Every Other Weekend

by Zulema Renee Summerfield

  It’s no secret that her new husband is a lousy drunk. He gets tanked and pushes her around in front of the kids.

  “You sure?” Mom says. “I’ve already got a kettle going.”

  “No, it’s okay. I should get going. It’s such a long drive.” An hour drive along mountain roads and down desert highways, home to a husband named Gabe, who prefers whiskey sours but will settle for Bud Light, who drives a Ford pickup and last month put his fist through a wall. Really, she must be getting on, it’s so dark already, it’s such a long drive. Windsor comes in her crappy car, hugs Mom and Rick and high-fives Nenny and the boys, wraps her arms around Kat and Charles like she can’t stand to leave them, like each day in their absence is a small torture impossible to bear.

  But Windsor doesn’t go, not right away. Kat goes upstairs to call her boyfriend and Charles stands by his mother, uncharacteristically quiet. Windsor’s bracelets clang like a three-ring circus as she brushes at her hair, and she’ll pass on the tea because she really must go, she really should be getting on, and still, but still, she doesn’t go.

  20/20

  MASKED MEN have no scruples. They’ll just walk right into your house like they own the place, start pushing you around and manhandling all your things. “Is this real china?” they’ll say before knocking whole shelves of plates to the floor. They’re ruthless and clumsy and hungry for anything of value, even if it’s just your sense of security—which they cannot sell but which makes them feel rich.

  This is going to happen to the house on Kensington Drive—raw, uncut, in-your-face home invasion—because it’s all the suburban rage. Gangs of black-clad men, bearing knives and sawed-off shotguns and hardly older than teens, could come bursting through the door at any minute and violate you and your family and everything you stand for and hold dear. Which is why the door must be locked, morning, noon, and night. Period.

  Strangely, this revelation about masked men does not come from Mom—who won’t even keep rubber bands in the house because she treated a kid once who’d had one shot in his eye—but from Rick, who saw it on 20/20. Home invasions have sprung up around the country like a rash. He makes an announcement at dinner one night, like it’s common knowledge and common sense.

  “I want you guys to start locking the doors when you come in. They need to stay locked.”

  Kat looks like he’s offended every fiber of her being. Simple requests can do that to her. “Why?” she snarls, her lip curled, her eyes ablaze.

  “Because I said so, that’s why.” Rick can get a sort of half growl going when he wants to, like a cat that does not want to be held.

  A moment passes while they eat. It’s soup and crackers night because Mom’s at work, and everyone hates soup and crackers night, so they’re all a little on edge.

  “Yeah, but why?” Charles finally asks, and because he annoys Rick less than Kat, Rick lays down his spoon and begins to explain.

  “Well, I don’t want to alarm anyone,” he says, which isn’t exactly what to say when you’re trying not to alarm anyone, “but I saw a report on the news about home invasions. It’s probably not going to happen, but we can never be too careful.”

  There’s no way he’d say any of this if Mom were home. Tiny and Nenny look at each other, eyes bugged. This is not the kind of thing they want to hear, not ever, and especially not when Mom’s gone.

  “What’s a home invasion?” Charles asks. There’s not the least bit of worry on his face, because Charles isn’t fazed by anything and, also, he’s kind of weird.

  “Well, son. It’s when strangers with masks and guns come into your house and try to rob you.”

  Clearly, this is the wrong thing to say.

  “What?” Kat yells, and Nenny feels like she might cry. And why shouldn’t she? Bands of armed men storming into the house? What the hell? Even Bubbles looks terrified. He’s not the most imaginative, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the dots between masked men and certain threat.

  “I mean, what I mean is…” Rick starts to backtrack immediately, but it’s hard to recover from an announcement like this. “Think about it. What with this economic downturn. People are just trying to make ends meet. It’s just…they’re…desperate. They’ve got bills too, you know!” All the stupid spilling out of his mouth overcomes him, and now he’s just sputtering words. If there’s one thing Rick hates, it’s stupid words spilling out of mouths. “It’s not a big deal. Just keep the damn doors locked!”

  Everyone stares at their soup. Nenny wishes desperately that Mom was here. Things always feel easier when Mom is here.

