by Megan Hart
“I told him I’d be able to play with him all day tomorrow, cuz it’s Saturday.” Briella skipped past Marian, stopped when her mother took her by the shoulder as she passed. “What?”
“You’re going to stay with Grandpa tomorrow afternoon, remember? While Dean and I have a date? Anyway, if its wing is hurt, it probably needs to rest. The more you fuss with it, the longer it’s going to take for it to heal. You might even make it worse.” Marian looked over at her shoulder, but if the bird was monitoring this conversation, she could see no sign of it listening. “C’mon. Let’s get you back to bed. You have a few hours left before it’s time to wake up.”
“I’m not tired,” Briella said belligerently.
“Then read quietly in your room,” Marian snapped, immediately regretting her loss of temper.
If Briella was offended, she didn’t show it. She waved at the bird in the cage. “Goodbye, Onyx.”
“Goodbye,” the bird called after her.
Marian shivered with distaste and guided Briella toward the stairs. She was going to walk her up to her room, but Briella stopped her. “I can do it myself.”
“It’s dark,” Marian began, but Briella waved a hand.
“I’m fine, Mama. I’m old enough to go by myself.”
Marian watched Briella mount the steep and narrow stairs until her shadow blended with the darkness at the top of them. She thought about going back to bed herself, but knew she was still too unsettled to sleep. She’d make herself that peppermint tea and snuggle back into bed with Dean, who didn’t have to work again until Monday night. They could sleep in at least a little bit.
She hovered over the electric kettle until the water finally boiled. The tea steeped while she sorted through some bills, but, too impatient to let the liquid cool, she added an ice cube and sipped. From the den came the unmistakable sound of her daughter’s murmuring voice.
Irritated, Marian swept into the room, only to find it empty except for the damned raven in its cage. She looked around, thinking the girl might be hiding so she didn’t get in trouble. “Briella?”
“Briella,” the bird mimicked, sounding so much like her that Marian would have sworn it was her daughter.
Marian backed out of the room without another word. Upstairs, Briella was sound asleep in bed, or at least giving the impression that she was. Marian stood and watched her for a very long time, but the girl didn’t so much as shift beneath the covers, and her breathing was soft and slow.
By the time Marian got downstairs her tea was cold, but that was okay because she no longer wanted to drink it.
Chapter Seven
Briella wouldn’t get out of the car. Marian opened her door and gestured, but Briella was too busy scribbling in the notebook to pay attention. With a sigh, Marian tapped the book.
“C’mon, Bean. Grandpa’s waiting.”
Briella looked up, her gaze distant and cloudy before clearing. She unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car, clutching the notebook tightly. In the house, she set it carefully on the small table by the front door before going to greet Marian’s father, who’d barely made it out of his recliner by the time they got into the living room.
“Hey, little princess,” Marian’s dad said as Briella gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “So good to see you. Where’s Dean?”
“Waiting in the car. I can’t stay long, the movie starts soon. You’re sure you’re going to be okay for a few hours, Dad?” Marian hugged him, feeling how brittle he’d become.
He’d been losing weight, despite denying that he wasn’t eating enough. Today he felt a bit sturdier than he had for a while. She hugged him harder for a moment, eyes closed, hating the knowledge that her father was getting older. He was fading, and had been since her mother died. Marian was going to lose him, too, no matter how much she tried not to think about it.
“Of course. My favorite princess and I are going to have a great time. I got out the Scrabble board, and we’re going to have grilled cheese sandwiches.” Dad grinned, his dark skin creasing at the corners of his eyes. “Isn’t that right?”
“You be good,” Marian reminded Briella before she left, one eye already on the time. She and Dean would only have a few hours, long enough to grab the matinee of the movie they’d been wanting to see and maybe a quick bite after. She didn’t want to be late.
The movie was a bust, but the early dinner date with her man made up for it. As they pulled into her dad’s driveway half an hour later than she’d said they’d be, Marian waited until Dean had turned off the ignition. She turned in the front seat and kissed him.
“Your dad’s going to see us,” he said but kissed her anyway.
“Won’t be the first time he’s caught me kissing a boy in the driveway,” she teased him for a second before kissing him once more. “I wish we had more time.”
“We have our whole lives,” Dean said.
Marian shook her head. “I meant today. Right now. I wish we’d told him we’d be back later. But I don’t feel right leaving her with him for so much longer. I know he gets tired out. I just…damn, Dean, I just love getting to spend time with you alone.”
He didn’t answer her right away, but the corners of his mouth curved upward for a second or so. “Yeah. Well, that’s what being a parent is about, I guess. Before we know it, she’ll be able to stay on her own. Anyway, she loves spending time with your dad, and he loves having her.”
“I know. It’s just…” She trailed off, then decided to open up about her recent feelings of isolation, her decision to look for part-time work, hell, even her anxiety about doing a shit job as a mother, but before she could, the front door opened.
“Caught,” Dean said with a grin.
Marian got out of the car. “Hey, Bean. What’s up?”
“Is it time to go home?”
“Yes. Where’s Grandpa?” Marian didn’t see her father behind Briella.
