You know you wish you were me Read online

“Nothing.”

  “Did you touch her?”

  “No grandma, I told you it’s not like that. I wanted to help. I wanted Ann to help her. I’m a fuckin stupid idiot, I get that. Don’t you think I get that?”

  “I don’t know why you had to do this,” Vivian lets go of his ears and turns, again, to check that the girl is still on the couch. She is.

  “Because I love Ann, and I just thought…” he takes a wobbly and deep breath and stares at her.

  He is still a sad little boy, she thinks and tries hard not to feel sorry for him. She turns to watch the little girl on the couch. She looks like a zombie. Her shoulders are hunched over and her legs are hanging loosely to the ground. Twenty four hours before, she was safe and her parents were probably not worried that anything like this would happen. But now it has and her grandson is responsible. She does not feel sorry for him at all. She just wants to see the back of him.

  “OK, this is what’s going to happen, you’re outta here. You’re on your own. I’m gonna take care of this, but you gotta leave. Tonight. I mean it”

  “I don’t got nowhere to go.”

  “Well, you were smart enough to get her here, you can get yourself

  somewhere else.” Vivian looks over at the girl then back at Jay. “You go get your shit together. If you’re not out of here in one hour, I’m calling the police.”

  “You’re not gonna call them now?”

  “Go get ready.”

  Vivian sits in the lazy boy next to the couch and watches the girl. She has finished eating.

  “Why don’t you lie down and have a rest,” Vivian says in the sweetest voice she can manage.

  The girl pulls her legs onto the couch and stares up to the ceiling. Vivian hopes she is not afraid of spider webs.

  Jay is back in the room with in five minutes. He’s put a sweatshirt on and his eyes are wet. Vivian stands up and walks him over to the door to the garage. She wipes tears from his cheeks.

  “I don’t want to see you for a while. I don’t want a reason to tell anyone about this you hear me?” Jay nods, drops his head down and sobs quietly. “You look at your grandma. I’m giving you a gift right now. You say thank you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t hurt me anymore, you understand.”

  “Yes.”

  Jay wraps his arms around Vivian. She tries very hard not to cry as well, she breathes his scent in deeply and lets go of him. He turns to the door and shuts it behind him, softly and firmly. Vivian stands by the closed door and listens to his car drive away.

  Vivian goes to the couch and looks at the little girl sleeping, mouth open, breathing loudly. Her hair is a nice chocolate brown, with big curls, her face sweet like a kid’s should be. She feels sorry for whoever is missing her. She shakes her awake gently.

  Vivian takes the girl by the hand and walks to the garage. She feels the resistance of the unwilling child. She doesn’t look back at her face, she just keeps walking. She needs to secure the house. The police do it all of the time on the shows she watches. She never ever thought she would have the opportunity to secure anything. But here she is, bolting the big garage door with the lock Jay put on.

  She turns off the lights in the garage and bolts the door from the garage to the house. Then the front door. This would constitute as the grand tour for the girl. Vivian stops for a second and worries that maybe the girl could be making a plan to escape based on everything she sees as they secure the parameter. So she looks at the girl, who is crying, silently.

  She’s too upset to do anything, Vivian decides.

  She continues. Their hands are sweaty and Vivian’s is sore from gripping the girl’s so firmly. She fumbles for the right key to each lock. They all look the same now that she has to use them in quick succession. She hasn’t really used all of the house locks in a while, and she remembers it was because of the keys being so difficult when all she wanted to do was go to sleep.

  The three bolts and the handle lock on the front door are secured, she moves through the living room to the sliding glass door. The curtains are closed and she has to put her arm under the edge of the curtain by the handle lock. She doesn’t want to risk a neighbor seeing anything. She never knows if someone has got their binoculars fixed on her back patio at any given time.

  She hears a couple whimpers from the girl. It’s bedtime.

