Mine

by Delilah S. Dawson

  Parents capable of ignoring the big, dramatic outbursts were of course going to completely miss something as small and quiet as run-of-the-mill hurt feelings.

  Lily wanted a hug, but her mom was too busy, so she just had another doughnut before they ran to the store for supplies. She was actually surprised by how nice the superstore was, clean and white and well lit, but then she remembered that Florida was a regular place where most people lived regular lives; it was just her house that was icky and old and dark and hidden by a swamp. She saw a couple of other kids there, all in shorts and flip-flops, but it’s not like anybody made friends at the store.

  It was barely lunchtime when they got back, and the temperature was already hotter than the hottest day of her life in Colorado. The air felt heavy, pressing down on every inch of her skin. Yesterday’s clothes began to itch, but it’s not like she’d brought anything better. Florida was no place for denim in June.

  Wearing yellow rubber gloves that went over her elbows, Lily helped her mom with the newspapers and magazines until all the piles by the front door were gone. Then they focused on the kitchen, trying to clear years of dishes and garbage off the counters and get the sink and oven and microwave clean. It was gross but satisfying work, but it was also far from over.

  Late in the afternoon, Lily took a few black trash bags upstairs to empty out the clothes in her dresser and closet. Her mom wanted to donate the clothes, but they looked stained and faded with time. Instead, she tossed them in a bag along with the stuffed animals, which showed a lot of wear and love. There was a big, floppy brown horse, a gray hippo, a lone teddy bear, a doll who’d received a bad haircut, and a pink bunny with long, ragged ears and red thread unraveling from some words embroidered on its belly. Lily didn’t look too closely—she felt bad for these toys that had once been beloved and were now forgotten and being banished. As soon as they were all in the bag, she tied it closed and hurried out to toss it in the dumpster before she changed her mind. Instead of climbing up the ladder, she just flung the bag in, satisfied to hear it land with a soft thump.

  Back upstairs, she wasn’t sure about the bed—it was nicer than her old one, which sagged—so she stripped off the sheets and tossed the pillows. The mattress, at least, was clean and pretty new. But it still felt a little too personal, so she heaved the bare mattress up to flip it over to the fresh side.

  The mattress flopped down with a thump and a puff of dust.

  When Lily stood back to make sure this side was also free from somebody else’s pee stains, she found something strange.

  The word MINE had been angrily scrawled on the white fabric in dark gray. When she touched the letters, they smeared. As if they’d been written in charcoal.

  Or ashes.

  4.

  “Mooooom!” Lily screeched. When her mother didn’t come pounding up the stairs like anyone hearing their kid panic should, she shouted, “Ugh! Mom! For real! You have to see this!”

  Less quickly than she would’ve preferred, her mom arrived, still wearing her long yellow gloves and looking exhausted and already over everything. She stopped on the stairs, just close enough so they wouldn’t have to yell.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Come look at my mattress.” Lily stood beside it, pointing down at that stark gray word that had no business being there.

  “It’s just an old mattress. Our furniture will be here soon.”

  “But it says—”

  Too late. Her mom was already headed downstairs.

  Lily groaned and leaned back against the wall. She knew that her mom was distracted, and she also knew that if she called her back upstairs, her mood would go straight to anger, and then she’d tell Dad.

  With a creeping sense that she was being watched, Lily brushed off the random word on the mattress, dusted the gray powder off her gloves, and tried to forget it had ever existed. Maybe her mom was right—it was just a gross old mattress, and it probably didn’t matter.

  It didn’t take long before her room was in decent shape, especially after she’d chucked the entire terrarium into the dumpster. She should’ve done it last night, but she was so exhausted that she forgot. Now it gave her the willies. It was heavy and awkward, and she had to move it down the stairs one step at a time. She thought about burying the snake somewhere, but…it was just too much. She couldn’t stop imagining reaching her hand into the glass box and the dead, dry snake coming alive, sinking thick yellow fangs into her arm.

  She settled for singing “Pore Jud Is Daid” from Oklahoma! as she tipped the glass over the side of the dumpster. The glass didn’t even break when it hit the mound of black bags, and Lily wished she had looked earlier, to see if the photographs were still there. So much about this place was just wrong: the photos, the roach, the snake, the word on the mattress. Her head felt crowded and thick, and her heart jittered worryingly.

  She climbed down from the dumpster and jumped up and down on the ground for a few minutes, muttering “Unique New York” and “Red Leather, Yellow Leather” until everything felt normal and grounded again, just like Miss Cora had taught her the first time she had stage fright.

  She knew her mom was busy emptying out the horrific fridge, and Lily very much didn’t want to be called in to help with that particular job, so she walked around the house to examine the rest of the property. It had been too dark to really see last night, but by the light of day, it seemed very pretty, if wildly overgrown. There were woods off to the right and a lake straight ahead with a small, dilapidated dock. Beyond the tall wooden fence on the right hid one of those strange pool cages she’d seen on the drive, reminding her of the romantic glass conservatories in old movies about England. Which, she realized, meant they might have a pool.

