Left

by Tamar Ossowski

  I knew this time I needed to answer.

  I looked into her eyes, which were blue like the color of wind, and then suddenly I began to cry. She rocked me back and forth like I was a doll. When my lips finally stopped trembling, my head felt thick and heavy. As if on command, my eyes closed and instantly I was asleep.

  I dreamt of falling and when I woke, I was still in her arms, but now we were both sitting on the couch. I felt disheveled and clumsy, like I had just traveled a long way. I was sweating and she pushed the hair that had gotten stuck to my forehead away. When I shivered, she brought me closer in to her body.

  “Franny,” she whispered. “You have to be a brave girl. I promise that I will come and visit you again. Is Leah kind?”

  I nodded.

  “Good,” she continued. “You are safe here, Franny. I know that you miss Mommy and Matilda. You’ll see them again, I’m sure.”

  I started to fidget. I don’t think I really understood until that moment what it actually meant to have my mother and sister disappear. I was going to have to figure things out for myself, by myself, from this point forward. It had taken nine years for my mother to understand who I was and what I needed. And when she left, she took all of that with her. I was back to square one, and left in the care of a woman I barely knew.

  “Do you know why? Why she left me?”

  She looked at me but didn’t answer, and for a minute, I wondered if I had even asked it out loud.

  “There is something I want you to have. Something your mom must have forgotten to pack.” She fished in her bag and pulled out a white envelope folded in half. She opened it and spilled its contents into the palm of her hand. Two gold hearts with each of our names—Franny and Matilda—engraved into them. It was the fancy jewelry that we were only allowed to wear on special occasions. My grandmother strung both onto a thin pink ribbon. She handed them to me and I held them between my fingers, snapping the charms together over and over and finding satisfaction in the way that the metal hearts clicked against each other.

  “You keep that one for Matilda and give it to her when you see her.”

  “I promise.”

  She went into the kitchen and she and Leah whispered so that I couldn’t hear. Then, my grandmother got her coat, hugged me, and went to the door. I watched her get into her car and fumble with the keys. After she left, with the sound of the car engine still humming in my ears, I wondered why it had never occurred to me to ask her to take me with her.

  I thought about talking to Leah more about where my mother had gone, but by the time I figured out the right words, I was already in bed. The next morning, Leah told me we were going to school and then the letters started to come so fast that it was all I could do to finish swallowing the cereal in my mouth.

  My new teacher’s name was Mrs. Fern Ficsh. The C was silent. Whenever anyone said her name, it created a soft whooshing sound in the classroom that reminded me of the ocean. Leah came with me and introduced me to Mrs. Ficsh. They whispered as she led me to my seat.

  The tables were set up in twos, and the girl I shared my desk with had thick blond hair and glasses. She was too busy arranging her things to notice when I sat beside her. First, she took her pencils out of their case and lined them up in perfect order, each sharpened to the same point. She had a hardcover three-ring binder with a picture of a white kitten on it, two glue sticks, one pair of scissors, one box of colored pencils, one pack of index cards, and a brand new pink eraser. I figured out that her name was Evelyn because each and every one of her belongings, including a mitten that had fallen from her coat pocket, was labeled with her name.

  eVelyn.

  The “V” held up the other letters, like one of the spokes in a spider’s web. It looked delicate and ethereal, but in reality, it held all the power. I liked Evelyn right from the start. I think she liked me too because I was quiet and didn’t distract her from her organizational duties.

  Mrs. Ficsh spent the morning teaching us about maps and globes. She asked us to draw a map of our homes. Evelyn’s box of colored pencils came in handy and, without thinking, I drew out the rooms of Leah’s house. I followed Evelyn to lunch and sat beside her at a table near the window.

  “Did you just move here?” she asked, taking a bite into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the edges of which were perfectly sliced off.

  Nodding, I played with the wax paper Leah had used to wrap my sandwich.

  “Do you like to read? Because after we finish eating we can go to the library. Most of the other kids go outside for recess but the librarian lets me sit and read for the whole time. Do you want to come?”

  I nodded again.

  Evelyn didn’t seem to mind that she was the one doing all the talking. We finished eating and walked past a table of giggling girls on our way to the library, but Evelyn kept walking, her eyes set on the exit. When we got to the library, the woman behind the desk smiled. Evelyn walked over to a bookshelf near the corner and I watched as she bent down to the lowest shelf and counted till she reached the twelfth book from the left. She opened it to the middle, began to read, and instantly I could tell that she had forgotten I was even standing there.

  For the first time that day I felt alone. I wandered along the perimeter of the library, admiring the display of books like they were puppies in a pet store. Their clear wrap reflected the fluorescent lights in the ceiling and reminded me of stars. I walked around the room twice before making my choice and then I sat on the floor crosslegged and leaned my back against the shelves. I opened Mary Poppins, enjoying the satisfying creak the binding made, and took a whiff of the pages. They smelled a little like every person who had held it before me. I was completely lost in the world of the Banks children and what it must have felt like to wait for Mr. Banks to come home at the end of the day when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the librarian, motioning that the bell was ringing and that it was time to go. Without a second thought, my fingers glided over the bindings on the bottom shelf until my book found its home—bottom shelf, twelfth from the left.

