When Horses Had Wings (18 page)

By the time I’d risen, Sean had dropped his drawers, grabbed his privates, and sprayed his hose like a fireman.

“No-o-o!” I yanked an empty cup from the countertop behind me, hoping to deflect the stream. But it was too late. He’d already whizzed half the fridge’s contents.

~

I straightened my desk and removed my sweater from the back of my secretarial chair. Spying me, Wilmot jaunted from his office to catch my attention. In his hands he held a ruled tablet, his expression one of urgency. “I need to get this memo out today,” he announced.

I checked the wall clock to see if maybe I’d misread the time.

Five after four.

Nope, I hadn’t.

“It’s already five after.” I pointed to the official timekeeper. I couldn’t deal with his procrastinated efforts today. With regularity, Wilmot would bound out with some last-second, critical need at the close of my shift. If you asked me, he needed to take one of those time management classes advertised in the brochures he received.

Wilmot continued toward my desk. “I’ll pay you overtime. It shouldn’t take you more than thirty minutes, but I’ll pay you for a full hour.”

“I’d like to help, and I could use the extra money—”

“Good.” He set the tablet on my desk.

“But I can’t stay tonight,” I finished.

Before I could explain, he yanked away his ruled pad and stormed back to his private office. He slammed the door behind him.

Even if he’d given me a chance to explain, I doubted he’d have behaved any differently. It wouldn’t have mattered to him that a social worker would be visiting me that evening.

After I retrieved Sean from daycare and arrived home to prepare supper, only an hour remained until my appointment. Instead of the canned noodles we normally had every night, I’d sprung for poultry I’d found on sale the week before. But I’d forgotten to thaw the packaged meat until that morning.

I placed two, partially-frozen chicken breasts in the oven and prayed for a miracle.

“Sean, did you put on the clothes I laid out for you?”

“Uh-huh,” he answered from his room.

Tonight I needed to look like the world’s best mother. Given my upbringing, I didn’t know exactly what that entailed. But I’d watched enough
Lassie
reruns to formulate an idea.

Step One: Children should be clean, clothed, and well fed.

Step Two: Offspring should be taught to respect and obey.

Step Three: Moms should periodically examine their brood for adherence to Step Two.

I set Sean’s tumbler on the kitchen counter and skittered into his room.

With one hand, Sean rolled a small metal car back and forth across his bed surface, mussing the formerly neat spread. From behind, his clothing appeared equally disheveled.

“Sean?”

He turned to face me. The buttons on the shirt I’d meticulously ironed the evening before peeked at me from the wrong buttonholes. As directed, Sean had tucked in his top. But he’d done so with such gusto that the front of his pants had migrated to where a side seam should have been.

I scrolled down to his feet. The new white socks I’d purchased had been pulled on in reverse, with the heels bunched atop his ankles. His shoe toes pointed in opposite directions.

Thank goodness, I’d remembered Step Three.

~

When Ms. Platt arrived, I was especially grateful for the bedroom furniture I’d been given only the week before: a double bed and an accent table made from one-hundred-percent walnut-grain-printed cardboard.

“Be prepared to demonstrate that Sean and you each have your own room and that he has plenty of clothing,” Swindle had advised beforehand. I’d laundered all four pairs of Sean’s Toughskins jeans, his only dress shirt, and six long-sleeve T-shirts and hung them in his closet for inspection.

A light tap on my apartment door announced my evaluator’s arrival. “Hello. I’m Helen Platt, Limestone County Family Court Services. Are you Mrs. Murphy?” asked the petite woman with a moon face.

“For a bit longer. But you can call me Renee.”

The woman who looked to be in her early fifties entered my living room, scanning the bare walls. I hadn’t hung any pictures. It was hard to justify framed artwork, I wanted to explain, when you’re struggling to pay for childcare, groceries, and a divorce. “We haven’t been here very long,” I said, apologizing for the uninviting décor.

Platt looked into my empty dining room. “Where shall we sit?”

