She Lies Close

by Sharon Doering

  I take in his bedroom. Queen-size bed. Pale blue bedspread. He’s made his bed, not obsessively, but neat. Beside his bed is a nightstand holding a pair of nice headphones and a mason jar of pencils. In the corner of the room, an old Casio keyboard. His drawers are filled with neatly folded clothes. Nothing hidden underneath the clothes. Closet is open, revealing clothes on hangers, shoes, and shoe boxes on the floor.

  Maybe I should hire this guy to help me organize.

  I rummage behind hanging clothes, I open shoe boxes. A sewing kit, a collection of bobbleheads, some chewed dog toys. I don’t squeeze the toys, but they have that cheap, rubbery, flimsy shape to them indicating they might squeak. Mementos of a dog he had. Which might explain the cage.

  I open the small drawer in his nightstand, and I scream. It’s pathetic and wispy, but it’s a horrified scream.

  In his drawer is a scattering of Jolly Ranchers, Starbursts, and Tootsie Rolls.

  Heat blooms in my head. My jaw is clenched.

  I close the drawer, stand beside his bed, and gaze out his window at the candied sky.

  You still don’t know for sure that he gave Chloe candy. But let’s say he did. Even if he did, it doesn’t make him a child predator; it only makes him a person that doesn’t comprehend proper adult-to-child behavior. It makes him socially off kilter, not a criminal.

  Like you.

  It’s not him. It’s you. Go home and go to sleep. All you need is sleep.

  Somewhere outside, a dog barks furiously, startling me. My hand jerks, yanking the cord of the headphones on his nightstand, which catches the mason jar and knocks it off the edge. Pencils scatter on the rug.

  The dog barks like mad.

  Damn it, Hulk.

  I’m pretty sure it’s Hulk. Could be a squirrel is mocking Hulk. Could be my mom pulled into my driveway with the kids. Could be anything.

  I get down on my knees and gather the pencils, getting whiffs of my fresh fear-stink and stale jogging-stink. Thank God for this blue carpet. I’m lucky the mason jar didn’t shatter.

  Hulk abruptly stops barking, and, my ears primed, I listen. Dusk’s birds sing with vigor. Cicadas shriek. A baby cries houses away. A lawn mower drones down the street.

  Pencils and jar back in place, I quickly peek under his bed (bare, not even a stray sock) and grab hold of his bed to heave myself up.

  My fingers slide between his mattress and box spring and connect with something hard and small, something with irregular edges. I move my fingers around the object, knowing what it is before I pull it out.

  A Shopkin. A plastic stalk of broccoli with small hands, eyelashed eyes closed in delight. I lift the mattress and find a small white sock and a plastic yellow shovel.

  Is that Chloe’s shovel?

  We’ve had a number of tiny plastic shovels, a variety of colors. They crack and usually don’t last longer than a few weeks.

  I inspect the sock. It’s unwashed; the sole is dusty gray and stippled with rubber dashes to prevent small feet from slipping on bare floors. It could fit a two-year-old foot or a six-year-old foot. Socks stretch. We have these socks. Everyone has these socks.

  Fuck.

  These items could belong to Ava Boone.

  These items could belong to Chloe. He could have found them in his yard while he was mowing and jammed them in his pocket. Happens to me all the time. After I mow, my pockets are busting with Legos and marbles and tiny notepads and occasionally I have a hula hoop around my neck. Toys lay forgotten all over my yard. Leland Ernest could be a kind neighbor, stowing them away instead of tossing them in the garbage. He’s been waiting to drop them off at my house, but he’s shy and socially awkward.

  BUT!

  Why would he hide them under his mattress? Hiding the neighbor kid’s belongings under your mattress is not fucking normal.

  Oh God. What if they do belong to Ava Boone?

  I feel like I am hanging one-handed from a bowing branch on a tree dangling over the edge of a cliff with a knife skewering my neck. I can’t breathe. I am waiting to fall.

  I can’t move.

  Something creaks in the hallway, loud. I jerk and hit my head on the corner of the nightstand. Ow. Fuck.

  A pair of eyes watch me from the doorframe.

  His cat.

