House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

  “A couple got killed,” she says without embellishment. “The others got away.”

  Her firstborn’s remark stung; she’ll remember it for a long time. How much anger do the girls hold against her? she wonders. She’s always been tied up so much in her own shit she’s never thought to ask. She’ll have to fix that before she leaves this time.

  “Who killed them?” Sophia asks, her adolescent voice rising in excited anticipation. “Did you?”

  “No. I’ve never killed anyone.”

  “Good,” the girl says. “I hate guns,” she adds with vehemence.

  “Although I would have liked to have killed the bastards who did this to me,” she tells them. “I can’t lie about that.”

  “Who did?” Wanda persists. “The police?”

  She shakes her head. “A friend of mine, who miraculously was in the right place at the right time. The police are never there when you need them, you know that.”

  “Good thing he came along.”

  “Yeah, it sure was.”

  Until this moment that hadn’t fully sunk in: how lucky she had been.

  “Is he nice, this friend of yours?”

  They’re not only daughters anymore. They’re girlfriends as well, confidants. Which is nice; but she’d better guard about how much she lets them into her shit, they’re still kids, her kids.

  “Yes, he’s a very nice man. Gentle.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “On a ranch, north of town.”

  “Wow.” Their eyes light up, even Wanda, who’s a senior in high school and is obliged to be cool.

  “Are you thinking of living with him?” Wanda asks.

  “I’ve just met him.”

  “But eventually?”

  They don’t want her out there alone, she thinks. They want to be a family again. If she’s with a man—a nice man—it’s like it’s supposed to be. Like it is with Julie and Walt.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll have to see.” She feels crowded, pushed. She can barely keep her own shit together, how can she ask a man into a life as messy as this?

  “Are you working on a big case or anything now?” Sophia asks.

  “No. I’m here to be with you.”

  “I’ve got a game tomorrow afternoon,” Wanda says. “Can you come?”

  “Of course. That’s why I’m here—to be with you two.”

  The girls parade some of their schoolwork in front of her; different projects. Kate picks up a sheaf of papers held together by a brad, tucked under some other stuff.

  “What’s this?”

  “Just a draft of my essay for my college applications,” Wanda says, retrieving the papers from Kate’s grasp. “No big deal.”

  “You give them all the same one?” Kate asks. It’s been so long since she applied to college, she remembers nothing of the process. She’s already missed the boat with Wanda—she’ll have to make it up to her in other ways, and take care that the same thing doesn’t happen with Sophia.

  “Yeah, pretty much. I Mickey-Mouse it around a little for each application, but doing this one was tough enough, I’m not going to write five completely different original essays. It’s not like they pass them around or anything.”

  “I’d like to read it.”

  “I don’t know. …” She exchanges a look with her sister.

  “What?” Kate asks.

  “You won’t like it. It’s just a dumb essay.”

  “I want to read it. Please.”

  Reluctantly, Wanda gives her the paper. Kate turns over the cover sheet, starts to read the first paragraph.

  “Read it later, Mom, after we’ve gone to bed.” Wanda is turning red. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  It’s about her.

  “Okay.” She sets it aside. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Sophia has recently received her first quarterly report card. All A’s, except for a B- in math.

  “Geometry,” the girl explains. “I got A’s in algebra last year but I can’t visualize geometry.”

  “You’ll get it,” her sister stoutly defends her. “I did, and you’re much better at math than me.”

  This is beautiful, Kate thinks, listening to them, the way they stand up for each other, defend each other.

  Wanda has a boyfriend, she informs Kate, a boy in her class, not a jock, a student. A nice boy, who treats her with respect.

  “His name’s Jack. Jack Schwartz. You’ll meet him tomorrow, Mom, he comes to all my games.”

  “Classic role reversal,” Sophia notes dryly.

