Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle Read Free Book Online Page B

would prepare us for what lies ahead. Things like career disappointments, a parent dying way too young, a marriage that functions the way a mirage does, constantly forcing physical distance so you can continue to see something that isn’t really there.
    It is Christmas Eve —our first in this new house, our first in our new family configuration —a single mother and two young sons. Charles has already taken the little figure of Joseph out of the crèche several times and placed him at the far end of the table with a green Matchbox car that resembles the one his dad drives. “You live over here now,” I have heard him say and then nod and giggle as if the little plastic Joseph had just told him a joke. “You’re still my daddy,” he says, a recital of all he has heard during the past eleven months. He has claimed the Jesus figure as his own namesake and a little plastic Spiderman figure as his brother. I, of course, am Mary and keep finding my figure placed outside of the manger, close enough to see what is going on but out of the building nonetheless. “You are working in the yard,” he has told me. “You are at the grocery store and will be right back.”
    What makes this night different from all the rest? Well, the divorce would be the biggest difference. That and the fact that I invited their dad and their dad’s parents and even their dad’s new girlfriend to stop by for drinks in less than eight hours. And now I’m wondering why I ever did such a stupid thing. Because it’s the season of giving and forgiving? Because all the books say that kids need both parents, that if a parent is cut away from the child’s life it should be because the child decided to do it and not because one parent orchestrates it or poisons thoughts and feelings? Like all those times I have almost by accident swept Joseph and his little sports car into the garbage only to fish him out, wipe stuff like macaroni and cheese off of him, and place him back before Charles notices.
    The boys have told me that the girlfriend, Nanci, has two broken arms and talks without moving her lips. Whether these attributes are related I have no idea, and true to what all the books advise, I have not asked any questions. I am assuming she was in a bad accident. Or maybe she’s a ventriloquist who fell down a flight of stairs. She might not have even broken them at the same time. The second break could have been the result of trying to cater to the first.
    When they talk about Nanci, I can’t help but feel responsible. I wished for her after all. When the marriage counselor, after months of dead-end conversations and stalemates —hour afterhour of white noise and Kleenex boxes and that pasture full of dead horses we regularly flogged —asked what I really wanted, I stared out his window where I had watched a weeping willow move from icy tendrils to bright green and back again and thought: Out . I just wanted out. And it was at that moment I began wishing that he would meet somebody —anybody —so the path to the exit sign might be a little easier.
    I told the therapist that what I wanted more than anything was a dog that didn’t pee in the house, a dog who knew to walk right up to the door and beg to get out . My attempt at making a subtle point was lost to inarticulate execution.
    So, what makes this night different? It hits me when I open the back door to take out the trash. It smells like shit. Literally. The smell of raw sewage fills the air. Charles drops the cracker to the floor so he can hold his nose, which pleases Beau, our sweet but incontinent basset hound, who lumbers over to clean up. “Beau,” Charles reprimands and shoves the tired old dog with his foot. “You stink.” But it’s not Beau and I know that. I stare out at the rectangle of dead grass where the thin layer of snow melted as soon as it hit. I have lived here almost a year and know nothing about the septic tank. Just as I knew nothing about the sag in the foundation