All the Roads That Lead From Home

by Anne Leigh Parrish

  Maggie exhaled a plume of smoke.

  “You still want to, don’t you?”

  Maggie shrugged.

  “Can you?”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  Maggie considered the red ember of her cigarette.

  Sally leaned in towards her. “Is it Donny?”

  Maggie shook her head.

  “Then it’s you. You’re off sex. Is that it?”

  Maggie crushed her cigarette into a yellow, ceramic tray that bore the store’s name in loopy red letters. Ever since losing the baby she couldn’t stand for Donny to touch her. At first they both thought it would be temporary, but it wasn’t. She said she wasn’t ready, and he offered to use a condom, but she refused. In the last year they’d made love maybe four or five times.

  “Can’t you just shut your eyes and pretend he’s someone else? Some hunk?” Sally asked.

  Donny was actually very good-looking.

  “Get plastered, first. Rent a dirty movie. Wear sexy underwear.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “You have to do something. He’ll dump you, if you don’t. Men don’t like dry spells.”

  Maggie knew Sally was right, that Donny wouldn’t put up with it forever. But she couldn’t make herself feel something she’d forgotten how to feel, something that had become alien, so weird she found it stupid even to try.

  ***

  The ice cream left a thin brown trail that ran from Shauna’s lower lip, down her chin, onto the little hand clutching the cone, and then into her lap. Maggie passed her a piece of tissue from the box on the seat between them.

  Sliding by the car windows were trees aflame with autumn color, and the air—the whole world—seemed to glow.

  Maggie was babysitting. It was Saturday. Jo had called that morning to say she had a chance to take an extra shift from four to eleven. “Best time for tips,” she said. Maggie held back. She didn’t want to seem overeager, so she said she needed to check with Donny to see if he’d made plans. He had. To play golf with guys from the dealership. Maggie called back to say sitting would be fine, just this once.

  “Cool,” said Jo.

  Maggie picked up the phone again.

  “Did you change your mind?” Jo asked.

  “No, of course not. Listen. Does Shauna have something to keep her busy? Some toys, maybe?”

  Jo laughed. “I used to be like that before her. Wondering how to keep us both from going nuts. Sure, I’ll send her over with stuff to do.”

  Maggie’s refrigerator had sour milk and a six-pack of beer. For lunch she’d finished the Chinese take-out Donny had brought home the night before.

  “I don’t know. She’s not a picky eater,” Jo said when Maggie called a third time.

  “But I haven’t been to the store yet.”

  “I’ll make her a sandwich, then, okay? It’s not that big a deal.”

  They were at Maggie’s door promptly at 3:30. Jo had fresh highlights in her hair, polish on her nails, and cherry gloss on her lips. Work, my eye, Maggie thought. A date was more like it.

  Shauna sat down at the table and ate the sandwich she’d brought with her. Her jaw worked slowly, and she hummed as she went along. Then she took out some paper and crayons from her Barbie backpack, spread them out, and started to draw.

  Maggie asked her if wanted some tea. Shauna stared at her, then shook her head. Of course she didn’t want tea, Maggie thought. What kid drinks tea?

  She went in the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. She glanced at Shauna every now and then while she waited. All of a sudden, she wasn’t there. Just as Maggie turned off the stove, something shattered. In the bay window Shauna stood holding a crayon. Maggie pushed passed her and looked at the chalky fragments of statue on the floor. She knelt, and lifted the broken face with the red, sloppy leer Shauna had given it. Beside it the trunk of the mother was now a gray, empty space.

  It was hollow! No wonder it tipped so easily! Month after month it had stood there taking up room, being a nuisance, and filled with nothing at all.

  On all fours Maggie gathered the pieces together, then she sat and looked at them.

  “You gonna spank me?” asked Shauna.

  “No, of course not. Just help me sweep this up.”

  When they finished, Maggie said they were going for a drive. The note she left Donny said, “I’ve gone to fall into Fall.” He was always saying how she’d fallen in on herself, like an old barn in a field, though she doubted he’d see the connection. He might not even notice that the statue was gone, either. These days his eyes were either always down, or aimed at some distant point beyond her and the walls around them.

  Shauna rolled down her window and threw her cone onto the road.

