I see these girls everywhere. Little girls with minds that seem to be more mature, more provocative, than the actual child can possibly be. Little girls with velvety skin and long limbs and stunning highlights in their wind-tangled hair. They quietly regard the world with doe eyes or they run at it with brash smiles. Their innocent minds and little bodies are too heavenly and mysteriously irresistible for a deranged mind.
Boys get stolen too, I know. I worry about Wyatt, but my concern for him doesn’t wrench the air out of my lungs. Maybe because of his age. Maybe because of statistics.
Unfortunately, I understand an obsessive, predator mind. All too well.
The Predator Mind considers a specific fantasy with such frequency, with such detail, the fantasy becomes familiar and natural. Doable.
* * *
I lie on my bed in the dark, shoes on, and strain to grasp barely audible sounds of life in my house. Hulk’s moist crotch-licking from outside my door. Down the hall, Wyatt’s nasal snore on the intake. Chloe sucking her pacifier. Three sucks, rest. Three sucks, rest.
It is 10:08pm when I take off my shoes and open my laptop. I wildly roam the vast wireless space. I cast my anxious net wide, searching everything from snow globes to light pollution to rabies-infected bats to YouTube toilet repair to YouTube survival tutorials. How to escape a car sinking in water. How to survive a nuclear fallout. Note to self: buy potassium iodide pills.
I come across a story titled Top Ten Character Traits to Teach Your Child and dive in because I worry that if I were to skip it, I might miss some key insight that could have improved my kids’ lives. The psychologist author tells me, if I want to be a good parent, the first trait to instill in my child is: Live in the present. Enjoy the moment.
The psychologist author tells me I need to model this behavior to my child; I need to show my child how to be present, enjoy nature, be mindful, and pay attention to her feelings and the feelings of people around her. If I teach my kid to live in the moment, my kid will learn empathy, kindness, and conscientiousness.
I resolve to not take the bait. Fucking media terrorists. I will not let this article play upon my parenting insecurities. Why?
Because I live in the present. Let me tell you, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
I live so much in the moment, I am trapped in the moment, heart hammering, palms sweating, bombarded by my own observations and self-interrogation. I live so much in the present, I am incapable of imagining the future. I can’t plan well. Can’t foresee that the intensity of each moment will fade with time. Can’t sense that tomorrow or maybe next week, what I am worrying about right now will no longer be a worry.
Just for shits and giggles (and partly because I ceaselessly doubt even my strongest opinions), I glance at the next trait I need to teach my kid.
Be adaptable, the psychologist tells me.
Adaptable? Really? You know who excels at being adaptable? Hoarders. They adapt seamlessly and silently to sharing a small living space with cockroaches, Ziplocs containing their own feces, mounds of black-speckled, molding laundry, and fuzzy green bread.
Homeless people, there’s an impressively adaptable group. A person’s got to be flexible to eat from a dumpster or sleep on a sidewalk busy with gawking, homefull pedestrians.
Murderers, too. Who’s more adaptable than a person who ends another human’s life, then washes bloody tissue scraps off their skin, has a cup of coffee, and maybe heads to work?
I’m adaptable. I shake my head and close my laptop.
It is 11:48pm when I pull up my covers. 12:16am hits. 12:57am.
I have tried to distract myself. I have tried to drown my worries about Leland Ernest and the items I found under his mattress, but they keep buoying to the surface of my mind.
Not items. Charms. Trophies.
And the large dog cage. He has no dog. Maybe he had a dog, but maybe it was a small lap dog.
Leland Ernest is a cloud of weed killer, pregnant and moist and spreading, poisoning my every budding thought. The odor of his house is a slimy residue on my tongue. His proximity is the chest pain of an impending heart attack.
27
A CROWBAR, A CREDIT CARD, AND A HAMMER
Another dream.
Instead of putting a coffee pod into my machine, I’m stuffing it with a little girl’s dirty sock. When coffee doesn’t drip into my mug, I’m baffled. Why is this machine not making coffee? What am I doing wrong?
