I consider telling her about them—Damien, Nimra, the lot. She’ll probably make them sound boring, and the only one I wouldn’t mind her dumping on is Zara. I don’t say anything else, and she doesn’t ask.
“So, when are you going to get a boyfriend?” Jacquie says. My favorite topic of conversation with her. Mom saves me by calling everyone to the table.
Ironically, Uncle Richie spends half of dinner teasing Maisie about how many boyfriends she’ll have this year. It’s probably true, Maisie having a boyfriend before I do. So what? Where has there been room for a boyfriend in this slummy carnival act? The guys from Jacquie’s parties are all hands and loud mouths, like they’re doing me a favor by hitting on me. Any guy I’d look at for more than a second—like Will—would see all of this and run screaming.
I put my fork down on my plate and push it away, appetite gone.
Mom gets up to grab another beer. She and Uncle Richie have worked their way through a few now but are still holding together okay. She whispers in my ear as she comes back, “You can have a cooler if you want.” Like how I offer Maisie and Evan candy for being good. “But just one.”
“No, thanks, Mom,” I say. Too weird to be drinking with her. I have only drunk once before, at Jacquie’s last birthday party. I ended up puking the next morning, Maisie standing there watching me hug the toilet.
Are you sick like Mom? she’d asked. A wave of revulsion had made me retch a second time. Never again will I give her reason to say that. After everything that’s happened, even the sight of empty bottles makes me angry.
The second Maisie finishes her lasagna and pushes most of the salad off her plate, she starts in again. “Now can I open presents?”
“After cake,” I tell her.
“Oh, go on,” Mom says. “Let her open them now.”
Maisie squirms in the middle of the living-room floor, and we gather around.
“Start with mine,” I say, handing over a squishy package in wrapping paper that Evan and I made with lined paper and crayons.
“I drew the dog.” Evan points to a lumpy oval with lines coming from its head.
She tears at the wrapping paper, embroidered pink fabric spilling into her lap. “A princess dress!” She holds it up and makes the bottom twirl around. It only took me two minutes to fix the hem in the back. Good as new.
“Remember your thank-yous,” Mom says. Maisie gives me a giant hug that almost hurts.
She loves the koala from Mom, still wrapped in the plastic bag, and insists on trying it out in the dark bathroom right then. Evan tags along, tripping over her feet.
“It works! It’s glowing.” His voice floats from under the door.
They tumble back out to the living room for the biggest present, from Uncle Richie and Jacquie.
“I picked this out, kid,” Jacquie tells her.
“And I paid for it,” Uncle Richie says, chuckling.
Tissue paper flies, then silence. Maisie lifts a giant blue dollhouse from the bag, with a little verandah and four separate rooms—living room, bathroom, bedroom and study.
“Wait, there’s more,” Jacquie says, pulling a box from the bottom of the bag. It’s filled with perfect wooden furniture, a family of four with painted smiles, tiny food.
Maisie blinks. She’s never had anything this perfect before. Mom bites her lip. I look up at Jacquie. How can I repay this? Why did I think Maisie needed more than these people?
Maisie finds her voice. “Oh! Look at the little mom! And the baby—he fits in the bed.” She forgets to say thank you. No one cares. “A toilet! There’s a toilet!”
I hug Uncle Richie and Jacquie, no words.
“Wow,” I say to Jacquie after Mom and Uncle Richie go to the kitchen to pull the cake from the fridge.
“Nice, eh?” she says. “I caught him on payday. Good thing too. He’s going out tomorrow.”
When she says “going out,” she means going to the casino. Uncle Richie makes good money running his own computer business, but he drinks and gambles. Jacquie’s life isn’t much different than mine except for bursts of money between the periods of being flat broke. And no little people to look after.
“This’ll wake you up, Marnie.” Uncle Richie’s voice from the kitchen. I look up to see him pouring her a shot of Jack Daniels. She flicks her head back to swallow and then bangs the empty glass down on the counter. For a while all I can hear are quiet voices and the clink of shot glasses.
Jacquie curls up next to me on the sofa and tucks her feet in. “So, any thought of when?” she asks.
“When what?”
“You know, moving out,” she says. “Safeway is hiring. I could apply.” Jacquie in an apron, stacking produce?