  “What are you doing?” Maggie asked.

  “I couldn’t eat any more.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have done that. It’s littering!”

  “You don’t have a trash bag in here.”

  “No, but—”

  “I got to go to the bathroom.”

  At the next exit Maggie turned into a small park she had visited as a child. The willow trees bent towards the water, and the wind covered the surface of the lake with white arcs. The air had turned cooler with both the hour and the season, and she wished she had a coat.

  The bathroom was a low, concrete building with hundreds of small spiders suspended in webs across the ceiling. Shauna was scared of them, so Maggie said she’d stand guard and swat any that tried to come near. Finally Shauna used the toilet, then refused to wash her hands. Maggie let it go. A car pulled in next to hers and the passenger got out. She laughed and staggered towards the bathroom. The driver, a man, looked just as drunk. His head was thrown back and he laughed too, his shoulders heaving up and down.

  The laughter stopped when Shauna opened her door into his. The man’s head pulled up straight and turned in Maggie’s direction. His eyes were bright and cold, even though he was still smiling. He rolled down his window and said, “Tell your kid to watch out.”

  “It was an accident, she didn’t mean—”

  “Then she’s a clumsy little fuck.”

  Shauna looked the man right in the eye. “Bite me,” she said, then hopped into the front seat, and pulled the door closed behind her. Maggie started the engine and pressed the button that locked all four doors at once. Once she’d backed up, she hit the gas fast enough to make the tires chirp. Then she laughed so much it was hard to drive.

  “Are you gonna tell my mom I said that?” asked Shauna.

  “I think I should.”

  “She says it all the time, but I’m not supposed to.”

  “Well, that makes sense.”

  “Why do grown-ups get to say bad things and kids don’t?”

  A deer bounded lightly across the curving road and melted into the bushes. Maggie slowed to see if there were others. There weren’t.

  “We have different rules,” said Maggie.

  “Why?”

  “Because we have to do things kids don’t have to.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Be responsible. Make hard choices.”

  “Oh.”

  “Of course, some choices get made for you, and then it’s like being a kid again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t have a say in what happens.”

  Shauna watched the trees and hummed. Then she stopped. “Can we get some leaves? My mom likes leaves. She puts them in a big book, and then we look at them sometimes.”

  Maggie pulled over where the shoulder widened. They walked a little way into the woods. Swoosh, swoosh went the dead grass below.

  Shauna trotted ahead. Maggie stood, enchanted by the spread of red and yellow at her feet. That death should cause such beauty made no sense until you realized what it made way for—the next round of burgeon and loss.

  She looked up. Shauna was gone. Maggie called her name, then louder, until sh
e screamed Shauna!! SHAU-NA!! From behind the trunk of an oak tree many yards ahead Shauna’s head appeared, then her small body.

  “You come right here, right now!” Maggie shouted. Shauna obeyed, her eyes on the ground. In her hands were a cluster of red leaves.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You scared me.”

  “I was playing Hide-and-Seek.”

  Maggie’s hand found Shauna’s spongy hair. “You can’t play if the other person doesn’t know you’re playing.”

  “Can we play now?” Shauna’s eyes were bright, even in the deep shadows of dusk.

  “No, honey, it’s getting late.”

  At the car Maggie took the leaves Shauna had gathered, removed the last tissues of Kleenex, and put them in the empty box. It was dark enough then to use her headlights. They’d been gone more than four hours. The long side of the lake was the one they were making down now, and it would be another hour and a half to home. She could turn around, go back and save time, but she wanted to keep moving forward.

  Shauna sat with the box of leaves in her lap. Soon her chin dropped to her chest, and her eyes closed. Even tough little girls get sleepy, thought Maggie. And Shauna was tough. She’d never let anything slow her down for long, and she’d give as good as she got.

  Have I?

  A waxing gibbous moon rose in the purple sky. Another day or two and it would be full.

  How like the sky the night she learned she was pregnant. Lying in bed then she’d loved the near fullness of the moon, and the slight fullness in her. Donny laughed and said you couldn’t be a little bit pregnant, so how could you be a little bit full? But fullness did come in degrees, just like emptiness.

