum and the clatter of porcelain shards. Things break and go in the trash. And he was always overhearing.

“I'm sorry she called you,” said Mrs. Tatlas.

“Hard night?”

Beside him, Jacey's breathing was fast and shallow.

“You should go back to bed,” he told her.

Jacey shook her head. She was not a pretty girl. Not the kind who got her cheeks pinched. Not like Dora, whom he'd watched sleep, her lips moving in that other-worldly baby way. Not like Dora, who had been beautiful.

Jacey shifted next to him, her bare feet shuffling against the ratty carpet. A nondescript, unremarkable girl in a crumbling house.

The kitchen voices rose.

“One of the girls in my fifth period class had a baby boy last night.”

“Dios mío.”

“And he's fine!” Mrs. Tatlas's voice cranked up. “She's sixteen. Smokes cigarettes. Drinks Red Bull. Eats like crap. Her baby's fine and mine's . . . ” The volume dropped, muffled by tears.

Marissa.

Rakmen knew she did worse than smoke cigarettes, much worse. Juan had screwed her at a party where they were all doing crank and tequila shots, back when it didn't seem possible that they could mess things up very bad.

“We'd tried for a long time after Jacey was born,” said Mrs. Tatlas. “We really wanted two. And Jacey—that little goose has been begging for a baby brother practically since she could talk.”

Next to him, Jacey started to cry.

It was always this. Women crying. Men leaving. Him overhearing.

Rakmen stood up. “Come on,” he told Jacey. “Let's go upstairs. I'll read you a story or something.”

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and padded up the stairs. Jacey passed the doorway to her room where the pink glow of a lava lamp oozed across the walls and the green safari net over her bed billowed in a blast of hot air from the floor vent. Instead, she opened the door of the nursery. Blue walls, freshly-painted. Rocking chair. A painting of Noah's Ark in bright colors.

Rakmen hung back. “Let's go to your room and find a book.”

Jacey ran her finger along the crib rail. “This was mine when I was a baby, but we lived in a different house.”

A teddy bear slumped next to a carefully folded quilt on an unwrinkled sheet. This room had never seen spit-up or dirty diapers or late-night feedings. It smelled like fabric softener and the sterile aisles at Babies-R-Us.

It did not smell like baby.

Rakmen picked at the torn lining of his jacket pocket, trying not to remember Dora's sweet, milky breath.

Downstairs, Mrs. Tatlas's voice rose again, fractured and staccato.

Rakmen stepped inside, shut the nursery door behind him, and leaned against it, heaviness sucking him down. Jacey lifted a wooden chest the size of a shoe box from the end of the crib and carried it to the rocking chair. When she sat, her feet didn't touch the ground.

“Shouldn't he feel close?” she asked, clasping the box to her chest. “It's only been a few months. I thought he'd hang around. But I don't feel him at all. That's why the dream made me happy. Because Jordan was with us. And Mom was happy. I thought she'd want to know.”

Rakmen dropped his head to his chest. Dreams were empty cribs and unused bedrooms. “She's upset about the girl at school,” he said.

“I know.” Jacey stretched one toe to the floor and rocked herself in the chair. The wood creaked rhythmically.

“What's in the box?”

“My brother's ashes. Wanna see them?” She went to open the lid.

“No!” Rakmen snapped.

Jacey shut it and glared at him. “Fine. I'll show you his picture instead.”

She put the box back in the crib, patted it softly, and tucked the stuffed bear in next to it. She gestured for him to come to the changing table by the window. Rakmen pushed off the door and crossed the room to her. Morning was only a few hours away. He needed sleep before he had to get through another day.

On the changing table, Jacey had arranged a series of objects. She touched them one by one. “Jordan's rattle. Mom's hospital bracelet—I saved it from the trash. And look at this list.” She crinkled a piece of paper in front of his nose. It held a list of names written in misshapen, fourth grade print:
Jonah, Benjamin (Ben), Samuel, Max, Martin, Jordan.
The last name on the list was circled in pink marker, and she'd drawn little hearts around it.

“When we picked the name, Mom and Dad and I had a party with cupcakes. Dad said he wasn't going to be outnumbered anymore.” She took back the list and replaced it near a tiny pair of mint green socks and one of those bulbs for sucking snot out of baby noses.

“Here,” said Jacey, holding out a piece of stiff paper.

He didn't want to take it.

She shook it at him, frowning.

He took it. The certificate was from the hospital.
Jordan Timothy Tatlas. Weight 6 lbs 11 ounces. Stillborn December 21.
There were two footprints. The left slightly turned in. A wispy chunk of brown hair was taped below the photo of the baby's slightly squashed newborn face, eyes squeezed shut, lips the color of dried blood.

“I don't know why his lips are so dark,” she said quietly, taking back the picture. “Was your baby like that?”

Rakmen jumped away like she'd bitten him, pressing his back against the door.

Jacey stared at him, her eyes huge and almost round like the luminous eyes on some deep-sea fish. The drumming of his own pulse was louder than the rain on the thin roof.

“Well,” asked Jacey. “Was she? Or he?”

His breath came faster.

“She.” Rakmen choked on the word.

The girl smiled a little, like she was meeting his sister for the first time, like this was normal conversation. But normal people knew better than to ask questions like that. Normal people didn't keep ashes in a dead baby's room. Normal men pretended nothing had happened.

Exhaustion rolled over him.

Jacey pinned him with her eyes. “Was she born dead?”

“No.” His answer barely escaped his constricted throat.

“When did she die?”

He scowled at her.

“It's a fair question.”

He was not talking about this.

“What was your sister's name?”

The guttural growl that escaped him drove her cowering into the corner. Scared of what he might do, Rakmen slid to the floor, his head in his hands. On the other side of the room, he could hear her crying.

“Why'd you call me?” he demanded.

She was crying harder now, but he couldn't muster a shred of kindness. Anger was a whip coiled in his chest. His voice rose. “Why did you call me?”

“To help us,” she whispered.

Rakmen twitched against the door like he'd been skewered. He couldn't even save himself. “You don't know me.”

“I know enough,” Jacey said, “because of what you said about the leg.” She paused, picked up the teddy bear. “Can you see them too?”

“See who?” he asked, but he already knew. Of course he could see them. Every time he walked down the street, he could pick them out. Strangers limping along. Invisible amputees. Their pain palpable.

“Rakmen?” His mom's voice flew up the stairs like a rescue rope. He shot from the room, fled to the car, and slammed the door behind him. Panting and wiping the rain from his face, he bent almost double against the seething ache in his gut. He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the night, the house, everything.

Only after his mother had started the car and had begun to pull away from the curb did he look back. In the upstairs window, Jacey's round face glowed like a moon. The house seemed as if it might come apart like a wet cardboard box.

His hands shook as he opened the notebook.

There are no plates left.

The crib is empty.

Lips.

CHAPTER 3

Rakmen shuffled into the kitchen and blindly poured cereal into a bowl. The alarm clock had been an ice pick to the temple.

“Morning,” said his mom as she measured coffee into the pot.

He grunted and slumped into a chair on his side of the table, the side that kept his back to the pictures on the wall. Dora coming home, baby-fro sticking out all over. Dora asleep on his dad's chest like a golden brown loaf of bread in a diaper. Dora nestled in Rakmen's arms, her heart-shaped face beaming up at him.