33. Emory
Emory
TWENTY-TWO YEARS EARLIER
The local firehouse hosted a Halloween party every year.
In the graveyard, they’re throwing a ball,
The moon’s high in the middle of the fall,
The monsters are all dressed to the nines,
Having a spooky, ghoulish, garish good time
Emory Griffin, no more than five years old, walked outside the fire station in a used lab coat with his hair gelled up and covered in baby powder, even though his hair was already the lightest blond imaginable for a child.
In one hand, he carried his trick-or-treat haul, and in the other was his trusty beginners’ chemistry kit, which he never left home without.
Who knew when he might stumble upon an interesting specimen to collect?
His mom—a tall, slender woman with brunette hair—walked beside him.
That night, she wore denim high-waisted pants and a tattered checkered shirt with a red puffer vest thrown over top.
Doubling as a headband was a pair of wired headphones, the wire of which was tucked into her pants pocket since it wasn’t plugged into anything.
The parking lot was crawling with muscle cars from every decade and in every color of the rainbow.
Collectors from across North Carolina drove in to showcase their cars and give out candy from their fancy, spacious trunks.
When Emory and his mom arrived on foot, his mom had leaned down and asked, “Which one do you think is the DeLorean?” He pointed to the first low-lying silver car he saw and exclaimed, “That one!”
From where they had stood, he had a clear view of it and its owner, an old white man with white hair leaning up against the bumper with a masculine confidence.
“Do you want to do another lap of the trunks?” his mom asked now. Her big eyes swept around as if in surveillance.
Emory peered inside his plastic pumpkin-shaped basket. There wasn’t any room for more candy. “No, thanks. My feet hurt,” he said.
“Mine, too. Plop yourself right over there,” she said, pointing to a bench nearby. He did as he was told, but she made no move to sit beside him. He wondered why. There was plenty of space. And she barely took up any room.
Over the span of several weeks, he’d noticed the bones in his mom’s cheeks and arms had become more pronounced, reminding him of the skeleton that hung in the fifth-grade classroom he passed by on his way to the gymnasium at school.
He couldn’t wait to get to fifth grade and learn all about the bones.
“Can I have a Reese’s?” he asked. They didn’t have candy in their apartment often. They didn’t have much food generally, or toys, or clothes. Their costumes were from a rummage sale at a church they didn’t even belong to.
“Only if I can have a Hershey’s bar,” she said.
“Sure you don’t want a Twix?” he asked, sneakily trying to rid himself of a candy he never liked.
His mom was too smart for his obvious moves. “Nice try.”
Bested, he conceded one of his mini Hershey’s bars, which looked even tinier in her shaking, adult-size hand.
When he looked up, her eyes were glassy like they sometimes were when he saw her at the kitchen table with a loudly clacking calculator.
Did she hate math that much? “I was gonna give you the Hershey’s bar,” he said swiftly.
She blinked really fast. The tears abated as she sat. “I know, Emory.” She rubbed his head. Baby powder fell like unseasonable snow flurries around him. “Thank you.”
Side by side, they ate their candy while kids in zombie costumes chased each other through the cars and down the sidewalks. Their loud squeals couldn’t overpower the song still playing in the background.
The monster ball is the invite you crave,
But don’t be fooled, or you’ll end up in a grave
Emory laughed because he thought the song was stupid. He thought most songs were. The only time he liked a song was when his mom sang it a cappella in her soothing bedtime voice, which always lulled him to sleep on the pullout bed they shared in their one-room apartment.
Eventually, his mom patted her thighs and stood. “I’m going to use the bathroom.”
“I’ll come with you,” Emory said, unsure what to do with his candy wrapper.
“No, you stay,” she said in a voice that was somehow both commanding and faltering.
“But—”
“Your feet hurt,” she said, cutting him off. “Remember?”
She had a point. The boots they’d gotten him from the church sale were at least one size too small, but he liked them too much, so he’d shoved and shoved until the faux leather gave enough for him to walk. “Okay.”
“Good boy,” she said, bending down to give him a kiss on the top of his head that lasted longer than it normally did. The wateriness was back in her eyes when she stood up. “You’re a good boy, Emory. I love you.”
She turned and walked into a crowd of adults all dressed in bumblebee costumes, one of them wearing a crown and wielding a scepter.
If he remembered correctly from the previous year, the bathrooms were in the other direction, but she was already too far away for him to call out to her, and if she’d impressed anything into him, it was that if she told him to stay put somewhere, he was to stay put; otherwise, he might get lost forever.
Forever is what it felt like as Emory waited for his mom to return.
The crowds thinned out. Most of the kids his age had gone home.
Some of the car owners were clanking shut their trunks and packing up their leftover candy.
Emory stayed seated but searched around for a red puffer vest among the masses now heading home.
This was one really difficult game of Where’s Waldo?
From inside, he heard the DJ say, “Let’s all dance to ‘The Monster Ball’ together one more time!”
The night got cold fast. Emory belittled himself for insisting he leave his coat at home. It would ruin my costume! he’d shouted.
Around, nobody seemed to notice Emory. He’d been told not to talk to strangers, so he didn’t speak to anyone, despite the sinking feeling in his stomach that something was wrong. Or maybe he’d just eaten too much candy?
He pushed his bucket away, sat his chemistry kit on his lap, and stared after the DeLorean as it drove off, expecting colorful sparks to fly and flaming tire tracks to line the asphalt. Instead, an orange blinker flashed twice before the car disappeared around the corner.
By the time an older white woman and a younger dark-skinned man wearing police officer costumes came over to inquire after his parents, he was shivering.
It took him several minutes to realize that they weren’t wearing costumes; they were actually police officers, who assumed his parents were volunteering.
“My mom’s not volunteering,” he said. “She’s in the bathroom.”
But the bathrooms were empty, her car was nowhere on the premises, and Emory Griffin, with his candy and his chemistry set, had been left all alone.
And for over two decades, he’d stay alone, despite his crowded foster placements and college roommates, until a perceptive pop star appeared in his life and changed everything.