Little Wrecks

by Meredith Miller

  It might be hours later when a bull raccoon stalks along the top of the chain-link fence at the back of the yard, using his grasping little hands around the pole. He’s the size of the dog that stays chained in front of the biker garage. He doesn’t even realize Ruth is there, watching him from her shadow. It’s his neighborhood at nighttime; he’s not expecting human girls in the backyards at two in the morning. There’s a cloud of moths in the streetlight on the other side of the neighbor’s house. The light shrinks her pupils and she turns away so she’ll stay open to the darkness.

  She puts the matches and the pint of Old Mr. Boston in one hand so she can use the other to cut the window screen with a safety blade from Danny’s razor. At home she practiced soaking rags and lighting them on the back steps. Crappy gin works best.

  She has to pull the bench over again so she can climb up and through the window onto the top of the O’Sullivans’ dryer. First she takes her sneakers off, thinking of the big, hollow sound she used to make when she was little, sitting on top of the dryer at the laundromat, kicking her feet. Even in her socks, though, her feet make a resonant boom like the voice of someone else’s god. She freezes and waits again. Night is full of time. She’s been learning that lately.

  There are towels folded in a basket. Ruth tries to imagine one of Isabel’s parents doing that and can’t. Moving through the dark house, she can picture Isabel and daytime in all the rooms. Memories of them in front of the TV, them in the kitchen making soul coffee, them coming in the front door with Henry riding Isabel piggyback, sleeping.

  In the upstairs hallway she studies the ceiling. She has walked under it to get to Isabel’s room a thousand times and never looked up. Like she thought, the O’Sullivans are the kind of people who have smoke detectors, and she’s glad about that. She likes Mrs. O’Sullivan.

  There is Isabel, sleeping on her back with her arms flung out, one hand hanging over the edge of the bed. She isn’t scared of what’s under there; she isn’t crying or talking now. She sleeps with total confidence, a person lying in the middle of a world that belongs to her. There are dark puddles of clothes on the floor and papers tacked to the sloping ceiling. The window has no curtain, and Ruth can see the branches full of new leaves, darker than the rest of the darkness against the sky.

  Ruth’s drawing is invisible in the shadows at the far corner of the room. The fire could start there. She imagines the flower on the wall igniting, the light of the fire coming not from her hands but from the corner where that flower waits in the darkness. She can see Virgil Mackie smiling in the shadows. He might be waiting like that now, under her window. Her imagination stretches on a wire from Mackie to that drawing on the wall, a wire full of sparks and energy, pulling her tight and balancing her. Ruth crouches down to put the rag on the floor and opens the pint of Old Mr. Boston, wondering if the smell will wake Isabel up.

  When a hand comes down on her shoulder it doesn’t startle her. She hasn’t heard a step behind her, but Mrs. O’Sullivan’s touch is too light, too full of love, to frighten anyone.

  “Come downstairs,” she whispers, and takes Ruth’s shoulders in her hands, lifting and turning her away from the doorway.

  At the bottom of the stairs she pulls Ruth gently towards the den at the back of the house, pushing her into a chair by the sliding glass doors to the yard.

  “They don’t hear me back here,” she says. “I can stay here talking all night.”

  “I was just looking,” Ruth says. “I lost something. I hope I didn’t scare you, Mrs. O’Sullivan.”

  “I know why you’re here, Ruth. It’s okay.”

  “Who do you talk to all night?”

  “Everyone. No one. Myself. Do you read, Ruth?”

  “Not like Isabel.”

  “I don’t know what Isabel is like.” Mrs. O’Sullivan sighs. “Here, put the afghan over you. Do you read, though?”

  “Yes, but I’d rather draw. I never found a book that said what I needed it to. Do you know what I mean, Mrs. O’Sullivan?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Really? You mean that?” Ruth leans forward. It doesn’t feel awkward or surreal, the way talking to people’s parents usually does. After you try to burn down someone’s house and they’re not even mad at you, you’re already way past that.

  “Why do you live here, Mrs. O’Sullivan? I like your house, but it seems like you could be somewhere else, you know?”

