The openers crossed the deserted lot towards the Wal-Mart. Robbie stood atop the loading platform, watching them with his hands on his hips. The morning blush shown faintly in the horizon as the bus rolled slowly up to the corner of the lot. Its driver got out and pattered slowly down to the McDonalds that sat at the bottom of the hill. Robbie lit a cigarette. His supervisor came out and told the workers to hurry on up. Then he looked up and grinned.
“Going to be a hot one today,” he said. “Got any big plans?”
“Sleep,” Robbie told him. He flexed his hand, gradually working feeling back into his fingers. “It’s been a long night.” He tried to grin like his supervisor wanted him to.
“The same old same old.” The younger man flicked his tongue over his pale lips. “Same night, same day.” He shrugged, his mouth hanging open. “Robbie, why don’t you go fishing. That would be a good time. Why don’t you?”
Robbie knew to smile and act happy-go-lucky. “I only hope to get some sleep. That’s all.” He grinned. It faltered. He tried again.
“It’s going to be a blazer. Go fish and have a good time.” He clapped Robbie’s shoulder and turned back to some workers huddled, having morning coffee.
“I always have a good time,” Robbie whispered.
He looked down the road. Down past the McDonalds, the road looped around the shopping complex. Sometimes he loitered around the complex, going in and out of the stores like he was to buy something. Or he went to the IHOP for breakfast. But that was only when there was money left over and the kids had school and he hadn’t need to rush home to Tonya. He hadn’t been to the IHOP in months and he didn’t know the next time he could. Robbie considered, his eyes intent. Then he sighed and jumped off the raised platform. He dropped the cigarette into the pail they had by the garage door and buffed his hands clean against his front.
“I know you do. I’m only joking with you, Robbie.” His supervisor slowly cracked his finger-joints. “Don’t mind me joking. I mean, you don’t mind. Do you?”
“No, I don’t mind,” Robbie told him. “It’s been a long night,” he said, trying to grin. “I’ll see you later.” He wanted to say something more, but he couldn’t find the words. He eventually turned with a mumble, his mouth flexed with a terse grin, before shouldering himself down the road towards the waiting bus.
The driver was back with his breakfast and they had a cigarette together. Dawn broke around them and their shadows were long and thin on the pavement. It was going to be a hot day, and Robbie already felt a thick clutter in his head. He looked down the road towards the IHOP and thought maybe he deserved a good breakfast. But the driver was clambering back onto the bus and Robbie stamped the cigarette and got on. He sat in the back, resolving that it was best that he back, back to Tonya and the kids.
A brief rainstorm passed over as the bus laced the county back to town. Robbie watched the water-streams spiral down the window, thinking that he wouldn’t be able to much until he’d gotten some sleep. When the rain lifted, the world was bright as glass. The bus trolled Spruce River and Robbie saw all the way down past where the river damned into The Basin. Like the supervisor had said, it would be a good day for fishing. Maybe he could go for a swim at the high part of the day and then sleep the afternoon off on a big, flat rock. It didn’t seem like so bad an idea, long as they made it home for dinner before he bussed back out to the Wal-Mart.
“Going to be a hot day out there,” the driver told him once they’d gotten back into town.
They’d stopped at the little depot outside Chamberlain Park. Here was town hall and administrative buildings, the post office, a bank, a grocery, a pharmacy, a few new restaurants that’d recently opened. They were setting up a farmer’s market in the park and already people lolled around the stalls, talking with the sellers.
“Off to bed, are you?” the driver asked.
“Hope so,” Robbie told him, watching the farmer’s set up their products. There was a prideful jolt to their actions that made him resentful and sullen. “I’ll see you later.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tonight, you mean,” Robbie said and tottered off down the street. “Night five of ten done with.” Cracking a smile that didn’t trick anyone, he clapped his hands a few times.
“Hot as Hell, Robbie,” someone called. “Stay cool out there.”
They’d lived behind the pharmacy when Finn and Sandy were babies but they were now in the town’s historical district, where the streets were narrow and the houses tall and gabled and run-down. Modernity hadn’t broken this part yet. There was still the general store, the prison, and a saloon. It always gave him a funny feeling walking about here, considering how much money had been put into the other districts. Robbie clamped his teeth down over the cigarette as he came up the lane.
The apartment building was low and wide, made of stucco and wood. It was hot all summer and the wind blew through the cracks in the walls during winter, so they wore their outdoor things to bed. Robbie rested in the anteroom, then he jumped to hold the door for a little old woman. The woman nodded to him and said nothing else. People had come and gone from the building the last few years. Some were friendly and others kept to themselves and a lot of them looked like they were up to no good. Who knew what people felt about them? With all Tonya’s shouting all night? Their apartment was in the very back. It was only three little rooms.
“Dad, no breakfast,” Finn told him. “No cereal. No waffles.”
