“Then put a new bulb in!” Justine’s voice was breaking.
“I will. But you’ll have to give me a few minutes to find one.”
Justine waited while Em left, flicking on the light in the hallway. Justine squinted and covered her eyes with one hand. She listened for Em’s progress as she went downstairs to the kitchen, and then down further to the storeroom, hunting for a replacement bulb for the light. Eventually she came back up the stairs. She looked in Justine’s door, but probably couldn’t see her, looking from the light into the dark.
“Are you awake?” she whispered.
“Yeah, I’m still awake,” Justine snapped back.
“Just, I couldn’t fine a replacement bulb. I’ll have to get one tomorrow. How about if I leave the hall light on for you? Would that be okay?”
Justine thought about it, leaning back into her pillows and closing her eyes.
“Yeah,” she said finally. “Would you just close my door most of the way? So it’s not too bright?”
Em closed the door slowly until it was only open a crack.
“Okay?” she questioned.
“Uh-huh,” Justine agreed.
“Okay. Love you. Go back to sleep.”
Justine didn’t say anything. She listened to Em retreating to her own room and shutting the door.
CHAPTER 5
IT WAS DARK, AND she was alone and scared. It was too quiet. The baby had cried for a long time, but now it was eerily silent. She felt around for a bottle, but there wasn’t one within reach. She pulled the blanket close to her face, as if she could swim into it to comfort herself. She imagined that she was in a safe place. Somewhere warm and quiet, but not alone. The darkness pressed ominously around her, threatening, full of danger. There were movements in the hall outside, someone was pacing. Maybe trying to get in to get at her. Her stomach hurt. Her lips were parched. Her body shivered uncontrollably. She was alone, so alone.
Justine stifled a scream when a touch woke her up from the nightmare.
“Shh, you were having a dream,” Em’s voice whispered, her hand stroking Justine’s arm soothingly.
Justine pulled sharply away from her. She could still feel the dream. Could still feel the darkness, the ominous presence, the loneliness and bewilderment.
“How could you abandon me?” she demanded. “How could you just leave me there, all by myself?”
“Shhh. It was a dream, Just. You’re not alone. You’re here with me, Mommy. It’s okay. I’ll never abandon you.”
“You left me alone,” Justine repeated. Her own words started to wake her up. She tried to concentrate on what she was saying, to make sense out of it. Em had left her alone? When had Em left her alone? She cast her mind back over the past.
“Once at the store, you forgot all about me,” she accused sleepily.
“Trust you to remember that,” Em said helplessly, with a half-laugh and shake of the head. “You’re not alone, Justine. Mommy’s here watching over you. I haven’t abandoned you, and I never will. I’ll take care of you. I’ll always take care of you.”
Justine rubbed her eyes.
“You did forget me in the store once,” she repeated. “Don’t you remember it? The department store over on the west side? I was looking at the toy aisle, and you paid for your stuff and went home, and left me there all by myself. A woman at the store helped me. She couldn’t believe that you would just walk away, and leave me there.”
“Things like that happen,” Em soothed. “You were okay. And it never happened again. It was just one time; I was distracted, and forgot to put you in your car seat.” She laughed. “I’m amazed you can remember it. You were so young at the time.”
“I remember everything,” Justine asserted.
But the dream was already fading, and she couldn’t remember anything about it except for the feeling of abandonment. Em had forgotten her, had abandoned her in that store. She remembered the feeling of being lost and alone. Of having to survive on her own. There was no one that she could rely on, depend on to help take care of her needs. Everybody left, sooner or later. They all left, looking after their own needs and not after hers. Nobody could be trusted.
“You left me,” she murmured to Em, and fell back asleep.
“You sleep okay after your nightmare?” Em questioned, putting a bowl of hot cereal in front of Justine at the table. Justine stirred the lumpy cereal without interest.
“Seriously. You expect me to eat this pig slop?” she demanded, pushing it around.