  “What, take off like Irene Warren? No, Ruth, I’m not that brave. And I keep thinking I might be able to stop my children from falling. Or burning.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. O’Sullivan. I don’t think I would have hurt any of you, really. I almost hurt Danny and I was so scared.”

  She doesn’t even ask who Danny is.

  “Danny, he’s my mom’s boyfriend. I almost got him killed. I’m scared of myself, Mrs. O’Sullivan.”

  “I can see that, but you don’t have to be. I can help. Look through my eyes, just for a minute. Let me show you.”

  “No one thinks you notice anything,” Ruth says. “No one thinks you’re paying attention.”

  “Sometimes I’m not, for days at a time. Sometimes I look down and I’m wearing something different than I was a minute ago, but I can’t remember changing. I stay up at night, though, so I can watch when everyone else is sleeping. I see the raccoons and catch the kids who come in through the mudroom window.” Mrs. O’Sullivan laughs a twinkly laugh like a little girl.

  “You know how I can tell you are paying attention? From the wallpaper. I get it, Mrs. O. I get the wallpaper. That’s how I know you’re awake. You’re telling people what it’s really like in this house. You’re saying something. Somebody heard you.”

  “Thank you, Ruth.”

  “Magdalene calls it Castle Gloom, this house.”

  “Ha, ha,” Mrs. O’Sullivan says. Her voice is flat. “I like it. She doesn’t need anyone’s help, that Warren girl. Now, Ruth, look at me.” She pulls Ruth around in her chair so that her back is to the glass. “Look right at me, Ruth,” she says.

  Ruth looks straight into Mrs. O’Sullivan’s eyes that have no color in the night. She can see the wisps of hair making shadows on her face and the tendons running down the sides of her neck.

  “You don’t have to be crazy,” Mrs. O’Sullivan says.

  It’s like someone just punched Ruth in the ribs, or spoke straight to her for the first time in her life. She doesn’t answer, but her breathing comes fast and hard now.

  “Whatever you do, don’t marry anyone,” Mrs. O’Sullivan says. “Don’t have any children. Don’t live in a house like this. Are you listening?”

  Ruth nods.

  “The children will hollow you out. You won’t weigh anything anymore. You’ll push against things, but they won’t move. You’ll be like wind that can’t blow.”

  “That’s already happening. Half the time I feel like I’m underwater or ten feet off the ground. I don’t seem to be solid like other people. I’m so sorry, Mrs. O’Sullivan. I wanted to make all of it go away.”

  “So did I, lots of times. Don’t worry so much about all that.”

  “I thought if things were turned to ashes I could breathe them in and no one would be able to take them away from me. I wanted to hurt people so they would stop ruining me.”

  “Try it, Ruth. Go upstairs now and try it. I’ll stay here. I won’t stop you.”

  She’s telling the truth. Ruth can see that, but neither of them moves. Mrs. O’Sullivan looks past her, out into the yard, seeing the moths in the streetlight and the raccoon stealing the neighbor’s snow peas. Ruth can see what she sees, the picnic table and the fences attached to fences attached to fences in a rolling grid under the sky. When she turns back to look at Ruth again, all of that is gathered into her eyes.

  “Listen to me. Don’t get trapped, honey. I don’t think I can do anything for Isabel; I don’t know where she is or what she’s done now. But you, I can help. You, I recognize.”

  “She�
�s your daughter, I know she is, and we all love her, but she doesn’t love us back. I wanted to hurt her. I’m so sorry.”

  “You won’t hurt each other, Ruth. That’s just the part of you that’s lying to yourself, telling yourself scary stories and making yourself believe in monsters. In the real world, girls don’t hurt each other. Boys hurt each other. Girls hurt themselves.”

  “I get what you’re saying, but sometimes we do, Mrs. O. Seriously, we do.”

  “You get what I’m saying. I knew you would. You know what book I liked? La Bâtarde. That was a book I loved. And Summer Will Show. You should read those. And The Portrait of a Lady. They go crazy, either a little or a lot, all those women. And then they come back down. Just wait it out, and don’t grab on to things like a drowning person. It’s a trick. Those are actually the things that drown you, not the things that hold you up. Teach yourself to breathe and wait it out.”

