The Night Visitors

Chapter Nine Alice

IT’S USELESS TRYING to get Oren to admit that he came out by another path. “Maybe you didn’t realize it was a different way,” I suggest as we wait on the lower drive for Mattie.

“Duh-uh. Didn’t you hear what I just said? I walked backward in my own tracks.”

Duh. That’s what Davis would say when he was pointing out how stupid I was. How I just didn’t get it. “Well, I know what I saw,” I say. I’m keeping my eye on the drive for Mattie’s car, standing in front of Oren as if that will protect him if the cop comes back. “There were footprints leading out of the maze on a different path.”

“Well, Jesus, Alice, I guess there couldn’t have been anyone else in the maze.”

The voice is so much like Davis’s that I spin around to stare behind me, sure that Davis has somehow shown up to taunt me. Yeah, Jesus, Alice, how could you be so stupid to believe that I’d die of that pathetic little stab wound? Like I’m ever going to let you take my boy away from me. But there’s just Oren standing there, his face purple with rage. Somehow it’s scarier to know that hateful voice came out of this little boy.

“Please don’t speak to me in that tone,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm.

“You called me a liar!”

“I didn’t call you a liar.” Davis always accused me of calling him a liar when I confronted him with a discrepancy, like why were there only two beers left in the six-pack if he drank only two or why did work call to ask where he was if he was at work. “I just thought you might have gotten mixed up.”

“You’re the one who’s mixed up, stupid-face! Just because you followed someone else’s footprints—”

“They were the same boots!” I cry, pointing at his boots. “And the same duckfooted prints.”

His face turns the color of a bruise. I’d forgotten how much he hated when Davis made fun of him for splaying out his feet. “I am not a duckfoot! I am not!” Then he hits me.

It’s the teeniest, lamest punch on the arm but it knocks the wind right out of me. “Oh great,” I say, cradling my arm. “So now you’re hitting me. Just like your father.”

He gives me a hateful look that hurts much worse than the punch and then takes off straight up the road, dragging the sled behind him, his oversized boots slapping the pavement like big angry duck feet. I’ve said the very worst thing I could have said to him, but I’m not sorry. He’s being a little shit, and if no one stops him he will grow up to be just like Davis. A spoiled little boy in a man’s body always blaming someone else for his problems. Let him see how far he gets on his own or how he’ll like it if that cop gets him first.

I’d forgotten about the cop.

“Oren!” I call. “Come back. I didn’t mean it.”

But Oren speeds up, stamping in the puddles from the melting snow, the sled bouncing behind him. I run after him, but he’s gotten a head start and I’m soon out of breath. That’s what I get for taking up smoking again. “Or-ren!” It comes out in a wheeze, hoarse and ugly.

I know that Oren’s taking his anger at his father out on me because I’m safe. I won’t hit him back. But I’m tired of being the safe one. Look where it’s gotten us: homeless, on the run, waiting on the charity of nuns and social workers. It’s time I took charge. Time I taught the boy a lesson. I’m only inches from Oren, reaching out for his arm, when I hear the words in my head. Davis’s words in Davis’s voice. I’m the one who has become just like Davis.

My hand is already on Oren’s arm, fingers curling around his skinny biceps. I only want to stop him to tell him I’m sorry, but he jerks forward at my touch and I tighten my grip to keep him from falling—

I hear the pop as his shoulder dislocates and then the scream of pain, and Oren falls howling to the ground. I fall beside him, trying to cradle him in my arms, repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” and then “Let me see, let me fix it.” But he scoots away from me. I hear a car pull up and footsteps approaching. This is it. The police have gotten us. For a moment I’m almost grateful. This will all be taken out of my hands. Oren will be taken out of my hands. And maybe that is for the best. Because clearly I don’t know what the fuck I am doing.

But when I look up I see it’s not the cop; it’s Mattie. “What happened?” she cries, kneeling beside Oren. The little shit huddles against her like he needs her protection from me.

“Nothing. We had a fight and he was running away. I was afraid he was going to run into that cop. I was just trying to stop him.”

Mattie isn’t paying attention to my litany of excuses—how fast they trip off my tongue! I have learned a thing or two from Davis. She’s inspecting Oren’s arm, peeling off his jacket, wrapping her large capable hands around his shoulder and biceps. “Do you know what this reminds me of?” she asks in such a calm voice that Oren is startled out of his hysterics.

