Left

by Theanna Bischoff

  She had not, she realized, prepared a towel. She turned the tap off and hesitated, watching the steam slowly seep out over the open glass of the shower door. She opened the door a crack, then all the way. Stepped out and stood on the linoleum, water pooling at her feet. In the cabinets below the sink, she could not find a towel—they were probably in some linen closet down the hall or something. Now she was naked, wet, and cold.

  The first time with Pav, though—

  She had not expected it to happen so fast, not expected how gentle his large hands would feel as they slipped below her lower back as his body hovered over hers; not expected the heat of his mouth on her nipples, between her legs; not expected how much she wanted him, wanted just that moment. Not expected to feel so...

  So full.

  CAM

  THE FIRST TIME ABBY LET HIM TAKE SUMMER OVERNIGHT, CAM had tried to soothe his daughter to sleep by walking her around the house, jiggling her in his arms. She’d arched her back, pounded her little fists on his chest, leaned her head back and roared. He could feel her damp pajamas, soaked with tears and saliva. His mother had suggested he just put her in the crib and let her cry it out, but when he laid her down, she’d thrashed her fists, slammed her heels into the mattress, into the tiny grey elephant pattern of the nursery motif his mother had chosen. He’d stood outside the door for only a few minutes before he couldn’t take it anymore. He’d strapped her into the car seat and driven from one end of the city to the other and back with the radio playing The Black Eyed Peas.

  At some point, she spat out her soother and somehow wrenched it free from where he’d clipped it to her jammies, but he didn’t dare stop and pull over to retrieve it. Eventually, she’d fallen asleep sucking on the neckline of her shirt, and he’d turned around to head home, simultaneously more exhausted and more hyperalert than he’d ever been in his life. He could feel his heart drumming in his chest, even when he pulled up to the house and turned off the engine, and with it, the thudding bass stereo. He unstrapped Summer very slowly and carried her back into the house, but hesitated before putting her in her crib. Instead, he’d eased onto the couch and settled his sweaty, defeated daughter into the crook of his arm. Smoothed the whorl of fine blonde hair on top of her head. He didn’t dare reach for his cellphone or for the TV remote. It felt like he was holding Summer against her will.

  Now, in the doctor’s office waiting room, Summer wheezes into the crook of her elbow and leans against him. Cam glances up from his smartphone. Thinks about whether he should sweep some of the hair away from her eyes or put a cool hand against her forehead and check her temperature. Honestly, Cam has never mastered this fever detection technique—there’s hot and there’s not, determining severity is a thermometer’s job. Summer gets colds easily—probably, their pediatrician says, because of her premature birth. Her hacking made Abby worry this could be turning into pneumonia, but Abby was supposed to be doing hair trials for an entire wedding party so she’d asked Cam if he could take Summer to the doctor. If Summer has to stay home from school tomorrow, Cam will book the day off and order her udon soup. His own mother had stayed home from work when he was sick and made him homemade chicken stew. Cam can’t cook, but udon is the next best thing. Summer hates missing school. She definitely did not inherit that from him or Abby.

  For Summer’s tenth birthday, Cam asked her if she wanted to go to Disneyland, and she said she’d actually rather have a party at home and, instead of presents, her friends could bring donations for an orphanage in Africa. It was kind of cool, honestly, that he had a kid who would rather give to charity than dress up like Cinderella. He’d agreed to come, despite the inherent awkwardness, and he’d shown up with a big donation and a big present—a new iPad with a glittery purple case and two hundred Apple dollars for all the apps, songs, and movies she could want. Abby seemed pissy about it, telling him he shouldn’t spoil Summer, but whatever, he could—and would—spoil Summer as much as he wanted. Abby was probably just ticked that his gift was better than hers. Also, sometimes he liked making Abby mad; they had really awesome hate sex. Summer raised a thousand bucks for charity, and Abby sculpted a huge volcano out of Oreo ice cream cake and used strawberry and chocolate syrup for lava. Cam had eaten two pieces.

  At the clinic, a chime signals that the door has opened, a new patient has come in. Summer lifts her head from Cam’s shoulder. “That’s Reuben!” she whispers.

