by Meg Elison
“Back home?”
“Yeah, the aim of CPS is always to place children back into their own homes, once the issues have been resolved.”
Something about the way he says this sounds like he’s said it a thousand times, like the way you rush through a poem you memorized for class.
“What if they can’t be resolved?” Keep smiling.
He hesitates. “Then they go into more permanent homes, or even go up for adoption. Listen, Amanda, all of this information is online, you can just—”
“It’s Amber, actually.” Is he trying to catch me in a lie? “Do you know what happened to Andrew Bailey?”
Longer silence this time. “Why are you asking about him? Do you know him?”
“I know his sister, Layla.”
No hesitation at all. “Do you know where she is right now?”
“No, I don’t . . . Listen, I was making up the school project thing. A bunch of us just want to send Andy a card so he’s not so scared. I just want to find out how we can get it to him.” I bite my lip like I’m actually ashamed of the lie.
“I can’t tell you that, kiddo. But I tell you what, why don’t you bring your card to the police station, and I’ll make sure he gets it? Just ask for me at the front desk. Okay?”
“Okay. Thank you, Officer Benson.”
“That’s alright. Do you think you’ll come today?” He is trying to catch me. He’s all friendly now, too friendly.
“I don’t know, I have to ask my mom for a ride.” Careful. Careful. How would a normal kid talk?
“You do that. I’ll be here until five.”
“Thank you. Okay. Bye.”
It’s a trap. It’s obviously a trap. If I show up, he’ll know my face. I’d get taken and I’d probably never get a note to Andy.
Foster parents. Adoption. The first stage of mitosis where one cell splits into two, and there’s no going back. Interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, and then there are two. There’s no family in the world that would take us both. He’s little, though. Cute, even with his broken front tooth. Somebody could adopt him.
He’d be safe. Someone would make sure he got fed and put clothes on him. He’d be better off, really.
But who’s going to sit with him on Sunday nights and make him read? How is he going to sleep alone when he has nightmares? He’s always had me, since he was a baby and I started changing his diapers when Mom would forget.
I can still hear him yelling my name as they took him away.
I start the computer back up just so that I can sign out of everything. Before I close the window, I see that my video has been watched hundreds of times since I got here.
That’s when I figure out what my hypothesis should have been. What I should have been working for.
Saturday Night
Safe in my RV, I start planning my way out. My revenge. My best outcome.
I know how to ride the bus for free. It’s a trick I’ve pulled before: we have a presentation in school about safe places where you can go if you’re in trouble and they’ll take you in. They have these stickers that look like a big grown-up puffy thing hugging a smaller puffy thing. All the buses have one.
So I tested my hypothesis one day when I needed to go to a different library than the one near my house. The doors with the puffy-people sticker opened, and I got on the bottom step. I looked up at the driver from there, trying to appear and sound younger than I was.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any money, but this weird guy in a long coat was following me. I just need to get away. Is it okay if I just ride for a little while so I can call my mom from somewhere safe?”
The driver was a big man in a crisp light-blue shirt. “Sure thing, girly girl. Get on back there.” He smiled at me, and I smiled back. He radioed to somebody about me and my mythical creeper. I rode for four miles and waved to him as I got off. A couple hours later, I pulled the same act on an old-lady driver with long purple fingernails. She looked so worried, scanning the front of the library for my imaginary predator, that I almost felt bad about lying.
So I can use the safe-place mentality of nice people to ride to the police station. I’ll drop off my note for Andy at the front desk and leave quickly before anyone can spot me.
Just thinking about Andy hurts right now. At night I can’t help but think about him. It’s weird to sleep without the little noises he makes, or the accidental knocking of our knees. I wonder who’s taking care of him, who’s making sure he does his homework. I think about his broken front tooth and his freaky vampire grin. He looked normal before that happened. His hair is straight, and I cut it short every month with an electric clipper thing. He could get adopted. That tooth, though . . .
Here’s how Andy got a broken tooth. Nighttime was usually quiet with Mom. Andy and me in my loft bed, Mom either on the couch or out somewhere. If she woke us up in the middle of the night, I knew we were in for something terrible.
That night, she woke us up yelling. I don’t remember the words, just the volume and sitting bolt upright in bed, Andy waking up slower.
I remember blinking in the darkness of our room and seeing the light on in the hallway. I sat there for a second, trying to figure out what I had heard.
“Get up. Get the wet vac.”
Mom was in her bedroom. As soon as I came down the one step into her room, I felt the water on the floor. It was at least an inch high, and this was before the leak in the bathroom, before the layer of newspapers was added to the carpet. I ran down the hallway and Andy followed me.
The wet vac was in the hallway closet, buried under a couple of boxes of junk. She’d bought it at a garage sale after the last time her bed leaked. Waterbeds are the worst invention of all time.
I set the boxes down in the water without thinking that they’d be ruined, and I dragged the vacuum out. I walked into Mom’s room and Andy was standing there, watching water pour out of the big plastic bag inside of her waterbed. The blankets were all balled up under the headboard, but they were already soaked. The water just kept coming and coming. I couldn’t see from exactly where.
