Nancy

 

The park outside my window has turned brown. From up here in my stuffy office, it looks like a world of brown, interspersed here and there with patches of green. Kids play in the fallen leaves, kicking them into the air so that they settle like oversized dust. I watch them as I always watch them, wishing I had kids of my own and hating the idea at the same time. Kids bring happiness; kids bring out the worst in people. Kids bring joy; kids turn sheriffs into raging, violent assholes.

 

It’s three o’clock and work is dragging. Everything has been dragging lately. Dad is getting even worse, sometimes calling me at ten in the morning so blasted out of his head I can barely understand him. Mom has called me perhaps fifty times, begging me to come to California. And Fink has disappeared out of my life. It’s been a month and he hasn’t tried to contact me. I won’t go to The Mermaid looking for him again. I’ve put myself out there once. And Michaels might be there, waiting.

 

The only positive I can salvage from this past month is that the vandalism and violence between the bikers and the police seems to have stopped, at least its public side. At least I can tell myself when I lie awake at night, thinking of Fink, that I’m not thinking of a dead man.

 

I try and get on with my work, put my head down and comb over the document, wanting to find the person who invented legal jargon and string him up by his hands. Latin and over-complicated sentence structure and blah-blah-blah until I want to scream to bring some life into this stuffy office. Five past three, ten past three, fifteen past three. I look at the clock so often it’s like time is hardly moving at all. I just want to go home and take a bath and maybe touch myself even though I’ll feel rotten about it afterwards.

 

I click onto the calendar on my computer, idly, just for something to do which will bring me that much closer to home time. But something strange happens as I study it. A warning signal flashes in my mind, the same kind of warning signal that flashes when I’ve left the water running or the stove on, rushing back up to my apartment to prevent a flood or a fire . . .

 

“Shit,” I mutter, wondering how I could be so doughy-headed. “Shit, shit, shit.”

 

“Shit?” Janine says, leaning over my desk, looking annoyingly cool and chic and in, and to make it worse, she doesn’t even seem to realize how cool and chic and in she looks.

 

“I’m busy,” I say.

 

“Excuse me.” She holds her hands up, walking away.

 

I stand up and make for the exit, head pounding, belly aching, toes curling, world burning. I’m the biggest idiot in the goddamn world. I’m the biggest fool who ever lived.

 

“Hey!”

 

I turn. It’s my boss, Mr. Smithson. He’s a big-bellied big-voiced big-thumbed man, his big thumbs always hooked through his belt loops like he’s a rancher. “I need that Peterson proof by five. Where are you going?”

 

I ask myself: do I want to lose my job over this? The answer is, I don’t know, but at the same time, the idea of sitting up there for another hour without knowing . . . but my job . . . I curse myself. My whole life, sitting on the fence, my whole life, unable to make a decision, my whole life, seeing the best in people. My whole life, given over to commitment as though commitment is the Holy Grail, and I have to stay committed to everything forever even if I don’t enjoy it, even if it does me harm.

 

“I have an emergency,” I say, walking away before Mr. Smithson and his big voice can stop me.

 

I pace across the parking lot, aware that I might have just cost myself my job and not all that bothered about it, and climb into my car. I drive away from the building and the park to the nearest convenience store, tongue feeling too big in my mouth, so big and unwieldy that it’s difficult to make small talk with the cashier. I wonder if the kind-faced old lady will judge me for buying a pregnancy test, but she just scans it through with my toilet paper, chocolate, and cereal (purchased for camouflage).

 

I return to the car. I need to get back to my apartment and pee on this blasted stick. I curse myself again for being so flighty. That’s not me, but then, it’s not me to barge out of work, either, and it’s definitely not me to do it so brazenly. For the first time in years, I wonder if I really enjoy that job at all, or if I didn’t just take it because it was the only job I could find in Salem and I wanted to stay close to Dad, to try to help the old sneering drunk when really I don’t owe him a thing.

 

I’m halfway to my apartment when the old sneering drunk calls me. I pull to the side of the road and answer.

 

“Hello, is this Nancy?”

 

“Miss . . . I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.” It’s Dad’s neighbor; I recognize her voice.

 

“Miss Stamper,” the woman says. “It’s your father. He’s waving a gun around in the hallway of the building and they . . . well, the police have come and gone and haven’t done a thing. He said he’d stop, but he just keeps doing it, and . . .”

 

I sigh, but not one of defeat. It’s a sigh of rage. “I’ll be right there, Miss Stamper.”

 

Maybe it’s confidently striding away from my boss, or maybe it’s the pregnancy test sitting under a packet of toilet paper, but I’m pissed off. I’m so pissed off my knuckles turn bone-white as I grip the steering wheel. I’m pissed off at Dad for putting people’s lives in danger and I’m pissed off at his cop buddies for not giving a damn. I come to a screeching halt outside Dad’s apartment building. A few families are gathered outside like the building is a crime scene, which it very well might become.

 

I leave the car with the grocery bag in my hand. I’m not sure why I pick it up. I guess it’s routine. I only realize it when I’m at the main door, and the idea of walking back across the street—with the families watching me in confusion—doesn’t appeal to me. So I walk up the stairs to Dad’s floor.

 

I hear him before I see him. “Think they can tell me what to do. Do they know who I am? Do they know who I am? I’m the goddamn law, missy. I’m the law, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You think you can talk down to me? Who do you think you are? Something big? Something special? I’m the goddamn law! How many bandits did this lawman lock up, huh? And they think they can just . . . Nancy?”

