Left

by Tamar Ossowski

  “What about your dad? Maybe he knows something.” His voice was softer now.

  “I don’t know my dad,” I told him.

  He unzipped his backpack and held down the flap so that it looked like the tongue of a panting dog.

  “Here,” he said, handing me the familiar brown bottle.

  “No.”

  He pushed it toward me, pressing the opening against my bottom lip. I took a sip and thought about promises.

  “Who would know?”

  “Know what?” I ignored the burn snaking its way down my throat.

  “About your dad? Who would know about him?”

  “Maybe my grandmother. But the only thing she’s ever told me is that my mother wanted me to stay away from him.” I was already starting to feel sleepy.

  “Who else?”

  I suddenly decided I needed to lie down in the sun and close my eyes. I felt warm inside and out and I was starting to forget my mother’s words from the night before. “Probably Leah. I bet Leah would know.”

  My head felt heavy, so I rolled over and stretched my body out onto the grass. Trucks drove past and soon the rumbles incorporated themselves into my dreams, a steady rustling noise that sounded like door after door closing behind me.

  When I woke, he was gone. Beside me was a note that said “MEET ME OUTSIDE THE GAG AT FIVE.” I didn’t hesitate for a second.

  Well, maybe just a second.

  I stood outside of the GAG and, when I didn’t see him, I peeked over the blinking leprechaun to see if I could see her, but she wasn’t there. Instead, there was a fat waitress at her station who kept getting stuck between customers’ chairs. When I turned back around, he was standing beside me and I knew he had seen me looking. His hands were in his pockets and he was wearing a blue buttondown shirt that hung past the waistband of his leather jacket.

  “Find what you were looking for?”

  I shrugged. I wasn’t about to try and explain something I didn’t understand myself so I looked down at my shoes. “Why are we here?”

  He clicked his head in the direction he wanted me to go and I followed him to the corner.

  “In here.” He pointed to a telephone booth with a door that opened and closed like an accordion.

  “You want me to go inside?” It was old and the panels of glass were scratched, which made it look like it was filled with fog.

  He nodded.

  I opened the door and cringed as a waft of pee hit my face. I turned to leave, but he was right behind me, using his chest to push me forward. His ear brushed past my mouth and I breathed in the smell of his shampoo.

  “Now what?” I planted my arms firmly across my chest, partly because I wanted to look annoyed, but more because there wasn’t enough room to do much else.

  “Here.” He dug into his pocket and brought out a roll of coins wrapped in maroon paper.

  “What’s this for?”

  He pointed to the telephone.

  “Who am I supposed to call?”

  “Leah.” His whisper flew past my chin like a feather.

  “Don’t think so.” I tried to push past him, but he wouldn’t budge. “Let me out.”

  I unclasped my arms and pushed him harder than I meant to, harder than I knew I could. If it took him by surprise, he didn’t react, instead he kept thrusting the roll of coins at me, like a gun at my side, poking me until I had to turn and face him.

  Maybe I agreed because I thought that I might get to hear Franny’s voice. Or maybe because of the way he was looking at me. When the operator asked me for the listing, I said her name slowly, “Leah. Leah Dugan.”

  He handed me a pen and then opened the palm of his hand so that I could write the number down. I held his hand open and wrote, watching the ink seep into the lines of his skin. When I was finished, he made a fist, like he got what he came for.

  “Now call.”

  “Why? What is it you want me to find out?”

  “Your father. Find out who he is.”

  I laughed. Because he thought the solution was so simple. Because of how the ink had rubbed off in his palm and made it look like blood.

  “It’s not going to help.”

  “Maybe it will.”

  “No.”

  “Maybe he can explain about the dream. The one with all the screaming in it.”

  I looked out through the blurry glass. I felt safe inside with him. Like we were invisible. Invincible. I should have asked him why it was so important to him. Why he needed to believe that my father could fix the mess I was in. But I didn’t.

