Free Verse by Sarah Dooley Page B

school today?”
    He laughed a little, a sad laugh like he didn’t understand the question. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, let’s, uh . . . let’s stay home and clean up the place, huh?”
    We did. We cleaned every last inch of the apartment. Michael vacuumed while I scrubbed down the baseboards. While he washed the dishes, I dusted each individual book on the shelf. I shined the windowpanes while my brother scrubbed the toilet. By the time the sun rose, there was no shortage of sparkling-clean surfaces for it to reflect off of. It made the whole place feel strange.
    â€œMichael?” I asked.
    He swallowed hard. “What?” This time I got the sense he was paying attention to me, so much attention that I couldn’t spit out my original question. I didn’t ask about our father. I didn’t ask what on earth we would do if he really wasn’t coming home.
    â€œCan I stay home tomorrow, too?” I asked instead.
    He shook his head as he slowly sank back into the couch, gaze finding the TV, where the same headlines cycled again and again, telling us nothing. A map flickered to life, highlighting where our county was in relation to the rest of thestate. Not everybody, even within West Virginia, knew we were down here, with our abandoned buildings and our single source of income.
    â€œNo, baby. You have to go back to school tomorrow. You have to get out of this place.” I didn’t know whether he meant our apartment or our town, and I didn’t ask.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I don’t remember deciding to walk from Phyllis’s house to me and Michael’s apartment in the middle of the night. It’s after one. I ought to be sleeping. I sort of wander down the stairs, and once I’m down the stairs, it’s easy to wander out the door, and once I’m out the door, my feet choose a direction.
You have to get out of this place.
My feet speed up, and gravel rolls under my feet. It’s dark, and the weather has snapped back to cold. The sky is heavy with clouds, and in the glow of each streetlight, I can see my breath for a minute before I plunge back into the dark. Snowflakes cluster under each light, not seeming to fall, only floating in cold clouds. It’s late for snow. From somewhere in my memory, I call up Michael’s term for April snow:
blackberry winter
. The berries are supposed to grow sweeter if you get a good snow in April.
    Caboose is dead quiet at this hour, but even dead-quiet towns have life. Somebody’s dog is barking, and from one or two windows, I catch a glimmer of TV light. I like the way my bare feet sound on the gravel by the highway. The soft crunch is earthy and it calms me down. I feel like I’mokay here, as long as I don’t stop moving, as long as I never stop moving.
    I end up at home, or at what once was my home. Our apartment was the top floor of this brick house. Although the first-floor windows are dark, I can tell there are still people living behind them. There are curtains and, beyond them, the soft glow of a bathroom light left on. It makes the upstairs windows look even lonelier, curtainless and completely dark.
    I let myself in through the back fence, the door the trash men use to empty the Dumpsters. This was the way I used to get in any time I forgot my key, which was once or twice a week. From the fire escape, I climb to the top floor and slide open the window with the broken lock. Without any groceries on the counter or dirty dishes in the sink, the kitchen doesn’t feel as familiar as I thought it would. I cross to the light switch, bare feet on ice-cold linoleum. The light switch doesn’t work, of course—nobody’s been paying any of the bills; nobody lives in this apartment—and fear creeps into my belly at being alone in the dark. My footfalls echo until it sounds like I’m not the only one walking.
    The place is filthy like we left it.