“Oh, how about here?” I pointed to the corduroy couch that was better suited for sleeping than entertaining. I had to sit with my legs fully extended on the extra-wide, twin-mattress-sized seat cushions if I wanted to lean against the back pillows.

Platt situated herself on the free-form sofa, masking any discomfort she might have felt. She looked like a decorative doll perched on top of a bed, her stubby legs outstretched. Nevertheless, she acted as if she sat on such contemporary furnishings every day.

Sean played in his room while we talked about his care, my work, and both our schools. That woman could write faster than any human I’d ever seen. She must have been an expert in shorthand. Her burgundy leather folder remained tilted so I couldn’t see the pages her pen speed threatened to set afire.

Checking the time—six-thirty—Platt asked, “So, do you
normally
eat dinner about now?”

I didn’t think it wise to tell her that we usually had reheated canned foods or grilled cheese sandwiches, meals that required much less time to prepare than roasted chicken. Excusing myself, I double-checked the oven temperature. “Yes, actually, we do,” I said when I returned. “But this chicken seems to be taking longer to cook tonight than normal.”

When Sean rejoined us, Platt said she wanted to speak privately with him in his room. She closed the door so I couldn’t hear what was being said. But I imagined she might be asking where the rest of Sean’s apparel and toys were hidden.

An hour later, after I’d finished piling two plates high with chicken, boxed dressing, and peas and carrots, I heard Sean’s bedroom door creak open. He and the woman assigned to judge my parenting skills waltzed into the living room together like best friends. Sean assumed his standard position at the coffee table, where we ate most of our meals.

“I’m finished with my interviews, so I won’t keep you two any longer.” Ms. Platt glanced at the chrome and glass table surface, probably eyeing the generous portions I’d served up. “I can let myself out. Thank you for your time.”

“What did you tell that lady?” I asked Sean, after Platt departed.

Casually, he spooned a mound of dressing into his mouth before he answered. “She asked me if I ever got in trouble and got spanked. And I told her, ‘Uh-huh,

Wunst…” He took a slurp of milk from his Incredible Hulk cup. “When I colored your bookmark.”

Why hadn’t Platt asked
me
about that? I could have given her the whole story. It wasn’t like it sounded.

I hadn’t punished Sean for something as petty as coloring a bookmark. I’d been up at three forty-five that morning, cleaning urine from milk and egg cartons, packaged lunchmeats and, thankfully,
closed
condiment jars. Having missed so much sleep, I’d been late for work that day. And Wilmot had written me up for it.

Exhausted and worried, when I’d returned home that evening, I asked Sean to play in his room quietly so I could rest for a short while. I hadn’t planned to fall asleep, only to shut my eyes. But sometime during the six o’clock news, I dozed off for fifteen or twenty minutes.

When I woke up, I found Sean had colored in his coloring book, along four feet of wall next to his bed, and all over the bookmark I kept inside Daddy’s Bible. In a fit of frustration, I’d smacked him across the back of his legs and cried, “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you do
anything
right?”

Now I realized that I was the one destined to eternally screw up.

TWENTY-FIVE

A
more insightful person might have seen it coming. But I didn’t. And it was hard for me to describe the feelings I had when that sorry, no-good, sheep-dung for balls Wilmot fired me, though I can tell you they weren’t good ones. What got me most was the way he’d done it: right after Kenny had called me three times in a row, screaming like a banshee. And somehow that moron Wilmot thought
I
was the one who was causing trouble. He said, “Ms. Murphy, I’ve warned you before about disrupting the workplace. This is
your
divorce, not ours. I don’t think the entire staff needs to suffer for your bad decisions. We’ve tolerated this long enough.”

He dismissed me just like that, after I’d done everything but wipe his ass for him for the past ten months. And now all of the sudden, he found it “intolerable” to listen to a few of my noisy phone conversations? Without a job, how did he think I was going to pay for my divorce? Or for that matter, pay my rent? That cud-chewing ox didn’t care.

