Seligman_At the Edge_1st ptg_3P.indd
A T T H E E D G E O F T H E H A I G H T
A T T H E E D GE
O F T H E H A IG H T
by katherine seligman
A L G O N Q U I N B O O K S O F C H A P E L H I L L
2 0 2 1
Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2021 by Katherine Seligman.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
Design by Amy Ruth Buchanan / 3rd sister design.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
library of congress
cataloging-in-publication data
Names: Seligman, Katherine, [date]– author.
Title: At the edge of the haight / by Katherine Seligman.
Description: Chapel Hill, North Carolina : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2021. | Summary: “When Maddy Donaldo, a homeless woman who has made a family of sorts in the dangerous spaces of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, witnesses the murder of a young homeless boy and is seen by the perpetrator, her relatively stable life is upended”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020034563 | ISBN 9781643750231 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781643751153 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3619.E46328 A96 2021 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034563
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
To David
A T T H E E D G E O F T H E H A I G H T
C H A P T E R 1
Root skimmed the sidewalk with his nose, sniffing at food wrap-
pers, a black boot, and a pair of red tights someone had tossed
in a perfect Z. I put my hand on his neck and nudged him past.
“Not your business,” I said. He locked his eyes on me because
he knew I had bread and cheese in my pack. They always kicked
you out after breakfast, but you could take whatever you wanted
if you stayed late to help clean up. It meant splitting from Ash and everyone, but I knew where they’d be, sitting at the front of the park, waiting for things to get started. I should have been
there too, but of course I didn’t know that until later.
It was too early for tourists to be out. Two men stood at
the bus stop, coats drawn up against the fog and whatever else
had blown in overnight. Jax was slumped on the corner in his
wheelchair, snoring in small puffs, a gray blanket draped over
his head. Otherwise, no one was around except for hardcore
sleepers twisted in doorways, still too wasted to hear the
cleaning truck brushing water against the curb, as if that did
anything. You could always see what was left behind.
2
K AT H E R I N E S E L I G M A N
I kept trying to hurry Root along, but he was taking his
time, until the truck churned alongside us and he stopped and
tilted his head to the smell like he was thinking about it. Then he took off, racing down the street, his tail flicked up straight.
He crossed at the corner and disappeared into the bushes. I tore after him, my pack slapping against my back.
“Root!” I yelled in a frantic voice. I’d taken him to the free
clinic downtown a few weeks ago, foam spilling out of his mouth
from something he found. They’d pumped his stomach and
lectured me to take better care of him, as if I could make him
act right when we stayed in Golden Gate Park. They told me I
should think about giving him up so he could be adopted and
be safe, in a house. They didn’t get it. We took care of each other.
“Root, get your ass out of there,” I screamed. “I mean it!”
There was no trace of him, but he knew his way around the
park. We all did. I reached in and rattled the brush, which was
waist high.
“Root!”
He came halfway out, his muzzle crusted with dirt. He
looked at me the way he did when he knew he was in trouble. I
grabbed for his col ar, but missed, and he scrambled back in. I
followed him through the brush into a small clearing and I kept
talking to him, what did he think he was doing, he was crazy,
so I didn’t see right off what was in front of me. But Root was
looking down, at a kid lying on the ground, perfectly still, his eyes wide open to the sky. His head was turned a little to one
side, his arms spread out as if he was making an angel in the dirt.
A T T H E E D G E O F T H E H A I G H T
3
Root sniffed his face and neck. The kid stuttered in a single
long breath and I stood there, watching, holding my own. Root
licked his cheek and edged his nose down the kid’s chest toward
a seeping stain of blood. In the middle, almost hidden, was a
tiny slit in his shirt. I couldn’t stop looking at the blood, the kid’s halo of light brown hair, and for once in twenty years on
this earth I couldn’t seem to move.
I knew I would see it for the rest of my life. Whenever I
closed my eyes, he would be there, his life leaking out on
the ground. Maybe it was true what my stand-in of a mother
said. You are going to end up damaged goods. I couldn’t help copying her voice. “You are going to be sorry,” I said to Root
and pulled him away from the kid. I wanted to put my hand
on the kid’s chest to see if it was moving, but I couldn’t get
myself to do it. My heart was banging against my chest. Who
was I going to scream for? Ash and everyone else, they wouldn’t
hear me.
