Blink

by Sasha Dawn

  “There’s a path,” Caroline says.

  “And a tower,” Margaret adds.

  “And criss-cross windows.”

  I turn my attention back to my sisters, who are standing on either side of the sand castle with open mouths. I snap a picture of them and Chatham’s creation. If I ever see Chatham again, I want her to see the effect she’s had on them.

  Maybe I’ll even muster the balls to tell her she’s had an effect on me, too. A girl like that . . . she’d sort of sucker-punch you in the chest with a kiss, you know?

  I search for her again on the horizon, but just when I think I’ve spotted her, I realize it’s just another brunette in another scrap of red cotton.

  One thing I’ve learned over the course of my sixteen challenging years on this planet: it’s like that with everything—fleeting, impermanent. Nothing’s more than a Cheshire cat disappearing into hookah smoke and leaving the remnants of its grin behind. And this girl is no different. She was here and now she’s gone. Like an illusion. You fucking blink, and she’s gone. Fucking gone.

  Like Rachel Bachton.

  But instead of leaving bones in a shallow grave, Chatham Claiborne left something more impermanent: a sand sculpture on the shore. It’ll be washed away by evening.

  B e a s t o f B u r d e n

  “So hot.”

  “Too windy.”

  “So hot.”

  “Too windy.”

  My sisters argue from their booster seats in the backseat of my ancient Ford Explorer. The air conditioning hasn’t worked since long before I acquired the title to this hunk of scrap metal, so even though it’s too windy in the backseat for Caroline’s liking, Margaret wins this fight because it’s just too damn hot without the windows open.

  The twins’ cheeks are pink, I hope only flushed with the heat. I’ll hear about it if they’re sunburned, which is nearly impossible, given how often I applied the sunblock.

  I roll down my window a few inches more.

  “No, Josh. Too windy!”

  I turn up the radio to drown out the sound of Caroline’s protest. I’m almost home. My mother should be home soon. Thank the fucking lord.

  The sooner she’s home, the sooner I’m out.

  I love my sisters, of course, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend every waking second with them. I mean, it’s not their fault they’re here, courtesy of the wrong time of the month with the wrongest guy in the world. Still, I’m ready to let our mother take a turn at raising them for a day.

  And maybe, just maybe, the possibility of seeing Chatham again increases the feeling of urgency about it.

  God, I hope she comes tonight.

  We exit the highway and rumble through town, past Churchill General. Circle the brick-paved roundabout. Hook a right at Second Street, where the Tiny Elvis Café has its windows open. I wave to a few of the guys on the football team, who are seated out on the patio, under the teal-and-white-striped canopy.

  A request comes from the backseat: “Ice cream?”

  “Not today, Maggie Lee,” I say. “We gotta get home.”

  “Mommy said.” Apparently, Caroline has rejoined Margaret’s team.

  “She did?”

  “Uh-huh,” the girls say in unison.

  That sounds like something my mother would do: get the girls jazzed about spending the day with their big brother because he’ll probably take them for ice cream. She’s always setting me up for stuff like that. Well, two can play.

  “Then she’ll probably take you later.” After a second, I add, “Tell her Josh said.”

  A few blocks later, I turn onto Carpenter Street. Our house is all the way at the end, on the left, just as Carpenter bends to become Wabash . . . the smallish raised ranch with fading gray paint and a boundary of overgrown hedges lining the lot. I’m nearing the driveway when I see it: a shiny, black truck—a new one, with a full-sized bed and larger-than-necessary tires—parked at the curb.

  I’m about to turn into the driveway, next to my mother’s green VW bug.

  I calculate the time.

  She shouldn’t be home yet.

  Maybe her shift was cut short. That happens sometimes.

  But the truck . . . what the hell is it doing here?

  The front door of the house opens, and two figures emerge.

  “Oh no,” Caroline says. I’m guessing she saw them, too.

