Samantha Hunt - Mr. Splitfoot

El said that kids today never sit still long enough to see how the river changes. What, she wondered, was going to happen to people who think they know everything? What’s going to happen without chance? Good question.

My back aches. I’d like to stretch out on my side on the bench, but a janitor is securing a padlock on the trash dumpster out back. They lock their garbage here. Even the teenagers eye us suspiciously. We stay upright until the janitor and the teenagers are gone. Ruth and I climb to the highest platform on the “Play Structure.” We’re hidden. Ruth takes everything out of our bags. She even pulls out my broken phone. I look at its dead screen but not for long. It’s not like it’s going to come back to life again. She distributes blankets and extra clothes around my body, tucking them behind my back, between my knees as needed. Ruth knows how to make a bed. She takes nothing soft for herself but lies flat on her back looking up at the sky. She rests one light hand on the baby.

I’ve come to think of Ruth as the father of my kid. She takes care of us in a way I’d hope a father would. Ruth will smile the day this child is born. No one will smile more because the baby is hers too now.

“You remember your mom, Ruth?”

She shakes her head no.

“I do.”

She stares at me, wanting to hear more, but it takes a moment to think of anything nice about her mother. It’s actually hard to come up with even one good thing. Finally I get, “She had long, pretty hair like yours.”

Her eyes open wider, so ready for information her mouth gapes. Ruth is one big ear.

“I lived with her when I was a kid. It was a bad idea. Your mom was nasty. She’d tell El, ‘You’re fat. You’re lazy. Should’ve burned your face instead. Would have improved your chances for finding a man.’” I’m giving shape to a dark room in Ruth’s head. “Your mom was a drunk but we stayed. A house, a yard. I went to a good school, ate good clean food. El never left me alone with her, not when I was young.”

Ruth plies a bit of hair from the corner of her mouth.

“Your mom seemed to think that being cruel to El equaled being nice to you. She was twisted by guilt, and I’m sorry she was your mom, but I’m glad you exist, Ruth. I’m glad she had you.”

Ruth turns to keep me from saying anything too nice to her. But fuck it. I can be as nice as I want to Ruth. Why shouldn’t I? Someone ought to. I can even say I love her if I want. What’s she going to do? Tell me to shut up? “I love you, Ruth.” I hope El gets the message too somehow. “Thanks for coming to get me. Whatever this turns out to be.”

Night comes down and her breath deepens. Millions of stars overhead make the violence of the Big Bang clear. So much force that matter is still sprinting away from the center. I feel the velocity of space pinning me to this platform. I’m tiny but I’m going to be someone’s mom, someone’s everything. I touch the baby. None of this is easy to believe. The stars leave streaks, we’re moving so fast. Ruth breathes heavily. One small scintillation above — a gossamer thread of light — gathers oceans, every word ever spoken on the radio, each calorie of sunlight ever captured and stored in a kernel of corn. You know. Things like that. And the star beside it: the tongues of every lizard, spider, leopard. If spiders have tongues. One day the sun will suck us in. I’m not too angry about that. Lying in these stars, despite them, somehow I can imagine my child seat-belted in a minivan while I stress the importance of sharing chocolate Easter eggs or stuffed toy pandas or bags of corn chips with the other children. And I’ll mean that being alive matters, even being alive in the smallest, smallest way. And aren’t you lucky to be here.

We’ve been walking forever. The weather is growing colder. The leaves are turning. Some ancient program is switching on in my hormonal body saying winter is nearer than it was yesterday. Take shelter. Wolves, coyotes, and bears will become hungry, and a child, to them, will taste so sweet.

Ruth could tell me so much. When we sleep like this, I imagine all she knows, flowing into me, into the baby, a transfusion of history, stories, and maybe even some simple sketch, a rough outline, of what the hell is going on.

THEY STOP UNDER AN OVERPASS.Mr. Bell does Ruth’s makeup in the headlights of passing cars. “Short vacation?”

Things had not gone well at El’s house. Ruth doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I’m glad you’re home.” Mr. Bell pulls one side of Ruth’s hair back and pins it there with a purple orchid as if he’s escorting her to prom. Mr. Bell’s breath is close. He paints her lips to match the flower. He touches them with a tissue.

“You stole that makeup from the other house.”

“You make me sound like a thief.”

“Thank you,” she says when he’s done.

He starts the car again. “What sort of job is this?”

Nat had arranged everything except transportation. “I don’t know. They got in touch with me.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know.”

Mr. Bell alters the angle of the rearview.

“They have a question for us,” Nat says.

“What question?”

“Hold on. I love this song.” Nat leans into the front, putting his arm in between them. He turns up the radio, hums along a little.

“Where’d you meet them?” Ruth asks.

Nat draws one hand up to his ear. “I didn’t.”

“You don’t know them? Did you check them out at all?”

“They called me,” Nat says again.

Mr. Bell looks put out. “Is this the place?”

Nat checks the address. “Yeah.”

The house is a low ranch, lit, warm, glowing as if it’s still Christmas. All three bend their necks to check it out from the safety of the car.

“I’ll wait here in case you’re not out in, what, an hour? I’ll come get you.”

“Why?”

“Because you didn’t check these people out, and while I know you think I do nothing to earn my share, that isn’t true. I always ensured your safety.” Mr. Bell draws one thumb down his sideburn, smoothing it.

Nat looks at the door mechanism. “What could be dangerous about dead people?”

“Ruth?” Mr. Bell clears this with her. “Are you sure you want to go?”

He’s making her feel more like a stripper. “It’s a job.”

“OK. But be out in an hour.”

“Ready?” Nat asks.

The car door shuts. Ruth follows Nat to the house.

“So they’re not looking for a person,” Nat tells her. “They lost a box.”

“Like a jewelry box?”

“No. Cardboard.”

“Cardboard is going to talk to you tonight?”

“The box is filled with cash.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know.”

“A box of cash?” Ruth stops ten feet from the house.

“Yeah.” Nat knocks.

The door opens.

The woman who greets Nat has silver hair. Her skin is encased in powder; she has coral lipstick, brown smoker’s teeth. She wears a tailored coat, a pencil skirt.

“Good evening.”

“Evening.” Nat steps inside.

The woman looks at Ruth, standing ten feet away in the darkness. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Cold out.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to come inside?”

The living room is decorated in an American idea of Scandinavian simplicity: blond wood, graceful lighting, two prim couches upholstered in cream. The house smells of an Asian spice rack. Someone trying to improve herself by purchasing air fresheners.

There’s a round man in the living room. He’s wearing a long beige duster with taupe cowboy boots that are really just shoes, shorties. A counterfeit cowboy. “Nat,” the cowboy says. “Right?”