Карин Фоссум - Hell Fire

“Remember your seat belt,” he said with authority. His mother pulled on her coat.

“And don’t forget your cell phone. If you run off the road, you must call the emergency services. That is, if you’re not unconscious.”

“Eddie, stop it. Now go and sit down on the sofa and I’ll be back in three-quarters of an hour, no more.”

Eddie looked at his mother long and hard. “When you go out, it’ll get cold in the house,” he complained. “You know what it’s like. Don’t forget the cinnamon rolls. If they haven’t got them, get some cookies. Lemon creams.”

He stared out of the window. The glass was shiny and clean — his mother kept things neat and tidy. His eyes felt sore. He watched the car reverse out of the garage and turn onto the main road. The snow was coming down and swirling around in the wind, ending in great drifts on the roadside. He said a quiet prayer that everything would be all right. That his mother would come back unharmed with the shopping. The dog was sleeping in front of the heater with her head on her paws. He went straight over to her and pulled her tail hard, as he always did. Shiba scrambled to her feet, whining, and ran into the kitchen.

Eddie sat down on the sofa and picked up the newspaper. He turned to the second-to-last page, where the crossword was. He normally managed to solve it. It wasn’t that he was stupid. He found a pencil and started to read. Across, possessive, seven letters. He wrote the word jealous in the seven squares.

The heater was roaring, and the dog had settled down on the floor in the corner of the kitchen. She was an overweight, eight-year-old Labrador, and his mother had said she didn’t have long to live. Her body was full of lumps; he could feel them under her golden fur. She wasn’t insured, so they couldn’t afford to take her to the vet.

“We’ll just have to let life run its course,” his mother would say. “Nothing lasts forever, you know.”

“I know,” Eddie would answer. Then he’d think about his mother’s death because it was going to happen one day. And even though she was only fifty-six and he was twenty-one, it still terrified him to think about her demise and he got all hot and bothered. He often had to put his hand on his heart to calm it down. Romany, he read, and he got the fourth letter, “s,” from jealous . He wrote the word gypsy in the five squares. He always did the easy ones first. Then he looked at the clock on the wall and watched the seconds tick by. His mother would be back with the cinnamon rolls in twenty minutes. He could already taste them in his mouth. He really, really hoped they had some! And that they were good and fresh! Direction, five letters. Could be north. Or south. Either way, he had the next word for circle , five letters. It must be round . Then he got onto the more difficult clues and decided to take a break.

He went back to the window and stared out at the driving snow. “Let Mom make it through the storm,” he prayed to Jesus, wherever he was. “Because I’m sitting here all alone waiting for dessert. There’s only the two of us. You have to look after us!”

He went to see Shiba in the kitchen, pulled her tail hard again, and then laughed when she shot up and ran into the living room. She scooted under the sofa and collapsed, panting.

“Stupid dog,” he said and laughed again. “You don’t fight back. Haven’t you got any teeth?”

Then he sat back down with the crossword, sucking on the end of the pencil. The clue cease made him uneasy because the word had only three letters.

Forty-five minutes had passed and his mother had not returned. He grabbed his cell phone and tapped in her number with his fat fingers. But all he got was a voice saying, “The person you are calling is unable to answer the phone right now.” He paced over to the window again and stared out at the heavy white snow. The sun only managed to produce a pale modest light. He knew that his mother would send him out to clear the snow later, and if there was one thing he hated, it was clearing snow. He tried her number again, but once more heard the disembodied voice telling him she was unable to answer the phone. It was fifty minutes now. This is it, he thought in desperation. She’s driven off the road and crashed into a tree. She’s sitting with her nose buried in the airbag. For a moment, he considered throwing on his jacket and walking along the road to look for her. But then, as he stood there by the window, anxiously wringing his hands, he saw her car swing in through the gate. The headlights shone into his face and he ran out into the hall and down the front steps.

“You said three-quarters of an hour,” he complained. “I was scared.”

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” she chided. “I can’t answer the phone when I’m driving, and I was almost home.”

“Did they have cinnamon rolls?”

“Yes,” she said. “I got two packages. See, here you are, plenty for you to enjoy. Put the milk in the fridge; I’ll have to clear the snow from the steps. And when you’ve finished, you can come out and clear the rest.”

Inside, she counted out seven cinnamon rolls and put them on a plate. “You can have some more this evening. I think you’re putting on weight, my love. I know that you’re a big boy, but two hundred and eighty-six pounds is too much. Being overweight is dangerous, Eddie. The milk and cake settle in your arteries like clay. And then a big clot comes loose and is carried toward your heart — or your brain, for that matter — and then there’ll be no more crosswords for you.”

“But I can have the rest of the cinnamon rolls this evening, can’t I?” he asked.

“Yes, I promise,” she said. “But you do understand that I have to be strict, don’t you? Someone has to keep an eye on you; we agreed on that.”

“We have to go to the shopping center,” he said. “I need new clothes. I want one of those sweatshirts I saw in the paper. I Love New York. ”

That night he dreamed about chicks. Yellow, fluffy, and soft, running around on stick legs. He picked them up and dropped them in a pan with melted butter and garlic. He dreamed that they lay there simmering, then peeped and squeaked when he added boiling water. He woke up abruptly at the end of the dream, listening for sounds in his mother’s room. Sometimes she talked in her sleep and other times she moaned. But mostly it was quiet all through the night. He didn’t like it when his mom was asleep. When she wasn’t there to look after him, when she didn’t answer if he spoke to her, when she was out of reach, breathing in the dark.

He always woke up first and lay there listening for his mother, to hear if she was awake. He didn’t move until he heard the toilet flush. Then he rolled out of bed and went into the living room, pulled open the curtains, and looked out at the new day he was now part of. He walked into the kitchen with one hand down his pants and the other opening the bread bin. He cut two slices of bread, spread on a thick layer of butter, and then reached for the sugar bowl. He wiped some crumbs from the vinyl tablecloth. His mother came out of the bathroom and saw him sitting there with the bread and sugar. Always the same thing: nag nag nag. How many times do I have to tell you to wash your hands before you eat? You haven’t even been to the bathroom yet. Your hands have been everywhere.

Eddie kept his thoughts to himself. He knew that she often slept with a hand between her sweaty thighs; he could hear her moaning at night. I’m not a damn idiot, he said to himself. And even though his mother chased him into the bathroom to wash his hands, he felt superior. His mother looked out at the snow that was still falling thick and fast. “We’ll take the bus today,” she said, looking at her son. “It’s just as easy. And we really need to get you to the hairdresser’s; you look like a girl.”