Wednesday, February 5th

Wednesday,

February 5th

    

    "Michael, bichael, fofichael, Banana-bana-bobichael, fee fie foe fichael, Michael! With kitchen towel in one hand and a bowl fresh from the sink in the other  she danced. The dishes were pink and so was the towel. That was good. That was Willie and that's what Mikey thought of when he thought of her. It was a happy, musical color. She dried the bowl and placed it in the cabinet. How he loved her smile.

     "Willie!” Mikey called.

    "Willie!” she repeated. They began the same dance. Fast, moving their feet like they were tap dancing, only he had gym shoes on and she wore one boot. They barely made any noise at all with their feet. “Willie, Willie, Wee-Willie , Banana-bana-bo-Billie, Fee, Fie, Foe Fillie, Willie!” They laughed again. She picked up another bowl and began to wipe that one. “There’s the alarm,” she said as it sounded in the background.

     "I love you, Willie,” he said as he turned to leave.

     “Hey, I love you, too, buddy.”

    Waking up was getting harder and harder. Going to school was harder yet. Wil­lie’s songs made it a little easier though. He missed her terribly. Almost as much as he missed his mother. But Mom was coming home today!

    Grandma knocked on his door and popped her head in. “How are you today? How’s your stomach?”

      “It’s okay.”

      “Not upset? Don’t feel like you’ll get sick today?”

      “No, I’m fine.” He actually felt good.

     “Good. Hurry up now. Your Dad is suppose to pick me up in an hour. Can you see yourself off?”

     “Sure.” Well maybe his stomach wasn’t all that good. “Hey, Grandma? How long will it take?”

      “Your Mom should be home by the time school is over today.”

Mikey smiled. Maybe he’d make it through the day after all.

*

     Marie held her comments until she could see the complex disappear in the rear window of Milk’s Nova. It was too much like a dream. Like she’d wake up and find herself flat on her back on a lumpy, thin mattress in her cell. As they paused for a light, she rubbed her hands together, ran them through her hair. She even touched the winter coat she hadn’t worn in so long. “I can’t wait,” she said at last. “I mean I miss my kids.”

      “Worry about Mikey,” Angela explained. “I’ve had him to the doctor and they can’t find anything wrong with him.”

      “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with him,” Milk grumbled. “He’s spoiled rotten. A good belt in the ass and he’d straighten himself up real quick.”

        “Milk, he’s throwing up all the time. He’s losing weight.”

      “Uh huh. He’s probably sticking his finger down his throat. Just looking for at­tention. You’re better off ignoring it.”

      No one said anything for a very long time. Marie wondered. What was Mikey’s problem? What was Milk’s?

       Milk pulled off the toll road at an oasis. She hated the Illinois Tri-State. Every few miles they pulled into a toll plaza and paid a toll. It was forty cents for years and years and years. Now every toll plaza had a different price posted. Every few tollgates they passed beneath an oasis though. The roadway was built way beneath the level of the ground, and the oasis building stretched out above the roadway between em­bankments. There were washroom facilities, gas station, a gift shop, and usually two fast food places, like a McDonalds and a Baskin Robbins. This one had a Wendy’s. She was tempted by the idea of a big chocolate Frosty. She could eat it while she watched the traffic pass beneath her feet. Milk said he needed to use the washroom. He said he wasn’t hungry yet, so she decided to wait in the car and forego her need for chocolate.         The sooner she made it back to Mikey, the happier she’d be.

      “You know,” Mom said once Milk had parked the car and exited, “Mikey gets awfully nervous lately when Milk’s around. It’s like it’s right after that that he gets sick.”

        Marie bit her lips. It was all she could do not to scream at her mother. “Mikey is a sensitive kid.”

     “Maybe too sensitive?” Mom asked as she pivoted about in her seat. “I can’t imagine why he’d be nervous around his father.”

        “Because his father is fucking animal. I told you to keep them apart.”

        “Mind your language.”

        “Mind my language. What is it you don’t understand? Milk is dangerous.”

        “He was good enough to come and pick you up.”

        “I’d rather take Greyhound.”

       Her mother shook her head. “I’ll never understand you. Don’t know when to say thank you. Don’t know the difference between a decent, hard working man, and trash. My bet is if Milk was Mexican or black, you’d still be with him....”