Mom grabbed the cord out of my hand and plugged it in. “Get that thing running before we flood the whole house.”
“Do I put the hose on the bed or—”
“On the floor.”
Not sure if I was asleep or awake, but I did as I was told. I put the weird trapezoidal head of the vacuum into the water at my feet and flipped on the toggle switch. The vac filled up quickly, chugging too loud to talk. Mom hunted all over the bed to find the hole, tossing stuff out of her way. One side of her bed was covered in books and balled-up tissues and Styrofoam takeout containers and all kinds of junk. Most of it tumbled to the floor and floated there, in the rising water.
I started dragging the full vacuum tank to the sliding glass door at the back of Mom’s bedroom. I slid it open and the water poured out onto the balcony on that side. I opened the tank and poured gray water until there was only silt left in there. I closed the machine back up and dragged it back in.
“Close the door.”
“But the water’s draining out—”
“Somebody will see! Close it.” She was still staring at the bed. Her eyes were in deep shadow, and she was chewing her lip. She was already on her way out of herself, I could tell.
I came back around the bed and saw it. I think we saw it at the same time. On the far side of the bed, near where she slept, there was the hole. It was small and low, so that the water had filled up the frame before overflowing from all sides. The hole was round and looked melted.
Cigarette burn. If she had had a regular bed, she’d have set it on fire.
I was very awake at that moment. And very pissed off. I was pissed off that I had to shut the door so that I could run that vacuum all night long. I was pissed off at the way she was staring at the hole, doing nothing, sliding out of reality to leave me to deal with this. Like always.
“Andy, go back to bed.” I always have to
be in charge. Always.
He looked up at me with fear in his eyes.
“There’s nothing for you to do, and you’re just in the way. Go back to bed.”
He looked at Mom. She stared at the hole.
“Now.”
He turned around and left, his little feet splashing in the cold water. I turned the vacuum back on.
I didn’t have to watch it; the water was everywhere. I just had to wait for the drum to fill. Instead I watched Mom.
Living with her had always been like living with a stranger. It’s always been the same stranger, one who’s lived with me for as long as I can remember. She hardly ever looks directly at me and never says my name. Sometimes she calls Andy “kiddo,” like a yard narc would, in a way that means all kids are the same.
I hate her so much that if some idiot fell asleep on me while smoking, the hatred would leak out of me until it poured over the threshold and flooded the streets.
The vac tank was full again and heavy. I started dragging it toward the door when the light went out.
The lamp in Mom’s room was one of those old green-glass ones with the long bulb underneath, like they have at the library. It was sitting on a bulging cardboard box in the corner, another one that she had never unpacked. I sighed and turned off the vacuum.
I walked to the bathroom and looked up at the fixture over the mirror. The glass cover was gone, but the two bare bulbs were there. I wasn’t sure one of them would fit in the lamp, but it might. I reached up in the dark and unscrewed one.
I took it back into the bedroom and went over to the lamp.
Mom stood where she was. I wished for a second that I could tell her to turn on the vacuum and do some of the work herself, but I didn’t say it. I picked up the lamp and looked under the green-glass shade. I hoped it was the bulb and nothing more. I put my hand on the bulb to unscrew it and my hand stuck there.
My jaw locked. My hands curled into fists that couldn’t let go. I felt a terrible buzzing all over, down to my bones. I was stuck. I screamed through my teeth and my left hand came bashing down on the lamp without my asking it to.
Andy must have heard me screaming and come back down. He yanked the lamp cord out of the wall, and everything unlocked. He stood there staring at me with big scared eyes.
“Layla, are you okay? Are you okay?”
I was not okay. The shock was still running through me, and I shook all over. I was too dazed to answer for a few seconds, and I saw pure terror on his face while he waited for me to talk. Is this how Frankenstein made a monster?
“I’m fine, Andy. I’m fine.” I turned on Mom. “Didn’t you see that?”
She looked up. “What?”
“Just now. With the lamp. Didn’t you see that?”
“What are you talking about? Are you going to change the bulb or not?” She was mumbling. Going, going, gone.
I picked up the unplugged lamp and threw it at the wall in front of me, hard. The base of it took a chip out of the paint and the drywall underneath. The green-glass shade bounced off and hit Andy in the face.
I don’t know what kind of glass doesn’t just break, but it didn’t. Not against the wall, and not against my baby brother’s teeth. I heard it smack against him and then splat on the wet floor. Andy’s hands flew to his mouth, and he started to wail. The monster was made.
I took big, jerky steps toward him. My left foot burned and buzzed.
“Let me see. Let me see. Andy, let me look. I need to see how bad it is.”
I tried to pull his hands away from it, but he fought me. There was a tiny dot of blood.
I pried his hand away, and a piece of tooth went tumbling to the floor. It was shockingly big, and I thought for a second I had knocked out one of his front teeth. He had just gotten his permanent front teeth in, and I had wrecked his smile forever.
His right front tooth was broken at a jagged diagonal, making it like a tiny fang that came to a point where it met the other one. It would have been better if it had knocked out altogether.
“It huuuuurts,” he wailed, high and nasal. “It hurts it hurts it hurts, Layla.”
