“There you are, Moose,” Mrs. Mattaman says as Theresa catches up. “And Theresa, you may as well hear this too.”
Theresa grabs her mom’s hand and holds it tight.
“Mrs. Williams is sick. They took her to St. Luke’s Hospital in the city. She may not… She’s very sick.”
“She may not what?” Theresa asks.
“Now, never you mind,” Mrs. Mattaman tells her.
“What about the baby?” I ask.
Mrs. Mattaman heaves a big breath. “Don’t know yet about the baby.” Her voice breaks.
“I knew it,” Theresa whispers.
“You knew what?” Mrs. Mattaman strokes Theresa’s tumble of black curls.
“She’s not even going to get in trouble now,” Theresa insists.
“Who isn’t?”
“Piper.”
“Theresa!” Mrs. Mattaman snaps. “That poor girl may lose her mommy. You’re old enough to know what that means. Whether or not she should have been bawled out is beside the point.”
“No, it’s not,” Theresa whispers.
“Shame on you.” Mrs. Mattaman’s jaw sets, her dark eyes fire up. “You wipe that look off your face, young lady, and march back home and wash your mouth out with soap.”
Theresa’s steps are heavy as she heads for home.
Mrs. Mattaman sighs. “She has a big heart for every other creature on God’s green earth, but she sure can’t find it in herself to be kind to Piper.
“Now, Moose.” She focuses her attention back on me. “I know your mom’s got her hands full with Natalie, so I’m going to step up to the plate. You get yourself up to the warden’s house, young man. Piper needs a friend. Oh boy, does she ever. And if you can’t forgive her, well, shame on you too. There isn’t a friend in the world won’t disappoint you one day. You going to hold a grudge, you’ll have a mighty lonely life.”
“I could get Annie. Wouldn’t this be a better girl job?” I suggest.
Mrs. Mattaman looks at me intently. “C’mon now, Moose. I think we both know Piper would rather see you.”
My eyes don’t meet Mrs. Mattaman’s. I hate to admit she’s right. “What do you say to someone whose mother is that sick?” I ask.
Mrs. Mattaman seals her lips up tight and nods her head. “It’s not what you say, Moose. Not one word any of us says is going to help that poor child right now. But you go up there and you stay with her. That’s what she’ll remember. That we loved her enough to go through this with her. We’re a family here on Alcatraz and that’s what families do. Now you go on.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
“And, Moose? You want to bring her back down to our place, you go right ahead. She’s welcome. You bet she is.”
30. WHY ARE BOYS SPECIAL?
Same day-Tuesday, September 10, 1935
I have walked as slowly as possible up the switchback, but even at this pace I get there before I want to. I drag myself up the steps to Piper’s front door and push the bell. Willy One Arm answers with Molly on his shoulder. He makes the sign of the cross, his empty sleeve flapping in the breeze.
I follow Willy into the dark living room. The drapes are shut tight. No light shines anywhere. And the smell of sickness is all around like bandages and rotting fruit. I wonder why Willy can’t get rid of the smell. Men are no good at cleaning even with two arms, my mom says.
I don’t even begin to know what I’m going to say to Piper. And I’m a little annoyed with Mrs. Mattaman for sending me on this impossible mission. Why is it I’m the one everyone always decides can handle these things?
It’s the curse of niceness, I swear.
“What are you doing? Go away.” Piper’s voice comes from the shadowy stairwell where she sits, huddled on a step.
My hand forms a fist around a nickel shoved deep in my pocket. “Why don’t you come down to the canteen? I’ll buy you a pop,” I suggest.
“I heard it’s closed.”
“It is.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
“Bea Trixle will open the canteen.”
“Not if it’s closed.”
“For you she will-”
“Oh,” Piper says in a voice so small it sounds like somebody stepped on it.
I don’t know what to do with myself or what to say. Maybe I’ll just open my mouth and hope the right words come out.
“Piper, what’s your, um… What are they going to name the baby?”
Piper’s eyes are closed and she’s leaning back on the steps. I think she isn’t going to answer and then her eyelids flutter.
“It,” she whispers.
“Your parents are going to name the baby It?”
“I’m going to call him It.”
“It Williams. Were you thinking of a middle name?” I ask.
“Ee-It,” she says.
“It Ee-It Williams?”
“Yep, Idiot Williams.” Piper smiles, which feels to me like a small victory.
But now what do I say? “Mrs. Mattaman had Rocky and it all worked out okay.”
“Mrs. Mattaman didn’t get sick like this.”
“No,” I concede, “she didn’t.”
“I wanted It Ee-it to die. Not my mom.” Her voice catches.
I put my arm around Piper. It feels like there’s no place for my arm on her shoulder. Why is it when you see this done in the movies, it looks so natural?
“The best, the very best I could hope for is…” Her voice breaks. “… a little sister like Theresa Mattaman. That is pretty bad.”
“C’mon, Piper. Theresa’s okay.”
“Theresa’s a brat.”
“You could do a whole lot worse than Theresa Mattaman.”
“Yeah.” She glares at me. “I could end up with a Natalie.”
“A Natalie?” I take my arm back. My teeth grind so hard I’m pulverizing them to dust in my mouth.
“What gives you the right to say something like that? I’m trying to be nice here and you just turn on me.”
Piper snorts. “You can’t even say you’re looking forward to her going back.”
“Because I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are. And so is your mom.”
“Shut up!” I shout.
“You’re not as nice as you pretend to be, you know.”
“I’m not pretending.” My voice squeezes out of my chest.
Piper is staring off in another direction, oblivious to how much she’s hurt me. “My dad wants a son.” Her voice is thick. “Why are boys so special anyway?”
“We can do more things.”
“Annie plays ball as well as you do.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“Yes, she does. It’s not fair,” Piper says.
I snort. “Lots of things aren’t fair. Are you just now finding this out?” I ask, still stinging from her comment about Natalie.
“They should be. Everything should be fair,” she says, the tears spilling over. Her hands try to push them back, wipe them off, make them go away.
“Come on,” I tell her. I want to get away from this dark and silent house, away from the smell of sickness and away from Piper, but I know Mrs. Mattaman will have my head if I leave her here. “Let’s go down to the Mattamans’,” I suggest.
“They don’t like me.”
“They shouldn’t like you,” I say. “After what you did, they should hate your guts. But they don’t.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Too bad,” I tell her.
She squints at me. I don’t think she’s going to move, but she does. She gets up and follows me out the door.
Mr. and Mrs. Mattaman are both in their kitchen doing dishes when Piper and I arrive. I swing through the door first. Piper, a few lengths behind me, walks slower and slower like she hopes never to reach their apartment.
For a second the shadow of something dark crosses Mrs. Mattaman’s face, but then it’s gone and she dries her hand on her apron and hurries out to where Piper is reluctantly wiping her feet on the Mattamans’ doormat.