Mother, Mother

by Koren Zailckas

  “He’s not cheating,” Will whispered, in case his father was within earshot. “He’s late from work all the time because he’s at AA meetings. The person he’s always texting is a guy called Kerry, his sponsor.”

  His mother’s smile was pure sunshine, the best thing Will had seen all day. Her head tipped back in ecstatic relief. She leaned down and hugged Will’s skull with both hands. She peppered his hair with kisses and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. “Shhh,” she said, putting a manicured finger to her lips.

  Will nodded, understanding that she wanted to let his dad tell her himself.

  “So, Will,” she said. “Let me tell you about credit scores. Higher is better. Rose … Here we go … Rose has a seven hundred, which is high. She opened two new cards after she ran away. She’s two thousand dollars in debt, but that’s not the top of her spending limit.”

  Will’s shoulders clenched. Two thousand dollars sounded like an awful lot. “Is that bad news?” he asked.

  “I’d say it’s encouraging news. See here? She pays her cards on time and she’s still using them.”

  “So, Damien hasn’t hurt her? She’s okay?” Last year, during Rose’s brief missing-person case, the Hursts had used okay as a stand-in for alive.

  “That’s not my place to say, Will. Your sister cut us out of her life. But I’d say, at least according to this, she’s not lying dead in a gutter somewhere. Your father overreacted last year, and made our run-of-the-mill family conflict the whole town’s business. I’m not going to let him lose his head again. I won’t give Rose and that boyfriend the satisfaction.” She got an error message and let out a frustrated grunt. “The printer’s out of ink. Will, show me how to change the cartridge. Now, please. The police are gonna want to see this.”

  VIOLET HURST

  ROSE WANTED VIOLET to come live with her. That was the gilded promise, which was so damn dream-come-true, so Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes, it might as well have come with a self-addressed stamped envelope and a message about how changing her life was as simple as ticking a box.

  Sounds like you really do hate Mom! Rose had written. Get out of there! Come stay with us instead! I’ll help you register for school. I’ll help you find a job. Whatever you need, we’ll figure it all out. Call me when you get out of the hospital and we’ll pick an easy place to meet up. It would be so great, wouldn’t it? All the Garfield we want! You’ll never have to turn back your watch again!

  The last two lines were inside jokes. When they were kids, their mother forbade Garfield comic strips because—direct quote—they “glorified laziness.” Also, when Violet was six or seven years old, she’d once turned back the time on her Minnie Mouse wristwatch, thinking it would literally delay six o’clock, when she had to be home for another tense family meal.

  At the very end was the lifeline: Rose’s phone number. Those ten little digits might as well have been the answer to a combination lock—a big old Master Lock like the one on Violet’s old gym locker—and metaphorically speaking, Violet spent a whole year spinning and yanking it, wondering all the while what it would take to get through to the sister who either hated or ignored her. And now, Open sesame. The lock had sprung open on its own like some lucky malfunction. All at once, Rose had handed Violet her freedom and a (noncompetitive, noncombative) sibling relationship.

  Violet was beyond touched. She was thrilled. Rose offering her a place to stay just when she needed one most! But she couldn’t help also feeling slightly burned. When she’d opened up in her last letter, she’d wanted some kind of affirmation. She’d been hoping, on some level, that Rose would feel her pain and acknowledge the disparate treatment they’d always had from their mother. Yes, she’d wanted Rose to write. I know you always got it worse than me. I saw that too. I really did. I feel your pain.

  Violet had just stubbed out her cigarette when Edie swung open the patio door. Her eyes were downcast, and she walked with slow, precious movements across the brickface stones. Seeing Violet, her face turned sheepish. “Bum me one of those?” she asked, more to the pack than to Violet herself.

  “They’re yours.”

  Edie made a half-assed attempt at a smile. “In that case, give me one?”

  Violet had to wield the matches because Edie’s left arm was mummified straight down to her limp-looking hand. It was a shocking sight: the long bandage, presumably the long wound. Edie hadn’t slit her wrist, she’d slit her whole arm. Just looking at it made Violet’s own forearm ache like a cavity.