The old-fashioned coffee maker. Dig that up. I still have some coffee filters and expired grounds. As I descend the basement stairs, it hits me. I gave the old coffee maker to my sister.
I sit on a basement stair, confused and fatalistically modern. I have become reliant upon my complicated, expensive coffee machine, and now that it won’t make coffee with a little girl’s dirty sock, what the hell do I have?
Make coffee the way Grandma did, on the goddamn stove.
My dream fast-forwards ten or twenty minutes. I am sitting at the kitchen table, my mug in front of me, sipping my coffee from a plastic shovel. My tongue probes stray coffee grit along the side of my cheek.
A gang of fruit flies hovers over a bunch of bananas on the counter. One of them roams over and lingers in front of my left eye.
I slap my hands together vengefully and put him out. His small carcass drops to the table and I blow him onto the floor.
I would never smash an insect so violently and enthusiastically when the kids are watching. The pressure of setting a good example—being a helper, a problem-solver, a deep-breath taker, a non-complainer, a life-valuer, a bright-side-looker—weighs on my neck perpetually. No wonder my neck aches and has lost flexibility.
I sip nasty coffee, swallow a few grinds. I like the quiet, but also dislike it. The void of my children is gaping.
Out the sliding glass door, the sky is bubblegum pink.
On the table in front of me are: two pairs of pants with deep pockets, two long-sleeve shirts, blue nitrile gloves, a large Ziploc full of plastic grocery bags, a Ziploc of shredded leftover chicken, brand new pairs of male sneakers and flip-flops (each pair is three sizes too big for me and has never been worn), a crowbar, a credit card, and a hammer.
Chloe’s sleepy calls of “Momma, Momma” rouse me. I blink my eyes open. I’m sitting in a chair at the kitchen table. The room is dark except for the glow from a floor-level nightlight. My watch reads 3:17am. Sleepwalking again.
As I stand, my fingers meet something unexpected. Cold, sweaty metal.
The business end of a hammer. It’s one of our older ones. The wooden handle is riddled with scratches. I’m pretty sure it belonged to my dad.
In a sleepy haze, I slip the hammer into our kitchen junk drawer, which is already jammed with crumpled receipts, marbles, coins, batteries, gum, screwdrivers, a stethoscope, and a full strand of Christmas lights. Glancing at that open junk drawer is like gazing into a mirror. The disarray of the stupid junk drawer pulls me away from sleepiness toward bright white neurosis. I resist, clinging to mind-numbing sleep as I bump my way upstairs.
In her dark room, Chloe’s sitting in her bed, statue-still, listlessly staring at her open door. Neither of us says a word. We are both half-asleep. I lie down in her bed, and, feeling the weight and warmth of my body beside her, she easily falls back asleep.
28
LEAD GLASS, CHIPPED BONE, AND A SPLASH OF ANTIFREEZE
I call my realtor at 6:05am with the intention of being directed to voice mail. I can’t afford to move, but I need to make this call. What choice do I have?
I close my bedroom door gently and say, “Hi, Jane, this is Grace Wright. I just moved in here so you’re going to think I’m nuts, but I’ve decided to put my house back on the market. Can you schedule me in for some photos? Nate has the kids this weekend so I can clean the heck out of this place. I should be good to go Saturday afternoon. I will buy flowers! Or you could use the former owner’s photos. Whatever you think! Thanks.”
Do I want to change my
message or accept it?
Good to go? I will buy flowers? Do I sound insane? My hands tremble.
Accept.
I open my door. Wyatt’s standing there.
“Good morning, Wy.” I smile and pull him in for a hug. He does his usual: head turned away, body turned away, barely tolerating my hug. I am repulsive. “I’m wearing deodorant, perfume, and I brushed my teeth,” I say.
“Who were you talking to?”
“It’s not important. You want eggs or cereal?”
“Eggs.”
“Lunch—you want ham and cheese or P and J?”
“P and J.”
“I’m on it.” I could ask Wyatt to make his own lunch. He’s capable, and it would help me, but morning is an especially fragile time. I may pretend to be in charge, making the rules, barking out the rules, but it’s a façade. I’m at their mercy. If they lose their temper, if they melt down, if they refuse, then I will be late for work. So I tiptoe around them, cleaning up their messes, putting their shoes where they can find them, and averting disasters they don’t see coming. In the morning, when we need to be on time, I’m their bitch.