“Wh-what?” he blubbers.

“The time that Luke lost his hand in the lightsaber fight with Darth Vader.”

What a weird thing to say—and is she actually comparing me to Darth Vader?—but it delights Oren. “Am I going to lose my hand?” he asks, eyes popping.

“Nah,” she says, “but if you could choose between a cyber hand and your regular hand, which would you choose?”

While Oren is pondering this Mattie pops his shoulder back into the joint. Oren emits a sharp cry and his eyes flutter like he might faint. I feel like I might as well. But then his eyes get big and he gives Mattie an appreciative look. “Hey, you fixed it!”

“Yep,” Mattie says, “good as new. It’s going to smart for a while though.” She looks at me for the first time, those wintry lilac eyes as cold as the December sky. “We’d better get him back to the house and put some ice on it. Get some Children’s Tylenol in him as well.”

“We’re going back to your house?” I ask. “I thought—”

“Change of plans. Sister Martine is making arrangements to move you tomorrow.”

“But won’t that cop check on your house after seeing you here? Isn’t there any other place we can go?” The last place I want to go is back to that creepy old house with this bitch looking at me like I’m a child abuser. Like she knows the first thing about dealing with a kid.

Although she did know how to fix a dislocated shoulder. I wonder where she learned that.

She gives me a nasty look. “Sorry. My spare vacation house is being redecorated. And I don’t want to involve anyone else in . . . this.” She says this like she’s talking about a turd she found on her carpet. “As for the police, I can take care of Frank Barnes. If he comes by I’ll keep him out.”

Frank? So she is chums with the police. I’m liking this less and less. “Take us to a motel,” I say. “We can stay there until the nun’s ready to move us.”

Mattie’s mouth goes hard. Before she can say anything Oren whimpers, “I want to go to Mattie’s house. My arm hurts . . . and . . . and . . .” He’s working himself up to a full-out tantrum and I’m afraid he’s going to come out with some ugly accusation against me, but instead he sobs out, “. . . and I left my Han Solo there!”

“That you did, kid,” Mattie says, smiling down at Oren. The smile’s gone when she lifts her face to me. “It’s one night, Alice. It’ll be the best thing for the boy.”

What can I say to that? I shrug. “Sure. Why not?” I get up and offer my hand to Oren, but he cowers against Mattie. He’s not going to let me live this down quickly. I shrug again. “Have it your way,” I say, and get in the backseat of the car.

Mattie helps Oren to the car. He’s really hamming it up, limping like it was his leg I hurt and not just his arm. When Mattie goes to put him in the back with me he says he wants to sit in the front. Mattie acquiesces but makes sure Oren buckles up.

No one talks on the ride back to town. Mattie turns on the radio, which is tuned to NPR—big surprise. Oren doesn’t even ask to change the station, which he does whenever I’m listening to a talk show. He’s on his best behavior now. I’ve seen him act this way with me after Davis has gone after him. Sure he’s an angel with you, the kid’s a great actor. He’s a little shit with me. I’d always thought it was a pathetic ploy to shift the blame onto a child, but now that I’m on the receiving end I can kind of see what Davis meant. The kid is a great actor. How long before he convinces someone that I’m the monster? How long before he convinces me?

Suddenly the idea of being alone with Oren on the run—cooped up in crappy halfway houses, living off the charity of nuns and social workers, then winding up in some shitty Section 8 housing—seems unbearable. But what other choice do I have?

It’s then I remember Social Worker Scott. The only male social worker ever assigned to Oren, and the one decent one who seemed to really like Oren—and like me. In fact, it became obvious that he liked me liked me. So much so that Davis was jealous, said Scott was just hanging around because he wanted to screw me. That was what the last fight was about. When Davis came home and caught Oren and me getting ready to leave he accused me of running away with Scott.

Now I wish we had been. Although he tried to pretend otherwise, it was clear that Scott came from money. He’d gone to a fancy college upstate and always had the newest iPhone. He drove a Volvo. We wouldn’t have had to take the crappy bus with Scott; he’d have taken us to Canada in his Volvo.

Maybe he still would.

Although I ditched my cell phone, I know Scott’s phone number. I memorized it because I was always afraid to put it in my Contacts in case Davis looked through them.