  Violet inhaled the first drag and passed the ciggie to Edie with two fingers. “How are you feeling?” she finally asked.

  “Pretty embarrassed, actually.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I think almost everyone here has done their own version. We’ve all been where you are.”

  Edie nodded like she wasn’t quite convinced. “I’ve never done it that way before.”

  “How’d it rate?”

  “It was different. It took more out of me. They’re always saying, on cop shows and things, how intimate stabbings are. How they take all this passion and anger. I get that now.”

  A feeling of dread descended on her. She wondered if whoever hurt Will had the gut-level hatred for him that people like she and Edie had for themselves.

  “What’ve you got there?” Edie asked.

  “Another letter from my sister.”

  Edie nodded. “Does she say anything about the other night? You still think she went all Kill Bill on your brother?”

  “Kill Will, you mean? Funny.” Violet flipped the envelope over and traced the seal with her finger again. “I don’t know. She still won’t say a word about Will. She asked if I want to stay with her when I get out of here.”

  “They’re sending you home?”

  “Probably. I hope so. Sara-pist is being slippery about the whole thing, blaming paperwork.”

  Edie ashed thoughtfully. “Moving in with Rose would solve a lot of your problems. At least you wouldn’t have to go home to that lying lunatic.”

  Unless, of course, Rose and Damien turned out to be lunatics too. “It’s just a lot to digest. I don’t mean to be suspicious. It’s just whenever Rose—whenever anyone—in my family goes out of their way, there’s usually some angle.”

  “You feel like there’s a hidden agenda,” Edie said, chewing her lip. “I get that.”

  “On the other hand, I feel like I have a sister again.”

  Edie gave her shoulder a supportive squeeze. “You’ll figure something out. You have time.”

  Violet worried the corner of Rose’s letter. “I’m not really sure I have much time at all.”

  WILLIAM HURST

  “HERE, DOUGLAS,” WILL’S mother said, waving Rose’s credit report.

  “Great,” he answered, looking right through her. “I’ll show it to the police when I get to the station.”

  “Don’t just put it in your pocket. Look at it. Rose has opened new credit cards! I think that’s encouraging, don’t you?”

  “Fantastic,” Douglas said flatly. “I’ll be sure they take a look. It has occurred to you that Damien might have opened those, right?”

  “You’re leaving right this second? Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “I told them I’d come in tonight.”

  “What about dinner? You two must be famished.”

  Will nodded. “I am. I’m esurient.”

  Douglas shot him a look that could maim if not kill. “Just say you’re hungry,” he said barely under his breath.

  “But it means the same thing!” Will’s voice was a piglet squeal.

  “He’s right, Douglas. I mean, really. Just because you’re not a logophile.” Josephine winked at Will and laughed bitterly.

  • • •

  Even Will could acknowledge it was over the top: the trouble his mother went to, the way she set the table with linen napkins and soup bowls nested in decorative plates.

  “Really, Josie,” Will’s dad said. “There’s no ti
me for all this.”

  “All this is just reheated soup. It’s in the microwave now. Do you want a glass of wine?” There was a jagged edge to her smile. “Or something else?”

  “No, Jo. I just want to get to the station. Are you trying to make me late on purpose? Don’t you care about Rose?”

  “That’s a ridiculous thing to say. Of course I care about Rose. But Will is my priority. If you’re so worried, why don’t you two put on your shoes to save time? We’ll eat, fast as three truck drivers, and then off we go. I want Will fed. I have a theory about blood sugar and seizures.”

  Will’s face froze in panic. He hadn’t told his mother about his field trip to the head-shrinker’s office, about Doc Martin’s jack-assed theory that Will’s disordered nervous system was really just the way his brain’s limbic system coped with trauma and fear. When he did, his dad would be in mondo trouble for undermining her.

  “Come on, Will,” Douglas said.

  Will was woozy as he leaned over his Hush Puppies. He felt laden, mulelike, like he was carrying every ounce of nervousness his parents weren’t showing.

  “Here,” Douglas said, tossing his car keys.

