Four
DAHLIA
IN the Barrington Hotel parking lot, I take one last look in the rearview mirror; the bruises around my nose are still noticeable but the swelling has completely subsided. I run my tongue over my chipped front tooth. The flaw is barely visible but the tip of my tongue is tender from persistently running over the sharp edge. I’m part of a crew of women who clean the guest rooms. We have been hired on probation and get paid under the table. We go unnoticed—we are actually told to never make eye contact nor speak to the guests—yet we are held to the same standards as the room attendants in their black uniforms with white aprons. They are a step up from us; they help unpack, assist with anything the guest might need, they don’t scrub toilets or change sheets. I get out of the car, fluff my bangs, and check my likeness in the window; my baby blue housekeeper’s uniform is starched, pressed, and fits me impeccably, just as management demands. There are no allowances for stains, wrinkles, and snug skirts or fabric pulling against buttons. At the Barrington, even my crew of undocumented help isn’t allowed to slack off.
Every single time my sore tongue touches the tooth’s jagged edge, I’m reminded how long it’s been since I found Jane in the woods. Seven days—an entire week—and not a word about her identity; she remains in a coma and her name is still a mystery. Watching the local news, I’m taken aback by the absence of appeals to the public and the overall lack of urgency. I am able to abandon the image of Jane in her hospital bed, attached to monitors, but I can’t forget what happened to me in her room.
Since the day I saw Jane last, I have had another episode. I have decided on the word episode until I figure out a more appropriate word.
It happened earlier this morning, in the shower: the calcified showerhead’s water pressure was mediocre at best, yet I felt my hands tingling, starting at the tips. The prickling traveled up my arm, past my neck, into my eyes and nose. I didn’t only feel the water pounding on my body but I smelled the minerals, tasted them like miniature Pop Rocks exploding on my tongue. Every single drop thumped against the wall of the shower stall—individually and all at once—as if the world was magnified while simultaneously zooming in on me, allowing itself to be interpreted. I dropped on the shower floor before my knees could buckle on me. It was over as quickly as it had started. I was left with an anticipatory feeling, a nervous kind of energy that tingled through me like electrical sparks as if I was positioning myself on the blocks to prepare for a race. I remained on the shower floor for a long while, only getting up when I realized I was going to be late for work.
Housekeepers are forbidden to enter through the front door but I’m late. If I hurry and my supervisor, Mr. Pratt, doesn’t catch me between the door and the lockers, I can clock in without a lecture.
The revolving mechanism makes a gentle sswwsshh and Pratt lies in wait behind a marble column, motioning me to approach him, curling his index finger as if he has caught a kid with muddy shoes trampling through the house.
I follow him to his office. He does not offer me a seat and the lecture is short. “We have to let you go,” he says, and within the same breath, he assures me of the Barrington’s empathy for what I have been going through after finding Jane in the woods. “But you’ve been consistently late and you are unable to complete your assigned duties. We only pick the best for our full-time positions, you were informed about that policy. I will escort you to clear out your belongings.”
Later, as Pratt watches me from the door of the locker room, I dump the few accumulated belongings—a change of clothes and a brush, and granola bars—in my purse. I hesitate when I see the stuffed giraffe at the bottom of the locker that I failed to take to lost and found days ago. One of its eyes dangles on a thread, and I attempt to stuff it back in its socket.
“Your last check will be mailed to you. I was hoping to offer you a full-time position, but we do probationary part-time for a reason. Sorry it didn’t work out.”
I always knew it wasn’t going to work out. A full-time position includes paperwork, forms I don’t have. For as long as I can remember, less than eight hundred a month—the cut-off for tax-exempt wages—has always been the magic number.