Marie buried her head in her lap and wrapped her arms about her ears. Damnit all, if it weren’t for Mikey, Tina and Cory, she’d stay in prison. 

      They pulled up to the old house on Maple an hour later. And it felt good to get home. It was a two story brick house with trim in need of a good coat of paint. Inside, the sofa and chairs were thread bare and drooped in the seats. The veneer on the tables was cracked and decaying. Still, this old house was clean, spotless even. Mom was extremely particular about leaving things out. It surprised Marie sometimes that Mom didn’t lose it with a lit­tle boy around. Boys were notoriously messy. Even Mikey at his best required a lot of riding in order to get things put away. Still, it smelled good. Like furniture polish and oranges.

*

     Mikey stopped to see Sophie only for a minute. “We’ve got some things here Mrs. Clark wants you to work on,” Sophie said.

     “I can’t. Mom’s coming home. I gotta go home.” Without saying goodbye even, he took off. If he could tell everyone in the world that his mom was coming home, he would. He couldn’t wait to see her.

    He ran all the way from school. He crossed hard, dry ground, broke through icy snow drifts and slipped across hard packed snow. He snuck through the alley leading to the tracks, and slipped across the tracks where there was a hole in the fence. He cut across the park, and through that old lady’s back yard. It was like she was waiting for him, because as soon as she saw him, she came out screaming. He tore across the street without looking, and across that vacant lot next to the church. He even crossed Miami from between parked cars. He did everything that Grandma, Mom and Sophie all told him not to do. He didn’t want to wait long enough for the light to change or to even walk on the sidewalk. He tore through an empty wash bay of the self service car wash right there by Dad’s apartment build­ing. He even cut through the lower hallway of the apartment building. Grandma’s house was on the next block. He crossed the street in the middle of the block, cut through another yard and entered Grandma’s yard through the back gate.

    When he came in the back door, Mom was standing in the kitchen. They came together quickly, in a hard hug. She cried and so did he. Then she pushed him back from her. “You grew up,” she told him. “Way up.”

      “Mom, I missed you.”

     “Not as much as I missed you.” They hugged again. Just as hard as the time be­fore.

*

     After dinner ended, Milk got Mikey by himself, and without Angela or Marie within ear shot. “You know something,” Milk grunted, “I hear you’re trying to pull something I wouldn’t approve of, I’ll blister your ass like I never had before. You got that, Mikey?”

      “Yes, sir.”

     The kid looked sick. Like he’d puke right there. Milk excused himself. God help him if he could listen to the kid heave his brains out again.

*

     With Dad out of the way, Mikey made an excuse and went to bed. He hurt again. Real bad.

      Mom showed up a little while later with a glass of water and a pill. “Hey, Mikey,” she said quietly. “You look like you could use something for your stom­ach.” When she flipped on the light, he was curled in a ball. He cried it hurt so bad. He didn’t want her to know. Not her first night home. Not ever. She shouldn’t worry. “Are you going to be able to keep this down?” she asked.

      He didn’t answer.

     She sat on his bed, and even moved him over a bit. Then she crawled in next to him, and pulled him up against her. She held him. ‘“Sunny days,’” she sang, ‘”Chasing the clouds away. On my way to where the air is clear...’” She didn’t have Willie’s voice, but it was enough to know he’d be safe.

     “Hey, Mom?”

     “Huh?”

     “Did Dad tell you about Willie?”

     “No, what about Willie?”

     “She’s missing.”

Thursday,

February 6th

   Marie made a mental list of what had to be done. First, as part of her parole agreement, she needed to come up with a job. She started on that early in the morning. She began by putting an application in at the hospital. No, she didn’t have any computer skills. But she could mop floors and bus trays in the cafeteria. She could even clean bed pans if she had to. Yes, she was a convicted felon. The name? Yes, it was her son involved in the Roosevelt High School Homecoming game shooting two years earlier. Yes, she understood the sentiments and would stay away. Thank you for your time anyway, and have a pleasant day.

     At the factory down the street she promised she’d sweep floors and take out the trash if she had to. She’d even scrub the toilets. Same thing with the grocery store on 127th Street, the pharmacy on Miami and the adult day care center on Trent.