“He’s sleeping.” Briella hopped down the front porch steps and headed for the car, with her notebook clutched beneath one arm. “He’s been sleeping all day. I was so bored.”
“All day?” Alarmed, Marian pushed past the girl and went inside. She was convinced she was going to find her father dead in his recliner, but he was blinking owlishly and pushing himself out of it when she got to the living room. “Dad. Oh, God. You’re up.”
“I’m up. Just had a little nap.” Her father tilted his head. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She wasn’t about to tell him she’d had a panic attack that she was going to find a corpse, this time human and not a bird.
Dad frowned. “Where’s Briella?”
“She went out to the car already. Dad, are you feeling all right? She said you slept all day.” Marian moved toward him to help him steady himself as he finally got up.
“I did take a nap, but only for the past, oh,” he checked his watch, “maybe twenty minutes or so. We had a nice lunch and played a game or two. She wiped me out in Monopoly. I suppose twenty minutes might feel like all day to a child.”
Marian hugged him. “Thanks for having her.”
“Any time. You and Dean come around for dinner once in a while too, you hear me?” Her father shook a finger at her, then hugged her again.
“We will.” Marian kissed his cheek. It had the same bristly feel she could remember from childhood. His cologne sent another rush of nostalgia through her. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you too, girly. Is everything okay with you?”
She nodded. “Yes. Of course.”
“Good, good.” Her father hesitated. “That little girl’s a smart one, all right. Is she okay?”
“She’s…fine, Dad.” Marian had never liked lying to her father, not about sneaking in after curfew, and not now. “Why? Doesn’t she seem fine?”
“Well, now,” her father said after a second, “it would
seem to me that she’s in need of church.”
“Dad. You know I don’t go.”
“I know, I know.” He waved a gnarled hand. “I’m not saying it because I want to change you, Marian. I respect your beliefs, or lack of them. I say it because that child has a lot of questions about God and heaven and the other place, and I couldn’t believe she’d gotten to be the age she is without any kind of religious learning.”
Marian bit her upper lip for a moment before saying, “What did you tell her?”
“Not much.” He shook his head. “Didn’t want to step on your toes. I know you’ve had your issues with the Lord.”
“It’s not the Lord I have issues with. It’s the people who try to speak for him.”
Her father chuckled. “Well, now, I don’t claim to do that. But I did tell her that I believe in heaven and also hell, and that I was certain your mother was waiting for me to join her in the good place, not the bad one. She wanted to know how I could believe in something that nobody could prove. Like I said, she’s a smart one.”
“Too smart,” Marian said.
“I might have said the same about you, when you were her age.”
She shook her head. “Not the same. Briella is…”
“She’s special,” he father told her gently. “You were blessed with a little girl whose mind is bigger than she’s ready to handle. She’s got a lot of questions and no way to process them, Marian.”
“And you think talking to her about Jesus will help?”
“I’m saying that she might have the brainpower of an adult, but she’s still a child in need of guidance. She could end up in her adulthood without a speck of faith,” her father added with a significant look at her, “but if she has no place to start from, how can you expect her to choose anything?”
Marian hugged him again. Her mother would have had a lot more to say to Briella about religion than he did, and Marian supposed she was glad her father respected her wishes. At the same time, she couldn’t stop the feeling that she’d disappointed him. Maybe not as much as she would have her mom. But enough.
“I can talk to her,” Marian said. “But I’m not going to start taking her to church.”
“You do what you think is best, of course. Talking to her about the questions she has is the best way to handle it. You’re her mother. You’ll figure it out.”
If only it were that easy, Marian thought.
Chapter Eight
“I told him you’ll take care of him,” Briella said as Marian tried her best to get the girl into her jacket and out the front door Monday morning. “You’ll have to make sure to feed him and that he has water. You can put the TV on for him to keep him company. Or the radio. He likes music, he likes to sing.”
Marian wasn’t about to leave the squawk box on for a bird while Dean was sleeping, but she didn’t say so. She hefted the girl’s backpack and got her to the sidewalk, then down to the end of the street to wait for the bus. Briella was the only kid her age on this street, so Marian always waited with her at the bus stop. Today, Amy Patterson from across the street stopped by with her little boy Toby clutching at her hand. His other held a Thomas the Tank Engine figurine that had seen better days.
“Hi, Briella,” Amy said brightly. “Toby, say hi.”
Toby, blond like his mother, didn’t say anything. He was two? Three? He might be as old as four, but it was hard to tell because he didn’t speak. He did hold up the toy for Briella to inspect, but she wasn’t interested. She had her head bent over her notebook, busy scribbling, and the bus arrived in the next minute. Without so much as a backward look, she got on.
Marian stepped back from the curb to watch the bus leave. Guilt poked at her because of how relieved she felt at the idea of having a few hours without Briella in the house. She loved her kid, she reminded herself. But it was better for Briella to be in school, where she could be kept busy. Better for both of them. Reminded that she wanted to start scanning the want ads for possible part-time jobs, Marian turned to go.
“I’m so not ready for that,” Amy said conversationally as the bus disappeared around the corner, so that Marian had to stop and acknowledge her. “School, I mean. I love having Toby home with me all day. I can’t imagine what it will be like to send him off. Maybe I’ll homeschool him.”
