by Nancy Kress
Timmy watched her for hours, all golden light and green eyes. He followed her in circles. He hummed to her: Three blind mice. Three blind mice. They all ran after the farmer’s wife . . .
Mommy left for three days. When she came back she couldn’t stand up straight and she threw up on Jane’s dining room rug. Timmy, scrunched inside the sideboard next to cardboard boxes that said SOUP TUREEN and PUNCH BOWL, watched Marigold walk through the corners of the boxes in silent circles.
“Betty!” Jane said.
“So have . . . your cleaning lady clean . . . it up.” Mommy’s voice shook.
“Don’t you want to know what your son’s been doing for three days while you were off on a bender?”
“Sure you . . . took care of him.”
“Yes. I did. But don’t you think that’s your place?”
“Sure is, bitch. So don’t . . . usurp it.”
Jane’s voice changed. She didn’t sound like the person who’d give him the cat. “Look at you. Not fit to have a son like Timmy. Do you know what you’re doing to him? This running isn’t to keep him from an abusive father, it’s so you can justify your whiny self-pity and live off others too kind to let you rot while you’ve got Tim—” Jane made a funny noise and then her voice changed again, got all stiff. “I’m sorry. That was very unprofessional of me. But, Betty, you do need help. Not from me, but I know someone who could make things feel much better for you, a trusted colleague who’s really very good—”
“Is he? Is he . . . ‘really very good,’ Jane? How nice for him. Fuck you, Timmy and I are just fine. We don’t need you, you tight-assed Miss Priss with your big house and dried-up tits and stupid do-goodism. You know what really bothers you, bitch? That I won’t kowtow to you the way the rest of them do, the poor cunts you so graciously help . . . we’re out of here, Timmy and me. You won’t see us again.”
“You can’t take Timmy away from here until Claudia sets up another identity and—”
“Oh, can’t I? Timmy! Timmy, where the hell are you!” Timmy turned off Marigold and shoved her box in his pocket. He heard his mother crashing into things in the dining room, throwing furniture, yelling. She went into the hall and he heard the cupboard under the stairs flung open. He tried to squeeze behind the PUNCH BOWL box but there was no more room in the sideboard. He jammed his pillowcase into the other pocket. The sideboard door tore open, ripping loose at one hinge, and Mommy grabbed him and pulled him out.
“Hiding and skulking!” she screamed. Her face was all twisted up and she smelled awful. “You see what I have to put up with, bitch? And you blame it on me, just like everybody always does! Hiding and skulking and eavesdropping on me so there’s never any peace!” She dragged Timmy by his arm across the floor. It hurt. He tried to squirm free and that hurt more, but he didn’t cry out because that would just make Mommy slap him.
“Let him go!” Jane screamed. She hit at Mommy’s arm. Mommy let go. Mommy fell on the ground. Jane went on hitting her, and Jane was crying, too. Mommy put her arms around her head. Timmy crawled away, and then he felt the other person in the room, the big person, and he stopped crawling and lay still.
“What the hell is going on here?” Daddy said.
Jane got up slowly from the floor. Her glasses were broken and her skirt was torn. Her face was an ugly red. “Oh my God. Mr. Collins?”
“What the—”
“I’m sorry. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Jane Farquhar, I phoned you to come . . .”
Daddy didn’t say anything. Timmy looked all the way up at him, up the long legs and long arms, and remembered. Jane stood, smoothing her torn skirt, taking off the broken glasses.
“I’m so glad you’ve come, Mr. Collins. The situation here has deteriorated, your son desperately needs you. Betty simply can’t . . . isn’t . . .” Jane stopped.
Daddy walked over to where Mommy lay on the floor, her eyes closed. His face got red. He looked hard at Jane. “What the hell have you been doing to her? Don’t you know she’s sick? What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
Timmy closed his eyes. But he could feel when Daddy looked at him. He could feel it.
“Timmy. You’re the man here. Didn’t I always tell you it’s your job to take care of your mother?”