  I go past the house, looking in the rearview mirror, where I can see my mother standing in the doorway wearing a robe, kissing her ex-husband, my sisters’ father. He’s a big guy, at least six-two; she looks so small next to him. I swear under my breath, and continue driving.

  “Daddy,” Margaret whispers.

  I don’t have to look in the rearview mirror to know my sisters are shrinking in their seats, cowering, hoping not to be seen.

  If I’d stopped at the Tiny E for ice cream, like my mother told the girls I would, we wouldn’t be in this position.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  What’s he doing at our house?

  Why the hell is she kissing him?

  I breathe through the multitude of emotions rising within me, burning in my chest.

  And why do I have the feeling she wasn’t really working today?

  I’ll circle the block, and if they’re still saying good-bye by the time we’re coming around again, I’ll have to interrupt them. It’d be better if the girls didn’t have to witness it, but someone has to tell the guy to get lost . . . and stay lost.

  He’s not supposed to be here. Court ordered.

  And I swear to God, if my mother did what I think she did . . .

  Damn it, Rosie, I scream at her inside my head. He’s not supposed to be within five hundred feet of you! And you’re doing this with him!

  By the time we round the block and pull up to our house for the second time—“No, Joshy, keep driving,” Margaret says—Damien Wick, the world’s largest asshole, is pulling away, oblivious to the fact that we saw him.

  “It’s okay,” I tell the twins. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone forever?” Caroline asks.

  “At least gone for now.” I pull into the driveway, kill the engine, and unclip my seatbelt.

  My sisters follow suit, silent, and slip out of the car.

  I drop an inflatable beach ring around each of their bodies, because I believe they should get used to carrying their own things, and I grab the cooler and sandy towels. We take our time to go around the house to the backyard, where we shake out our towels and drape them on the line, and spill the melting ice into the barren flowerbed.

  We leave the cooler propped to dry out, and I stow the floaties in the shed.

  The girls are quiet as we take the back porch stairs.

  “It’s okay,” I tell them again when they turn their scared eyes up at me. “He’s gone.”

  “Uppy,” Caroline jumps into my embrace. I hold her at my hip, unlock the back door, open it, and lift Margaret in my free arm, so we enter together, a united mass.

  Two beer bottles and the remnants of a meal sit atop the kitchen table.

  A purple ceramic unicorn has made its way from the storage under the stairs to the center of our table. I know what this means.

  That unicorn was the only gift she’d ever received from the asshole who just left our house, and she only dusts it off and displays it when she’s feeling nostalgic and hopeful. Or when she wants him to think she’s feeling that way. She thinks I don’t notice these things, but I do.

  Rose Michaels-Herron-Wick—my mother doesn’t hyphenate, but I remember our past—glances in the direction of the mess before meeting my gaze and plastering a smile on her face. “How are my darling girls?”

  I lower them to the floor. “They need a bath, and they’re probably getting hungry.”

  “You didn’t take them to the Tiny E?” She gives me her best mom-look, but it’s been ineffective for years. “I gave you money.”

  “I used it for lunch, and drinks and snacks to pack the cool
er.” And because I had the girls at the beach from ten in the morning, and it’s after five now, I add: “What did you think we were going to eat all day?”

  My sisters are at our mother’s side for hugs and kisses.

  “You smell like lake.” Rosie scrunches up her nose. “You do need a bath. Go pick out your bubbles, and I’ll be right there.”

  Margaret and Caroline scamper down the hall.

  “Oh, God, what a day.” Rosie holds her robe closed. “The hospital sent me home, but they just called, and they need me tonight.”

  A ball of fire waxes in my head. She is so not going to do this to me. Not again. Not tonight. I lean against the edge of the countertop, fold my arms over my chest, and stare her down.

  But she’s not making eye contact.

  “I can’t pass up the overtime, Josh, and I know you’ve been with them all day, but I had to come home for a nap. I was exhausted, okay, and I know it’s not fair, but life isn’t always fair, you know—”

  “I hope you had the sense to use a condom,” I spit out.