I’d been a good secretary to Wilmot. He couldn’t deny it. With perfect diction and a pleasant voice I’d learned to say, “Good afternoon. Marketing. How may I direct your call?” No one would ever guess I was a former assembly worker. But none of that mattered.

“You can carry this down to Personnel. They’ll take things from here.” Wilmot handed me a typed memo that detailed the grounds for my termination. And
termination
was a good word for it. I was as good as dead. It would have served him right if I’d keeled over then and there.

I feared I’d have to go back to working on some assembly line. With nothing but a GED and a couple of college classes to show for an education, I’d likely have to start at the bottom again—if anyone would even hire me after I’d been fired.

Lord knew, I had neither the looks nor the coordination to take up exotic dancing.

The journey from Wilmot’s office to the human resource center left me short of breath but not rage. I followed the familiar passage that snaked through two buildings connected by an enclosed walkway. Plodding the distance, I had plenty of time to think about all the things I wished I’d said to Wilmot, ample opportunity to regret that I’d never gotten even with him for spitting all that chewing tobacco into my trash can. I used to have to hide my waste paper basket underneath my desk to keep him from mistaking it for a spittoon. How many times had I thought to throw a used tampon in his wastebasket, to see if I could equally gross him out? Why hadn’t I done it? All he could have done was fire me. In the end, he’d let me go anyway.

I knew I’d lose custody of Sean, for sure. By costing me my job, the only positive attribute I had, Kenny had already won. Would there ever be a way for me to escape that maniac? It seemed as though our divorce proceedings had only given him another weapon to use against me, one that extended his reach so that he could strangle me with someone
else’s
hands.

I trudged through the corridor, envisioning new ways for Kenny to become a fatality. An unlimited number of industrial accidents came to mind. Maybe he’d get decapitated by a faulty fire hydrant, now that he worked in the Water Department. More appropriate still, perhaps he could die from something sewer-related. He might get eaten alive by a bunch of Norway rats. Indiscriminate ones, that is. I imagined rodents gnawing at his crotch.

Poetic, but unlikely.

No, he’d be more apt to fall into one of those massive vats at the waste treatment plant. That would make for an equally fitting end. I begged God to, however He chose to do it, take Kenny’s mortal life before the tyrant ruined the rest of mine.

Once Kenny learned he’d managed to get me fired, he wouldn’t stop there. Like a hawk, he’d be sure to make another pass. With those long talons of his, escape would be next to impossible. I was as doomed as a rabbit in a freshly mown field.

Inside the covered walkway leading to Personnel, the floor tiles, modular wall panels, and ceiling grids all merged into one massive tunnel of gray. One vast sewer drain. I could almost hear the flushing sounds. And the human waste being disposed of was me.

I had the bend in sight, the one that led in one direction to the parking lot and in the other to my final destination. Maybe I’d bolt for the outdoors instead of progressing toward my official exit. I could see it in my mind’s eye, visualize getting into my car and simply driving away. I’d roll down my windows and let the wind rip through my hair while I headed south. To where, I didn’t know or care. When the gas tank neared empty, maybe I’d hit the accelerator and speed until I flipped my Mustang end over end.

Naw, that plan wouldn’t work. I could end up hurting someone else. Better for me to drive the speed limit, follow those white lines pointing to nowhere in particular, drive until I simply ran out of gas and then had to stop. Yeah. I could do that. I’d likely end up somewhere in the Rio Grande, where I’d take up working as a migrant tomato-picker. Kenny wouldn’t bother me then. I’d make myself so invisible that even a skilled predator like him couldn’t find me.

I pictured that warm burrow in the sand, the one I’d hide in, the one with an opening so narrow that nothing could crawl inside. Nothing but me. Its umber walls would cradle me, its shadowy hollows lulling me into a peaceful sleep. If only there might be such a place. If I didn’t have Sean, I might have really done it.

But I did have Sean. And he needed me, and I loved him.

I opened the door leading to Personnel and faced whatever waited on the other side of unemployment.

