by Traci Finlay
“She didn’t. There’s something wrong with the house,” I breathe, putting my hand on my forehead, trying to calm my imagination. “I wonder if Ian just demolished it after I left. What if it burned down? Turn right here.”
Jack swerves the car down a dirt road, and I scream that he’s about to miss my driveway. He jerks the steering wheel onto a gravel path that leads to a quaint log Cape Cod. Home, sweet home.
“It’s still standing.” That surprise relieves me momentarily, until my thoughts shift, and my nails dig into the seat. “Oh, the inside. What did he do?” Once again, I leap from the car before he stops, and this time he reprimands me, which I ignore as I sprint to the door.
I’m jerking on the doorknob by the time he lugs himself from the car, and I’m pounding on the frame and cursing the day I met Dana when he heaves himself onto the first step.
“Of course it’s locked. Ian isn’t here, and I don’t have my key. I can’t believe she’d send me here without telling me what’s going on.” I kick the door and turn to leave when we hear movement from the inside. My eyes pop, and I snatch Jack’s arm as we wait for the door to open.
Jack reaches behind him and grips the gun at his back. I’m shaking while clinging to his arm, my cheek pressing into his shoulder. Finally, the lock clicks and the door swings open.
A woman’s face appears, and I release Jack to cover my mouth with my hands. “Mom?” I’m about to fall over, and Jack whispers what the fuck.
Fanny smiles. “Oh, honey,” she says, springing through the door and reaching for my face. “You’re so beautiful.”
But I’ve turned to stone, lost somewhere between abhorrence and astonishment. My mother’s smile fades. “Charlotte?”
“You … you … left. You never even gave me a hug goodbye.”
“Charlotte—”
“You didn’t even ask me if I wanted to come,” I say in a childlike whisper, and it’s like the thirteen-year-old me who dreamed of what I’d say if my mom ever returned is manifesting through this twenty-four-year-old me.
Fanny’s shaking her head and tossing her hand in the air, her mouth open and her vocabulary dry-heaving. She doesn’t even have a speech planned. I’m just gaping at her, my breaths having digressed into sharp, irregular intakes.
“Honey, what can I say? Would sorry help? I don’t feel like it would.”
I shake my head. “How … how could you do that to your family? What did I do? Was it something I did or said? Something Ian did?”
Fanny brings the back of her fingers underneath her nose, jerking her head back and forth. “No, Charlotte, it wasn’t you. It wasn’t Ian. Honey, it was me. I’m … I know this doesn’t mean much, but … I’m sorry.” She swallows, reaching her tentacle arms toward me.
I don’t want her hug. I’m lost in my relentless stare, my fingers twitching at my sides. “You never came back. I kept waiting for you to come home. You never did. Why did you hate us so much?”
Fanny lets her arms fall to her hips. “I’m back now. I’m back.”
“Yeah, eleven years later!” My voice suddenly escalates. “I’m an adult now, Fanny! You missed, like, half my life! Did you know I started shaving my legs? And graduated with honors? And that Ian developed allergies to pollen? Or that Chrissy’s dead? And Dad’s in prison for killing her?” So the thirteen-year-old preadolescent gets her closure. Enter sarcastic twenty-four-year-old.
Fanny shuts her eyes and nods. “Yes. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Oh, I’ll bet. Poor you. I bet that was just shocking for you. How’d you ever manage to cope with such news? And did you know your firstborn is on a mission to kill me? How did it feel showing up here expecting a surprise welcome-home party and finding that everyone who’s ever lived here is gone, thanks to tragedies and … and abandonments?”
Fanny nods with her eyes shut, accepting any and all criticism I can shovel at her. “Charlotte, I can’t help but feel responsible for everything that’s happened.”
“Oh, ya think? Wow, Fanny, you’re so noble. Such bravery, to accept responsibility for ruining our lives!” I scream and jump up and down on the porch, my fists clenched and tears shredding my cheeks. “You left! We went to bed starving that night! Because no one was there to cook dinner!” And just as I haul off to punch Fanny and Jack is reaching to stop me, I fling myself into her arms and cry like a toddler.