  “What are you talking about? I just—”

  She shuts up when she realizes I know what she’s been doing. And whom she’s been doing it with.

  “I just . . .” Her words die.

  I shake my head in disbelief. “I assume he paid you for services rendered.”

  She gives me a practiced look. “You don’t talk to me that way.”

  “What the hell was he doing here, Rosie?”

  “Call me Mom.”

  I chuckle, maybe because I know it’ll piss her off. “I’ll call you Mom when you start acting like one.”

  “You can—”

  “Jesus Christ, we have a restraining order against the guy, and here you are, in a robe, kissing him on our doorstep.”

  Her mouth clamps shut.

  I sweep a hand toward the two bottles and the fucking unicorn on the table. “You’re sharing drinks with him—”

  “I have to work, Josh. I wasn’t drinking.”

  “Even better. Give the mean and nasty drunk more than one drink. That makes sense. And lie to me, say you have to work so I’ll take the girls for the whole fucking day, so you can spend the afternoon in bed with this guy.”

  “He was only here a couple of hours. Not the whole day.”

  An uncomfortable silence needles between us.

  “I didn’t have a choice, Josh. He said he had a check for me.”

  “Did he?”

  “I had to get you out of the house. I didn’t want the girls to see him.”

  “Well, they saw him anyway. Zipping his fly on the front doorstep. Next time, how about I meet him at the police station to pick up the check? Or how about he mails it on time, like he’s supposed to? Or ask the courts to take it out of his paycheck like every other normal person!”

  She pulls her robe more tightly around her thin body.

  I make a beeline for the steps—half a flight down to the foyer, half a flight down to the basement where my room is. “I’m going to be late.”

  “You can’t go out.” She’s pounding down the steps behind me. “Weren’t you listening? I have to work tonight. I need you to watch the girls.”

  “No, you needed me to watch the girls last night after my game. You needed me to watch them today. I’m off the clock, Rosie.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “You spend the afternoon in bed with this schmuck, and I’m supposed to drop everything to cover your ass again!”

  “You live here, too, you know. You have to pull your own weight.” We’re in the basement now, damp and dingy.

  “I had a job,” I remind her. “You made me quit. You made me choose between football and work.”

  “And you chose football.”

  If I ever want to get out of this hellhole and go to college, football’s my only hope for a scholarship. No one’s going to give me tuition money for spreading mulch. Of course I chose football.

  “So now you have to pony up and babysit.”

  “I’ve been babysitting,” I say. “All fucking day. What about me? When’s it my time? When do I get to do something for me?”

  Her brow furrows, and suddenly, without makeup, in her drab, terrycloth robe, she looks much older than her thirty-four years. “When do I?”

  I narrow my gaze at her, just enough so I know she’s listening, so I know what I’m about to say will sink in: “I think you did a little something for yourself this afternoon.”

  She swings an open hand at me, but I dodge it, and her second attempt, too.

  “Don’t you dare judge me for what I have to do.” Shaking, she eases onto the nearly threadbare sofa and drops her head into her hands. “After all I’ve done for you. Everyone told me to get rid of you. I was too young, they said. But I loved you, I kept you.”

  “I’m supposed to thank you for the fact that I exist.” I lean against the wall opposite her. “For the fact that you got knocked up at seventeen by a guy who didn’t give a shit about you.”

  “I loved you before you were born.”

  “If you really loved me,” I say, “you might’ve done what’s best for me.” Translation: she would’ve given me to someone who wouldn’t repeatedly put me in impossible situations.

  Her lower lip quivers for a moment, then hardens into a line. “Congratulations. Not only are you not going out tonight, you’re not going out for two weeks.”

  I shake my head, and can’t help smiling at the absurdity of it all. “Great. That makes perfect sense.”

  “Want to make it three?”

