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Authors: Susan Palwick

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BOOK: The Necessary Beggar
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“No. I have my car, and Jerry's here. I'll be home as soon as I can.” She hung up, wondering numbly what the broken clown would add to the amount they owed Lisa, wondering how it had broken. She thought she probably didn't want to know. The clown on the hutch in the dining room had been one of the best clowns in the house, one of the most expensive: Lisa's mother had brought it back all the way from Florence, Italy. It was made of fine china painted with real gold leaf and inlaid with actual gemstones. It was hideously ugly, and it had cost a fortune.
“Is everything all right?” Jerry said.
“I don't know.” A friend's someone you can tell anything. Of all her secrets, this one was the least dangerous. She looked away from him and said, “My aunt and uncle have been fighting a lot. It sounds like it got pretty bad tonight.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“You're really having a rotten night, Zama.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey.” He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed; she felt herself relaxing into the warmth despite herself. Then she pulled away from it, because the nurse was coming back.
“Pierre,” Zamatryna said, looking up at the faded scrubs and the tired face above them. “That's her last name. Betty Pierre.”
“Great. Thank you.” The nurse made a note on her clipboard and said, “Okay, listen, she's in CCU. She seems stable at the moment. They'll start doing tests tomorrow. You shouldn't try to see her tonight; she needs to rest. Come back tomorrow, okay? Go home and get some rest yourselves.”
“Thank you,” Jerry said, and Zamatryna tried to say thank you too, but her voice wouldn't work, and then Jerry had her on her feet again and was walking her to the car. “I'll drive you home, Zama.”
“We have to get your car.”
“I still don't think it's a great idea for you to drive. I'll drive you home, and then I can call a cab to get to the frat house. I'll call a cab on your cell phone, okay?”
“I should invite you in,” she said miserably. “For tea or something.”
“Not if your folks are fighting. They wouldn't want me there.”
“Well, then my grandfather should drive you to the frat house. Or to your car.”
“No,” Jerry said. “He's upset too, right? Your aunt and uncle are his relatives, and Betty's his friend. Look, Zama, why don't you stop worrying so much about what you think you
should
do? Worry about what you need to do. Or want to do. Isn't that better?”
He sounded like Rumpled Ron. She felt anger flaring in her gut, but that was all right: anger steadied her. “Okay, I've got a better idea. You drive to the frat house. Take the pizza with you. And I'll drive home from there. It's not far.”
“But—”
“Jerry, please. It's easier on me this way. This is what I
want
to do. Okay? I need a few minutes to myself before I go home.”
“Okay,” he said unhappily. When he got out of the car he squeezed her shoulder again, but to her relief, he didn't try to kiss her. “Call me tomorrow and tell me how everything's going, okay?”
“Sure,” she said. She got out and moved to the driver's side. When she was buckled into her seat she said, “You like being depressed, huh?”
He was still standing next to the car. He bent, ducked inside, and kissed her on the cheek again, as he had after the dance. He smelled very clean, like soap and aftershave. “Don't say that. Everything may be fine.”
“Right,” she said, staring out through the windshield. She hadn't turned when he kissed her. “I have to go home now.”
“I know you do. Call me.”
When she got home, everyone was asleep but Timbor, who was sitting in the living room, waiting up for her. “How is Betty?”
“Stable,” Zamatryna said. Timbor's face looked like Betty's: gray and sweaty. “Grandfather, are you all right? You look terrible.”
“Ah. It was not a good night. Sit down, child. You need to know what happened.”
She sat, numbly. “Did Macsofo throw the clown at Auntie Alini?”
Timbor gave a small crooked smile. “No. She threw it at him.”
Zamatryna swallowed, feeling sick. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Not injured, no. No blood.” He was silent for a moment and then said, “They are getting a divorce.”
Zamatryna found herself shaking her head. “But—but we don't—”
“Well, it seems we do, now. We have become true Americans.” He put his face in his hands and began to weep, and Zamatryna went to kneel next to him, stroking his arm. She didn't know what to say. Families stayed together. Families always stayed together, in Gandiffri. That was why they were all here, in America.
She had to say something. “We—we're here now, Grandfather. We have to live the way people live here. There must have been unhappy marriages in Lémabantunk, too. Isn't this better? They've been miserable. We've all been miserable. And if Macsofo leaves then maybe, then maybe he'll realize what he's been doing and—”
“He isn't leaving,” Timbor said, his voice fiercer than Zamatryna had ever heard it. “That was what Aliniana wanted. She wanted me to kick him out. She told me I had to choose between my no-good drunken son and her, and I told her I could not possibly do that, that I would as soon cut off my own arm as cast off any member of my family. And she said I was defending someone who had been hateful to her and to all of us, and I said that I was talking about both of them, that I was talking about her, too, that I could not possibly willingly part either with my left arm or my right, and that throwing the clown had been hateful. And she said, well then, she was leaving.”
“That's crazy,” Zamatryna said. “Where will she go? She doesn't make enough money to pay for her own place.”
“Yes, Macsofo told her that, and she accused him of throwing it in her face and said she would do just fine, and her children would help her, she had talked about it with them already and they wanted to live with her, not their lout of a father.”
Zamatryna shook her head again. “But—he loves them. And they're in
high school
. They can't help her pay for an apartment by working at McDonald's. And if Max is decent to anybody, it's them. Oh, Grandfather, this won't last. She doesn't mean it. She's just trying to scare him.”