  Instead, I unclenched his fist and punched in the numbers and pretended they were Leah’s eye sockets. I pressed hard against the metal squares, poking and pushing until I heard a faint ringing in my ears. Up to the point that she answered, I wasn’t sure if it was real or just my heart pulsing inside my head. She said hello more than once. I held the phone close to my ear, pressing it tightly to my chin. I counted for seven seconds and then right before I thought she was going to hang up I spoke.

  “Hi.”

  I could hear her breaths on the other side of the phone. Like butterfly wings clapping together.

  “Matilda?”

  “Yup.” I answered, as if I called every day.

  “Is everything alright?”

  “It’s great.”

  “Matilda, are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “How is Franny?” I asked. I twisted my fingers into the cord and then stopped.

  “She’s okay.”

  More quiet.

  “How are you?”

  Daryl looked at me for a minute and then opened the accordion doors and went outside.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Is there something you need?”

  “Why?” I had planned a heartbreaking beginning to this conversation, but that was the only word that came out, and when it did, it sounded muffled.

  “Matilda, is there something you want?”

  “Yes. Tell me why.”

  “I don’t know what you want.”

  “Why are you covering for Therese?” Calling my mother by her first name made me feel rebellious.

  There was a few seconds of silence. “Your mother loves you, and even though it may not seem like it, she’s doing what is best for all of us.”

  “My mother is a bitch.”

  The words slipped as effortlessly from my lips as they did through the holes in the receiver. Leah was quiet again. Daryl crossed his arms behind his back and was softly hitting his fingertips against the glass. I closed my eyes and held my breath until it matched the rhythm he was tapping.

  “What’s in it for you, anyway?”

  “Excuse me?” As if she didn’t understand.

  “I said, what’s in it for you?”

  “I heard you the first time.” Her voice was flat, which for some reason filled me with rage.

  “My mother gets to live like the world revolves around her and you get to have the daughter you’ve always wanted. Is that what this is all about?”

  There was a quick gasp that reminded me of what I sounded like when I got hit in the stomach with a dodge ball in gym class—the wind, totally knocked out of me. Then there was silence.

  “That’s enough,” she said.

  But it wasn’t. It bubbled up inside of me and I knew that it would never be enough.

  “Enjoy it while you can, because I am coming back for my sister. She doesn’t belong to you and I am going to come back for her. ”

  “Goodbye, Matilda.”

  I slammed the phone down hard, disconnecting from her first. I inhaled deeply, gloriously impervious to the stench of pee, but my body betrayed me, and I felt a sliver of weakness start to make its way up. I wiped my eyes with the back of my sleeve and shook the door to let Daryl know I wanted to get out. He eyed me up and down, seemingly expecting my expression to somehow give it all away.

  “Well?” he asked as I brushed past him.

  “Well, what?”

&n
bsp; “Did she tell you? Your father’s name?”

  “No.”

  “His name is Tim. Timothy Yaga. I looked it up.”

  He smiled, shaking his head back and forth, enjoying my obvious look of surprise.

  “You knew? Why did you just let me waste my time calling Leah?”

  “Because I thought maybe you should hear it from someone who’s actually involved in this whole thing,” he said with a slight shrug.

  I didn’t know what to say, though I knew what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him that I had found a copy of my birth certificate in my mother’s nightstand drawer when I was eight, but that my father’s name had been blackened out. I was going to tell him that it didn’t matter anyway and that he was an idiot if he thought that the answer to all of this would be contained in a three-minute phone call to Leah or that there was anything my father could do to fix things. More than anything, I wanted to wipe that smug look off of his face.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but stopped when I saw the corner of his blue shirt hanging out beneath the hem of his jacket.

  Like a cape.

