Left

by Tamar Ossowski

  “Seriously, Therese, what the hell do you want?”

  “Wake up.”

  “Why?”

  She didn’t know how to explain that at that moment, being alone was the most terrifying thing she could imagine. A few minutes passed and she could tell from his breathing that he was almost asleep again. She came close to his face and kissed his upper lip, but the contact startled him, and he jumped and hit her in the nose.

  “Damn it.” Tears formed in her eyes as a response to the sting of the hit.

  “Sorry. But I don’t know what you want, and I need to get some sleep.”

  She lay back down and he was quiet. He reached over and touched the side of her face. And then he was on top of her, and she closed her eyes and tried to lose herself in what he was doing.

  But it was wrong.

  It was suffocating and crushing and confusing and no matter how hard she tried to match herself to him, it made her feel like she was gasping. She wanted to push him off, but she was so tired and he was so determined. And then it was over and she could feel the dampness on the pillow and she knew it was from her tears. His breaths grew deeper and more peaceful as the minutes on the clock ticked away. It didn’t matter anymore whether he was awake or asleep.

  She was alone either way.

  Even though it was Saturday, she was up early the next morning, but not before Tim. On weekends, she would lay in bed, listening as he walked down the hall to get Matilda. When he passed by her room, the one he himself had slept in as a child, Matilda would call out to him, and she could hear him pretend that lifting her out of bed was a chore and then complain about how he never had a moment to himself. Matilda would giggle and slip her hand into his. Therese would sit on the top step, listening to their morning ritual. Matilda twittered like a bird. When Therese heard the word “daddy,” she wished that it didn’t make her hurt inside.

  Sometimes she would come and sit in the kitchen and watch them. She was welcome as long as she promised not to speak, and eventually they would forget that she was even there. When he made muffins, Matilda would help stir the batter, laughing as she stuck her fingers inside the bowl. When he made bread, he let her play with the dough and watched as she divided the pieces into a family, naming each rolled up ball. When they were together cooking in the kitchen, he never seemed to tire of being with her.

  One morning, when he let her grease the muffin tin, she ended up licking the butter off her fingers and left shiny grease smears across the pinks of her cheeks. He dabbed at her with a wet napkin and she squealed and said, “Come here with your face!” She made a loud puckering sound against the side of his chin. Therese watched as he breathed her in. Sometimes, it looked to her as though he lingered too long, like somehow he knew there might not be enough.

  One particular Saturday, Therese came downstairs to find Tim and Matilda cooking and Barbara already up, sitting at the kitchen table with a half-filled ashtray beside her. Matilda was sitting on a stool near the kitchen counter. Therese couldn’t tell if it was just her imagination, but Matilda always seemed smaller when Barbara was around.

  “I couldn’t sleep last night.” As Barbara coughed, her chest heaved up and down. She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

  “Sorry, Ma.”

  Therese could see that he was making Matilda pancakes in the shape of hearts.

  “Do you want to help me mix?” he asked Matilda.

  She slowly nodded her head.

  “You let her get away with too much. Don’t let the girl make a mess.”

  Therese hated that she called her “the girl,” like she was some stranger’s child on a bus. She got a coffee mug, clattering dishes loudly in response.

  “It’s fine, Ma.” He looked up at Therese, which made her clatter even louder.

  He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs and helped Matilda crack one against the side of the bowl. Therese sensed her delight as it slid effortlessly in, the yellow yolk perfect and unbroken.

  “Again,” she whispered.

  “You spoil her rotten.”

  He ignored Barbara and held Matilda’s little hand inside his as they both cupped the fragile egg. Therese held her empty coffee mug to her chest. They were both so focused on getting it right, on delivering a second perfect yolk, that neither noticed the second crack, which started quietly and got louder and finally ended with an incredible boom. When she turned to look, Barbara was on her back, arms flailing. The chair had collapsed beneath her.

  “What happened?” Tim shouted as he ran to her.

  “Don’t touch me,” she cried.

  He knelt down and held her hand.

  “Please don’t leave me.” The gravel that usually tinged her words was gone. Now there was just clean and pure fear. It danced across her face and made her lower lip tremble.

  “Can you try and stand up?”

  “I can’t. I need my medicine. Bring me my medicine.” But she gripped him even tighter and then pulled him close. “Thank you.” She whispered fiercely, so that even Therese could hear, the tremors from her lip now extending across her entire face. “Thank you.” She repeated more quietly and then she let him go.

  He ran to the bathroom, and when he walked back in, they all turned to him. Therese clutched her empty mug to herself; Matilda continued to swirl her fingers inside the bowl; and Barbara, still on the floor, reached for him.

  He stopped for just a second, or maybe it was longer. He stopped and looked around the kitchen, his eyes finally resting on his mother. And at that very minute, Therese knew without a doubt.

  He would always take care of her and that there never had been any other choice.

  Franny

  The paper ripped.

  I was scribbling too hard. And I didn’t care. And it made me feel better.

  “Why did you change your mind?” Evelyn asked.

  We were sitting in her bedroom, making a get-well card for Mrs. Ficsh, who had been out sick for three days.

