Though they never had an easy time of living, once in a while—usually payday—Emerald caught a whiff of the life her mother meant to have. They would fill the car up with gas and ride around town, first to Wal-Mart to buy something for the house—a set of towels or cushions—and some new clothing for each of them. Then they'd get groceries, splurging on coca-cola and potato chips, boxed cake, sliced fresh fruit, enough TV dinners to last the week. They'd pick up take-out at the Chinese restaurant, and Emerald's mother would buy a bottle of cheap gin from the liquor store, and they'd celebrate the giddy feeling having money gave them. The paycheck never went far enough—it didn't cover the utilities some months and never provided books or vacations or a computer. But on those afternoons when they had money, Emerald could see how her mother meant for them to live—happily, comfortably, with a delicious ease that was impossible without money.

"The only thing that matters is we got each other," her mother said. "Always remember that."

Emerald remembered, every time her mother didn't show up for a parent-teacher conference or forgot to pick her up at church. She held the thought through her mother's drunken sprees, when the money they'd been putting aside for some small luxury got spent on a night out with a new boyfriend. She forgave her mother's rants, her vows of hatred, her statements of regret.

"Don't know what I was thinking, naming you Emerald," her mother said in her lowest moments. "You ain't worth nothing."

Emerald held on because in her sweet moments, her mother knew how to make all the hard words disappear. In her mother's best moments, Emerald could believe anything. Even love.

Besides, who else was there?

~

"Did you find what you was looking for?" Mrs. Puckett called. She waited for a car to pass before she crossed the street, her hips jerking this way and that with the awkward physiology the heels forced upon them.

Emerald looked at the sidewalk between her feet at the assorted items she had scattered about: an address book, four tapered candles, one roller skate, a trophy she received in the fifth grade for perfect attendance.

"No," she answered.

"Well, you better hurry and get this mess up before the pick-up comes."

Emerald didn't say anything, just kept pulling items out of the nearest box: hemorrhoid cream, a blender, a jigsaw puzzle.

Mrs. Puckett perched stiffly next to the piles, glaring at Emerald. "I gave you plenty of chances, you know."

"I didn't ask for any chances," Emerald said.

"I didn't want to kick you out."

"I know."

"I have to rent the place."

"I know." Emerald glanced behind her at the dark, empty house, which needed repairs and a fresh coat of paint. Mrs. Puckett had taped a "For Rent" sign over the cracked living room window.

"You know what you ought to do," Mrs. Puckett said. "You ought to find you a boyfriend. Young thing like you wouldn't have no trouble getting a man to buy you meals, put you up for a while. You just have to learn to be sweet-like."

Emerald knew enough about boyfriends to avoid them when possible. She pulled a box of shoes toward her and pretended to look through it until Mrs. Puckett left her alone.

~

When they skipped town, Emerald's mother and her fiancé Toby were wanted for twenty-six counts of forgery. Emerald didn't know what the checks had bought, aside from a few weeks of high living. She told the landlady she had no idea where her mother had gone. She told her Aunt Didi the same thing, and her Mama's boss at Tyson, and Toby's boss at the QT gas station, and the police.

"She just left?" the round-faced policeman had asked.

"Yes," Emerald answered.

"Did she tell you she was in trouble?"

"Yes."

"But she didn't tell you she was leaving?"

"No."

"You didn't notice something was up? She didn't appear to be packing the last time you were home?"

Emerald took a deep breath. She didn't have to explain. She just had to stick to the story. "No," she said.

She knew more than she was telling, but not as much as the police believed she knew. Her mother had not whispered any clues, had not explained where she was going or if someone was helping her out. She had awakened Emerald while Toby loaded the last suitcase, and pressed a wad of cash into her daughter's hand.

"I'll try to call over at Didi's when things quiet down," her mother said. "In the meantime, it's best if you don't have any information about what's going on. That's the thing that matters now, for you to be innocent. It's all I can give you," she added.

"But I am innocent," Emerald said.

Her mother brushed a dry kiss across her cheek. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's a lousy way to say goodbye."

Afterward, when the street had grown completely quiet, Emerald tried to figure out what would happen next.

~

The money Emerald's mother stuffed into her hand the night she left only lasted a week; it should have gone further, but Emerald splurged on delivery food and taxi rides, and, in a moment of weakness, a bottle of Jack Daniels. Without her mother's car to get back and forth to work, she lost her part-time cashier's job.

At first Emerald continued to stay in her mother's house as if nothing had changed. In some ways life was better. Her mother wasn't there to yell at her, or eat the best food, or hog the television. When her mother's boss called, Emerald told him he might as well hire somebody else. She had begun to get lonely when the police showed up.

"You're going to have to clear out," Officer Merck had said, holding open the front door. He was tall and ugly and you could tell he'd done this kind of thing too many times. The round-faced cop stood beside him, looking at the floor with one eye almost winking. "Seeing as you're nineteen, you're old enough to fend for yourself. If you can't pay the rent, Mrs. Puckett wants you out."

