That was a mistake. Their mother was crazy with all her black magic and superstitions. Certifiably crazy or so she and Jared liked to claim, making up any kind of excuse for why she kept picking loser husbands like both their dads. Saying their mother was crazy seemed better than admitting she was simply stupid. Maybe that was Jared's problem. Melanie thought about teasing him that maybe he had inherited Mom's crazy gene, though she knew full well that she would never dare to tease Jared. He would see it as a betrayal, and he would remind her, again, that all they had were each other because of the past they had survived and the secrets they continued to share.
Melanie turned left at Fifty-Second and Nicholas Streets and headed into the Memorial Park neighborhood, a stretch of huge brick homes with carefully manicured lawns. Not a ceramic gnome in sight. That made her smile, thinking of her son, Charlie's, newest obsession of stealing lawn ornaments, even though it annoyed her as much as it amused her. She couldn't help thinking that maybe it was another example of like mother, like son. After all, she had taught him well, making a game early on of their escapades. It may have started as a game, but it bugged her that Charlie still treated stealing as a game, completely unaware of the risks and dangers. Yes, she had taught him well, maybe too well.
She'd brought him in when he was only eight. They stole packs of ground beef-quickly graduating to T-bone steaks-from the HyVee on Center Street, stuffing them into his school backpack. Charlie became so good at it she didn't even notice him steal the Hostess Twinkies and Bazooka bubble gum until they appeared later on their kitchen table, alongside the packs of meat. He was a natural, and now, nine years later, with that baby face and lopsided grin, he could still get away with almost anything.
Their game had started as a matter of survival, a way to supplement Melanie's string of shitty jobs. So what if Charlie swiped a few silly lawn ornaments as long as he brought home a leather jacket or enough CD players to pay the rent? What did it matter that he still considered hot-wiring Saturns a game? Maybe it was that carefree attitude that kept him from getting caught, though Melanie worried that it had more to do with luck than attitude. They had had a long string of good luck, and lately she found herself not trusting it to hold up. But she didn't dare tell Charlie that.
Luck and a little bit of opportunity. That had been her ticket out of the stink hole she grew up in. For the last ten years she had provided a nice home for herself and Charlie in the middle of Dundee, a respectable Omaha neighborhood. A good family neighborhood, though not quite like this one, she thought as she looked around. She kept to the sidewalks, wondering if anyone behind these huge, decorative doors would understand. How could they with their polished black BMWs and Lexus SUVs in their driveways, not a missing hubcap or spot of rust in sight, let alone a homemade In-Transit sign Scotch-taped to the rear window?
She walked past the only pickup parked in the street, a white Chevy, and she knew before she saw the attached beat-up trailer that the truck belonged to a lawn service. Then she saw two young men, shirtless and glistening with sweat, down on their knees on the front lawn of the house. They both had what looked like oversize scissors, and they were cutting blades of grass from in between the pristine white picket fence, obviously unable to use the array of machinery on their trailer for fear of scarring the white wood.
Melanie resisted the urge to laugh. Jesus! What did it cost to have something like that done? She wanted to roll her eyes and make some sympathetic gesture in recognition of their plight, but then they would have known. They would have realized that she didn't belong here, either, that she was an outsider, too. So instead she just smiled and continued walking.
She checked her wristwatch, a sleek, black-faced Movado with a single diamond that Charlie had given her on Mother's Day. She didn't bother asking him anymore how he got things or from where. She couldn't help thinking the watch belonged in this neighborhood even if she did not. It was then that she saw the eight-by-ten piece of cardboard nailed to the tree. She remembered noticing the tree soon after it was ravaged by last week's thunderstorms. The wounded maple managed to keep only its trunk intact, the branches ripped off, leaving behind what now looked like two severed arms, still reaching in surrender to the sky. This morning someone had added a hand-printed sign, a sort of public epistle that read, "Hope is the thing with feathers." In small print below was written "Emily Dickinson."
Melanie glanced at the house the tree belonged to, but didn't slow her pace. She repeated the phrase to herself, "Hope is the thing with feathers." She snorted under her breath. What the hell was that supposed to mean? And, besides, what did people with brick mansions and BMWs need to know about hope? What problems could they possibly have that couldn't be solved with their money?
She remembered what Jared always said. That people who had money didn't have a clue about people who didn't have money.
Melanie looked back at the tree. Even from almost a block up the street that poor, ugly thing stood out in the middle of this picture-perfect neighborhood. It didn't need a stupid quote from some dead poet tacked onto its pathetic remains to remind it that it didn't belong.