He looked over at his aunt, but she was looking out her side window. Jennifer was smiling, laughing at him probably. Real nice that that would be their last moment together.
So he stared out his own window at uninspired suburbs until they were passing Bel-Air.
They have the best pumpkin pies, he said.
Yes, his grandmother said, yes they do. They have the most wonderful pies. And I think we’re out of pie. We should stop.
Galen’s mother kept driving.
Suzie-Q, we need to stop at Bel-Air.
We just drove all the way from the cabin, Mom. We need to get you settled in and get home and unpack.
It’s been so long since I’ve tasted pumpkin pie, Galen said.
Yes, his grandmother said. It’s been too long. Turn around right now, Suzie-Q.
Galen’s mother looked at him in the rearview, a bereaved look, not what he was expecting. Your chicken and dumplings were wonderful, Mom, she finally said.
What?
We had such a nice visit at the cabin, and I just loved your chicken and dumplings. The dumplings were perfect.
Well, his grandmother said. Well, that’s nice.
Bel-Air was long gone, and soon enough they were at the rest home, concrete block of despair, a place to give up and be forgotten. Galen had in fact forgotten they were returning here. He was getting used to having his grandmother around.
Why are we bringing her here? he asked.
What is this place? his grandmother asked. I know this place. Is this a hospital?
Galen’s mother didn’t answer, just pulled up in front and got out. She grabbed her mother’s bag from the trunk, then opened her mother’s door.
What are we doing? Galen’s grandmother asked.
We’re home.
This isn’t home.
This is home.
I don’t like this place. You take me home right now, Suzie-Q.
This is home, Mom.
Why are you doing this to me?
Galen couldn’t bear to listen. She was pleading now. Let’s take her home, he said.
But his mother simply ignored him. She took her mother carefully by the arm. Come on, Mom, she said, and helped her out of the car. There. We’ll get you all settled in.
Galen’s grandmother looked back at him. I don’t like this place, she said.
Why are we putting her here? Galen demanded.
Because she walked into the forest at night and would have kept going and died. Because she could do that at home, too. I found my mother this nice place because I love her and I want her to be safe. I don’t want her to be hurt.
Galen believed her for once. Her mouth open and ragged, tired, and he could see how worried she’d been last night. He hadn’t realized that before. She’d been afraid she’d lose her mother. Galen felt uncomfortable. He had a sense of his mother’s goodness, and he didn’t like to think of his mother’s goodness.
His mother and grandmother walked away into that awful place. Prison and hospital combined. A place of a thousand voices, none of them talking to each other. His grandmother curtained away in her white linoleum semicircle, waiting. Looking ahead to ten or twenty years of waiting.
She shouldn’t be here, Galen said. It’s better to maybe wander off and die than just wait here in a prison.
That’s true, Helen said. She’s still my mother.
She’s a bitch, Jennifer said. Who cares what happens to her.
Yeah, Helen said. Maybe you’re right.
What if Jennifer says that about you someday?
Huh, Helen said.
I wouldn’t do that, Mom.
You might. It’s true. You might. And that’s fine.
The engine was cooling off, pinging, and it seemed that all its heat was being transferred to the interior of the car. Galen’s entire body was a slick. The windows down, but no breeze, and the outside air almost as hot.
Galen opened his door and stepped out, dizzy. Jennifer followed, her face wet with sweat, hair up in a ponytail. We’re getting a place with air-conditioning, she said. I don’t care where the house is, or how big it is, but it has to have air-conditioning.
Galen walked in a slow circle in the sun. There was no shade. The black pavement radiating. Humans had invented all the shittiest ways to live. Rest homes, cars, pavement, stuck in deserts like this, places you wouldn’t want to live even one more day. It would have been a better plan to walk around naked and never invent anything. That way, you’d have to head for a creek or a lake or at least some trees. You’d never just stand around in a thousand-mile oven.
I can’t believe she’s here, Galen said. And I can’t believe this fucking pavement.
Whoa, Jennifer said.
I’m serious. Every square foot is nothing less than tragic. It’s a sign of how fundamentally stupid we all are.
Down with the pavement.
I’m serious.
I know. That’s why you’re a freak.
Galen kept his focus on the pavement, walked a tight circle, around and around with a feeling that the center would melt, a great vortex that would pull him down. We’re criminals, he said. Leaving her here.
Maybe you can get her to suck it.
Fuck you.
Not anymore. But I think Grandma would be into that. You could close those curtains and she could gum away at it and forget where she is.
What the fuck? Why are you like this?
You could come back an hour later and get it again, because she won’t remember. You could do it all day. Jennifer laughed.
Galen walked away toward the glass doors, but he was only partway there when his mother emerged.
She shouldn’t be here, he said. Even if she walks off and dies, it’s better than being here.
His mother ignored him and walked past. She got in and started the car, and he knew she’d leave without him, so he slid into the passenger seat, damp from his grandmother.
What was the amount on that check? his mother asked as they pulled onto the road.
It was enough, Helen said.
How much?
None of your business.
Well, I just want you to know this. I don’t want to see you or Jennifer ever again.
That’s not a problem.
I mean that. Not ever again. You are never to show up at the house again.
Like I said, that’s not a problem. It was the plan, in fact.
Yeah, Jennifer said. We already talked about it.
But the reason I’m telling you is in case that check doesn’t work out for you. If the check doesn’t work out, you’re going to want to come to the house.
The check will work.
But if it doesn’t, here’s the deal. If I ever see you again, you get nothing. But if you stay away, I’ll get Mom to write checks for Jennifer for college each semester.
Galen pounded the dashboard with his fist. So angry he couldn’t speak. He felt that if he spoke, he would hit his mother instead of the dashboard.
I’m not paying for anything expensive. Just a state school, but I’ll get Mom to write those checks if I never have to see you again.
Galen punched his own thighs. He was afraid of what he could do. He folded his arms in tight and closed his eyes and tried to just get through the time. Trapped here right next to her.
Chapter 18
The figs ripe. Hot still air thick with their scent. Galen in the tree pushing at a fig with both hands until its purple skin burst open in a seam, exposed, and he sucked at the meat, delicious fruit. The stickiness all over his face and hands.
Galen knew he was eating to cover his grief. He would never see Jennifer again. It felt as if a section of his chest had been removed, and in its place, a gravity hole becoming increasingly dense, an impossible weight.
He wrapped his legs tight around a limb, hung beneath it and walked out the limb with his hands, strung himself as far as he could to reach two figs, enormous and heavy, their bodies hot and slack from the sun. So ripe inside the skin had become translucent.