“Don’t answer the door or the phone,” I say before locking the door behind me.
*
“Isabelle.” Rupa looks up from the counter as the bells jingle over the door.
I can’t imagine how I must look right now: wet, limp hair, red face, stomach churning. I’ve been at a full-out run for almost an hour. As mad as hell.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “My bus schedule changed. It’s a bit of a rush.”
“Well, you’re here now.” She smiles down at me. I wait for her to give me a job to do.
“Can you do the glass, please?” She motions to the tall windows running the length of the store. “Inside tonight.”
I collect the bucket and squeegee from the back. Somewhere behind the boxes, I hear Arif rummaging and stacking. No sign of Hasan yet.
Things pick up by the time I’ve finished two large panes. Arif brings me a mop and bucket from the back and points to the trail of muck between the door and the counter.
“Keep an eye on this,” he says. Whenever there’s a lull between customers, which isn’t very often, I drop down the sloppy string mop and scrub. More like spreading it around, if you ask me. Arif joins Rupa at the other till to keep the line moving.
I turn back to the windows. I don’t know if it’s from carrying Evan or washing or mopping, but I feel weary to the bone. I raise the squeegee above my head, and my whole arm trembles. I steady myself against the glass.
Right now Maisie’s up in the apartment, watching the door for my return. Unless Mom has come home—then who knows what’s going on? At this very moment the fire alarm could be ringing. Evan could be having a seizure. Maisie could be choking on a cracker.
I left a six-year-old to watch a four-year-old. What have I done? And the thing I hate the most, what makes me squat to catch my breath, is that I’ve just done to Maisie what Mom does to me. The floor lurches.
“Isabelle.” Rupa’s at my side, touching my shoulder. “What is it?”
I take her hand to pull myself up. I realize I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. “Sorry, I’m feeling sick. I have to go.”
She nods, worry in her eyes. “Yes, go home.” As she guides me toward the door, I suddenly remember.
“Rupa, can I buy some Tylenol for my brother?”
“Of course.” She grabs the small pink box from the shelf and puts it in my hand. “Just take it to Arif. He’ll ring it through.”
“Only”—I hate these words out loud—“I can’t pay for it now.” I gave Mom my last twenty to catch a taxi to work the other day. Payday isn’t for another five days.
Rupa’s face falls, like I’ve just told her a sad story. She doesn’t answer.
“You can take it straight off my check,” I offer, “and I’ll pay you back double.” Who am I to ask her these things? It hasn’t even been a month.
“No, no. Not double.” Her eyes flick toward Arif, who has just turned his back to pick out a carton of cigarettes. “Go now. Just take it. We’ll work it out later.”
I tuck the box close to my body as I head for the door, like we’ve just done an illicit drug deal. As I pass by the counter, Rupa breaks away and calls to Arif. He turns his head in her direction and doesn’t see me leave. There is no urinal I wouldn’t scrub for this woman.
Outside, I take a deep breath in the damp, then break into a run. Let them be okay. I’ll never leave them alone again. Never.
I bump some old lady out of the way getting onto the elevator and bang the tenth-floor button again and again. The doors pull shut in slow motion. A few creaks and groans as it creeps from floor to floor. Piece of junk. The stairs would be faster.
“’Scuse me,” I say, pushing past a mom with a stroller who’s blocking the way off, jamming her wheels into the wall. I run away from her indignant cry toward our chipped peach door. My mouth so dry I can’t swallow.
I fumble with the lock and dive through the door. Maisie’s right there in my face.
“What, Maisie? What is it?”
“Evan.” She points to him on the sofa. “He threw up.” Her lip droops as she says it. There are tear tracks on her cheeks. “I tried to take him to the bathroom, but he said he couldn’t.” She chokes up. “He wouldn’t go.”
I look to the sofa and see Evan, who has shifted away from the brown, lumpy mess dripping down onto the carpet. The sour smell hits me now. His eyes are closed.
“Maisie”—I pick her up in a bear hug—“you did such a good job looking after Evan. Now I’m here, and you don’t have to anymore.”
She nods and wipes her cheeks. “Okay.”
