Going Down Swinging Part 11

Yeah, giant super-huge creep. I hate her guts. You should've seen her today, she was in fine form-she's a big hag and I bet she has warts on her b.o.o.bies, and she blushes and ducks her head into the baby as she giggles. Charlie giggles back. Why shouldn't she. She's practically her mother.

You bring two cups of tea with milk and sugar to the table, tell Grace one's for her, knowing she'll want it because she's such a big tea-hound. She says maybe she should put the baby in his chair so she doesn't burn his b.u.m or something. Charlie laughs and helps her put the baby in his seat, adjusts his soother, and he's asleep before they can get back in their chairs. Hey, I almost forgot, and Charlie goes into her diaper bag, I pa.s.sed by a bookstore this morning and I saw something in the window you might like; I think you're old enough now.

You're just settling into your chair as Charlie pulls out a thin green and white children's book that says, Where Did I Come From, Anyway? on the cover. It's about how babies are made, she tells her. Grace snaps it up before you get near it, flips it open and fans through pages of line drawings and thick print until she gets to one of a man lying naked between a woman's spread legs and stops dead, scanning the text till her cheeks flush again and she turns the page fast to a giant egg with dozens of sperm zipping toward it. Charlie giggles.

You pluck the book. Anyone mind if I take a look at this first?

Grace yaps a Mummy! at you and swings a paw to get it back, catches a page and you know she's not going to let go and this is not a fight you want to have in front of Charlie, who has just said, Well, Mum, she's almost nine, it's probably time she started learning the facts of life now. Better than finding it out the hard way in five years!

Exactly! her little sister says.

You let the book go, afraid it'll rip and all h.e.l.l will break loose. Yes, well. Honestly, and you try to keep the tone playful. I don't see Grace running the streets at that age. Charlie's face drops, edges toward a glare. You say, Well for G.o.dsake, I mean I've never kept any secrets from you kids, I answer every question she has as they come up and I just think, well, I just think I should be the judge of what she reads about this subject, that's all. I'm not being a prude, I'm just-I am her mother, after all.

Well, I've read it and I think ... I think it's comprehensive and progressive, really. And I think it's cool.

You glance at the back of the book in your child's paws and see A comprehensive and progressive look at basic s.e.xuality as told by Doctor ...

Well, be that as it may ... you say, and the two of you lock eyes. Unbelievable-who the h.e.l.l-Grace is back to staring at the naked couple, sees she's been caught again and flips to the front of the book.

Well, I wanna read it, it's my present, Charlie gave it to me, not you. Anyway, why shouldn't I read it, everybody's doing it-you, you had s.e.x before! and she cackles and brings the book over the lower half of her face.

Charlie looks at you. Look, see, she's curious, and now you've made her all embarra.s.sed.

Oh, for G.o.d's sake, Charlie, I didn't make her embarra.s.sed, she's embarra.s.sed because all her friends are embarra.s.sed. Quit making everything about me.

She gives an exasperated sigh. I just meant you won't let her see it. And anyway. I'm not making this about you, you're making it about you. I didn't make you feel guilty, you did. Because you don't want her to read a normal book about the birds and the bees. I bought it so she could just read it and you wouldn't have to feel all weird talking to her about sperm or whatever.

Isn't this charming: your judgment usurped by a recently knocked-up, all-of-eighteen-year-old tramp, posing as a-as a what-an all-knowing earth mother. And you're supposed to keep your mouth shut. That's the beauty of it. You have to be civil and maintain decorum while she casts her eyes like aspersions and dares you to just try it, pick another fight in front of Grace-tell your children how you know best, as evidenced by your fabulous track record.

Grace gives you her cartoon smug-face. So you say, Go ahead, read it, see if I care, I'm sure there's nothing there you don't already know. And you do for Charlie your best imitation of Grace smuggery. And the tone of your voice is echoing in your head, are you talking too loudly? But Charlie's laughing some kind of laugh, the nervous hollow one the family uses for certain situations; can't remember which ones just now.

Grace Eight.

OCTOBER 1974.

