I SKIM TEN DOLLARS from the floorboards to buy myself a new pair of shoes from the Rag. I have seven work checks, made out in my name, and no bank account in which to deposit them. I need picture identification to open a bank account, and so far I haven’t even been able to find my birth certificate. I asked her for it once, and her eyes got bleary before she walked away without saying a word. I have a social security card, Margo Moon and a nine-digit number that tells the world I’m a valid American. Since I don’t have a photo ID, Sandy had to take my word for it when she hired me.
All seven of my checks sit inside my worn copy of Little Women. I wear Delaney’s rain boots to work in the meantime. Judah says his mom won’t even know they’re missing, but I’m not in the habit of stealing rain boots then parading them around their owner.
Sandy looks me up and down when I walk in. “It ain’t even raining,” she says. “And those are happy boots. You ain’t happy.” I shrug. Sandy just got braces. It’s hard to take an adult with braces seriously.
Before the store opens, I find a pair of red Converse with minimal wear in the teenybopper section. I switch them out with the rain boots and put my seven dollars in the register. I’ve never had a pair of Converse before. Just sneakers from Wal-Mart. I feel like a million bucks—or seven, depending on the way you look at it. When Sandy sees my new shoes, she gives me a thumbs-up. I do a moonwalk across the Rag’s floor. I don’t know why I’m so good at moonwalking. Sandy tells me that I’m a white girl with a gift, as she eats a bluffin from the gas station and bops her head to “Billie Jean.” I stay late at work, helping Sandy sort a late delivery, and I almost miss the last bus of the night. The driver frowns at me when I pound on the doors just as he’s pulling away, but he lets me on and I give him my biggest smile. By the time I climb off at my stop, I’m so exhausted I can barely keep my eyes open. I carry the rain boots to Judah’s house and prop them against the front door. Most of the neighborhood is sleeping already—even the crack house. I am creeping away when he calls out to me. I can’t see him. He must be sitting in the dark at the window that faces the street.
I walk quickly toward his voice and crouch down, trying to see him through the screen.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” His voice is different.
“I brought back your mom’s boots,” I say cautiously. Then, “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
There is a long pause. I can hear his breath moving in and out of his lungs.
“I was waiting for you to walk by.”
I look over my shoulder, at the dead night, the dead street. Not even the frogs are singing tonight. I make a decision.
“Can I come in?” I whisper.
His head moves up and down, but just barely. I go to the door and open it slowly. No creak escapes from the hinges, and for that I am relieved. The last thing I want is Delaney coming out of her room to find the prostitute’s daughter creeping around her living room. The house is dark except for a candle that is burning in the far corner of the room. It smells of cinnamon.
Judah’s chair is pulled right up to the window. I wonder how often he sits there watching the world from his chair. His shoulders are curled inward, his head drooping from his neck. The chair is wearing him tonight, I think. I go to him, kneel down, and put my hands on his knees. I’ve never touched him before. Never dared. His knees are frail, thin. Not like the rest of him. Judah was born to be big, and tall, and powerful, and life stole that from him. How heavy is that burden? His head comes up a little, just so we can exchange looks. He seems … tired.
“Judah,” I whisper. “Why were you waiting for me?”
He blinks slowly, like he’s in some kind of trance, then he looks back out the window.
“I always have.” There is such utter dejection in his voice, I draw back.
He lifts his arm and points across the street. “There, where the blackberries grow in summer…”
I look to where he’s pointing. There is a thicket of bushes across the street. No one ever trims them back so they grow wild around an empty lot.
“I saw you there for the first time, picking berries with your mother. I mean, you’d lived here your whole life, and so had I, but that was the first time I looked. You were real little—missing teeth, scraped knees little. Your hair was ratty and so blonde it looked white in the sun.”
I search for this memory. Blackberry picking with my mother. Yes. She used to make pies. We’d take bowls and fill them up, staining our lips with the purple juice as we ate and picked. She would tell me stories about how she used to do the same thing with her mother. Before she tried to drown her, that is.
“Your skin gets real tan in the summer,” he continues. “In the winter you’re like the snow, but when summer comes you look like a Native American with spun gold hair.” I look down at my arms. It’s too dark to see the color of my skin, but I know he’s telling the truth. I don’t know where he’s going with this. He’s not himself.
“You know what I thought when I saw you? She’s going to fight. You’d reach into those thorns to get the best berries for your mom; it didn’t matter if you got all scratched up. You saw the one you wanted, and you did what you needed to do to get it.”
“Judah…?” I shake my head, but he shushes me. Puts two fingers right over my lips and presses softly. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to a kiss.
“I was already in my chair by that time. I couldn’t do that. Not even if I wanted to. It’s funny,” he says, ”it took the wheelchair for me to see you … to see a lot of things actually.”
The candle is dancing, swinging light gently around the room. I study his face, wanting to hurry his words and savor them at the same time.
“I’m half a person,” he says softly. “I’ll always have limits, and I’ll never have legs. Sometimes it makes me want to … quit.”
I swallow his “quit” because I too wanted to “quit,” on many occasions. Namely when I am paralyzed by the thought that there might not be any more to this life than the Bone. A deep hollowness overtakes me, and I have to tell myself that I’m too young to know for sure. Give it a few more years before you quit, Margo. Right now, the thought of Judah quitting makes me panic.
“So what?” I say.
He looks at me. Waiting. I’m waiting too. I don’t want to tangle my words—say something flippant. I’ll never be good enough for Judah Grant, so I want my words to be what he’s thirsty for. Meeting a need makes you feel more rooted. How do I know this? Because I buy my mother cigarettes? Bring her tampons and saltines from the drugstore?
“I have legs, Judah, and I don’t know how to use them. Your life walks, and you’re going to walk out of the Bone and be something. The rest of us, and our working legs, are going to live and die in the Bone.”
“Margo…” his voice cracks. His chin dips to his chest, and I’m not sure if he’s crying until I hear the sniff. He grabs me, before I can grab him, and he holds me tight.
“Margo,” he says into my hair. “I’ll save you, if you save me.”
I nod, the words caught in my throat, sticky with emotion. That’s the best deal life has ever offered me.