“Chrissy’s mom … took your … carnation … we got at school … on Mother’s Day.” I sob into her clavicle as she strokes my hair. “I … I told her … you’d be there … to take it. That you’d be back.”
Fanny pulls me into the house and Jack follows, eyeing Razzle Dazzle with a strange fondness, like he’s leafing through his middle school yearbook. But I’m in no condition to introduce them (they’d get along swimmingly, though), so he just sits in it and considers the coffee table that looks like kindling.
I plop onto the couch and Fanny sits next to me, and I have so many things I want to say, but all I can manage is that she has three guesses as to what I wished for every year when blowing out my birthday candles. She keeps reaching for me—touching my back, my hair—but I can’t stand the smell of her, the proximity after all these years, and I repel away from her, moving to the other end of the couch and glaring at her.“Where did you even go?”
Fanny thins her lips and folds her hands, now that she has no daughter to dote over. “New York.”
“For eleven years?” I hiccup.
She looks down at her empty hands. “Yeah.” She pauses, and apparently the silence is too uncomfortable for her because she says, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water,” I say, and Fanny jumps off the couch like it spontaneously combusted. She looks at Jack for the first time. “Do you want … I’m sorry, what’s your name?” She blinks at him.
Jack’s looking at her, his jaw is working and his eyes are twinkling, and—oh, hell yes! He glances at me, and I eagerly nod my approval.
“Mom, are you serious?” I say, ad libbing theatrically.
Jack puts his open palm on his chest. “Mom, it’s me. Ian. Don’t you recognize me?”
She freezes, her jaw open as she studies Jack, and the fact that she’s even falling for this is ridiculous—Jack and Ian are polar opposites.
I’m laughing behind my hand until she turns to me, and suddenly I’m poker-faced, nodding disgustedly at her. “I can’t believe you don’t even remember your own son.”
She looks back at Jack, who’s killing it with the shocked look, so much so that I can’t hold back the laughter anymore. He sees me laughing and cracks a smile, and Fanny looks angry and relieved and embarrassed all at once.
“Yeah, I don’t remember giving birth to him,” she says, and Jack stands to shake her hand.
“Sorry about that, my name’s Jack. I’m really sorry.” But he’s not sorry—he’s laughing, and I’m glad he’s laughing.
“Hi, Jack. Would you like some water, too?” Fanny clasps her hands together like the good little housewife she’s decided to become in the last five minutes. She’s beyond pissed that we tricked her, but she’s playing it off like a champ.
“No, thank you.”
She flashes him a crocodile smile before heading to the kitchen, and Jack and I are lost in silent laughter. I’m so thankful he was here to lighten this moment because I don’t think I would’ve been able to handle my mother’s return alone.
Our laughter stops when I hear her voice from the kitchen—“Charlotte, where are the glasses?”—and I roll my eyes.
Jack does a face palm, and I call out, “Never mind.”
She comes back empty-handed, an apologetic look on her face, but not on her lips. I wrap up in a fuzzy blanket while she maneuvers to her spot on the other end of the couch, then she reaches across to stroke my hair and inspect the ends. “Is … is your hair dyed? Why would you dye it blond when it’s already naturally blond?”
“Because I had it brown for a minute.”
> “Why?”
“I told you. Ian’s trying to kill me. It’s the most intense game of Burken ever.”
Fanny sighs. “You guys still play that silly game?” I don’t answer, because if she were around, she’d know that we don’t. She shakes her head. “What do you mean, he’s trying to kill you?”
I thrust my arm out in brilliant display of the room. “Look around, Fanny. Do you see this place? This happened the night he chased me around the living room with an axe.” A shattered lamp in the corner. A toppled chair with one leg lying a foot away and another one missing completely. Huge divots of drywall splayed on the floor, leaving jagged triangular holes and bared studs as the walls.
Jack is visibly uncomfortable as he assesses the room, but Fanny drags her eyes around as if she’s browsing through an antique store. “Ian’s a sociopath,” she says. “I saw that a long time ago. Back when he was in junior high.”