I WAS IN GRADE 4 probably around two months when Charlie told us her and Ian, the albino guy, were going to move to the States. Ian's dad was American and worked with a sportswear company in Portland, Oregon-he said he could get Ian a real job, not just hustling in pool halls-Ian said he was going to take care of Charlie and her baby, Sam, even if Sam wasn't his. Charlie made it sound kind of fun in a way, like everything would be different once Ian got with his family. And he had a big family, a real one with a mum and dad and aunts and uncles and cousins.

The night after I heard, I laid awake trying to picture Portland. It sounded like Vancouver but better; people would live in sunny houses and have tans and boats and yellow jackets and good jobs with sportswear companies. I wished she could take us with her.

The day before she left, she brought me early birthday presents: Winnie the Pooh and Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, all hardcovers, she said, patting them like kittens, and held me in her lap on the edge of Mum's bed. Mum was propped up on pillows. Sam was in his baby seat on the floor watching us. Charlie's chest shook against my back and her arms wrapped around my ribs while she looked over my shoulder, keeping her cheek on the side of my head. Tears wheezed through her nose and she stuffed her face in my neck. My own throat was strangley and burning and I told her not to get snot on me. She giggled and wiped her cheeks and started to make scared-voice promises: she was going to start a new life in the States. She didn't have a phone number or an address or stuff yet, but as soon as she was settled I could visit her. She hugged my back to her front and whispered that everything would be different.

After Charlie left, I went back and sat on the bed, my feelings all mangled so I had no words, and weaved my toes in and out of each other. Hairs on my arms stuck up like cat whiskers testing for close stuff, but it was getting so hollow where we were. If we could just take off, go to some other city, Mum'd get better again, get a job again. And maybe George would come back and come with us.

Mum groaned and reached for her bottle of 222s. This was her best in three days of lying there; she was sitting up some and talking a little. "Well, that's that," she said, and she dropped her hands on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "She hates my guts, doesn't she?"

I said no, but I kind of wasn't sure. Charlie seemed like she wanted Mum to say something before she left, beg her out of it or tell her to come live with us again. But Mum couldn't take living with Charlie any more. Mum couldn't take anybody but us two.

"I love her, I do. I just can't stand her," and her chin and lips wobbled. We sat quiet like that a couple minutes, her wiping her eyes and me just staring at the air. Like a brain cloud, like Sheryl said.

Mum tried to sit up. "Oh s.h.i.+t." She ducked her head down and held on to her forehead with one hand. "Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph," then "Will you go in my top drawer and find my yellow pills-um, in the left corner," and she fell back into her squashed pillow.

I put her last yellow one in her mouth and she jerked her head to help it down. She stared at the ceiling a second, then said, "What about dinner, have something good for you, have a carrot and some meat and-uh. Christ, my stomach feels like the bottom of an old birdcage."

"Theres nothing hardly left, just, well, there's Jell-O, but it's kinda crusty at the top now. And there's cake, I made chocolate cake. And I was going to go to the store but there's no money in your purse and um-" I'd put ten of the secret emergency money in a bank account Mum started for me a few months before and the rest I spent on a new Danskin like Sadie's and a baton. I was going to start baton lessons next Sat.u.r.day morning.

I picked at the Explorers badge on my blouse. I'd started another group the week before, kind of like Girl Guides, where we wore uniforms (a white blouse and navy blue skirt) and sat in a circle singing campfire songs with good manners and stuff. Today was my second once-a-week meeting. I got Mum to sew the badge on my blouse before she got sick, and it turned out we put it on the wrong pocket. I started to ask the leaders why it mattered, but they gave me the a.n.u.s look, the one about how unmanageable I was. Felt like all the girls looked at me that way-a whole circle of a.n.u.s faces. I figured I'd probably quit. Maybe after the Halloween party.

Mum moaned again. "Oh. I feel like a big pizza."

I was still depressed about Charlie. "We don't have any money."

"Where's-did we give Charlie her Family Allowance cheque?" My sister's cheques were still getting mailed to our place and I forgot all about the last one, which made me feel even more bad. "Sweety, come on, don't be sad, Charlie's not gone forever, you know she always comes back and she'd want to cheer you up if she could. So why don't we cheer ourselves up. It's the least she could do, walking out of your life yet again." I decided Mum was right, Charlie was the one who left and besides, we couldn't get the cheque to her before she went away anyhow.