I watch Maisie trying to slide a tiny shower curtain onto a rod, her light eyebrows knit together. Evan cranes his neck to supervise. When he reaches out to try, she twists her back to him and holds the wooden bits to her chest.
“I don’t know,” I say, my eyes on Maisie and Evan. Her determined fingers. His high forehead as he leans in.
“Well, I hope that means soon. I’m not sticking around much longer.” She juts her chin toward the two in the kitchen. Mom stumbles into Uncle Richie’s chest, and he reaches to steady her. Pours another shot. Heads go back. Glasses bang on the counter. She giggles, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.
After fifteen minutes, Mom tries to pull Maisie away from her dollhouse for cake.
“I don’t want cake,” Maisie says, arranging a miniature bathtub inside the bathroom. Evan examines the tiny food in his palm.
“Then just come and blow out the candles. We’ll eat the cake!” Mom laughs, waving the knife. Uncle Richie ducks to avoid it.
I remember the truck and ramp for Evan, still up in my closet. If I pull them out now, it’ll be another hour before I can get him in bed.
Mom points to the lopsided candles. “You’d better intervene, Richie,” she says, clutching his arm and laughing.
I want Maisie and Evan in bed right now. There’s a chance they’ll be asleep, off in another room, if things go sideways.
“Let’s sing now,” I tell them. “You can eat the cake tomorrow.”
“I want cake now,” Evan cries, rubbing his eyes.
“Let the boy have cake, Isabelle,” Mom says. “We don’t have birthday parties every day.” She licks the icing from her fingers.
I look at Jacquie. She shrugs.
“Maisie, now,” I say. “The dollhouse isn’t going anywhere.”
She shoots me a look and drags herself over to the table, like we’re torturing her with cake. Once Mom and Uncle Richie finally manage to light the candles, Maisie smiles again, freckles stretching across her cheeks as she blows. We sing, clap. Two candles left. Two boyfriends. Ha-ha.
“Just a little piece for them,” I whisper to Mom in the kitchen. “It’s right before bed.”
“Isabelle, you’re such an old soul,” she says, kissing my cheek. Her breath is sharp with booze. “Let Maisie enjoy her moment. And go ask your uncle what he’d like to drink,” she adds. Like I’m going to offer anyone more drinks at this point. I carry out pieces of cake instead, giving the smaller ones to Maisie and Evan.
“Eat up! It’s bedtime,” I tell them, which is a cue for them to take mouthfuls the size a fruit fly would.
Jacquie comes to stand by me. I know she wants to talk more. I can’t sit still now, settle. I gather dirty dishes instead, fill the sink and start to scrub.
“Mom, come help me.” I try to draw her in, distract her from drinking more. But that is exactly what she does. As she pulls another two beers from the pack, I put my hand on her wrist. “Mom, I think you’ve had enough.”
Her soft cheeks fall, sparkle gone. “You’re not the adult here,” she says, her voice dropping low, “as much as you think you are.” She pulls her hand away and joins Uncle Richie at the table, passing him a beer.
“Put your feet up, Richie,” she says. “Long day?”
He sta
rts complaining about work. I hover, pushing.
“Let’s go, Maisie. Evan. Pajama time.” No, if we have to leave, pajamas won’t work. I look at them. Maisie’s in a skirt and short-sleeved shirt. But she’s wearing tights, and her sweater is by the door. Evan is in cords and a sweatshirt. Okay. “Never mind pajamas tonight. Just go to the bathroom,” I say.
A chorus of howling from both of them. Evan clutches his unfinished cake, and Maisie makes a break for the dollhouse.
A chill runs through me as Uncle Richie’s voice climbs. “The incompetence…” I hear, then “…bunch of liars.” Mom gets sad when she drinks. Uncle Richie gets mad. He’s never hit Jacquie (at least, not that I know of), but she has been caught in the crossfire. Once she had to go to Emergency when he kicked over a table and it fell on her arm. Tell them you fell down, he told her, spitting drunk, or they’ll take you away. That was right after her mom left.
He goes on about an employee who’s been dipping into the till. “I know it was him. I know it!” He swings his arm, knocking over a beer. It rolls across the table and falls to the floor. Mom flinches but doesn’t move. His voice rises to a shout. “And when I confronted him, you know what he said?”