“No nothing?” Robbie took him up. “Well,” Robbie said, turning to the baby and patting her where her hair parted. “I was thinking about fishing later. It’s going to be sunny all day.”
Sandy wandered up. “We don’t have milk.”
Robbie looked in the cabinet and refrigerator for them. There was rice and canned vegetables, but he couldn’t make any breakfast out of that. Scratching his chin, he picked up the baby and held her against his shoulder. They stood at the window. Down the hall, Tonya dropped something heavy and cussed. The bathroom faucet ran. Robbie held himself with a rigid calm until the water stopped. Sandy brought him a glass of cold coffee in a dirty beer glass. He drank the coffee and tickled the baby until she began to giggle.
“Don’t bother him,” Tonya said, as she came in past them, her head bowed liked they weren’t there. “Let him go to sleep.” She rummaged through their odds and ends drawer. “He’s been working like a dog all night.”
“I’ll take them down to the market for breakfast,” he told her.
“What do you need to do that for? We have food right here.”
“There’s nothing for breakfast.”
“We have tons of breakfast things.”
“There’s no cereal or anything,” he told her quietly as he could. “We’ll be back in a jiff.”
“They’ve had their breakfast. I made them waffles and juice.”
“There’s no food,” Robbie said firmly. “I’ll need to take them out for breakfast.”
Robbie set down the baby and helped Sandy fix the golden ribbon in her hair before turning back to Tonya. She was going through the drawers of the little desk they had in the corner of what they called their “living room.” It was a small area to the side of the kitchen they’d dressed up with a sofa and some chairs. The desk he’d gotten for ten dollars from Goodwill. Atop it there was a few old leatherbound books, and she flipped irritatingly through their pages and tossed the books on the floor. They were old, nice books and he turned from her, wanting suddenly to take the cabinet-doors apart and smash them into a million pieces. Just so she would stop messing around with the books. He held himself still, afraid that he was going to go berserk. Then Sandy was tugging his shirtsleeve. She’d brought him the glass of coffee.
“Stop staring at me, Robbie,” Tonya snarled. “You always stare at me.”
“I’m not staring at you,” he said gently. “We’ll go to the market. Then The Basin.”
“What do you want to do out there for?”
“I thought we could go fishing.”
“Fishing?”
Robbie picked up Sandy. “I need to take them for breakfast, down at the market.”
“What market?”
“They have the farmer’s market in Chamberlain Park.”
Tonya snorted. “You would waste our precious money on that?”
“There’s no waffles or cereal,” he told her. “What’re we going to do?”
“You can’t get waffles at the market,” Tona slammed the top of the desk hard with her fists and spun away. “Farmers don’t sell waffles.” She giggled like he was stupid.
“I’ll need to take them for breakfast,” he told her. “Then we’ll go out to The Basin.”
He bent down and gathered up the books. Sandy and the baby tried to help but they only poked their stumpy fingers at the pages, their faces curious and timid. The baby couldn’t talk yet and Tonya had said the pre-school was worried about it. Robbie tried not to let himself worry on it too. He figured the baby would be alright once she got used being around others. Finn and Sandy were doing better though. He stacked the books neatly where they’d been, irritated that they’d been messed with. Someday the kids might want the books for themselves.
“Why do you need to go if we got a whole breakfast for you?” Tonya laughed. Then an idea seemed to have struck her. “I’ll go to the store for you. I need a little money for it.”
“That’s alright,” he said with a smile. “I can bring back breakfast.”
“No, no, no,” she said, shaking her back and forth. A shadow passed over them.
He told them to put on their sandals. The baby brought her sandals to him to do for her and he did so. Tonya stood against the door, staring past them, whispery words forming on her lips. Robbie gave Finn a sharp look and prickled Sandy’s belly as he drank the coffee.
“Give me the money and I’ll go for you,” Tonya told him.
“That’s alright. It’ll be faster if I take them.”
“How’s that?” she started to laugh, high-pitched and strained. “You don’t need to be running around after working hard all night. You let me go. But all I need is some money.”
“We’ll hurry back,” he said, rising to his feet and going to the door.
“You’re not allowed to not give me anything,” Tonya told him. “You’re not allowed.” She rushed him with her hands balled into small fists. “I want the money. Then I can go for you, like a wife and mother should.”
Robbie wrapped her up. She was soft and little in his arms. He stayed where he was holding her and then Tonya wiggled free. He grabbed her again and clutched her. He didn’t have to hug her too tightly. It was a bit like how the baby was when they were trying to get her to bed, when all she wanted to do is go with her siblings and play another game.
“Don’t touch me!” Tonya screamed and elbowed her way out of his grasp. She stood against the counter with her arms folded. “Don’t stare at me. I’m not kidding.”
Robbie stood tall. “We’ll bring back a big breakfast. Then we’ll go to The Basin for fishing,” he told her. “It’ll be nice to sit out by the water. Won’t it?”
