Rodent (24 page)

“Didn’t they?” I squeak.

“It was a small town—half of them related. I think everyone tried not to notice. We looked forward to the times he drank himself to sleep before we got home. But the next day, when he woke up hungover, it was twice as bad. Richie and me,” she says, “we tried to take the worst of it, to protect Laina.” I think of my life, huddled in dark places with Maisie and Evan, running, running. So Mom did that too. “I knew if I left, he’d come after her.” Only, she wasn’t running. Worse, much worse.

“Richie left when he was eighteen. Couldn’t take it anymore. Then I met your father, Cliff. Practically tried to get pregnant. I knew Mom would kick me out. She did.” She draws a slow breath into her chest. “Called me a whore.”

“And then”—behind me a cry, inhuman—“I left. I left her,” she sobs. Her body is shaking. I turn to watch her but can’t reach her. She’s gone somewhere else, a place of pain where I can’t follow. When she finds her voice again, she says, “Laina was only eleven. Eleven years old.”

I imagine leaving Maisie in the hands of someone like that—like Everett. I sink to the ground. My legs won’t hold me anymore.

“When she was sixteen, she came to live with me for a while. You were four. Do you remember?” I shake my head. “I was pretty messed up. Wasn’t much help to her, already drinking.” Her voice steadies. “I think you know the rest.” She tries to smile—a grimace in the bloated red.

I can’t speak or I might be sick.

“When I saw you the other night with that boy, something snapped. Like history repeating itself.” She looks away, can’t meet my eye. “I was in a bad state after Oliver dumped me and I lost my job. I can’t remember everything, but I think I said and did some awful things. I hope someday you can forgive me.”

History repeating itself
. How often do I live the same day over and over? Try to fight against this inevitable path and always lose? I don’t want that history.

That boy
. “Will. He’s—” I start again. “Will was my boyfriend. It was the first time he came over. What you saw”—
don’t make me spell it out
—“was where things were at. I didn’t tell you about him because you always mess things up.”

She nods. “I’m so sorry, Isabelle.” A tear slides slowly down her cheek. I hide my face from her, wiping my eyes on my sleeve.

“I’m going to change,” she says.

“Stop.”

“I’m going to get help.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ve told me about a program for women like me, with”—she clears her throat—“addictions.” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her say the word. In sixteen years. “There’s a place outside the city. Isabelle, I’ll have to be away for three months.”

My head snaps up. “Three months? What about us?” I always knew it would come to this. Uncle Richie couldn’t handle it. We’re lucky he made it through a day. They won’t let me keep Maisie and Evan on my own. The best I can hope for is the same foster home.

“I’m working on that,” she says, leaning back on her pillow. “Richie said he’d stay in the meantime.” Eyes closed now, dark circles against her face. Her strength gone.

* * *

Uncle Richie comes when I call him and motions for me to climb in the front seat. His eyes dart to me as he drives, skidding on the icy streets. A pine-tree air freshener wags back and forth between us.

“So, she told you about going away?” he says.

I nod. I wonder if he knew she was going to tell me everything else too. I don’t have the guts to ask.

“It’ll be okay,” he says—the other drunk who can’t take care of his one kid.

He drops us off at the front door of our building and calls, “I’ll be back later!” as he drives away. He doesn’t come back.
I had a feeling twenty-four hours was about his maximum. That’s okay. It’s better with just me, Maisie and Evan anyway.

I make canned soup and toast for supper and try to explain things in a way they might understand. Watch for Maisie’s face closing up.

“Mom has a sickness that makes her drink too much,” I say. Evan leans in, gnawing toast. “She’s going away for a while, to a place like a hospital, to get better.” Maisie stops eating and lowers her spoon. “When she comes back, she’ll be better.”
Don’t make a liar out of me, Mom
.

“Is she coming home today?” Evan asks.

“No, Evan.”

I open my mouth to say we might have to live in a different house for a while, with a different mom, but I don’t have the heart. Wasn’t this enough to dump on them for one day? And it’s not only the house. Schools will change. It’ll all change. So much for finishing my classes. It doesn’t matter. When the social worker comes, every word, every thought, every part of me will be about keeping us together. I think of Mom, repeatedly beaten by her stepfather, and Jacquie, too, in that foster home before. I won’t let it happen.

