Page 28 of The Wrong Family

Chad Allan wasn’t the reason her marriage and her motherhood ended, no. He was just at the ugly end. The whole thing had felt like a roller-coaster ride to Juno, one that she realized she didn’t want to be on until it was too late. The adrenaline of secrecy paired with an angry woman. And Junowasangry—at Kregger. Mostly. Hadn’t she put her life and career on hold to raise his sons? She’d done everything right, everything to benefit him—and yet by the time she met Chad, it seemed that Kregger barely looked at her. He looked at everything but her, in fact: the television, the paper, his laptop.

Chad’s son had seen them together, walking out of a Motel Six hand in hand as he drove to his part-time job at the art store. Chad’s wife, Julianna, filed a civil suit against Juno for sleeping with Chad, her client; and, compounded with the criminal charges brought against her, she didn’t stand a chance and neither did her marriage. Good ol’ Chad had played victim to save his marriage, the poor, wounded target of a predatory therapist who took her own issues out on her clients. While Chad reconciled with his wife on a trip to Tahiti, Kregger moved into an apartment with the boys. With the house in foreclosure, Juno slept on a friend’s couch and waited for her sentencing. Kregger would never forgive her; she knew that. She forgot herself, as people often do. She forgot herself for three months of mediocre sex with a man whose favorite catchphrase was “No soup for you!”

She reached for her water, her throat starting to tickle and her mouth filling with the dust of the crawl space; Juno felt like it was choking her. She was tired enough to sleep again, but her thoughts were keeping her wired. Chad Allan had come for a visit.

All these years later and Juno could still feel his lips on her neck, the little circles his tongue would trace across her pulse and down the steep incline that dipped into her collarbone. He was funny; that’s what she liked most about him. He made her laugh and he made her come: win-win. They hadn’t loved each other, and they hadn’t needed to because it was all for fun. She was in a fever then, crossing the line, wanting more, more, more.

And she was in a fever now, too—literally this time. Throwing off her nest of blankets, she let the air hit her damp skin. She was really sick, she realized. With whatever they’d had up above. The air was sharp, dragging its nails across her skin. Juno had been sick like this twice before: once, in prison, where the women passed around their illnesses like they did their cigarettes in the yard. That had landed her in the med wing for a week with pneumonia. And then once on the street, shortly after she’d moved to Washington, andthathad made her stint in the prison hospital look like a spa retreat. She’d picked it up at the shelter, no doubt, and a day later, Juno was shivering so hard she could barely catch her breath. She hadn’t known where to go, only that she needed to lie in place until whatever it was passed through her body. She’d been thirsty, too, but there was no way her legs would hold her up long enough to find water. She’d walked toward a bench near the water; there was a little park on the hill.

She was dreaming now. Chad was standing in a hotel room in his ridiculous Simpsons boxers, a warm bottle of beer in his hand. He was standing in front of the television, doing a little dance that made Juno laugh. Bart Simpson waved his middle finger at Juno from the left ass cheek of Chad’s boxers. Behind him, on the blue-lit screen of the TV, Juno saw another of her former clients, Pattie Stoves. Pattie had been seeing Juno about the guilt she had over having an affair with the minister of her church, Pastor Paul.

“No, no, no—” Juno said as Pattie, on the TV screen, rode the minister, her lips opening in pleasure. Chad, who thought Juno was talking to him, looked momentarily over his shoulder, winking at her. He was a stocky guy, muscular, and for a moment she watched him twerk as Pattie moaned from behind his torso. Juno was about to tell Chad to put on some music when she realized a song was already playing: “Summer of ’69” by Bryan Adams. Now Juno felt sick, even in her dream. Her stomach rolled dangerously as Chad shimmied toward her, his Simpsons underpants tented with his erection.

“Wheeeeeeeee…” Chad cried, bending his knees and throwing his fists into the air. Juno’s eyes switched to the TV where Pattie Stoves was sitting on her minister’s hairy knee obediently. She was naked and seemed wholly unbothered by it as he reclined behind her.

“Get out of here…get the fuck out of here, you’re scaring the kids.”

Juno looked in confusion at the naked woman in the television. She could see the minister’s chest behind Pattie, smooth and muscular, dotted with sweat. He was massaging Pattie’s breast even as she screamed at Juno.