  This is going to be tricky. She thinks of drugging them both. Sleeping pills for the girls and uppers for her. She doesn’t need them, she won’t sleep anyway. There is always the possibility this little girl could hit her over the head with something if she dozed off. No, drugs are a great idea.

  The girl stands at the kitchen sink, with her hands in front of her while Vivian grinds a sleeping pill into a mortar. She had considered just half, but this girl would be fighting sleep and the longer she is dozy, the better. She dishes out some ice cream and dusts the pill on top, then pours chocolate sauce over the dust.

  She’s uses this recipe herself on sleepless nights.

  She grabs the girl’s hand and takes her back to the couch. The girl takes the bowl of ice cream silently.

  Vivian watches as the girl eats each bite, slowly. Too slow as far as she s concerned. She thinks about telling her to hurry up, but this is a fragile situation and she knows it. She cannot risk upsetting her and her staying up all night. She needs her to finish the ice cream and pass out.

  She is proud of herself for exercising such restraint. In the old days she wouldn’t even think about the consequences of interrupting a child’s eating, TV watching or their sleep. If she was ready for them to be finished, she forced them do what she wanted. But now, and granted the situation is totally different, this child is a stranger and her own family was familiar to her, now she understands the need to sit back and wait. It will make this whole situation go much more smoothly and that’s what she wants, no dramas. No surprises.

  When her daughter was 15 Vivian got the surprise of her life – a grandson.

  Vivian knew where her daughter had been staying, knew the address and the reputation of the house and knew she shouldn’t go there, but she had anyway.

  The place was filthy. She had brought homemade muffins and a casserole. Her daughter was happy to see her. Happy under a thick haze of whatever it was she had taken a short time before.

  The house was worse than Vivian had expected. They went into her daughter’s bedroom where Vivian brushed the young girl’s hair. They talked about Dale and his job and the daughter said she thought he worked too much and that she worried about him. Vivian took this chance to compliment her on her sensitivity and said they were worried about her as well.

  This changed the whole situation and the daughter flew into a rage that Vivian had experienced once before, the day her daughter left the family home. That was the day she ripped her bedroom apart and cut Vivian’s arm with a broken picture frame. Vivian believes it was an accident and holds no hard feelings and told no one the truth, not even Dale. The stitches came out fine and the scar is easy enough to cover up.

  “You don’t know me, you have never known me. This is my life. My life,” they were the same words again. Vivian left the house and the food she had made. Left not knowing how long it would be until she saw the girl again. She realized on the drive home that she did not know how long it had been since she related to her daughter. And maybe this was all her fault.

  Vivian thought about calling the police and reporting the place, but Dale, cool-headed, patient Dale, said “Stay quiet for a while, honey. She’s our daughter and we didn’t raise her to live like that. She’ll come home when she needs a good meal and a hug.”

  One day her little girl showed up on their doorstep without warning holding the little boy. And just like Dale had said, she had a meal, a shower, a cuddle in front of the TV with her dad while Vivian dug baby clothes out of the back closet of the spare room.

  As she rummaged through the musty closet, she did the mat
h in her head and realized her daughter must have been at least three months pregnant the last she saw her.

  Until that point she had only ever thought of her as a young child. She decided she must have lacked some fundamental aspect of parenthood. Doomed by unknowing. Maybe that is why she wasn’t able to have more than one child. She wanted so badly to have more than one, but it just hadn’t happened. Part of her was also jealous that her daughter had had a child.

  They tried for years, but she didn’t get pregnant. Now she is thankful because she knows what it is like to lose a child, she knows she has the power to drive someone out of their house into a dirty place where there is no love at all. She is thankful they only had one. Anymore would have killed her.

  In the morning, their daughter was gone again, but she left the baby.

  “What are we gonna do Dale?” Vivian said loudly as she bounced the crying baby in her arms. He was heavy and wriggly and even though she had given him a good bath the night before, he smelled. Not a normal baby smell, it was a mix of cigarettes and car exhaust.