  “You don’t have to have an eighteen-inch neck to be a man,” Wanda says. “Right, Mom?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She wonders if Wanda is still a virgin—probably not, but she isn’t about to inquire. Wanda will tell her if she wants to. What would be worse, she thinks: that Wanda isn’t a virgin anymore or that she wouldn’t tell me, her mother? Does she talk with Julie about these things? She’ll have to try and find out, without being clumsy.

  She’s never met any of Wanda’s boyfriends. When they lived together as a family the girls didn’t bring friends home, they wouldn’t think of it. That must have been tough on them. Who could blame them, with Eric liable to go off like a Roman candle without a moment’s warning?

  She catches herself in the thought: that’s wrong. It was her fault that they weren’t safe. She was their mother, their true parent. It was her responsibility to keep them safe, protect them.

  And she hadn’t. She had failed the most important test of her life.

  She looks around at her sister’s apartment. Nothing fancy. Spacious, homey, comfortable. Just a home—a real home. As opposed to her own, which is a place to sleep, shower, and change.

  It’s later than she realized, after eleven. Julie and Walt will be back soon.

  “Do you have any homework?” she asks the girls.

  “Already did it,” they sing out in unison.

  “You should be getting to bed, shouldn’t you?”

  “Before the bed-check cops come home?” Wanda says with a wise-ass grin.

  “What’s your normal bedtime?”

  “About now. I need beaucoup sleep, I’m in training.”

  “How do you get to school?” she asks. It’s so weird, she’s been visiting them regularly every month, except the last couple, yet she knows almost nothing about their basic routines. She’s pissed at her sister for usurping her duties, yet she’s done nothing to earn them.

  “City bus. Right down the block.”

  “I could take you.”

  “It’s no big deal, Mom,” Wanda says; then, seeing the disappointment on Kate’s face, adds, “but that would be special,” and reaches up for a hug and a kiss, like she did when she was a little girl. “Night, Mom.”

  She hugs and kisses the younger one. The one who looks so much like her, except prettier.

  “Goodnight, Mommy. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  She turns off their light and floats out of the room. Her girls, whom she diapered and bathed and taught everything.

  Walt drinks Samuel Adams, there’s a six-pack in the frig. She purloins one—she’ll replenish his stock tomorrow, she doesn’t want to be beholden to them, she has enough guilt surrounding all of this already. Stretching out on the couch, she starts to read Wanda’s college application essay.

  “If I Could Go Back in Time, What Would I Change in My Life?”

  The writing is beautiful—heartfelt and true, with great similes, metaphors, analogies. Her kids are talents, both of them. Where it comes from, she truthfully doesn’t know. Certainly not from their biological father; he was out the door before Sophia was a year old and Wanda three, rarely to be heard from again, and his gene pool was mediocre at best. Eric, of course, was grotesque, he brought nothing positive, only the ugly shit of his own life. They had always hated him, and had learned nothing from him, except that there are men who are fucked up and always will be, and if you’re smart (w
hich she had not been but they will be) you stay far, far away from them.

  Which leaves her: their mother. She considers herself intelligent in a native, basic, street-smart sense, but not intellectual. She doesn’t read good books, she doesn’t go to symphony concerts, fine-art museums. If she’s passed anything on to them it’s the ability to be a survivor, to keep going when everything tells you to quit.

  Maybe the brains were always there, buried in her genes, for her kids to tap into.

  She focuses on the paper: “If I Could Go Back in Time, What Would I Change in My Life?”

  It’s about her, and her daughters, Wanda especially, since she’s writing about what she would change, but Sophia’s in there too—given the theme of the essay, it would be impossible for her not to be. And although it’s beautiful, its tone is elegiac (Wanda’s word, not hers); sad, painfully so.

  Basically, Wanda would change everything in her entire life except her relationship with her sister. Her mother never stood up to her stepfather, a complete shit (she got that part right), so the girls were always in fear of their lives. Her mother was a cop, she divided the world into cops and civilians, civilians were scumbags, assholes, an impediment to an ordered society. Everything in the world is black-and-white, there are no grays—you’re for me or against me.