“Go make yourself a peanut-butter sandwich while I clean this up.” She pads to the kitchen, freed from her unpleasant duties. “And wash your hands first!”
I haul Evan to the other side of the sofa, away from the mess. Clean his face with a wet cloth and pull the soiled shirt off of him. His ribs burn under my fingers.
“Maisie, bring me Evan’s blanket.” Once he’s settled, falling in and out of sleep, I turn to the vomit. I’m practically an expert at this. Still makes me gag every time.
The shifting mess seeps through the paper towel, making my stomach twist. I clear away the big stuff and then pull out my bucket and rag. At least it won’t stain. You could hide a world of bodily fluids in this rust-colored shag. I do my best with it, then turn back to Evan.
Maisie watches me pour the thick pink liquid into a spoon. “Is that Evan’s medicine?” she asks.
“Yup.” Shame I didn’t bargain for a bottle of ginger ale as well. I wake him up enough to swallow it and offer a sip of water. “Don’t gulp,” I say, pulling back. “You’ll throw up again.”
“More,” he cries.
“Wait and see if your tummy holds it down.”
He whimpers and falls back asleep, his head resting on the arm of the sofa.
Maisie brings me a peanut-butter sandwich too. It sticks in my throat, my stomach still queasy. “Did Mom come home at all?” I ask. Maisie shakes her head. “Did anyone call?” She shakes her head again.
I pick Mom’s work number off the fridge and dial it. Some rough-sounding guy answers.
“Hi, this is Isabelle Bennett, Marnie’s daughter.”
Silence on the other end.
“Marnie had a bit of a family emergency today. I was wondering if she made it to work tonight?”
“She’s not here.” He sounds pissed.
“Okay, I’m sure she’ll be back again tomorrow,” I say.
There’s some kind of grunting sound on the other end. I can’t tell if that was actually a word.
“Sorry for the inconvenience.” I hang up.
As I put down the receiver, the weight of every lie I’ve told today comes crashing down on me. Was it every word? Every conversation? All to protect this—this reality show gone bad.
I read Maisie an extra chapter of Alice in Wonderland to make up for being a jerk today. Still haunted by what I did, and she’s too young to even know it.
“I think we’ll have a home day tomorrow, Maisie,” I say, tucking her in.
“No! Tomorrow I’m the helper!”
“Well, you’ll be the helper again another time.”
“No, tomorrow’s my first turn. I’ve been waiting a long time.” The whole five days of school so far. Her lip trembles.
I sigh. “What about Evan? He’s sick.”
“Mom can look after him,” she says. Is she talking about someone else’s mother? Ours took off sometime today and hasn’t come back yet. Still, it’s not a good time for me to miss school either, given my shaky standing with Mr. Talmage.
“We’ll see, okay?”
She smiles and rolls over, tucking her blankets under her feet. “Okay.” In less than a minute her breaths are long and slow. I so envy that.
I pull Evan from the sofa, where he’s been sleeping for over an hour, and arrange him in Mom’s bed. I need to be close to him tonight. Towel over the pillow. Bowl by his side. I climb into bed next to him
and lay the back of my hand against his cheeks. They’re flushed pink but not as hot as before. Thank you, Rupa. He doesn’t stir at my fingers in his matted hair.
With his eyes closed, he’s a mini Claude—nut-brown hair, narrow nose, high eyebrows. I might be tempted to hate him for that, except that Evan always has a wide-eyed look of surprise, like he just got a puff of air in the face. That soft bewilderment is so different from Claude’s unpredictable rages. Evan cries when he accidentally steps on an ant.
When Evan gasps next to me, I jerk awake and grapple for the bowl. I must have drifted off. Evan sobs, and vomit gushes from his mouth. I lunge to get the bowl in place; there’s a warm splash on my hand before getting it right.
“It’s okay.” I pat his back as his body shudders. Tears leak from his eyes as he continues to heave when there’s nothing left. “Deep breath now.”
When the retching subsides, he falls back onto the pillow, eyes closed. His face a sloppy mess. I wipe him off and mop up the parts that missed the bowl. We have no extra blankets.