  “Poor boy, you poor poor boy,” she said as she brought him close to her chest. He calmed down a little.

  She sent Dale to the grocery store for bottles, formula and diapers. She wasn’t sure how long Jay was staying, but she was darned well going to be prepared.

  After she heard his car drive off down the street, she started to cry. She had been holding it in ever since their daughter presented this little man to them. But it wasn’t a happy cry. They were the tears of a woman whose worst fears of failure had been set out before her. They had been set out and now they had woken up and were doing a little dance of celebration because they had won. She was an awful mother. The proof: a drug addict teen-parent daughter, willing to abandon her child.

  When did things go so wrong? They never hit her, she was not abused in any way. She always got what she wanted. She didn’t have to share, there were no siblings. Dale had a good job, they went on vacations, took her to Disneyworld, Las Vegas. She got nice clothes for school.

  Vivian had never had an explanation as to why their daughter chose to live such a disgusting and harmful life. Maybe there was no explanation. Maybe, as her psychologist said, she is an addict and there is very little anyone can do for an addict until that person wants to do for themselves.

  But as her mother, Vivian believed she could help her daughter. Believed that she was the answer to her troubles.

  So she cried as she looked at Jay because she didn’t know for sure how to do things differently for him.

  Vivian is startled by a loud knock on the floor.

  The girl has dropped the ice cream bowl. She has fallen asleep and there is melted ice cream on the leg of her pants. Vivian picks up the bowl and goes to the kitchen to get a washcloth. She wets it and rushes back to the couch. She grabs the quilt from the edge of the couch, the one she uses every night when she watches TV and she puts it over the little girl’s body.

  She looks at the little girl sleeping, mouth open, breathing loudly. Her hair is a nice chocolate brown, with big curls, her face sweet like a kid’s should be. She looks nothing like her own daughter or Jay and that is a good thing. This is a fresh start and chance to do things right for once.

  She goes through her drawers. She is not a big woman, but she doesn’t have much that would fit such a small girl. She finds a wrap skirt and a cardigan.

  “Stupid boy.”

  ******

  TEN

  There is no reason to scare the girl, Vivian decides in order to gain the child’s trust, she has to be nice. She has to be a good guy.

  Vivian is laying on the floor of her bedroom. She has been there most of the night.

  “It is going to be a good day,” she whispers.

  She is excited and happy to have something to do. Today is going to be so different than her usual routine of watching the news and maybe a golf tournament before going to the grocery store to buy the food for the week.

  For the last 15 years, Saturday has been about Schroeder’s Market. She starts with the fruits and vegetables, moves on to bread and, ever since she found our about her lactose intolerance, she has had to walk swiftly past the dairy section. It’s been two years, and although she feels much better, she’d still like to stop in front of the yogurt and cheese and throw handfuls into her cart.

  Once in a while she allows herself a small tub of ice cream, which she eats in her car in the parking lot of the store using a plastic spoon from the deli section. She only eats a couple of bites then throws the rest away.

  There’s the obligatory chat with the meat guy. Then it’s over to the soda aisle where she grudgingly loads up the cart with Jay’s Mountain Dew – a 12-pack of cans for work and three two-liter bottles for his fridge in the garage. Everyone has their vices. Hers are the news and Malibu with ginger ale.

  She didn’t really sleep at all. How could she?

  It is all a little hard to believe, actually. Like something in a crime show. She loved crime shows. She preferred the ones on TV. Movies were over so quickly. She liked series. She liked characters she could follow week after week. She related to a lot of the stuff she saw on those shows. The drugs and the death. She had lived a little bit of everything.

  And now this. Having this missing child in her care. Last night she listened to the radio every hour. On the news there was no mention of a missing child.

  She thought there could be several reasons why it hadn’t been on the news.

  First, maybe the parents were bad people, or druggies, maybe they didn’t care. If so, this would be a good place for her to be. Vivian does care and she is going to take very good care of this little girl.