  Worst of all, her mother doesn’t have time for her. They never talked about anything important, even when Wanda was growing up and reaching towards womanhood. Men, sex, feelings, work, life—none of those subjects have ever been a topic of serious conversation between them.

  She loves her mother—on that she is clear, clean. And she knows her mother loves her. But it’s been a bad fit.

  Her mother could have made more of her life, the writer takes a strong position about that. She was smart, pretty, funny. But she sold herself short. And she insisted on putting herself in harm’s way, even though she had two children who had no backup if anything happened to her.

  All that Wanda would change, and more. That’s why she wants to go to college, so she can find out what lies out there in the world, not the narrow horizons of her mother, but those of someone who believes in unlimited possibility.

  She loves her mother. But she wants a different life, a different world, for herself.

  It’s a cry of help, of pain. Intense pain for a young woman to go through. No wonder Wanda, on one level, didn’t want her to read it, but on another had to make her read it.

  She carefully lays the essay down. She feels numb, drained. She owes these kids so much. How will she ever be able to repay them, make it right?

  The tears flow. They’re long overdue; too bad the circumstances are so rotten.

  By the time Julie and Walt breeze through the door she’s washed her face, redone her makeup. They wouldn’t notice the tears anyway; her face is too battered, you can’t see past the obvious wounds to the real ones unless you’re looking for them. Julie isn’t looking.

  “How long are you planning to stay this time?” Julie asks.

  “It’s open. I’m taking the girls to school tomorrow, and I’m going to Wanda’s game in the afternoon. I’d like to take them out to dinner.”

  “Good idea. The three of you need time alone.”

  “Well …” Kate stretches. “It’s been a long day for me.”

  “Us, too. Your room’s made up for you. See you in the morning.”

  Walt hugs her. “We worry about you.”

  Julie hugs her, too. Walt’s hug felt more genuine; but that’s her stuff, not her sister’s. Her sister took her kids in and is taking better care of them than she can—which makes her hate Julie, even though she doesn’t want to. Julie’s doing her best. Which right now is better than her own best.

  Wanda’s team wins. She doesn’t score a goal, but she plays well, with assurance.

  “She’s like another coach on the field,” Sophia observes, sitting with Kate up in the stands with other parents and siblings.

  “Uh-huh,” Kate says, although she doesn’t see it. Soccer isn’t her game. She wasn’t one of those clinging mothers who went to all their kids’ games in AYSO from age six. She was out in the “real world,” earning a living.

  They take their dinner in Fisherman’s Wharf like tourists, eating off crab and pizza stands, the girls assigning outlandish appellations to where different groups of people might come from.

  “Lame Duck, Wisconsin.”

  “Steel Balls, Kansas.”

  Giggling like ten-year-olds, each girl is trying to top the other in silliness.

  “Pygmyshit, Montana!” shrieks Sophia.

  “Cumstains, Rhode Island!” her sister rejoins, laughing uproariously.

  People glance at them warily, wondering what’s so funny.

  “Very adult, girls,” Kate gently admonishes them, feeling suddenly like an old fogey.

  “Oh, grow down, Mom,” Wanda admonishes her.

  “I am, therefore I goof,” Sophia chirps.

  They pile into her car and drive up Columbus to North Beach, parking on Vallejo near Cafe Trieste, walking the streets, ducking into City Lights, where at the girls’ insistence Kate buys a copy of On the Road (“It’s like paying homage, Mom, like going to Chartres”), then crossing Columbus again and entering Spec’s, where they sit off to the side and order an Irish coffee for Kate and hot cider for the girls.

  She turns to Wanda. “I read your essay last night.”

  Wanda looks away. “I was wondering when we’d get around to that.”

  “It’s very well-written.”

  “Thank you.”

  “From the heart.”