He sat in the woods, beside the outlet that was really just a creek. He didn’t have Marigold, or his pillowcase. He didn’t want anything to happen to them. He waited, humming: you never saw such a sight in your life—
Maybe Jane would find him first, but he didn’t think so. Daddy always found him, in all the towns, just like he had found him leaving Mr. Kennison’s class in Dansville. That was part of how it went. Daddy found them, and then Daddy waited a little so they could get a head start between towns, and he and Mommy jumped in the car and drove away and Mommy made phone calls from booths along the road to find out from the organization where they were going between towns. But that part wasn’t yet. First Daddy would find him.
“Timmy. You let me down.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Timmy said, although it wouldn’t help. It never did.
“Your mother’s sick in her head. I told you that. I told you in Dansville that it was your job to keep her quiet while I closed up the house to bring you both home. That’s what I said, wasn’t it, Timmy?”
“Yes.” He tried to think about Marigold, about the deep safe place in her eyes. But he couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it. He was shivering too hard. You had to be quiet to go there.
“You let me down, Timmy. You let us both down. You know that, don’t you, son?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“And I can’t even discipline you properly until we leave here, because of that meddling bitch Jane Farquhar. She’d interfere, all right. But you know I will discipline you when we finally do leave, don’t you, Timmy? For your own sake? Don’t you?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“A boy who can’t protect his women is going to make a mighty poor man.”
Timmy didn’t answer. Daddy turned and walked back along Marigold Outlet. Timmy heard his boots crunch in the snow. The shivering wouldn’t stop. All the other times, he hadn’t had to wait. All the other times, Daddy had gotten it over right away. He couldn’t stop shivering. He was so cold.
“It’s a restraining order,” Jane said. A policeman stood beside her, and another man in a dark suit with a briefcase. “He’s been placed in my custody pending the hearing. If either of you come within two hundred feet of him, you’ll be arrested.”
Mommy stood next to Daddy. She looked small next to him. She had a new dress and her hair was combed and her face was very white. Mommy didn’t say anything. She never did in the times when Daddy came. She kept her eyes on the floor and smiled to herself. She and Daddy held hands.
Jane choked out, “Of all the sick psychological dependencies . . .” She stood up straighter. “Now leave, both of you.”
“We won’t forget this,” Daddy said. “Timmy, we’ll get you back, son.”
“Not in this state,” Jane said.
Timmy heard the cars drive away: first Mommy’s, then Daddy’s. That’s how it always went. He would follow her close all the way home.
But this wasn’t the way it always went, leaving him behind. This was different.
Jane knelt beside Timmy. “You’re safe now, Timmy, do you understand? They can’t come hurt you anymore. Mr. Jacobson is a lawyer, and he’ll stop them, and Officer French will stop them, and so will I. You’re going to be safe here with me, Timmy, do you understand?”
Timmy didn’t answer. He looked at the floor.
“Would you like to go see the kittens? All three are weaned now.”
All three. There had been four. Before the day in the cupboard, when the gray one purred.
Jane looked like she said something wrong. Timmy turned and walked upstairs. Marigold’s box was in his pocket. He would never go see the kittens that were left again, never.
“Timmy,” Jane called after him. “Won’t you let me know i
f you need anything, honey?”
He didn’t answer or turn around.
At night he woke up sweating. They weren’t there. They really weren’t there, not Mommy and not Daddy. They weren’t sleeping in separate rooms, like they did at home, and they weren’t sleeping crumpled together naked, like they did between towns. But the bad thoughts were still here, in Timmy’s head, and he didn’t know how to stop them. They were stronger now. Mommy wasn’t there to hide from. Daddy wasn’t there to hide from. All his hiding places weren’t hiding places anymore, and so the bad thoughts came . . . cut off their tails with a carving knife, you never saw such a sight in your life . . .
Sometimes the bad thoughts turned to bad dreams, and he woke up screaming, his pillowcase stuffed in his mouth so nobody would hear. His hands must do that when he was asleep.
