Page 53 of Goodbye Paradise
“You do have a place to live, though, right?” He looked worried, probably wondering if I was going to be a drifter.
“Absolutely,” I said quickly. “I’m staying with a friend out in Cheshire. She ran away from the same place five years ago. Maggie is a real help to me. She’s like family.”
That seemed to appease him. He lifted a clipboard off the desk and handed it to me. “Fill out this W-9, and we’ll see you tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock, sharp.”
“Yessir,” I said automatically. And he grinned.
Fourteen
Workingfor Joe Perry was awesome. In spite of his messy desk, he ran a solid operation. I liked the guys there, too. They were relaxed in a way that was unfamiliar to me. On the Compound everyone was always jockeying for position. The garage was calmer, and it took me a week or two to figure out why. The guys there punched in, worked (reasonably) hard for eight hours, and then punched out again. For their trouble, they got a check every two weeks.
So even when the place was a little too busy or a customer got snippy, nobody minded too much. It was just ajob. And when you clocked out, you could go home to whoever you wished, and say whatever you wanted.
To me, this was nothing short of revolutionary.
And Joe had been right about Danny. He noticed everything that went on at the garage, and had a kind word for everyone. Between Danny and his sidekick Jakobitz, there was always somebody telling a story, or making a joke.
I made sure to show up on time for all my shifts, and work hard each and every hour. Danny called me Caleb the Great, and said that I was the biggest ass-kisser the place had ever seen. “I’ll bet you five bucks that Caleb the Great is managing this joint in five years. He’s going to rule over us all,” he told his friend Jakobitz.
At first, it bothered me. But pretty soon I realized that this was just Danny’s brand of smack talk. He teased everyone, but not too much.
So I continued to do the work my own way. Because this job was everything to me, and I intended to do well at it.
The factthat had a job meant that I wasn’t home with Josh and the family as often. And so I wasn’t very focused on the fact that Maggie still wasn’t doing well.
I’d never paid much attention to newborn babies or their mothers before. At the compound, men weren’t encouraged to help or even notice them. And I hadn’t lived in a house with women since I was sixteen.
So I didn’t know what to expect for poor Maggie. All I could do was hope that things got easier for her. That she’d start smiling again.
She didn’t.
Daniel was clearly worried, but he didn’t say much. And they were both so tired. Josh and I would often roll over in bed to the sounds of a screaming baby, or the footsteps of someone pacing upstairs. Or both.
Sometimes we heard Maggie crying when she was upstairs with the baby. More than once, Josh had gone up there and taken Chloe from her, coming downstairs with worry in his eyes. He’d pace the floor, singing hymns for forty minutes until the baby slept.
I didn’t think much of it, probably because I was preoccupied. My new job was exhausting. My twenty hours at the garage quickly became more, because Massachusetts got a nice heavy snowfall, and half the state showed up to get snow tires put on. I clocked thirty hours during my third week on the job, and was giddy at my own good fortune.
Commuting to work in Maggie’s Prius was no problem, because she never went anywhere. That should have been a clue.
Things were tense at home, but I wasn’t around much to notice. I had Mondays off, though, which left Josh and I standing around in the kitchen drinking coffee together after he finished the milking. That should have been relaxing, except that Daniel and Maggie were fighting upstairs.
“You’re not eating, you barely shower,” Daniel said. “And it’s starting to freak me out.”
“What do you care?” Maggie argued. “I’m feeding the baby all the time. When I’m not doing that, I sleep. You would too.”
“Look, I know it’s hard,” he said. “But you have to buck up a little, okay?”
“Buck up?You don’t know a thing,” Maggie yelled.
There was a small crash, which froze Josh and I in place. Daniel must have kicked a shoe or a book or something, but where we come from, a fist to Maggie’s face would not have been all that unusual. So we were both bracing for the worst.
“I knowplenty!” Daniel yelled, “Not that you’ll give me any credit! I’m tired, too, okay! But at least I’mtrying.” He stomped down the stairs so fast that Josh and I were still just standing there, mugs in hand, looking horrified when he appeared.
Daniel banged through the kitchen and into the mudroom. “And I have a fuckingaudiencewhen I lose my shit and yell at my wife,” he spat.
The door opened and shut as he fled for the workshop.
From upstairs came the sound of sobbing, followed shortly by the sound of a baby wailing.
