In From the Cold

by Deborah Ellis

  “All the germs?”

  “Yes. All the germs.”

  Rose did not like the look on Hazel’s face. It was not defiance, or anger, or even sadness. Rose could not identify the look, but she did not like it.

  She shook the water out of the pan and headed back to the shack. “Let’s get some sleep,” she said.

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Well, I am.”

  Rose held her breath until she heard Hazel fall into step behind her.

  At least she’s still obeying, Rose thought.

  Their outdoor latrine was a hole in the ground, surrounded by boards to step on. An old shower curtain hung from the trees provided some privacy. They’d used the washroom in the donut shop before heading back to the shack, so they didn’t need to use their latrine now.

  Hazel’s pillow was near a window. She picked up one of her new books and turned her back to her mother.

  Rose piled up the carpet pieces and got her blankets out of the garbage bag that kept out the damp. She made up her bed. Before crawling into it, she got the long piece of string from the hook. She looped one end around her ankle then took hold of Hazel’s foot.

  Hazel kicked her away.

  Rose took hold of her foot again.

  Hazel kicked again and snorted out a whine.

  “Enough!” said Rose.

  Hazel finally allowed the string to be tied around her ankle.

  There. They were joined together.

  No one could steal her daughter without her knowing.

  Rose crawled into her blankets. The floor still stank of the intruder, but she could ignore that. She closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn’t have a nightmare.

  Chapter Five

  Rose fought off waking up.

  As long as she was asleep, everything was fine. She was dreaming of something good, something safe. If she could just hold onto it...

  But it was gone. She was awake.

  She opened her eyes and tried to guess how much time had passed. It was a game she played with herself. Three hours? Four hours? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had eight hours of solid sleep.

  Four hours, she decided, then looked at her watch. Off by half an hour.

  Hazel was still asleep, curled up facing the wall.

  Coffee and a cigarette — that’s what Rose would have. She didn’t like to smoke in front of her daughter. Long cigarette butts tossed onto the sidewalk or stuffed into public ashtrays made up her small stash of smokes. The ashtrays in front of hospitals and office towers were the best places to find these butts. She kept a few in a plastic bag, as a rare treat for when she was awake and Hazel was not.

  Rose reached for her sweater and pulled it on as she stepped out of the shack to build up the fire.

  They kept their fire in a big pot, covering it with a lid when it wasn’t needed. Just a bit of air going in and out kept the coals going. They were still warm from breakfast. Rose added twigs and newspaper and wondered if she would dare bring it inside when winter came.

  The flames caught the paper, and in the same instant Rose realized she was walking freely, unattached to her daughter. The string was still around her ankle, but it trailed along the ground beside her.

  In two leaps, she was inside the shack, at Hazel’s bed, shaking her daughter awake.

  The pillows lost their form in Rose’s hands. They had been laid out, under the covers, to look like a sleeping child.

  Rose clamped her hand over her mouth to keep the screams inside.

  She must not panic. Hazel was probably just being disobedient. Her daughter was getting more wilful by the day, and Rose was really going to have to put a stop to it. Hazel was only ten, way too young for teenager attitude.

  Rose first checked their outdoor toilet.

  “Hazel?” she called out quietly, then she pushed aside the shower curtain. No Hazel.

  She’s probably down by the river, Rose thought. She can spend hours down there, sailing those hand-made boats of hers, but she can’t spend five minutes washing dishes. That was something else that was going to change.

  Rose headed down the short path to the river. She blamed herself for being slack about discipline. This new life of theirs wasn’t easy, but they were used to it now, and there was no reason why Hazel couldn’t start behaving better.

  But the clearing by the river was empty. No Hazel.

  Rose went back to the shack. Now she needed that cigarette!

  She built up the fire again. She poured water into a metal mug from the plastic bottle she’d refilled in the donut-shop washroom and added instant coffee. Her supply was getting low. They’d have to do another shoplifting trip soon, for coffee, hand sanitizer, and matches. She put the metal cup right into the fire to make the water boil faster and fed more sticks into the flames.

  A punishment, that’s what Hazel needed. In their old life, Rose could have taken away television or time with friends, but there was none of that left to take away.

  The Toblerone bar! Hazel was so excited to find it last night, and she would be looking forward to eating it. Well, she wouldn’t get it! Rose had to let her know that Mom was still in charge.

  Rose went to the shelf where she’d put the chocolate bar. The chocolate was not there.

  Rose was getting madder by the minute. Madder and more afraid. They had been living this way for four months, and Hazel had never pulled a stunt like this before.

  Rose got her bag of cigarette butts out and sat on the log by the fire pot. She smoked three butts, lighting a new one from the end of the one before it. She wasn’t used to smoking. The nicotine buzzed in her brain.

  The coffee was hot enough to taste almost like coffee. What should I do? Rose wondered as she drank. Should I go look for her? Should I stay here and wait for her to come home?

  Rose didn’t know where she would even begin to look.

  Unless... unless Hazel tried to go back to the house. Their old house.

  Rose could not stand that thought. Hazel would not go back there! She was probably just off wandering or stretching her legs, or hiding.