  Cam almost forgets that he still has to pretend he doesn’t know his big brother. As far as Summer is concerned, his only connection to Reuben is that he’s the detective guy from Natasha’s murder case. Okay, technically not a murder “officially”—Cam has to remind himself not to say murder around Summer (and especially not around Abby). But come on. Everybody knows.

  “Can I go say hi?” Summer whispers. Reuben probably doesn’t want to say hi, Cam thinks. Reuben hasn’t said hi beyond an obligatory Christmas card, probably sent by his now ex-wife, in five years, since Cam got involved in the whole investigation and, as Reuben put it, “royally fucked up.” It wasn’t Cam’s fault Greg got a lawyer and Reuben isn’t able to question him anymore. If it’d been Cam in Greg’s shoes, he would have lawyered up on day one. And it wasn’t Cam’s fault that Reuben’s only good leads—Natasha’s watch and the message board post—went nowhere. But will Summer think it’s weird if they don’t go over and say hello?

  Before Cam can answer, Reuben’s son, Hunter, starts a full on tantrum—“But you said I could! I hate you!” Hunter is only a couple of years younger than Summer—probably too old to be having public meltdowns, but what does Cam know? Summer had some freak-outs as a toddler, but rarely in public, and she hasn’t had a meltdown in Cam’s presence in a couple of years at least. Abby says, “Wait until she’s a teenager,” which Cam doesn’t want to think about, especially given who her mother is. He just hopes Summer won’t have a psycho phase. One time, he’d run into the grocery store to pick up some things for dinner, one of Jess’s last-minute errands, and he’d offered Summer a treat because he felt bad dragging her along on such a boring chore.

  “Anything you want,” he’d said.

  And Summer, sweetly, had said, “Can I have a green apple?”

  Hunter took a swing at his dad, socking Reuben in the stomach. Jeez! Good thing the kid had little fists. Reuben said, “That’s it, I’m taking away your Game Boy!” The kid swung again.

  Summer and Cam exchanged a look that said, awkward! Cool, Cam thought, a ‘moment’ with his kid. He smiled, gave her a look to say, thank you for never doing this to me. How would he handle things if Summer was a brat? He was, at the very least, an okay dad. He looked up, trying to offer a sympathetic glance to his big brother, who’d finally wrangled his son into a waiting room chair. The kid slumped in the chair, scowled, folded his arms, like he was going to seek revenge later.

  Reuben didn’t catch Cam’s eye. Had he even noticed Cam’s presence? He staggered to the receptionist’s desk, pulled out his wallet, procured some documents. A health card, probably. Maybe, Cam thought, Reuben should inquire about some meds for his little tyrant. Or some valium for himself.

  As he made his way back, Reuben finally noticed them. “Hey!” he said, giving an uncomfortable smile. The cheery tone was probably directed more at Summer, Cam thought.

  “Hi!” said Cam, too loudly, sounding like an idiot, even to himself. “Reuben, right?”

  Reuben made a move to extend his hand, but then Summer coughed loudly, into her sleeve, and Reuben withdrew. He glanced back at his little dictator. When Abby had first announced her pregnancy, Cam had hoped for a boy. Jess had told him he might finally get a son. She’d gone full steam ahead with pills and hormone shots, without really asking him his opinion. But kid-wise, he’d hit the jackpot on the first pull. Why try again? Why ruin a winning streak? And really, did he want to start all over again just for a boy? No.

  Reuben gave Cam a look like he wished Cam would spontaneously combust. Seriously? Still? After all this time?
It was Reuben’s own fault he hadn’t been able to solve the murder, Cam thought. He should stop focusing so much on Greg. There was a killer out there, walking free. Plus, it wasn’t fair for him to be mad about Cam sleeping with Abby. Cam’s sex life was his own business. He’d slept with Abby way before the whole investigation thing. Summer was proof.

  Fortunately, the receptionist called Summer’s name.

  HIM

  PEOPLE ALWAYS USE SUCH STUPID ONLINE PASSWORDS. So easy to hack. One in six people use the name of a pet. That’s always a good guess. I tried that first for your email. Larkin. Got me right in.