I leave the Barrington through the back door. When I reach my car, I steady myself, lean against it. As I drop the giraffe in the nearest garbage can, a memory hits me: my mother waking me in the middle of the night, thrusting a stuffed animal into my arms: a lavender bunny. Another one of her cloak-and-dagger operations, leaving everything behind—grab the papers, anything with our name on it—and off we went to a town unknown, unaccustomed rooms and a bed unfamiliar to me. There aren’t too many memories but this one is clear as day. I wonder what happened to the lavender bunny.
Above me, moths’ wings make contact with the streetlight.
I bend backward, looking up; the moths swirl around like snowflakes. Hundreds of them spin aimlessly in the harsh whiteness of the LED light.
Snow. A blizzard. That too is a memory I can’t place.
Five
AELLA
THEY appeared at Aella’s door by nightfall. There had been signs; first the dog had raised his head, then his ears had perked up, and he had let out a deep bark, shallow and low. Atlas was a crossbreed, half wolf, half dog, and she trusted him with her life.
Aella opened the door and stepped outside. Atlas followed her, stood motionless to her left, let out a bark. It was a mere warning on his part, giving her a sign: Watch me. I’ll tell you if there’s trouble.
A man with an unkempt beard and teeth too perfect to be his own stepped forward and Aella knew he had rapped on her door. There were more; she heard their mumbled voices in the dark from where they were standing, to the right where the road had led them to her trailer in the woods.
Aella’s eyes got used to the dark and she realized they were all men, with beards and grimy clothes, who had parked their cars by the road, car doors propped open. The men had gathered around, smoking, talking, and stretching their backs.
Atlas continued to keep his distance from them, remaining next to her, his nose darting out occasionally, only to retreat immediately. Bad news, yes, but dangerous, no. Atlas was a skillful judge of people and therefore Aella was not afraid.
“It’s a bit late for a visit,” she said and watched a couple of cats scurry off into the dark.
“We are just passing through and were wondering if it’d be okay to camp out back.”
Out back was a field with cedar stubs caught between shrubs and trees releasing pollen in explosive puffs of orange-red smoke whenever cold winds blew from the north. Like gnarly little fishhooks, the pollen invaded nostrils and sinuses. It wasn’t a place to camp out, but it was all the same to Aella. It wouldn’t be the first time they had passed through—not the same men, but their kind. “Who’s passing through?” Aella asked, shushing Atlas as he let out a low growl.
“It’s twelve of us. Just for one night.”
“I can count,” Aella said, even though the night was pitch-black and she could barely make out the men’s silhouettes. “But who are you?”
The man paused for a second, then stroked his beard downward. In the light coming from the trailer Aella saw strong hands, uncut and clean, maybe a man working with gloves? His arms and face were sunburned and the knees of his jeans worn.
“We are travelers,” the man finally said.
“I see.” Tinkers, Aella thought. Irish travelers passing through, looking for employment. “I guess one night is okay with me.”
The man mumbled something Aella couldn’t make out, and another man from the group called out to him. They conversed in a language with soft vowels and words Aella hadn’t heard before.
“You are here why?” Atlas had settled down, yet he kept his distance.
“Roofing jobs, after the fall storms.”
“But why are you coming here? To my house? You can park anywhere and spend
a few days. Who told you about me?”
“Well”—he scratched his beard again—“we’ve heard from travelers that they sometimes pass through here and that you allow them to camp on your property.”
He spoke the truth. Tinkers passed through all the time. Mainly bad seeds, the ones that trick the old folks, scam everybody out of some money, and before locals know they’ve been had, they’ve long since left town.
Aella didn’t care about their dealings but she didn’t want people in town to know they stayed on her land, didn’t want to be connected to them. Aurora had never got used to her, and people gossiped. Women like her didn’t want to be the talk of the town. Too many people came snooping, and then there were the teenage dares, and it would all get out of hand so easily.