I shrug. “He’s something, and whatever it is, it’s trying to kill me.”
Jack’s looking more uncomfortable by the minute. He finally leans forward. “Hey, um, Charlotte?”
“Hmm?”
“I think I’m gonna take off. Go home and check on Nikka.”
“What?” I shift my glazed eyes to him.
He rubs the back of his neck and gestures to my mom. “You guys should have some alone time. And yeah, I just want to make sure Nikka’s all right.”
Fanny’s nodding eagerly, like she can’t wait for Jack to leave. I look around the room and point at the toothpicked coffee table. “What about Ian? You know I’m in enemy territory here,” I remind him.
Jack stands. “You have your phone now. Give me your number.”
I rattle it off as he stores it in his phone. “I’ll call tomorrow to make sure you’re okay. And remember to remove any tracking apps, anything that could indicate where you are. Don’t reactivate your social media just yet.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I’ll walk you out.”
Fanny tinkles her fingers at him and he nods at her (easily the most awkward goodbye ever), and I follow him out to his car. He stops at his door and I stretch up to hug him. He wraps his arms around my back. “Thank you for everything, Jack.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he says in my ear, then holds me at arm’s length.
I nod.
“I’m serious, Charlotte.” He reaches for the door handle and turns back to me. “If I find out you’ve done something stupid, I’ll kill you before Ian does.” Then he climbs in and shuts the door.
I sigh. Too many people want me dead. These death threats are becoming quite cliché, and I don’t know if I even take them seriously anymore.
“What did you guys do with my baker’s rack?” Fanny asks as she slides me a small container of soy sauce. “Remember the one that sat over there? With all that china on it? That was my grandmother’s, you know.” She pulls a carton of sushi rolls from a paper bag and sets it next to a Styrofoam box of edamame.
I pick up my chopsticks and snap them apart. “Of course I remember. It lasted about two years until Ian destroyed it. If the kitchen looks a little bare to you, it’s because Ian gets angry a lot. And that thing was a temper-loser’s dream come true. You’re lucky it lasted that long.”
Fanny’s face falls as she sets out another carton of sashimi, and I wonder what she’s thinking of her son. I wonder if she takes blame for Ian’s temper, too. That maybe if she’d stayed, her precious baker’s rack would still be erected in all its fragile, cluttered glory. Maybe if she’d stayed, I wouldn’t be running for my life. And I’d still have my best friend. But no, this is all about a baker’s rack that took me three hours to clean and a whole mess of stitches in my feet and hands.
I watch my mom carry herself about the kitchen and notice how she’s changed. She seems ... worldlier. That meek little pipsqueak who was almost always in dresses or denim skirts is now parading about in haute couture—designer jeans with knee-high boots and a fancy little cardigan that looks like Cabbage Patch Doll clothing.
And the way she carries herself, as if imaginary ribbons flow behind her, is mesmerizing. Even her hair, that was once long and Amish brown, is now short and highlighted, and she’s feeding me sushi, for crying out loud. Back in the day, anything outside of meatloaf and potato salad was considered a gourmet meal, a real stretch into foreign culture.
“Why did you come back?” I mush my chopsticks in a button of wasabi.
Fanny wipes eel sauce off her hands and contorts her face into an uncomfortable expression. She sets her chopsticks down and plants her elbows on the table. “Shouldn’t you be asking me why I left?”
I shake my head thoughtfully. “No. You’re not the person who left. You”—I point at her and run my finger up and down her form—“don’t belong in Cadillac. Show me the long-haired woman in the ankle-length skirts, and I’ll ask her why she left.”
Fanny nods. “Fair enough. I came back to see you.” She forces a smile, and her eyes chime fraudulent blinks.
“Liar. You could’ve called to find out how I was. Why is this here?” I twiddle my fingers in her direction.
She sighs and thumps her arms down on the table. “And what have I done with your mom, is that what you’re saying?”
I stay silent.
She begins strumming her fingers. “Charlotte, I’m just going to be honest. You deserve a little honesty, right?”
I glare at her. “Wow.”
