“What the hell are you doing?”
four
i freeze. Mom’s voice, knifing through the heat, finding me right between my shoulder blades. She’s supposed to be at work, north of the high school and nowhere near here.
“Margot?” Gram says in my ear, but I don’t respond. A shiver in my skin, breath coming shallow. I keep the phone pressed to my ear, the cord clutched in my fist, and turn around.
Mom’s standing on the sidewalk, our station wagon idling at the curb behind her. Hands in the pockets of her work trousers, head tilted, and my body rattles with panic. She’s too relaxed. That’s how she is before the worst of it, always.
Lie, I tell myself. Lie, and apologize now, before she can ask for it. If I pull the pin myself, the grenade will hurt me less when it goes off.
“I was just calling your office,” I say. She’s been out—she won’t know it’s not true. “I was gonna see if you wanted me to bring you lunch, but—”
“Give it to me.”
She holds out her hand. Gram’s gone quiet in my ear. Just the hush of her breath. She’s waiting too.
“It went to voice mail,” I start.
But Mom just says, “Now.” It jolts through me, sends me stumbling to one side, making room for her in the phone booth before I realize I’m even moving at all. I drop the phone into her hand.
She doesn’t say a thing. She’s looking right at what I left on the counter. The Bible I bought back from Frank. The photo of Fairhaven, and the message written on the back.
She knows. She has to know who’s on the phone, what I’ve done. Still, she lifts the phone to her ear and she says, “Who is this?” Like she’s hoping more than anything she’s wrong.
She isn’t. And Gram must say something, because I watch it happen. I watch Mom turn into me. The look on her face, suddenly nervous, frightened, and the hold of her body, the hunch of her shoulders, one arm curled around herself. That’s mine. That’s what she gave me, shelter and cower.
Vera is the woman who taught her to be this kind of mother. A flash of pity in Mom’s eyes, of recognition, because she knows. She knows what it feels like and she still did it to me.
“No,” she says into the phone at last. Her voice is a quivering little thing. “I can’t.”
This feels wrong. I shouldn’t be watching. But I can’t stop, because I’ve seen Mom angry and I’ve seen her afraid, and I’ve seen her with a fire between her fingers and a smile on her face, but I’ve never seen her like this. I’ve never seen her belong to anyone. Not even to me.
A pause while Gram talks. Mom turns her back to me. I watch her clench her fist tight, nails digging deep into her own skin.
“No,” Mom says again. “I told you then I was never coming back, and that’s all I have to say.”
Gram’s turn, but it’s quick, and Mom shakes her head. “I’m not,” she says. “I’m not doing this.” Stronger now. She means it. If Mom has her way I will never see Gram, and whatever bridge we just built between us will never be crossed. And I can hear Gram now, loud and wordless from the speaker. If I listen hard, if I wish harder, I can make it my name she’s saying. Come home, Margot. Come home.
Mom takes the phone from her ear. For a moment she doesn’t move. Neither do I. Both of us holding our breath, until she hangs up so hard the receiver clatters back off the hook and dangles there on the cord, swaying back and forth.
“Hey,” I say, as gently as I can, but Mom whips around, so close the ends of her hair snap across my cheek, and I stagger back, into the sprawl of the sun.
“Why would you do that?” she says, frantic. Her skin flushed with anger, scar standing out white. The Bible on the ledge behind her, catching the sun. “You went to Frank’s? You went through my stuff? I told you never to go to Frank’s alone, Margot. I told you.”
“What?” Another fight for the notebook. “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Just like you told me about her?” I say, gesturing to the phone. “Just like you told me about Phalene?”
She flinches, and of course she knows the name of that town. It’s the place we’ve been hiding from all my life.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mom says. Something animal about the curl of her lips, something I’d be afraid of if I were smarter. “You have no idea, Margot. You talked to her for thirty seconds and you think you can give me shit?”
“For lying to me? Yeah, I do.” It’s climbing up my throat, the real thing I’ve been wanting to ask her ever since that first day I wrote Nielsen at the top of that notebook page. “Why didn’t you tell me about her, Mom?”
“I’m not doing this here,” she says, straightening her shirt and tucking her hair behind her ears. “I’m not fighting with you in the middle of the street.”
She’s locking herself back up, but I won’t let her. There’s nobody around, the sidewalks empty and glazed with heat-shimmer. And I’ve kept this down for so long, so long. Until today, when I heard Gram say my name. “Didn’t you want me to know I have family?” A tremor in my voice, a break. I hate when I get like this, when I let her see how much I care. “Didn’t you want me to know there are people out there who love me?”
“That woman,” Mom hisses, “does not love you.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “What the hell would you know about it?” And I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t take it so wide when there’s plenty to be mad at right in front of me. I am supposed to be quiet, I am supposed to be good, but I was born at war and I can only keep from fighting for so long. “You barely even know I’m here half the time. I take care of myself—I do that for you. You could thank me, you know.”
“Me thank you?” Mom smiles. I can’t stop my mouth from curling in answer. Fighting is when I feel closest to her. She drops her guard and lets me near enough to see her then, because that way she can hurt me.
“Yeah,” I say. A flare in my gut, a warning. This is bait, and I shouldn’t be taking it. But it broke something inside me—Gram on the phone, and Mom nowhere near remorse for keeping me from her. She doesn’t care, so why should I? Why should I pull any punches for her sake? “Yeah, you thank me. Thank me for making a life out of your mess.”
For a second she looks like I’ve hit home. It can’t be real, though. When has anything I’ve ever said mattered to her that much? And it’s gone in a moment, papered over by a grim determination. It must have been nothing. Just the sun in my eyes.