The Boy Who Crossed the Hangar First

In the parking lot

It was past two when we got out to the parking lot. Ryan had his duffel and his rucksack and Mason would not let go of his free hand. I had June asleep on my shoulder, finally, her mouth open and wet against my blouse.

Courtney was standing by her car, two rows over from our truck. She had not come up to them in the hangar. She had waited.

Ryan saw her and stopped walking.

“Mase,” he said. “Go with Kayla for a minute, okay? Help her get your sister in the car seat.”

Mason looked at his mother across the lot. Then he looked at his dad. “Are you going to yell?”

“No, bud,” Ryan said. “Nobody’s yelling. I just need to talk to your mom.”

Mason came with me. I buckled June in, and he climbed in next to her car seat, and I cracked the windows so the truck would not get hot. Then I stood by the tailgate where I could see them both, and where I could hear.

Ryan walked over to Courtney and stood in front of her, not too close. He kept his hands in his pockets. He had always done that when he was angry, ever since I had known him, so his hands would not do anything he did not mean.

“Six months,” he said.

“I know.”

“You dropped him on Kayla’s step and drove to Wichita.”

“I know, Ryan.”

“And you kept the money.”

Courtney’s face crumpled. She looked older than thirty-three right then. She looked a lot older.

“I was drowning,” she said. “You don’t understand. I was behind on the rent and the car payment and I’d lost my hours at the clinic, and Kevin…”

She stopped and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Kevin didn’t want a kid around. He said it was just for a while, until we got settled.”

“And I told myself it was okay because Mason was with Kayla, and Kayla’s good, and the money was still for Mason because it was keeping me afloat, and if I was afloat I could come get him.”

“Did you believe that?”

She was quiet a long time. “No,” she said. “Not really. Not after November.”

Ryan looked down at the asphalt. A car went by behind them with its windows down, somebody honking a horn and cheering. Then it was quiet again.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “Starting this month, the support goes into an account in Mason’s name at the credit union. Every dollar. You and me will go in together and sign whatever the court needs to make it official. Until it is, when the check hits your account, you move it over to his, and you send me the statement.”

Courtney nodded.

“He stays with us through the end of school,” Ryan said. “You come see him on weekends. Real weekends. You show up when you say. You call when you say. You want more than that, you earn it back from him, not from me.”

“Okay,” she said. Her voice was barely there. “Okay, Ryan. Yes.”

“And you don’t ever leave him on a step again.”

“I won’t.” She was crying hard now. “I won’t.”

Ryan stood there a minute more. Then he took one hand out of his pocket and put it on her shoulder, just for a second, the way you would with somebody you used to love once, a long time ago. Then he turned around and walked back to the truck.