John Saul - Shadows

“This place sure is a dump,” Josh remarked, almost as if he’d read her mind.

“It could be a lot worse,” Brenda reminded him. “There are millions of people who don’t even have something like this to live in.”

They climbed the stairs to the second floor, and walked down the sun-drenched walkway to the apartment at the south end. The location was a mixed blessing at best; though the apartment had windows on three sides, it also was exposed to the sun on those same three sides. By four o’clock in the afternoon the rooms had usually taken on the less attractive aspects of a pottery kiln. Still, the rent was cheap, and though she was constantly looking, so far Brenda hadn’t been able to find anything better.

As she slipped her key into the lock and pushed open the door, she was relieved to find that Mabel Hardwick, the downstairs neighbor who had volunteered to watch Melinda while she put in her hours at the café, had remembered to pull the drapes over the windows, reflecting the worst of the heat back out into the desert. The room, though relatively cool, was gloomy, however, and Brenda immediately moved to the draperies on the east wall and pulled them open. The light flooding in and the grinding sound of metal against the curtain rod awakened Mabel, who had been dozing on the sofa, the television droning a few feet in front of her.

“Oh!” the elderly woman gasped, stifling a yawn and self-consciously heaving her bulk into an upright position. “Brenda! What are you doing—” As she spotted Josh standing silently just inside the door, she clucked sympathetically. “Oh, dear. Didn’t you even make it through the first day?”

Though Josh flinched — even Mrs. Hardwick clearly thought that whatever had brought him home early from school must have been his fault — he said nothing. Before Brenda could explain the truth of the matter, Melinda, who had been sitting in her playpen staring at the television set, caught sight of her mother, climbed unsteadily to her feet and began to wail.

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Brenda soothed, picking up the little girl and cradling her against her bosom. “Mama’s here now. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Melinda, the routine of her day unaccustomedly disturbed, only howled louder. Carrying the baby on her hip, Brenda went to the refrigerator, pulled a bottle out and put it in the microwave.

“You just sit down and let me do that,” Mabel Hardwick said, pulling herself to her feet. “I shouldn’t’ve been dozing in the first place, but you know how it is when you get to be my age.” She started toward the tiny kitchen that was little more than an alcove off the living-dining area, but stopped when Brenda shook her head.

“Why don’t you just take a few minutes for yourself, Mabel I don’t have to be back at work for another half hour.” A tiny little lie, but if she took an extra fifteen minutes, Max might not even notice. “Besides, if you’re going to have to look after both kids this afternoon, you’ll need a little breather.”

Josh, who had followed the older woman into the kitchen, rolled his eyes. “Aw, come on, Mom. Mrs. Hardwick doesn’t need to come back. I can look out for Melinda myself.”

“Really,” Brenda observed darkly. “I can’t even trust you to make it through the first day of school without getting thrown out, and now you want me to trust you with your sister?”

Josh’s mouth dropped open and he felt his eyes fill with tears, but he turned away quickly, instinctively refusing to let either his mother or Mrs. Hardwick see the pain he was feeling.

“Great!” he muttered. “If I can’t do anything right, I just won’t do anything at all!” He stamped across the room, disappeared into the short hall that separated the two small bedrooms and one tiny bath from the living room. There was a crash as the door to the room he shared with his baby sister slammed shut.

Josh threw himself on his bed, burying his face in his pillow.

It wasn’t fair! None of it was. Not what Ethan Roeder had done to him in the cafeteria, or Mr. Hodgkins not believing his side of the story, or his mother making him come home from school, or any of it. Why didn’t they kick Ethan out? He was the one who’d started the fight!

And why wouldn’t his mother let him take care of Melinda? It wasn’t like he was a baby anymore. Lots of kids his age stayed home alone while their moms worked.

It was Melinda.

She didn’t trust him with Melinda.

He sat up, glaring malevolently at the crib that occupied the opposite corner of his room.

It wasn’t even his room anymore. Now it was Melinda’s room, too, and it seemed more and more like it was just her room. His eyes darted over the floor, fixing angrily on the littered toys.

Maybe he should just open the window and throw them all out onto the dirt next to the building.

He picked up Melinda’s favorite toy, a teddy bear that he himself had chosen for her right after she was born, and started toward the window. But even as he began to open the window, he had already changed his mind.

None of what had happened was Melinda’s fault, he decided. She was just a little baby. Why should he punish her?

He took the teddy bear to the crib and laid it on its back next to the pillow, so that it would be there for her the next time Melinda was put in her crib. Then he straightened out the blanket, carefully tucking it in so that the bear was nestled under the covers, only its furry head poking out, its shiny eyes looking up at him.

The neatness of the crib — the simple orderliness of it — somehow made him feel better. Without really thinking about it, he started picking up the rest of Melinda’s scattered toys.

Her alphabet blocks seemed to be everywhere. As he gathered them up he arranged them precisely on the brick-and-board shelves that served as not only his bookshelves, but her toy box as well. He put them carefully in order, leaving gaps for the letters he hadn’t yet found. When he was done, they were all there except for the C and the N. The C turned up under the bed, and he finally found the N stuffed down into the toe of one of his own slippers. The blocks arranged, he began picking up the large pieces of a simple jigsaw puzzle, putting them back in their cardboard frame and setting it up so it leaned against a wall. He moved on to the picture books and crayons that seemed to be strewn everywhere.

Finally finished with his little sister’s belongings, he began on his own, a haphazard heap of possessions that littered his side of the room.

Methodically, he started over, sorting through the various junk he’d collected, putting every item back exactly where it belonged.

As he picked a dirty shirt up off the table by his bed, his gaze fell on the hunting knife his father had sent him for his birthday last year.

No, not last year.

The year before.

Last year there hadn’t even been a card.

He picked the knife up, staring at the blade. He wondered where his father was right then, and what he was doing.

Did he even remember that he had a son named Josh? Or did he have another son now, another boy, whom he played baseball with, and took camping, and did all the things that fathers do with their boys?

The things that Josh had never done with his father at all, since he couldn’t even remember his dad all that well.

A thought flitted through his mind, but he quickly discarded it, putting the knife down and continuing with the task of storing his things away.

But as he worked, the thought kept cropping up in his mind. When he had put the last of his dirty clothes in the hamper, and hung the last of the not-dirty-enough-to-need-washing shirts in the closet, he sat down on the bed and looked around the room.