The Wrong Family

by Tarryn Fisher

  They’d lived in the house for less than a year when the roof sprung a serious leak. Nigel had to cash out his 401k to replace it. Then, right after they brought Samuel home, they’d discovered the attic had black mold and had to be gutted. They lived in a hotel for a month with their new baby while the repairs were made. Years later, Nigel had wanted to add an apartment that could be locked off from the main house by a door in his den.

  “But why does it need its own entrance?” she’d countered. He was growing impatient with her; if she dug her heels in it would cause a fight.

  “We can rent it out if we ever run into trouble with money—which, frankly, after all we’ve sunk into this house, might be soon,” Nigel had explained, even as the color drained from his wife’s face. And then he’d added, “It will also increase the value of the property.” Like Winnie cared. Her insides pinched together at the mention of money. Her only relationship with it was to spend it.

  “I’ve taken a look at our finances and—”

  “Just do it,” Winnie said. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing.” She called Amber right away.

  “He’s right.”

  Winnie heard a car door slam on Amber’s end. She was a real estate agent now, probably arriving at a house for a showing.

  “It will add value to the property, and yeah, you could also put it on Airbnb. Earth to Winnie, it’s a thing now.”

  “Not a thing I’m comfortable with,” Winnie snapped.

  But she let Nigel win that round. And she supposed it was a good business decision. It’s not like he was aching to let a stranger move in, but there it was—the option.

  When Winnie got out of the bath, Nigel was downstairs unpacking groceries from two recyclable bags. She looked through his purchases, hoping to find a card or a box of candy, but there was nothing exciting except for a new can opener. She suddenly felt disappointed in herself. What had she been hoping for? Fireworks and champagne? Nigel was a good man who loved her; she was content with that. She threw a smile his way as she helped him put everything away. Later, when they were in bed and he reached for her, she didn’t stiffen up, even though part of her wanted to—she’d already given up on the evening. She let him, and he innocently fell asleep minutes after, oblivious to the crying Winnie did well into the night.

  Because now, all these years later after the horrible thing that had occurred inside this very house on Turlin Street, she didn’t know if anything would ever be enough.

  4

  JUNO

  Juno had moved to Seattle from Albuquerque, New Mexico, four years ago. She’d lived one life there and another in Washington, the two starkly different. New Mexico Juno had a career and a family, a husband and two little boys. She was plump and full breasted, and she wore paisley as a fashion statement. Her practice had started in a storefront she shared with two therapist friends. Five years into their little triad of mental health, Juno had enough clients to warrant her own building. She bought an old Burger King on the outskirts of town that had gone belly-up and converted it into Sessions, a family counseling facility. That was before she more or less burned her life down and ended up in Washington.

  She’d heard that the weather didn’t try to kill you with heat or cold, and that was just fine for her. The most damage Seattle could do was a misty rain that made you feel a damp sort of sleepiness. Juno hadn’t taken much with her when she’d left Albuquerque, only what she could carry in her thrifted suitcase. Just a handful of memories, among them Kregger’s reading glasses, which she occasionally used.

  She ended up moving into the Turlin Street house fifteen years after Winnie and Nigel purchased it. By then, all the renovations had been finished and the downstairs had a small apartment with its own entrance. The first time she saw the house—red brick in front of a backdrop of purple-gray clouds, like some sort of painting—she’d sighed. She wasn’t there to see about a place to live, just to admire the house in its Gothic beauty. But then the opportunity had presented itself, and Juno had taken it. She was in deep need of change, and the house on Turlin had beckoned her. Juno had stood rooted to the sidewalk as someone drove by blasting music. She took the first steps toward her new home as the singer sang “I knew that it was now or never...”