The local men were reluctant, shook their heads at the sight of her; some spit in the dirt as they passed by. The women worried. How can you live out there, all by yourself? Aren’t you afraid? they’d ask, and Aella just grinned. I’m the baddest thing out here, she’d say, and they’d stare at her and then break out in a nervous giggle. Yet the people of Aurora flocked to her: meek boys who wanted the pretty girls, men who couldn’t keep beautiful women in their beds, lacking money and prowess. They asked for potions and salves and bottles containing strange things. Reconciling with a lover was what men were usually after—nothing a black cat bone and lodestones couldn’t fix—but the women looked to cure ailments. Ringing in the ears was a big one—no doctor can help with that; no ear drops or pills can cure the dead talking about you because you’ve done them wrong while they walked this earth. Some women wanted to keep their men, bind them so they’d never leave, not thinking about the future when they’d long for them to go, and then they’d return and the unbinding would cost thrice. Mothers came for their children: a cleft palate, a head tremor making other kids scatter in disgust, the inability to read or write, infants who stared straight past their mothers, struggling to make eye contact. Mothers were the most desperate of them all.
Aella held the man’s gaze and cocked her head, as if to say, What’s it worth to you? The man shoved a hand at her, causing Atlas to growl again. This time Aella didn’t correct him. The man took a step back, then extended out his arm again, his hand facing upward. In his palm was a substantial wad of dollar bills held together by a rubber band. Aella reached for the money.
“Wait,” the man said. “There’s something else. One of us needs to stay here for a few weeks. We’ll get her on our way back.”
Her. Aella scanned the group of men, and a woman of petite stature emerged from the backseat of one of the cars and walked toward them, dragging her feet. Atlas approached her and sniffed the air. When the woman stepped next to the man and the moonlight illuminated her, Aella saw an expanding stomach that seemed overly large, almost freakish. Her elfin frame had nowhere to put a baby but to push it outward, and then there was her age; she seemed young, too young to be pregnant, and her eyes were vacant as she protectively placed a hand over her stomach.
“She doesn’t feel well. We thought a bit of rest would do her good.”
Aella grabbed the wad of dollar bills and counted the money. The amount was more than generous, more than double what they usually paid to camp out on the land behind her trailer. It was hard to admit, but she looked forward to having company, especially during a time of year when storms kept her indoors for days on end.
“You can spend the night in the field. She can stay with me.” Aella pointed at the pregnant woman and then back at her trailer. Aella beheld the belly underneath the filthy shirt poking out from an unzipped jacket one of the men must have given her. There was something in her eyes—not so much what was there but what was lacking—that made Aella consider her longer than she would have any other woman. Atlas continuously sniffed the air, tracking invisible scents, veering left to right. He approached her and put his nose on her hand. He slinked back and hid behind Aella.
It was a sign. “What’s wrong with her?” Aella asked.
“Nothin’.” The man scratched his head, then shrugged.
Inside, after the men had carried their tents and belongings past the trailer, Aella took a good look at the woman. She wasn’t a woman after all; she was merely a girl, barely grown. If it wasn’t for the obvious signs of pregnancy, the belly and the engorged breasts, she would have assumed she was barely sixteen years old.
The girl lowered herself into a chair, her feet clearing the floor by several inches as they swung back and forth. Her face had an unhealthy look to it and her eyes were open as she stared at nothing on the wall. Her pale skin was a peculiar backdrop for her black hair and bushy eyebrows. “What’s your name?” Aella asked.
The girl sat, still and quiet, scooting farther back into the chair. “Tain,” she finally said, and it seemed as if the word had fallen from her mouth by accident.
“You can stay with me until they come back.”
Her brown eyes then lost their emptiness, became rounder, glossier. Her face buckled, her breathing stopped momentarily, and tears streamed down her face.
“What’s the matter? Why are you crying? You’re safe with me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“There are storms coming soon,” the girl said. “I’m afraid.”
“It’ll be all right,” Aella said. “It’s not so unforeseeable, you know. If you pay attention to certain things you’ll be able to tell exactly when the storm is coming.”