“Did you have a good sleep? I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep,” Em said, ignoring her attitude and the comment.
“Yeah, fine,” Justine said. “I don’t need anyone holding my hand to get back to sleep. I did just fine on my own.”
“Good to hear it.”
“I still remember about you leaving me at the mall,” Justine commented.
Em smiled and shook her head.
“Then you remember how sorry I was too, and that I never did that again. It was a one-time oversight, Justine. I wish you would let it go. This many years later, you shouldn’t even be able to remember it.”
Em couldn’t control what she could remember. She couldn’t tell Justine what she should and shouldn’t be able to remember.
“And what about the rest of the things that you’ve done to me?” challenged Justine. “Am I supposed to just forget about those, too? What about that?”
“What things that I’ve done?” Em questioned, shaking her head.
Justine thought back. When she looked back in her memory at her relationship with Em, it was not a pretty picture. Justine might not be the easiest kid to get alone with, but Em was no picnic either. Justine’s memories were peppered with broken promises, Em’s childish tantrums, and over-the-top punishments for Justine’s behavior. Justine closed her eyes.
“You used to lock me in my room,” she pointed out. “You’re not allowed to do that. Child Protective Services would have you in real hot water if they knew about that.”
“Sometimes you have to go to extremes to keep your child safe,” Em said. “You would get up at night, get into things or leave the house. It scared me to death. I was sure you’d either burn the house down around us, or I wouldn’t be able to find you. I had alarms on the doors to wake me up if you left, but I was terrified that they wouldn’t wake me up one day when I was too tired. And there were other times … I had to keep you out of my things, or keep you safe. You had to be locked in.”
“Good excuses,” Justine sneered. “I’ll bet you never asked Child Services if that was okay to do.”
“Of course not, why would I? Social Workers aren’t parents. They don’t always know how to deal with kids, especially with … special situations or difficult behaviors. I talked to Dr. Morton.”
“And he said it was okay to lock me up?” Justine demanded.
“Well, no. He didn’t say that. But he knew about it. He said to be careful, that’s all. He never reported abuse or anything. They have to report it if they think you are being abusive, you know, so he knew it wasn’t abuse,” Em said triumphantly. Her eyes were bright and challenging.
Justine just stared at her steadily. Em reddened and turned away, getting orange juice from the fridge.
“Eat up,” she advised. “You need energy to focus at school.”
Justine looked down at her bowl.
“I can’t eat this crap,” she said, and pushed it away from her, a knot in her stomach.
“You need to eat.”
“Then give me something edible.”
“Justine. Just eat your breakfast. That’s what there is. If you want to put some fruit on it, go ahead. But don’t complain to me about it. I’m tired of you opposing me on everything.”
Justine eyed her.
“Eat it,” Em said sternly.
“I’m going to get some fruit,” Justine said. She picked up her bowl and got up from the table. Em watched her for a moment, starting to eat her
own oatmeal, and her eyes went to her newspaper. Justine waited until she was distracted, then dumped her bowl of cereal in the garbage, grabbed an apple, and hurried out the door. She heard Em calling after her, but hopped on her board and put some pavement between them.
Later at lunch, Justine paid for her sandwich and looked around the crowded cafeteria. Usually she went out at lunchtime, skated around a bit, maybe hung out at the mall or something. But it had been pouring all morning, and she would need a wet suit not to be soaked in two minutes. So unless Justine wanted to sit around in sopping wet clothes the rest of the afternoon, she would have to stay indoors.
She glanced around, knowing that there was no one she wanted to sit with, just looking for an empty seat somewhere. She spotted one a couple of tables away, and moved toward it purposefully, hoping to be able to grab it before someone else did. The lunchroom was always too full, and on a day like today when even those who usually went out were going to be staying in, there would be lots of people just sitting on the floor. Justine slid into the seat before anyone else could reach it, and sighed, putting down her sandwich to unwrap it.
