Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica Page B

but it makes me feel sad. It’s depressing. It makes Ingrid sad, too. Tired and sad. Her movements are plodding, her posture is slumped. “Can I help you there?” I ask, pulling the empty paper sacks from the countertop and folding them in two.
    But Ingrid says, “I’m just about done,” as she sets a box of microwave popcorn on the shelf and closes the pantry door.
    â€œDid you eat lunch, Alex?” Ingrid asks, and she offers to make me a sandwich. I lie. I said I ate. I say no thanks. The last thing I want to be is an inconvenience, or my own charity case, which I already am. It’s hard to say which of us has the more miserable life, Ingrid or me.
    And then, for whatever reason, when the sacks are empty and I know I can say goodbye to Ingrid and go, I pick up that deck of cards and start shuffling, anyway.
    â€œEver play gin rummy?” I ask, and before me, Ingrid relaxes and smiles. She’s played gin rummy before. I know because I’ve played it with her on some other day just like today.
    We sit at the table and I deal.
    The first game I let her win. It seems like the right thing to do.
    The second game I put up more fight, but she wins that, too. Ingrid is quite the cardsharp, drawing and discarding with nimble hands. She stares at me from above the fan of cards, trying to think through what I have in my hands. A queen of clubs, a jack of diamonds. An ace.
    She’s also good at meddling, though she does it with such tact it’s hard to get mad.
    â€œYou’re working full-time for Mrs. Priddy?” she asks as I shuffle the cards for a third time, and I say, “Yes, ma’am.” She runs her hands through her hair, relaxing the frowziness. She tugs at the robe, making sure it’s tied tight. She slackens in her chair, and yet the signs of stress are still there, in the lines of her face, in the restive eyes. She rises and moves to the two-cup coffeemaker, asking if I’d like some. I say no, and she helps herself to a mug, adding the creamer, the sugar, and again I think of Pearl, of her body rising up out of the waters of Lake Michigan, dripping wet. Since yesterday, I haven’t been able to get that image out of my mind.
    â€œThe rest of the kids have gone to college,” she says, as if somehow I’m in the dark about this little fact, the fact that all the kids I grew up with are no longer here. “Not for you?” she asks as I lay the cards out on the table before us. Ten for her, ten for me.
    â€œCouldn’t afford it,” is what I say, but of course that’s not true. Well, it is true—Pops and I couldn’t afford it, but we didn’t need to. I was offered a full ride that I turned down. Tuition and housing included. I said thanks, but no thanks. I’m a smart kid, I know that as much as the next guy. Though not in an ostentatious, inflated kind of way, more of a sly, witty kind of way. I know big words but that doesn’t mean I’m going to use them. Though some of the time I do. Sometimes they come in handy.
    â€œHow’s your father?” asks Ingrid in a knowing way, and I say point-blank, “Still a drunk.”
    Pops hasn’t been able to hold down a job for years now. Seems you can’t show up at work completely pie-eyed and plastered and plan to still get paid. After the bank nearly foreclosed on the mortgage years ago, I started working part-time for Priddy because she turned a blind eye to the fact that I was only twelve years old. I washed dishes in the back room so that no one would see, and Priddy graciously paid me under the table so the IRS wouldn’t find out. It was another one of those things that everyone in town knew about, but nobody mentioned.
    And then I change the subject because I no longer want to talk about my dad. Or college. Or the fact that the rest of the world has moved on, while I’m stuck in a life of stagnancy.
    â€œSupposed to be a cold