Mum ripped open the envelope while I looked up Pizza in the Yellow Pages. I wrote down all the stuff we wanted and Mum signed the back of the cheque and "extra cheese," she said, "I feel gooey tonight." I dialled Gigi's Pizza-the trick was to not ask if they took welfare cheques until they showed up with a large with everything on it.

We polished off everything except one piece and sat on the bed, brus.h.i.+ng off our hands over the box and laughing at what good scammers we were. Mum told stories about when she was young and I screened phone calls. She also let me take her old nail polish off and paint on new stuff. Her hands were mostly stopped shaking, but I liked to be the one to paint her. I had to get rid of two phone callers before I got a coat of Peach Caravan on every nail.

Being Mum's secretary was practically my favourite thing to do. You had to have a good ear-memory and be able to tell who the voices were plus remember if Mum liked them right now or not. She was sick of most men and some women and my job was to say she was out and have no idea where she was and then pretend to take a number and hang up. I could tape-record almost the whole conversation in my brain, so after I hung up I could tell her the words exactly and how they said them. Once in a while I got to tell a guy to get lost, she didn't want to hear from him again; that hardly ever happened, but it was the best.

Her nails were still wet from the second coat when her friend Doreen called. I held the phone to her ear while she drooped her hands out like rained-on flowers and told Doreen that her manicurist was on a tight schedule so be quick about it. I could hear Doreen's loud gravelly voice from the earpiece.

I don't know why they suddenly got to be friends, but it seemed like they liked each other best when they were drinking. Doreen was a friend of Alice and Ray's, Sadie and Eddy's parents, and I saw her around their house or sometimes at Rays used-furniture store. She was usually drunk and swearing and laughing at all the wrong times and wearing too-small clothes in super-bright colours that kept almost showing something every time she moved. She was around Mums age with long black hair, high on top like a country singer, bright blue eyelids and frosty pink lips. Doreen was the only one lately who could get my mum out of bed by just talking on the phone a little. Mum talked a lot of pig Latin with her and the ee-iz language.

After three or four minutes she said goodbye and I hung up the phone. Mum stretched. "Well, I'm feeling not-too-baggy now."

"Wanna piece of chocolate cake? Actually, never mind, this one's no good, it's all salty, I think I must've put salt instead of sugar or something or maybe I put a tablespoon instead of a pinch or something."

"Yick. Why do you keep making chocolate cakes anyway? Seems like you've made about ten in the last month."

"I don't know. It's fun. I like measuring the stuff and I like icing it afterwards, making all those swirly-doos with the knife. And plus, it's nice to offer cake to guests when they arrive." I did like doing all the cookbook steps, but it was also because I kept hearing them say, "Tastes as if it was made from scratch," on cake-mix commercials and when I found out what it meant, I never wanted to buy another cake mix. I wanted to make my own just so I could say, "Here, would you like some Scratch Cake?" whenever I could. It sounded cool.

Mum snorted. "Guests! Well, la-dee-dah. Like who? Who comes over here?"

"Like. Well, guests! Like Josh maybe, or like Sadie and Eddy. Or Doreen even."

"You're one wacky dame, kiddo."

I cackled at her. I liked it when she called me a dame or a broad and I was just about to say we should pack up her pillows and blankets and go watch TV in the living room when she told me she was meeting Doreen in a while.

"Why! You're sick."

"Well, I'm not doing too bad now and I need some fresh air and the thing is, we haven't got a dime in the house." She sat up and pulled off her nightie and held it in front of her b.o.o.bs. "Can you pa.s.s me my bra hanging on the doork.n.o.b there?-and a friend of mine owes me some money, so we're going to go over and say hi and maybe I can get us a little moolah."

