by Megan Hart
She probably was the gossip.
“Help you?” asked the guy behind the counter without even glancing at her.
Great. Now she was such a nonperson even pimple-faced fry jockeys didn’t bother to check her out. She might as well get the upsized, triple-burger meal with bacon and some fried pie for dessert. So what if her face broke out and she gained, like, fifty pounds just by breathing the smell of it? Clearly she wasn’t worth paying attention to.
Her mom was placing the order, one item at a time, carefully, the way she always did. It could be infuriating how she took her time, reading each item off the menu, but when Kendra glanced away from the plaques shellacked with newspaper articles featuring the Red Rabbit, the cashier didn’t look annoyed. If anything, he was even slower to ring up the items than her mom was saying them. Kendra sighed. So much for “fast” food.
“Ellie? Ellie Pfautz?” the manager asked from behind the counter.
The manager looked to be about four feet tall, with a stringy gray ponytail sprouting from under her baseball cap and—gross—a mouth full of crooked, jutting teeth. At least the ones that weren’t missing. Kendra looked behind her to see if the woman was talking to someone, but there was nobody there.
“No, it can’t be.” The woman shook her head as she eyed Kendra. “But you look just like her.”
“I’m not from around here,” Kendra said.
“Kiki, what do you want to drink?” her mom asked, and the manager turned to her.
“Oh, my God,” the manager said. “Oh, my God.”
The restaurant hadn’t been full when they’d come in. Maybe eight or ten people in the booths, another three behind her mom in line. It seemed like every head turned at the sound of the manager’s voice. Kendra’s mom looked around, then at the woman.
“I’m...sorry?”
The manager looked back and forth from Kendra to her mom, then again. “Oh, my God. It’s...you look just like Ellie did,” she said to Kendra. “And that’s your mom, huh? You’re her mom?”
“I’m her mother, yes.”
Kendra’s stomach was twisting with unease—it was probably never a good thing to be singled out in a backwoods burger joint by the manager who sounded like she’d just accidentally put her fingers in the fryer. But her mom was calm, her voice cool and only a little curious. She’d clutched her purse closer to her side and reached for Ethan’s hand to pull him close, too, but that was the only sign she gave that anything might be wrong.
“And you’re the one who...” The manager shook her head as if in disbelief. “Your mother, was she Ellie Pfautz?”
Kendra’s mom took two steps back from the counter. Now everyone was definitely looking at them. Kendra’s mom saw it, too, her gaze sweeping the place, skating over Kendra, before settling back on the manager.
“Yes?” She sounded uncertain.
The manager moved closer, each step shuffling and awkward as she heaved the weight of her body from side to side. “I knew your mother.”
Kendra’s mom made a small, helpless noise.
“She worked here.” The woman had a sort of gleeful and horrified look on her face like she hadn’t been the one to fall into the hot oil, but was watching someone else take a dive. “Oh, my God.”
If she said “oh, my God” one more time, Kendra thought she might scream. Even Ethan had stopped his bouncing. His hand linked through Mom’s fingers as he looked up at her, then at the manager. Kendra moved closer, too. It was crazy, like she and Ethan could somehow protect her. Kendra didn’t even know against what. Against something, though.
The manager’s face split in a wide smile that tried to be friendly but came off grotesque. “You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t know my mother,” Mom said in the voice that would’ve made Kendra or even Ethan stop talking. Even Daddy would’ve changed the subject. Mom didn’t get angry often, but when she did...
“You didn’t know your mother?” The manager’s voice carried.
Nobody was even pretending not to stare now.
“No. I never knew her.” Mom gave the cashier a pointed look. “My change?”
“Oh, sure.” He fumbled with the drawer.
Mom took the couple dollars in change from the cashier and tucked them into her wallet, then gave Ethan and Kendra each a quarter from the coins before dumping the others loose into her purse. She always did that, and somehow that made all of this all right. It was normal, even if none of the rest of this was. Kendra clutched the coin in her fist, even though a quarter had long ago stopped being exciting. She rubbed the edge of it with her thumb. She didn’t want her burger or shake anymore.