  “About what?” I crumpled the paper and threw it into the trashcan. I took another sheet but, again, the same angry scribbles emerged so I decided just to write a message.

  “About figuring out why your mother left?”

  If I extended the bottom of the T in “get,” I could turn it into a W for “well.”

  “Because it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Evelyn was decorating hers with pink and red hearts, which she was outlining in glue. She took a bottle of glitter and sprinkled it over the card. “Why not?”

  I didn’t answer; I just kept coloring in my letters. I drew them in blue, layering them like fat clouds in the sky.

  “I promised I would help.” Evelyn looked up, pink glitter sprinkled in her hair.

  “I’m okay now.” My picture looked empty, so I drew a big yellow sun in the corner with rays that intersected into the letters.

  She stopped coloring. “You are?”

  I made the rays pierce through the clouds, like golden arrows. Evelyn went back to her drawing, tired of waiting for me to answer. I didn’t know how to tell her that I was doing everything I could to fix what was broken and that sometimes, at night, I would lie perfectly still, frightened that if I moved too fast, I would wreck it all. That I was certain that discovering why my mother left would also reveal Leah’s secret, the pain of which I could not again be responsible for. I didn’t want to tell her how much I wanted Leah to love me and that I could never see her sad again. I didn’t tell her that sometimes when I closed my eyes, I could feel my sister and mother calling out to me, distracting me from becoming the person Leah wanted me to be. I couldn’t tell her any of it.

  “I don’t care anymore.”

  I said it so softly that she didn’t hear, but instead of saying it again, I ripped my card into hundreds of yellow and blue shreds and stuffed them into the trashcan, which was already overflowing with my mistakes.

  That night when I went to bed, I barely slept. And when I finally woke, I could te
ll by the color of the light that it was too early. I didn’t have an alarm clock; I woke at the same time every morning. But this morning I was early and it was hard getting up because my lips were stuck to the pages of my journal.

  It’s fast and round and bouncy and happens for no reason and I think maybe this time it won’t but then it does and I can’t make it stop and the letters come and I can’t see anything else and when I open my eyes she is there whispering words that don’t make sense but sound soft like feathers. Her teeth are white and sparkly and I like the quiet bird sounds she makes but then it feels tight and the rocking starts and I close my eyes. When I open them she gives me a book and a pen with red ink. She is next to me, humming, and I am circling letters and thinking that I can never leave this place and then like a wave in the ocean, the rocking starts again and I close my eyes but now the only thing I see is you.

  Matilda.

  Haunting my thoughts, my dreams. The journal had become my burden, filled with my sister’s promises, reminding me that I had been left behind, that things were unfinished and unanswered. I wanted it to disappear along with the dreams that haunted me at night. I slipped the journal under my mattress, but that only reminded me of Leah’s secret hiding place, so I pulled it back out.

  In the bathroom, I stuffed it into the wastebasket where it sat on a bed of used tissues, the corner poking awkwardly from the top. That didn’t seem right either, so I brought it downstairs. Leah was in her art studio. She spent a lot of time there lately, drinking tea and listening to music so softly that sometimes I didn’t even know she was there. She was working on a drawing of a walnut so intricately blown up that it looked more like the surface of Mars than something you might eat.

  She put a cup of tea down beside me and I watched the steam move across the surface and disappear into the air. Leaning over, she took my journal in her hand and walked into her studio. I heard a drawer open and then close and when she came back, she was emptyhanded. She rubbed the back of my head softly, telling me without words that she knew exactly where it belonged.

  Therese

  Undertow.

  Emerging from nowhere, leaving her disoriented and unsure of her footing.

  She woke that morning, determined to put their friendship back together. Resigned to the fact that today, nothing would stop her from reconnecting with her friend and doing whatever it took to save Leah from the hurt she knew was coming. Leah was the only person she could truly trust, and she was not going to let her down.

  Everything began as she pictured. Leah hesitated at first but then hugged her so tightly she could smell the shampoo in her hair. They sat on the couch holding onto one another just like they did in the beginning, and she quietly fell back into their rhythm, losing herself in Leah’s presence. She put her hand on Leah’s belly, smiling as each kick made Leah jump. It was so warm and perfect that she never even heard the doorbell ring and only mildly noticed when Leah left to answer it.

  Something in the air made her breath quicken, and soon she realized that Leah was gone for too long. In the hallway, she found her with her arms crossed at her chest, precariously rocking back and forth as though at any moment she might lose her balance. There was a woman at the door. Behind her stood a young boy, and clinging to her leg was a little girl. The moment Therese laid eyes on them, she sensed it—prickling so sharp, she could feel it in her throat.

  Desperation.

  The woman and the little girl walked inside, but the boy leaned against the doorframe.

  “So this is where you live.” The woman looked around, sliding her hands across the top of a wooden console as if she was checking for dust.

  “You said you needed to tell me something? Something about Lionel?” Leah’s sway lessened until she wasn’t moving at all.

  The woman was younger than Leah. Her eyes were pretty, but only from far away. She sniffed loudly but just as she was about to speak, she seemed to notice Leah’s large belly. She fixated on it, shaking her head back and forth, and then finally pointed at Leah awkwardly, like she had practiced in front of a mirror.