  From: Dr. Paval Singh

  Subject: Friday

  Date: 13 June 2002 6:31:08 PM MST

  To: Natasha Bell

  Hi you!

  Hope you have a good day off tomorrow.

  My surgery is scheduled for 8 AM. I know

  you’re working late tonight so I won’t

  phone and wake you up, but I’ll try to call

  when I’m out. Hopefully by 2 if all goes

  well. Miss you. Looking forward to Friday

  night. I’ve got a Prosecco up my sleeve.

  I’ve learned my lesson after last weekend’s

  Malbec incident!

  Cheers,

  Pav

  From: Natasha Bell

  Subject: (No Subject)

  Date: 14 June 2002 12:04:31 AM MST

  To: Dr. Paval Singh

  I want you. You know what I mean. ;) I can’t wait until your shift is over.

  XOXO

  Natasha

  NATASHA

  OCTOBER 1983

  October is probably a bad month to run away. Especially at night. Not that Natasha has much of a choice. Even though there’s no snow, it’s still cold. Dad hasn’t got her winter clothes out of storage yet. That’s usually Mom’s job.

  Her fingers, curled around the pages of her library book, have started to tingle. She needs gloves. Her book, a novel about a group of orphaned children living independently inside a boxcar, is due back in three days.

  If she goes to Josie’s, then Josie’s parents will call her dad and send her back home. Unless her dad hasn’t noticed she’s gone, which is possible. He might not even be home from work yet. He works late all the time. Or maybe he just doesn’t care that she ran away. He probably hasn’t even called around to her friends to find out where she is. Natasha dog-ears her paperback and stands up, rubs her hands together. Her baby brother or sister is due in May, and Natasha already counted back nine months. Her dad and his “girlfriend” could have told her about it back when it was still warm out. Would have made running away much easier.

  “Does Mom even know you’re a SLUT?” Natasha had screamed at Dad. Normally, she doesn’t say words like slut. Dad won’t even tell her where Mom is or a phone number to call her.

  Natasha could try going around the back of Josie’s house and throwing rocks at her bedroom window, or tapping on the screen door at the back. Natasha slides her hands into her sleeves. This is probably her best option, unfortunately. She doesn’t know of any abandoned boxcar, and she doesn’t have any siblings to live with. She doesn’t have siblings, but only until May.

  Natasha met her dad’s “girlfriend” Kathleen only once, at the school Christmas concert last year. Was her dad having s-e-x with Kathleen way back then? Kayla and the other girls from grade four had done a hand-bells performance to “O Holy Night.” Hand-bells are the stupidest instrument ever. Natasha’s mother plays piano; Natasha loves to watch her mother’s long fingers dance over the keys, especially to Beethoven’s “Für Elise,” which has no words but is still the saddest song ever. Natasha’s mother keeps her fingernails short because of her piano playing. But when they ran into Kayla and her mom later in the hallway, Natasha’s dad said, “Oh, this is Kathleen, she goes to my gym,” and Natasha could not stop staring at Kathleen’s long, glossy red fingernails. How could Kathleen work out without wrecking her manicure?

  Josie doesn’t live very far away—maybe a ten-minute walk from the ravine. Natasha walks quickly because of the cold. She pulls the little string that opens Josie’s family’s side gate and goes into the backyard. From here, she can go around the side, where Josie’s bedroom window faces, and—

  She sees Jason’s face in the window. He waves at her and smiles. Jason almost never smiles. He pops out the back door. “What are you doing here?”

  Natasha scoots up close to the door. “Is Josie home?”

  “No. My parents took her for pizza because she got an A on her report.” He leans back inside. “Come in, it’s cold.”

  She does. His parents aren’t home, good. She’s safe, at least for now. “How come you didn’t go?” she asks.

  “Grounded,” he says. “Fuck them. I’d rather stay at home and play video games, anyway.”

  Natasha has never said the word fuck. But why not, after what her dad has done to her? Her fingers tingle as they warm up. “I hate my dad,” she says. “Fuck him, too.” It feels good.

  “Why?” Jason says, and they go over to the couch, sit down. Natasha unzips her jacket. Jason has a video game on the TV. On the screen, a little person in blue stands in a field and holds a gun. The gun is big compared to the guy. Maybe a bazooka.