“I do not think so. Because she told us that she has been having an affair with the man who owns the beauty parlor—”
“She
what?
”
“You heard me. She has been having an affair with this man and she is going to stay with him. She is there now. She left tonight. Macsofo is alone in their room. And this man will help her pay for an apartment, too.”
Zamatryna fought the urge to laugh. “Do you
believe
that? Alini, sleeping with someone else? It's a story she's telling. She's been watching too many soap operas. Grandfather—”
“What else can I believe? Has she ever lied to us? She told Macsofo that it was his fault, that he had driven her to it by being drunk and cruel and impotent, and that he had only himself to blame.”
“Ooooh.” Zamatryna rolled her eyes. “She's been watching daytime talk shows, too. Alini the drama queen. And just how long has this supposed affair been going on?”
“Six months, she said.”
“Is the guy married?”
“I do not know.”
“He must be married. If he weren't, he'd be offering to marry her, not to help her pay for her own place. He's married and shacked up in a motel with Alini while his wife thinks he's at a beauty-parlor convention. If he even exists.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better, Zamatryna?”
She gave him a hug. “Grandfather, this is all craziness. It's going to blow over. She'll come back. This has soap written all over it; it's not real. Alini's probably staying with a girlfriend, plotting more stuff she can say to make Max feel horrible so he'll apologize for being shitty to her.”
“And the idea of Macsofo feeling more horrible, is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“If it makes him get his act together, yes.” She kissed the top of Timbor's head, feeling more cheerful than she had in weeks, and said, “Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine.”
“I do not think you would say that if you had been here.”
She grimaced. “Well, maybe I wouldn't. But it's a good thing I wasn't, or Betty might not have gotten to the hospital in time.”
“Ah. Poor Betty! You must tell me how that all happened.”
“Tomorrow. We're both exhausted tonight. I'm going to bed, okay?”
She fully expected, the next morning, to find Aliniana in her usual spot at the kitchen table, the crisis forgotten, just a bad dream. But she didn't. Instead she found her parents, looking grim, and Timbor, looking drawn, and Macsofo, alternately weeping and raging in nearly incoherent Gandiffran. Zamatryna, standing in the kitchen doorway, raised her eyebrows at her father, who jerked his head toward the back door.
When they were out in the yard, Zama said, “Were you there last night?”
“Yes. I was already asleep when you came in. Father said he told you about it. He said you do not believe that Aliniana is actually having an affair.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I don't know if I believe it or not. But Macsofo believes it, and he terrifies me. Darroti was a quiet, sad drunk who killed himself. Macsofo is likely to kill someone else.”
“Dad, Darroti killed someone else, too. A woman, no less.”
“Aye.” Erolorit made a face. “And I would never have believed it of him, and I still cannot. Of Macsofo, I would believe it.”
“Has he actually threatened her? Or this presumed lover? I mean, if you really think he's dangerous, we should call the cops and get a restraining order. Shouldn't we?”
“No. Or yes. I do not know. I do not want to involve the law.”
Zamatryna shook her head. “Well, look. Tell him that if he threatens anybody, we'll have to do that. Right? And tell him that if he wants Aliniana back, wants to live with his kids again—”
“You tell him.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“Zamatryna, he will not listen to me, or to Timbor.” Her father looked desperate. “He may listen to you. I think you are the only person he respects in the entire family. And he has not hurt you the way he has hurt everyone else, even his own children, so it will be less complicated if you talk to him. With everyone else, there is too much anger and guilt. He cannot hear what we are saying. He does not even wish to look at us.”
She shook her head again. “Dad, I'm not at all sure—”
“I know I am asking a lot of you. You do not have to do it if you do not wish to. And I know it may not work. But then I do not know what else we can do.”
“I'll try,” she said unhappily. “But if it doesn't work, don't blame me, okay?”
They went back into the kitchen. Macsofo was in one of his weeping phases; he had his head down on the table. There was a bottle of beer next to him. Zamatryna cleared her throat. “Uncle Max. Uncle Max, look at me, please.”
He looked up, his eyes bleary. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you.”
He took a swig of the beer and propped his elbows on the table. “And what do you have to say to me, little Zama? What everyone else is saying? That everything is my fault?”
“Not everything,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, “but a lot. You've been rotten to Alini. You know that. You've been rotten to nearly everybody else. You've been especially rotten to yourself.”
“And so I deserve this. That she has run off and is sleeping—”
“By herself, probably. Uncle Max, I don't think she's having an affair. I think that's a story she's telling to make you crazy.” She saw a flicker of hope in his eyes, and said, “I may be wrong. But she never talked to me about anything like that, and Alini's not very good at keeping secrets. If she were in love with somebody else, I think I would have picked up on it.”
He looked away from her and said stonily, “Who said love? It could just be sex.”
“It could be, sure. You've known Alini a lot longer than I have. You think that's something she'd do? Look, I think she's doing all this to try to get you to change. I could be wrong. But you need to change anyway. You're killing yourself.”
Macsofo sneered. “Like my weak brother did?”
“Yes. Just like that.” She saw him wince, and pressed her advantage. “You have to stop drinking. And you have to stop treating people like shit.”
BOOK: The Necessary Beggar
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