Root startled and growled with his mouth closed, a slow
deep rattle he made when he knew he was on guard. We both
looked over at a man standing at the edge of the clearing. He
could have been there the whole time, waiting, or maybe he’d
walked in right after us. He was a head taller than me, his
black and gray hair pushed back into a stringy ducktail. I had a sweatshirt hood pulled up over my head so nothing about me
stood out, but Root was something you’d remember. He looked
like he’d been sewn together, his face soft Labrador, the rest
some short, wide pit bull creation.
4
K AT H E R I N E S E L I G M A N
The man stuck his hands in the pockets of his camo pants
and stared at us. I tried to stare back, but all I could do was
reach for Root, who moved from a muffled growl to an al -
out bark. I didn’t usually make people nervous, but the man
shifted back and forth, crunching sticks and leaves under his
boots, which made Root bark louder. The man lunged toward
us, then stopped, like he forgot something. I thought how
easily he could come after
me. No one would know. I’d be lying
there, next to the kid. The cops would think we’d done it to
each other.
“Keep a handle on the fucking dog,” he said, wiping at what
looked like blood on his forehead. I could tell he was used to
ordering people around.
It seemed like minutes passed, but it must have been less
because neither of us moved. Even Root stood still, his eyes on
the man. And then, not thinking where I was headed, I turned
and ran. Root kept up, loping next to me. “You heard me?” he
yelled after us. “I know where to find your ass.”
I scrambled across the uneven dirt and past some trees,
until I had to bend in half and gulp air. I listened for the man, but all I could hear was my own quick breath, or maybe it was
his, or the wind. I couldn’t tell what was real. The carpet of
yellow and brown leaves where I stood looked too bright. They
smelled sweet but rotten. When I straightened up, my muscles
were ready for more, but I couldn’t do it. The loop had started
playing in my brain, of the kid on the ground and the look in
the man’s eyes.
A T T H E E D G E O F T H E H A I G H T
5
I knew something about getting away. I’d been doing that
most of my life, but not like this. No one had tried to stop me
when I left the house where I’d lived longer than anywhere else.
They had no idea where I was, standing in a park hundreds of
miles away, alone in a whole different way. Root whined softly
and I put a finger sternly to my lips, as if he’d know what that meant. Quiet, I mouthed. No one was coming to help. I could
run through the park all the way to the ocean, but then where
would I go? I turned toward the other direction, which led back
to the street, and my body took over and I was running again,
pretending I was someone who knew what she was doing.
C H A P T E R 2
We ran past a group of joggers in black leggings, who nodded
at us, then stepped out of the way to give Root room. “No wor-
ries,” said the last one, over whatever was playing on her head-
phones. She should be worried, I wanted to say, because she was
headed toward the man and that kid. But I was relieved other
people were filling up the park. Two gardeners with a ladder
walked toward us. I could hear traffic from the street. Maybe I
had a chance.
We slowed down when we reached a row of bright green
benches surrounded by beds of yellow flowers and trees with
big waxy leaves, then stopped at the lake that was supposed to
make the park entrance look like a place you’d want to be. Every week they had to unclog the drain and clean out whatever was
floating on top, but the water always went back to swampy
green. They blamed us. But we were the ones who watched out
for it. We made a sign, WE DON’T TRASH YOUR HOUSE,
and sometimes people laughed and dropped change.
A T T H E E D G E O F T H E H A I G H T
7
Ash, Fleet, and Hope sat in a circle near the lake on one of
the small dry patches of grass. The lawn was mushy in places and gone in others because we had worn it down, but also because
the park people kept turning on the sprinklers, probably so we
wouldn’t get too comfortable.
“Mad,” said Ash. “Where you been?” He was digging in his
pack and smiled with one half of his mouth, like the other part
was too busy. I was sweating, still breathing hard, but I could
have been back from recycling, my pack loaded with change.
I could have stayed to clean up the whole shelter. I could have
been anywhere. They had no idea. We were all travelers, with
business no one else needed to know. Someone always had to
go somewhere in a hurry, whether they were running to or from
something. You didn’t ask because you probably didn’t want to
know, even if these were the people you were with every day
and night. I waved at Ash but didn’t stop.
When I reached the street, I snapped on Root’s leash and
ducked into the music store on the corner. I could spend hours
looking through the aisles and no one would bother me or ask if
I needed help. No one would complain if I took a handful of the
lol ipops they kept at the register but didn’t buy anything. It was warm and the store played tunes with a deep bass that echoed off the high ceiling and concrete floor into my chest. I didn’t have to think in there. The music knocked everything out of my brain.