“Let’s move this to your bedroom,” I say to Maisie, lifting the house off the floor. She squeals and clings to the base of it. “You don’t have to go to bed yet. Just play in there!” Panic creeping in. I try to twist it from her hands.
Jacquie knows. From the corner of my eye, I see her pick up Evan from his chair at the table. Over-excited. Past bedtime. He writhes in her arms, twisting back toward his cake.
Uncle Richie rises from his chair and gets in Mom’s face, like she’s the one who stole from him. “He says I can’t prove anything and can’t fire him or he’ll sue for wrongful dismissal! That son of a…” He slams a fist on the table. Mom blinks and mutters something.
She gets out of her chair but seems to forget where she’s going. The kitchen? The bathroom? Then she notices the screaming kid in each corner. “Isabelle. Jacquie. Leave them be.” She steadies herself on the back of a kitchen chair. “I will be—I will say when they have to go to bed.” Her tongue works to form the words, thick in her mouth.
Then, to Uncle Richie, she says, “Didn’t we take good care of Laina all those years?”
Oh hell.
Uncle Richie jumps from his chair, knocking it to the floor, yelling at no one and everyone. “And what for? What thanks?” He starts in on a tirade about Laina, who “thinks she’s too good for everybody.” Laina, who “lives in a fantasy world.” That “backstabbing cow”—if she were here, the things he would say to her.
Laina is their younger sister who doesn’t talk to them anymore. Owns a cushy house somewhere in the city. Lives her own sweet life. Any mention of Laina is gasoline on a bonfire.
Mom’s face crumples. Uncle Richie raises an arm over his head and hurls a bottle against the living-room wall. The dollhouse falls from my arms as I curl over Maisie, shards of glass raining on my hair.
I straighten. Amber droplets of beer trickle down the wall where the bottle hit. Small arms limp in my hands now. Maisie doesn’t struggle as I yank her to the door, Jacquie right behind me with Evan. Sweater, jacket, shoes in one swoop. We’re down the hall, Evan bouncing on Jacquie’s hip and Maisie trotting at my heels.
I push arms through sleeves, jam shoes on feet. Bang the elevator button. Jacquie’s voice in my ear: “Happy birthday, eh?”
Out on the sidewalk, headlights whiz by. One car hits a puddle and showers our legs with muddy brown water.
Evan starts to cry. “That car got me wet. I’m wet now.”
Maisie holds my hand, not speaking. Her tights are speckled with mud.
“Let’s go to the park for a while,” I say, squeezing her palm. “You get to go to the park instead of going to bed on your birthday!”
She doesn’t move. “Why did Uncle Richie break that bottle?”
“He just got mad about something,” I tell her. Maybe it’s time I start being honest with her. She sees everything. “And he had too much to drink.”
“Why did he have too much to drink?” she asks. Question of the decade, Maisie.
“I don’t know.” I zip up her sweater and pull her hood over her hair, then lace up Evan’s shoes properly. Our breath balloons out around us, frosty. I rub my arms.
“You didn’t bring a jacket,” Jacquie says, watching me. I shake my head.
“Let’s go.” I motion toward the park, a few blocks away. Streetlights glare down on the still swings and chipped red monkey bars.
Evan runs ahead to the swings, sitting on the wet seat. “Push me!” he calls to anybody listening.
Maisie finds an empty swing and plants her toes in the damp sand, swaying from side to side.
“Should I start apartment hunting?” Jacquie stands close to me, her warm arm against mine.
“How can I leave them?” It always comes down to this.
“You can’t be there forever,” she says. “We had to learn to survive.”
And look how good we turned out. I push Evan on the swing until he complains about being cold. Then an attempted game of hide-and-seek goes bad.
“It’s scary in the park at night,” Maisie says. You think? Some homeless guy with a shopping cart and gray clown hair wanders by. I’m checking for needles everywhere Maisie and Evan step.
“I have to pee,” Evan says, and the park is done.
I take them to the store. Of course, it would be Arif at the counter.
“Do you mind if we use the bathroom?” I ask.