      By late morning she stopped for coffee at Twin Sisters’. She was exhausted and discouraged. Everyone in Portland had heard of her, and everyone wanted just a little more blood. She had to refocus.

      She picked up a copy of the South Suburban and a cup of coffee. Bonnie scowled at her as the woman made change. “You going to insult me, too?” Marie asked.

    “I should. I could.” The woman frowned. But then something crashed in the kitchen. Bonnie threw her arms over her head. Beads and braids and bounced and clicked together. “God help me but these idiots are breaking everything I own!” With arms aloft and a few choice profanities slipping out under her breath, Bonnie charged out from behind the counter. She took the few steps from the counter to the kitchen in one leap. “You are fired!” She yelled. “You cannot cook. You can break. That is all. You break. I can break. Florence can break. I don’t need you breaking, too! Out!”

    A small woman with tears in her eyes tore from the kitchen. She grabbed a jacket from an ornate coat stand near the rear entrance, and threw it on over her apron. She took off out the back door. Seconds later, she returned, no longer wearing the apron, and slammed it on the counter.

     Marie picked up her cup just in time to avoid the apron strings landing in it. She waited, mentally crossing her fingers. When Bonnie finally returned, Marie pressed forward. “Ah, Bonnie?”

       “What, Marie? You need a job, right?”

       “You know I can cook.”

       “I know you can fight, too.”

       “I can keep my mouth shut when I have to, too.”

      “Right. I see it, I’ll believe it. I hire you and you take on Florence first thing in the morning.”

       “Florence loves me. You know that.”

       “Another reason for me not to like you.”

       “Bonnie? Please? Bonnie?”

     The woman stood, facing away from her for a long, long moment. Finally, she waved at the kitchen. “Go. Clean up the mess and open some cans for soup. To­morrow you make homemade. Like Willow use to make.”

       “You got any of Willie’s recipes?”

       “Like Willow knew how to write anything down? Go, before I change my mind.”

***

      Evelyn gave up on driving. After several days of driving back and forth along the Cal Sag, the I&M Canal, up the Des Plaines River and down the south branch of the Chicago River, they found nothing. They talked it over and decided that maybe they’d missed the place because it had been repaired or something. She called around, beginning with Portland. Sergeant Callaghan, the same man that took her statement, lost his temper. “Think about it. If there was such an accident, and we’re sitting here with your statement, don’t you think we’d put two and two to­gether?”

       “I don’t know. What are you doing?”

       “We’re working on it.”

      “What about the other towns around here? You think they’d know anything about this?”

      “Mrs. Pratt, this is insane. An accident like what you’re talking about wouldn’t go unnoticed. The entire State is on the same computerized system. If something happened in Palos or Worth, and we’re missing a person, they’d know. We’d know. Almost instantly.”

       “Well, this psychic...”

       “Well this psychic just took you for one hell of a ride.”

       “I’m sorry?”

       “You got taken.”

***

      At two fifteen Bonnie said she could go. Marie grabbed her coat and headed for the lot where she parked her mother’s old Lincoln. Item number two on her list was to meet this Sophie that Mikey had told her so much about.

*

       “Mrs. Ramos,” a voice called over the intercom. “Are you there?”

       “I sure am,” Sophie called back. She flipped the page of the fifth grade math book in front of her and pointed to the example.

       “Is Michael Borenstein still with you?”

       “Yes, he is. Why are you asking?”

       “His mother is out here. She’d like to talk to you if she could.”

       Sophie looked to Mikey for a reaction. The ten year old smiled greatly. “Sure,” she responded as he began to bounce in his seat.

       “My Mom said she wanted to meet you,” Mikey explained. “Just say hi.”

      Sophie tried to smile. Truthfully her stomach was suddenly churning up a bitter lunch. How much longer would it be before this woman demanded her other two children back? Would she be so nice as to stop in just to say hi then? “Let’s get back to this,” Sophie instructed. “How do you multiply a numerator and a denominator?”

    Mikey picked up his pencil and examined the sample she had turned to. He applied his current problem to it and worked it through.

    “Good, Mikey, you’re getting it.”

   “You’re going to tell my Mom that, right?” This child had such big eyes. It was really nice to think he could still get excited and share his joy with someone. With as much as he had been through in his young life, he should have shut his emotions down and built a wall between himself and the outside world.