I pa.s.sed her her bra. She looked tired, her eyes were deep in her head and the skin was drooping off her arm-bones. It took ages for her to get her bra on and I didn't help, just told her, "Be careful of your nails." She asked me to grab her a pair of underpants from her drawer. She wanted a good pair and I couldn't see much difference. I said that and "Who's going to see them anyway?" "Well, I might get in a car accident." Then she got up and went to her closet, turned back around and went through the stuff tangled in sheets at the foot of her bed. She found her baby blue sweater and held it up in front of her, looking for dirt. She sat at the foot of the bed to scratch off some crusty yellow gook on the sleeve, then pulled it over her head and did a fast makeup job before the garter belt, stockings, skirt and shoes came on. Then more scrounging in her dresser while she tried to bribe me-she said, "How 'bout tomorrow night we get some junk food and play switcheroo-it's a good TV night, isn't it, isn't tomorrow night when Happy Days and Good Times are on?" She dropped a string of beads over her head. Switcheroo was what we called it when we couldn't decide what to watch and one of us jumped up and switched fast to the other show during the commercials or when we got bored. It was fun and there was action, but I was crabbed at her right now. I shrugged and looked at a hunk of pizza crust on the floor. I knew I should clean up a little, at least my own stuff, at least change the litter box, but I didn't feel like it. I figured most of it was hers anyway-the bottles, and they were mostly her clothes chucked around the room. A lot were probably mine too, but I made chocolate cake yesterday, I cooked; my work was done. The sink was full of cake dishes and Strawberry Quik milk gla.s.ses and they were starting to stink, but I was more in the mood to bust them all and make her get new ones. I thought about going downstairs and remembered Josh had some hockey-thing tonight. He decided lately that he wanted to try and be a jock-guy. Which reminded me about my baton lessons starting and I figured maybe I should just stay in and practise. Last time I'd tossed my baton I busted a vase, so I definitely wanted to practise tonight.

It was getting light out when Mum came in the next morning. She stunk when she kissed me and I couldn't get back to sleep. There was another hour before I had to get up and my eyes were stinging from staying awake to watch a horror movie.

I got up and tripped over a beer box she'd left in the doorway. In the kitchen I hucked the pizza box off the counter onto the floor so I could sit where it'd been and eat the last piece; cold pizza for breakfast was the best. I thought about getting Mum to order it more on school nights so I could have it for breakfast. Fast and good-for-you. She was snoring. She snored more when she was sick like this. We should go to Portland, I thought, maybe she'd go back to eating vitamins and brewer's yeast and reading Adelle Davis and maybe she'd take up sailing and Ian's dad would introduce her to a tall guy with gla.s.ses like George.

When I got home from school, nothing was changed. Except she had a bucket beside her bed again and she was whimpering. I still never did the dishes and everything smelled like sour milk and cat pee. Henry was sitting on the kitchen counter meowing. His litter box was in the corner of the kitchen and he went on the newspaper under it instead of in it today. I figured it was a hint that he'd go in my bed next if I didn't do something. The phone rang and my mum whimpered again.

It was Eddy. "Hi, what're you do-" and then banging and Sadie's voice, "He said for me to call, stupid-Grace! Guess what! Your dad's here." I thought she was about to tell me some dumb joke until her dad grabbed the phone. "Hey, Grace? Hiya, uh, guess who's here, I got Sadie to call in case your mum answered-your dad's here! At the store! He's sittin' right in front of me, right this minute!"

I took the phone down the hall and whispered, "My dad?"

"Yeah! Can you get down here? He'll be here for a little while. Don't tell your mother, now,-can you get down here?"

"Um. Yeah. At the store?"

I hung up and tried to get his face in my mind. I could sort of see him. Or maybe just hear him. Actually, I didn't know if I'd even recognize him. Mum coughed and asked who was on the phone. I told her it was Sadie and I was going out to play. Then the buzzer went. It was Doreen. Mum was too sick for her right now, but I buzzed her up anyway.

I opened the door to Doreen wearing a silver coat with a bottle of wine under one arm and a white bag that smelled like food under the other. Tons of makeup on, like she thought she was Miss America, as usual. She barged past me, saying, "Hi hon," and tromped her high heels to the bedroom. "Jesus, Eilleen, you look like s.h.i.+t. But looky here, doll, I brought you a little hair of the dog and a scrumptious barbecue chicken." Mum made a noise like she was going to barf. Doreen untied her coat. "Christ, open the window; joint smells like something died."