The drama hadn’t ended. The stupid manager wouldn’t quit. She heaved herself forward to lean on the counter. “You back in town? You in that house, huh? Ollie Barrett told us about you but I have to say, nobody believed it.”
Mom nodded, her expression giving away nothing. She’d gone blank and far away. Kendra had never seen that face on her mother before. Anger, annoyance, boredom, polite disinterest. But never this blankness.
It scared her.
The manager laughed and looked over Kendra and Ethan. “And these are yours? Wow. Well, I guess you done all right for yourself. All things considered, I guess you were pretty lucky, then. I mean, nobody’d have thought, huh? I mean, Ellie had the baby right over there.” The manager pointed to the restroom doors. “Right in that ladies’ room! Can you believe it? And here you are, what, thirty-some years later? All growned up. Who’d have thunk it?”
Kendra blinked rapidly. Ethan had been following their mom so closely that when she stopped, he bumped her. Their drinks shifted on the tray she held, slopping over her mom’s hands and onto the floor. Kendra pulled up so short her sneakers squeaked on the dirty tile floor.
“Kiki, take this tray to a table, please. And grab some extra...extra...” Her mother drew in a breath, the only sign so far that she was at all upset. Her eyes darted back and forth, her face no longer blank. “Paper cloths. Paper hand wipers.”
“Napkins?” Ethan offered.
“Yes,” their mom bit out. Her voice sounded stilted and strained. It made Kendra’s stomach hurt worse. Ethan had backed up a step, his small face anxious. Kendra’s mind twisted the way her stomach had.
Her mom had been born in the bathroom of a fast food restaurant? What kind of fuckery was that?
“Nobody even knew she was pregnant,” the manager continued. “I heard she said she didn’t even know, but I want to know how anybody could possibly not be able to tell they’re pregnant?”
“Maybe she was so fat she couldn’t tell,” Kendra said so loudly the sound of her voice shocked herself. “I mean, you could be pregnant and nobody would be able to tell by looking at you.”
The noise of a dozen pairs of eyes rushing to fix themselves on any place but the manager was also the sound of Kendra’s mom’s sigh. “Kiki.”
Kendra lifted her chin, jaw tight. She’d crossed her arms over her chest at some point, like she was daring that bitch behind the counter to say anything. But the manager, like most bullies, didn’t. She looked shocked, then angry and then, finally and much too late, in Kendra’s opinion, ashamed. She didn’t say anything, though, just turned and waddled to the back of the kitchen.
The cashier let out a short, sharp snicker he quickly silenced when Kendra glared at him. Then he gave her an admiring, up-and-down glance that might’ve been flattering if he’d been cute—or she hadn’t just been a total bitch to a stranger in front of a restaurant full of hillbillies. She didn’t even smile at him, just turned to her mom and Ethan.
“Can we take that stuff to go?”
“Sure, honey.” Her mom sounded like her normal self again.
In the car, her mom turned the music up loud and they sang along with stupid summer songs by lame fake rocker chicks who thought lyrics about dental hygiene mixed with liquor made them sound badass. Ethan made up some words of his own, most of them rhyming with or talking abo
ut poop, which made their mom laugh so Kendra joined in. They ate their food and tossed the trash in the pail out in the yard before they started to unload the groceries instead of leaving the trash in the car the way they usually did—or even taking it in the house the way their mom usually told them to.
“Let’s not tell your dad we got fast food,” their mom said, too casually. “He’ll be mad we didn’t get him anything.”
“Okay,” Ethan said without a question.
Kendra nodded, too. But later, watching her mom in the kitchen as she stocked the cupboards with food they didn’t need and probably would never even eat before, please God, they went back to Philly, she wondered if her mom had another reason for not saying anything. Maybe her mom didn’t want her dad to know about what the manager had said. Kendra didn’t blame her.
She wished she didn’t know, either.