  Finally, something to be excited about! Lily fussed with the rusty latch on the fence gate and had to shove the warped wooden door open. The good news was that they did indeed have a pool. The bad news was that their pool was half full of dark green sludge and wet black leaves. The screens overhead were ripped and dangling like cobwebs, and the two patio chairs were rusted into contorted shapes. A string of fat-bulbed Christmas lights was strung around the edges of the cage, but when she let herself inside and plugged them in, only three of the bulbs lit up. She walked around the stained concrete and let herself out the other screen door.

  On the opposite side of the pool was a garden with misshapen pineapples and orange and lemon trees, most of their fruit covered in powdery black gunk. Beyond that, the lake seemed to merge into a swampy area with lots of trees with tall roots that poked up through the water like wooden knives. Lily poked a dangling orange. Again, she felt like she was being watched, but there were no visible neighbors.

  “Hello?” she called.

  Of course there was no answer.

  But this was her house, which meant that these were her oranges. She reached out to cup one, unsure how to know if it was ripe.

  Plunk.

  Lily staggered. Another orange had fallen, conking her right on the head.

  “Guess that one’s ripe,” she muttered, picking up the fallen fruit.

  But when she punctured the dimpled skin with her thumb, it was even more bad news: grapefruit.

  After chucking the grapefruit far out into the water of the lake—because it was obviously biodegradable—she put a toe of her sneaker on the dock and pressed down. It was an old, rickety thing, about twice as big as a twin bed, and it creaked and splashed under her weight. A small rowboat bobbed beside it with two splintery gray oars rattling around on the bottom, along with a few inches of sludgy water.

  The dock wobbled precariously underfoot, and Lily practically leapt back on land. She wasn’t the strongest swimmer.

  “I don’t think I’m gonna like it here,” she sang softly in her best Annie voice.

  Somewhere to her right, a twig snapped, and her head jer
ked up.

  “Who’s there?”

  The only answer was a soft whine, just like she’d heard last night.

  She glanced back at the house to make sure her mom was still inside, since her mom believed that all animals were carriers of disease, or at least riddled with parasites. Lily was constantly begging for a pet, but her mom had always said no.

  “Hey, good dog. You out there?” she said in a softer voice.

  Another twig snapped, and then something crunched around in the dead leaves. She walked toward the sound, slowly, picking up a thick stick in case it was something rabid. Or a gator, which she’d heard just waddled around Florida roads and golf courses whenever they pleased.

  “Come on, pupper,” she encouraged. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Something shivered in the forest, right on the edge of the shadows under the brush and trees. It was taller than knee-high and strangely shaped, awkward and shaggy, an indiscriminate shade of dirt brown.

  “Come on, now,” she called sweetly.

  It stepped out of the shadows, just a little, trembling, and she realized that maybe under all that gunk, it actually was a dog. But not a house dog that anyone cared about—it was totally matted and tangled with vines and twigs and mud.

  “Hey, good boy.”

  At that, the dog skittered into the sun, a long, scuzzy tail wagging just the tiniest bit. It was beyond thin, and even through the caked-on mud and leaves, she could see its ribs.

  “Stay here,” she said, slowly backing away toward the house. Once she was through the pool cage and fence gate, she hurried into the kitchen and grabbed a plain doughnut. It wasn’t dog food, but at least it wasn’t chocolate. And this dog didn’t look picky.

  “Having fun exploring?” her mom asked from the horrifying depths of the ancient fridge.

  Lily wasn’t about to tell her what was really happening outside, so she just said, “It’d be more fun if the pool wasn’t green.”

  She ran back out before her mom could give a speech about being grateful for what you have, even when what you have is gross.

  Outside, the dog-thing waited, tail fluttering cautiously. As she approached, speaking in a soft voice, it danced toward her and bolted back toward the safety of the shadows, trembling with hope and also probably terror as she held out the doughnut. Finally, the dog crept over on its belly, close enough to snatch up the bit of doughnut she’d tossed to the ground.

  Lily squatted down and fed him little bites, talking calmly all the while. He inched closer, tail tucked, but quivering desperately to be near her. Reaching out a tentative hand, she patted the dog’s head. At first, he yelped and drew away, but then, unable to stop himself, he belly-crawled back to her and lowered his head, accepting her touch. By the time the doughnut was gone, the dog was by her side, and she could see the shape of him. He seemed like some sort of mutt, one of those bigger dogs mixed with a poodle, but his hair had grown out badly without any care. His ears and tail were long, and his fur was matted with dirt and briars. As she stroked his back and murmured to him, he shivered with pleasure and showed her his belly.

  When she scratched around the dog’s neck, much to her surprise, she found a collar there.

  “What’s this, huh, buddy?” she asked, sliding the collar around so she could catch the tags dangling from it. If it were her dog that was lost, she would want someone to check. He was clearly having a bad time of it.

  The tag said the dog’s name actually was Buddy.

  And the address printed on the back was familiar—because it was hers, too.

  Buddy had once belonged to the people who lived here before Lily.