  With white fur on its face and a streak of white between its eyes, and black fur around its yellow-brown eyes and the top of its head, the cat looks like a burglar wearing a black mask. Belly white, back black, it’s also wearing a cape. Maybe a superhero instead of a burglar. The cat is fat, mangy, and ghoulish.

  It slinks over to me and brushes against my leg. Leland probably lets this cat out at night to eat mice and roll in rabbit turds. Still, I instinctively run my fingers through its fur.

  Your senses are on overdrive. You need to get out of here.

  I notice the bedspread isn’t awash in sunlight anymore. Shadows and shade dominate the room. I haven’t been here more than fifteen minutes, right? Twenty, max. I glance at my watch, but it doesn’t matter. I never checked the time.

  Get. Up.

  I jam the Shopkin, sock, and yellow shovel under the mattress. I can’t remember exactly where they were before, how they were positioned.

  I rush downstairs and close the sliding glass door behind me. I glance west and am stunned by the sky. Sunset pinks and oranges sweep the horizon, appearing too vibrant. Photoshopped. Feels like a dream.

  Snapping out of it, I peel off my nitrile gloves and shove them in my pocket. My hands glisten and drip with sweat. I feel more confused, more conflicted than ever. My worries for Ava Boone, my worries for Chloe, have ballooned. I didn’t find incriminating evidence, but I found circumstantial evidence. Suggestive evidence. I feel twenty years older.

  25

  THIS WON’T HURT A BIT

  I approach the back of my house. Chloe and my mother chat sweetly in the kitchen, their voices playful and sing-song like morning birds. The pair sit at the kitchen table, smashing globs of Play-Doh into plastic waffle presses. My mom is smiling, getting a kick out of whatever comes out of her granddaughter’s mouth.

  I slide open the clunky screen, which is on the verge of derailing once again. “There’s my two favorite girls,” I say, slipping out of my breaking-and-entering criminal mindset and into the role of mother with such ease, even I am amazed.

  “Mommy!” Chloe shouts and stands up on her chair, opening her arms for me. I scoop her up and feel the strength in her skinny arms and legs as she wraps around my neck and back. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment while we hug, but all I see is the wire cage on the cold cement floor of Leland’s basement furnace room. “Mommy, I’m so glad you’re home. I missed you so much.”

  “We were wondering where you were,” my mom says without sarcasm. She is happy to play Play-Doh and, strangely, matches Chloe in enthusiasm and attention to detail.

  I’ve had quite an evening, let me tell you!

  Chloe squirms out of my arms. Back to Play-Doh.

  I aim for semi-cheerful. “I was in the shed.”

  “Wyatt looked there, I thought.”

  “I was also talking with the neighbor.”

  “You left your garage door open. You shouldn’t do that. For safety, you know?”

  “I forgot. Thanks for the reminder. Where’s Wyatt?”

  “He went up. Said something about Legos. Are you alright?”

  “Sure, why?”

  “You look sweaty and, I don’t know, something. You don’t look good.” My mom stands and walks to the sink. “Sit. Let me get you some water.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” I sit heavily. Like my pockets are jammed with rocks.

  “Grandma bought me shoes,” Chloe says, sliding off her chair and hopping toward me.

  Red ballet shoes, pebbled with sparkles.

  Weight bears down on my chest, wringing the air from my lungs.

  Ava’s shoes. Those are Ava’s shoes.

  But they’re not Ava’s. They are brand new, the tag s
till hanging from one.

  I push my face into a smile for Chloe, and she hops down the hall.

  “You are getting too thin,” my mom says, setting a glass of water on the table in front of me. “Would you like me to make you a sandwich?”

  I can breathe, but I am unsteady. Like I’m both hungover and recovering from surgery. “Oh, OK. Thanks.”

  “Well, what kind of sandwich do you want?” She sighs, suddenly irritated. She doesn’t want more work; she was only trying to be polite.

  “You know what, there’s leftover spaghetti in the fridge. I’ll heat up the spaghetti.”

  “No sandwich?”

  “I’d rather have the spaghetti. Go home, Mom.”

  “Are you sure?” She puts her hand on my shoulder.

  I pat her hand. “Yes. Punch out.”

  “Did you hear the clicking?”

  “I heard it. I once had a loose heat shield that sounded similar. It was rattling and needed to be screwed in tighter. Cost me seventy bucks maybe.”