  Their son, a lean bean with sandy hair and blond eyelashes, seemed equally as puzzled by his parents as Juno was. She often spotted him shaking his head at them when they weren’t looking, like he couldn’t believe the stupidity. She suspected that Samuel scored high on the Wechsler, higher probably than both Winnie and Nigel combined. Juno had seen it many times over the years, parents bringing their children in for Juno to fix like they were appliances instead of complex individuals. You couldn’t fix a child—they didn’t need fixing right out of the box. Kids just needed a healthy example of love to thrive beneath. He found her sitting on a bench by the water just yesterday, and they’d had the biggest and best of heart-to-hearts. She was certain that she was the only person with whom Sam could discuss his interests, as disturbing as they may have been to anyone besides Juno. And she had told him that as they sat next to the lake—the lake that she had described as “Calm as rice.”

  “Calm as rice?” he had laughed, grasping at his abdomen and rocking his head side to side.

  “That’s right,” Juno said. “Calm as rice.”

  “I’ve never heard that before.”

  When he had sat down next to her, his eyebrows were drawn. He looked more like an unsure child and less like the opinionated boy she’d grown to know.

  “You know some of the most famous serial killers of all time are from Washington?”

  Juno had leaned back on the bench, frowning up at the yellowing sky. “Let me think,” she said. “Ted Bundy!” She looked at Sam, who nodded enthusiastically.

  “The Green River killer...what was that fellow’s name? Gary something...”

  “Ridgeway,” Sam finished.

  “Yes. That’s right.” Juno nodded.

  “Yates, and um...yes, there was that one man who was truly evil. Targeting children—just disgusting. Dodd,” she ended with a smack of her lips.

  “My parents freak out when they see me looking at that stuff online.”

  “Well, do you blame them? If your mom was obsessed with watching violent car crashes every night before bed, wouldn’t you be concerned?”

  “My mom is obsessed with a lot of things that concern me.” His face was blank, but she saw the humor in his eyes.

  Juno couldn’t help but smile. The kid had a sort of wry adult sense of humor.

  “Moms are obsessed with mom things. Kids are obsessed with kid things. Nothing wrong with having different interests and loving each other the same.”

  Juno was surprised at how easily she slipped into the counseling role after all these years. She was also surprised at how flat her words sounded.

  “Sometimes I feel like I’m not even their kid.”

  “Maybe you’re not,” Juno said it casually, her tone light. Wasn’t there a time in every adolescent’s life when they convinced themselves they were adopted?

  Sam is a special boy, Juno thought to herself now as she stood in the doorway to the bathroom, her gaze sliding over the bottles of perfume and lotion that sat on the subway tile next to the bathtub. She completely avoided her own reflection, already knowing what she would see and not wanting to see it—the raw, red butterfly mark across her nose and cheeks. She would see the puffy, jaundiced eyes, and she would see skin mottled like a duck egg.

  She slipped the light switch on and stepped inside. She shuffled through the door, her back still stiff from the way she’d slept last night, to the sink where glass bottles were arranged around a silver tray. Eucalyptus, tea tree oil, jasmine. Juno chose from the rows and carried them over to the tub. This was her favorite part of the day, when she had time to let the water ease the pain from her body. She let the water
rise as high as it could, and then, lowering herself into the water, she made the sounds a very old, very tired woman made. She tried not to look down at herself as she sank to the bottom of the tub, though she caught flashes of bony thighs, the skin so vellum-thin she averted her eyes.

  She’d enjoyed her chat with Sam at the park yesterday. But now, lying in this tub and recollecting the moments she spent with him, she found that the therapist she had retired years ago was stirring inside her again.

  Sometimes I feel like I’m not even their kid, he’d said.

  It means nothing, she told herself. Just enjoy your bath.

  Juno opened her eyes. There was no clock in the bathroom, but she knew what time it was by the light reflected on the wall. It was time to get out and move on to the next thing.