“You don’t let me do anything. You won’t give me any money. I mean if you’ll give me the money. Just a little bit.” She touched her eyes with the back of her and then scurried down the hall. “You won’t ever let me do anything!” The bedroom door slammed.
The streets were full of people heading into the heart of town. Robbie carried the baby and held Sandy’s hand who held onto Finn with her other. The people they passed grinned down at them, and Robbie tried to smile back. It was hard to walk, being so tired and needing sleep. He tried tricking himself, saying how if Tonya had gotten breakfast than he would’ve just eaten and napped most of the day. They wouldn’t have gone fishing and he would’ve soon been up, bolting down a down dinner before taking the bus back out to the Wal-Mart. This way was better, that he could stay up with the kids, and make for them a good, ordinary-like Saturday.
Around Chamberlain Park, crossing-guards directed traffic and mailmen skipped with their bags over their shoulders. There were a lot of decent people about, working hard and looking like they had somewhere to be. Robbie knew he should feel lucky for his job but he also knew he couldn’t do it for too much longer. All the while, he smelled the dust that coated the stock room and heard the croaks of the other workers gradually laboring through the work.
“Can I get watermelon?” Sandy asked.
“I want watermelon.” Finn tugged at his arm. “Orange juice too.”
“You can get whatever you want,” he said and led them on.
Those working the stalls were folks from out in the country. Robbie liked them and wanted to ask what it was like farming. He bought a muffin and a cup of coffee, two paper cups of cut watermelon for Sandy, and a bottle of milk for the baby. He put the muffin in his pocket and sipped the coffee. A few times, he thought to ask if they knew of any of them needing farmhands, but the words were stuck in his throat.
“It must be fun to work on a farm,” he told them.
“They plant things,” Sandy said.
“They take care of animals too,” he told her. “All they do is take care of things all day.”
Robbie laughed after a moment and told himself to stop thinking about it. Bold plans were always in his head, but all they did was leave him hollow and low. Things probably wouldn’t change for a long while. He figured he would get off the third shift soon, but he couldn’t know what then. Until then, there wasn’t much to do about it.
“Can I tell you something?” Sandy tugged his shirtsleeve. “Mom’s here. Look!”
“She’s there,” Finn said. “I see her too.”
Robbie nodded and told them to keep on eating their breakfast. Behind them, Tonya was slumped against a Magnolia tree, her head loosely slumped like it wasn’t hers anymore. She now wore a polka-dotted dress of which hung loosely on her scrawny figure. In her manner was a belligerence that caused others to walk around her, to act as if she wasn’t there.
“Look!” Sandy said. “See her!”
Robbie kept the children close to him, his hand soft on their backs so that they wouldn’t run off. Tonya hadn’t spotted them yet and maybe she would get herself home. It was difficult to determine. Often he would be walking around town and would see her from a distance. He followed just to make sure she was alright. Sometimes he had to step in when she got into arguments or others were following her, them also up to no good. But mostly she loitered about, her head a bit awry, but without any true need for assistance. Even the newer townspeople knew her by now and they would leave her be, knowing she couldn’t be helped by them.
“You followed me!” Tonya shouted as they approached. “All I wanted was –”
“Look what I got you.” He showed her the muffin. “Freshly baked.” He broke the muffin in two. “Want a piece? We can share it.”
She looked down at the muffin then shook her head. “You were following me, Robbie. I know you were. You don’t trust me.”
“Nobody was following you or anything like that.”
“I know you were!”
“It’s alright,” he said and held her tight. “Let’s share the muffin,” he whispered over and over, gradually feeling her soften. “It’s a good breakfast, isn’t it?”
“It is?”
“Of course, try some.”
She struggled in his grasp but eventually softened. “Maybe we could take a walk to The Basin.” She said and ate a piece. She swallowed with difficulty and sniffled. “Would you like that? Like you said we could. Can we?”
“Then it sounds like a plan. I bet the fish are lying in the water waiting for us.”
“So, we can fish them?”
“I bet we can fish with our hands.”
“We can?” She grinned. “Let’s go swimming too.”
Over for the moment, they walked from the park, slow and steady, no different from the others. Tonya held the baby in her arms and Robby let Finn and Sandy walk alone. He put his arm on her back and smoked quietly, sometimes fixing the baby’s shirt or ruffling Tonya’s hair.
“See the rain this morning?” Robbie asked. “It hit the bus like crazy.”
“Rain, rain, go away and come back another day,” Tonya said.
He nodded. It would be a nice day out by The Basin. He’d show them how to fish the way he’d been taught and then they’d lay out in the sunshine. Maybe he’d get a chance to sleep, and they would get lucky with the fishing, maybe catch a few and boil up a chowder before he had to go back to the Wal-Mart.