The Tambinder Engine (part eleven)

The Tambinder Engine 

A McAlley Story

(part eleven)

“I will get a counsellor,” she repeated under her breath, driving home. “I’ll bother Tirza and Rory for a handout, I suppose.” She banked, a jerk of the wheel, onto the town road. “I need real work.” Nodding to the seat beside her, so used to Jyff there. “I hate it, I’ll quit in a month and dig myself in deeper, but—”

Why is Lynn allowing Matthew to top up my funds, at all?

Simple things, Deenie decided. I pay the utilities, they’re in my name. Yes, and the place stays clean and in good repair…

You see how the victim has to play her role, how the oppressor relies on her doing that. Her cooking, her cleaning, her bill paying, her not having him arrested, not going to the media

Tirza and Rory, again.

Deenie could hold a sign on a street corner, sit down with a radio host, launch a public appeal, by hook or by crook pay for that counsellor…

She could harry Lynn and Matthew back, at every turn, when they tried it. Budging her from her house, her land. She felt comfortable, suddenly; entitled, she might go as far as that, calling these hers.

Besides, inside was the decent man. Matthew could not be schooled in hate towards Deenie, blind loyalty to Lynn, until each transgression—Deenie at his door, spurning his papers, for an instance—had met its meek, it’s-not-my-business-she’s-your-friend-but-if-I-were-you rejoinder. Slow work.

The Gaia Chapel had a closed look. No lights behind the glass, cheery “Open” sign sitting dull. The lot’s four spaces empty. At times they did close, when funding came short, and no one could be paid their few hours.

But I have a key, Deenie reminded herself. I still do.

She was at the desk, in the kitchen office where she’d done the restaurant’s books. In the dark, an electric fan left running. Her energy had crashed. This stupor was her legacy to Dustin, her son’s writing had related it, the overwhelm of a bad choice at every turn. Then why not crawl under the stairs?

Or sit illicitly, in someone else’s room. She leaned to pull the light chain.

Manilla folders were splayed on the desk, and Deenie grabbed the topmost of them. She hated the dogeared and overstuffed. Old ways that made work, Tirza and Rory’s distrust of cloud-filing…

I think it’s something she needs to decide for herself. Convince her, and get the money. (How get the money, you’re asking? Well, refer to formula, preceding. Miracles don’t come at random, but only signal to the universe a definite course…) McAlley promises she’ll find a friend, any low point she runs out of the wherewithal. He means he’ll have Faia keeping an eye.

Deenie studied the note, loosed between folders and fluttered onto her lap. Insulting. Why would this be the voice of Railsback, speaking to her friends about…some scheme to bypass her fecklessness?

A ticket, miraculous. Hidden guides, a guardian angel named Faia…who is this, even?

“Deenie, are you there?”

“Matthew! I didn’t hear the door!” He had made her heart race, the note flown off again.

18

The Tambinder Engine

The Tambinder Engine (part twelve)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)