  * * *

  It was late afternoon, and Juno’s hair had dried to a springy gray halo—erratic curls that would shoot up instead of down. She tugged on one as she made tea, another nervous habit that had accompanied her from childhood. Her hair had been red once, but that was a long time ago, when she drank gin martinis and smoked clove cigarettes. Another life and another woman. Everyone had wanted to touch it: fat red curls that fell to her waist. Old women often stopped Juno on the sidewalk to comment on the color and tell her they used to pay for color like that. And now Juno was the old woman. The corner of her mouth lifted in half amusement as she sipped her tea. She was less funny-looking now that she was older, or maybe her eyes were the problem. The tea was strong and sweet. Juno drank it fast, thinking of her pain pills downstairs in the haven she’d made for herself. She was running out; she’d counted six last time she’d looked. She’d have to count on the Crouches to bring more. Juno’s mood turned sour; the tea suddenly tasted wrong in her mouth. She hated relying on people. She dumped the rest of her tea down the sink and went about cleaning her mess, a new worry ticking at her brain.

  At four o’clock, Mr. Nevins from next door parked his Tahoe right outside the living room window, and Juno poured herself a finger of Nigel’s whiskey even though she didn’t like the stuff and had pretty much given up drinking. She carried it upstairs to the sitting area that looked down at the park. She always felt prickly at this time of day, knowing they’d be home soon. They filled up the house with tension: often sexual, other times just the naked, ugly kind.

  The second floor sitting area was the best part of the house, the view somehow both hectic and peaceful. The house sat on one of the busier streets surrounding Greenlake Park, one that fed to and from I-5. Juno sank into a rocker, letting the whiskey do its job, watching the commuter traffic begin its slow crawl. Nowadays this was her window to the outside, where she rarely stepped any longer. But she knew the sounds and smells well enough to use her imagination. Two women paused on their walk to take a selfie as a Maltese dog sniffed the grass around them, and a man in tight neon yellow running shorts almost collided with them. He jumped to the side at the last minute, narrowly dodging them and almost landing on the Maltese. The women straightened up from their selfie, none the wiser.

  Over the grass and in the park, a family with three teenagers gathered in a little huddle, holding Starbucks cups and laughing. They looked cold. Sam wouldn’t be home for another few hours from practice, but she liked when he was home because a light spot developed between his parents, easing the mood of the house. She knew each of them by their steps, and Sam’s were the clumsy clomp clomp clomp of a loose-gaited boy. A baby giraffe, skidding and bumping corners. It was so cute; she remembered it from her boys. The sun was coming down over the lake now; it dashed right through the windows where she was sitting. Leaning back in her chair, she let the sun touch her all over.

  It was time to go downstairs.

  Near the front door, pushed in a rush toward the wall, were the remnants of Nigel’s attempt at the doorbell. Juno looked over the mess, touching her tongue to an infected molar on the right side—wires, coils, and screws scattered over the wood, failed DIY confetti—and then she stepped over it.

  5

  WINNIE

  “Hold on.” Nigel was forcing himself to stay calm. She heard him switch the phone from one ear to the other. When he came back on, his voice sounded strained. “Did you say your brother is staying with us?”

  As Winnie launched into a quick recap of Dakota’s latest scheme, her stomach sank lower. She watched as Carmen stepped off the elevator, a white paper bag clutched under her arm. She raised a hand as she passed Winnie’s desk, but Winnie didn’t give her the cursory smile she normally did.

  “He took his paycheck to the racetrack and bet it all on a trifecta. Manda kicked him out.”

  “As she should,” Nigel said. “But Dakota needs to—”

  “It’s just for a bit,” Winnie said cautiously, and then into the receiver she hissed, “Shelly took him in last time, it’s technically our turn.”

  Winnie was glad her husband couldn’t see her face; she could see it in the reflection of her computer monitor and it was pale and afraid. Shelly was the oldest of the Straub sisters. Nigel hated her—had from the moment her eyes had met his and she’d said, “My sister didn’t do a very good job of describing you.” He’d assumed she’d meant it as an insult since she’d ended her statement with a little laugh and then looked away like he wasn’t important. That had been his account of it anyway. Shelly never made much of their first meeting, which Winnie supposed was like her sister. She was rarely impressed, and if she was, it had something to do with money.

