In From the Cold (3 page)

Rose reached for her sweater and pulled it on as she stepped out of the shack to build up the fire.

They kept their fire in a big pot, covering it with a lid when it wasn’t needed. Just a bit of air going in and out kept the coals going. They were still warm from breakfast. Rose added twigs and newspaper and wondered if she would dare bring it inside when winter came.

The flames caught the paper, and in the same instant Rose realized she was walking freely, unattached to her daughter. The string was still around her ankle, but it trailed along the ground beside her.

In two leaps, she was inside the shack, at Hazel’s bed, shaking her daughter awake.

The pillows lost their form in Rose’s hands. They had been laid out, under the covers, to look like a sleeping child.

Rose clamped her hand over her mouth to keep the screams inside.

She must not panic. Hazel was probably just being disobedient. Her daughter was getting more wilful by the day, and Rose was really going to have to put a stop to it. Hazel was only ten, way too young for teenager attitude.

Rose first checked their outdoor toilet.

“Hazel?” she called out quietly, then she pushed aside the shower curtain. No Hazel.

She’s probably down by the river, Rose thought. She can spend hours down there, sailing those hand-made boats of hers, but she can’t spend five minutes washing dishes. That was something else that was going to change.

Rose headed down the short path to the river. She blamed herself for being slack about discipline. This new life of theirs wasn’t easy, but they were used to it now, and there was no reason why Hazel couldn’t start behaving better.

But the clearing by the river was empty. No Hazel.

Rose went back to the shack. Now she
needed
that cigarette!

She built up the fire again. She poured water into a metal mug from the plastic bottle she’d refilled in the donut-shop washroom and added instant coffee. Her supply was getting low. They’d have to do another shoplifting trip soon, for coffee, hand sanitizer, and matches. She put the metal cup right into the fire to make the water boil faster and fed more sticks into the flames.

A punishment, that’s what Hazel needed. In their old life, Rose could have taken away television or time with friends, but there was none of that left to take away.

The Toblerone bar! Hazel was so excited to find it last night, and she would be looking forward to eating it. Well, she wouldn’t get it! Rose had to let her know that Mom was still in charge.

Rose went to the shelf where she’d put the chocolate bar. The chocolate was not there.

Rose was getting madder by the minute. Madder and more afraid. They had been living this way for four months, and Hazel had never pulled a stunt like this before.

Rose got her bag of cigarette butts out and sat on the log by the fire pot. She smoked three butts, lighting a new one from the end of the one before it. She wasn’t used to smoking. The nicotine buzzed in her brain.

The coffee was hot enough to taste almost like coffee. What should I do? Rose wondered as she drank. Should I go look for her? Should I stay here and wait for her to come home?

Rose didn’t know where she would even begin to look.

Unless... unless Hazel tried to go back to the house. Their old house.

Rose could not stand that thought. Hazel would
not
go back there! She was probably just off wandering or stretching her legs, or hiding.

Rose jumped into action. She circled the camp, from the river, around the shack, then back to the river. She widened the circle, looking in clumps of tall grass and in clusters of bushes.

“I’ve been saving up our loose change,” she called out. “I was thinking of going to McDonald’s tonight. What do you say?”

There was no answer.

Rose was not used to being away from the shack in daylight. It began to bother her. She was out in a field, in a big piece of waste land, but the city was all around. High-rise apartments rose out of the hills on the other side of the river. Rose imagined that the windows were lined with people, looking down at her, watching her.

She gave up the search and fled to her shack. She curled up on Hazel’s bed and stared out the window, willing her daughter to come back.

The sun had shifted the shadows around the shack when Rose finally saw Hazel coming up the path.

Hazel was walking quickly. She saw her mother’s frowning face at the window, stopped, then continued more slowly.

Rose met her outside the shack. The hours of waiting had made her more angry and more frightened. Her rage and her fear took over her good sense. She came at her daughter with her hand raised in the air. The hand came down with a fury, smacking Hazel across the face and sending the girl sprawling into the dirt.

“Get up!” shouted Rose, as Hazel lay where she fell. “Get up and face me! Do you know what you put me through?”

Rose grabbed Hazel by the jacket shoulders, lifted her to her feet, then slapped her again into the dirt.

“You do not leave!” Rose yelled. “You know that. Why did you leave? Where did you go?”

“I just...”

“I don’t care what you have to say,” Rose said. “You don’t care about me! I do all of this!” Rose waved her hands at the shack made out of trash. “I do all of this for
you
, to protect
you
, and you repay me by running off the first chance you get.”

Rose was so mad now that she could not see straight. The world around her was a blur. Her daughter, on the ground, was a blob, without clear form or lines. Rose wanted to keep hitting her. She wanted to pound her daughter until the horrible feelings were all pounded out of her.

“Get to your feet!”

Rose reached down again and grabbed the girl. Hazel made her body limp and heavy. Rose tried to lift her, then felt a muscle twitch and pull
in her back. Pain stretched through her entire body.

She let go of Hazel. Hazel dropped back to the ground with a thud.

“My back!” Rose gasped.

The pain was terrible.

This can’t be happening, she thought. Not now. Not here.

