Left

by Tamar Ossowski

  Therese lifted herself up and searched for a comfortable position in the hospital bed. Leah walked over to the baby and cradled the tightly wrapped bundle in her arms. It was quiet in the room except for the song that Leah was humming into Matilda’s ear. She sang so softly that Therese could not make out the words, but Matilda cooed back as if she understood. Leah stopped singing, kissed the top of Matilda’s head, and put her back in the bassinette. She sat back down in the chair, but without the baby, her arms hung down awkwardly on either side of her body. For a few minutes, neither of them spoke. Even though Leah was smiling, Therese could feel her sadness.

  “Thanks for coming,” Therese said, ignoring the throbbing pain that had just begun above her eyebrow.

  “How are you?” Leah asked, rummaging in her pocketbook and looking more like her normal self.

  “I’m glad it’s over.”

  “I think it’s only just begun,” Leah said as she tossed something onto Therese’s lap. “I brought you these.”

  Therese looked down at the package of Hershey’s kisses.

  The awkwardness that skirted them earlier moved in with more determination. Therese ignored it and ripped open the bag. “Want one?”

  Leah nodded. She unwrapped the chocolate and then rolled the foil wrapper into a tiny silver ball. “Has your mother come by?”

  “Not yet.” Therese took a chocolate out of the bag and warmed it in her hand.

  Matilda had fallen asleep and was making little snorting sounds. Therese smiled and tried to catch Leah’s eye to see if she thought it was funny, too, but Leah was staring out the window. The late morning sky had turned from blue to a hazy gray, and Leah seemed lost in the clouds. Then, as if she found what it was she was searching for, she turned back to Therese. “Where’s Tim?”

  “He went home to get a few things.” She felt cold and drew the blanket more tightly around herself.

  “Where were you when it happened?”

  “Have another.” Therese passed the bag to Leah, who shook her head no.

  “Where were you?”

  “It was so fast, I don’t remember,” Therese said.

  “You don’t remember?” Leah’s eyes narrowed.

  Immediately, she pictured Tim collapsed into the bag of rice, his rage filling the shed so completely that part of the window fogged. She wanted to confess it all, to rest her head against Leah’s shoulder and feel safe. She wanted to hear that it would all be okay, but she already knew what her response would be. A kernel of anger settled inside, and she tucked her legs beneath herself. “Sorry, but I don’t remember. Maybe if you ever have a baby, you’ll think to keep track of those kinds of things.” She watched as each of her words hit its mark, making Leah flinch and pull back into her chair.

  A few seconds later, Leah moved in closer and took Therese’s hand. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until she felt Leah’s hand cupping hers, but the offer of forgiveness simply made Therese angrier. “I just want to make sure that everything is okay. For you. For Matilda,” Leah said as she lifted Therese’s hand to her lips and began to blow on them.

  “I already told you there’s nothing to worry about. Everything is fine. This is the way things are supposed to be.” She pulled her hand away and used it to straighten the blanket. Leah looked down at the floor and moved her foot in a perfect circle, the silence between them broken up by the sound of the food cart moving along the hallway outside.

  “What about Barbara?”

  The nurses had been in and out of her room all night. She wondered where they were now that she needed them. She looked up at the clock and hoped that her lunch tray would interrupt whatever it was that was happening between them. Matilda stopped snorting and was now sleeping so peacefully she didn’t look real. Leah was staring at her, waiting for a response. The gentle quiet that usually caressed them now felt oppressive and uncomfortable. Therese swallowed and then coughed, choking on the words sitting in her throat. Finally, she spoke. “It will be okay. She will warm up to the idea in her own time.”

  Leah inched forward again, appearing as though she wanted to speak, but then sat back and said nothing. The baby stirred and they both turned toward the bassinette, but Matilda quickly settled. It was just the two of them again. This time when Leah came close, she whispered so softly Therese could barely hear. “Be careful.”

  And then she was gone.

  Therese reached over to the bed rail and pushed the help button. A few minutes later, a pretty blonde nurse appeared. “Do you need something, Miss Wolley?”

