“Maddox.” His voice is monotone, and I know that he’s been in this situation before. People looking at you and feeling sorry for you.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, my stomach burning as I think about when his last meal was.
He just shrugs his shoulders, and I know that’s rule number one for anyone who is ever in our shoes. Never let anyone in was my motto. My mother busted her ass for my father and us. Sorry, that is the wrong name for him; the sperm donor who would drag us down the black hole with him. No matter how much I tried to crawl out of that hole. “I can get you something to eat,” I say. “It might just be something small, but …”
His eyes come to mine, and they look as if there is no life left in them. There is no lightness to them like the kids in my life. “Hey,” Alex says. “Maddox, we are going to take you home.” She looks at me with a smile, pretending that everything is hunky-dory, and I know that it’s a fucking cycle. “I think your mom got held up.”
He doesn’t say anything because what can you say. “You have the address?” I ask her, and she nods. She stands up and holds out her hand for his, but Maddox just stands up beside her.
“You must be tired, buddy.” I smile at him, wrapping my arm around him and putting it on his shoulder. “I remember when I was in hockey camp, and I would fall asleep on the bus.” I look at him as we get beside the car. “Why don’t we get something to eat before we drop you off?” He just looks at me, and I know what he’s thinking. Nothing that I’m going to do will change tomorrow. Alex just looks at me, and I shake my head, telling her that it’s not going to change him. She gets the booster seat from her trunk and puts Maddox in and belts him in. She closes the door and looks over at me. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” The pit of burning in my stomach creeps in.
“I have no idea what the fuck to do,” she says, holding up her hands and looking into the car window. “But I know that if I can take him home, I will.”
“Okay.” I look around and pull her to me. “Whatever you say.”
She smiles up at me, and I bend to kiss her lips. “Let’s get him home and then we can get back home and do some more of that kissing.”
My whole chest fills. “Oh, is that so?”
“Well, you’re very good at it, and I want to make sure that it’s as good as it was before,” she says, walking to her side of the car. I get in and look back at Maddox, who just looks out at the window. I stop at McDonald’s and order him one of everything. He is so tired that he takes just a couple of bites of his burger before he says he isn’t hungry.
I put the address in the GPS and look over at Alex when it shows me that it’s an hour away. “How the hell did she get to the arena?” Alex mutters under her breath.
“One year, we took four buses.” I look over at Alex. “We had to get up at five a.m.”
“That’s crazy,” she says, reaching for my hand, and I slip my fingers through hers as I just look forward at the road. Following the direction of the GPS, I can feel the shift in status as soon as I turn down the block. The houses are older, the buildings have less and less luxury to them. Most of the windows are open as the GPS tells us we have reached our destination. “Oh, boy,” Alex says, and I look in the rearview mirror and see that Maddox had fallen asleep, but he opens his eyes and rubs them awake.
I look over at the brown apartment buildings all clustered together. I push away the memories that start coming back, locking them away just as I did all those years before. I look over at Alex. “You stay right next to me,” I say as I see little gangs of people forming in the dark corners of the building. “Alex,” I warn, looking at her. “I’m not playing right now.”
“Relax,” she tells me, and I don’t have time to tell her anything before she opens the car door. I jump out of the car, meeting her. I look around as she opens the door to grab Maddox.
“What apartment number?” I ask her as we walk toward the front door.
“Three forty-seven,” she says as I walk with her and Maddox in the middle of us. When I pull open the door, the humid air comes to you right away. As you walk up the concrete stairs, you get the smell of spices along with sweat and desperation. The sound of people yelling fills the air, as well as babies crying.