“I know. I know. I’m so sorry. Andy, I’m so sorry.”
I walked him to the bathroom and found the sticky pink bottle of baby cold medicine he took when he had the sniffles. I gave him two droppers full, just hoping it’d stop the pain. He quit crying but kept making this high repeating whine noise that I just couldn’t stand. I wanted to shake him, but I felt like I deserved to have to hear it forever.
I took him to bed, still wailing, and made him lie down.
“Andy, you have to sleep. Just close your eyes.”
He wailed and moaned, one hand at his mouth.
“Damn it, Andy. I’m sorry, but you just have to deal with it, okay? Just try to think of something else.”
No answer. No real answer, anyway. No way to feel better about this, probably ever.
He curled up tight like a shrimp, and I put the blankets over him. My hands and feet felt big and stupid. Climbing down the ladder felt like trying to control a huge, clumsy puppet.
I walked back into the bedroom and Mom was still there, sitting on the wet bed, looking at the floor. Checked out.
I walked closer to her. She was slumped forward, totally glazed over. Vacant, like the windows of an empty house.
“Mom can’t come to the phone right now. Can I take a message?
“Mom’s not home. Nobody’s home.” No reaction.
“Nobody’s ever home, are they, Mom?”
Nothing. I was right in front of her face. She would have been staring at my belly, if she could see anything. I’d seen her in this state, she’d let mosquitoes feed off her eyelids without moving. I could do anything at all.
I reached out my right hand. It felt sore and tingly, the aftermath of the shock still running through me. I could feel it from my right hand down to my left foot, like a vibration that wouldn’t stop. I brought my hand down hard and fast, meaning to hit her in the face but striking her ear, off center and without much force.
Nothing.
I reached back and smacked her again, harder this time and more on the jaw. I leaned down and yelled right in her ear. “Wake up! Snap out of it! Come on!”
I stood there, closer to her than I had been in months, smelling her terrible hobo smell, wanting something to happen.
I wanted something from her I wasn’t going to get, but that was how it always was. I remember standing there, wanting to yell or cry or hit her again. Even wanting her to hit me back, just anything.
And then something else hit me: checked-out Mom was better than usual Mom. Either way, nothing I said mattered. Nothing I did mattered. She had nothing to offer. But at least when she was checked out she was harmless. No hot cigarette, no sharp nails. No demands on her nameless children. No waking me up with screams.
Harmless. So I hit her again. She didn’t move or make a sound. It was like smacking a piece of raw chicken. It didn’t matter and it didn’t make me feel better. It didn’t fix Andy’s tooth and it didn’t unshock me. So I dropped my hands. I gave up. She didn’t fight, but she won anyway.
I wouldn’t cry in front of her. That’s been my rule since the night we found her in front of the oven. I went out the sliding glass door and did it outside until I could get it under control.
I left the door open so the water would pour out. I could hear it dripping off the balcony down to the parking lot.
Between that and the bathroom sink, I have lived in a swamp ever since.
A week after that unquiet night, she had nailed two big sheets of plywood over that door so that it couldn’t be opened again. Andy’s tooth still had a sharp edge where it had broken, and he kept running his tongue over it. My aftershock had faded, and Mom had started sleeping on the couch.
His adopt-me face is going to feature that ugly broken tooth. It’s going to cost someone money to fix.
He still remembers that I’m the one who gave it to him. I b
roke my brother’s tooth, and I hit my defenseless mother.
I lie alone in my RV and think about that. And I plan how to take myself to the police station.
Sunday Morning
The trick works on another bus driver. Repeatable results. I walk out to the main drag and catch the first bus after dawn, so the creep factor is increased by the fact that it’s still a little dark out. The bus is nearly empty. I sit in the back and enjoy the ride.
The police station is in the old part of town, the one with the arches that they light up at Christmas and the small, cute shops that sell very expensive things. I walk across the square holding the letter for Andy in my hand. All I had was notebook paper in my backpack, so I folded an envelope out of that to cover it. It’s addressed to him c/o Officer Benson.
There’s a tall man standing at the front desk. He’s in uniform. I wasn’t expecting that—I thought there would be a receptionist like at any other office. Like a pretty woman who smiles a lot and has a headset.
His name tag says Officer Hinajosa. He doesn’t smile.
“Hi. I talked to Officer Benson on the phone, and he said I could leave this for him.”
He looks down at me over the desk, and I’m sure he can see my pulse pounding hard in my neck. “Benson?”
“Yeah.” I clear my throat, fighting panic. “Yeah, it’s for a kid he helped place in foster care.” I hold it out to him and realize my hand is going to shake. I put it gently on the counter and lace my fingers together. I look up at him and smile. “Can you give that to him, or put it in his box or whatever?”
He smiles back, but only on one side. “We don’t have boxes like teachers, little lady. But I can put it in his locker for him.”
“Okay. Thank you.” I offer him a little wave and walk quickly, but not too quickly.
In the parking lot, I’m looking for the fastest way out of here. I can’t wait for the bus across the street from the police department—if Officer Benson comes in or if someone who saw my video spots me, I’m screwed. I can walk a couple of blocks away to another stop, but I’d like to be off these big, busy main streets.