~

After I’d been escorted from the building by a security guard, instead of heading due south, I drove to get Sean from daycare. By the time I reached him, I’d had a good bawl and wiped my eyes dry.

Sean marched out to the reception area to greet me looking like he’d just been pronounced World’s Best Kid. He ran to my arms, same as usual.

Later that night, when Sean asked me why he had to go to bed before
Happy Days
came on, I told him it was on account of me being sick, which wasn’t exactly a lie. I’d never felt worse in my whole life. I was sick of struggling to survive, fed up with fighting for what should have been free, and terminally tired of men in general.

Ever since I’d confessed Kenny had been stalking me, Anthony had been seeing me less and less. He still called me, but now, when I most needed him, he seldom came around.

I climbed into bed and swathed myself inside my peach floral-patterned bedspread, muffling my sobs. The quilted layers smelled of spring-scented fabric softener. I breathed through the covers, staining them with wet mascara. Staring at the patterns, I thought how they were the closest thing to fresh flowers I would see for a while. Unless I got lucky enough to attend Kenny’s funeral.

No one ever gave me flowers. Anthony had given me a long-stemmed rose, once. But I didn’t count that. A woman dressed in nearly nothing but the top half of a tuxedo had all but embarrassed him into buying it for me. If the truth were told, he’d probably done it to please her more than me.

When I next heard from Anthony, I’d tell him about Kenny’s threatening phone call and what it had cost me.

“You worthless slut!” Kenny had screamed through the phone. “Who’d you sleep with
last
night?”

I’d become smarter over time and begun parking my car in a different space, one partially hidden by a commercial dumpster. Probably, Kenny had steered through the apartment complex and hadn’t seen my vehicle. From there, he’d allowed his demented mind to drive him nuts.

The telephone on top of my cardboard side table rang several times before I answered it. I prayed it wasn’t Kenny.

“Hi. It’s me,” Anthony said in that deep measured voice of his. “Just calling to tell you about the interesting day I’ve had.” He sounded different than normal, possibly because tears had pooled inside my ears and I was hearing him through water.

“Mm-hmm, me, too,” I said, as if maybe I’d blown a tire on my way home, locked myself out of my apartment, or seen Elvis in the Laundromat—but not in any way that would have suggested I’d been fired from my job.

“You feeling okay?” he asked. “Sounds like you’re a little stopped up or something.”

I sniffed once. “No. I’m okay. Go ahead.”

“You’re not going to believe
who
called me today.” He paused and waited for me to respond, but I was too tired to guess. I could barely remember my own name, let alone his list of oddball friends and previous lovers. If he’d heard from Darlene, I didn’t care.

“Kenny,” he said, identifying the mystery caller.

“What? Omigod!” I gasped. “How’d he get your name and number?”

“Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Anthony sounded suspicious. Surely he didn’t think I’d tell Kenny about him or our Saturday night rendezvous?

“Maybe he trailed me to your place last Saturday night.” My fears cycled uncensored from my brain to my mouth.

That slip of the tongue undoubtedly led to what followed.

“He’s going to hurt somebody before this whole thing’s over with,” Anthony predicted.

“Did he threaten you?”

“No, he threatened
you.
He said, ‘If you want your little girlfriend to stay pretty, you better stay away from her.’” Anthony coughed once, like he had something lodged in his throat.

The obstruction might have been his balls.

“Renee, look...I’m going to keep my distance for a while, at least until after your divorce is final. This hothead needs time to cool down.”

I didn’t even try to catch the receiver as it slipped from my hands, fell to the floor, and bounced a few times. I left the device dangling by its thin, curled cord and numbly listened to the dial tone.

Like everything else that had happened to me that day, I didn’t have any say. To rid himself of
Kenny
, Anthony had made up his mind to sacrifice
me
. In that respect, he was no different than Wilmot. So he could go ahead and say goodbye, if that’s what he wanted. I no longer needed him.

Perhaps I never had.