  5.

  Running her fingers around the collar, Lily unbuckled it and pulled it away. It had once been fluorescent orange, maybe, and the tags were all dinged up. Buddy seemed happy to be rid of it and gave his neck a vigorous scratch.

  “Let’s go show this to Mom,” Lily told him. But when she stood up, he bolted back into the undergrowth. With the collar in her hand, she had no way to pull him along, and no matter how sweetly she called him, he seemed unwilling to budge from the safety of the shadows again.

  “I’ll be back,” she promised.

  Heading into the house, she found her mom still scrubbing out the fridge and looking miserable.

  “I found a dog,” Lily said, holding out the collar.

  Her mom’s nose wrinkled up. “No dogs. You know that.”

  “But he used to live here. See? This is our address.”

  Her mom looked down, briefly, and shrugged. “We should probably call animal control. Your father bought the house from the bank, so the old man who lived here must’ve…uh, left him behind. I can’t believe anyone would live like this! Just look at it!”

  They both glanced around the kitchen. Mounds of trash were everywhere, mostly gunky plastic bowls and trays from instant dinners. Even the milk was the shelf-stable kind that came in boxes. Her mom had made some progress bagging it all, but there was just so much. Everything in the fridge had rotted to a black mush that had apparently decided to climb up every interior surface.

  But then Lily realized what her mom had just said. “It wasn’t just an old man. There was a little girl who lived upstairs, too.”

  Her mom cocked her head. “That’s not what…I don’t think that’s true. Maybe grandkids came to visit sometimes.”

  “Her clothes were in the drawers.”

  Mom nodded like that made sense. “Sure. When you were little, you had a whole dresser of your clothes at Nana’s house, too.”

  “No, it’s not like that. It wasn’t a guest bedroom. She really did live here. She had a pet snake.”

  Lily’s voice rose with every sentence, and her mom turned to look at her, hands on her hips.

  “You don’t need to get all riled up. What matters is that it’s ours now. So let’s use that energy to clean instead of arguing over what’s done.”

  “It’s not arguing. I’m just telling you that you’re wrong.”

  Mom sighed. “Lily, please.”

  Lily gave her own full-body sigh of annoyance. “Okay, fine. I’m wrong and everything here is totally normal.”

  She just stood there for a few moments, eyebrows up, watching her mother struggle to respond, finally settling for the usual—ignoring Lily’s thoughts and feelings to talk about things that didn’t matter.

  “Whoever lived here didn’t leave the house much,” her mom said with forced cheerfulness. “There wasn’t anything fresh in the fridge. No veggies or fruit or eggs. I weep for their colons.”

  Lily picked up an empty box of Pop-Tarts—the kind that didn’t have frosting. “Even their junk food wasn’t the good kind of junk food. They had terrible taste.” She realized her shoe was stuck to the ground and lifted it with an awful squelchy noise. “Can’t you call a house cleaner or something?”

  “I tried, before the move. The quote was three times higher once they saw the place, and your dad…” Mom snorted, attacking the fridge with a vengeance. “It’s not a possibility. But it’ll be okay. It’s only dirt. And we only have to do it once.”

  Mom went back to scrubbing without another word about the dog, and Lily put the collar in a junk drawer and went back to bagging garbage. Not that she could forget about poor Buddy, out there all alone…But it was going to be hard to sneak him food until they had more food. At least he had plenty of water, even if the lake was entirely unsanitary. It hurt her heart, though, to think about how long he’d been living this way, hanging around a house where no one ever came home.

  When she got bored with hefting black garbage bags, she started carrying out stacks of empty cans and plastic bottles, grateful each time a little square of counter was revealed. It made her nervous, being in a house where you couldn’t quite see the floors or corners. Anything could be hiding under the piles
of garbage—rats, spiders, more of those huge roaches. As much as she didn’t want to spend her summer break cleaning, she felt a little less weighed down with every bit of trash that left the house. She would definitely breathe better when everything was cleared out. It was like Mom said—they only had to do this once. And being helpful was proof that she was trying to meet her parents halfway.

  That night, Dad was in a good mood after his first day at the new job, and they celebrated with fast food—eaten in the restaurant, because the kitchen table was still buried. Mom, as usual, acted chipper and didn’t mention how gross their day had been, and Dad was pleased to see their progress. Lily pretended that everything was fine, because that was easier than telling her dad about the freaky things she’d seen and having him loudly accuse her of being overly dramatic again. On the way from the car to the house, she carefully let the leftover half of her bacon cheeseburger drop on the ground where she hoped Buddy would find it.

  Well after her usual bedtime, Lily settled into the bed that now felt a little more like her own. She’d moved it to a different wall and made it up nicely with the mattress protector and sheets Mom had dug out of the car, grateful that they still smelled like her old room. She’d covered the drawers in pretty purple shelf paper and filled them with the clothes stuffed in her backpack. She liked the art on the walls well enough, especially the llama, and her old comforter from home went okay with the decor, thanks to a tiny streak of yellow. It was starting to feel like her own place.