“Drink,” he whispers to me, starting to cry when I only give him a sip. I lay my palm on his forehead and then on the small of his back. Hot again. I must have been out for a few hours. Not sure he’ll keep down any medicine at this point.
I hope he’ll sleep again, but he wakes up every half hour to dry-heave. My eyes are two balls boring into my head. Opening and closing my eyelids is a strain. I somehow propel myself to go through the motions: the wiping, the patting, the holding. I could sleep on the kitchen lino at this point.
I hear a key in the lock. A jolt of electricity shoots through me. I find myself in the hallway, carefully pulling the door shut behind me. I reach over and shut Maisie’s door as well. The kitchen stove blinks 4:10. My head is a balloon floating above a leaden body.
A dark shadow stumbles in the entryway. I wait.
She jumps as she turns and sees me in the living room, outlined in the dim light coming through the window from the street.
“Isabelle,” she says, “you scared me half to death! Did I wake you?” I can smell her from a few feet away—perfume and rum.
“Where were you?”
“I was out with Ingrid,” she says. Ingrid is another drunk she met a few bar jobs ago. They’ve (unfortunately) kept in touch. “We got a little carried away, lost track of the time.” She starts to laugh, struggling to take off her strappy heels.
“What’s wrong with you?” I say it so quietly that she barely hears.
“What?” She stands up.
“I had to leave my job early and phone your job. Evan’s been puking all night.”
“Oh, poor lamb.” She clucks. “Is he awake now?”
I take a step toward her. “What kind of a mother does that?” I know my words will hurt, but I also want to know. I actually want her to answer the question.
“Isabelle,” she says, “don’t overreact. Even moms need a night out now and again.” Like she’s every other mom. Like this only happens now and again.
It’s the way she brushes it all away, like a fly on her arm. “Don’t!” I’m right in her face now. “Don’t you dare pretend you’ve done nothing wrong!”
She tries to take my hands in hers. I recoil. Then she reaches for me, to hug, console, say it will be okay. I don’t want her touching me. Don’t want to hear her lies. I twist and step away while her hands keep coming, along with her sad words of comfort.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she says again and again, reaching.
My hand flies, palm open, across her cheek. A sickening smack, and she staggers backward. My palm stings. Leaning against the wall, she raises a slow hand to her cheek, eyes looking at nothing.
While she’s there, buckled, stunned, I deliver the final blow. “You never should’ve had kids.”
Before I can think, before the horror of what I’ve done can touch me, I bang into our bedroom—Evan finally asleep—and grab the blanket and pillow from my cot. I fly back out to the living room and toss them toward her.
A low sobbing noise rises from the shadow in the entryway.
I run back down the hall, slam the bedroom door, leap across the bed. I reach Evan’s bowl as it all comes up.
EIGHT
“Isabelle,” next to my ear.
“Hmmm.”
“Isabelle.”
“What?” I sit bolt upright, take in Evan next to me, the pattern of the towel pressed into his cheek. Maisie is beside me, waiting.
“What time is it?” I twist the clock toward me. “Maisie, the alarm hasn’t even gone off yet. What are you doing?”
“I’m ready.” She points at her clothes—she’s fully dressed. She even has her shoes on. “I packed my lunch too.” That should be interesting.
“Maisie, this isn’t a good day.”
“Please.” She says it like a statement. “Please take me to school.” The tears from yesterday are gone, and she’s prepped for some hard-core bargaining. “I’ll run to the bus stop the whole way.”
I consider telling her to ask Mom, but that would just be cruel.
“Okay. I’ll be up in a minute.”
“It’s stinky in here,” she says on her way out.
I lie back on the pillow and close my eyes. Concentrate on the sour taste in my mouth, my heavy limbs. I don’t want to think, remember.
I’ve said some cruel things over the years—meant every word—but I’ve never hit her before. Once, when Claude slapped her, I tried to kill him. Literally. Mom had to lie across my body while Claude pried the paring knife from my fingers. Then she kept lying there to shield me from him, her pregnant belly crushing me. When she wouldn’t move, he turned to grab something—a kitchen chair maybe—to swing.