Timmy got out of bed and turned on Marigold and watched her walk in circles and pounce on the invisible mouse and chase her tail. The circles were best. He could crouch down with his face near hers and see the deep safe place in her eyes.
But he couldn’t ever get there. Ever, ever.
“His internal defenses are crumbling,” Jane said on the phone, “but so far no real breakthrough. God, it’s painful to watch . . . He sees Dr. Lambert three times a week, but so far he hasn’t said a single word to him. And he won’t eat.”
Timmy made Marigold go around and around some more. All afternoon, all evening, all the parts of the dark night he couldn’t sleep. Three blind mice . . .
“He needs an outlet for all that rage,” Jane said on the phone. “Oh, God, it’s heartbreaking!”
Marigold pounced and chased and strutted in circles, her beautiful tail high.
“Timmy, honey, you’ve got to eat something.”
She didn’t understand. The bad thoughts fed on food, When he ate food, his mind was a strong place the bad thoughts liked to come to. When he didn’t eat, his head was too funny a place for them, floating and full of light, gold-colored light like Marigold.
“Timmy, if you don’t eat, we’ll have to take you to the hospital. Please eat, honey, just a little.”
Sometimes he could see Marigold even when the box was turned off, walking in her high-tailed circles. But turned on was better. If he ever got to that safe place in her eyes, it would be when Marigold was turned on.
“A catharsis experience,” Jane said on the phone. Her voice sounded funny, hard and desperate. Timmy stayed hidden in the cupboard. She sounded like Mommy when Mommy wanted him to do something.
“Yes, I understand, Marty,” Jane said. “Tonight. I’ll meet you at the end of the drive.”
Marigold wouldn’t turn on.
Timmy sat on the floor of his room, pressing the switch. Nothing happened. He pressed it again. Nothing. He threw the box across the room, crawled after it on hands and knees, frantically pressed and pressed. Nothing. Breathing hard, he sat very still.
The knives were kept in the kitchen. He got one, creeping silently as fog back up the stairs, and pulled off the metal cover to the projector’s power pack. It was empty. Somebody had taken it out.
Timmy bent over the black metal box. Marigold was gone. The deep safe place in her eyes was gone, and only the place inside his head was left, the place where the bad thoughts came. Marigold was gone—
He screamed and threw the box across the room. He dashed after it and jumped on it, and the cat of light raced around the room, tail high. Only she wasn’t there, she was dead, he had killed her in the cupboard under the stairs because she purred too loud, just like he killed Mommy and Daddy just like he wanted to kill them, plunging the knife over and over into them after they hit him running them over in the car burning them up in the fire . . . cut off their heads with a carving knife . . . the bad thoughts all there now because Marigold was dead and he’d killed her, stabbing her with the carving knife in his hand now until it was bent and mangled like it was now and the carpet all slashed to pieces and red with Mommy’s guts—
“There, there, Timmy,” Jane crooned, holding him. Dr. Lambert was there, too, big as Daddy in his winter coat. “It’ll be better now, honey. It’ll be better now, just cry it out. I’m here, you just needed an outlet for all that pain, there, there . . .”
An outlet. An escape. He sobbed and sobbed and fell asleep in her arms.
He didn’t have to go to the hospital, Dr. Lambert said. He still had to see Dr. Lambert, but that was all right because now Timmy could talk to him. Just a little at first, and then a little more. About Mommy and Daddy and between towns. He could eat a little, too, and then a little more. Jane smiled.
But best of all, Marigold was back.
This time he didn’t even need a black metal box. Marigold walked around him in big circles whenever he looked a special way out of the corner of his eye. At first she walked where Boots did, or the kittens that now were big enough to creep upstairs, struggling over the top of each step like it was a mountain. Boots or the kittens would stalk across the room and there would be Marigold right with them, a bigger cat made of gold light moving with the fur-and-bone cats. Later Marigold didn’t even need Boots or the kittens. She could walk alone, anytime Timmy wanted, her tail waving and her ears twitching forward. And the best thing was, since Timmy had broken her box, Marigold had learned to talk.