Just as I’m thinking this Mattie pulls into the Stewart’s where she picked us up last night. “I’m going to get some Children’s Tylenol and an ice pack for Oren’s arm,” she says, barely glancing back in my direction.

“Can you get me another one of those bear claws, Mattie?” Oren asks in a pathetic little whimper.

“Sure, kid,” she says. Then, deigning to look back at me, “Do you need anything, Alice?”

“I’m good,” I say. “And no more bear claws for Oren, please. He had three cavities at his last checkup.” There. How’s that for good parenting?

“Oh, I think just this once, to take his mind off his arm.” She gives Oren a sugary smile that turns to a warning scowl when she turns to me.

“Sure,” I mutter under my breath as she gets out of the car, “you’re not the one who’ll have to pay the dentist’s bill.”

“I only had two cavities,” Oren says as soon as Mattie’s out of the car. “The third was just a ‘spot’ we were going to watch until my next checkup.”

I’m tempted to tell him that eating bear claws is the surest way to turn a spot into a cavity, but I don’t have time to argue. This might be my only chance to call Scott. “I’m sorry about your arm, buddy, but look, I just have to go run a real quick errand while Mattie’s in the Stewart’s.”

He spins around and looks at me suspiciously. “You just told Mattie you didn’t need anything.”

“I need a girl thing I didn’t want to have to tell Mattie about,” I lie. When Oren makes a face I add, “I’m just going to pop into that CVS down the street. I’ll be back in a second. Okay, honey?”

He shrugs and faces the front of the car. “It’s a free country.”

He’s clearly not ready to let me off the hook yet. I don’t have time to win him back right now, though. “Just stay put,” I say, and get out of the car. “And lock the doors,” I add before closing the door.

I hear the clunk of the locks as I jog away from the car—and then they clunk a second and a third time. He’s messing with me, but that’s okay. He’ll forgive me eventually. He has to. And he’ll be happy when he sees Scott. He likes Scott and Scott likes me. He thinks I’m a “good caretaker.” And Scott will be a good role model for Oren. I should have thought of calling him sooner, if only to tell him that we’re okay.

When I get to the CVS I have a moment of panic because there’s no pay phone, but then the cashier tells me there’s a “courtesy phone” back by the pharmacy for people calling their doctors. How civilized, I think, walking down the aisles of mouthwash and brightly colored bottles of cough syrup, maybe living in the country isn’t so bad. Maybe Scott can help us settle in some little town like this. He said once that he wanted to live in the country. I said I’d be bored stiff, but that was because when I got stuck in a foster home in the country it was always worse because we couldn’t go anywhere. But that would be different now: I’d have a car, for one thing, and for another boring doesn’t sound so bad.

The phone is next to the prescription pickup counter, where an old man is asking a million questions about the drugs he’s getting. The pharmacist, an Indian lady, keeps smiling and repeating the same damn thing over and over again. I stand with my back to them so they won’t see my face and punch in Scott’s number, praying that he’ll answer. Scott’s one of those rich kids who’s so used to smartphones that he texts everything instead of calling. I picture the number showing up with an unfamiliar upstate area code. He’ll think it’s some telemarketer . . . and then I hear a muffled voice, almost inaudible over the background sound of traffic, say hello.

“Scott!” I cry. “It’s me. Alice.”

There’s a pause and I’m afraid he’s going to hang up. What has he heard? Have the police questioned him? Then I hear a laugh. “Alice. I figured it was just a matter of time before you called.”

The plastic receiver slips greasily from my fingers. The Indian pharmacist and the old man look up when it clanks against the counter. I jam it back into the cradle and turn around, the drugstore spinning queasily around me, all those brightly colored bottles smearing into a multicolored mess like the time Oren ate too many Skittles and threw up.

I stumble from the store and find my way back to the Stewart’s. Oren must have fallen asleep and slid down in his seat because I can’t see him. I run the last few yards to the car only to find it empty. I spin around in the parking lot searching for Oren’s red jacket, his Star Wars pack, his blue cap, but I see only Mattie coming out of the store carrying a tray of hot drinks and a plastic bag.

“Where’s Oren?” I demand.

Mattie looks at me as if I’ve lost it. “Isn’t he in the car with you?”

I spin around again and the whole parking lot revolves. The world has been turned on its head. Davis is alive and I’ve lost Oren.