  There is no way to lie to someone like her, so Ruth just stays quiet.

  “Please?” Mrs. O’Sullivan says. “Will you do that for me?”

  They look straight at each other while everything between them settles into place in the silence. After a while the fight drains out of Ruth, and she slumps back in the chair.

  “It’s a trick, Ruth. Remember that, at least. Don’t hold on. It’s a trick.”

  “Isabel says you keep M&M’s stashed around. Can I have some? I feel kind of shaky.”

  “Oh, yeah. I got lotsa stuff stashed around, kiddo. I’m like a Girl Scout doing wilderness training in this place.”

  She gets up and goes behind the freestanding green aluminum fireplace they had put in last year. It has a circle of white rocks around it, the only thing glowing in the dark room. There’s a low bookshelf, where she moves some things and brings out a bottle of Rémy and some candy. She doesn’t make a single wasted movement in the darkness.

  “Drink from the bottle?” Mrs. O’Sullivan waves the cognac at her. “Or are you too stuck-up?”

  Ruth laughs a little, breathless laugh then, feeling full of emptiness and relief. Nothing but space inside her.

  thirteen

  FROM WHERE SHE sits under the wooden playground, Isabel can see the engine house of Danny’s boat. She can see the bench at the bottom of Main Street where Lefty sits, chattering to himself in whispers. Danny’s boat is leaning drunkenly with its keel in the mud, but Lefty has perfect posture. Ruth ducks in and sits facing Isabel with her back to all that.

  “Where you been? You’re late, Carter. And I thought Magda was with you.”

  “Magda’ll be here,” Ruth says. “Henry was shouting at her when I was on the phone, wanting to come with us. She had to tuck him in early and read him a story.”

  “Well, she better hurry up. Low tide’s in fifteen minutes.”

  “Listen, Isabel, something’s the matter with Magda. I tried to tell you the other day at school, but you weren’t paying attention to me.”

  “What do you mean, something?” Isabel says. “Something more than usual?”

  “She went all, sort of, I don’t know, quiet lately. I know her, Isabel. There’s something she’s not saying. Trust me.”

  Over Ruth’s shoulder, Isabel can see Mr. Lipsky and his dad, passing by Lefty on their way into the park. It’s one of those nights when the air is so heavy it’s almost shining. When a cop pulls into the space at the end of Main Street acid rises in her throat and the ground slips out from under her. Here they are again, in another moment like all the moments lately. Full of sick fear and ridiculous beauty at the same time. The cops don’t get out of their car. They aren’t looking for her. Not tonight.

  “Magda broods, hon. It’s what she does. We love her for it. She’s the inscrutable one.”

  “I’m serious, Isabel. The other night at the beach, when we got out of the water, she had bruises on her. A huge scabby one on her leg, and big streaks on her arm like finger marks.”

  “So, you saying she got beat up? Bad?”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying. We need to get her to talk. Give me a Lark.”

  “I only have three left. It happens to her, Ruth. You know this.”

  “This is different than the usual Magda. She’s different than the usual Magda. Have you actually looked at her lately?”

  Isabel is looking at everything, all the goddamned time. It’s all so bright and sharp. Her eyes need a break, is what. Everybody still accuses her of not paying attention and not caring.

  Mr. Lipsky and his dad are making their way down along the water’s edge, the two of them throwing one long shadow sideways onto the grass. Ruth is checked out, thinking about something else, so Isabel just watches them until Magda’s head tilts into their hiding place.

  “Let me ask you women this,” Magda says. “Do you have candles? A flashlight?”

  “We have a lighter, see?” Ruth holds up the hula girl and spins her around until she’s naked.

  “Yeah,” Magda says. “I found you by the cigarette smoke, secret agent girls. Well, I have everything.”

  Lefty is talking about schools of fish when they climb around the rocks and down onto the mud. The two Mr. Lipskys are on the steps of the bandstand, with pipe smoke curling over their heads. The air coming from the mouth of the drainpipe smells like the inside of big, dead things.

  “Are you sure this isn’t a sewage pipe, Isabel?” Ruth speaks with her hand over her nose and mouth.

  “Yeah I’m sure. It’s the seaweed that stinks at low tide.”