  “Yes. A friend brought these for me, but I don’t want them. Why don’t you take them out front to share with the rest of the girls?”

  “Are you sure?” the nurse asked, holding the nearly full bag of Hershey’s kisses in her hand.

  “Yes, I’m sure. Take them away.” She rolled over and pulled the blanket over her head. The pit in her stomach made it hard to breathe. She wedged her head into the pillow and wept, the sound of her sobs muffled by the bedding, her tears buried under the thin layer of feathers.

  Franny

  Grapes were our favorite.

  It was Tuesday afternoon and Leah dropped us off at the town library so we could do our homework together. Evelyn and I always sat in the adult section under the supervision of the librarian we liked, Miss Betty, who smiled politely when we walked in and then ignored us the rest of the time.

  Evelyn and I plucked the grapes from their stems and tossed them into little plastic bags, which we hid in our backpacks. When the librarian wasn’t looking, we popped them into our mouths. I liked the way they filled my hand and how the flesh of my palm protected them, like little eggs. When Miss Betty was working we could comfortably go through two bags of grapes each. Evelyn stuffed so many into her mouth, she looked like she had the mumps. She tried to speak, but her words came out half complete until, finally, she swallowed. “Think I beat my record.”

  I nodded, impressed.

  “I think we should start investigating. You know, try to uncover your mother’s secret.”

  Miss Betty was whispering loudly to a man with a large stack of books in his arms. Evelyn took advantage of the opportunity and slid her hand inside her backpack.

  “Can you think of anything that might help us?” she asked, lifting her hand to her mouth and slipping three in before Betty turned to look at us.

  I waited until two more people approached her desk before I spoke. “There is something.”

  Evelyn’s eyebrow arched up and her eyes opened wide. Now she reminded me of a squirrel with her cheeks full of nuts. “What?”

  “I’m not sure it’s anything though.” I was sure. Why was I lying?

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Just a name.”

  Evelyn pushed her notebook and a colored pencil toward me. She pointed to the blank page. I took the pencil and started writing out the letters of his name. L-I-O-N-E-L.

  “Who is he?” she whispered.

  I shrugged. “Just a name I saw on one of Leah’s papers. I thought maybe we could check it out.”

  She didn’t look convinced.

  “Do you think Leah might have something to do with this?” she asked.

  I stared back at her, trying to convince myself that I was doing this for Leah. That maybe if I understood more about what happened to her, I would be able to help.

  “Franny, who is this guy and what does he have to do with your mom leaving?”

  I looked down at my lap and started playing with the drawstring of my pants, pressing the hard knotted end between my fingers. “I don’t know.” Another lie.

  “You said his name was Lionel?”

  “Yes.”

  “C’mon,” she said, begrudgingly.

  We went to the table that held catalogues of newspapers in binders. Someone had painstakingly covered each page in plastic but they had still yellowed with age.

  “You take this one and I’ll start here.” She handed me one of the binders,
but it was so unwieldy that I had to leave it on the desktop to leaf through. I watched Evelyn scanning each page, looking at photos and headlines, trying to find a link to Lionel. Lost, like the last piece of a puzzle. Why hadn’t I been honest with her? I told myself it was because I was being loyal to Leah. But I knew the truth. I felt wobbly, like I was standing at the edge of something about to fall in. I was so used to being the girl that things happened to that this new feeling filled my insides with a sweet, dizzy whirl.

  Evelyn’s stack of books had grown smaller, and then I heard her sigh and knew she was close to giving up. We had been there for more than an hour and it was almost time to go home. She flipped through the last book and as she neared the end, the fizziness inside settled down and I felt relief.

  But then Evelyn began shouting at me. Even Miss Betty turned to look.

  “Franny!”

  “You found something.” Acid rose into my throat.

  “This.” She carried the large book to my side of the table and then dropped it down in front of me.

  Evelyn’s nose twitched when she got excited. I don’t think she realized she was doing it, but when she pointed to the picture her nose was moving so quickly she reminded me of a rabbit. “Look!”