Root always perked up because they kept a little tin bowl of biscuits behind the counter. He never wanted to leave until he got one.
8
K AT H E R I N E S E L I G M A N
I didn’t go to the counter, so he pulled on his leash and I had
to push him and squeeze my fingers around his mouth to keep
him quiet. He tried to wiggle away, but I clamped down tighter
and then slid behind a corner rack while my heart calmed down.
Bins of albums and CDs stretched out in front of me. I forced
myself to read the names on them and checked the clock every
few minutes until I saw that an hour had passed. The man had
not walked into the store so I must have lost him. To make sure, I stayed another half hour. A deep steady reggae tune boomed
into me. When I got up to leave, Root pulled me to the counter.
“Sit,” said the guy behind the register, holding out a biscuit
to Root, as if he hadn’t been through enough, but he obeyed
and planted his backside on top of my foot. He gulped it down
without chewing and I pulled him out of the store.
My first week on the street I had found Root tied to a
parking meter, scrawny and sad, his ribs looking like delicate
sticks. I’d sat down next to him and he whimpered and climbed
into my lap. He stayed there, chewing on my fingers until he
fell asleep. No one came to get him, so I untied the rope and
took him with me. I did have a habit of taking things, but Root
was different. It wasn’t the same as walking into a store in Los Angeles where there was too much stuff and no one noticed if I
lifted chapstick or a pack of batteries I didn’t need. I sometimes left my take on top of a trashcan or the free bin at the shelter.
It was a private deal I had with myself: I could take things as
long as they weren’t for me. But Root was clearly my dog. He
followed me everywhere, into the bathroom at the park or at
A T T H E E D G E O F T H E H A I G H T
9
the shelter, and he barked if anyone tried to touch him when I
wasn’t there. His eyes, one blue and one brown, were on me all
the time.
Outside the music store, a group of tourists filtered past me,
pushing to stay close to the leader who carried a blue flag on a stick. They followed her like noiseless baby ducks. One woman
aimed her camera at me, but I turned my back. Someone
needed to tell her that nothing was free now. If you stared you
should pay, Ash said. Usually I would put up a cup for change,
but I wasn’t in the mood. Where was I going to sleep? The guy
in the park might come looking at the shelter. And I couldn’t
go back to the park. I’d have to post up somewhere, maybe
 
; without Root. If anyone wanted to find me all they had to do
was ask about him.
I passed a store with a leftover cemetery scene from
Halloween in the window, a ghost lifting its bloody, smiling
head out of a grave. It looked like it was staring at me. The
used clothes store next door had a mannequin in a Cinderella
costume hanging on a zip line. I sat down outside a head shop,
the front painted a bright neon rash of stars and planets. I
leaned back, Root between my knees. My legs felt like bags of
sand. What did I do to deserve this? I avoided trouble most of
the time. I stayed away from drama. I didn’t fight. So why did
I have to see a kid who got wasted and the guy who probably
did it?
The last of the tourists straggled out of the park, finished
with the museums and gardens and ponds. They didn’t want
10
K AT H E R I N E S E L I G M A N
to be left alone, not at the end of the day, with us, and the
knots of kids chanting “X, buds, X, buds, X, buds” like it was
a prayer. Some took out cash, hunched over so they could hide
it, and bought plastic bags of who knows what. You could sell
anything and charge them double. They didn’t know.
I was too undone to look anyone in the eyes, which might
have gotten me a box of food or a sandwich. One time a lady
started a fight with her man on the sidewalk right in front of
me, telling him how selfish he was for not handing over the rest of his steak dinner. He didn’t need it so why didn’t he give it to the girl, who was obviously hungry. He stomped off, the box
under his arm, and she yelled after him about how he didn’t
see anything unless it had to do with his own self. But then she went running after him. Who could figure that out?
“There you are,” said Ash, coming up next to me. He sat
down, put a hand on my back, where it felt like an electric pulse.
“Hold on to Root?” I said.
I passed him the leash and he took it, without asking why.
He thought everything was still a big love project the way it was on the street years ago, long before he was here. Just show up
and you’d find what you need.
“Only tonight,” I said. “I’ll hit you up in the morning and
get him.”