She’d heard that the weather didn’t try to kill you with heat or cold, and that was just fine for her. The most damage Seattle could do was a misty rain that made you feel a damp sort of sleepiness. Juno hadn’t taken much with her when she’d left Albuquerque, only what she could carry in her thrifted suitcase. Just a handful of memories, among them Kregger’s reading glasses, which she occasionally used.
She ended up moving into the Turlin Street house fifteen years after Winnie and Nigel purchased it. By then, all the renovations had been finished and the downstairs had a small apartment with its own entrance. The first time she saw the house—red brick in front of a backdrop of purple-gray clouds, like some sort of painting—she’d sighed. She wasn’t there to see about a place to live, just to admire the house in its Gothic beauty. But then the opportunity had presented itself, and Juno had taken it. She was in deep need of change, and the house on Turlin had beckoned her. Juno had stood rooted to the sidewalk as someone drove by blasting music. She took the first steps toward her new home as the singer sang “I knew that it was now or never...”
Their son, a lean bean with sandy hair and blond eyelashes, seemed equally as puzzled by his parents as Juno was. She often spotted him shaking his head at them when they weren’t looking, like he couldn’t believe the stupidity. She suspected that Samuel scored high on the Wechsler, higher probably than both Winnie and Nigel combined. Juno had seen it many times over the years, parents bringing their children in for Juno to fix like they were appliances instead of complex individuals. You couldn’t fix a child—they didn’t need fixing right out of the box. Kids just needed a healthy example of love to thrive beneath. He found her sitting on a bench by the water just yesterday, and they’d had the biggest and best of heart-to-hearts. She was certain that she was the only person with whom Sam could discuss his interests, as disturbing as they may have been to anyone besides Juno. And she had told him that as they sat next to the lake—the lake that she had described as “Calm as rice.”
“Calm as rice?” he had laughed, grasping at his abdomen and rocking his head side to side.
“That’s right,” Juno said. “Calm as rice.”
“I’ve never heard that before.”
When he had sat down next to her, his eyebrows were drawn. He looked more like an unsure child and less like the opinionated boy she’d grown to know.
“You know some of the most famous serial killers of all time are from Washington?”
Juno had leaned back on the bench, frowning up at the yellowing sky. “Let me think,” she said. “Ted Bundy!” She looked at Sam, who nodded enthusiastically.
“The Green River killer...what was that fellow’s name? Gary something...”
“Ridgeway,” Sam finished.
“Yes. That’s right.” Juno nodded.
“Yates, and um...yes, there was that one man who was truly evil. Targeting children—just disgusting. Dodd,” she ended with a smack of her lips.
“My parents freak out when they see me looking at that stuff online.”
“Well, do you blame them? If your mom was obsessed with watching violent car crashes every night before bed, wouldn’t you be concerned?”
“My mom is obsessed with a lot of things that concern me.” His face was blank, but she saw the humor in his eyes.
Juno couldn’t help but smile. The kid had a sort of wry adult sense of humor.
“Moms are obsessed with mom things. Kids are obsessed with kid things. Nothing wrong with having different interests and loving each other the same.”
Juno was surprised at how easily she slipped into the counseling role after all these years. She was also surprised at how flat her words sounded.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m not even their kid.”
“Maybe you’re not,” Juno said it casually, her tone light. Wasn’t there a time in every adolescent’s life when they convinced themselves they were adopted?
Sam is a special boy, Juno thought to herself now as she stood in the doorway to the bathroom, her gaze sliding over the bottles of perfume and lotion that sat on the subway tile next to the bathtub. She completely avoided her own reflection, already knowing what she would see and not wanting to see it—the raw, red butterfly mark across her nose and cheeks. She would see the puffy, jaundiced eyes, and she would see skin mottled like a duck egg.
She slipped the light switch on and stepped inside. She shuffled through the door, her back still stiff from the way she’d slept last night, to the sink where glass bottles were arranged around a silver tray. Eucalyptus, tea tree oil, jasmine. Juno chose from the rows and carried them over to the tub. This was her favorite part of the day, when she had time to let the water ease the pain from her body. She let the water rise as high as it could, and then, lowering herself into the water, she made the sounds a very old, very tired woman made. She tried not to look down at herself as she sank to the bottom of the tub, though she caught flashes of bony thighs, the skin so vellum-thin she averted her eyes.
She’d enjoyed her chat with Sam at the park yesterday. But now, lying in this tub and recollecting the moments she spent with him, she found that the therapist she had retired years ago was stirring inside her again.
Sometimes I feel like I’m not even their kid, he’d said.
It means nothing, she told herself. Just enjoy your bath.
Juno opened her eyes. There was no clock in the bathroom, but she knew what time it was by the light reflected on the wall. It was time to get out and move on to the next thing.
* * *
It was late afternoon, and Juno’s hair had dried to a springy gray halo—erratic curls that would shoot up instead of down. She tugged on one as she made tea, another nervous habit that had accompanied her from childhood. Her hair had been red once, but that was a long time ago, when she drank gin martinis and smoked clove cigarettes. Another life and another woman. Everyone had wanted to touch it: fat red curls that fell to her waist. Old women often stopped Juno on the sidewalk to comment on the color and tell her they used to pay for color like that. And now Juno was the old woman. The corner of her mouth lifted in half amusement as she sipped her tea. She was less funny-looking now that she was older, or maybe her eyes were the problem. The tea was strong and sweet. Juno drank it fast, thinking of her pain pills downstairs in the haven she’d made for herself. She was running out; she’d counted six last time she’d looked. She’d have to count on the Crouches to bring more. Juno’s mood turned sour; the tea suddenly tasted wrong in her mouth. She hated relying on people. She dumped the rest of her tea down the sink and went about cleaning her mess, a new worry ticking at her brain.
At four o’clock, Mr. Nevins from next door parked his Tahoe right outside the living room window, and Juno poured herself a finger of Nigel’s whiskey even though she didn’t like the stuff and had pretty much given up drinking. She carried it upstairs to the sitting area that looked down at the park. She always felt prickly at this time of day, knowing they’d be home soon. They filled up the house with tension: often sexual, other times just the naked, ugly kind.