  Matilda

  My mother dropped me off in front of a big brick building on the first day of school. She reached across and squeezed my shoulder, but I didn’t look at her.

  All of my life, I was the strong and tough one. I was there to make sure that Franny was safe and protected. When she looked lost in her own head I always knew how to bring her back. Kids never bothered her because they knew if they did, I would find them after school. I did everything I could to make her feel like she was the same as everyone else. I played that role for so long, I almost forgot what it felt like to be standing alone in a crowd of kids, unknown and forgotten and having to start from the beginning.

  I swung my backpack over one shoulder and ignored the uneven feeling it created. I held a blank notebook in front of my chest like a shield and walked the steps up and into the building.

  Many of the kids turned and stared and then ignored me. This was a college town where parents taught for several semesters and then moved away; these kids were used to seeing families come and go. I was walking along in the hallway, lost in that noise that only happens in a school hallway, when I felt her next to me. She was walking beside me, her hair desperately trying to evade the rubber band she had chosen to contain it.

  “Hi,” Lavi whispered. Her soft voice sailed over the chaos and settled effortlessly inside my ear. A half-smile shifted my tough girl look.

  “We’re in the same homeroom. I’ll show you around.” She led me to a room at the end of the hallway, and I sat down and slid my backpack underneath my seat. Lavi was whispering to the girl behind her, so I busied myself with decoding the scribbles on my desk as though they were ancient hieroglyphics. I learned that Nicole loves Danny, that Stephanie sucks, and that Joey is #1. I looked up just as a man shuffled in with a beaten up leather bag and an attendance book under one arm.

  From the neck up, Mr. West looked menacing. From the neck down, he looked absurd. His scalp was
completely shaven and his handlebar mustache was dyed jet black to match his shiny black goatee. This terrifying-looking head sat on a body that resembled an enormous egg that narrowed at the neck, exploded at the waistline, and tapered again at the ankles. I was mesmerized. The other children quieted down upon his arrival.

  “We’ve gone over this. Silence—that is what I demand when I walk into a room. You will respond only when your name is called. As you know, if you respect me and obey my rules, we will not have any problems.”

  As he wrangled into the chair, his belly shifted so far upwards that his belt looked as if it was splitting him in two. I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t, and my classmates were equally reserved.

  “Susan Abrams?”

  “Here.”

  “Tonya Bonitelli?”

  “Here.”

  “Michael Browning?”

  “Here.”

  That was how it went that first morning. That was my introduction to Mr. West’s seventh-grade class. I sat in that room unknown, ignored, and fated into the hands of this tyrant. As each stranger’s name was read off his list, my heart sank deeper. By the end of roll call, I understood how much I really hated my mother.

  And as the weeks went by, it did not get any better.

  The hours spent at school passed like days. Each minute felt as futile as trying to put back together the shell of a cracked egg. I became practiced at looking like I was in one place, when really I was somewhere very different. With Mr. West, however, there was little hope of entering the kind of daydream that was worth slipping off into.

  “The Gift of the Magi. I expect that you have all read it. Please open your notebooks.”

  There was a shuffle of books and then quiet as everyone spread their things onto their desks. The unspoken rule was that the student with the highest stack of papers could avoid the eye of Wicked West as he had come to be called. I read the story the night before in my new bedroom, which had a slanted roof. I pushed my bed into a corner of the eave so that when I stretched my arms up, I could touch the ceiling. It made me feel really big and really small at the same time. It was the first time I could remember having a bedroom to myself and I couldn’t help but enjoy the solitude that came along with it.

  “Miss Wolley, can you answer the question?”

  Hearing his voice forced my breath to quicken and I hoped I didn’t look like I was panting. Quickly and with as little inflection as possible, I responded. “Could you repeat the question?”

  “Certainly, Miss Wolley, but perhaps in the future you could try and stay with us so that I need not waste my or the class’s time on useless repetition.”

  There was scattered nervous laughter in the middle section of the room. It came from the kids who were worried that sitting in the front would put them face-to-face with the enemy and sitting in the back would identify them as defiant. I was proud that at least I had taken a stand when it came to choosing my seat. Last row, third in from the window.

  “I would like to know, Miss Wolley, how you define the concept of irony?”

  “It’s when you expect one thing and get another.”

  “Simple, but mildly interesting. Can you give the class an example of irony?”

  “When you work all night on a homework assignment and then the teacher asks you something completely unrelated.”

  More snickering this time from my comrades in the last row.

  “Amusing. This is a story about two people so much in love that they each sacrifice their most meaningful possessions so that the other can benefit. Tell me then, Miss Wolley, does this story suggest a different theme than the one of irony?”

  I took a deep breath. I felt calm and relaxed and didn’t feel taken offguard anymore. “This is a story about how being in love makes you stupid. It makes you think stupid thoughts and make stupid choices.”