When I got to the store, my chest was killing and my spit tasted like blood from running so hard. I shoved open the door and the bell jingled. Everyone was at the back of the store, so I moved through the faded junk and old armchairs and lamps, throw rugs and wood cabinets, being careful not to bust anything. Someone whispered "Grace" behind me. I turned fast and knocked my head against a lampstand, then grabbed it before it wobbled right over. But there was no one there. There was no time for them now-no whispers, no voices. I turned around fast to make sure no one saw. I kept going to where Ray was chuckling and Sadie and Eddy were hollering at each other about whether white chocolate was really chocolate. Then the English Lady laughed in my head and said, "You are little more than a dog." Something got knocked over and what sounded like a million beans bounced on the floor. "Shut up!" I was grateful for her sometimes, like now when everything was loud like Sadie and Eddy and the beads bouncing and whispers. Except that I said "Shut up" this time, not her, I think. Because it got so quiet I tripped and fell on one knee.

A man on a stool swivelled around and watched me get up. It was my dad all right. "Yeah, you kids shut up back there," he said in a babyish voice over his shoulder at Sadie and Eddy. He grinned at me and stood up and held his arms out. I stayed where I was a second with my knee aching until I could breathe again and went to him, not knowing what to do with those arms-shake hands? Stand between them and get hugged? I couldn't remember us hugging before.

Sadie and Eddy were quiet a second, one of them poured another handful of the b.u.t.tons back in the jar and they both said hi. Ray grinned from me to my dad. "She's big, eh! Skinny as a b.l.o.o.d.y Biafran, but she's gettin big."

Dad was still grinning. "Com'ere and say hi to the old man," he said and put his palms on my ears. He didn't hug me exactly, he sort of patted my arms and shoulders like I just fetched a stick. He leaned down and we kissed each other's cheek. It was stiff kind of, and I was nervous about being there, telling lies and being a traitor, and worried the Shut Up Lady would start yapping at her dinner people again and I'd get all confused and he'd think I was stupid. So he said, "Hiya, how y'doin'? Sure are gettin' big. You're gonna be tall like your mother."

I smiled. Didn't know what to say. I wished he didn't bring her up. So Ray talked again. "She looks like you, though, eh Danny? Same kinda crazy eyes. Eilleen's always sayin' she looks like a wolf," and the two of them chuckled. Sadie and Eddy were back to arguing. Ray told them to simmer down and go play in the traffic.

"You like school?" my dad asked. "What're you in now, grade 3?"

"Four," I said, bugged that he didn't know. I stood a bit away from him now; I couldn't get comfortable being too near; I couldn't make him and "Daddy" go together. It would've been easier over the phone. Now it was all weird. He asked how my mum was. And then I got a big hunk of guilt where I used to have b.u.t.terflies. She was fine, she had the flu today, I told him and felt like I said too much. He watched me and asked if I was ever going to come back to Toronto to visit him. I said maybe, then probably not, then that I probably wasn't allowed. The least I could do was show that she still said what went. Even if we were sneaking around behind her back right now, she was still Mum and he'd be stupid not to know it. I wanted to say how she was better than anybody he knew-smarter, funnier, prettier and taller, with redder hair and nicer nails and bigger b.o.o.bs and higher heels, and she was crazy about me. And plus: if it wasn't for me she'd be dead because she told me so and that's more than I can say for you, buddy. "So I can't be here too long cuz I'm helping out around the house today." He smiled and nodded fast, then reached for his back pocket. I all the sudden noticed how perfect his slacks looked, how they fitted exactly to his waist, with no wrinkles except where his legs bent, and the s.h.i.+rt, how clean and orange it was. The collar was big and pointed and perfect. He took out his wallet and flipped it open.

It reminded me of this time in Toronto when I went with him to the used-car place he worked at. Four or five guys were there in the office, sitting at a round table, smoking and telling stories, laughing crackly laughs and talking like the guys Mum pointed out in old movies. Guys she called heartthrobs, like Frank Sinatra and Tony Curtis. My dad's friends held their cigarettes and cigars the same kind of way, with their shoulders and heads tilted the same way, their eyes squinting, smoke curling up beside their noses. I wondered if they were like TV or TV was like them. Dad said, "Hi, what's doin'?" to the guys at the table and hung his coat on the rack. He told me to have a seat for a minute while he talked to Minky, in the back office.