"Let me see if I can borrow a truck," Emerald told him, going over in her head all the people who might help her if she traded them something, a refrigerator or a television. "I'll get everything moved."

Officer Merck shook his head. "You can pack a suitcase, but everything else is confiscated."

"What?" Emerald asked, sure she must not have understood correctly.

"Your Mama's got a lot of outstanding debt," the round-faced one said, and he sounded truly sorry about it.

Emerald looked behind her at the dining room table, which her mother had just bought last December so she could have Toby's family over Christmas Day. She looked at the mountain painting over the couch, at the stereo speakers.

"But I need this stuff," she explained. "It's all mine now. She meant for me to have it." The words were lies, but that didn't matter now.

"I'll escort you," the round-faced cop had said, pushing aside the screen door. "Come on. You'll need your clothes and stuff."

"You got fifteen minutes," said Officer Merck.

The only place Emerald had to turn was her Aunt Didi, who'd never gotten along with her mother in the first place. Didi waited on her front lawn, smoking a cigarette, while Emerald climbed out of the patrol car with her personal belongings in a grocery sack and a milk crate. Didi let her stay in the tiny back room of her trailer, but Emerald didn't know how long that arrangement would last. Her aunt had already told her not to get too comfortable—that she was expecting her boyfriend to move in soon, and they'd need the room.

"Did I get any phone calls?" Emerald asked each day. She wasn't sure she should mention her mother's promise; it might somehow be incriminating.

But she never called, or else Didi wasn't telling the truth.

~

Emerald hefted a large glass elephant from the bottom of a garbage can. Her mother had bought it one payday from a traveling vendor who set up tables of intricate vases, Oriental rugs, woven purses, and other exotic items in a vacant parking lot near the mall.

"Aren't they beautiful?" her mother had said, slowing down, attracted by all the shiny objects.

They'd parked the car and threaded their way among the breakables, running their fingers over ornate statues, laughing at the strange dragon figures. The day had thrown up the kind of achingly blue sky that hurt your eyes if you looked too hard. Emerald loved her mother that day.

"What's the use of living if you can't have some pretties in your life," her mother had said, and Emerald thought it was a fine statement.

They settled on the elephant.

"It's a symbol of good luck," her mother said. "I remember that from somewhere."

It hadn't been lucky, though. Her mother had fractured her ankle tripping over the elephant and had to go to the emergency room, and the next week she didn't have enough cash for Emerald to go on a field trip with her class.

Emerald turned the elephant over in her hands, amazed it had not broken or chipped through all the chaos. It was thick like the glass of an old-time coke bottle, the same sky-green color. It was a lovely thing, and it was hideous, like so many objects that passed through Emerald's life. It was less than worthless, because it had sucked away an opportunity that might have meant something to Emerald; its existence had enticed her mother, had made her believe in the wrong things.

Morning traffic had begun to pick up. A car slowed, the man inside rolling down his window to speak to her.

"Are you having a garage sale?" he asked, shouting from his side of the road.

"No," Emerald answered. "I'm waiting for the trash."

The man nodded toward the elephant in her hands. "I'll buy that from you."

"It's not for sale," Emerald said.

The man's brow furrowed. "If it's trash, I'll take it off your hands," he offered.

"It's mine," Emerald said, standing now, stepping into the street. The man crept forward in his car with a look of alarm, but still he waited, thinking, perhaps, that he might get the elephant for nothing if he persisted. "You can't have it," she said, enunciating each word as if he were hard of hearing or an idiot.

The man's expression darkened and he accelerated, leaving behind the smell of poorly mixed fuel.

From somewhere down the block Emerald heard the roar of the garbage truck. Mrs. Puckett crossed the street in her direction.

"You better get all that trash back in the boxes," she called, waving her hand. "I hear the truck."

Emerald closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun. She felt the heft of the elephant in her hands, licked her lips. The truck drew closer, the voices of the sanitation men punctuating the roar.

"I swear to God," Mrs. Puckett said, picking stuff up and throwing it into the cans as fast as she could manage on her unwieldy shoes.

If you had driven past Emerald that morning, you would have wondered why she stood like a statue in the midst of overflowing trash boxes and garbage cans, cradling a glass elephant in her arms. You would have expected her to do something: to get out of the way, or help Mrs. Puckett, or scream, or smash the elephant onto the sidewalk, or onto Mrs. Puckett, or into the garbage truck. You would have wondered about her for maybe five seconds.

And then you would have passed her by.

© PJ Woodside 2004

PJ received an MFA from George Mason University. She has completed one novel, partially completed another, and is currently at work on a collection of short stories of no particular genre. She writes, teaches, and lives in Madisonville, KY. You can reach her by email at all4pj@charter.net.

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