Also, because I divorced their father, I always feel like they have less than. Guilt is not a good compass, I know that, but it is my compass.
“Thanks, Mom.”
I rub his fluffy hair and head to Chloe’s room.
She’s wearing only her diaper and she’s sitting with her legs in the W position, her toes pointed back. Media terrorists have conveyed to me several times that the W position is bad for her knees, very bad, but she’s so quiet and pleasant as she puts small things—doll shoes, paper clips, marbles she should not have, stickers—in a Tupperware container, there’s no way I’m going to reposition her legs.
“Morning, Chloe. Thanks for playing on your own like a big girl. I’m going to make eggs. Come down when you’re ready.”
“I want raisins and blueberries,” she says buoyantly.
“Sure thing.”
“I want to wear a dress,” she says slowly, testing me.
“OK, bring it down and I’ll help you put it on.”
“I want tights and orange juice,” she says, knowing she has the upper hand.
I grind my teeth and suggest, “May I please have orange juice.”
She repeats what I said and adds sweetly, sincerely, “Thanks, Momma.”
I take in her precious pebbled toes, her bare chest, her small, flat nipples. Dizziness settles upon me. I’m standing on the top stair so I reach for the railing. I slide my hand along it as I carefully make my way down.
My foot on the bottom step, last night’s dream jolts me like a tuning fork touching dendrites in my brain. Warning me. Beckoning me.
Me stuffing a little girl’s sock into the coffee maker. Me drinking coffee with a child’s shovel.
A child’s sock. A child’s shovel. You found those things under his mattress. There is something wrong with him.
I open the junk drawer and touch my fingertips to my dad’s old hammer. That I’m accessing dangerous tools while I’m sleepwalking is worrisome. I don’t have time to dwell on this new, bothersome behavior, so I compartmentalize and move on.
My eggs turn out perfectly, but freeing the miniature boxes of raisins from their shrink-wrap is challenging for me this morning. I grab what’s closest: a pen. I only need to make one small tear to liberate the cluster of miniature boxes.
But like most decisions made under stress or fatigue, the pen is a bad choice. Damn thing explodes onto my shirt, Jackson Pollock-style.
“Ooh,” Wyatt says. “That’s not good.”
I bite my bottom lip and force a long breath. “On the contrary. This shirt is twice your age.” I toss my ink-splattered shirt in the garbage. One less ugly shirt to wash. If these minor, messy catastrophes continue, my wardrobe will get a minimalist’s makeover. I’m going topless until we’re ready to walk out the door. Who knows what else I’ll end up covered with?
“You’re not going to wear just that to work, are you?” Wyatt says, his expression nervous as he glances at my bra.
I should find his question funny. Instead, my heart aches. I’m that unpredictable, that temperamental, he actually thinks I might head to work topless? Dang.
I smile. “No, I will wear a shirt to work.”
My cell phone rings. I am setting plates and food on the table.
“Aren’t you going to answer your phone?”
“Nope.” It’s probably my realtor. The less communication, the better.
Chloe hands me a pale pink cotton dress, and I pull it over her head. “Pink pigtails, please,” she says. I follow her into the bathroom. She stands on the step stool in front of the mirror. While I brush her hair, she points to different freckles and bruises on her body and asks about each one. “When can I get them gone?”
Already she’s focusing on her imperfections. Where has she learned to criticize her body?
“I like those freckles, Chlo. They’re cute. They’re my little friends.”
Tilting her chin down, she glares at me in the mirror. “I don’t like them. Them are not your friends.”
“They’ll go away on their own.” I’m too tired for the truth.
“Even that one?” She points to a big freckle on her neck.
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
“Mom!” she fake-screams, eyes wide, regarding me in the mirror. “I see your breasts. Where is your shirt?”
I tell her about the pen. She puckers her lips and furrows her brows. “Will I get them breasts?”