  Will failed to catch them, and they clattered onto the floor.

  “We have to wait for Mom.”

  “Just go warm up the car.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  Douglas’s face was flushed with frustration. “You just slide the key into the hole and turn.”

  “But what if—What if the car starts to go by mistake?”

  “Will, the car isn’t going to go anywhere unless you put it into gear.”

  “Oh.” Shame bloomed, like a poison flower, in Will’s stomach. Maybe home school really was failing him.

  Will hated the garage at night. It was morgue-level cold, and the fluorescent lights flickered, giving everything a pale, unreal cast. He walked toward his dad’s car and tried not to look directly at the fierce scribble of scratches on the driver’s door. Reaching for the handle, he caught his lightly warped reflection in the convex window. He thought he saw something—a shadow—move behind him, but when he spun around no one was there. There was nothing other than teetering snow shovels, garden rakes, and a mess of recycling—half-rinsed and stinking—all the behind-closed-doors mess his parents tried to keep out of view. Will slid the key into the ignition, brought the engine growling to life. He opened the garage door on his way back inside.

  Back in the dining room, three steaming bowls waited on the table. The soup was cauliflower, and the whole scene looked straight out of the fable of the three little bears, except two of the place settings had glasses of white wine.

  Will cast a sideways, raised-eyebrow look at his mother. He was attempting telepathy. Remember? he was trying to say. Remember what I told you in Dad’s office about Dad’s little problem?

  Josephine just smiled and lifted a spoon. As an afterthought, she asked (commanded, really), “Will, won’t you please pass your father the bread?”

  Will did as he was told. He dipped into the bowl. He watched the colorless sludge swallow the head of his spoon. “This is terrific,” he said, although it wasn’t his favorite. He was careful to follow his mother’s strict guidelines for eating soup: skim from the front of the bowl to the back, sip from the side. No, I said, sip! Not slurp!

  “This was in the freezer?” Douglas asked.

  Josephine ignored the question. “And why is this so urgent we need to go to the station tonight? Are they going to look at us like we are alarmist fools who could have just called with an update?”

  “We’re going to the station because I demanded to go,” Douglas said. “I want to know the police are taking this seriously. I want to know it’s a priority.”

  Josephine looked at him in disbelief. “And what exactly are we telling the police? That Rose hasn’t checked her e-mail?”

  “Among other things. Does this taste peculiar to you?” Douglas smacked his lips without relish. His nose wrinkled. “Like dish soap maybe? Were these bowls just washed?”

  Will shook his head. He didn’t taste anything strange. He took another spoonful and chewed a lump.

  Josephine tore a small chunk of baguette in half with brute force. “You’re losing your mind, old man. What are the other things?”

  “Rose’s blow dryer,” Will said. “She left it here.”

  His mother screwed up her brow. “Wait, I don’t get it … Her hair dryer? Am I missing something, here? Will? Douglas? Your sister—our daughter—took her laptop, her phone, her suitcase, her toothbrush. She packed up and left us. She ran out. Didn’t we learn anything last year? I mean this … This is like déjà vu all over again.”

  It was unlike her to be redundant, but Will didn’t dare pipe up to say déjà vu implied all over again. “It was just this stupid thing we heard on the radio,” he mumbled with downcast eyes. “Women can’t live without their hair dryers. That’s what they said.”

  Josephine’s elbow was on the table, her hand fisted around her spoon. “I’m not even going to get started on how sexist that is. And you, Douglas, traipsing around here on a workday, collecting so-called clues. Give me a break. Sherlock Holmes, the sot, and his retarded Watson.” She covered her mouth—a coquettish gesture that clashed with her deep, brutal laugh. “Oops, did I say that?”

  Cachinnate, a doing word: to laugh loudly and inappropriately.

  Will helped her clear the plates to prove he wasn’t a burden. Alone with her in the kitchen, he waited for her to acknowledge the word she’d called him. When she didn’t, Will held up Douglas’s full wineglass. “What should I do with this?” he asked.

