Lightning Field by Dana Spiotta

Author:Dana Spiotta [Spiotta, Dana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2002-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

He was driving with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding his coffee. She offered to hold his cup for him, but he waved her off. The kids lay low in the narrow backseat of the truck. Lisa hated it, it wasn’t safe for kids their age, but they had no choice. Mark kept spilling coffee on his thick fingers, and then when he took a sip of the hot liquid, some of it spilled on his shirt.

“Goddamn too much to expect a peaceful cup of coffee on a Sunday morning.” He rolled down his window and tossed outthe rest of the coffee. Then he tossed the cup in the foot well on Lisa’s side, where she watched it roll out of sight and clink next to two other cups already under the seat.

Lisa went over her shopping list.

“You know I only got thirty hours last week.”

She nodded and looked at him. He still had one hand on the steering wheel. The other hand put a cigarette in his mouth and snapped his lighter open, lighting it. He squinted at the dash, half from the noon-bright sun they now faced, and half from the smoke that curled out of his mouth. Lisa opened her window. Glanced at the cigarette and then in the backseat at the kids. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She found most things Mark did were bad for the kids to see or hear or have any proximity to. He had learned this by now. She went back to her list, whittling it down to its bare minimum.

“We can’t get much. We are already late on rent and the phone and the electric bill will come Monday,” he said.

“I’ve got nine hours’ cleaning money coming.” He didn’t look at her.

“Oh, well, that’s a relief. Let’s see, that’s what? A hundred and ten bucks? And then you gotta give Brenshaw some money to baby-sit, and that leaves about fifty bucks. No, Lisa.”

“Mrs. Brenshaw doesn’t care if I pay her anything. I just do some shopping for her and go to the post office. I help her cook. That’s all.”

Mark looked at her and then tossed his cigarette. He put a hand on her plump knee. She had gotten very heavy since the twins, and she’d taken to baggy sweatshirts and jeans. Her hair was pulled back, and she seldom wore lipstick or even earrings. Still, she was smooth-cheeked and young. He held her knee for a moment.

“You need to ask your mother for some help.”

Lisa stared out the window.

“No. I can’t do that, Mark.”

He pulled his hand off her knee and turned the steering wheel leftward, moving the truck into a parking space.

“Don’t be this way. We don’t have enough money. We are falling way behind.”

“Look, I’m not asking her for money. We already owe her money. I’ll pick up more cleaning hours. We’ll manage.”

“No, Lisa, you already can’t even manage to keep our apartment clean. There are piles of laundry and there is never any food in the fridge.

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