“Yep. When you’re twelve.”
She clasps her hands together as if she’s auditioning for a commercial. “I can’t wait!”
I sure as hell can.
“It’s dad’s night so he’ll pick you guys up this afternoon,” I remind her. My hands tremble as I twist pink rubber bands around ghostly wisps of toddler hair.
“I will miss you at work,” Chloe says. “I will put this in your hair so you don’t get lonely. Come closer, please.” It’s some sort of barrette, and she snaps it in underneath my hair. She does this all the time. I’m always pulling surprise barrettes out of my hair. Half the time, when I’m yanking one out, I’m wondering when she snuck it in.
“I will miss you too, Chlo.”
She cradles my face in her hands and looks back and forth at my eyes. “You have lightning bolts in your eyes.”
My heart flutters, which is silly. She means nothing by it. I’m sure the awful yellow bathroom lights are reflecting off my eyes. Still, I probe. “Does Dad have lightning bolts too?”
“I don’t think. You look pretty, Momma.”
“Thanks.”
“Just don’t smile because your teeth are brown.”
I smile extra wide, and she giggles. “We’ve got to get moving, Chlo. Go have a few quick bites of eggs, raisins, and blueberries.”
Ten minutes later, I slide into the driver’s seat. I’m the last one in. Wyatt managed to buckle Chloe into her car seat. I glance at both of them in the rearview. There is a smear of deep violet near the top of Chloe’s pale pink dress. I feel the tug of déjà vu, and my squishy insides quiver.
Ava.
The blotchy stain consumes me. It’s like my vision has singed to gray, and this blueberry stain is the only color, vivid and cool, in the whole world.
Ava had a blueberry stain near the collar of her shirt.
It’s stupid, it’s only a stain, children on every street are literally wiping their sticky, moist hands across their shirts right now, smudging their clothes, but still, I can’t shake this eerie familiarity.
Get control of yourself, Grace.
In my rearview mirror, Chloe gives me one of those forced, squinty-eyed, smiling-hard smiles. Her teeth are washed in blue. Her lips are a chilly, plump violet.
I smile back at her, then at Wyatt. “You are both wonderful people. I love you guys.”
I put it in reverse and roll down the driveway.
&n
bsp; In the periphery of my vision—a man stands inside my garage beside the door to my house. I blink once, twice, three times, and he’s gone.
It’s a trick of the light. Dark garage to outside brightness plays with your retinas.
The shitfaced toddler shakes my mind, the snow globe, trying to concuss me. Flakes shudder, and the turbulence is a desperate, raw type of irritating I associate with being stuck in the purgatory of plateau before orgasm.
Last night I read that snow globes used to be made of lead glass, chipped bone, and a splash of antifreeze. The latter, mixed in with water, would slow the chipped bone flakes’ fall. All these things macabre and poisonous, it seems fitting they’d be a metaphor for my mind.
29
FUCK LYNYRYD SKYNYRD AND THEIR “FREE BIRD” NONSENSE
It’s garbage night.
When I get home from work, I roll the garbage and recycling bins to the curb, one at a time, creating baritone rumbles which match the tall, bloated clouds set against a gray sky. Storms on their way.
As I walk up my driveway, a breeze ripples the fabric under the arm of my shirt. I stop and take in the breeze, slowing down and enjoying it as if I were licking ice cream. One of my neighbors is playing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”. I imagine me and the kids in the minivan, driving down a bare strip of highway surrounded by pastoral land. Driving fast, sky everywhere, tall grass bending to the wind for miles.
You are not stuck. Take the little cash you have and blow out of here. Go somewhere rural, start over. Let the kids live dirt poor and eat and sleep and read. You don’t need any of this crap you think they need. Friends. Award-winning schools. None of it matters. You love them. That’s all that matters. Take them and go. Before it’s too late.
But you never know what school you’ll get.
You will have no money, no job, no childcare, no connections, no help.
Most of all, Nate will find you and wring you out in court. You will lose everything.
Fuck the breeze. Fuck Lynyrd Skynyrd and their “Free Bird” nonsense.
She Lies Close Page 13