  “Danny says the seaweed lives on the crap from all these boats. It smells like Linda Blair’s breath. Let’s go in before I puke.”

  “You can’t smell Linda Blair’s breath, Ruth. The Exorcist is a film.”

  “I’ll say it again. You don’t know what I can do, Isabel.”

  “Hey, Lefty!” Isabel calls up in a shouty whisper. “Catch!”

  She throws two Larks up to Lefty and puts a finger to her lips, inviting him into their conspiracy of silence, then goes into the tunnel last in line. Ten yards in, the tunnel is pitch dark. Magda stops to take out three hurricane candles and hold them up for Ruth to light. The drainpipe is big enough to stand up in, but they have to go single file. Once they’re moving, all in a row down the tunnel holding candles, Isabel feels like she’s back in rehearsals for first communion, or at midnight Easter Mass. Or maybe they’re like medieval monks, processing through some crypt full of saintly bones.

  “I think we’re about under the diner now.” Magda holds her candle forward, looking for whatever it is they’re going to find down here.

  “Wow, what would we do without you, Saint Magdalene of the Eternal Compass?”

  “Quiet, Isabel. We’re going uphill a little, that’s good.”

  At the mouth of the harbor, the tunnel is cement, but farther in it’s made of bricks. It gets narrower and their voices stop echoing.

  “So, uh, not to be a spoilsport,” Isabel says, “but what if there is no—”

  “Holy shit. Look!” Magda points at the wall in front of them.

  Isabel can’t see until she stands on tiptoe to look over Ruth’s shoulder. The drainage pipe curves off to the right, but the light from Magdalene’s candle is falling on a door straight ahead. There are three steps up to it, and it looks like it could be anyone’s front door.

  “There’s even a doorbell.” Magda raises a finger to it.

  “Don’t push it, Magda. Jesus.” Isabel backs away. “Can we just sit here for a minute? I need to get used to this before we open that door.”

  “How many blocks have we come?” Ruth asks.

  “One? Two?” Magda says. “No tunnels to the left, just that one we passed on the right.”

  “And we would have had to crawl to go down there.” Isabel sits down on the little step and lights her last Lark. “I think I’d need a bigger incentive before I’d do that.”

  “Do you think smoking down here will suck up all our oxygen?”

  “I don’t know, Ruth. Maybe we’
ll fall into a beautiful sleep and not wake up for decades. We’ll never even realize it’s happening. It’ll be like a fairy tale.”

  “Yeah, one of those surprisingly violent and bloody ones where some girl has to sleep for a hundred years in a moldy hole, drowning and undrowning every twelve hours.”

  Magda rolls her eyes at them and turns the doorknob. They step over her into a room, but Isabel stays where she is, staring at the tide mark on the wall.

  “Get up, woman. We need to shut the door.” Magda yanks her shirt.

  Up the steps and through the door there is a room with an old piano, ivory veneer peeling off the keys. Isabel touches them with one finger, and at first there is nothing. When she runs a scale, a few of its notes are there, with silences between them. There’s a bar, with shelves full of old plates and cups behind it, and a bunch of broken chairs. At some point a fire has blackened one corner of the room. Once there was a mirror on the wall, but only the frame is still hanging. There are splinters of mirror glass all over the floor, some of them covered in soot. Ruth sits herself right down in the middle of all that broken glass.

  “You know what’s spooky? It doesn’t seem like anyone else has been here.”

  “Well, they have or we wouldn’t know about it.” Magda tests out a stool by the bar, then sits on it. “Your sister’s been here; you said so.”

  “I know, but why haven’t any assholes carved their initials in the bar or left their Boone’s Farm bottles lying around?”

  Isabel walks a circle around the room, stepping over Ruth on the floor, shining her candle into shards of mirror glass. Magda rolls a joint on the bar with one of Matt’s buds.

  “It’s like there isn’t any time here,” Ruth says. “I could actually see the enchanted sleep thing happening.”

  Isabel tries “The Entertainer” on the piano, but most of the notes are missing. It’s like the sentences she keeps trying to make lately, the things she’s trying to say. Half the words it would take to say them are missing.