  Suddenly, Rick gets up and throws his bowl in the sink. Which is strange too because Rick is crazy about dishes piled in the sink. Without a word, he stomps upstairs.

  “Freaky,” Charles finally says, and who knows if he’s talking about masked men or Rick. After a while someone gets up and begins clearing the table, and then everyone else starts to clean up too. No one says much of anything until Mom gets home.

  They’re watching TV when she does. When Nenny hears the door open, she nearly jumps out of her skin—This is it! Masked men!—but then Mom comes in and there’s an audible sigh from everyone.

  “Why all the glum faces?” she asks, putting down her purse.

  “We thought you was a masked man,” Tiny says, taking his thumb from his mouth.

  “A what?” So Tiny explains. Something twitches in Mom’s eye, and she doesn’t even say anything, just nods and excuses herself upstairs.

  Next thing you know, arguing through the big bedroom door. It’s hard to hear much, even though the TV’s down, except Mom screaming, “They’re just kids!” and then more muffled arguing, and then more, until finally the whole thing ends when Rick shouts, “Just make sure they lock the fucking doors!”

  Fear #7: Home Invasion

  MASKED MEN have no scruples. They’ll just come right into your house like they own the place, start pushing you around and grabbing all your things. “What’s this? Is this a Nintendo? Are these real Nike shoes?” They’ll knock stuff around and threaten to kick the dog. (“Hey! Don’t do that! That’s our dog!”) They’re mean and they’re jerk-faced and they don’t care about anyone but themselves—which is how come Kat and them are going to get along.

  It’s likely going to occur when Mom and Rick go out one day, leaving Kat in charge. This always happens. They go off to do something fun, like buy groceries at Costco or bring food to Gramma B, and Nenny and the boys are stuck with Kat, who could make a total snoozefest out of the most glittering parade. She makes them lunch but has no concern for what they like, so it ends up being stacks of mayonnaise and tomato sandwiches, gross pickly things, the kind of crap only she would consume. She lets them watch TV but only what she wants to watch, and once she even has a boy over—which is so against the rules it could melt your face.

  Anyway, that’s what’s happening when the men break in: nothing. Life with Kat is a terrible bore.

  “Mayonnaise sandwiches, again? I hate mayonnaise!” Charles says.

  “Yeah! Mayonnaise is poop!” Tiny pipes in.

  “Eat your lunch or no TV,” Kat warns.

  “Who cares? We only watch what you want to anyway—”

  Suddenly there’s a rattling at the door.

  “Hey, did you guys lock the—” Bubbles starts but doesn’t finish, because just then bam! Three masked men come bursting in!

  “Shut up! All of you! Everyone on the floor!”

  Bubbles and Nenny dive to the floor because they always do what they’re told. (It’s one thing to sass a nun; it’s another to sass a masked man.) Tiny doesn’t move, just sobs. Charles, on the other hand, leaps onto his chair like there’s going to be a show, and Kat stands near the table with a hand on her hip, like What the hell do you want?

  Are all of Nenny’s fears this elaborate? Pretty much.

  “I said, everyone on the floor.” The masked man steps toward Kat, making as though he’s going to knock her out or some
thing, and she goes, “Uh, fi-ine,” like it’s two words, and lies down.

  “You too, champ,” he says to Charles, who happily jumps to the carpet. A bad guy called him champ! He’s beaming.

  There are three of them: a short one, a tall one, and one Nenny can tell is a lady because she has enormous breasts. The short one’s doing all the yelling, so clearly he’s in charge.

  “All right. Show us where you keep the dough,” he growls.

  “Dough? What do you want dough for?” Bubbles asks.

  Charles rolls his eyes. “He means cash, dummy.”

  “There is no cash, so just scram,” Bubbles, suddenly brave, says from the floor. That’s Bubbles for you: full of surprises.

  “Bullshit,” the little one says. He reeks of cologne and cheap hair gel. “We know your dad’s got a secret stash.”

  “He’s not our dad,” Tiny says.

  “He’s my dad,” Charles says.

  “Yeah, and mine,” Kat says.