  Franny

  Besides Evelyn, kids didn’t invite me to sit with them at lunch or to go to parties or to play after school. They’d smile at me or say hi but that’s about all. Some of the time, I wished I could disappear even more, and other times I wondered what it felt like to be normal. So when Leah offered to take Evelyn and me to a movie, I thought about courage. Evelyn was so excited and I didn’t want to tell her that I had never been to the movies. My mother sometimes took Matilda, but the thought of my going with them had never crossed anyone’s mind, including my own.

  We picked a movie about a princess who falls in love with a monster and after we got the tickets, we stood in line at the concession stand. Leah bought us each a bag of popcorn. I didn’t tell her that I was scared of popcorn. That it was crunchy and loud was troubling enough, but the fact that it needed to explode before you could eat it terrified me even more. While Leah paid, I threw half of it into the trashcan. I folded down the top of the bag and when Evelyn asked if I was going to have some, I told her I was waiting until we got inside and then I stuffed the rest into my coat pocket.

  The theater was dark, which I liked because then no one could see the letters slipping past my lips. I sat between Leah and Evelyn. Leah eased down into her chair so that her knees pressed into the seat in front and her head was level with mine. The lights went down and then it got darker, like a blanket I could hide under. Suddenly the curtain went up and the screen was filled with light and I felt like I was in the middle of a snowstorm being pelted by hail. I felt my stomach squeeze like it did sometimes when we drove in the car for too long. My grandmother always told me to find something steady to fix my eyes on. It was dark enough in the theater that I could turn my head and focus on Leah without anyone really noticing. The brightness from the screen made her face glow like she had swallowed a candle, flame and all.

  The sound was as much of a problem as the lights. It pounded at my ears and made the room feel like it was shaking, so I held on tightly to the armrests. Leah leaned her head into mine and I breathed in the smell of flowers and butter. One time she caught me staring and gave my hand a squeeze and then laid her head back next to mine and I breathed her in some more. I hated that I could still feel the flutters in my stomach, like I had swallowed a nest full of baby birds.

  When the movie ended and the lights turned on, I felt shaky and disoriented. All I could think about was getting to the bathroom. We stood in line and everyone around me looked disheveled, like we had all taken a long nap together. Leah and Evelyn talked about the movie, but because I had spent most of my time staring at Leah, I didn’t have much to say so I just nodded my head.

  The line moved slowly and it was hard for me to focus because I felt like I was going to pee in my pants. When I finally got into a stall, I squatted like my mother had taught me and tried not to let the sound of all the flushing toilets make my heart pound faster. I covered my ears, but all I could hear were the toilets flushing, one after the next, until the fluttering in my stomach leaped through my throat and into my head and bounced between my ears like a big hollow ping pong ball. I wrapped my arms around myself and rocked back and forth, trying to make it stop. Leah knocked on the door quietly and then more loudly. She called my name over and over, but I couldn’t answer.

  I tried to remember how wonderful she smelled and how good I felt when I was with her. I wanted so much to make it stop, but I couldn’t move. I took some deep breaths, but that didn’t work either. So I started spelling, first the letters floating randomly in my head, then the graffiti written on the door of the stall. Leah was still calling out my name, her voice shaky, like it might break. I forced myself to bite down on my lip and make it stop long enough so that I could open the door.

  When I came out, I saw that her face was white and she hugged me. We went outside where it was cool and it made the hotness on my face feel better. We waited for Evelyn’s mother to pick her up and Evelyn and Leah talked more about the movie, but their sentences were short and choppy and when they talked they looked down at the ground. I tucked myself into Leah and she rubbed my arms up and down like it was freezing outside, even though it wasn’t, and we waited until Evelyn’s mother came and she got in and they drove off.

  When we got into the car, Leah helped me with my seat belt. I was shaking and she turned the heat on high until it got very warm. Finally, it was quiet and all I heard was the sound of our tires rolling over the pavement and Leah crying. She made a funny noise and said, “Franny, when I am with you, I remember the person that I was before. The person I am supposed to be.”