“That was my outlet, Timmy,” Marigold said. “I got out. I can come now whenever you want, and between times I go to the deep safe place. Breaking the box was my outlet.”
“You wouldn’t believe his improvement in such a short time,” Jane said on the phone. “It’s incredible.”
Marigold twitched her ears and raised her tail at Jane.
Timmy started school, a special school where there were only six kids in his class, and he was the only one who could read. Sometimes Marigold came to school, too. A lot of days she didn’t, and then Timmy had to wait till he got to Jane’s to see her. School wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. Mostly it didn’t matter.
“He’s still very withdrawn,” Jane said on the phone, “and Marty Lamberton is guarded about the prognosis. But I’m optimistic.” There was something wrong with her voice.
“Jane needs an outlet,” Marigold told Timmy. “It would make her feel better.”
“She can’t have you,” Timmy said. “Marigold, can’t I go with you to that deep safe place you go between times?”
Marigold only smiled and disappeared. Timmy hated that. He sat completely still, the bad thoughts pushing at his mind, until Marigold came back a few hours later, twitching around the edge of a chair, walking in circles with her tail up like nothing happened.
The snow was almost melted when Jane told Timmy they had to go to court to tell Timmy’s story to a nice man, a judge, who wanted to help Jane keep Timmy always. Timmy’s mother and father would be there, Jane said, but they wouldn’t be able to touch Timmy or even to talk to him. He musn’t be afraid.
“Mommy and Daddy are already here,” Marigold said, walking in circles around Jane. “Jane doesn’t know. They’re camped on the other side of the woods. They’ll come get you whenever Daddy wants to.”
Timmy started to cry.
“Oh, honey, don’t,” Jane said, reaching for him. Timmy pushed her away. What did she know about what Marigold said? About what Daddy could do? About anything?
He ran outside and crawled under the kitchen porch. Marigold came with him. They sat there in the dark.
Timmy whispered, “The bad thoughts are coming.”
“I know,” Marigold said.
“You hurt,” Marigold said. It was what Dr. Lambert said all the time, but Timmy never answered him because Dr. Lamberton didn’t really know. It was just more words, like when Daddy said he needed discipline or Mommy said she was sick. Just words. But Marigold knew.
“You need an outlet,” Marigold said. “Like when you smashed my box and let me out. Remember how good that felt?”
Timmy said, “But the bad thoughts made me do that.”
“But a
fter you did it, the bad thoughts were gone,” Marigold argued. “And remember how good that felt?” Timmy remembered. And Marigold did, too. Coming from Marigold, it wasn’t just words.
“You need an outlet,” Marigold said.
“. . . in the best interests of the child,” the judge said. He’d said a lot of other things, for two days. Timmy had stopped listening. It was just words, and he was tired, and Mommy and Daddy sat across the room on hard brown chairs and tried to smile at him. He wouldn’t look at them. He wouldn’t look at anybody. Marigold had refused to come to court, and Timmy was mad at her. How could she refuse to come? She was supposed to be there when he needed her.
“. . . no supported evidence of paternal misconduct, and if you, Mrs. Collins, promise to receive psychiatric help, and if the conditions of full-time schooling for Timothy are met, I see no reason why the rights of the biological parents should not be the foremost consideration in—”
“No!” Jane cried. “No, you can’t!”
She stood up in her chair. Timmy wished she would sit down. She looked silly, in her long skinny dress with her glasses falling off her nose.
“—failure to provide convincing testimony that the child has actually formed a bond of affection with you in any meaningful way, Ms. Farquhar—”
“He can’t,” Jane said. Her voice was quiet now, but Timmy saw she was holding her hands so tight together that the skin looked white. Like Boots’s paws. He looked away.
“Don’t you see, Your Honor? Timmy’s never learned to love. All love means to him now is pain. But he’s not a cruel child and with time—”
“I’ve given my decision,” the judge said. “You have three days to restore him to his parents, Ms. Farquhar. Case dismissed.”
Jane clutched Timmy’s shoulder. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like Mommy and Daddy looking at him, either. He wanted to get home to Marigold.