  She felt that was unlikely though. The girls manners and nice clothes made her think that someone takes good care of her.

  Second, maybe the police were following other clues and they didn’t want the media involved. Didn’t want to spook whoever it was that has taken the girl. She laughed when she thought of this because she is that person. Well, Jay was, but if they came here now, they would think she was that person.

  Third, they could have Jay right now. This thought stressed her out. He wouldn’t be able to keep a secret. Anyway if they found him and the girl’s hair and other evidence all over his car then they’d be here soon. They could show up any time now.

  Jay probably slept in his car last night. She hopes he has some money. She can’t remember the last time they had a conversation. It’s either her telling him what to do or him slamming doors in her face or her slamming the door on him because he’s lazy and watching TV in the garage, surrounded by garbage and drinking that goddamned Mountain Dew.

  She shakes the sleeping child lightly by the shoulder. When she sees Vivian, the girl is startled and starts to cry. Vivian shushes her and rubs her head. She quiets and Vivian suspects it is fear rather than ease that makes her behave.

  Her stomach aches at the thought of being the person scaring this little girl.

  “You take a shower. There are towels in there for you. When you’re done, you wrap that robe around you. I’ve got some nice clothes for you to wear. Then we’ll have breakfast,” Vivian chooses her words carefully. If things get bad, she doesn’t want anyone to think she had intentions of hurting this child.

  The girl goes into the bathroom. Vivian sits outside of the door, waiting. When the girl is done, she comes out in the robe, most of which surrounds her on the floor. Vivian goes into the bathroom and collects the girl’s clothes. She starts to fold her little shirt and sees a name written on the tag in black permanent marker.

  “Evee,” she says excited.

  The girl turns quickly, with an angry look on her face.

  Vivian is ashamed for a second then puts herself back in charge.

  “That’s a nice name. You hungry?”

  Evee nods.

  “OK, let’s get you dressed then we’ll pig out.” Vivian pushes out an unconvincing laugh. The girl has no response. Vivian fe
els a mix of excitement and sadness at the sight of the little girl, Evee. In any other situation, she would be happy to have her here for a visit. They could play dolls and brush each others hair like she used to do with Jay’s mother when she was young. Vivian finds it hard to believe her daughter had ever been young, she got old so fast. She pushes away the bad feelings in her chest and tries to focus on the here and now.

  She hands Evee back her underwear and tells her to change into the clothes on the bed and leaves the door to the bedroom open just a little to give her some privacy. Then Vivian tightens the odd fitting skirt with safety pins and buttons the cardigan to the top even though the weather report said it is going to be a hot day.

  Vivian feeds her toasted waffles with maple syrup and orange juice. Evee sits still and doesn’t look at Vivian much. Vivian feels on edge. Things were better when Evee was sleeping. Now she feels like the bad guy and she is the good guy.

  Evee, I just want you to understand that I’m not going to hurt you, Vivian says in her head. In her sincere voice. The one she only uses in her head. All of her other voices are dishonest. All of her other voices try to cover up her real feeling.

  Evee chews and stares at her plate.

  “What grade are you in?”

  Evee stops chewing.

  “I asked you a question, honey.”

  “It’s summer,” Evee says, after a what seems to Vivian like a big swallow of food.

  “Oh, right. Well what grade are you going to be in, then?”

  “Secant,” Evee says. Her voice is soft and Vivian stops herself from correcting the girls’ pronunciation.

  “Wow, second grade, that makes you, what, six?”

  “I’m seven,” Evee’s shoulders are almost touching the edge of the table and her hair is hanging, still a little wet, all around her face.

  Vivian feels some food caught in her throat and her stomach shifts. I am doing the right thing, she thinks. She has to think this.

  “Oh, right. Sorry. Seven’s a good age. Lucky number, you know, seven.” Vivian hears a chirpy laugh escape from her chest. “Um, what do you want to be when you grow up, then?”