He shakes his head, eyes drilling into my head as I herd them to the back of the store. Yes, Family of the Year, I know. Dragging under-dressed kids around at some ungodly hour.
“Can you go check what’s happening?” I say to Jacquie, wrestling with the button on Evan’s pants, which are soaked from the knee down. “I’ll wait here with them.” She nods and disappears.
We stand inside the main door until she comes back, Evan’s nose pressed against the glass. I feel like I should say something to Arif, but I don’t know what. He stops watching after a while and restocks the cigarettes.
“Dad took off. Your mom’s there—in a piss-poor state but okay,” Jacquie says.
I thank Arif and drag the kids back to the apartment. Maisie’s face is pale, her lips a thin line. Evan’s a wreck. “I can’t walk,” he says, bursting into tears for the tenth time tonight. I hoist him up and carry him the rest of the way, my arms aching and wet where his pants press against me.
Adrenaline gone, just a heavy dread as I push open the apartment door. Maisie ducks behind me and sees it first, while I’m pulling off Evan’s jacket.
“My house!” she gasps. I turn.
One side of the dollhouse is smashed, a bottle still embedded in its side. Smiling mother and tiny dishes are soaking in a pool of amber from another nearby bottle.
She opens her mouth and lets out a sob—a gulp of pain. I catch her as her thin legs buckle. I lie back as I cradle her and stroke her hair. “We’ll fix it. We’ll get another one. It’s okay.” Again and again. But it’s not okay. I can’t buy another one. I can’t fix any of it.
Jacquie takes Evan and steps around us. After a few minutes, I hear the toilet flush and the tap running in the bathroom. Murmuring voices, then the click of his bedroom door.
“C’mon.” I stand and pick up Maisie like a baby, straining to keep my balance. She clings to my neck, her cheeks wet.
As I turn to carry her to the bathroom, I see Mom at the table. Makeup smeared. Face red and puffy, nose running freely. Her head on the table, mouthing silent words. I turn Maisie so her back is to Mom. One more thing she doesn’t need to see tonight.
A sound as I pass. “What more? What more could I do?”
The words reach me in fragments. I’m not even sure I heard them. Mom’s eyes look past me, into the dark kitchen. Look through me.
For an instant I think she sees me, bli
nks. Then nothing. I keep walking. She—all of that—is something I can’t touch tonight. Can’t even say one word. Even a word will open up something horrific, something I can never undo.
I get Maisie undressed. Bathroom. Drink. Find the koala, some shred of comfort. I curl up in the bed with her and hold her in the curve of my body.
“Do you want to sleep here?” I whisper to Jacquie, standing over us.
She shakes her head. “I’ll take a taxi home.”
I mouth “thank you” to her, knowing it’s not nearly enough.
“Same time next year?” She winks. I close my eyes, her words a bruise.
THIRTEEN
Monday morning, Will’s eyes light up as I drop my backpack by my desk. He doesn’t look away, waiting for me to give something back to him. A word, a smile. Something. I barely nod at him before sliding into my seat. You don’t want this, Romeo. How could I think for an instant that he could be part of my world?
I picture Will sitting on the ugly sofa as Uncle Richie hurls beer bottles and we all scatter like cockroaches. Isn’t that what every guy wants? Congratulations, Will. You just won yourself a nice, dysfunctional family. Even worse if he tried to help, to fix. The girlfriend who’s also a project. It’s for his own good that I walk away. He’ll never know about the Molotov cocktail he just avoided. Still, the ache in my chest makes it hard for me to lift my head today.
It started that night and hasn’t gone away. The worst was Sunday morning, as I tried to clean up Maisie’s dollhouse with her behind me, sobbing. I straightened the cracked wall a bit, but it was still buckled and split. The dolls and furniture came out a little nicer—slightly stained but hardly noticeable.
“Look, Maisie. Good as new!” I held them up for her when they dried.
She looked at me, face flat, and wouldn’t take them from my hand. Like they were contaminated. The ache washed over me then, and I had to hide my face from her.
The only time the aching stopped was when Mom came out hours later. Maisie ran to her and tugged on her arm, her plaintive voice running on and on. She pulled Mom over to the house and pointed at the disaster. Too young to see Mom’s role in this, wanting her to set it right.
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