    “Tell me what?” A thin woman with light brown hair stood in the doorway.

    “How I’m doing with my math,” Mikey cried, jumping to his feet. He hurried to his mother and hugged her. “Mom, this is Sophie. She’s been helping me.” He took the woman’s hand and drew her into the room. “Sophie, this is my Mom. Her name is Marie. You can call her Marie.”

    Sophie pulled out of the desk she had pushed next to Mikey’s. This woman, this Marie, wasn’t what Sophie had expected. She stood three inches shy of Sophie’s height, and really wasn’t that threatening looking. Sophie put out her hand. “Marie. It’s nice to meet you finally.”

     “Sophie? You’re Sophie?” Marie put her hand out as well. As they shook hands, Marie studied her. “I’m sorry. I guess I expected a Hispanic woman. I didn’t real­ize....”

Sophie chuckled uneasily. “I guess I’m kind of use to that reaction. There are more interracial marriages now than ever before. It’s just not something...” She retrieved her hand and wiped both hands on her skirt. “I find your reaction inter­esting, considering two of your children are products of interracial relationships.”

     Marie shrugged. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that my mother describes you one way and Mikey describes you another. Neither one of them told me you were blonde, or even as pretty as you are.” Marie blushed.

     “Thank you.”

     “Listen, I just wanted to tell you thank you. I mean for Mikey. And I guess for Tina and Cory.” The woman looked at her shoes. “Listen, my Mom is stubborn about this. I keep asking about Tina and Cory and she won’t even admit they’re mine. I can’t stand it. I mean, how are they? I mean, I understand why you wouldn’t let them come see me, but you can’t imagine how badly I miss them. I mean, do you have children? I mean besides Tina and Cory?”

     Sophie shook her head. “No. We tried though.”

     “Never been pregnant?”

    “I miscarried.” Sophie turned back to Mikey’s book and closed it. “Mikey’s do­ing really good. We’ve been working on fractions. Multiplying and dividing. It isn’t an easy task. I don’t think I honestly figured it all out until I had to teach it. Mikey’s doing really well. Tina and Cory are, too. Cory is in preschool. He’s pretty sharp. He’s quiet. He can carry on full conversation with you, if he feels like it. When he does talk, people listen. You never know what it is he has on his mind. Tina, on the other hand, chatters incessantly. She’s such a happy child. She and my Bill, they adore each other. And she’s smart, too. She’s in the gifted class. And her teacher says that she’s doing really well. She’s ahead of even the other kids in the gifted class. And Mikey.” Sophie smiled at the ten year old and ruffed up his hair a bit. “Mikey is pretty special.”

    Marie nodded. She bit her lips. “I thought about Cory taking his first steps or saying his first words. Girls are so quick. Tina was talking long before Donny and Mikey did. I mean... You know what I mean. She was younger when she started talking.” Marie wiped her nose with a napkin she took from her coat pocket. “I saw Tina’s first steps and I heard her speak. I’m thankful for that. Cory, though...” Tears erupted and streaked down her cheeks. “I’ll never get that back.”

    “Mom? Don’t cry. Please.”

Marie hugged Mikey, but then sucked up her tears. She stood straighter and took on Sophie from the front. “Is he done? Is there anything else you wanted to do with him?”

    “No, he’s done.”

   “Okay. Mikey, get your stuff together. Sophie, I’m glad I met you finally. And thank you for this. You don’t know how proud he is of himself. I’m proud of him.”

    “Me, too.”

   Marie nodded, but then bit her lips again. “There’s a custody hearing in a few weeks.” She said it so low Sophie almost missed it. But then again, it hit her like a fist in her belly.

    The ten year old packed up his backpack. “Did you find a job?” he asked his mother.

     “Yeah, I did. I worked already.”

     “Where?”

     “With Bonnie and Florence.”

     “You got Willie’s job?”

     “Yeah, until she comes back anyway.”

     “Oh.” Mikey grabbed his coat. 

***

    Evelyn continued with her quest. She called one town after another along the Cal Sag Channel, along the I&M Canal, and the Des Plaines River. “Mrs. Pratt? Is that your name?”

      “Yes.”

      “What is it exactly?”