Pattie was really mad now; she stood up, her breasts bouncing sharply in her anger. And then she leaned through the TV, her torso emerging from the screen like it had been nothing but a box the whole time. She reached for Juno and grabbed her by the lapels of her coat.

“You’re a waste of life,” Pattie snarled into her face. Juno looked around for help. Where was Chad…? When Juno looked up again, she was suddenly in Greenlake Park, lying on a bench opposite the playground, Pattie’s scream echoing: “You’re scaring them!” But Pattie herself was gone; so were Chad and Pastor Paul, and a man was glaring down at her, his hands fisted on the shoulders of her jacket. He was young, and behind him was a little girl in a yellow coat, looking scared.

The man was leaning over her, bearing down. Juno lay on a park bench opposite yellow and blue playground equipment. She read his expression, noted the tight pull of his mouth, and realized he meant to do her harm. Juno tried to shrink back, but he kept leaning down into her face, saying terrible things. Her eyes darted around, looking for help, but none came. Overhead, clouds of charcoal rolled like the sky was about to split. To her right was a playground surrounded by pines so tall they disappeared out of her vision, poking at the gray thunderclouds. Could she use the covered slide as shelter? She’d done it once before, her bottom half curled into the mouth of the yellow tube, the rest of her lying on the metal pedestal that fed children into the slide. It was covered by a plastic roof that resembled the turret of a castle. There was just enough coverage from the trees that passing cops couldn’t see her. And then this man—this stranger—shouted her awake. He looked disgustedly at her as he shouted his next words: “Go!”

He released her abruptly, casting a look over his shoulder at the little girl. Juno fell backward, hitting her head on the bench, and then landing on her back on the concrete. She felt the pain burst in her head as she had then; sharp and blinding so that her vision blurred.

“Go!” he shouted again.

“Leave me alone,” Juno screamed, thrashing on the concrete. Couldn’t he see that she was struggling…that she didn’t want to be here any more than he wanted her to be here.

As the first drops of rain fell over the playground, he called her horrible names. But she wasn’t those things; she was a woman with nothing and no one, but surely she wasn’t just the sum of her mistakes. Must he take her bench, too?

“Cunt,” he’d said as he strode quickly away, snatching up his daughter like she was a cardboard prop. The little girl, no older than eight, met Juno’s eyes even as she hung over her father’s shoulder, bouncing with his steps.

Don’t see me like he does, she begged silently with her eyes. The child looked unsure, her little eyebrows drawing together. It happened so quickly Juno had to replay the moment several times in her mind to fully appreciate it. The girl lifted her hand and waved. It could have been that she was steadying herself as her father navigated the playground, lugging her back to the car, but Juno didn’t think so. She saw the girl’s little palm lift in a bumpy salute before she looked over her shoulder to where her father was carrying her. That little hand hung in Juno’s mind as she lay back on the bench gasping for breath. The porcelain palm of that child, accepting her with an innocent concern.

“I’m sorry,” Juno said. “I’m not what you think.” She wasn’t just telling the child with the deep brown eyes: she was telling everyone who was willing to listen:I’m not what you think. I’m scared, too. I’m sad, too. I want my family, but they don’t want me.

She woke with a start. The child was gone, the angry father was gone, Chad and his Simpsons undies were gone…the crawl space grinned at Juno. Her fever had broken.

She sipped timidly from the can of apple juice and thought of Pattie Stoves. Coy, shy Pattie—who wore Chanel N° 5 because her mother told her men couldn’t resist it, and who knew how to line her eyes in just the right way to speak to a pastor. Pattie Stoves, who had been cheating on her husband with the minister of her church. She’d spoken more of their rendezvous than she did of her children. By their third session, Juno had gotten the distinct impression that Pattie didn’t want help from a therapist at all; what she really wanted was a girlfriend with whom to share her secrets. It was a bragging thing, her coming into Juno’s office and telling her every detail in that hush-hush little voice. Around their third session Juno came right out and asked the million-dollar question Pattie had been skirting around for the last two sessions.

“Are you here, Pattie, because you feel guilty on account of having sex with your minister, or do you feel guilty about cheating on your husband?”

