Subduction by Kristen Millares Young

Author:Kristen Millares Young
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Published: 2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

BY THE TIME they unearthed the colorful stacks of paper plate holders, his mother was whipping up batter. Peter felt sick to his stomach, wanted to tell her, “Don’t make frybread,” but couldn’t, not when it would get her out of the way. The cleanup was ticking along smoothly, he and Claudia sorting bags of tchotchkes. True, seeing evidence of his mother’s obsessive, disordered mind made him feel like dying. He plunged his hands into hundreds of Neah Bay key chains, colors revealing their era of origin—first the beige and navy of the late seventies, then the fuchsia and highlighter yellow of the eighties, followed by the mauve and white nineties, which is when she seemed to have moved on to other things.

Claudia wasn’t saying much as she squatted over the piles, but he could tell she was thinking on something because her brow was furrowed, and she didn’t seem to notice the aroma drifting from between her legs, warm and pungent. To be frank, she smelled like raw clams left in the sun, but he forgave her, considering that this was their smell, and the only reason he didn’t find it familiar was that he liked to be long gone by this time after a tryst.

Peter watched Claudia sort key chains by color, plopping them into plastic grocery bags, and he didn’t bother to correct her obvious waste of time, happy to see her silky black hair fall over her cheek. From certain angles, she looked like she belonged here. If he let himself think that way, it would be something to settle down with such a pretty lady, even if she was on the skinny side. A man didn’t need much more than a truck and a woman and a place to park them both. They could buy a new house and set it down where this brokedown old trailer was, as soon as it worked out. Guilt broke in. He was daydreaming about his mother’s passing, and there she was, in the kitchen.

Luckily, Claudia didn’t seem interested in sorting the fried food baskets by color. She stacked them off to the side, the puzzled look on her face being replaced by something more, a gradual dawning he wished she would share.

“We should throw this shit away.” He kicked at a pile. She winced. “Recycle it. Donate it. Whatever. There’s nothing useful.”

“I think she was saving it for a reason.” Claudia traced the thin grid of a plastic basket designed to hold a square of paper and fries, something crispy and delicious, but which had instead for years held its dusty twin. Claudia inserted her fingers into the lattice, lifted a few from the stack, let them drop.

“I’m sure she thought so, but we know better.” Peter grabbed the bags of key chains. “It’s gotta go. This place is a firetrap. You should have seen the newspapers. The phone books! She couldn’t even move around. And it smelled! There’s no plan here.”

Claudia did not answer him. Instead,

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