  Despite Shelly’s poorly hidden disdain for her sister’s husband, Winnie deferred to everything Shelly said—all the siblings did. After their father died, their mother seemed to forget how to parent beyond smothering them in weepy affection. It was Shelly who had raised her siblings, making them dinner, getting them to bed, and occasionally forging their mother’s signature on school forms. If Shelly told Winnie it was her turn to take Dakota, Winnie would accept her lot without complaint; he was her twin, after all, though sharing a womb together didn’t make living with him easier. Nigel, on the other hand, wanted to complain, she knew that. In fact, he wanted to speak to the manager, but the manager was a five-foot general who wore practical chinos, a sharp bob, and didn’t give a shit about what Nigel or Winnie thought. Shelly, the oldest, lord of the Straubs.

  Winnie pulled in a deep breath, ready with her list of defenses and justifications. Hadn’t she put up with his mother for years? The mother of an only child can be clingy, especially when she was still single and relied on said only child for practically everything. She’d prepared a list of all the times that dealing with his mother had been hard for her—pathetic, she knew, but the guilt angle was all she had to work with.

  “Do you really think that’s a good idea with Samuel in the house? He was really upset last time Dakota stayed with us.”

  Her heart sank. The Samuel angle knocked every justification out of her mouth.

  Two years ago, Manda had kicked her husband out for sexting with a coworker. When she confronted him, Dakota had thrown every dish they had onto the kitchen floor in a rage, then proceeded to slip and cut himself on a piece of dinner plate. He’d blamed Manda for his fall, saying she’d upset him, and then schlepped off to the hospital to get four stitches in his forearm. He’d ended up at Shelly’s that time. Winnie distinctly remembered her saying “So what, right? He didn’t even have sex with her...” And Shelly had moved their beloved brother into the spare room.

  “Yeah, but Shelly, if Mike did that—” Winnie had protested.

  “Ha! He knows better. And besides,” she’d said out of the corner of her mouth, “Manda has really let herself go.”

  The next time Manda kicked him out it was for a tiny pouch of white powder she found in his wallet. They’d taken him that time—her and Nigel. It had been Chelsea’s turn, technically, but she was in Hawaii for her tenth wedding anniversary with her wife, Mary. Dakota had hidden in the
spare room for a week, and then one night, he’d gotten high and drunk while Winnie was cooking dinner and had stumbled into the living room wearing only his tighty-whiteys while Samuel was watching TV. As Samuel watched wide-eyed from the sofa, his uncle threw up on the PlayStation and then shat himself.

  Manda had always fought with him for—wait for it—drinking too much in front of their kids and acting erratic. Instead, he came to drink in front of Winnie’s kid, which of course had caused a fight with Nigel of epic proportions.

  Winnie paused for a long moment, and then she swore. “Shit. Dammit. How could I forget about that? I can have Samuel stay with my mom for the weekend. We’ll reassess on Sunday.” All the sisters were the same way about Dakota—they babied him. Except he wasn’t a baby, and Winnie had a sinking feeling that this time Manda wasn’t going to forgive him.

  “Maybe Dakota and Manda will work things out by then, anyway—they usually do,” she said. She stared at her screen saver: a photo of her and Nigel and Samuel standing on a beach during their vacation to the Dominican Republic last year.

  “It’s never been this bad before. Manda might not be so willing to take him back this time. He’s been a college kid on a bender for the last ten years, Winnie.”

  She sighed deeply. Dakota’s emotional outbursts as a child were frequent; Winnie remembered him as being sulky and demanding. Their father’s death seemed to tip him over the edge; he navigated through his grief with fists and one suicide attempt when he was seventeen. But he’d always been angry; at what Winnie didn’t know. He seemed to pick and choose his triggers. At their joint tenth birthday party, Dakota was so furious that he had to share a party with her that he’d picked up the sheet cake that their mother had paid three hundred dollars for and dumped it into the pool. Winnie could still picture him standing in his camo swim trunks with the neon orange trim, the cake a large sheet with a photo of their faces airbrushed across the top. He made eye contact with her the second before he launched their smiling faces into the deep end. He hadn’t been punished, of course; their parents had laughed it off to their friends.