  “Shut up,” Bubbles says, glancing at the masked men.

  “You shut up,” Charles says.

  “Screw you.”

  “Screw you!”

  Suddenly Charles and Bubbles are up off the floor, lunging for each other’s throats, which is strange because Bubbles never fights back.

  “Okay, all right.” The lady steps in. She pushes the boys away from each other and stands between them, a hand on each of their chests. Charles and Bubbles are seething, they’re just about to tear each other up, rip each other limb from limb, when all of a sudden they realize, simultaneously, like they’ve been struck by some mysterious spell, that the woman has ginormous breasts. Their eyes glaze over and fixate right on her boobs. It’s like watching someone get hypnotized on TV.

  “Everybody, shut up!” the little one yells, even though no one’s said anything for like a minute. Tiny and Nenny are curled together under the table, crying, their arms entwined. The interesting thing about an annoying little brother is that when masked men burst into your house, he’s not all that annoying anymore. It’s nice for Nenny to have someone to cling to.

  “Go upstairs and find the dough,” the little one barks, and the tall one scrambles off like an obedient dog. How’d the little one get to be in charge? What kind of life is that, where you just throw on a mask and everyone’s at your command?

  “Tie ’em up,” he says to the lady, but he doesn’t even look at her boobs—he looks right at her face, right into her eyes. It occurs to Nenny that they’re probably in love.

  Charles offers to help tie everyone up, then gleefully receives his own bit of rope. They all listen to the tall one rummaging upstairs: drawers banging open and closed, lots of clomping around. The stupid dog doesn’t even bark or try to save them. You can hear her in the other room, snoring by the TV.

  Tiny starts telling one of his dumb stories. “Manny Hernandez, his dad’s a security guard at a bank, an’ one time a robber came in and said, ‘Put all the money in this bag!’ an’ Manny’s dad, he was brave, an’ he hit that robber right in the head and knockded him out cold.”

  “Does that kid ever shut up?” the little one asks. He shouts, “Hey, kid! How about you shut up?”

  “Yeah, Tiny,” Charles says. “Shut up.” So Tiny does.

  After a minute or so of quiet, the little one says, “So…your parents leave you guys alone often?”

  “No. Yes. No,” Kat says, but she’s just not that into it, constructing a convincing lie.

  The lady starts eating one of the sandwiches, her red lips showing through the hole in her mask. “These are pretty good. Did you make these?”

  “Yeah,” Kat says, perking up.

  “Is that mayonnaise? I love mayonnaise,” and the little guy starts munching one too.

  “Why are you guys doing this?” Kat asks, not mad, just curious. They love her sandwiches, so now they’re all best friends. Kat and the masked people are gonna run off to some mall somewhere, steal loads of Guess jeans, gorge themselves on those nasty mall pretzels with the melty cheese.

  The little one, whose default is clearly defensive anger, barks, “Because we want to!” He looks down at them on the floor and must realize this isn’t a court of law, because then he softens.

  “Well, you know, also times are tough. What with this economic downturn. We’re just trying to make ends meet.”

  “We’ve got bills too, you know,” the lady adds.

  Kat nods sagely, like Ah yes, bills, of course.

  The tall one comes back. The other two rush to meet him, but the bizarre thing is, he’s not carrying much. Isn’t he supposed to have a giant pillowcase stuffed to the brim? Candlesticks and whatnot? Instead, he appears to be cradling something in his hands.

  “Boss! You’ll never believe what I found,” he says, and the other two rush to him.

  “Oh my!” the woman says.

  “Yes! Yes!” the little one cries. This is it! They’ve found it! They’ve finally found the thing that will set them free!

  But what is it? The kids are all wriggling around on the floor, straining their necks to see. After an eternity, the woman steps aside so they can get a glimpse. Nenny gasps.

  If Nenny expected some kind of massive diamond, even in her imagination, that’s not what she sees. It isn’t jewelry; it isn’t Rick’s secret pile of cash. It’s not a gold brick, nor is it some priceless antique. Rather, it’s a little stuffed dinosaur, no bigger than the tall one’s hand: bright purple, with warm stitched-on eyes and shiny plush scales. Dad bought it for Nenny on a whim—he saw it at the mall and thought she might like it, and he was right: she loves it.