I sat down beside Dad's friend Jacky. Jacky'd been at our house once. He took a drag off his cigarette and tilted his chin back to have a look at me. His eyes were sparkly blue and he had eyelashes like a pony. "How old are y' now, kid?"

"Seven."

"Huh. Got lots of boyfriends?" I shook my head and made a barf-face. They all chuckled and sipped their drinks, or flicked their smokes in the ashtray. Jacky reached in his pocket, took out a quarter and slid it to me with one finger. "That's for you." I grabbed it and said thankyou fast.

When Dad came out of the back room, I showed him and he made me give it back. I handed it to Jacky, grounding my teeth. From now on, I was keeping my mouth shut. Jacky picked some tobacco off his tongue, flicked it and winked at me. He glanced over his shoulder at my dad's back as he put his coat on. "Well, good to see you again, sweetheart," and he took my hand in between both of his, squis.h.i.+ng the quarter against my palm. He winked one of his squinty eyes again. I winked back and dropped the money in my mitt before I put it on.

My dad's baby finger stuck out with a fat gold ring on it as he pulled a ten-dollar bill out. "Here. This is for you, yer birthday's comin soon. Y'can get yerself a present." I took it and felt my chest falling into me. I wanted to get the money out of here before he changed his mind.

I said, "I think I'll put it in the bank."

His eyes sparkled up. "That's good. That's real good," as if I just did a perfect handstand or fetched a stick again.

I kept going. "Is my bank account that you opened for me in Toronto still open?" He said it was. "Cuz I was thinking maybe I should get that money and bring it to my bank account here. So I can really save it, you know? Could you maybe send it to me? Cuz there must be lots now, with the interest, huh?" I figured the five dollars he opened my account with would be around a hundred by now. After all, he told me he put a few more bucks in at my birthday last year and it'd been almost two years since we opened it. He chuckled and nodded.

Ray smiled hard and leaned against the counter, tapping a pen. "Chip off the old block, eh Dan-apple doesn't fall far from the tree." And they both laughed. I figured laughing was a good sign and I'd have my money in no time flat. As soon as he got back, he'd send it and Mum and I could use it to do whatever we wanted. I folded the ten and put it in my back pocket, then took it out again. "Maybe I should hold it so it doesn't fall out, huh?" My dad nodded and Ray laughed. "OK, um, well, I have to go, cuz I have to help out around the house." He patted my back and Ray told his kids to pipe down back there before he brained them.

Walking back home, I was all weird and quiet inside. I hugged my arms around my middle-sometimes that helped make the voices go away. They got tricked into thinking someone was with me, I guess. There were no voices then, but I just wanted to trick myself anyway. I wasn't with him hardly any time. And I didn't know if it should be a secret. Or nothing. Just a visit. Just another way to get ten bucks. And maybe she'd be proud of that. Or maybe she'd get mad and sicker.

Doreen was gone when I got back and Mum was curled on her side with a plate of chicken and rice beside her on the bed and a gla.s.s of wine on the nightstand. I stuffed the ten in my back pocket again. Mum said hi without moving. I asked where Doreen was. Mum said she took off without hardly saying goodbye but that I should have the chicken and rice she brought. I took the plate in the light to make sure it didn't have any spilled wine or hairs on it. Didn't look like Mum even touched it. I bit off some chicken and then spilled my guts-"Daddy's here. He was at Ray's store and I went down to see him."

She was quiet a second, then, "Son of a b.i.t.c.h," and quiet and then, "Why didn't you tell me you were going to see him? I probably would've said no."

I forked some rice in. "Well. Good that I didn't ask then." She glared at me and grumbled something in her pillow. "It was just for a minute and he gave me ten bucks." The chicken skin was the perfect crispiness and I folded it and stuffed it in my mouth.