Sitting across the table from her was Megan, with her round black glasses. She looked up at Justine and brightened, smiling.
“Hi, Justine,” she greeted. “How’s it going?”
Justine grunted, working at finding the edge of the plastic wrap on her sandwich.
“Fine, I guess,” she said.
“Yeah? That’s good. You look so sad sometimes, I worry about you. But you’re okay?”
Justine squirmed at the personal questions. Why did she have to pick this seat? There must have been a dozen other seats she could have picked and not had to answer inquiries into her personal life.
“Yeah. Thanks for asking,” she said. She took a big bite of the sandwich and looked around, trying to signal to Megan that she wasn’t interested in the conversation and wanted to be left alone. Megan didn’t take the hint.
“You don’t usually stay in for lunch. The rain got to you, huh?” Megan questioned.
“Yeah. Don’t want to sit in wet clothes all afternoon. Oh, well.”
Megan nodded with interest.
“You like boarding, right? I always wanted to do something like that, but I’m so uncoordinated …”
“Skating,” Justine corrected. “Yeah. It’s good.”
“Skating. That makes it sound like figure skating or something,” Megan objected. “I’ll bet figure skating is hard!”
Justine nodded, munching studiously through her sandwich. Where was she going to escape to when she was done? How was she going to spend the next hour, now that Megan had attached herself to Justine like a social leech?
“You used to skate with that boy, Christian,” Megan observed.
Justine looked up at her momentarily, surprised. A sharp pain sliced through her heart. She dropped her eyes again.
“Yeah, I used to,” she agreed.
“That must have been fun. He seemed like a really nice kid.”
Justine let her mind go back to her time with Christian, for a moment. He was fun. And nice. Being so small, and so poor, he got bullied a lot. But he was always cheerful about it. He joked around even with the boys who bullied him, until they had to admit that they like his spunk and they’d rather listen to his jokes and pranks than be mean to him. He attracted people to him. He had a sort of magnetism that Justine could never understand. What was it that made him pull people in, made him make friends so easily, when it was so hard for Justine?
Christian had such a ready grin. He was short and slight, which made him look like he was a couple of years younger than he really was. He had wildly curly, messy hair. And he had a smile that made him look like a leprechaun. His eyes sparkled with fun, even when they got in trouble. Officer Joe or another cop would be giving them a stern lecture, and Christian would look at Justine, his eyes dancing, and she would crack up. She couldn’t help it. Christian just seemed to carry fun with him everywhere. Despite his family and home life, the lack of love and support and ready cash, he was rarely ever down. He didn’t complain. Any bruises or injuries were always just brushed off as skating injuries, even when she knew that they couldn’t possibly be. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to get back at them. He just wanted to skate and have a good time. So Justine escaped with him, left behind all of her own resentments for Em and the loss of her real life, and lived with Christian in the present, always looking for a good place to skate.
“He was nice,” Justine agreed, her throat feeling choked and hot. She closed her eyes, trying to drive back any tears, to remain firm and immovable before Megan.
“I was so sad when I heard about the accident,” Megan said, shaking her head. “I just couldn’t believe that anything like that could happen to him. It just wasn’t fair.”
Justine nodded wordlessly. She tried to prevent the memories from washing over her, and when they did, she tried to change them. Tried to concentrate on Christian’s happy face, on the good memories that she had of him. Not the accident. She didn’t want to think about the accident. She thought about the two of them lying on the ground in the park, looking up at the trees, exploding with autumn color.
“This is great,” Christian said. “Better than TV. Better than anything in an electronic box. This is living.”
Justine gazed up at the kaleidoscope of color.
“It’s beautiful,” she agreed, “I’ve never seen such a beautiful day.”
Christian breathed in the heady October air, drank it in.
“If we could just bottle this moment in time,” he said. “Wouldn’t that be perfect? If anytime we wanted to, we could just uncork the bottle, and be here again?”