  She’d been as empty as a person could be. And then she’d just gotten used to it, and didn’t see the point of changing. Donny accused her of letting it work for her in some way, of taking some benefit from the deep bitterness within.

  You’re too lazy to go on living, he’d said. How she’d resented that! She lay in bed a whole day afterwards, and refused to unlock the bedroom door.

  It’s not just you, Maggie. I lost the baby, too! It was the first time he’d ever yelled at her. Then he left for hours, and took himself on a long drive, just as she was doing then.

  Sometimes it was better to move than to stay still.

  It goes around and around and around.

  In the inky, starlit dark, Maggie followed the curve. The lower lake was darkest as she rounded in to Dunston. The lights came up in bits, and then more and more, like an idea taking shape.

  It’s time. Life over death now.

  The windows of her apartment were bright. Maggie turned off the headlights, and then the engine. She got out, went around the car, and opened the door where Shauna was sleeping hard.

  Donny came down the steps. “Where the hell have you been?” he said. He smelled of sweat and beer. His hair was spiked in a way she knew, from him running fingers through over and over.

  “Driving around the lake. I didn’t think I’d be gone so long.”

  “Your note didn’t say anything about driving around the goddamned lake.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He was so close she felt the heat of his body. On winter nights, before the baby ever happened, he could keep her warm all by himself.

  “I figured you got pissed off and left,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “The statue. The pieces were in the trash, so I assumed you broke it.”

  “It was Shauna.”

  Shauna opened her eyes. “Mommy?”

  “No, honey. It’s Maggie, remember? We’re home.”

  Shauna looked at Donny. Donny stared back. “Come on, now. Let’s get you inside,” he said.

  Maggie undid the seatbelt and Donny slid his hands beneath Shauna. She seemed small and light in his arms.

  She accepted being put down on their bed, and then having a blanket pulled over her. Maggie sat with her, rubbed her hand, remembered a song then didn’t sing it.

  Shauna turned her head, and soon, as she breathed softly, they stood and watched her in the moonlight.

  “I’m sorry about today,” said Maggie, in a whisper.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I know.”

  Shauna shifted, then was still.

  “Donny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know what I’ve been thinking?”

  “What?”

  She didn’t have to say a thing. It was there in his eyes, even before she touched him, that he already knew.

  An Undiscovered Country

  My mother had a way of dropping by at a bad time, a habit that got worse after she died. There I’d be trying to set the table, wash the dishes, or get Eric to bed, and in she’d waltz and ask when I was going to get a life. This, from a ghost, was not easy to take.

  Forget being scared. Forget being shocked. That’s for people who think there’s a hard line between the living and the dead. You see, I’ve always known my mother was the haunting kind.

  That said, I have to admit the first time totally freaked me out. Not just by seeing her all of a sudden, but by what I was feeling right before—like an epileptic who smells something weird then seizes up, though I’m not an epileptic, only someone who thinks too much sometimes—and it had been an overthinking sort of day, so I’d taken a shower to relax. My face itched—I have a nasty birthmark below my right eye I call Blobbo and it was tingling. As if it were coming to life—like your foot when it’s been asleep. I turned off the water, tugged back the curtain, and there she was handing me a towel.

  JESUS CHRIST! I shrieked.

  Don’t be silly, Darling, I look nothing like him.

  She was always witty. Always the card.

  I knew I’d lost my mind. She assured me I hadn’t. I asked if she were real. She said, As real as you need me to be.

  I hate to say it, but her tone was almost flirty. Enticing. This wasn’t my mother. My mother never cared if she pleased or wounded. This was some awful figment—yet her face was the same. Those thick eyebrows and hooked nose, the small, pursed, pouting mouth. And her perfume, Chanel Number Five, only . . . fresher. As if newly sprayed. That gave me the creeps worse than anything.

  I dried off, put on my bathrobe—one she’d gotten me two birthdays before—and asked the obvious questions. Why are you here? What are you made of? What’s it like, where you are?

  Look, this is as much a surprise to me as it is to you, was all she said.

  From then on she appeared at will, sometimes only in a dream, or a random memory, but more often than not as a fairly solid being who’d picked up tea drinking somewhere—not in this world—and always had a steaming cup at her elbow.