 

He pauses, gun held over his head, pointing up at the floor above.

 

I step forward, grocery bag held like a shield. “Dad, what are you doing? You’re scaring people.”

 

He squints at me with his bloodshot eyes. “Scaring people? How am I scaring people? I’m just try’na make people see.”

 

“See what?” I ask, inching forward, wondering why I stuck around for this man. He clearly doesn’t care about me. He clearly never has.

 

For the first time in years, I let myself listen to the niggling voice inside of me: he uses me so that he has someone to drive him around when he wrecks his car, to criticize when he feels like dirt. He uses me, and he always has, and he always will.

 

I clench my teeth as I talk, restraining my anger. “All I see is your gun, Dad. Is the safety on?”

 

“Of course the . . .” He squints at it, and then flips a sWolf. “Oh, it wasn’t. Okay, sorry? What do you want from me?”

 

“Can we talk in your apartment?”

 

He watches me for a moment, and then nods. “Fine, fine. That’s just fine and dandy.”

 

We go into his apartment, which looks like a bomb has hit it: dishes everywhere, clothes everywhere, cans and bottles everywhere. Flies buzz around the overflowing trash bag, takeout containers stacked hip-high. I ignore the filth, place my grocery bag on the one unoccupied area of counter, and face Dad.

 

“You need to put the gun down,” I say.

 

“I need—”

 

I fold my arms. “I mean it. Put that gun down or I’m calling Fink.”

 

“Fink, Fink?” Dad laughs raucously. “You mean your little biker friend?”

 

“He’s not so little.” I take a step forward, looking at Dad dead-serious. He’s pitiful, I reflect, sweaty and old and ugly and mean. Once this is over, I’m done, I tell myself. I won’t let this man twist me anymore. “And maybe you’ll say your cop friends will protect you, but do you really want to take that risk?”

 

He mumbles something, and then places the gun on the counter next to my grocery bag. But he’s drunk, of course, because he’s always drunk. He slips and knocks the grocery bag to the floor. My heart drops. For the second time today, I curse myself for being stupid; I should’ve just returned to the car.

 

Dad’s drunken eyes follow the pregnancy test as it spills out of the bag and falls to the floor. Before I have a chance to stop him, he darts forward, falling to his knees and scooping the test up, holding it close to his face as though struggling to comprehend what he’s seeing. When he’s finally lumbered to his feet, he turns on me with the test in one hand, the other bunched into a fist.

 

“What is this?” he asks.

 

Maybe I’d crumble on any other day, but my anger bolsters me. “It’s a pregnancy test,” I say, voice full of acid.

 

“Why do you have it?”

 

“I’m sure you can work it out. And don’t look at me like that. I’m twenty-three years old!”

 

“You’re not married.”

 

I laugh bitterly. “So suddenly you’re Mr. Family Values? Is that really the game you want to play? Don’t stand there and try and act self-righteous, Dad, because you just look stupid. You have no right to judge me for anything, especially when it comes to family.” The anger rolls on, unstoppable. Years of withheld rage escapes my lips.

 

“What sort of father were you?” I roar. “What sort of person were you, for that matter? You had a wife who loved you and a daughter who adored you, but all you ever cared about was the bottle. Oh, just one more drink, just one more drink . . . do you know how fucking pathetic you sound? Do you know how sad you looked day after day, that smile on your face as you sipped from your whisky bottle, the smile growing darker the more you sipped? Sad, old, fucking pathetic loser.” I spit the words, trembling with unbridled rage.

 

“Is that how you talk to your father?” Dad asks, tears in his eyes. “Maybe I should have beaten you after all! You and your whore mother! Look at you. First that cunt runs off to California with a goddamn fairy, and now my only daughter is pregnant by a criminal!”

 

“That’s enough!” I scream, taking a step forward and raising my hand. “One more word and I’ll slap you across the face!”

 

“Does the truth hurt?” he sneers. Your mother’s a whore and you’re a—”

 

I slap him across the face so hard he drops the pregnancy test. As he reels back, recovering, I pick up the test and pick up his gun.

 

We stand opposite each other for a time, Dad with his hand to his cheek, tears streaming down his face. “You hit me,” he says. “All these years, I’ve never hit you. And you hit me.”

 

“Can you blame me?” I snarl. “Can you really blame me, Dad?”

 

“What, are you going to shoot me now, too?” He looks at the gun, which I hold facing the ground. “Is that your grand plan?”

 

“I’m taking this gun so you can’t cause any trouble for your neighbors. And I’m leaving, so get out of my way. Oh, and call Mom that horrid word again and maybe I will shoot you!”

 

“You’ve chosen her, have you?” He coughs out a laugh.

 

“I chose you!” I exclaim. “I stayed here with you when I could’ve gone anywhere after college! I stayed here and withered and now I feel like an idiot for it! I tried to help you. For years, I tried to help you. For years, I saw the best in you. And for what? For you to call me a whore because I might be pregnant? You don’t offer support. You just offer criticism. You’re a leech. You’re poison.”

 

I barge past him before he can reply. In the hallway, I hide the gun in my waistband and then walk downstairs, pregnancy test clutched to my chest, heart pounding in my brain.

 

It’s only when I drive home that the tears start falling.