  Rose jumped into action. She circled the camp, from the river, around the shack, then back to the river. She widened the circle, looking in clumps of tall grass and in clusters of bushes.

  “I’ve been saving up our loose change,” she called out. “I was thinking of going to McDonald’s tonight. What do you say?”

  There was no answer.

  Rose was not used to being away from the shack in daylight. It began to bother her. She was out in a field, in a big piece of waste land, but the city was all around. High-rise apartments rose out of the hills on the other side of the river. Rose imagined that the windows were lined with people, looking down at her, watching her.

  She gave up the search and fled to her shack. She curled up on Hazel’s bed and stared out the window, willing her daughter to come back.

  Chapter Six

  The sun had shifted the shadows around the shack when Rose finally saw Hazel coming up the path.

  Hazel was walking quickly. She saw her mother’s frowning face at the window, stopped, then continued more slowly.

  Rose met her outside the shack. The hours of waiting had made her more angry and more frightened. Her rage and her fear took over her good sense. She came at her daughter with her hand raised in the air. The hand came down with a fury, smacking Hazel across the face and sending the girl sprawling into the dirt.

  “Get up!” shouted Rose, as Hazel lay where she fell. “Get up and face me! Do you know what you put me through?”

  Rose grabbed Hazel by the jacket shoulders, lifted her to her feet, then slapped her again into the dirt.

  “You do not leave!” Rose yelled. “You know that. Why did you leave? Where did you go?”

  “I just...”

  “I don’t care what you have to say,” Rose said. “You don’t care about me! I do all of this!” Rose waved her hands at the shack made out of trash. “I do all of this fo
r you, to protect you, and you repay me by running off the first chance you get.”

  Rose was so mad now that she could not see straight. The world around her was a blur. Her daughter, on the ground, was a blob, without clear form or lines. Rose wanted to keep hitting her. She wanted to pound her daughter until the horrible feelings were all pounded out of her.

  “Get to your feet!”

  Rose reached down again and grabbed the girl. Hazel made her body limp and heavy. Rose tried to lift her, then felt a muscle twitch and pull in her back. Pain stretched through her entire body.

  She let go of Hazel. Hazel dropped back to the ground with a thud.

  “My back!” Rose gasped.

  The pain was terrible.

  This can’t be happening, she thought. Not now. Not here.

  She’d had this back problem before, and it was awful. But back then she’d had a warm house and pain pills and a proper bed to help her out. Even then, there had been weeks when simply getting out of bed and walking to the toilet had been terrible because of the pain.

  “My back. Help me!”

  Her daughter stayed on the ground. Rose saw Hazel watching her. There was almost no emotion in her daughter’s face. She did not seem to care that her mother was in agony.

  “You are a monster,” Rose said. “Help me, or I’ll...”

  “Or you’ll what?” Hazel asked.

  That lip again. The girl needed to be brought under control before she became a teenager.

  What if she won’t help me? Rose thought, and for a brief moment, the fear of that jolted through her body. The fear went to her face.

  Hazel saw it. Rose could tell by Hazel’s new look of power.

  Rose tried to get control back by ordering her daughter to stop fooling around on the ground and get up and help her, but it was too late. The power shift happened in only a moment, but that moment changed everything.

  Rose held her breath.

  Hazel got up and stood by her mother. Rose leaned on her. Step by careful step, they went into the shack. Hazel eased Rose onto the bed, helped her lie down, and remained standing in front of her.

  They stayed like that, in silence, for a good long while.

  Then Hazel took a blanket and gently covered her mother. After that, she sat down on the floor.

  “Take your shoes off,” Rose said, with her eyes closed against the pain.

  “Yours are still on.” But Hazel took off her shoes, got up and took off her mother’s, and then went back to her spot on the floor.

  “What was so important that you had to cause me so much worry?” Rose asked.

  “It’s Emma’s birthday.”

  Rose opened her eyes in alarm. “You didn’t go to see her?”

  “I just went to the school. She’s my best friend. It’s her birthday! I took her the Toblerone bar.”

  “You have ruined everything. Did they see you? They must have seen you.”

  “They were at an assembly. I left the chocolate bar on her desk,” Hazel said.

  “With a note?”

  “I had to leave a note. Or she wouldn’t have known it was from me.”

  Rose tried to get off the bed, but the smallest movement gave her more pain. “You risked it all for a stupid birthday.”

  “It’s not a stupid birthday! It’s my best friend’s birthday!”

  “Childhood friendships don’t matter,” Rose said. “Adult friendships don’t even matter. Emma has probably forgotten all about you.”

  Hazel was crying, saying that wasn’t true, but Rose knew. No one could be depended upon. The sooner Hazel learned that, the better.

  Then she had another thought. “How did you know it was Emma’s desk?”

  Hazel tried to stop crying. “What?”

  “How did you know where Emma sits? You hung around the school, didn’t you? You talked to the teachers, didn’t you?”

  “No! No, I swear.”