THIRTY-EIGHT
MARI KNOWS HER life has been strange. Of course she knows. She can’t be in the life she has now, remembering the one that came before, and not understand that it wasn’t normal. More than not normal, it was freakish. Insane.
Now she knows a little more than she did before, and wonders if she’s better off with this image in her brain of a young woman giving birth in a bathroom. Mari’s mother had been only nineteen when Mari was born, from what she can remember overhearing from the doctors and social workers who’d spoken around her for a long time before realizing she could understand them. Nineteen is young, only a few years older than Kendra. Mari was seventeen when she started sleeping with Ryan—and if he hadn’t been considerate enough to pull out that first time in front of the fireplace, who knows? Maybe Mari might’ve been pregnant at seventeen.
But she’d have known she was pregnant, she thinks with her hands on her belly that’s still flat and firm, though crisscrossed with the faint and silvery lines of stretch marks. She’d known almost as soon as she got pregnant each time. Of course they’d been trying; she’d been married; it had been something they both wanted. She’d had no reason to hide it or pretend she didn’t know about it, the way Mari’s mother had felt she had to do.
There’d never been any mention of a father.
She didn’t remember everything she’d heard during those long months in the hospital when They talked around and above and behind her, but hardly ever to her. But she’s sure she’d have remembered if they said anything about her father. Her mother was gone, that was all Mari had ever known. Aside from a few photos on the walls in her grandmother’s house she doesn’t even know what her mother looked like.
The manager knows. This seems brutally unfair, that a stranger should be able to so vividly recall the details of Mari’s life that have been kept a secret from her. That Kendra should look so much like Mari’s mother she could be confused for her, when Mari has always felt Kendra looks so much like Ryan and hardly at all like herself.
That woman had spread out the past like shaking a tablecloth to get the crumbs off.
She chokes back a sob that hurts her throat. Her palms sting; she’s clenched her fingers so tight she’s dented bloody half-moons into her skin. The kids have hidden themselves away in their rooms. Ryan is locked in his den, working. She could go to him and tell him what she learned today, but the truth is she’s afraid to tell him she found out that her teenage unwed mother gave birth to her in a bathroom.
Because...what if he already knew?
She wants to run outside and strip out of the loosely wrapped Thai fisherman pants and white tank top she picked out from her closet this morning, when she thought all she’d be doing was taking a trip to a town that had no memories for her. But she doesn’t. Mari takes deep breaths instead and uncurls her fingers.
Back in her first days at the hospital, Mari hadn’t been able to express her anxiety or her terror to anyone who could understand her. She’d raged in silence, knowing that already it was too late—They had come for her. It didn’t matter if she made noise. Yet she’d been unable to cry aloud, or even to hit at things. She doesn’t remember how long she was in the hospital before someone realized that not only could she understand everything they were saying, but she could reply. Had been answering. What sounded to them like grunts or growls, what looked to them like random fluttering motions, was how Mari spoke. But once they knew, everything had changed. They’d stopped trying to train her and started teaching her, instead.
Leon had been the one to figure out what she was doing with her repeated hand motions. He’d taught her the words she needed to say when things were becoming particularly traumatic. It was their code for Mari’s frustration or for needing a break or for emotions she had forgotten how to name.
“Rough time,” she whispers. Then again. “Very rough time.”
It had been hard and frustrating. Mari can remember breaking down, kicking and screaming, fighting at the hands that tried to comb her hair, brush her teeth, shove her feet into shoes. She remembers crouching over her plate and bowl, snapping at the hands that tried to take it away before she’d gobbled up every last scrap. And she also remembers the delight of a soft bed, a full belly. She remembers when she no longer had to fight against the language of her hands but could open her mouth and tell the world what she wanted and who she was.
But who is she?
This table is not that old table, the cloth not the same, but Mari pulls it from a drawer and drapes it over the top so folds of fabric hang down and make a cave. The dog’s sitting at her feet, cocking its head to look at her. This dog might snitch a scrap that falls on the floor, but he doesn’t jump up on the counters to get it. He doesn’t lift his lip and growl when she takes something from his mouth. This dog is something to love, not to battle. She bends to scratch between his ears, then gets on her knees to let the dog cover her with sloppy, drooling kisses. Mari puts her face to Chompsky’s silky fur and smells shampoo, not filth. She would cry into the dog’s neck, but no tears come. She strokes it over and over again while the dog pants and flops onto her lap, gazing up at her with adoration.
