The Devil in Silver

“This is the guy who knocked you down,” Loochie said. “And Louis.”

Now her mother stared at Pepper again. “That was you?”

He smiled because he liked the idea that she’d forgotten. Something so ridiculous on his part being hardly a blip in her life. But then he saw her scan down his unwashed hair and his tired face, the blue folder still clutched in one arm. His pajamas and bare feet. She didn’t recognize him. Had he really changed so much since then? Inside, he didn’t feel so different but the woman across from him showed otherwise. Pepper felt so embarrassed that his stomach clutched up and his thighs tensed and he wanted to get up, walk away. But he stayed.

The brother, Louis, opened his carton of Chinese food, steamed vegetables, and picked up a piece of broccoli with his fork.

“Well, I want to thank you for saving us from this game,” he said, motioning at That’s So Raven. “We’ve been playing it for six years.”

Their mother laughed quietly and looked at Pepper with slight embarrassment. “Not that long,” she said.

“Loochie was thirteen when we got this,” Louis said. “We took it to her when she was at Long Island Jewish.”

“And why did you do that to her?” Pepper asked Loochie’s mother. Even he was surprised by his bluntness.

All three members of the Gardner family snapped their eyes at Pepper. Louis stopped chewing his broccoli. Mom set the goofy game’s little chips down on the table.

Loochie’s eyes narrowed. “Watch yourself now, Pepper.”

He ignored her. “I’m really curious. What could she have been doing at thirteen that made you give her up like that?”

Loochie’s mother looked at Loochie, then at Pepper. She sat up in her chair as tension ran through her back and into her shoulders. “Do you have children?” she asked.

“Are you going to tell me that if I don’t have children I can’t understand?”

Louis finished chewing his food. “I used to have a plant,” he offered.

Loochie, surprisingly, had dropped her head and sat back in her seat. As if she was getting out of the way of Pepper and her mother. As if she actually wanted to hear her mother’s answer to Pepper’s question, too, but never could’ve mustered the courage to ask.

“I ask you that,” Loochie’s mother said, “because I want to know if there’s anyone you ever really cared for. Not just loved, but looked after.”

“I’ve tried to be there for people,” Pepper said. “If that’s what you mean.”

“Okay. And what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“How are they doing?” she asked.

Pepper pulled the blue folder against his belly.

“I don’t know.”

Loochie’s mother nodded. “That’s the worst part, isn’t it? You try, you really mean well, but you still don’t know what’s going to come of it.”

She placed her hand on the top of Loochie’s wigged head, very lightly, then pulled it away. “I tried to get help for my daughter. But the help she needed was more than I could give. So I searched everywhere, I asked everyone. What do I do? I don’t want to embarrass my daughter, so I’m not going to say how she was acting. But we checked her health. Blood tests. Scans. The best that Medicaid could provide!” She laughed bitterly. “And finally we ended up at Long Island Jewish. They spoke to me about her mental health. And I didn’t want to hear that.” She was quiet a moment. “But eventually I had to.”

Pepper said, “But she’s just locked away in here. A kid her age. All she knows about the world is these five hallways and what she sees on that television. That’s her whole life!”

Loochie’s mother reached for the little round game chips and squeezed a few of them in one hand. She opened and closed that hand, feeling the faint pain of the shape against her palm and squeezing harder so she felt the pain even more. She didn’t speak.

“You asked me if I ever cared for someone,” Pepper said. “There’s a woman I met here that I really cared for. If I’d had to, I would’ve died for her. That’s how much I wanted her to be safe.”

Loochie’s mother looked at Pepper. Her eyes were dry. She wasn’t going to cry because of what Pepper said. Think she hadn’t said much worse to herself already? But it was Pepper’s last words that made her speak.

“That’s the funny thing,” she said. “Men always want to die for something. For someone. I can see the appeal. You do it once and it’s done. No more worrying, not knowing, about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I know you all think it sounds brave, but I’ll tell you something even braver. To struggle and fight for the ones you love today. And then do it all over again the next day. Every day. For your whole life. It’s not as romantic, I admit. But it takes a lot of courage to live for someone, too.”

Loochie’s mother had reached out for Loochie’s arm. Her fingers were held tight around her daughter’s wrist. Loochie was crying quietly.