  If Rose could have looked her daughter full in the face, she’d know for sure whether Hazel was lying or not. But her daughter was looking off to the side, and Rose’s back would not allow her to twist around to see. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “I didn’t talk to anybody. Emma is in Mrs. Sampson’s class. I saw her through the window, before they went to the assembly.”

  “You stood and watched through the window? And nobody saw you? You’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying,” Hazel said.

  “Then how did you get into the school? It’s locked during the day. You have to be buzzed in.”

  “I just — I just made up a name. I said I was late, and they let me in. I said I was Devon. We have four Devons in my class. In what used to be my class.”

  Rose had to admit that her daughter was clever. Too clever. That kind of cleverness could get them caught.

  “You really should grow up,” Rose told her. “All that fuss over a child’s birthday. Did you write on the note where we’re living? Did you draw her a map?”

  “It’s none of your business what I wrote, but I’ll tell you. I wrote, ‘Happy birthday to the best friend ever, love, Hazel.’”

  I should have remembered her friend’s stupid birthday, Rose thought. I could have thought of something safe for Hazel to do.

  “It looked like they were doing cool stuff in science,” Hazel said. “About the insides of animals and how all the parts work together. And there was an arithmetic problem on the board that I don’t know how to do.”

  “Be quiet now, and let me rest.”

  “School started only two months ago,” Hazel said, “and already I’m falling behind.”

  “I said, be quiet. Can’t you see I’m in pain?”

  Hazel kept talking. “I could go to a different school, and use a different name.”

  “No, you couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you have to have files. You have to have papers. You have to have come from somewhere. Now, do I have to ask you again to let me have some quiet?”

  Rose had her quiet, almost a full minute of it.

  Then Hazel spoke again. Quietly. Almost under her breath. “You don’t know everything. You can’t even walk right now. I can do what I want to, and you can’t stop me.”

  Rose kept her eyes shut and her mouth closed and did not rise to the bait.

  “I’m supposed to be in school,” Hazel muttered. “It’s the law.”

  “Shut up,” said Rose.

  “It’s like I’m being punished,” said Hazel. “I don’t see why I should be punished.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “After all, I wasn’t the one who killed Daddy.”

  Chapter Seven

  Neither Rose nor Hazel had spoken about that awful night since it happened.

  Rose had hoped — prayed — that Hazel had been asleep. At first, she’d been puzzled that Hazel hadn’t asked about her father. Four months had gone by, and not a mention. Now, that made sense. Hazel knew her father was dead.

  “It was an accident,” Rose said.

  Hazel turned around on the floor until her back was to her mother.

  “Honey, it was an accident,” Rose said again. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Hazel didn’t reply.

  Now she decides to keep quiet, Rose thought. “I don’t know what you think you saw.”

  “What I saw,” said Hazel.

  “I’m sorry that you saw anything.”

  It had been a bad night. No worse than other nights, except at the end.

  He had been drinking, of course, and he was angry about something. He was always angry about something, and Rose couldn’t remember now what had set him off on that last night. Was it something she’d said? Was it something she’d failed to say? Something wrong with the food at supper?

  He had a talent for finding things wrong. And she never did anything as simple as make a mistake. Shoes not lined up meant she was not respecting him. Agreeing with the prime minister when her husband disagreed me
ant she was being disloyal. Not laughing at something her husband thought was funny meant she was cold. Laughing at a male comedian’s joke meant she wanted to sleep with that comic. Laughing at a female comedian’s joke meant she was a man-hating bitch. She needed to have the attitude beaten out of her.

  There was no way to win. Silence was safest. Silence and agreement. She’d learned to watch his face for clues and to listen hard to his tone of voice. Sometimes she was able to head off his anger. But if he was in a hitting sort of mood, nothing would stop him.

  The beating wasn’t the worst part. The beating came at the end, the final burst of bad energy at the end of a bad night. He’d hit, he’d kick, he’d throw things, he’d slam her head against the wall. Bad. Bad.

  But then it would be over. She’d see it in his face. The tension would leave his eyes. He’d mutter something like, “You shouldn’t push me like that,” then he’d sit on the sofa and turn on the television.

  Or, if he was really drunk, he’d just flop into bed and fall asleep. That was the best, those hours of silence. She could ice down her sore spots, put the house back together, and make sure Hazel was all right.

  Worse than the beating was what led up to it. On and on, he’d go on and on with his criticisms, accusing her of some crime or other. If she tried to defend herself, he’d twist her words around, so that everything she said somehow made it worse. If she tried to stay silent, hoping that would make it all go away, he would go after her for her silence.

  “You think you’re so pure,” he’d yell, right into her face. “You think you’re such a victim.”

  Hazel was supposed to stay in her room whenever she heard her father’s voice getting loud.

  “You go into your room, you close the door, and you keep it closed,” Rose told her. “Whatever is happening below is none of your business.”

  “What if I need to pee?” she asked one time.

  Rose gave her large, plastic ice-cream tubs to keep in her closet in case of such emergencies. She also kept a cookie tin full of snacks under her daughter’s bed, and bottles of water for Hazel to drink. Sometimes the yelling went on for a long time. She didn’t want her little girl to be hungry.