“Like what?” Tain seemed fascinated by the fact that Aella could predict the weather.
“Watch the bees,” Aella told her. “Horses shake their heads a lot, and there are lots of cobwebs in the grass. Most of all, the clouds are pink in the evenings.”
“I’ve always been afraid of thunder and lightning.”
“Nothing to be afraid of. It’s like this here in the summer, but usually storms are severe on the coast, never this far inland. No need to worry. Just a little bit of rain and thunder.” The words didn’t seem to calm the girl, who wrapped herself in the jacket and continued to stare straight ahead, burying her hands in the oversized pockets. She looked cold. “Let me make you a cup of tea.”
Tain’s face remained blank. Aella thought about the chamomile she had collected in the nearby fields and how she’d brew the blossoms for a long time so they’d be strong enough to calm her, and maybe she’d add valerian root.
When Aella finished brewing the tea, she extended the cup. Tain’s tiny hands reached for it and they touched Aella’s ever so slightly. Tain’s hands were cold—icy as if the girl was merely a ghost or was about to turn into one. Aella had felt that sort of thing before, people who didn’t have a lot of time left, as if they were already part of another world—and she watched Tain cup her hands around the hot tea and then something gave way, as if a floorboard had shifted. Tain’s form shimmered and fluttered, and Aella held on to the table. She wasn’t worried; everything around her had been gleaming for a while—the woods and the trees, the cars passing her, even Atlas and the red cardinals outside—and it was always like that in her head when a storm was gathering strength. The girl was right to be afraid of it. It would be a big one.
Later, as Tain slept on the couch, her stomach tucked off to the side to allow her to breathe easier, Aella regarded her; her face was softly flushed with sleep, and her dark eyes shone through her thin and heavy lids.
The girl seemed ethereal, as if painted into this life with a fine brush; with every stroke the colors faded so quickly that she was dissolving in front of Aella’s very eyes. Aella knew it was a sure sign that the girl wasn’t going to be on this earth for a long time, or maybe the baby’s life would be cut short—Aella wasn’t sure.
She tried to make sense of this girl, wondered how easily people who didn’t know any better could fall victim to her. Tain was like a gentle uprising of heavy clouds in the distance on a windless day—but then there was a distant
boom, announcing what those brooding clouds had promised all along—a powerful storm.
Aella watched Atlas. It was true that the dog cared for no one but his master, yet he always allowed for courting by strangers, especially women. He remained at a fair distance from Tain at all times, didn’t make any attempt to approach her.
That too was a sign.
Six
QUINN
QUINN placed one foot in front of the other, skipping the third step from the top, the one that screeched like an angry old woman. She paused at the bottom of the stairs. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a movement beyond the hallway, inside the darkened kitchen. It was formless and indistinct, like a shadow, barely shifting, and she knew it was her imagination. She calmed when she reminded herself that Sigrid was sleeping upstairs and that it was nothing more than the fear of being found out that made her see shadows and other spooky obscure shapes. Without as much as a creak of the wooden floorboards, Quinn made her way through the kitchen and out the back door.
Outside, the darkness disturbed her, as if there were feathered beasts baring incisors lurking beyond the shadows, yet Quinn vowed to embrace the feeling, for she was no longer a child, easy to impress. As she marched down the dirt road toward the fields, near the woods, a faint wind brushed against her, making her skirt cling to her thighs. Her gait was nimbler than it used to be, than it had ever been, really; her body was now as agile as a dancer’s. Quinn could no longer conceive of inventing recipes and chatting with old ladies in town, she was no longer preoccupied with harvesting vegetables in the backyard and the planning of future meals.
Taking a lover was what she called it. It was an expression Quinn had pondered and concluded was something that would make her powerful beyond comparison. To take him implied power, yet her lover was merely a boy, hardly a couple of years older than herself, and far removed from Cadillac Man. But to Quinn he meant everything.
The Good Daughter Page 5