  I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t know what she meant. I went into my pocket and uncurled the top of the popcorn bag and stuck my hand inside. It was cold and greasy, but I managed to get one out. It felt stiff in my fingers, like a piece of Styrofoam and I couldn’t imagine eating it. But then I thought about Leah and how I had made her cry and before the flapping in my stomach could start again, I shoved one into my mouth. I only bit it once before I heard a loud crunch that rumbled in my ear and sent slivers of pain into my forehead. It scratched the roof of my mouth and before I could swallow, a little piece got stuck in my tooth. It was hard as stone and after I pried it loose, I swallowed it.

  My eyes filled with tears and I didn’t know if I was crying because of the popcorn or just because. The traffic light turned red and, when I looked outside, I saw that we were stopped in front of a park. I wiped my nose with the back of my sleeve and watched perfect little girls with perfectly bouncing ponytails circle the baseball field in their perfect pink bicycles. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, but then the light turned green and Leah sped off, the sound of bicycle bells ringing in my ears.

  The next day at school, Evelyn and I were standing beside the pencil sharpener, which was bolted to the window ledge. I turned the handle hard and listened to the sound it made as it chewed the outer edge of my pencil. When I looked up, I saw a woman talking to Mrs. Ficsh. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she was pointing at me and then Mrs. Ficsh called me to her desk.

  “Franny, this is Mrs. Skoll. She wants to speak with you.”

  S-K-O-L-L. Like skull. She moved so quickly down the hallway that I had to skip to keep up with her. She brought me into her office, which was small and cluttered with papers. Hanging from the only exposed wall was a poster of a little boy holding a baseball glove that read, “Smiles are Catchy.” The tape had come off one of the corners, which curled over the word “catchy.”

  “Please sit.” She moved a stack of papers piled on a chair. It was warm in her office, but I crossed my arms across my chest and cupped my elbows like I was cold.

  “How are you, Frances?”

  “It’s Franny,” I whispered.

  She was flipping through papers, but then she stopped. “I understand that you are living with a family friend? Leah Dugan?”

/>   I nodded.

  “Things going okay?” When she spoke, she looked down at my shoes so I looked down, too.

  I nodded again.

  “That’s good.” She scribbled something on a piece of paper and when I squinted I could see that her writing was curly and big. “Is there anything you would like to talk to me about?”

  I rubbed the rounds of my elbows.

  “I know this has been a difficult transition for you. I just want to make sure you are doing okay and see if there is anything we can do to support you.” Her skin was pockmarked and when she smiled, her face reminded me of a walnut shell.

  I shook my head.

  “Change can be hard and Ms. Dugan doesn’t know you the way your mother did.”

  I brought my hands down from my elbows and put them in my lap. The movies. The bathroom. The car ride home. Leah was why I was here. Skull was staring at me, waiting for a response, but I didn’t know what to say. She clicked the top of her pen on and off like she was sending me a message in Morse code. I looked up at the poster, at the boy with his catcher’s mitt, and I swallowed hard to get rid of the lump that was forming in my throat. My face turned red and then my eyes filled with the kind of tears that feel hot when they touch your skin.

  “It’s okay, dear.” She pulled open her desk drawer and handed me a tissue.

  I took it from her and then wedged it into the corner of my eye like I was filling up a hole in a sinking ship.

  “We are just trying to figure out how to make things easier for you, Frances.” She shuffled through some more papers.

  The tears distorted my vision and made her look like a big brown smudge. She said something else, but because my heart was pounding so loudly in my ears, I didn’t hear.

  “We will come up with a solution that is good for everyone.”

  I nodded, not sure what she was talking about. She stood up and motioned for me to follow. She walked a little slower this time so I didn’t have to skip. The hallways were covered in artwork, which I usually liked looking at, but this time I walked with my head down, counting the tiles on the ground. I counted seventy-three before we got back to the classroom. Mrs. Ficsh nodded at me when I walked in and again she and Mrs. Skoll whispered to each other.