Terminal

“Can everybody please quit fighting?” Benjy pleaded, and we both stopped. Sheila glowered at me, and the others were silent. Across the hall, I heard Sherm talking on the phone to the police.

“No, I ain’t giving you my fucking name. If you gotta call me something, then call me Slim Shady— the real Slim Shady.”

Despite the fact that he was possibly unraveling, this struck me as the funniest thing I’d heard in a while, and I started to snicker. It was just so bizarre. Two people were dead, John was dying, hostages had been taken, we were facing jail time or worse— and Sherm was making Eminem jokes. Sheila smiled too and after a moment, so did Kim and even Oscar. The others didn’t get the joke.

“I’m sorry,” Sheila apologized. “It’s none of my business. You just seem like a nice guy. Too nice to be involved in something like this.”

“You know what they say about first appearances,” Dugan said under his breath. I ignored him.

“I’m sorry too.” I smiled at them all and turned back to Sheila. “So what happened to his father?

He bail out on you or something?”

“I’d really rather not talk about this, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh come on,” I prodded. “What else are we gonna do to pass the time? Tell me.”

She didn’t say anything at first, and I figured that I must have hit a nerve. Maybe the guy bailed on them before Benjy was born, or maybe he was abusive or Benjy had come from a drunken one-night stand. I started to tell her that I shouldn’t have asked, that it was none of my business and we should just drop the whole subject, and then she told me.

“This is hard to talk about. He— I don’t know who Benjy’s father is. I . . . I slept around a lot when I was younger.” She held her head up and looked me in the eye, challenging me to say something. Her lower lip trembled.

“You were with more than one guy around the time he was conceived?” Sharon asked. The whole group was focused on Sheila now, hanging on her every word.

“Yeah. Like five or six. I don’t remember for sure. I was young, and it seemed like the only way I could get attention was through sex.”

“Harlot,” Martha spat, but at least she had moved beyond the traditional “Oh my.” She clutched her crucifix necklace with her liver-spotted hands, and the look on her face was pure disgust.

“I think it’s pretty cool,” Oscar said, his embarrassment at being bare-chested in front of the women and getting his ass kicked forgotten. “It’s like empowerment, you know? Using sex as a form of empowerment.”

Dugan and Kim rolled their eyes at the same time.

“It wasn’t anything like that,” Sheila said. “It wasn’t empowerment. It was fucking pathetic. I was a slut.”

“You shouldn’t put yourself down like that,” Oscar admonished her.

“Look,” Sheila frowned. “Thanks for the compliment, but I’m not going to be sleeping with you while we’re hostages in this goddamned bank vault, so you can stop the bullshit.”

“You should be ashamed,” Martha crowed. “You admit to promiscuity. You are blaspheming against the Holy Spirit— taking Our Lord’s name in vain. That is the ultimate sin, and one that cannot be forgiven, no matter how much you might beg. You will regret this before the day’s end.”

“Wait a minute.” Ignoring Martha, I held up my free hand, keeping pressure on John’s wound with the other. “So what happened after you got knocked up? You couldn’t figure out which guy it was?”

“No. By the time I figured out I was pregnant, it was too late. It was near the beginning of my senior year. I missed two periods in a row, and started getting sick in the morning. I was throwing up all the time and didn’t know what was wrong with me. I finally went to the doctor and he told me that I was pregnant. I couldn’t believe it, but it was true. My main boyfriend got so pissed off. He called me a whore and dumped me, then my parents kicked me out. There was no way I could afford a paternity test, and back then, the laws in Pennsylvania were different, so I couldn’t get an abortion. I ended up dropping out of school. Actually, that’s why I was depositing money in my savings account this morning when you guys came in. I’ve been saving enough to take some classes and get my GED It’s hard, because I can only put a little away at a time, but I can’t find a job without one.”

Benjy seemed oblivious as we talked. He fidgeted, uncomfortable with having his arms tied behind him, and kept watching John.

I don’t think any of us knew how to respond to Sheila’s story. It was just so unbelievable that she would open up and admit something like that to a bunch of strangers, especially given our situation. But she told it with such openness and sincerity. We all just sat there, silently mulling it over. I noticed that none of us would look directly at her or Benjy. Finally, Roy cleared his throat.

“Your son is special, isn’t he, Sheila?”

“Well yeah, he’s special. He’s everything to me. Benjy is all I’ve got.”

Roy smiled, nodding his head.