“I left because I’m selfish. Period. I wasn’t happy here. I wasn’t happy with your father, I wasn’t happy as a domesticated housewife, I wasn’t happy with my ‘friends,’ and I faked it as long as I could.”
“And you weren’t happy with me and Ian,” I finish.
Fanny deflates. “Charlotte, I love you. I’ve always loved you, and I’ve always loved your brother. I’m your mom, I’ve no choice but to love you.” She pauses. “But I love myself more. I’m just being honest. I’m sorry.”
I tilt my head and squint at her. “Well, I love myself, but you don’t see me ruining my loved ones’ lives to prove that point. That’s so … narcissistic.”
Fanny breaks out in encouraging head nods. “That’s exactly what it is. I am that. A narcissist.”
I throw my chopsticks on the table and laugh. “Oh, please! You’re a bitch, that’s what you are! A fucking bitch who ruined the lives of the three people you should’ve loved the most.”
She looks like I just slapped her in the face, her gaudy-ringed fingers on her chest, her acrylic nails spread across her bared and freckled sternum. “I am, Charlotte. I admit it. I tried! For twenty years! But I started entertaining thoughts of being on my own and having the freedom to do whatever I wanted and to move to New York and have a career … my thoughts led to fantasies and my fantasies led to actions.”
“And you fucked us royally. You’re a hypocrite. You and your ‘treat others as you’d have them treat you.’ You constantly preached to Ian and me about sacrificing for others, putting each other’s needs before our own. Yeah. How’d that go for ya?”
“Charlotte, don’t sit there and preach to me. You’re a hypocrite yourself.”
“What?”
“Yes, put other’s needs before your own so that you can develop leadership traits. Not so that you can become a slave to someone else.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You still idolize Ian like he’s the king of the universe—I can tell, even after being gone eleven years. As a child, you’d give Ian whatever he wanted because you worshipped him. Not because you were obeying my rule of putting other’s needs first. And even now, instead of standing up for yourself—calling the cops, buying a gun—you let him hunt you down and kill you.”
I blink at her. “You really think it’s that easy? You really think purchasing a gun and shooting your son, my brother, is the answer to all this?” This conversation is going nowhere. She’s lost her mind, and she doesn’t even know Ian anymore.
&nbs
p; She shrugs and swipes a dragon roll between her chopsticks and flicks it to her mouth.
“Why did you come back?” I repeat hotly.
Fanny wipes avocado from her mouth. “I’m looking for something. I thought Tim would be here to tell me where it was.”
“You came all this way and inconvenienced yourself this much for a baker’s rack of your grandma’s dishes? You could’ve just called. Saved yourself and us a lot of trouble.” I stab a chopstick into a rose of ginger.
“It wasn’t the baker’s rack. And I wanted to see you, too, Charlotte. I really did. I saw your Facebook disappear, and that worried me. And rightfully so.”
I clap my hands. “Oh, you did? How sweet of you! My mom spies on my Facebook page! Parent of the year, ladies and gents.” I jump off the chair and splay my arms around the naked and broken kitchen. “Look at this, Fanny! This is it! All that’s left of what you deserted. No husband, no son, and no baker’s rack. Just me! And you still haven’t found what you’re looking for.” Tears needle my eyes, and I turn to the sink so Fanny won’t see.
I hear the chair scrape across the tile and her boots peck toward me. Then her icy witch hand is on my shoulder. “I’m sorry I came back and messed everything up.”
I jerk away. “Messed everything up? Everything’s been messed up since you left! You think we have it good here? Shall I repeat the current status of the Stahl household? We’re droppin’ like flies, Fan!”
Fanny steps away from me. “I’ll leave. I’ll go back. Is that what you want?”
I surrender a single tear down my cheek. “I can’t take any more betrayal from another loved one, Mom. I wouldn’t be able to handle you leaving again.”
Fanny nods. “Can we keep in touch?”
My head feels like it’s ripping in half as I roll over in my bed and paw around for my cackling phone. I squint my right eye open to look at the caller ID, then sit up and clear my throat, voicing a couple practice hellos before actually answering.