    "My daughter is missing. She disappeared. We have no idea where she is. This psychic, Karolyn Mathers, she said that there’s a bridge somewhere along a river that isn’t truly a river, where a car drove through the guardrail. That’s what I’m looking for. Have you had any kind of accidents in your town like that since New Year’s Eve?”

      "This is a joke right?”

***

      Red gave up on the garage. Damned beast wasn’t moving except when it was out tearing up the contents of the neighbors’ garbage cans or running from animal control.

      He tried to concentrate on what he needed to do inside. He kept the dishes up and did his laundry, although he couldn’t figure out for the life of him why she insisted on doing three and four loads when he only needed one. Screw it if his underwear went gray. The only person to see it was him. And it was refreshing to be rid of the pink towels and sheets, and all her pink sweaters, bras, panties and the like. Although his blue jeans, gray and black sweats, and dark green work uniforms were kind of boring to look at.

      He missed the music. When he wandered around now, it was so quiet and lonely. When Willie worked, she sang. As much as he hated to admit it, it was nice to hear. Now when he put on the radio just to give him another voice in the house, a song would come on that she used to sing, and he swore he could hear her voice in his head singing the words. Sometimes when she wasn’t sure of a lyric, she’d make one up. As slow as she was, once she had that memorized, no way could she change back to the right lyric, nor would she admit that she blew it to begin with. In its way, it was funny. ‘Rockets red glare’ became ‘blare’, and ‘A candle in the wind,” became ‘a canvass in the window.’ Of course when he heard ‘Tie a yellow a ribbon around the old oak tree’ on the radio, he swore he could still hear her sing about tying ‘a pink ribbon’ instead because she didn’t like yellow.

***

    The last phone call Evelyn made was to Karolyn Mathers. “This is Karolyn Mathers,” a recording on voicemail responded. “If you could leave a detailed message, name, phone number and the time of your call, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

      “This is Evelyn Pratt. You know, Willow’s mother. You’re working on her dis­appearance for us. You said we should look for a bridge with a broken guard rail. Well? We’ve looked. We’ve been all over. I’ve called all over. Do you have any­thing else?     Anything?”

      Karolyn Mathers didn’t return this phone call as quickly as the last one. In fact, she didn’t call back that night at all.

***

     Like the night before, Mikey went to bed early. Marie made an excuse to tuck him in. “Spoil him,” Mom warned.

     Marie ignored her. A little extra love wouldn’t hurt either of them.

She slipped into his room and slipped into his bed again. “Tell me your stomach doesn’t hurt tonight,” she instructed as she pulled him close.

     “No. It feels good. What did you think of Sophie? She’s nice, isn’t she?”

     “She sure is.”

     “Pretty, too.”

     “Yep. You really like her, huh?”

    “When Dad’s out of town and Grandma has plans, she sends me over there. I ate there on New Year’s Day, and too, during the big storm when Grandma went down to see you. She got caught at a hotel and couldn’t come home for two days. So I went over there. Sophie made spaghetti. I wanted to go over there for Bill’s birthday, but Grandma said no. Sophie made him a afghan. It’s pretty.”

     “Is she a good cook?”

     “Uh huh.”

     “Is there anything she can’t do?”

    “Well, she keeps trying to plant a garden. She says she has a black thumb. Every­thing curls up and dies on her.”

     “Oh.”

     They hung on to each other for a good few minutes and Marie began to think that maybe her boy had fallen asleep. “Mom?” he asked finally.

      “Yeah, Mikey, what’s up?”

      “Dad? Is he out of town?”

      “Sault Ste. Marie.”

      He nodded.

      “Do you and Dad get along?”

      “Sure.”

      That was almost too quick for comfort. She wasn’t sure about her next statement, but she decided to commit herself. “He makes me nervous.” Mikey didn’t say a thing.

Friday

February 7th

      Evelyn paced most of the day. She had errands to run and people to call. She was afraid though, if she picked up the phone and made a call, that would be the mo­ment that Karolyn Mathers would return her call. She guarded the phone, refusing to allow Pam or Erica by it, and refusing to allow herself those few minutes it would take to buy gas for Harry’s car or even purchase a lottery ticket.