Out the front! I had whispered, pushing her off me. As he turned back, I snatched the nearest thing—a white coffee mug—and flung it at him. Caught him above the eyebrow, a red gash. Mom pulled Maisie from under the kitchen table and headed for the front. Me, out the back door, the devil at my heels. Over the garbage bags and into the alley. I found Mom, and we ran. It was November. I only had socks on my feet.
He’d stopped at the door, watching us go down the street, but didn’t follow. Too many witnesses. We spent a couple of weeks squatting in someone’s basement, then went back home sweet home. We picked up where we’d left off with Claude—nothing changed.
Maisie was three. I hope she doesn’t remember.
Now I’ve done the same as him. I swallow. One foot in front of the other—that’s how I’ll get through this day. Don’t think about anything.
Maisie reappears at my door. “Are you coming?”
Evan’s fever seems to be gone. He doesn’t stir at my hands on his cheeks and the back of his neck.
I skip the shower and opt for a ponytail today. Lunches. I check Maisie’s—not bad. A peanut-butter sandwich and a package of instant oatmeal. I switch the oatmeal for a banana. Maisie waits at the table, coloring something in her school notebook while I get dressed. I try not to look at the disheveled heap on the sofa, blond tips poking out of the blanket.
Right before we head for the bus, I scoop Evan from our bed. He makes a squeaking noise and rubs his eyes. I lay him at the end of the sofa by Mom’s feet, his head on the arm of the sofa. Pull the blanket over him and put a glass of water and the barf bowl beside him on the floor.
“Mom.” I shake the lumpy blanket and pull my hand away. “Mom,” I say a little louder. She stirs. I feel every heartbeat in my chest. “I’ve put Evan out here with you. Take care of him today.”
No response. Maisie comes to stand beside me, regarding the two lumps on the sofa. I don’t have the courage to apologize, to say what I’m sorry for. Not in front of Maisie and Evan. Maybe not even to myself. The nausea washes through me again.
“Let’s go,” I say, and we head for the bus stop.
*
If anyone is stalking me today, I don’t notice. My world has become very small—the size of my desk in English. Words aro
und me sound hollow, tinny. I jump at the thump of a textbook on the floor, the scrape of a chair.
As soon as class starts, Mr. Drummond asks us to pass our Hamlet monologues to the front. Hamlet monologues. As if, in the middle of all that, I was able to write a monologue.
A tap on my shoulder, and a sheet of paper appears with Will’s chicken scratch in black pen. I turn around to see if more are coming, but that’s it. I send it on up the line. Mr. Drummond collects them all in a neat pile and drops them on his desk. He’s looking for readers again.
“Hamlet. Act 1. Scene 3. Isabelle, will you be our Ophelia?”
I feel a jolt at hearing my name—a small burst of terror. It’s quiet. I can’t look up, can’t look him in the eye. Why can’t the tall guy sit in front of me?
“No, thank you,” I say, barely above a whisper.
If he’s looking at me, I don’t know. Will he try to force me?
A pause. “Very well. Rachael, will you give it a try?” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rachael’s hand waving; she’s dying to be Ophelia. Twit. He assigns the other parts as well. I can tell some of the guys aren’t too thrilled about it, but no one else says no.
To stay awake, I doodle a maze of squares in the margins of my paper, trying to keep my eyes open. Every time my thoughts creep back to the moment I hit Mom, I jerk away. Can’t. Won’t. It’s too much right now.
When the bell rings, I’m the first out of my desk and heading for the door.
“Isabelle,” Mr. Drummond says in that voice that somehow echoes in every corner, “can I see you for a minute, please?” As he says it, I’m poised mid-step in front of the entire class. They file out past me, some turning to stare. I catch Celeste’s eye as she walks by, still unreadable.
Once they’ve all left, he settles in the chair behind his desk, buttons stretching across his hard belly. He regards me, not unkindly, as I stand stiffly in front of him.
“Isabelle, I saw your test score yesterday. And today, no monologue from you,” he says.
I say nothing, not helping him out at all.
“It’s clear to me,” he continues, “that you’re not doing the reading or the work for this course.” Still nothing. “Are you expecting this to be easy? I see you on a dangerous path here.”
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