  He smiled and then put his face next to mine. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling made his mustache take on a blue tint and he came so close that I could see the small balls of spit that landed above his lip when he talked.

  “Fascinatingly ordinary.”

  He turned to the board and clapped it with an eraser. White dust exploded into the air and then he began to write. The class settled down to copy his notes.

  He knew he’d given me the biggest insult of my life.

  The hour passed in a blur, but even at the end my face still felt flush. Our last class of the day was gym. I got my things together and slung my jacket over my shoulder, but on the way to the locker room I stopped in the bathroom where the mirror confirmed that I looked like a newborn pig, pink and swollen. Within a few minutes, she was standing beside me. I didn’t want to turn to her so I just kept looking straight ahead into the mirror.

  “He’s a jerk. You can’t listen to anything he says. I think it was good. The way you stood up to him,” Lavi said.

  I was grateful for that mirror and for a minute I imagined that my reflection was a separate person. I could just let her do the talking. Unfortunately, neither of us had very much to say. “I need to get out of here,” I mumbled, as much to Lavi as to the Me in the Mirror.

  “The day is almost over. We can do something after.”

  “No. I mean now. I need to get out of here now.”

  Lavi looked uncomfortable. She crossed her arms in front of her belly and methodically drew circles around the skin of her elbows.

  “We can sneak out easily if we leave now. Leave it to me,” I said.

  Without giving her any more time to decide, I grabbed her things and pushed her out of the bathroom. There were still kids in the hallway, mostly those who waited until the last second to get to their classes. We mingled among them and then I guided Lavi around a corner and through a side door. We turned the block and lost sight of the school within minutes. As we neared the park, I saw two of my backrow friends smoking cigarettes beneath a tree. They waved to us and Lavi moved closer to me.

  “So what do you want to do?” The wind lifted itself gently through her hair.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we could go in there.” I pointed to a storefront.

  “You mean Royal’s? I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

  “Don’t worry so much, Lavi. It will be fun.”

  A bell attached to the doorknob ringed in our arrival. An older woman at the counter looked up. At the same moment, her bifocals slipped off her nose and dangled precariously from their chain. She retrieved them and slipped them back over the bump on her nose.

  “Hello, Laverne. Who is your little friend?” She raised her eyebrows, making the skin on her forehead ripple.

  “This is Matilda. A friend from school.”

  “What brings you girls in today?” Her voice pierced the air. She reminded me of someone, but I could not think of whom.

  “Matilda just moved here.”

  “Take a look around.” Her arm swept across the counter and I could see blue spidery veins running from her wrist to her fingertips.

  I left Lavi staring intently at a display of neon-colored thermoses and inched my way toward the back, stopping occasionally to touch a rubbery pink eraser or look at a new board game. The shelves were crammed with random things and it took some time to make my way. I could hear their voices in the front of the store where I had left them.

  “How is your mother?”

  I pictured Lavi head down, hands searching for her elbows.

  I hurried farther down the aisle. I passed photo albums, colored pencils, and a display filled with pastel-colored stationery.

  “And your brother? We haven’t seen him around much.”

  For a moment I even wondered if Lavi was still there, but then I heard Mrs. Royal again. “Tell your mother to stop in some time and see me.”

  “How much for this thermos? The one with the footprints all over it,” Lavi said.

  I lingered by the stationery for another minute. And then I saw it. A box filled with paper the shade of purple so perfect it made your eyes glaze
over when you looked at it. Without hesitation, I slipped the stationery into my backpack and quickly headed back to the front of the store. Mrs. Royal handed Lavi a bag just as I walked back up the aisle.

  “Thank you Mrs. Royal.” I smiled as I herded Lavi to the front door. “You have a very nice store.”

  “Come back any time girls!”

  She was too busy wiping the smudge marks off her bifocals to notice the little bulge in my backpack.

  Franny

  The letters arrived promptly every week.

  Leah placed them on my pillow but never asked any questions. They were lavender, addressed to me and postmarked from a small town I had never heard of. One time I thought about looking it up, but the idea of me going to find Matilda seemed silly. I was always the one being taken care of, not the other way around. So instead I stared at the envelope, tracing the swirl in the F of my name, which was so exaggerated it looked like a lollipop from a carnival. I tucked the notes away inside a manila envelope pasted to the back of Matilda’s journal. My sister filled her letters with little tidbits of her life, things she ate for dinner, and what color she wanted to paint her room. She wrote like she talked and I would read her letters over and over before going to sleep, pretending I could hear her voice. I had gotten into the habit of using the purple pen to trace her words and soon the pages became so worn they began to fall apart in my hands, but it didn’t matter because I had already memorized most of them. Especially the last line of each, which never changed. “Remember my promise.”

  I must have looked more distant than usual at dinner that evening. Engrossed in trying to spear as many peas as I could onto the tine of my fork, I dropped number five when Leah caught me off-guard. “Do you miss her?”

  “Who?” I mumbled.

  “Therese. Do you miss her?”

  “I guess.”

  This was the first time Leah had brought up anything about my mother’s disappearance. It startled me and I wasn’t sure how to react.