Saturday

February 8th

    Once again Karolyn Mather’s phone went directly to voice mail. “This is Karolyn Mathers. If you could leave a detailed message, name, phone number and the time of your call, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Saturday,

February 15th

      Red helped himself to another beer and wandered to the kitchen window. He relit the dooby stuck to his bottom lip and sucked. Ashes and bits of loose grass fell into the sink, and seeds popped as they ignited. When he tried to pull it away, it took just a speck of live skin from his bottom lip. He held the smoke in and tried to think. Somehow he had to figure out how to get rid of that beast. He needed to get to the garage. He wanted to check on his ‘baby’, and maybe work on the carbu­retor.

     That made him chuckle. Beer and pot weren’t good thinking aids. That had him wondering what would happen if he fed the coyote some beer and blew smoke up his nose. Now that was funny. Real funny. It was so funny, he choked on what he held in his lungs. He laughed and coughed together. He sucked on his dubey again and tried harder not to laugh. “Dooby, dooby, dooby, dooby, dooby,” he hummed without opening his mouth. If Willie was here, she’d be singing her heart out right now. ‘Strangers in the dark, exchanging glances...” Yeah, him and the damned coyote. Now that made him laugh. Smoke shot from his mouth and his nostrils, and he wiped his slobber away on the back of his hand.

     The flames shooting from the garage roof caught his attention. God they were pretty. Bright red, orange and yellow, and even blue. And no pink either.

      Damn, he dropped the dooby in the sink

    Two hours later that big lieutenant, the one whose father was the fire chief for years, handed him what was left of a pink coat. “Fell on your space heater.” The bastard turned away. Talking to someone else he asked, “What kind of moron leaves a space heater on unattended? Freakin’ stoner.”

Sunday,

February 16th

    Well, the coyote had finally had enough and went away, leaving a smoldering wreck behind it. His ‘baby’ was a burned out shell, and his garage had no roof. The floor though, wasn’t damaged. Then the rain started. It doused what was left of the smoke, and it rinsed the carbon and soot away from the floor. The only thing left was the pink paint. Willie had a vengeful side to her, but would she really want to see the only happiness he had in this world destroyed?

Monday,

February 17th

    The woman was actually rude. “You know I have other clients,” Karolyn Math­ers remarked.

     “I understand that. Still. Tell me there’s something else you can tell me. You said that was the beginning. Tell me you saw something else,” Evelyn demanded.

      “You want something else?” There was a pause at the other end of the phone. “Let me pray on that,” she said after a moment. “I think, though, if you look again. I mean you must have missed something.”

      “Just a little something,” Evelyn begged. “Please.”

      “I’ll call you back.”

Wednesday,

February 19th

      “Does Willow have any children?” Karolyn Mathers asked when she finally called back.

      “No, of course not,” Evelyn responded.

      "I see children.”

      “I don’t know why. She doesn’t have any. She wasn’t married.”

     “Two degrees of separation,” the woman continued. “There’s one in particular. A boy. Find that boy.”

      “What boy?”

      “Find the boy.”

      “I have four girls. Girls. No boys.”

      “Just find the boy.”

      “Tell me where. How.”

      “That’s up to you. All I can tell you is what was showed to me.”

    By the time she hung up the phone, she realized that every hope she ever had of someone actually caring enough to help her had been shattered. If Willow was out there somewhere, it would be up to the police or someone who just happened to stumble on a body or something equally as sickening.

Tuesday,

February 25th

    The breakfast rush had ended when a blonde woman in a pink quilted coat hur­ried through the front door. “Can you call the police?” she asked. “Please?”

    “Why? What is going on?” Bonnie Rennault made her way towards the front counter.

    “There’s this man out there,” she said. She looked agitated, turning her head back and forth between the door and Bonnie, moving forward, reaching out to Bonnie.

Red Stubs stopped by the front window. He cupped his hand over his eyes and peered in. Bonnie backed up and picked up the phone. “Come back here, and sit,” she instructed the woman.

     Stubs opened the door, making the little bell above tinkle. “Willie? Where is she? Willie?” He stood in the doorway, with the door opened, and examined the room from front to back.

     The woman backed away and Bonnie dialed. “Willow is not here. You know that. Now you go away before the police come.”

    “I saw her,” he said, his voice raising. “She’s back there.” He pointed towards where Bonnie had sent the woman. Red started to make his way back.

      “911,” a woman replied on the other end of the phone line.