  Wow, you sound so incredibly pragmatic and knowledgeable.

  She kisses me on the back of my head and grabs her purse and the bottle of water she’s been refilling for a month now. I’m about to grab her a new water bottle, but fuck it, I’m exhausted. It’s only a dirty water bottle, she’ll live.

  “Clean up in the bathroom,” she says, humor in her voice, after she passes the bathroom and before she walks out the front door. It’s the last thing I want to do, but I force myself to stand.

  Toilet paper overflows from the bowl, like perky colorful tissue paper bursting from a gift bag. The empty roll lies, discarded, on the floor.

  Chloe couldn’t have been in here more than thirty seconds.

  “Doesn’t it look pretty?” Chloe says from halfway up the staircase.

  “Maybe if I didn’t have to clean it up. Please don’t throw things in the toilet. It gives me more work.” As she runs up the stairs, I add, “If you want to use toilet paper, you have to start peeing on the potty.”

  I plunge the toilet, pumping and sloshing, wet toilet paper sticking to the top of the rubber plunger. It’s the cottony plush paper, the kind with faux stitching. How did this even get into my house? I have a policy against luxurious toilet-clogging paper. Someone smuggled it in. My mom?

  Toilet unplugged, I transfer the plunger to the corner behind the toilet where it always waits. As if it needs to find its way back to the toilet, it leaves a trail of toilet water along my scarred, water-damaged, uneven wooden floor.

  The plunger disgusts me, truly disturbs me, and, if I think about it too long, is a genuine source of worry. The person who redesigns the plunger so the inside rim doesn’t slosh with shit water and drip life-threatening bacteria onto the floor will be a billionaire. Have we been using the same plunger design for over a hundred years?

  I walk upstairs and stop at Chloe’s door. She is sitting on the floor, checking diligently between her toes. Her new sparkly red shoes are nowhere in sight. Thank God. Her dress is up to her waist, and she’s wearing no diaper.

  “Where’s your diaper?”

  “Mom,” she says, “can you pretend to be a nice mommy?”

  Don’t get sensitive. She’s three.

  “I thought I was a nice mommy,” I say, trying to be silly, but my voice is flat.

  “A nice mommy that takes care of babies?” she says, her voice like spun sugar, like cotton candy.

  “I am a nice mommy. I took care of you when you were a baby.”

  “Can you pretend to use a nice voice?”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  She brings me a baby doll. “Take it.”

  My bones feel brittle, my chest flutters. A gust of wind could knock me to pieces. I sit and do as I’m told.

  The dolly is naked. Red crayon scribbled on its forehead. One eye stuck open, one eye shut. Disquieting.

  This baby has been mistreated. Wyatt used to undress this baby and whip it down the basement stairs. When Wyatt was six, he carved a hole into this baby’s butt crack with my letter opener. That same night in bed Nate and I dissected and analyzed the incident as if it were a billion-dollar merger. We made lists of pros and cons, created spreadsheets and slides. I’m kidding about the spreadsheets, but it was an intense conversation. In the end, we agreed Wyatt’s decision to surgically give the baby an anus for the reason of proper digestion made sense; he’d been playing realistic make-believe, and his father was a gastro surgeon. Case closed, Nate and I had sex and laughed about the poor dolly before drifting off to sleep.

  I miss Nate. I miss his lack of anxiety, lack of planning, lack of actual thinking. His lacks would piss me off to extreme, but right now I miss them. His lacks balanced my excesses.

  I hug the mutilated doll. “Chloe, the man next door might be a bad guy. If he talks to you, I want you to run inside our house and tell me right away, OK?”

  “OK, Momma.” Like it’s no big deal.

  “If anyone besides me or Grandma or Wyatt offers you candy, come tell me right away. I promise I’ll give you a treat, OK?” She might start lying to me, telling me strangers everywhere are giving her candy, and demanding treats from me. I don’t care.

  “OK,” she says. “What’s wrong, Momma?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine,” but my voice is fickle.

  “Don’t worry, Momma. I’ll take care of everything. Do you need me to change your diaper?” Her eyes are expressive and concerned. Her voice is downy; a gentle breeze could carry it away.

  “No, thanks. I wear big girl underpants.”

