Rodent (11 page)

She leans in to kiss Uncle Richie on his stubbly cheek. She looks pretty tonight—hair done up, less makeup. Little pearl earrings. Sometimes I forget she’s only thirty-two, a lot younger than other people’s moms. She was sixteen when she had me.

Maisie, Evan and I have decorated the whole apartment with balloons. I got a shiny
Happy Birthday
banner from the dollar store and made Maisie wait in her room while I hung it.

“Happy Birthday. For me!” She hopped on the spot when she saw it.

“I want one too,” Evan said.

“You’ll have one when it’s
your
birthday, Evan,” she told him. “Today is
my
birthday.”

I sent cupcakes to school on Friday, after getting a mix and a can of icing from my store. Rupa tried to give it to me for free when she found out it was for Maisie’s birthday, but I insisted on paying. Have to keep things on the up-and-up there. Maisie came home with an empty container that day. “Even Mrs. Williams ate one,” she said.

Mom took the bus to the grocery store this morning and came back with bags bursting. I’m worried she spent too much of her check at once, but I’ll think about that tomorrow. Tonight I watch a newly-turned-seven-year-old skip around the apartment, face like a glow stick.

Mom tugged me into the bathroom as soon as she got home from shopping. “Look what I got Maisie,” she said,
pulling a plush pink koala from the plastic bag and shutting off the light. “The tag says it glows in the dark. See?”

Never mind that every pair of socks Maisie owns has holes, or that she needs a new backpack for school. She’ll love it.

Mom also got everything to make lasagna, which is what she usually throws together when the weddings-and-funerals dress comes out. “Did you see the little cake I picked up?” she said, pointing to the fridge. She must’ve taken my birthday lecture seriously.

The smell of the lasagna fills the whole apartment now and makes my stomach growl.

“We’re ten minutes from eating,” Mom says, cracking open a cooler.

Maisie and Evan hover around the gift bag and snoop through the tissue paper. “Hey, hands off until after cake!” I tell them, waving them away. They chase each other down the hall.

Mom and Uncle Richie chat in the kitchen while Mom chops tomatoes for the salad. They pretend not to notice when Jacquie sneaks a cooler from the counter and settles next to me on the sofa.

“I hooked up with this guy from my phys ed class.” Jacquie leans in.

“You mean, like, a boyfriend?”

“Hell, no.” She pulls back her chin like I spit on her. “This is too much woman for one man to handle.” Wicked laugh. “I’m going to see him again this weekend though.”

Words leap to the front of my mouth—my own confessions. I swallow them. She’ll make fun of Will, or ask me if he has a big dick or something. Make fun of me.
Your legs touched. Ooooooooh
.

“I’m the class leader for this school event. It’s called Words on the Wall.” That sounded even more lame out loud.

“Living on the edge, Isabelle!” she says, poking me in the side. She must see my face, though, and adds, “That’s cool. Congratulations.”

I consider telling her about them—Damien, Nimra, the lot. She’ll probably make them sound boring, and the only one I wouldn’t mind her dumping on is Zara. I don’t say anything else, and she doesn’t ask.

“So, when are you going to get a boyfriend?” Jacquie says. My favorite topic of conversation with her. Mom saves me by calling everyone to the table.

Ironically, Uncle Richie spends half of dinner teasing Maisie about how many boyfriends she’ll have this year. It’s probably true, Maisie having a boyfriend before I do. So what? Where has there been room for a boyfriend in this slummy carnival act? The guys from Jacquie’s parties are all hands and loud mouths, like they’re doing me a favor by hitting on me. Any guy I’d look at for more than a second—like Will—would see all of this and run screaming.

I put my fork down on my plate and push it away, appetite gone.

Mom gets up to grab another beer. She and Uncle Richie have worked their way through a few now but are
still holding together okay. She whispers in my ear as she comes back, “You can have a cooler if you want.” Like how I offer Maisie and Evan candy for being good. “But just one.”

“No, thanks, Mom,” I say. Too weird to be drinking with her. I have only drunk once before, at Jacquie’s last birthday party. I ended up puking the next morning, Maisie standing there watching me hug the toilet.

Are you sick like Mom?
she’d asked. A wave of revulsion had made me retch a second time. Never again will I give her reason to say that. After everything that’s happened, even the sight of empty bottles makes me angry.

The second Maisie finishes her lasagna and pushes most of the salad off her plate, she starts in again. “Now can I open presents?”

“After cake,” I tell her.

“Oh, go on,” Mom says. “Let her open them now.”

