“Mom…”
Sylvie’s delicately traced eyebrows rose, a reminder to Josie that her parent did not want to be called that.
Mom
or
Mother
made her seem so much older, she’d said.
Sylvie scooped salad into her bowl, and Josie fixed a pitcher of tea. Barking noises came from another room. “Colin’s cough is not getting any better,” Josie said.
Her mother stared at the hall.
Josie found the table’s crystal sugar dish empty and grabbed a canister from the counter. The embossed container had been scrubbed. No sugar granules remained. Two envelopes leaned inside. Josie removed them.
Past due
was stamped on both.
“I thought you paid these.” She held them out.
Sylvie barely glanced at them. “I was going to. I just forgot.” She flitted to a drawer and took out sterling silverware. “Forks to the left, knives on the right. And these nice napkins in those wooden rings will look lovely.” She peered at Josie. “Did you see these napkin holders? They were so attractive.”
Of course Sylvie couldn’t pass up buying them. Josie still held the unpaid bills.
Her mother set down the new napkin rings and flurried away from the room. She would be escaping to her fantasy world.
Josie found her mother in her bedroom. Sylvie stood on white plush carpet in front of mirrored closet doors. Two of the open doors revealed fine dresses and scores of shoes arranged in orderly rows. Sylvie looped a muted amber scarf around her neck. She turned to see different views of her profile. “Do you like this, Josie? I thought it would look good with the highlights in my hair.” She leaned to make her hair lower to the scarf. “But now I’m not sure.”
She drew that scarf off, replaced it on the hanger, and took another. This scarf was royal blue silk, its price tag dangling. Sylvie flung the scarf over her shoulder. “Don’t you like the way the light makes this shade almost glitter?”
Josie knew that what she’d paid for the scarf would have taken care of one of the bills in her hand.
In the mirror, Sylvie caught sight of Josie’s scowling image. “You worry about every little thing, Josie.”
“If you can’t take care of these, I will.”
“No, those are mine. I told you, I just forgot. But I’ll take care of them.”
Her gaze slid back to her own reflection. “When your father gets back, he’ll remind me of all those little things. Don’t worry so much. It creates wrinkles.” Sylvie changed her expression to erase the indentures in her own forehead. The creases disappeared and she smiled.
“Your father never forgets anything.” She loosened the scarf so it draped over one shoulder, the mention of her husband making Sylvie beam.
Josie touched the scarf and it slid into her hand. “He won’t contact us.” She slung the blue silk over her own shoulder. “We don’t even know where he is.”
Sylvie lifted and dropped her shoulders. Her gaze captured Josie in the mirror, and for a moment she appeared almost her own age. Then her gaze turned to look inside the closet. Her face softened and she grabbed a woolen wrap and draped it near her neck. “He’s going to love this new body. So smooth.”
Sylvie straightened her head. She slipped her hands down her trim hips. “Not one extra bulge.” She turned to view her bedroom. “And Jack will adore the way I fixed up the house. No clutter. Everything neat and in place, exactly the way he likes.”
Josie’s breath caught in her chest, a sense of horror gripping her. The remaining parent she and her brother had was sinking much farther from reality than she’d imagined.
She left their mother to study her image and found Colin’s bedroom door shut. A sliver of light underneath it let her know he might be studying. More probably he would be lying across his bed, taking a short nap before dinner.
In the den Josie stared at the dialysis machine.
The gray metal and clear plastic sat like any other cold machinery, but by the next afternoon, those items would spring into action and pump, continuing Colin’s life. This mechanism would keep him company. At least Sylvie had made that concession. She’d allowed the ugly machine to remain in sight and mar her house’s perfection. Josie had limited the clothes in her own closet to leave space for the two-week supply of materials needed for Colin’s treatments. Near her hanging clothes sat boxes of needles, tubes, sponges, chemicals to add to the bath, and red plastic bags needed to line the trash can and discard the tainted items. Sylvie would have wanted to keep the dialysis machine’s water supply in there, too, but it was almost the size of a washing machine and wouldn’t fit. Finally she’d conceded to allowing the container to sit in a corner behind Fred.