The phone rings as we’re finishing. Rupa. I’ve never heard her voice over the phone before. She wonders why I didn’t come in to work tonight. Work. Another world away. A lifetime ago.

I apologize and explain that my mom’s in the hospital. Fortunately, she doesn’t ask why. I tell her I’ll be away for a week (and don’t say
probably forever
).

* * *

I take Maisie and Evan to the mall the next day and buy them ice-cream cones with the last of my money. They play with the toys in the toy store. Sit on the kiddie rides with no money to put in them.

Evan wants a piggyback ride the last block home, still tired from the other night.
The
night. As I slide my key into the lock, it turns too easily in my hands. Not locked. I locked it. I know I did.

On the other side, a thief, a rapist, a social worker. Does Uncle Richie have a key? No. Not from me.

I lower Evan to the red-checked carpet, pushing him and Maisie back into the hallway, away from the door. “Wait here. Don’t move. If I yell, you run back to the elevator and go downstairs, all right?” Maisie nods, taking Evan’s hand.

I push the door open a crack. Nothing. Grab an umbrella propped by the closet and hold it above my head. I creep into the living room, checking every direction. No sign of anyone.

A creak from the kitchen. I’m ready to spring, skewer him with an umbrella.

Then a head pokes around the corner. “Hello, Isabelle.”

TWENTY-FOUR

She smiles—familiar eyes. Dirty blond hair in a long braid down her back. She wipes her fingers on an apron.

“I’m sorry. You don’t remember me, do you?” Her eyes rest on the umbrella poised to whack her.

I don’t say anything, still on the balls of my feet.

“It’s been a long time. You were just little. I’m Laina, your aunt.”

Laina. Does Mom know she’s here? Good thing Uncle Richie’s not around. Fifty questions hit me at once, mostly about what she’s doing here and how she got in.

I lower the umbrella, feeling a bit stupid now. Not stupid enough to drop it. Whispers in the hallway. I call in Maisie and Evan, fairly sure Laina’s not going to jump us. They stand on either side of me, peering around my arms.

“This is Mom’s sister. Her name is Laina,” I tell them.

“Mom doesn’t have a sister,” Maisie pipes. “Only Uncle Richie.”

Thanks, Maisie. I’m sure that felt nice
. Laina pretends not to hear, folding the apron into a tidy square on the table.

“Why are you here?” I say. Can’t hold that one back anymore.

“Your mom sent me. Didn’t she tell you?”

I shake my head.

“Well, come sit down.” She motions to the table and pulls out a chair. I stay standing.

“Go play in your room,” I say to Evan and Maisie, giving them a little shove. They shuffle down the hall, looking back over their shoulders. “How did you get in?” I say to Laina.

“I stopped by the hospital today. Your mom gave me a key. She said you might not remember me.” She smiles down at her hands. The same look as Mom as she turns her head. But younger. And something else—less trampled by life.

“Look,” I say, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t get what’s going on here.”

“Your mom will be gone for a few months, and you need an adult around, right?”
Okay. Yes.
“I made a promise to your mom, a long time ago, that if she wanted to sober up and get help, I would help her. So, here I am.”

I watch her for a minute, turning over their agreement in my mind.

She smiles, raising her eyebrows. Waits for me to respond.

“Better late than never,” I say before I walk to the bedroom and close the door.

* * *

Monday morning, I find her up, already buttering toast for Evan and Maisie, lunches lined up on the counter. I snatch the toast from her hand. “I usually get them breakfast.”

“Oh, okay.” She moves on to washing dishes. Helps Maisie and Evan get dressed while I’m in the shower. I end up being five minutes early for the bus.

Is this what it’s like having a parent around? I know I should be grateful. I am grateful. I was preparing to be shipped off somewhere when she showed up on our doorstep. So why do I feel like putting her braid in the blender?

On the bus, Maisie pulls a cinnamon bun from her lunch bag and waves it under my nose. “Look what Auntie Laina made.” I shrink from it like it’s toenail clippings.

Why do I hate her for buttering toast, making cinnamon buns? Nothing but sweetness so far, kind words. Endless patience toward me being a jerk.