  It was a black and white photo and even despite its plastic protection, it was faded. In it, a young man was pointing to a painting and the headline read: “YOUNG ARTIST TAKES TOWN BY STORM.”

  The painting had swirls of black and gray, like a tornado. In the center, he had painted an eye that was big and round with lashes that curled upward, making them look like the petals of a flower. He was smiling, pointing proudly toward his creation. Next to him stood a beautiful woman. Leah. My Leah. Even though the photo was old and blurred, I could see that she was smiling at him. The caption underneath the photo read “ARTIST. LIONEL KOZTERLAND.”

  Evelyn’s nose was twitching. “That’s him, isn’t it?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer, but it didn’t matter. Evelyn was busy scribbling into her notebook. I looked back at the picture then closed my eyes; I didn’t want to see any more. Her lovely face hung on the insides of my eyelids and wouldn’t disappear, no matter how tightly I shut them. I heard a faint humming in my ear that became louder and louder until finally it sounded like a roar. It became so loud, I wondered if Evelyn could hear. When I opened my eyes again, she was still writing in her notebook. She hadn’t heard a thing.

  I turned to look at Miss Betty. I wished that she wasn’t so busy with the three people who had just lined up at her desk. I wished she would catch us with our bags of grapes, throw us out, and ban us from ever coming back. But she didn’t even look up. So I closed the book and pushed it to the middle of the table and waited for Evelyn to finish.

  That afternoon, Evelyn’s mother drove us home and I sat quietly in the car until she pulled up in front of Leah’s house. Even though I could see that lights were on, I used my key to open the front door.

  When I got inside, I stood quietly. And listened.

  She was in the kitchen, humming, and I smelled food cooking. A round itchy ball formed in the opening of my throat. I dropped my backpack on the ground and watched as Leah came out of the kitchen.

  “I’m glad you’re home.” She helped me take off my jacket and hung it in the hall closet. “I thought we could have some fun with dinner tonight.”

  I followed her into the kitchen, my mouth now filling with an acidic metallic taste, which I tried to swallow. “Can I have a drink?”

  “You know where everything is. Help yourself.”

  I walked over to the cabinet and got a tumbler. I didn’t usually like soda, but poured myself a glass anyway, hoping it would help wash out the taste. I took a sip, and when I swallowed, I could hear the bubbles exploding in my ears.

  “I thought we could turn our food different colors,” she said.

  I could tell she was excited, but all I wanted was to blurt everything out. I felt the strongest urge to tell her what Evelyn and I were up to and that I was scared about the changes I was feeling and that I knew I was heading somewhere I didn’t feel brave enough to go. But I didn’t say anything. Instead, I took another sip of soda and this time when I swallowed, the taste didn’t bother me as much. Maybe it went away. Maybe I had gotten used to it.

  On the counter, she had set up different bottles of food coloring.

  “How about some green mashed potatoes?” She took the top off the bottle and handed it to me. “Three shakes.” The magic formula.

  I watched as the drops hit the creamy peaked mounds. The green looked vibrant, unnatural, out of place, and it made me feel sad to mix it, turning the potatoes into something they were not. But Leah was looking at me, full of enthusiasm, so I mixed.

  At first, it started as a streak that I could follow with my spoon, but the more I mixed the more the colors blended into the white potatoes and soon it became a solid, uniform shade of apple green.

  Then she passed me a bowl of macaroni and cheese. “Be creative.”

  I took two bottles this time, blue and red. Three drops each. Then I mixed. The result was the color of plums.

  “Fun, don’t you think?” she asked.

  I nodded, mostly to please her.

  She pushed over a container of vanilla yogurt. I took a red and yellow bottle and turned the yogurt into a bright shade of orange that reminded me of fire.

  “Are you ready to eat?” she asked.

  I crinkled my nose. The thought of eating green mashed potatoes repulsed me, but she had already put the food out on the table so I took my seat. My fork hovered over the plate.

