Page 15 of Good Half Gone

“The police.” I said it louder.

Dupont froze, then quickly stepped back outside, closing the door quietly behind him. “I’m going to fuck you up.” He pointed a finger at my chest.

The rain had picked up and was starting to soak through my shirt; I was so cold, I had to force my teeth to keep from chattering.

“I’m giving you the choice of talking to me or the police,” I said. Bold words for someone as scared as I was. I lifted my chin to look at his face and immediately saw what was about to happen.

I barely had time to brace myself; one minute I was standing on the stoop, and the next I was on my back in the grass, the rain hitting my face in tiny gasps. I lay on the grass behind the hedges, the wind knocked out of me. Before I could grab a good breath, Dupont put his foot on my chest, pinning me down. I wheezed—pain exploded through my lower back and sternum where the bulk of his weight pressed down.

“Gah!” I clawed at his foot with my hands, but he was leveling his weight on my chest, his left leg keeping balance as he leaned toward my face.

“Lucky for the old lady there are two of you.” After one last thrust, he took his foot off my chest, and I rolled to my side, gasping. I heard Gran’s voice calling my name and the slamming of a car door. No! I wanted to call out to her, but I struggled to catch my breath. I pushed myself to my knees, and as I stumbled to my feet, I caught sight of Dupont’s front door slamming closed.

“Lucky for the old lady there are two of you…”What had he meant?

Gran was still calling my name. I walked toward the street, righting myself with my arm stretched toward her. “Get back in the car. Let’s go.”

She was in their driveway. “Did that boy do something to you?” I stopped walking so she wouldn’t see me limp, but it was too late.

“Get in the car.”

“Gran,NO!”

She didn’t just knock; she pounded her closed fist, jackhammering where I’d rapped so timidly.

Piper was like Gran, and I’d always been jealous of their bond—their sameness. We called her the wild librarian, alluding to the fact that she paid for her degree by stripping. By the age of five, our mom was her bookkeeper, counting her tips after every shift and writing the amount in a little notebook. Gran gave up stripping as soon as she graduated, but by then she’d started dating married men. She lost custody of our mother when she was nine after being arrested for beating up her boyfriend’s wife. She’d walked the straight and narrow since getting custody of my mom back, and then when our mom failed as a mother, she raised us too. On the outside she wore a pink cardigan, but on the inside, deep where she kept it hidden, she was the woman who slammed her lover’s wife into the wall in a laundromat until she passed out.

The door opened more aggressively this time, and Dupont’s mother stepped outside, forcing Gran down a stair.

I glanced at the car; she’d left her door open when she hopped to my rescue. I began hobbling toward it when I spotted a light on to the rear of the house. Turning toward it, I slipped between the garage and the house, picking my way down the thin alleyway the buildings made. I could hear Gran’s voice,loud and assertive behind me, while Dupont’s mother tried to talk over her, saying, “Hold on now, hold on. You said what?”

The window glowed warm, and soon I heard another voice. My back was to the wall next to the window, close enough that I could peek around and look inside. My eyes took inventory: a bunk bed and a dresser, Dupont sitting on the edge of the bed facing away from me, the phone to his ear.

“Yeah, she’s out there right now screaming at the old lady. You want me to call the cops? You were supposed to take both of them, man, this is bullshit. Why can’t you come out—”

A scream echoed from the front yard. I heard him drop something and swear. Then we were both racing toward the front of the house.

He reached them before I did, because as I rounded the corner, I saw Dupont grab his mother from behind and drag her backwards—away from Gran. Gran, who was walking toward her across the grass pointing a finger, lurched forward. “Shit—” I reached Gran in time to yank her away before she got kicked.

“You crazy old bat!” Dupont’s mother screamed. “I’m calling the police!” I speed-walked Gran to the car and shoved her inside, keeping an eye on the driveway as I ran around to the passenger side.

“Go! Go!” I yelled. Gran peeled out, zigzagging into the traffic, and thirty seconds later, when she steered the Prius onto the freeway, I started crying.

She reached over and gently squeezed my knee. “Iris…later. We can’t do that right now. Tell me what you found out from that boy…”

I told her everything that happened from start to end, and when I was done, she stared straight ahead like she wasn’t seeing the road. I realized then we’d passed our exit five miles ago, and she was speeding—she never went more than five miles over the speed limit.

“Gran…where are we going?”

She didn’t answer me; she switched lanes, passing a truck that was going at least seventy-five. The sign above the overpass said we were headed to Tacoma.

My head jerked to look at Gran again. “Are you serious?”

She was a hundred percent serious—I could see it in the set of her jaw.

“You said we never had to go back there…” I hated the whine in my voice. I sounded like a little kid. I felt a wave of anger toward Piper. Why was she doing this to us? She could never just sit still and not get into trouble. She’d been doing this shit since she was little—making Gran panic, stirring the chaos until the hunger in her eyes was sated.

“She’s not going to be there, Gran!”

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