  It’s the most valuable thing in the world.

  “Well done,” the little one crows and claps the tall one on the back. The masked people start cackling at their big find, even the lady, who for a minute there actually seemed kind of nice. Nenny feels like she’s been kicked in the gut.

  And then, like that, they’re gone. They don’t even bother untying the ropes.

  DIY

  COSBY GETS a boil on her neck so Mom and Rick decide to pop it outside. The dog looks uncomfortable and displeased. They lay an old towel out on the patio concrete and, on another, smaller towel, a neat arc of surgical supplies: a scalpel; some masks and gloves; alcohol and little cotton pads; some old rags to stop any bleeding that might occur; a second scalpel in case the first is dull, which it probably is. There’s also a brand-new syringe, sweating in its plastic sleeve, and a bottle of lidocaine that Rick stole from the hospital supply room—which is, of course, totally illegal. This is a true story.

  They’ve been fighting about it all afternoon.

  “On the patio? For Chrissake, Rick!” Mom never says “for Chrissake,” so this is the real deal. She’s pissed.

  “This is nursing school stuff, Marie. Level one.”

  “It’s barbaric!”

  “It’ll take fifteen minutes and then we’ll be done. I promise.”

  “Why can’t we just take her to a vet, for Chrissake?”

  But Mom already knows the answer to that, so it’s silly to even ask. They can’t take Cosby to the vet because Cosby is a gas station dog, not some kind of purebred wonder, and you just don’t take gas station dogs to the vet. Of course Rick would never say this out loud, and who knows if he’s even aware that he thinks it, but from all the evidence—the discount dog food, the fact that she doesn’t own any toys, no one takes her for walks (come to think of it, does she even have a leash?), she sleeps on a mat in the garage, and there’s a boil on her neck that they’ve let grow to the size of a grapefruit—the thinking is clear: a gas station dog is just not worth it.

  The kids aren’t allowed to watch, but they do anyway. Mom and Rick’s window is on the second floor and looks straight down onto the patio, and since the patio is an ongoing work in progress (another fight), it lacks a roof. It’s like sitting in the mezzanine above a surgical floor. They press their foreheads against the glass.

  “We should o
pen the window,” Bubbles says.

  “What for?” Nenny asks.

  “So we can see better.”

  “Yeah! And smell the blood!” Charles says.

  Tiny wrinkles his nose. “That’s gwoss.”

  “Shut up!” Kat finally says. “We’re not going to open the window because they’ll know we’re here.” She’s such a snot, but she makes a good point. Sometimes the flailing body needs a head, and painful as it is to admit, Kat is the head.

  They fall silent and their breath fogs up the window. The surgery hasn’t started quite yet. There’s all these elaborate pre-surgery rituals Mom’s going through, lots of petting and cooing. Rick’s busy sharpening blades and loading up the syringe. The whole thing is kind of awful—one story up, and Nenny can sense Mom’s horror and sorrow. How had they let it get this far? What have they become? And Nenny can see (God, how she can see) that if Mom could magically zip back through time to that moment at the gas station when a scraggly old mutt jumped into the car, she would, she’d go right back: take the dog to a vet and a grooming salon, get her washed up real nice, claws clipped, fur trimmed. Mom would go back to every morning they’ve had her and take the dog for a walk, for Chrissake, and give her a name that meant something—not just some stupid thing that happened to be on TV.

  But there’s no such thing as zipping back through time. She leans in close and puts her nose against the dog’s nose and nuzzles behind its ears. Rick’s ready. He flicks the syringe like they do on TV and then it’s in and Cosby goes floppy and relaxed and lies very still. Rick opens his fingers, and Mom lays the scalpel in his hand.

  What happens next is kind of expected and not really a big deal: Rick makes the first cut. The blade doesn’t glint in the sunlight; blood doesn’t come squirting out. Rick just makes a small incision and there’s a little bit of blood but not much, and Mom hands him some gauze to press on the wound. It’s all very measured and slow.

  “Is that it?” Charles says, because he’s a boy and boys always want more blood.