More guilt. When had motherhood become such a damned competition? Marian gave the other woman a thin smile. She could remember the days when it had seemed impossible for her to send Briella away, but they felt really long ago. Being at home all day with a kid whose IQ had outpaced her mother’s by the age of three had led to long, frustrating days that often ended in tears, and not just for Briella.
“I wouldn’t know what to do with myself all day long at home alone,” Amy continued as she bent to scoop Toby into her arms and hold him on one hip. He seemed too big for that but didn’t protest. Amy snuggled him for a moment before adding, “I love being a mom more than anything else. It’s like what I was born to do.”
“Yeah. It’s great.” Marian nodded.
Amy’s older brother had gone to school with Marian, a grade or two below her. Marian remembered her as a freckle-faced kid tagging along when big groups of them had hung out at the local pool. It was hard to relate this supermom to that little girl. Hell, it was hard to relate to Amy at all.
“He’s my best little buddy, aren’t you? Mommy’s best little guy.” Amy hefted the kid higher onto her hip and kissed his fat rosy cheeks. “If I sent him off to school, I think I’d just go crazy, waiting around all day for him to come home. I mean, what would I do with myself?”
“I’ve been thinking of going back to work,” Marian offered. It was the first time she’d said it aloud. It sounded scary, but she laughed, also strangely unburdened by making what had been only thoughts at least a little more real.
Amy’s eyebrows rose. “Wow. That’s exciting.”
“We’ll see.” Marian eased away, eager now to get home and start searching.
“Hey, is Briella all right?” Amy called after her.
Marian turned with her smile fading. “What do you mean?”
“I saw what happened. Hank driving too fast. It looked like it could have been bad,” Amy said. “I just wanted to make sure she was okay. I was thinking of going over there and asking him to remember we have little ones on this street, and he should slow down.”
Marian had lived next door to Hank for years without either of them saying more than a few words to each other, and most of them had been disputes over the property line and whose tree was shedding leaves onto whose grass. He’d been the same with Dean before she moved in, and with Dean’s parents before that. Amy’d only lived in the neighborhood for a couple of years. She’d learn. Maybe.
“You can try, I guess? But don’t be shocked if he says no and runs you off his lawn.” Marian shrugged, watching as Toby stuck the train in his mouth and gnawed. What would it be like to have a kid like that, she wondered absently. A normal kid? Kind of…dumb?
The second she thought it, she felt bad enough to bend down to Toby’s level and give him a smile she hoped made up for it. “You like Thomas, huh?”
Toby grunted and chewed the train. He then offered it to Marian, who laughed but didn’t take it. She straightened as a dark gray sedan drove past them. Because the street was a dead end, the only traffic on this road belonged to the residents, delivery drivers or guests. Marian watched the car slow and turn into her driveway.
“Oh, shit,” she said aloud, then apologized at the sight of Amy’s stricken face and the way she automatically shielded Toby’s ear with her free hand. “Sorry. That’s my ex.”
Amy turned, eyes wide, then looked back at Marian. “Oh. Wow. You’d better go.”
“Yeah. I’ll see you.”
Tommy and Dean had been friendly in high school, but not friends. Since then, they’d never seemed to have a
problem with each other, but Marian had always been sure to be the buffer between them. She didn’t think Dean gave a rat’s ass about what Tommy might think or say, but Tommy had been known to go out of his way to push buttons when he could. By the time she got to the house, Tommy had already knocked at the front door and been let inside.
Shit.
Marian found both men in the den, bent over the cage. Before she could say anything, Tommy had flicked the latch and opened the door. The raven hopped forward. If its wing was still hurt, it wasn’t showing signs of any pain. It looked at Tommy with one bright eye, then the other, but didn’t come out of the cage.
Tommy laughed. “See if you can get it to say ‘hello, Ward’.”
“It’s not the same bird, man.” Dean shook his head and saw Marian in the doorway. He straightened. “Hey, b— Marian. Look who’s here.”
“I see.” She noticed that Dean had very obviously cut himself off from calling her ‘babe’ or ‘baby’. She lifted her chin. “What’s up, Tommy? Don’t you know how to call first?”
Tommy had been laughing and poking at the bird, but he looked at her now. When his attention moved away from the bird, it hopped close enough to peck him firmly on the hand. With a yelp, Tommy yanked his hand out of reach.
“Damn thing. Shit, that hurt.” He stood, shaking his hand.
Dean closed the cage door. “You probably scared it.”
“What’s going on, Tommy?” Marian said firmly, trying to get them both back on topic. Her ex showed up on his terms and schedule, and it never ended up benefiting Marian, even if she did appreciate the fact that Briella went crazy for her dad’s visits.
“Between gigs, thought I’d come back home to see the folks. And Briella, of course.”
“Of course. Make sure you give them my best.”
Tommy grinned. “You sure you don’t want to come over and give it to them yourself?”
“Briella’s at school,” Marian said, refusing to react to Tommy’s teasing. He knew that she hated his mother. “You can come back around three thirty if you want to see her.”