  “Oh, Will,” she said, taking it and kissing him hard on the temple. “I can’t believe I poured that for him. Muscle memory, I guess. But then once it was poured, I figured I might as well test him. We’ll see how serious he is about this whole AA experiment.”

  The police station wasn’t far, but the stretch of state route they took was particularly scary at night. In the backseat, Will sat in the middle and peered out the windshield, on the lookout for road-jumping deer. He said his Hail Marys as they whizzed by four roadside memorials. It was hard to say why this stretch of road inspired so many crashes. Maybe the speed limit was at fault: fifty-five meant sixty-five, and the center line—dotted for miles—meant a lot of people passed at eighty. Or maybe drunk drivers on their way home from Kingston were to blame. Even tonight, motorists drifted toward them, their headlights blinding bright. At the last minute, they honked and veered sharply away.

  Josephine leaned over and put a guiding hand on the wheel. “Douglas,” she said, gently.

  “Wha-aat?” It was a lazy, slack-tongued question the way Will’s dad said it.

  “Douglas, you’re all over the road. Slow down and pull off here.”

  Douglas took his foot off the accelerator and Will’s mom helped guide the car into the empty rail trail parking lot. She un-clicked his seat belt after he slowly slid the gearshift into park.

  “What’s going on?” Will’s dad asked with the same husky breath and slow, draggy vowels.

  “You tell me,” his mother huffed, unbuckling herself. “Were you drinking before dinner?” She opened her door. Her coat blew open as she strode in front of the car.

  His father did seem drunk, especially the way his forehead bumped the door frame when he got out of the car. In the headlights, Douglas leaned, childlike, against Josephine while she guided him around a pothole in the dirt. A pebble caught the corner of his loafer, and his ankle turned. He caught himself on the hood, clumsy and loose-limbed, his eyes three-quarters shut. Josephine adjusted her grip and helped him regain his balance.

  “Mom, is Dad okay?” Will asked after she’d helped Douglas into the passenger seat and was angling the power seat into a steep decline.

  “He’s fine. Reckless. Selfish, but fine.” She slammed the door and returned to the driver’s side. Adjusting her seat so it was closer to the steering wheel, she said, �
�I mean, what kind of person gets blitzed on his way to the police station?”

  Will thought back to his father’s speech about alcohol hijacking the decision-making parts of a person’s brain. “An alcoholic, I guess.”

  “I guess.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. She surfed the radio using Douglas’s preset buttons. “The Weight” was playing on two stations simultaneously. The song was one of Will’s favorites—the unofficial county anthem, on account of local hero Levon Helm—but it made Josephine shudder with revulsion. She switched over to the AM dial and tuned it to a classical station. The car filled with heavy cello.

  Will cast another glance at Douglas. He was sagging and lopsided in the front seat. “What I don’t get,” he said, “is that Dad didn’t drink his wine at dinner. And he wasn’t drinking at home with me today.”

  “Oh, Will, you’re so naïve. I remember the days when I let him fool me the way he fools you. I could draw you a treasure map of all the places he hides alcohol in our house.” She shifted the car into drive and steered it onto the road in the opposite direction. “We’re going to have to bring him home, and go back to the station on our own. I’d say we could let him sleep it off in the parking lot, but if anyone saw him like this … in a police station no less …”

  She didn’t finish the question, leaving Will to wonder for many dark miles what the answer might be. Would social services come back? Would they take him away? He sank back into his seat and watched the roadside crosses go by. Crux was the Latin word for cross. His mother had taught him that. Crux, in English, was pivotal … also, puzzling.

  In twelve years, Will had seen his father in almost all peaceable variations of sloshed. He’d seen Douglas slurry and accident-prone. He’d once watched his father drunk-dial a phone number for something that promised “five easy payments of forty-nine ninety-nine.” And he’d seen, quite often, his father snoring in front of the TV after downing a plus-sized bottle of wine. But Will had never, ever seen the flippity-floppity, barely-breathing-type drunk Douglas was at present. It made him want to lean over and check his father’s pulse. He tried once, but his seat belt locked and stopped him from leaning forward.