  “My parents are getting a divorce,” she says, the first time she has said this out loud. “My dad cheated. And he kicked my mom out. He won’t tell me where she is.” Her eyes sting. None of her friends’ parents are divorced—not even one. Sitting here with Jason feels kind of weird, because Natasha keeps picturing when he started falling down in the ravine, and how he had been standing beside her, and she just kind of caught him, like a reflex, or maybe he just fell on top of her and her saving him from hitting his head was just an accident. He’d started twitching, his eyelids fluttered, and his jaw started opening, closing, opening, closing. Then he went limp, his head in her lap. His eyes jerked open. He heaved, and puke started spewing out, down the front of his T-shirt, all over Natasha’s T-shirt. His eyes looked glossy, staring straight up, straight into hers. He started to gag. What if he choked? She twisted his head forward so his mouth was pointing down and reached in with two fingers, started scooping. If his jaw started clenching again, he’d probably bite her. Maybe he’d bite her fingers right off. Where was Josie?

  “Are you okay?” she’d kept saying. What a stupid question. Jason was clearly not okay.

  When Josie’s parents got there, they said, “You saved his life!”

  On the couch, Natasha looks away, trying not to remember the glazed look of Jason’s eyes during his seizure. Jason got diagnosed with epilepsy and the doctors put him on medicine. When he got out of the hospital, Jason and his parents sent Natasha flowers, a huge bouquet of yellow lilies and purple snapdragons. So beautiful! The lilies had orange powder on the insides that sprinkled on the table and made her fingers dusty when she moved the vase to change the water.

  “Your dad cheated?” says Jason, his face contorting into a scowl. “What a jerk!”

  “I know.” Pressure builds in Natasha’s chest. Does she actually want to tell Jay about the baby before she even has a chance to tell Josie? “And guess what?” She can’t keep this secret anymore, her father’s dirty secret. “They’re having a baby. My dad and his...mistress. And he’s going to marry her.” The tears start coming, fast, all down her face, making her vision blurry. Why did she have to start crying in front of Jason? All that time in the ravine, alone, reading her book, she didn’t cry. So why now? So embarrassing!

  “Here,” Jason says, and he thrusts something into her hands. The video game controller. “Press this button. It makes him shoot. I like shooting stuff when I’m mad. Makes me feel better.”

  Natasha has never played a video game before. She blinks and focuses on the screen. Mad—is that what she’s feeling? She presses the button to make the gun shoot—pt pt pt pt pt pt pt! This guy is just killing everybody.

  “You’re a natural,” says Jason.


  ABBY

  THE OLDER MY MOTHER GETS, THE BLONDER SHE GETS. I kept the salon open for her after closing because, as she put it, she desperately needed her roots done. With her hair in foils, I begin to tidy the salon while she sips her venti latte and flips through a trashy magazine. Summer lounges in one of the pedicure chairs, having turned on the auto-massage function. She has her headphones in. At first, I thought she was doing homework, but when I passed by with my bottle of Windex, I realized she was sketching a floral scene from a snapshot paper-clipped to the top of her notebook. Uncle Greg has been teaching her a thing or two. Early this spring, the two of them started a garden in our backyard. Last month, the flowers sprouted, rainbow colours in no particular pattern, like someone sprinkled Skittles in the dark black dirt. Neither you or I had a green thumb, Tash. But I bet you’d like it.

  My mother flips through her magazine, then scoffs.

  I put my rag down. “What?”

  She turns the page to show me: an older male celebrity is having an affair with his children’s twenty-something nanny. “Disgusting,” my mother adds.

  I raise an eyebrow. “Uh, you’re one to talk.”

  My mother scowls. “Kevin and I were separated before I started seeing your father.”

  “Technicality.” I glance at Summer. Headphones still in. “And what about Dad? You married a cheater, so…”

  My mother closes the magazine. “Your father was not unfaithful.”

  I roll my eyes. “Natasha was there, okay? He was still living with Tash’s mother when you got knocked up.”

  “Yeah, for good reason! She was crazy.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  She looks over at her granddaughter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”