She lifted her head. "Oh, he did, did he? Ten whole dollars. Stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d." She reached for her wine, took a sip and set it back. "Ten bucks! Isn't that charming as h.e.l.l. He doesn't pay a dime for child support but he can dole out a pittance and look like a big f.u.c.king shot. This ... s.h.i.+t hole-and he gives you ten bucks. La Dee Dah." That was twice she said la-dee-dah. It bugged me. Doreen said la-dee-dah. And usually Mum never said stuff like "s.h.i.+t hole" either.

I swallowed, "Yeah, but Mummy-"

"Mummy nothin'. G.o.dd.a.m.n p.r.i.c.k. Ten bucks. From now on you tell me if he calls here. I don't want you alone with him, and if he ever comes to your school, you don't go anywhere with him."

I kept stuffing my face. "Why not? He's my father," and she said nothing. "Mum!"

"Because. I said so."

"Why!"

"Because he might just grab you-that's why. Kidnap you and take you back to Toronto. You think you're so smart but that kind of stuff happens, you know, men stealing kids from their mother and n.o.body hears from them again." She reached for the wine and knocked a bottle of aspirin on the floor.

"He is not going to grab me. He didn't even hug me. He can't just grab me-I could escape! n.o.body can just grab. You're being goofy." I scooped the rest of the rice up in my fingers, dropping some down my s.h.i.+rt and on the bed.

"I mean it, Grace, I mean it. I'm telling you, if I ever lost you, if you ever disappeared, if anything ever happened, I'd die. I. Would. Die," and her eyes welled up. "Just please do what I say and don't be a smarta.s.s ... please." She hugged the side of her pillow. I finished the rest of the plate.

The buzzer went. It was Doreen. Again. I didn't want her here. "Mum's just sleeping right now."

"Yeah, sweetheart____" (static scratched through half of what she said) "____OK, so I just gotta come up for a sec." I wiped my mouth and thought a second, then buzzed her in, listening by the door before I opened it. There were other feet; she wasn't alone. She was bringing people over? Fine, then-she was going to get the big kiss-off like the guys on the phone. I opened the door to her and two cops.

The cops smiled and scrunched their leather. Doreen's smile looked all like she felt sorry for me or something. "Let us in, sweetheart. You see this," she said to them and flapped her hand at me. She yanked one of the cops by his sleeve and I moved out of the way. She waved her arms and her silver coat around, yapping away in that voice of hers that sounded like a crow with a hangover. "She's got a little girl here and she's taking pills and booze-she's trying to kill herself. She's gonna end up dead and this little one here-just come on and take a look at this place, she's trying to kill herself." And they all clunked down the hall to the bedroom. My heart started going and I couldn't figure out how to stop them. Too many people. And there shouldn't be cops. And they shouldn't be looking at her when she's sick. I ran after them. Wis.h.i.+ng Sadie and the Shut Up Lady would scream their guts out at them all.

One cop moved in to the head of Mum's bed, talking all slow and dumb, like she was about three. "Hi there, what's going on? You've got some people pretty concerned about you here. Have you been drinking?" And he picked the empty bottle that the yellow pills used to be in off her night table, while the second cop poked around and Doreen blabbed about dying and the child and pills and booze.

I yelled over her and the cop, cuz they were acting like I wasn't there-"She has the flu, she's just taking 222s. It's just, it's for a-she's trying to sleep and she had a headache." The second cop backed me out and took me down the hall while I tried to catch what else they said behind me.

He sat me down on the couch and I suddenly remembered Henry's litter box because of how bad it smelled. Mum's voice was small and shaky from the bedroom. The first cop clomped back toward us and left Doreen in there. The two of them sat on either side of me on the couch with their belts and holsters squawking every two seconds. I got up and started back to the bedroom. "That's OK, maybe you oughta just stay here and have a chat with us." I didn't see who'd said that, but I stopped and sat on the arm of the chair. Henry jumped on the coffee table and tiptoed around it until they patted him.

"He's a pretty nice kitty. He's got nice stripes," the first cop said, and I wished he'd shut up so I could hear what Doreen was up to now. "Your name's Grace, is that right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm Officer James and this is Officer Duncan. Have you had anything to eat today? Did your mummy make you any dinner?"