Maybe that’s it. She pulled out, got away from all this. Then she shows up at the last minute like the good guy.
Where were you, Laina, when we lived in that shelter for a month? When Evan was born early after Claude beat Mom? When we moved from house to basement to shelter to apartment, chasing one crap job after another?
Where was Super Laina then? I know where she can shove her cinnamon buns.

The question eats at me all day and through a quiet dinner. Homemade clam chowder and fresh buns.

“What does a clam do on his birthday?” she says to Evan and Maisie.

“What?” Maisie asks.

“He shellabrates!”

They giggle and pull out all the knock-knock jokes they know.

I wait until Maisie and Evan are in bed, then confront her in the kitchen as she kneads bread dough. Who is she, Betty Crocker?

“I need to know why you came back now,” I say, backing her into a corner.

“Your mom—”

“No, not because my mom asked. Where were you all those years? Why are you here now, really?”

She peels the dough from her fingers and runs them under the tap. “Come sit down with me, Isabelle.” This again? Don’t adults ever speak standing up?

Fine
. I sit at the table, right on the edge of my chair.

When she’s settled, she says, “Did your mom tell you anything about our family growing up?”

I nod.

“When I finally left home, I went to stay with your mom for a while. Did she tell you that?”

Nod again.

“We all had a lot of hurt, a lot of pain. We dealt with it in different ways.” She stops to see if I’m following her. I don’t say anything.

“After I left,” she says, “I started seeing a counselor, looking for healing. It took a while.” She gets up to move her dough to a bowl on the back of the stove and covers it with a tea towel. “It’s ongoing.

“Your mom and Richie, they drank a lot. After a few years, I found those relationships so hard, so volatile. I felt like I was being hurt by them when I was trying to move on.” I think of Mom and Uncle Richie together, their sadness and anger, hurling words and bottles. Hurting those they love, those who love them.

“So”—she studies the tabletop—“I told them both I couldn’t be in their lives like that. If they ever wanted help moving on, I’d be there in an instant.”

She left. The only sane one. What would’ve it been like to have Aunt Laina to call when times were bad, when I was scared? Someone to bake buns with, like she does with Evan and Maisie.

“You left us,” I say.

“I know things were hard—”

“You know nothing!” I shove back my chair, towering over her.

On her face, the first wince of pain since she came. I remember what Mom told me about Laina. Eleven years old. Not fair of me. Of course she knows something of this life. Here I am, mad at her for not staying in hell with the rest of us.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” I say.

“It’s okay, Isabelle. I can only imagine what you’ve been through.” She blinks back tears. I feel my eyes stinging.
No. I won’t
.

“I’m moving out at the end of this term,” I say. See what she does with that.

“Okay. I can help you, if you like.”

“Or I might switch schools.”

“It’s up to you,” she says.

“Okay.” I turn and disappear into Maisie and Evan’s room, my cot still wedged between their beds.

* * *

The next week, she goes back to work. I go back to work and school.

Laina runs her own cake-and-cupcake business, which Maisie and Evan think is pretty cool. She brings home all sorts of fancy cupcakes and desserts and writes their names on top. She leaves during the day to use her own kitchen and comes back in the evening to stay over. She sleeps on the sofa, and does a few minutes of yoga in the morning. I’d need yoga too if I slept on that sofa.

“I cleaned up that room,” she says, meaning the mess that Mom left. “You can sleep in there if you want. It’s yours.”

I tell her she should sleep in there. Neither of us sleeps in there.

My first shift back at work, Rupa hugs me. Arif manages a smile. I’d probably get a kiss from Hasan if he were here.

Rupa drags me into the back room again and shows me another box stacked with stuff. “We saved this for you.” It takes me two trips to get it all home.

* * *

Friday, I drop in to see Mr. Drummond over the lunch hour.

“Isabelle!” Like he’s seeing a long-lost friend. He wipes mustard from his cheek. “How are things?”

“Good.” I pull a chair from a random desk and drag it over to him. “I have a question,” I say. “How many more characters do you think I should add to convert that story into a play?”

He smiles.

I start writing that night.

* * *

Life falls into a routine with Laina—a new routine. When I get up, she’s finishing yoga, lunches already made. She leaves breakfast to me, after I practically ripped it from her hands that first day. I get Evan and Maisie off to day care and school, like always, though if I’m running late, she takes Evan herself. I pick them up after school, and she’s there within half an hour, making supper. Always some treat tucked away.