Mari growls softly.
Chompsky’s ears perk. He licks his chops. Tilts his head and offers a low whine. Mari echoes it. Chompsky barks, leaping to his feet, front feet low and back haunches high, tail wagging. Again.
Mari doesn’t bark. She doesn’t growl. She reaches to rub his fur again and looks up when Ethan skips into the kitchen. Was it only a few short months ago that he’d stepped on broken glass and needed stitches? Now he walks with no sign of a limp. The injury hasn’t even made him cautious.
“Hi, Mama.”
“Hi, baby.”
“What are you doing?”
Mari flicks the hem of the tablecloth. “Making a cave. Want to come inside?”
Her boy grins, face lighting. She has always thought of him as hers, not Ryan’s, but again she sees a shadow of the man in him and mourns. She’s startled to realize it’s not because she doesn’t want him to grow up— but because she doesn’t want him to grow up to be like his father.
Together they crawl into the space she’s made. It’s dim there. The tile floor is cool. The dog comes, too, inching beneath the hanging fabric on his belly, then lolling with a doggy grin. Ethan giggles, pulling his knees up.
“This is fun. It’s like a fort,” he says. “Can we bring some pillows in? And snacks?”
“Not just yet.” Pillows for sleeping, snacks...these will make this cave even more like the one she used to know. There’s danger here, in giving in to all of this.
But right now, she needs it.
There is danger, but there’s comfort, too. Making the known out of the unknown, out of remembering the safe places. The manager at the restaurant had seemed to think Mari was lucky. Mari thinks so, too.
“Mom?” Kendra’s bare feet pad softly on the tiles. The tablecloth twitches. “You guys are under here again?”
Mari gestures. “Come in. Sit with us.”
Kendra does. Her legs are longer than Ethan’s and Mari’s, too. She has to
hunch to keep her head from hitting the bottom of the table. She scoots closer to Mari. The three of them breathe together and the dog wiggles around until he’s lying on all of them.
“Mom, are you okay?” Kendra asks.
Mari shrugs. “I’m a little upset, that’s all.”
Her children are silent, but both of them take her hands. She wants to cry again, but again does not. Ethan uses her hand to rub the spot between Chompsky’s eyes.
“Will you feel better soon?” her boy asks.
“I hope so. I think so.”
“That woman was a stupid bitch.”
“Kiki,” Mari says because she knows she should admonish the girl for using grown-up words, “that’s not nice.”
“She wasn’t nice.”
“She wasn’t,” Ethan adds. “She was a poopy buttface.”
Mari’s laugh chuffs out of her. It feels good. Kendra giggles a moment later.
“A diarrhea poopy buttface,” Mari’s daughter adds. “With corn in it.”
Ethan guffaws. Chompsky barks softly. Now Mari weeps, but it’s with laughter. Her stomach aches with the force of it.
She gathers her children to her for a hug. Loving them. Nothing more than that matters.
THIRTY-NINE
RYAN SKIMMED HIS hand up Mari’s thigh, over her hip then around the front to cup her bare breast. She’d pulled only a thin sheet up over her, and the room was warm enough that when he moved over to press his naked body to hers their skin stuck together a little bit. She didn’t move, though she made a low murmur.
When he nuzzled at her neck, though, she pulled away. “Don’t.”
Ryan froze, utterly shocked. “What?”
“I said don’t, Ryan.” She moved away from him to the very edge of the bed, leaving inches of space between them.
He tried to think if Mari had ever moved away from him like that and couldn’t remember. Even after having the kids, when she’d still been recovering and unable to have intercourse, she’d always been willing and in fact, eager, to fool around with other things. He moved against her again. “Babe, what’s wrong?”