Tilt - Alan Cumyn [56]
Two or three mothers eyeballed Stan and Janine for looking too young to have a kid themselves, Stan guessed. But it was no one’s business. Janine lifted Feldon and hugged him for a moment before putting him on the high swing. She would make a terrific mother, Stan thought.
Feldon ran up and down the tall slide and Stan wondered what they were going to do with him if Kelly-Ann didn’t show up. What if she stayed in Montego Bay — in Jamaica! — with Uncle Liam, drinking fancy drinks and lying on the beach? What if Stan’s mother really did lose her job? What if something burst inside her from the pressure and she had to go to the hospital to die, leaving Stan in charge?
What would he do?
Stan watched Feldon run down the slippery steel. What kind of kid refused to slide? Janine was beside him, letting him do it. He was going to fall and break his front teeth and the other mothers would just cross their arms and say, “What are you doing having a kid at your age anyway?”
“Hey, Feldon, let’s go home, buddy!” Stan said suddenly. He clapped his hands like he was somebody’s coach. “Hey, Feldon. Stop running!”
“It’s okay,” Janine said.
Feldon was going to break his head on the steel post.
“Stop it!” Stan yelled.
The boy twisted, lost his balance. Stan lunged, caught Feldon by the arm, braced him with his body . . . and barked his own shin on the edge of the slide.
Stan said nothing, just held his half-brother and carried him down to the ground.
“Are you all right, buddy?”
Feldon squirmed, trying to get back on the slide.
“Let’s head home, okay?”
“He was all right till you tried to grab him!” Janine said.
A whole crowd of mothers was looking at them now — teenagers with a child.
Stan didn’t trust himself to speak till the wave of anger had passed.
Janine was looking so beautiful, it hurt not to touch her.
It was just a wave.
But he could see how a man could lose control and screw it up because of a wave.
Everything was tilted. The whole way home he felt like he had no idea what the next step might bring.
23
Feldon needed hot chocolate and a marshmallow. It was a minor miracle that both were in the cupboard. The marshmallows were particularly rocklike, but they melted in the hot drink.
There wasn’t enough mix for Stan and Janine to have hot chocolate, too.
No messages on the answering machine.
Stan’s mother had not come home yet, so maybe the office was not shutting down after all. Stan imagined if the place was going bankrupt or otherwise falling apart then everyone would be sent home early, like with a snow day at school.
He was going to have to get a note to explain his absence from school. Beg for a chance to write Stillwater’s test.
Feldon showed no signs of running out of energy. He wanted them all to play hide-and-go-seek, which meant he would hide and Stan and Janine would count and then stumble around the house calling his name. Janine kept bumping into Stan — in the hallway, in the den, on the stairs. Her thigh would angle against his, or she would touch his arm for a moment or put her hand on his hip, not quite on his rear but not far from it, either.
Feldon hid in the linen closet, under the master bed upstairs and under a blanket beside the sofa. Each time they let him go for longer and longer while they sat in the living room on the loveseat, quite close but not touching, not really. Stan counted out loud and Janine looked at him, and Stan looked at her.
He didn’t really believe she was there. It seemed like another trick of the mind. He wanted her so badly and here she was.
Dark eyes.
Heating the whole world.
Finally they found Feldon semi-snoring in the same cupboard in the kitchen where he’d hidden the other day. His chin leaned against the edge of a pot and Stan tried to extricate him gently, but he was not moving.
“Do you think he can just stay in there?” Janine asked.
They were both on their knees looking in