Josie glimpsed back and shuddered, envisioning her mother before the mirrors. Sylvie was becoming even less available to her children. Suppose she decided Colin’s equipment needed to be put away like everything else that took away from her idea of perfection?
Needing more air, Josie strode out the front door.
She shut her eyes to the night’s blackness, threw back her head, and sucked in a deep inhalation. Taking deeper breaths, she tried to make the slight breeze force horrible thoughts from her mind.
Something fluttered against her side. Josie noticed she’d left her mother’s new royal blue scarf over her shoulder.
From the corner of her eye, she spied something else. A dark car was parked in front of the house across the street. A driver may have been inside it, but she couldn’t be certain. Their long front lawn and the maple trees blocked her view.
The car resembled the sedan that had seemed to follow her. Maybe the Fletchers who lived there recently bought it. That would explain why the car trailed her here.
But the Fletchers had no children. Why would they be around the school?
Uncomfortable with that car close by, Josie wanted to check it out. But suppose someone was sitting in the dark inside it?
“Don’t be silly,” she whispered to herself, summoning the courage to go closer.
Josie stepped down from the stoop. Her foot bumped into a soft item. She looked down and smiled.
A shiny red ribbon topped a huge bundle of pink toilet tissue. An attached note said “Enjoy! Your savior. Again.”
Laughing, Josie glanced about hoping to find Andrew’s motorcycle hiding.
Only the evening’s light traffic slid down their street. No sign of Andrew or his bike. And no more sign of the dark sedan.
The wind picked up, bringing with it a slight chill. She rubbed her arms, grabbed the gift, and stepped back inside.
Colin labored around the den. He glanced behind the recliner and on both sides of the sofa.
“What are you looking for?” Jolene asked.
“My practice cleats.” He heaved heavy breaths. His eyes appeared drawn together. “Maybe I left ’em in your car.” He started toward the kitchen.
She scooted past him. “I was going out there, so I’ll look for them.”
He dropped to his chair.
Josie located the shoes beneath the front passenger seat. She grabbed them, feeling a slight brushing of softness against the front of her shoulder. Barely attentive to the scarf’s falling, she wished the still-black shoes she carried away were scarred with scuff marks and grass stains.
She returned to the kitchen and joined the others for dinner. Colin’s plate held the small portions of meat and green vegetables he was allowed. Sylvie picked at her salad, seemingly oblivious to the conversation she and Josie had in her bedroom. The only sign that it actually took place was the colorful scarf delicately pinned at her shoulder.
After their silent meal, Sylvie rose, straightened the empty chair left for her husband, and insisted on doing the dishes alone. Colin wanted to watch a little TV.
Josie went off to her bedroom. She relaxed immediately in its soft natural textures and warm colors. She had brought her furnishings with their neutral tones from the apartment she’d rented, and insisted upon using them to replace the ruffles Sylvie had in this room. If Josie stayed much longer, she might like to freshen the room with new curtains, but that could wait. Much more important would be helping Colin.
Their mother’s ideas needed to return to the real world. What the family required and what she wanted were entirely different. She and Josie were splitting household expenses, and that arrangement had worked for a while. But in the past months, Josie had watched their mother doling out more and more on herself. It seemed as if Sylvie could not get pretty enough. She couldn’t get enough new things on her body.
Despondency settled inside Josie. No longer did obligations for her home or children seem to matter to their mother.
And their father did not seem to remember they existed.
Worn with concerns, Josie lay across her bed and phoned Andrew.
“You are such a considerate man,” she said once he answered. “You provide everything we need.”
“Everything significant.”
His cheerful voice made her smile. She envisioned his head cocked and his grin. “You certainly know how to take care of a woman.”
“I deliver tissue or anything else of importance.”
“I’m sorry I missed you. You must have come over while I was waiting for Colin.” She sighed and pressed the side of her head against her pillow.
“Josie, are you okay? Do you want me to come over?”
She wanted him to. But she would want him to lie here with her. And she wouldn’t do that with her little brother at home. “Who’s at your place?”
“Just Johan and two of his German friends. But you could come, too, or we could go out somewhere alone.”