Pattie Stoves had mulled over that one for a few minutes, her gold sandals and gold-painted toenails bopping along with her thoughts.

“The first one,” she said sadly. But Juno didn’t see any sadness in her eyes. Pattie was enjoying her affair. She described her minister in great detail, drawing a picture of a very fit golden boy who’d been pressured into marriage right out of college, and had nothing but Jesus in common with his wife. Pattie herself was nothing to write home about, but she had the sort of body that could pass for much younger, and Juno noticed that she dressed to emphasize it. After a year of biweekly counseling with Pattie Stoves, Juno felt like she’d been reading a particularly saucy romance novel, one in the taboo genre. One Sunday, when Pattie was visiting family out of state, and Kregger took the boys on a fishing trip, she’d put on a dress and gone to the church—Juno had learned its name from one of her sessions with Pattie. She arrived late and sat in the back pew, holding a Bible she’d stolen from a Motel Six a few years ago. Pattie’s minister was exactly as Juno pictured him. She wondered if Pattie was the only parishioner he was having an affair with.

When she’d looked around the church, every female eye was unblinking as they watched him deliver a sermon on… Juno couldn’t even remember what. After that, her obsession had taken a slight turn, veering away from Pattie and her high-schooler tits and toward Pastor Paul Blanchard himself. Pattie told her that Pastor Paul liked to go to Tip Top Donuts on Wednesday mornings to do his devotions and spend time in prayer. Tip Top was at least thirty miles away from the church, closer to Juno’s side of town.

Juno figured he’d probably told Pattie that to get some time to himself; affairs tended to be time-consuming. She stopped at the Tip Top on her way to the office one Wednesday morning, forgoing the drive-through to step inside. And there he was, Mr. Pastor Man himself, having coffee with a petite brunette. From then on Juno made it a point to always go inside on Wednesday mornings and was pleased to see that Pastor Paul was always drinking coffee with the same lady friend. It wasn’t his wife, either—she’d seen the pastor with his wife at the Sunday service.

She supposed that if anyone were to see them, Pastor Paul would say he was counseling the woman; after all, they met in a public place. And as far as Juno had seen there had never been so much as a pinkie touch between them, and no one even spared them a glance. She’d started thinking that maybe there was nothing going on between them, and then one day she’d waited in her car, waited long enough to see them leave. Instead of getting into his own car, Pastor Paul waited five minutes in front of Tip Top, leaning against the side of the building, his head bent over his phone. Then, with barely a glance around, he crossed the parking lot, hopping over a short hedge, and approached a dark blue minivan. The door opened as Juno imagined the brunette’s legs were ready to, and the good pastor would do his work in the back seat of the Honda. Juno waited thirty minutes before driving away. She had a session with Pattie in an hour and was fascinated to know if her own view of the woman had changed with this new development.

But it hadn’t stopped there. The next time had been by accident; Juno was going to the post office when she’d spotted Cayleigh Little through the window, heading for the Food Mart. Cayleigh, who went by Clee, was in her late twenties, one of Juno’s weekly patients. Juno avoided run-ins with her patients if she could; it was awkward for everyone involved. But she abandoned her place in line to get a better look.

Peering through the glass and into the street, she followed the woman’s progress across the parking lot. Clee Little was single, she lived by herself in the city, and she had no family in the area. She claimed to be a sex addict, often detailing her antics with pride in her voice. For a moment Juno wasn’t even sure it was her, but then, she spotted the hot pink key fob she often saw in their sessions. It was dangling from Clee’s free hand. Her other hand was attached to a child’s, and she had a baby strapped to her chest in a carrier. The whole scene upset Juno, made her leave the post office and walk faster to catch up. Clee was dressed differently, in blue jeans and a T-shirt. Had Juno ever seen her in anything but one of her high-powered work outfits? She was on the sidewalk now, following the mother and her two children through the sliding doors. They headed for the freezer section, Clee with the baby, no older than seven months, attached to her chest. Juno watched, fascinated, as she piled frozen dinners into her cart, calling out for the toddler to slow down as he darted ahead of her.She could be babysitting, Juno thought, eyeing the carrier on her chest.

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