Maisie squirms in the middle of the living-room floor, and we gather around.

“Start with mine,” I say, handing over a squishy package in wrapping paper that Evan and I made with lined paper and crayons.

“I drew the dog.” Evan points to a lumpy oval with lines coming from its head.

She tears at the wrapping paper, embroidered pink fabric spilling into her lap. “A princess dress!” She holds it up and makes the bottom twirl around. It only took me two minutes to fix the hem in the back. Good as new.

“Remember your thank-yous,” Mom says. Maisie gives me a giant hug that almost hurts.

She loves the koala from Mom, still wrapped in the plastic bag, and insists on trying it out in the dark bathroom right then. Evan tags along, tripping over her feet.

“It works! It’s glowing.” His voice floats from under the door.

They tumble back out to the living room for the biggest present, from Uncle Richie and Jacquie.

“I picked this out, kid,” Jacquie tells her.

“And I paid for it,” Uncle Richie says, chuckling.

Tissue paper flies, then silence. Maisie lifts a giant blue dollhouse from the bag, with a little verandah and four separate rooms—living room, bathroom, bedroom and study.

“Wait, there’s more,” Jacquie says, pulling a box from the bottom of the bag. It’s filled with perfect wooden furniture, a family of four with painted smiles, tiny food.

Maisie blinks. She’s never had anything this perfect before. Mom bites her lip. I look up at Jacquie. How can I repay this? Why did I think Maisie needed more than these people?

Maisie finds her voice. “Oh! Look at the little mom! And the baby—he fits in the bed.” She forgets to say thank you. No one cares. “A toilet! There’s a toilet!”

I hug Uncle Richie and Jacquie, no words.

“Wow,” I say to Jacquie after Mom and Uncle Richie go to the kitchen to pull the cake from the fridge.

“Nice, eh?” she says. “I caught him on payday. Good thing too. He’s going out tomorrow.”

When she says “going out,” she means going to the casino. Uncle Richie makes good money running his own computer business, but he drinks and gambles. Jacquie’s life isn’t much different than mine except for bursts of money between the periods of being flat broke. And no little people to look after.

“This’ll wake you up, Marnie.” Uncle Richie’s voice from the kitchen. I look up to see him pouring her a shot of Jack Daniels. She flicks her head back to swallow and then bangs the empty glass down on the counter. For a while all I can hear are quiet voices and the clink of shot glasses.

Jacquie curls up next to me on the sofa and tucks her feet in. “So, any thought of when?” she asks.

“When what?”

“You know, moving out,” she says. “Safeway is hiring. I could apply.” Jacquie in an apron, stacking produce?

I watch Maisie trying to slide a tiny shower curtain onto a rod, her light eyebrows knit together. Evan cranes his neck to supervise. When he reaches out to try, she twists her back to him and holds the wooden bits to her chest.

“I don’t know,” I say, my eyes on Maisie and Evan. Her determined fingers. His high forehead as he leans in.

“Well, I hope that means soon. I’m not sticking around much longer.” She juts her chin toward the two in the kitchen. Mom stumbles into Uncle Richie’s chest, and he reaches to steady her. Pours another shot. Heads go back. Glasses bang
on the counter. She giggles, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

After fifteen minutes, Mom tries to pull Maisie away from her dollhouse for cake.

“I don’t want cake,” Maisie says, arranging a miniature bathtub inside the bathroom. Evan examines the tiny food in his palm.

“Then just come and blow out the candles. We’ll eat the cake!” Mom laughs, waving the knife. Uncle Richie ducks to avoid it.

I remember the truck and ramp for Evan, still up in my closet. If I pull them out now, it’ll be another hour before I can get him in bed.

Mom points to the lopsided candles. “You’d better intervene, Richie,” she says, clutching his arm and laughing.

I want Maisie and Evan in bed right now. There’s a chance they’ll be asleep, off in another room, if things go sideways.

“Let’s sing now,” I tell them. “You can eat the cake tomorrow.”

“I want cake now,” Evan cries, rubbing his eyes.

“Let the boy have cake, Isabelle,” Mom says. “We don’t have birthday parties every day.” She licks the icing from her fingers.

I look at Jacquie. She shrugs.

“Maisie,
now
,” I say. “The dollhouse isn’t going anywhere.”

She shoots me a look and drags herself over to the table, like we’re torturing her with cake. Once Mom and Uncle Richie finally manage to light the candles, Maisie smiles again,
freckles stretching across her cheeks as she blows. We sing, clap. Two candles left. Two boyfriends. Ha-ha.