Bonnie quickly explained, but when she noticed two officers stop at her window, she waved them in. “He is bothering my customers,” she told them. One was that mountain of a woman officer that arrested her and Florence in January.

    “Where’s Willie?” Stubs demanded loudly. He pranced back and forth, from one end of the cafe to the other. “I saw her! Now where is she? Willie? Willie? You back there?” He turned towards the kitchen entrance. “Willie?” Marie, wearing a drenched white apron that came to her knees, stepped through saloon doors. “You see Willie? Marie? You see Willie?”

      “She isn’t here."
     “Willie’s there. I saw her. You tell her to come out here, or I’m coming in after her.”

   Marie stepped back into the kitchen as Bonnie nodded at the officers. “Please. Willie, as he calls her, is gone. She is not here.”

    The officers each took one of Stub’s elbows. “She’s not here,” the one said. “Let these people be.”

     “I saw her come in here.” He pointed at the back. “Willie! Willie!”

   “Come on,” the other tried to soothe. Coming from her mouth, the words sounded unnatural. “It’s Red, right?” He nodded and she tugged at his elbow. “Come on, Red. We’ll find Willie somewhere else.”

*

    The soup was on, the meat for sandwiches was sliced, and the breakfast dishes were done. Marie helped herself to a cup of Colombian and took her usual spot at the table closest to the stage. It wasn’t bad enough that Red interrupted them mid­morning, but Bonnie waited on Milk early that morning. She approached Marie’s table with her own cup and sat opposite. “I used to see Red every morning when Willow worked here. Now I see Milk. Tell me you’re in love with him.”

    Marie pushed a chair out with her foot, and then used it to rest both feet on it. “Oh Yeah. Let me fuck up the rest of my life with Milk Borenstein.”

     “Then why is he always here?”

     Marie shrugged. “Got me.”

     “You aren’t interested again?”

     “No.”

    "Maybe been out of circulation too long. Settle yourself for anybody? As long as they are warm body?”

     "Not interested.” Marie glanced at the door, hoping someone would step in off the street, and steer this conversation away from this subject. “I can’t get rid of the bastard. He’s in town, he hangs around my mother’s house and terrorizes my son. His son.” She tolerated her coffee hot and black. Not that it was good, it was what she got used to. “I never saw him this much when I was married to him. He spent more time with Red.”

    “Hump.” Bonnie turned her nose up. She dumped what looked like a quarter of what was in the sugar bowl directly into her cup and stirred it up. She stirred hard and long, and she made the spoon clink against the inside of her mug. “Michael. How is he?”

      “Sick.”

      “His stomach is sick?”

      “Yep.”

      “Do you think Milk has anything to do with his sickness?”

      Marie turned hard eyes on her boss. “Is the Pope Catholic?”

      “Are you? Maybe you should pray for him.”

     “Maybe I should. I had him to the doctor again yesterday. He can’t find anything wrong with the kid. It must be Milk.”

      “Hump.” Bonnie put her spoon down finally, and not a moment too soon. Whether it was being reminded that her son had a problem she couldn’t help him with, or just Bonnie’s annoying habits, she was sure she’d start breaking dishes soon if Bonnie didn’t quit with the spoon. “How well do you know Willow?”

      “Well enough. Just never understood her attraction to Red.” Marie shook her head. “Now that’s a piece of work.”

      “Hump.” Bonnie nodded. “A real piece of work.”

Wednesday,

March 5th

      “This is Karolyn Mathers,” the voice on the other end said brightly. “I do have a bit more information for you.”

      “Oh?” Evelyn asked, “What would that be?”

      “Actually, I need to see you. And if you could, I would need another five hun­dred dollars.”

      Evelyn put the phone down and walked away.

     “Tell me,” she said to her family when they sat down at the dinner table, “That I did the right thing.”

     “You did the right thing,” Pam assured. “You did. That woman is a fraud.”

    Evelyn glanced from one person to the next. Erica wore a non committal expres­sion. Harry studied his meatloaf. If she got him to say something, it might be a hint that she screwed up either by hiring the woman to begin with, or that she hung up on Karolyn when she might have helped. What a horrible position. Did she make a mistake hiring this woman, or was the mistake in not paying her more? She vowed not to cry, but to hold on until she knew that she had something to cry about. She broke that vow. When the first tear escaped, she knew more were coming.

Link to March 8th