Josie wished she could but
felt too weary. They agreed to spend more time together the next day and clicked off.
After changing into a large soft T-shirt, Josie read about fashion design, hoping to finish the thirteenth chapter. But try as she might to keep her eyes focused, she found her vision blurring the words. Soon she was dreaming of huge bows on stacks of crimson toilet paper. The stacks sat on the hood of a shadowy dark sedan.
* * *
In the morning yellow light blinked through treetops and Josie’s window. She awoke, showered, and dressed in shorts. Cartoon characters screamed and scattered on the den TV, but Colin wasn’t watching them. In the kitchen, Josie glanced out the window.
The patio swing’s chain was moving.
She angled herself to see if Colin was swinging, but the phone called her away.
Sylvie’s friend Jacinta wanted to speak to her. She had forgotten Sylvie was working an early shift at the jewelry store for their special anniversary sale. A talkative woman, Jacinta kept Josie on the phone so long that Josie forgot what it was she’d wanted to do. She made a note for her mother to return her friend’s call.
Rushing to start Saturday chores, she wished the doctor’s office would be open so she could bring her brother in to get checked. She vacuumed each of the bedrooms and went to plug the vacuum in a wall socket in the den. A newsflash on TV was breaking in. The man who had strangled women on the coast had not been found yet. The victim’s photo came to the screen. Libby. She looked as pretty as Josie remembered her in the supermarket. Sadness engulfed her, especially as she thought of Libby’s family and how distraught Mrs. Antonelli had appeared.
But Mr. Antonelli hadn’t seemed sad. Possibly his wife had not been his first, and he wasn’t deeply connected to Libby. Of course, anyone should be sad to learn a young woman died.
Josie snapped off the set. Scouring the room with her vacuum, she couldn’t find even a thread to suck up. Sylvie had always been neat, Josie recalled, hearing the whir of the machine she pushed and not hearing a clink to say she suctioned anything. But their mother had never been as fastidious as she was now.
With the mindless chore, Josie analyzed that each time their father walked out, Sylvie became more meticulous.
And every time he returned, he and Sylvie seemed so happy. Jack Aspen would comment on how beautiful his wife had become. The house looked terrific, he’d say. And Colin was dressed neatly. Josie looked pretty.
Then all too soon, he would leave them again.
Sylvie normally appeared worried right afterward, but never voiced fears to her children. “Your daddy will be back soon,” she’d tell them, and Josie and Colin learned to repeat that lie to their friends and themselves.
“He’s just gone off to work,” Josie told other kids.
It isn’t me.
She whipped the sheets off her bed now and then grabbed sheets off Colin’s and Sylvie’s beds. She smoothed clean sheets on, put some used linens to wash, and went out for Colin.
He wasn’t on the still-moving swing.
“Colin,” she called.
The only sound responding was the squawk of some bird. Josie glanced to see what kind it was and noticed the pampas grass parting as a figure pushed through. The outstretched arm trailing behind with its extra-long jacket sleeve left no doubt of who it was.
Josie moved to the grass. Why had Maurice been out here, now twice in one week? He hadn’t spoken.
A strange thought came: Maybe he couldn’t speak. He had those other problems, the slight limp and twitch of one eye. She knew so little of him except that his large, otherwise lethargic grandmother used to become enlivened whenever she spoke of him. “Maurice has always been a wonderful grandson. Didn’t he do a good job on the grass?”
Maybe, Josie thought, her family needed to invite him over sometime.
But at the moment, where was Colin?
She strode to the garage. Only her car was inside, and her bicycle and Colin’s, sore reminders of what they used to love doing together. In the last year and a half, his interest in riding had dwindled along with his strength.
Josie rounded the house to check the front lawn. Children’s voices rang out from the direction of the Allens’ house.
She crossed the grass and carefully stepped across LauraLee Allen’s dwarf daylilies before walking over the driveway to their side door. Pressing the doorbell, Josie saw curtains at their bay window parting. She waved, and the curtains fell.
No one came to let her inside.
Again voices erupted, unmistakably Colin’s and Annie’s. The two were inside the wooden fence in the rear that enclosed the swimming pool.