I caught a picture of what it must’ve been like growing up in her household. Screaming, fear, pain, confusion, uncertainty…yeah, kinda like growing up with Carla until I was big enough to fight back. Fighting a man was different, though. All that testosterone gave guys an unfair advantage in the muscle department. It’s no wonder Dylan was tough as nails — she had to be.
“I don’t know how to drive,” I said. Public transit was my mode of transportation and there was never a shortage of ways to get around the city. “But I can navigate the subway like nobody’s business.”
A short smile found Dylan. “It’s good to have skills.”
“Can’t argue that.”
A beat of silence found us. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we were having a moment but something shifted between us. It was too early to tell but I sensed Dylan letting down her guard by an inch, which was good because I needed her to buy-in. We needed each other.
“Full tank of gas, too,” Dylan said. “Like I said, five stars.”
“If we weren’t running for our lives, I’d leave them a glowing review,” I said, hating that I was becoming a thief, too. Another crime I could heap on Madame Moirai’s head. “Jilly is packing whatever we can take food-wise. I’m going to grab a few blankets and see if I can find any more clothes we might want to take with us.”
“Yeah, see if you can find some socks, these sneakers are going to give me a fucking blister, I can already tell.”
I gave her a mock salute and left her in the garage, which seemed to be her happy place.
I returned to Jilly in the kitchen with a thumbs up, saying, “She’s good. She just needed a minute to chill out. The car has a full tank of gas, too.”
“Oh! That’s great,” Jilly said, breaking into an excited smile, already moving on. What I was learning about Jilly was that she didn’t dwell for long. Jury was out on whether that was a good thing or not. I wasn’t a psychologist or anything but the ability to flit from one disaster to another with barely a blip of a reaction seemed like the hallmark of a deeply disturbed person. I’d hate to find out sweet Jilly was actually a sociopath. “And guess what else I found while I was snooping around in the pantry…” with great flourish, Jilly produced a wad of cash that made my eyes bug. “Can you believe it? This place is like the house version of a fairy godmother.”
“Seriously, what the fuck? Did you rob a bank in a parallel universe? Where’d you get that?”
“Well, I remembered from one of my foster families that sometimes people hid money in the pantry in false-bottomed canned goods. If you know what you’re looking for, you can spot the fake cans. The coloring on the labels is a little off and it always looks like a generic brand. I found one and popped the bottom. Viola, travel money.”
“You are fucking amazing, Jilly,” I said in awe. “How much is there?”
“About a thousand. Not enough to go to Bora Bora but enough to keep us from starving, right?”
I nodded, happy with Jilly’s find, even though I suffered a twinge of guilt for basically robbing these poor people blind when they’d done nothing to deserve it. But fuck man, I’d never done anything to deserve the shit that’d happened to me either so, that’s life as Dylan would say.
Jilly wrapped the food we were taking into a big sheet, hauling it like Santa’s bag of goodies and slinging it over her back. “I’ll go put this in the car,” she said brightly and trudged off to the garage.
I glanced around the kitchen, imagining the fun, lively conversations that’d probably happened in this space over the years and I wished I had memories worth remembering.
The solid oak dining room table looked like an heirloom, maybe something handed down from a sweet grandmother or something like that. How many home-cooked meals had this table hosted? We didn’t have a dining room table. We had a card table that Carla found on the street, waiting for the trash pick up. She dragged it up to the apartment like it was some kind of prize. I sure as hell wasn’t going to eat on it when it looked like a hearty bowl of potato salad might send it crashing to the floor.
I honestly couldn’t remember my mom ever making me food, in the kitchen cooking or baking. Somehow I’d lived off dry cereal and the government cheese that Carla got once a month if she remembered to go stand in line at the Christian food pantry, which wasn’t often.
Carla hated being told what to do and being told to show up at a specific time to get her free food was too much of a trigger most times.
I could never understand how my beloved Gran had given birth to Carla. What a disappointment she must’ve been.
Even at five years old I knew my gran wanted to save me but she was too old to go to battle with her wretched daughter over a granddaughter she couldn’t raise.
Losing her had been the biggest blow to my young life.
What would Gran think of the deal I’d signed with Madame Moirai? I think she would’ve been devastated. I think that would’ve broken her heart.
Tears sprung to my eyes and I hurried down the basement stairs so no one saw me cry. I sniffed back the tears and pulled the light chain flooding dim light on the forgotten items. I wasn’t scared of the dark and I didn’t believe in ghosts. Like I told Jilly, the real monsters were flesh and blood, just like everyone else.
I found another electric lantern and flipped it on, adding to the light in the room.
Remnants of generations gone by were stacked in this basement. I could spend hours going through the boxes, wondering at the lives that’d passed through this space but I didn’t have that luxury. Happy lives fascinated me. But like a moth drawn to the fluorescent light, I always got burned by the very thing I couldn’t seem to ignore.
It was a catch-22. Happy people with seemingly nice lives made me yearn for what I’d never had but the flip of that coin was the accompanying bitterness.
I returned to the Goodwill box and pulled a few more items I thought we could use, including a pair of socks that Dylan wanted. I grabbed a warm beanie, a few more long-sleeved shirts and another pair of jeans, then moved onto another box marked, “Annie.”
I popped the box top and peered inside.
It was a memory box of some kind. Whoever Annie was, she’d had people who cared about her childhood things. Everything in this box had been lovingly packed away, which made me wonder if Annie had died too young.
I could imagine Lora’s parents doing this to her things if anything had ever happened to her. I think Carla would happily throw my things down the garbage chute without a second thought.
Ugh. No more of this pity party bullshit. I closed up the box and returned it to its spot. With a final look around the basement, I turned off the light and bounded up the stairs.
As much as I’d love to pretend that I had the right to be in this cozy house, just like all nice places, I simply didn’t belong.
And it was time to go.
23
We left the house as clean as we could to make up for the fact that we’d robbed them blind. Thieves could have integrity, too. Dylan looked comfortable behind the wheel as we slowly pulled out of the garage. I used the auto garage door opener to close the door behind us and then I tossed the remote into the shrubbery as we left.
Jilly claimed the backseat and I took shotgun. I found a map in the glove compartment and while it wasn’t Google maps, it would get us to where we needed to go.
“I think I should’ve paid more attention in geography class,” I muttered, staring at the map and trying to make sense of it. “Okay, I think I got it. The onramp is coming up.” I pointed as Dylan nodded and veered off to take the ramp.