  “He’s mine and you can’t take him away.” The skin around her fingers was chewed, and her hand hung awkwardly in the air. “He loves me. He will never leave his kids or me. I am the one he always comes back to.” The little girl pulled at her sleeve, and her arm came down.

  Leah fell backward into Therese. She took little sips of air, seeming to have forgotten how to breathe. Therese could feel her tremors as though they were her own.

  “Get out,” Therese said.

  The woman put her hands on the girl’s shoulders and shook her head. “He will always belong to me.” She walked out of the house, and the boy closed the door behind them.

  Leah ran into the bathroom, and when she emerged, her hair was stuck to the sides of her head, and she was dripping from the water she had splashed onto her face. Some of it splattered onto her shirt, leaving dark uneven spots across her chest.

  “Here.” Therese pulled a tissue from the box on the table.

  “You should go,” Leah said, turning so that all Therese could see was her back.

  “I am not going to leave you.”

  “I want you to go.”

  That’s when she felt it. Pulling her under and making her stagger backward, like someone had punched her. “You shouldn’t be alone with him.”

  Leah turned to face her. “You need to go. Now.”

  “I am not going to leave you,” Therese said again, worried that it sounded like she was pleading.

  “I don’t want you here.”

  Leah began to push her, first softly but then harder. Wails of pain came up from inside, garbling the sound of her voice.

  “Get out.”

  She continued to push until they reached the door, and then Therese had no control over what happened next. Leah shoved her outside and slammed the door closed behind her. No matter how much she wanted to stay, it was as if she was swept away, and the next thing she knew, she was out of the house, in her car, leaving Leah far behind.

  As the days passed, Therese tried to clear her mind. Tried to believe that Leah was safe and that everything would be okay and that Leah knew what she was doing. A few mornings later, she was lying in bed, reciting a prayer she was too embarrassed to admit she needed, when suddenly the phone rang. Tim was in the bathroom, and when he turned on the faucet, the pipes rattled, making it sound even more like Leah was speaking under water. Her words came out slow and distorted.

  “What did you say?” Therese asked into the phone.

  Tim flushed the toilet, and the wall between them shook. He came back into the room to finish getting ready for work.

  “I need you,” Leah said.

  The receiver dropped out of her hand. Acid filled her mouth, and the next thing she knew, she was kneeling over the trashcan. Matilda must have walked into the room. She could hear Tim singing to her. A song about boats and life being a dream, which made her insides churn even more. The room started to swirl, making it hard for her to dress. Tim asked if she was okay, and she mumbled something that must have sounded reasonable because he got his things together and left.

  She had been lying to him, working extra days and leaving Matilda with Barbara instead of spending the money on the babysitter he had found. Meticulously saving every penny so that they could finally move out. Most days she was careful about waiting to leave until he was well on his way and returning home before he even finished his shifts.

  But today was different.

  She walked outside, but the cold wet grass made her realize she had forgotten her shoes. Inside, she found a pair of Tim’s old slippers and put them on. They were too big, so she took them off in the car, and when she hit the gas, the pedal against her bare foot made her feel even smaller.

  Even though logic told her there was nothing more she could have done, sharp pangs of guilt made her breath choppy and uneven. She drove to the house and slowly got out of the car and shuffled toward the f
ront door. Looking down at her feet, she realized her toe was poking through a small hole in the slipper and wondered why it was that Tim never knew when to throw things away.

  She stood in front of the house for a few minutes before knocking. The sky was blue and the smell of grass wafted through the air. Part of her wanted to run. To enjoy the sunshine instead of walking into the darkness she knew lay ahead, but something pushed her, and when she put her hand on the doorknob, it turned and opened easily.

  Leah was sitting on the couch, wrapped in layers of blankets, with her back to the door. She didn’t move when Therese walked in. She sat silently, and when she finally turned her head, Therese wished that she hadn’t. One of Leah’s eyes was swollen shut and a urine-colored circle ringed the other. Dried brown blood caked the corner of her mouth and her arm was wrapped in a sling. Hurt sunk so far down inside of Therese that for a minute she wasn’t sure she could speak. She walked to the couch and sat beside Leah. She took Leah’s uninjured hand and cupped it between her own, blowing on it as if it was cold. She remembered when Leah had done the same for her before Matilda was born.

  “I am sorry,” Therese said.

  Leah started to speak, the words sputtering up like broken glass through her brown, cracked lips. “It’s my fault.”

  “No.”

  “I should have known.” She took her hand away and wrapped it around her bandaged one like a broken wing.

  “Brutality disguised as kindness. You can thank your father.”

  Leah closed her eyes and seemed to deflate. “It’s done. He’s never coming back.”

  Suddenly everything felt like it was moving too fast and Therese felt feverish. “I should have done more. I should have protected you.”

  Leah lifted her head, her swollen eyes filling with tears, and slipped her hand back inside Therese’s. They stared at the television screen, which was on but muted.

  “There is something I need you to do for me.” Leah’s voice was so raw, Therese wondered if it hurt to speak.