  This morning she’s here again at my table doing a crossword puzzle. I’m not happy to see her. I guess I can’t get used to having breakfast with a dead woman. I plop the laundry basket down on the table next to her, hoping it’ll make her vanish.

  “How industrious you are,” she says.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Not at all. I just wish you’d show your good side more often.”

  I give her my good cheek.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!”

  My son, Eric, is on the floor, lining up his screwdrivers. Eric has Asperger’s, a mild form of autism. He doesn’t connect the way other people do. Can’t pick up the social cues (as in Okay, you’ve said this nine times, you can stop now); can’t read expressions (Yes, that look of irritation on my face is real, so please don’t bother me), that sort of thing. Which basically puts him in his own world. A world with a population of one. Along with the things he picks apart—toasters, old computers, my hair dryer. Once he dismantled a brand new vacuum cleaner. There were pieces of it scattered all over the living room floor, and he put it back together perfectly.

  “Why do you look at him like that?” my mother asked.

  “Like what?”
/>   “Like a dog who’s just had a boo-boo on the rug.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do.”

  She used to say I wasn’t affectionate enough with Eric, that I kept too much distance between us. I’d like to see her try to get close to a kid with emotional problems. Maybe then she’d get off my case.

  I fold the laundry. Something of my mother’s has made its way into my basket, a lace camisole I don’t ever remember seeing. I toss it in the trash. My mother doesn’t notice. Her mind’s on her puzzle. The crease between her eyebrows deepens. Her lips pucker, as if she’s about to deliver a kiss.

  “Help me with this, won’t you?” she says.

  “You know I’m no good at those.”

  “Nine letter word: ‘Go beyond, in a spiritual sense, perhaps.’”

  “Transcend.”

  “See?”

  She’s been dropping these stupid hints for days now. I’m suppose to transcend my life. How, I’d like to know. I have a job I hate and can’t afford to quit. I work at an auto parts store in a windowless, wood-paneled office that smells of stale Mexican food from the drive-in next door.

  I also have a kid who’ll never fit in. Eric’s day care lady says he’d probably do fine next fall in kindergarten, but I’m not sure. He can get plenty pissed plenty fast. Throws things. Pulls his hair. She says he’s frustrated because he can’t communicate very well. She says everyone will make an extra effort, but how long will that last once they see what he’s really like? Then I’ll get pulled aside for friendly chats and told I have to try harder at home, as if this is all my fault, somehow.

  As the morning light rises, the blue ceramic tile backsplash in the kitchen deepens to sapphire. It really pops against the white cabinets and countertops. I chose it. My mother probably thinks it’s overdone—garish, she might say, and I knew that when it went in, and yes, I took pleasure in that. You see, this is her house. I inherited it. I had no idea she’d left it to me. The lawyer told me she hadn’t, in fact, because she didn’t have a will. But that, a mutual fund and an insurance policy that together added up to about twenty grand came to me as her only surviving relative. Just like that. Poof! I moved right out of my apartment. Sold off my shitty furniture, and started replacing some of hers. There was a lot of going through drawers, donating clothes, throwing out endless magazines and coupons she never used. In the pantry were about fifteen boxes of cookies, mostly mint Oreos and Nilla Wafers. She ate those by the handful in front of the television, talking to the screen, calling the people on it names. Sometimes she laughed, or made a joke. And sometimes I’d laugh with her. We weren’t anything like good friends, but we got along okay. Enough for me to feel bad she was gone. I even felt rotten once or twice, and when it really sucked I just kept going, moving down the chore list. I tossed out her knick knacks. Ceramic owls, if you can believe that. I wasn’t allowed to touch them when I was little. You better be careful, Sheryl Lynn, or one of those owls might just come to life and bite you! Then you’ll have two marks to deal with! The sound of them shattering in the trash can was beautiful. The roses were next. Dug them out myself. A bank of white and yellow Queen Margarets she tended as if they were the baby Jesus. They drove her crazy. About every other year they’d spot up, get these brown stains on the petals. She consulted someone at the university, some botanist. I don’t know if he told her anything helpful. She put special mulch around the base, sprayed them, watered them only at certain times of day. Once I found her crying over them. It was crazy.