“Just a little piece for them,” I whisper to Mom in the kitchen. “It’s right before bed.”

“Isabelle, you’re such an old soul,” she says, kissing my cheek. Her breath is sharp with booze. “Let Maisie enjoy her moment. And go ask your uncle what he’d like to drink,” she adds. Like I’m going to offer anyone more drinks at this point. I carry out pieces of cake instead, giving the smaller ones to Maisie and Evan.

“Eat up! It’s bedtime,” I tell them, which is a cue for them to take mouthfuls the size a fruit fly would.

Jacquie comes to stand by me. I know she wants to talk more. I can’t sit still now, settle. I gather dirty dishes instead, fill the sink and start to scrub.

“Mom, come help me.” I try to draw her in, distract her from drinking more. But that is exactly what she does. As she pulls another two beers from the pack, I put my hand on her wrist. “Mom, I think you’ve had enough.”

Her soft cheeks fall, sparkle gone. “You’re not the adult here,” she says, her voice dropping low, “as much as you think you are.” She pulls her hand away and joins Uncle Richie at the table, passing him a beer.

“Put your feet up, Richie,” she says. “Long day?”

He starts complaining about work. I hover, pushing.

“Let’s go, Maisie. Evan. Pajama time.” No, if we have to leave, pajamas won’t work. I look at them. Maisie’s in a skirt and short-sleeved shirt. But she’s wearing tights, and
her sweater is by the door. Evan is in cords and a sweatshirt. Okay. “Never mind pajamas tonight. Just go to the bathroom,” I say.

A chorus of howling from both of them. Evan clutches his unfinished cake, and Maisie makes a break for the dollhouse.

A chill runs through me as Uncle Richie’s voice climbs. “The incompetence…” I hear, then “…bunch of liars.” Mom gets sad when she drinks. Uncle Richie gets mad. He’s never hit Jacquie (at least, not that I know of), but she has been caught in the crossfire. Once she had to go to Emergency when he kicked over a table and it fell on her arm.
Tell them you fell down
, he told her, spitting drunk,
or they’ll take you away
. That was right after her mom left.

He goes on about an employee who’s been dipping into the till. “I know it was him. I know it!” He swings his arm, knocking over a beer. It rolls across the table and falls to the floor. Mom flinches but doesn’t move. His voice rises to a shout. “And when I confronted him, you know what he said?”

“Let’s move this to your bedroom,” I say to Maisie, lifting the house off the floor. She squeals and clings to the base of it. “You don’t have to go to bed yet. Just play in there!” Panic creeping in. I try to twist it from her hands.

Jacquie knows. From the corner of my eye, I see her pick up Evan from his chair at the table. Over-excited. Past bedtime. He writhes in her arms, twisting back toward his cake.

Uncle Richie rises from his chair and gets in Mom’s face, like she’s the one who stole from him. “He says I can’t prove anything and can’t fire him or he’ll sue for wrongful dismissal!
That son of a…” He slams a fist on the table. Mom blinks and mutters something.

She gets out of her chair but seems to forget where she’s going. The kitchen? The bathroom? Then she notices the screaming kid in each corner. “Isabelle. Jacquie. Leave them be.” She steadies herself on the back of a kitchen chair. “I will be—I will say when they have to go to bed.” Her tongue works to form the words, thick in her mouth.

Then, to Uncle Richie, she says, “Didn’t we take good care of Laina all those years?”

Oh hell.

Uncle Richie jumps from his chair, knocking it to the floor, yelling at no one and everyone. “And what for? What thanks?” He starts in on a tirade about Laina, who “thinks she’s too good for everybody.” Laina, who “lives in a fantasy world.” That “backstabbing cow”—if she were here, the things he would say to her.

Laina is their younger sister who doesn’t talk to them anymore. Owns a cushy house somewhere in the city. Lives her own sweet life. Any mention of Laina is gasoline on a bonfire.

Mom’s face crumples. Uncle Richie raises an arm over his head and hurls a bottle against the living-room wall. The dollhouse falls from my arms as I curl over Maisie, shards of glass raining on my hair.

I straighten. Amber droplets of beer trickle down the wall where the bottle hit. Small arms limp in my hands now. Maisie doesn’t struggle as I yank her to the door, Jacquie right
behind me with Evan. Sweater, jacket, shoes in one swoop. We’re down the hall, Evan bouncing on Jacquie’s hip and Maisie trotting at my heels.