She’d had this back problem before, and it was awful. But back then she’d had a warm house and pain pills and a proper bed to help her out. Even then, there had been weeks when simply getting out of bed and walking to the toilet had been terrible because of the pain.

“My back. Help me!”

Her daughter stayed on the ground. Rose saw Hazel watching her. There was almost no emotion in her daughter’s face. She did not seem to care that her mother was in agony.

“You are a monster,” Rose said. “Help me, or I’ll...”

“Or you’ll what?” Hazel asked.

That lip again. The girl needed to be brought under control before she became a teenager.

What if she won’t help me? Rose thought, and for a brief moment, the fear of that jolted through her body. The fear went to her face.

Hazel saw it. Rose could tell by Hazel’s new look of power.

Rose tried to get control back by ordering her daughter to stop fooling around on the ground and get up and help her, but it was too late. The power shift happened in only a moment, but that moment changed everything.

Rose held her breath.

Hazel got up and stood by her mother. Rose leaned on her. Step by careful step, they went into the shack. Hazel eased Rose onto the bed, helped her lie down, and remained standing in front of her.

They stayed like that, in silence, for a good long while.

Then Hazel took a blanket and gently covered her mother. After that, she sat down on the floor.

“Take your shoes off,” Rose said, with her eyes closed against the pain.

“Yours are still on.” But Hazel took off her shoes, got up and took off her mother’s, and then went back to her spot on the floor.

“What was so important that you had to cause me so much worry?” Rose asked.

“It’s Emma’s birthday.”

Rose opened her eyes in alarm. “You didn’t go to see her?”

“I just went to the school. She’s my best friend. It’s her birthday! I took her the Toblerone bar.”

“You have ruined everything. Did they see you? They must have seen you.”

“They were at an assembly. I left the chocolate bar on her desk,” Hazel said.

“With a note?”

“I had to leave a note. Or she wouldn’t have known it was from me.”

Rose tried to get off the bed, but the smallest movement gave her more pain. “You risked it all for a stupid birthday.”

“It’s not a stupid birthday! It’s my best friend’s birthday!”

“Childhood friendships don’t matter,” Rose said. “Adult friendships don’t even matter. Emma has probably forgotten all about you.”

Hazel was crying, saying that wasn’t true, but Rose knew. No one could be depended upon. The sooner Hazel learned that, the better.

Then she had another thought. “How did you know it was Emma’s desk?”

Hazel tried to stop crying. “What?”

“How did you know where Emma sits? You hung around the school, didn’t you? You talked to the teachers, didn’t you?”

“No! No, I swear.”

If Rose could have looked her daughter full in the face, she’d know for sure whether Hazel was lying or not. But her daughter was looking off to the side, and Rose’s back would not allow her to twist around to see. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

“I didn’t talk to anybody. Emma is in Mrs. Sampson’s class. I saw her through the window, before they went to the assembly.”

“You stood and watched through the window? And nobody saw you? You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying,” Hazel said.

“Then how did you get into the school? It’s locked during the day. You have to be buzzed in.”

“I just — I just made up a name. I said I was late, and they let me in. I said I was Devon. We have four Devons in my class. In what used to be my class.”

Rose had to admit that her daughter was clever. Too clever. That kind of cleverness could get them caught.

“You really should grow up,” Rose told her. “All that fuss over a child’s birthday. Did you write on the note where we’re living? Did you draw her a map?”

“It’s none of your business what I wrote, but I’ll tell you. I wrote, ‘Happy birthday to the best friend ever, love, Hazel.’”

I should have remembered her friend’s stupid birthday, Rose thought. I could have thought of something safe for Hazel to do.

“It looked like they were doing cool stuff in science,” Hazel said. “About the insides of animals and how all the parts work together. And there was an arithmetic problem on the board that I don’t know how to do.”

“Be quiet now, and let me rest.”

“School started only two months ago,” Hazel said, “and already I’m falling behind.”

“I said, be quiet. Can’t you see I’m in pain?”

Hazel kept talking. “I could go to a different school, and use a different name.”

“No, you couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have to have files. You have to have papers. You have to have come from somewhere. Now, do I have to ask you again to let me have some quiet?”

Rose had her quiet, almost a full minute of it.

Then Hazel spoke again. Quietly. Almost under her breath. “You don’t know everything. You can’t even walk right now. I can do what I want to, and you can’t stop me.”

Rose kept her eyes shut and her mouth closed and did not rise to the bait.

“I’m supposed to be in school,” Hazel muttered. “It’s the law.”

“Shut up,” said Rose.

“It’s like I’m being punished,” said Hazel. “I don’t see why
I
should be punished.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “After all, I wasn’t the one who killed Daddy.”

Neither Rose nor Hazel had spoken about that awful night since it happened.

Rose had hoped — prayed — that Hazel had been asleep. At first, she’d been puzzled that Hazel hadn’t asked about her father. Four months had gone by, and not a mention. Now, that made sense. Hazel knew her father was dead.

“It was an accident,” Rose said.

Hazel turned around on the floor until her back was to her mother.

“Honey, it was an accident,” Rose said again. “I didn’t mean to.”