  “I have an idea,” she said. “Close your eyes. See if you can taste the color.”

  I scooped up a helping of mashed potatoes, closed my eyes, and spooned it into my mouth. I waited for the burst of green, the taste of leaves, or grass, or cucumbers. But nothing came. Just mashed potatoes. When I opened my eyes, she was smiling at me.

  “It tastes the same,” I said.

  “Really? Let me try.” She plucked her finger into the potato, dipped it into her mouth, and closed her eyes. “Mmmm. Tastes green to me.”

  “It does?” I asked in disbelief.

  She nodded.

  “What does green taste like?” I asked.

  “Franny, sometimes you have to be open to surprises. Things aren’t always the way you expect them to be. Sometimes you have to find the courage to take a risk. Like eating green potatoes.”

  I ate another forkful, but it became thick and sticky in my mouth and I couldn’t talk.

  “Color is a risk,” she said.

  I swallowed. “Then why is your kitchen all white?”

  It flew out of my mouth and then she was quiet. And even though I didn’t know why, I knew it was a question I wasn’t supposed to ask. I felt alone, like I was standing in the middle of an empty room while she hid in the closet. But I needed to know why she scrubbed the kitchen clean every night. Why every exposed surface was painted a stark and antiseptic white. Why, sometimes before we went to bed, she knelt on her hands and knees and scoured the floors with a sponge, going over one spot on the tile over and over again. Sometimes she scrubbed so hard, she made herself bleed, but I ignored the band-aids I saw on her fingers the next morning.

  Now, she looked as though she had forgotten that I was sitting there and was quiet for so long, I briefly thought that maybe she hadn’t heard me.

  “You make me want to be brave.”

  Then, she took the container of fluorescent orange yogurt and dumped it on the floor; it sounded alive as it splattered around the table legs. She got down on the ground and spread it all over, like she was finger painting. When she looked back up, she was smiling. I watched as she continued to spread the bright orange goop on the floor, into the crevices of the grout. It seeped into the valleys of her fingers and turned her skin the color of apricots.

  I thought about courage. Matilda was the brave one. Matilda wasn’t scared of anything. But now, the
re was no Matilda.

  There was just me.

  Matilda

  “Did you get my message?” Lavi asked, twisting a curl around her middle finger.

  Her mother nodded, and then raced toward a customer who was lifting his coffee cup high into the air. We were sitting at the counter of the Good As Gold diner and Lavi had been rolling the corner of her paper placemat back and forth until finally it ripped. Her mother returned, grabbed a handful of straws, and stuffed them into the pocket of her apron. She picked up a rag. “What was so important?”

  Lavi’s voice cracked when she spoke. “Daddy called.”

  Her mother stopped wiping the coffee-stained counter. I hadn’t seen her up close since the ketchup incident and she looked different than what I remembered. Her hair was pulled back and her uniform was clean and pressed. She wore a nametag that said SARAH but the H at the end was faded, as though someone had tried to scratch it off. She held the rag in her hand for a minute, twisted it, and then smiled. I felt a sudden pulse, a type of electricity, shoot through my arm. Someone waved at her and she ran off, coffee pot in hand. I watched as her hair bounced behind her, like a horse’s tail.

  “It looks pretty don’t you think? I put mayonnaise in it last night,” Lavi said.

  I nodded, but all I could think about was the tingly feeling still running down my arm and to my fingertips so I turned to the dessert case to distract myself. The sugared apple pie glittered and the peaks on the lemon meringue reminded me of the star at the top of a Christmas tree. Lavi’s mom returned, and seconds later she eased a slice onto a plate and handed it to me. I dipped my fork into the tips of white, which jiggled delicately in defiance.

  “What do you think he wants?” Lavi asked, reaching out and grabbing her mother’s wrist.

  She stopped moving and, just as she was about to speak, I felt a breeze sweep up the slope of my neck. Then he slid onto the stool and turned toward me.

  “Hello ladies. Looks like someone forgot to invite me to the party.” Daryl grabbed the fork out of my hand and helped himself to my pie.