Laura Drake - The Reasons to Stay

“We’re clear, right, Nacho? You’re going to wait for me in front of the store after school?” She looked worried.

“I got it.” He hopped out and slammed the door, hard, to show her what he thought of her rules.

“Okay, you have a good day, Nacho. See you this afternoon.”

He crossed the sidewalk to his real family. The one he got to choose.

CHAPTER FOUR

PRISS WATCHED NACHO stride to the sidewalk and slap hands with two Hispanic boys. Well, that went about as well as I could expect.

When a horn bleated behind her, she moved up ten inches.

A tingle of consequence shivered down her spine and she shifted on the seat. She felt as if today she’d stepped through a door, a demarcation that would separate her life into before and after. She shook it off. Widow’s Grove was a way station, a branch to rest on before she flew off to the next adventure.

She wondered how she’d look back on this time. What kind of mother—no, guardian—would she be? She inched Mona forward a few feet. Well, she’d be a better one than her mother, that was for sure. Nacho would never have to lie awake, afraid in the dark. She would be what she’d wished her mother had been: attentive, understanding and present. She’d also make sure that Nacho felt comfortable talking to her about anything.

In fact, because she wasn’t his mother, maybe they could just be friends. Sure, she’d be the one setting down the rules, but somebody had to. He’d understand that.

Good friends. Yeah, that’s what I want.

They could take day trips on the weekends, exploring the area. Maybe they’d learn to parasail—or even surf! With happy thoughts she inched her way to the exit, hung a right and headed back to town.

Her shift at the bar didn’t start for an hour and a half, and she had one more chore to complete. Ms. Barnes had turned over the papers for Nacho, along with the key to her mother’s apartment. Apparently the state had decided Cora Hart’s belongings wouldn’t help them out of their fiscal crisis. Now Priss had to clear out the rest of the stuff, or pay rent for another week. As much as she was dreading going back there, she didn’t have a choice.

And that made her feel trapped. Again.

She rested her arm on Mona’s door. The sun winked through the morning cloud cover, then disappeared.

A scene flashed in her mind. One of the last scenes of a long and depressing movie.

Her mom stood at the stove smoking a cigarette, stirring potatoes frying in a cast-iron skillet. “You’re going to like him, Priss. He’s sweet, employed, and—”

“He’s married, Ma.”

“Well, he’s had a tough go of it. The marriage is not good. He’s going to file for a divorce. Soon.”

“So, in the meantime, he’s going to move in here? Do you realize I go to school with his kids, Ma?”

It was hopeless. All a guy had to do was ask and if Cora Hart wasn’t involved with someone else, she was his. She’d done stupid stuff before, like when she hooked up with that sleaze who had cleaned them out two years earlier. But this was a new low. She’d never messed with a married man before. “Do you know what’s going to happen when this gets around school?”

Her mother tapped the cigarette on the ashtray, put it back in her mouth and turned the greasy potatoes with the spatula. “You’ll like him. We’ll make a great family. You’ll see.”

Priss pulled Mona to the cracked curb in front of the so-called apartments. The tired paint and robust weeds didn’t look any better today. She sat a moment, staring at her memory that had slipped into the present. Something inside her firmed, like clay hardening in the sun.

It’s not going to be like that for Nacho. I’m going to listen to him. He’s going to know he has a say in what happens. It’s going to be him and me first, then everything and everyone else second.

At least for as long as she was here.

She slid the strap of her bag over her shoulder, checked the side mirror for traffic, then stepped out of her car. She strode to the back alley where she’d spied Dumpsters on the way by. Luckily one was empty. She muscled it across the alley and pushed it under the back window of her mother’s apartment.

Piece of cake. You can do this.

Today she didn’t need the scent of underprivileged that enveloped her when she walked in the door to take her back to those dark days. The ghost of her mother stood in the kitchen, stirring potatoes.

She ignored the vision and stepped into the tiny bedroom where Nacho had slept. Might as well start there. She opened the window, stripped the bed, and tossed the sheets out. She opened a plastic bin that had held his clothes, and filled it with anything that looked personal. There wasn’t much: a few Lego pieces, a G.I. Joe figure he’d probably outgrown and a couple of dime-store jigsaw puzzles.

Next, the closet. Her mother’s few clothes hung from hangers in limp accusation. She didn’t even examine them—straight out the window.

Keeping her head down to avoid ghosts, Priss dragged the trash can from the kitchen into the living room. Everything not belonging to the landlords got dumped in, including ashtrays and the rumpled threadbare sheets on the couch—her mother’s last bed. She pulled off the sheets and rolled them into a ball. But before she let them go, she lowered her nose and took a deep lungful of the desperation, hope and sadness that had been her mother.

A barnacled shell, buried so deep in the silt of her psyche that she’d forgotten it, suddenly burst open, spitting out a misshapen pitted, black pearl of guilt.

A strangled sob slipped out before her throat closed.

I should have at least stayed in touch. The pain of learning about her mother’s death from a stranger rose in her, fetid and slimy. Had her mother lain in a county hospital bed, breathing like a landed fish, wishing she could see her daughter one last time?

It isn’t the child’s job to rescue an adult. It’s supposed to be the other way around.

Shaking her head at her sentimental foolishness, Priss dropped the sheets in the trash, then walked to the kitchen. The sooner she got out of these backwaters, the better.

A half hour later, the apartment was empty. She took one last quick tour to be sure she hadn’t missed anything. She glanced in the bathroom and pulled the door to close it when something brushed her hand. Hanging from a hook on the back of the door was an apron. She remembered it. Her mother’s barmaid apron.

The pocket gapped. Priss reached in and pulled out a roll of money, held together with a rubber band. No evening’s tips, these—twenties and tens, more than an inch thick. When she slid the band off and unfurled the bills, a piece of paper fell out. She unfolded it to find a list of states, with a line through Nevada, Florida, Michigan and Ohio. What, was she trying for a man in every state? Priss flipped through the bills, counting, stunned by the tally. What had she been saving for? Bail money for Nacho’s father before the trial? A deposit on a decent place to live in? Nah. Cora Hart had lived in places like this her entire life, and she’d been way too old a leopard to change her spots.

Priss fingered the rough, dingy white cotton rectangle with its long, dangling ties. Her mother had owned it forever. When it began whispering memories, Priss lifted it off the peg and tossed it over her shoulder to silence it.

Hell, she was back in her mother’s world—why not use her old apron? Priss told herself she wasn’t being sentimental, just practical; she needed an apron anyway.

The alarm on her phone blatted “Reveille.” Time to get to work. She slipped the map and the money into her purse, and took the few steps to the living room.

Snatching up the half-full plastic bin, she walked out, locked the door to the past once more and slipped the key under the door.