  “Uh-huh.” Wanda sips her drink, looks around the room, at the floor, at her sister. Everywhere except at her mother.

  “It made me sad,” Kate says. “For you.”

  “Yeah, well …” She twitches involuntarily. “It’s only a paper. It’s not like it’s my autobiography or anything.”

  “It isn’t fiction.”

  “Look, Mom.” Wanda turns to her. “I’m not trying to make you look bad or anything. That’s not the point of it.”

  “I know that.”

  “It’s just … I’ve had these feelings for a long time and I needed to get them out. This was a good way to do it. They like this confessional stuff on your essays, my guidance counselor told me. Anyone who reads this would know it’s mostly made up.”

  “Almost anyone,” Kate corrects her.

  “I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Sophia says. She jumps up so fast she almost knocks her chair over.

  “It was something I had to get out of my system,” Wanda states doggedly.

  “I understand.” Understanding doesn’t make it hurt less.

  “You aren’t mad at me?”

  “God, no!”

  “Not even a little?”

  “I’m not mad at all. I was hurt, I admit that—how could I not be?—but I definitely understand the feelings.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Mom. I had to do it, that’s all.”

  Kate nods. She sips her Irish coffee; it’s cool enough to drink now.

  “Anyway, I want you to know I really love you,” Wanda vows. “Sophia does, too.”

  “It never crossed my mind that you didn’t.”

  Sophia returns to the table. “Pretty weird graffiti in the ladies’ room. You guys ought to check it out.” She looks from her sister to her mother, trying to divine the temperature of the situation.

  “You two have come a long way in the last couple of years,” Kate says. “You’ve really grown. I’m proud of you.”

  They smile awkwardly, mutter “Thanks.”

  “I mean it. Your work, your abilities, your self-knowledge—it’s remarkable. I’m very impressed.”

  “Come on, Mom. Enough already,” Wanda says.

  “Okay. No more flattery.” She pauses. “What surprises me is that it is a surprise to me. That I didn’t know—that’s not right, of course I knew—that I wasn’t aware, consciously awar
e, of your intelligence and talent. And growth. That it slipped by me, your mother, who should have seen it before anyone, instead of being the last, which is the way it seems to have gone.”

  “You aren’t here,” Wanda tells her matter-of-factly. “So how could you?”

  “I should’ve been.”

  “They wouldn’t let you.”

  “Who?”

  “The judge.”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t use that as an excuse. I still should be there for you. It’s what I should be doing—the most important thing.”

  The girls look at each other. “So are you thinking of moving back up here, Mom?” Wanda asks slowly. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  She places her hands flat on the table. Otherwise, they would shake. “Well …” she stammers, “I—I haven’t thought about that,” she manages to say.

  “Then what?” Wanda persists.

  She feels cornered suddenly, pressured. She isn’t ready for this, this isn’t the ideal time or place.

  “We’re a family,” she begins. “We’re the only family we have.”

  “Julie’s your sister,” Wanda points out. “That makes her family, too.”

  “That’s true, but it’s not the same. She’s your aunt, not your mother.” She feels like she’s on the defensive, on a witness stand.

  “We know that, Mom.”

  “I want you two to live with me. We should be living together again.”

  There—she’s said it.

  The girls shuffle in their chairs.

  “What?” she asks.

  “How can we do that?” Wanda queries. “What about the judge? Don’t you have to get his permission?”

  “Well, yeah, but I mean, of course I have to do that … I’m planning on doing that.”

  “When?” Wanda presses her. “Did you make an appointment to see him this time?”

  “No.” She feels the air starting to leak out of the balloon. “But that’s no big deal,” she says gamely, “I can do that with a few days’ notice.”

  “It is a big deal, Mom,” Sophia says, her voice small, low.

  “Okay, you’re right, it is. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Where would we live?” Wanda continues.

  Kate sits back, upset at this line of attack. “What is this, Twenty Questions? I haven’t seen you for a couple of months—”