Justine had given him a look that made him crack up, laughing hysterically.
“Justine, Justine,” he gasped, giggling. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you have the soul of a poet. Because you don’t!” He laughed heartily, wiping tears from his streaming eyes. “If you could just see the expression on your face!”
Justine tried hard to be offended, but couldn’t manage it. She smiled good-naturedly.
“You’re enough of a poet for both of us,” she told him. “Couldn’t have both of us mooning around here like that.”
He nodded in agreement and lay back again. But the magical mood was broken, and they got up to go look for somewhere new to skate, off to look for more adventure.
The scene faded before Justine’s eyes, and she was again confronted with the bad memories. The flashbacks of the accident. Christian’s face just before it happened. His broken, bleeding body afterward. Leaning over him in shock, trying to process it, trying to help him. Hands taking him from her. Afterward, numb from the pain, her heart broken, a big empty hole in her middle. Christian, gone. Christian, lost. Never to come back to her again. Never to make her smile or laugh again. Never to skate beside her.
Justine thought of the big black stone in the graveyard. That was her heart now. Black, cold, hard. Impenetrable. No one would ever make her feel like Christian again. She would never have a friend like that again.
“Sorry,” Megan said, reaching across the table for Justine’s hand. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I just wanted to say … I’m sorry. It must have been really hard for you.”
Justine pulled her hand away from Megan’s. Pressing her lips tightly together to keep from saying anything or from bursting into tears, she got up from the table and fled.
Justine still felt unsettled after school. She went back to the empty house in a round-about route, not wanting to be seen. When she got there, she watched the house for a few minutes first. The windows were still dark and empty. She went through the gate around to the back yard. It was pretty much as it had been last time she had seen it. Tire rim. Fire pit. Garbage and long grass and weeds. The window that she had broken had been boarded up. She made no attempt to break in this time. She just sat by the fire pit, closing her eyes to remember
what it had been like to be inside the house. Justine remembered the darkness, the emptiness. They matched the darkness and the emptiness that were inside of her. It made her feel right. How sick was she, when the only place that she felt comfortable and safe was in old, abandoned houses? What kind of a person did that make her?
She gathered together small sticks, trash, bits of dried leaves, some pieces of plywood that hadn’t been used to board up the window, but had just been left lying on the ground. Justine put them all into the fire pit, and used her lighter to start them on fire. For a while, she just sat there, on a moldy old stump, feeling the fire warming her. The sky was starting to darken, but it wasn’t dark enough for the security company to come around yet. Justine positioned another, smaller stump beside her, right at her side.
“There you go, Monica,” she whispered. “You can sit right there. We’ll stay together. I’ll take care of you.”
She stared into the fire. It had been a long time since she’d thought about Monica. Monica was before Christian. Christian had helped to fill that hole in her. Justine hadn’t needed an imaginary friend while he was around. He’d been a real friend. Everybody could see him and talk and interact with him. Not like with Monica, who only lived in her brain. But Monica had been there first. Monica had been there for as long as Justine could remember. She had brought Monica with her, from before she had lived with Em. Before she could remember. Monica had always been with her.
When she was little, that had been fine. People were used to little kids having imaginary friends. They thought it was cute and would play along, pretending that they could see and interact with the imaginary friend. It was a healthy developmental step. But Justine had never wanted anyone else to talk to and interact with Monica. Monica was her friend, and no one else’s. She protected Monica from contact with other people. Only took her out to talk with her when she was alone. She still had a special doll that she had named Monica in a weak moment, a doll that other people could see and play with. Little Justine had carried rag doll Monica around, tucked safely under her arm. She wouldn’t let anyone talk with her or play with her. She felt proud, taking care of Monica like that, being a good girl and taking care of Monica all by herself. People thought that it was cute, and even though Justine wouldn’t let them play with Monica, they didn’t see anything wrong with her having a doll and carrying it everywhere with her.
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