Jonah couldn't hear what they said. But the shoes came back and went out of sight behind the couch by the front door. Jonah waited to hear the door slam. "Goodbye, Jonah." Then the room was empty, with only the sound of the kitchen door thunking back and forth on its loose hinges.
Through the crack in the door, his mother stood by the sink with the water
running. The cool spring light washed clean over her.
~
Jonah was sitting in the armchair again when Lucy came in, kicking the door
open, two brown bags of groceries in her arms.
"Good evening, Mister Perris," she said from behind the bags. She always called him Mister Perris. She was 15 years older than he was but she still called him Mister Perris. He told her not to once, that it made him think of his father, but she still did it. She said she didn't like to get on a first name basis with her clients, though she called his mother Marge all the time. Lucy was that way. She did what she wanted, what she thought was right.
Lucy was a black woman and a nurse. She had been living with Jonah and his
mother for five months now. They hadn't needed her for that long but hismother had insisted. She didn't want to interfere with his school, she said. Besides, his father was paying for it and the man could afford it.
Every month Jonah got a check in the mail. He would write his account number and sign his name on the back of it before he deposited it, just like mom had taught him, but he always studied the signature first, imagining his father's hand moving over the paper. He wondered what his father was thinking when he signed. Did he just scribble off the names and shove it in the envelope, or did he pause and ponder the slip of paper, knowing that his son, his very own flesh and blood would handle it?
Jonah hadn't seen his father in years. He moved away when Jonah was nine. He lived in New York now. His mother never said why he left.
When Jonah was fourteen he had demanded to see his father. He had been gone five years. Jonah was fourteen. He needed to see his father.