  I chuckle again. “Who do you think you’re talking to? Do you think I don’t remember the whole story? Do you think I don’t remember what Damien’s capable of? That I should ignore the potentially disastrous effect his being here could have? Not just on you? On all of us?”

  She stands, and takes a step toward the stairs. “You don’t talk to me that way without consequence. You’re my live-in nanny for two weeks.”

  For life, is more like it. “For what? Speaking the truth?”

  “When you’ve gone through everything I’ve gone through, you have license to judge me. But until then, respect me.”

  Conversation over.

  She forgets that I have gone through everything she’s gone through. The only difference is that I have no measure of control over the fucked-up decisions she makes. I’m just left dealing with the fallout.

  I wonder what she’d do if I just took off. If, by the time she was ready for work, I just wasn’t here.

  It’s too late for her to get someone to cover her shift. And there’s no one to take care of the girls at short notice, not that she can afford to pay a sitter anyway.

  So she’ll lose her job if she doesn’t go, or she’ll have to ship the girls off to Damien. Which is not an option.

  There’s no choice about it. I have to stay home tonight.

  I knock my head against the wall and listen to the creak of the steps as Rosie climbs them.

  Just my luck.

  If the mysterious sand sculptress shows at the bonfire and I’m not there, she’s going to think I’m an ass. She probably won’t go, anyway, but wouldn’t this be the one night the stars aligned? And I’m stuck here playing nanny on Carpenter Street.

  Now I’ll never know if she cared enough to meet me or not. I’ll never know if she was interested. And worse yet, she won’t know that I am.

  I close my eyes as Chatham Claiborne fades off into the distance behind me.

  Unreachable.

  It’s better if I forget she was there at all.

  ’Cause if she was, she’ll be leaving soon anyway. This town isn’t like Key West, San Diego, or other places people visit and fall in love with. No one vacations here and decides to stay forever in a place like this.

  M i r a g e

  I lit out just as soon as Rosie returned from work this morning, and I’ve been with Aiden ever since. We’re on the bluffs behind Aiden’s dad’s house, wat
ching the sun creep down the horizon. It’s one of those great nights when a deep violet sky meets a fiery tangerine of sunset.

  I’ve been gone from Carpenter Street for over sixteen hours now.

  Yeah, ground me. Go ahead, Rosie. You gotta sleep sometime, and once you’re down for the count, I’m out the door.

  Not that she likely got much rest, once the twins started making a ruckus around six or seven. But that’s her problem.

  I bring the weed to my lips, inhale, and pass it back.

  Then I see her—Chatham Claiborne—do a double take, and realize she’s not there. I know my mind is playing tricks on me.

  “It’s the weed.” Aiden’s always trying to explain the inexplicable. And what he can’t explain, he makes up for in entertaining bullshit. “Good shit.”

  Yeah, but I’ve smoked good weed before, and never has it left me seeing things that aren’t there. I have to wonder if Rachel Bachton’s parents feel the same way . . . if they see their daughter in crowds of people, but only in momentary glimpses . . . if by the time they focus on what they thought they saw, she’s gone.

  The thought occurs to me: one of my sisters could be snatched if I’m not careful. My heart quickens with the sheer terror of it.

  Could anything be more terrifying than not knowing where your kid is? Not knowing what she’s had to endure at the hands of some psychopathic sicko?

  Could anything be worse than knowing your kid is gone because you happened to look away for just a second?

  “It’s a little Purple Gorilla and a little Banana Haze,” Aiden’s saying. “That’s why you get the aftertaste.”

  Purple Gorilla. Banana Haze. “Who names this shit?”

  “I don’t know, but I want that job.” He takes a hit and passes the J to me. “I think I’d go with motor oil hum, or mindjam.”

  Good to know he’s thinking about it. Aiden’s father, a botanist, is one of those pro-legalization advocates, and he just took a job as a grower in a lab out in Colorado. This means Aiden very well could land a job naming pot strains if he follows in his father’s footsteps.