  Chloe slaps both my cheeks and squishes them together and tugs them up and down in a manner of which I’m sure dermatologists wouldn’t approve. I feel the collagen under my cheeks tear.

  “Mommy, you will be OK. Let me get you a Band-Aid.” She grabs her doctor kit. “Don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit.” She pushes a plastic shot against my arm, puckering my skin.

  “Ow, that hurts.”

  “Don’t worry. You will feel all better.”

  “Thanks. Do I get the Band-Aid now?”

  “Not yet. You need another shot.”

  Wyatt laughs in his room.

  “I’ll be right back, Chloe.”

  Leaving the ugly doll on the floor, I stand and peek into Wyatt’s room. “What’s so funny?”

  “Everything. More shots. Big girl underpants.” He has made a little nest of blankets on his floor. Hulk lies in the nest, on her back, paws in the air. Wyatt rubs her hairless belly.

  A boy and his dog.

  I sit beside him and join in with rubbing Hulk’s belly, waiting for Wyatt to say whatever amazing thing will come to him.

  “Did you know birds die of light pollution?” he says.

  “No.”

  “During nighttime, they are drawn to lit-up cities. The lights kind of hypnotize the birds and confuse them. Birds circle the lit-up billboards and lit-up buildings until they tire out. When they’re exhausted from circling, they crash and die.”

  “I had no idea, Wyatt. That’s sad.”

  I stop petting Hulk. In an effort to win my attention back, she wraps her front paws around my arm and scratches me.

  “Ow. Hulk, that hurt.” Tiny blood bubbles emerge along the scratch.

  “Are you OK, Mom?”

  “I’m fine. It’s a good reminder that I’ve let her nails get too long.”

  On my way to the bathroom to wash my arm, I peek in on Chloe.

  She is naked, standing on her tippy toes on the edge of an open and wobbling dresser drawer, reaching for a glass music box I placed on a high shelf because I didn’t want her to play with it.

  She loses her balance, and her body tips backward. In three wide strides, I am there to catch her small baby body as she falls. I throw my weight to the right, and we land on the single mattress instead of my momentum throwing us at the window.

  In her mind the world is cushiony and safe, and she is quickly squirming away from my grasp, already making the ne
xt joke, thinking up the next task for me. I lie on her bed, heart jackhammering, my spirit buckling.

  Leland Ernest and the items hidden under his mattress are steel scraping flint in my volatile mind.

  26

  MY VAGINA WAS MADE IN CHINA

  Here’s something I haven’t mentioned. Chloe resembles Marilyn Monroe. I sound delusional, I know, but bear with me.

  Her hair is airy and voluminous and white-blond. She has arched eyebrows and a widow’s peak (dominant trait on Nate’s side). More poignant than physical traits, her voice is breathy and high, and she does this flirty thing where she tilts her chin down and smiles while she’s saying something taunting like You can’t get me or Of course I didn’t eat it, silly.

  She’s like a gorgeous woman with cherub cheeks and a toddler’s body. She’ll be grotesque by the time she’s thirty, I’m sure. Bad timing runs on my side of the family.

  Enhancing her allure is her dark sense of humor.

  She’ll run away in the wretched maze that is the public library or down a sidewalk littered with brilliant red leaves or into the fucking street. I’ll chase her, scolding her in a stern voice, and she’ll laugh deliriously until the moment I catch her and she feels anger in my rough grip.

  She’ll put dog food pebbles in Hulk’s water bowl and coo, Hulk, see if you can find it.

  To get my attention she’ll say, Hey, slap my cheek, and ask me when lunch is as if she didn’t slap me.

  She likes television shows with a dark edge. She’s enraptured watching the mean old grandfather yell at Heidi and send her to bed without supper.

  She talks about her vagina with an evocative, incomprehensible maturity. We’ll be dancing to pop music and she’ll stop suddenly, turning to me as if a genius notion has dawned on her, and say, Is this song about my vagina? when it actually is. She has jumped on her bed, laughing and singing, My vagina wants to go to Disney World. My vagina was made in China.

  This is a child I need to protect from the world outside my house.

  This is a child I need to protect from herself.

  My worries are not exclusive to my child. I am not one of those parents who blindly believes her own daughter outranks other children in beauty and intelligence.