I tiptoed down the hallway. At the end of the hall was the master bedroom, which Mom always kept locked unless she was “entertaining.”
Tonight the door was cracked an inch.
I crouched to look through the crack. I knew I shouldn’t, but I did.
Mom was on the bed, half-dressed in her inside-out t-shirt, sweaty hair pasted to her forehead.
The guy was behind her, big and hunched, hands wrapped around her hips so tight his knuckles went white. Mom’s eyes were open and staring at the wall, lips moving even though no sound came out.
For a second, I thought maybe she saw me, that our eyes were glued together like when you stare too long in a funhouse mirror and can’t look away from the warped version of yourself.
But her gaze was empty, like she’d already left and her body forgot to follow.
There was a sound I didn’t want to think about, and the man slammed forward so hard the bedframe squealed on the tile, and then everything in me went cold, and I ran for it.
I ducked into the bathroom. Sometimes the only safe place was the bathroom, with its yellowed nightlight and the ceiling spider that lived near the vent.
I sat on the toilet lid, hugging my knees, and tried to count the scuffs on the floor. If you got to a hundred before you heard a knock, you could skip a disaster; that was my rule, and it usually worked.
I was at forty-three when the man’s voice thundered through the house: “Hey, little spy! Get your ass out here.”
It wasn’t a question. It was the kind of voice that got used to being answered, and I hated it immediately.
I stayed put, and in a few seconds his shadow hulked in the frame and he was staring at me with eyes like stained glass: pretty on the outside, but if you looked too close they were just chunks of color glued together.
I thought maybe he was going to hit me, or drag me back to Mom’s room and make me apologize for something I didn’t understand, but instead he yanked me by the wrist, so fast I didn’t have time to untangle my knees.
He smelled like hot dogs and gasoline. His palm was enormous, dry and rough, like old leather. He bent so close I could see the red veins in his eyes, the spiderweb cracks in his teeth. “Didn’t your mother teach you any goddamn manners?” he whispered, then yanked me into the hallway, feet dragging against the carpet.
“Kids like you oughta be kept outside ‘til they learn some respect.”
He opened the front door and shoved me out into the cold like I was just another stray cat begging for food.
The air bit at my ears and made my eyes water. It was so sudden I forgot to be scared, mostly just felt insulted, like the world was tripping me on purpose.
He slammed the door behind me, and then everything was quiet except for the sound of the TV through the wall and the far-off hum of cars on the road.
I was wearing only socks, cotton pants, and a rumpled t-shirt with a faded unicorn on it, and the first thing I learned about winter in Pathosbury was how it could make your bones feel like glass.
The porch was slippery with black ice, and I carefully walked down the steps, hugging my elbows, blinking hard against the wind that clawed tears out of my eyes. It was the kind of cold that licked your skin and kept licking, like a mean dog that just wanted to see what you’d do.
I could’ve gone next door to the Larchmonts, but Mrs. Larchmont called Mom too much, always with her voice syrupy and fake, reporting on our “well-being” and asking if we wanted to come over for hot chocolate and “goodies.”
Lillian hated her. I hated her, too, but mostly because I knew Mom did, and I didn’t want Mom to think I was a traitor. Loyalty was important in our family, even if it only pointed one way.
So I just walked. The snow was hard and crusted on top, and every step made a crunch like biting into stale cereal. My feet went numb pretty quickly, but it didn’t bother me. Numb was better than hurting.
The whole world looked like it had been dipped in blue-grey ink. The sun was hidden behind the clouds of winter, and everything was cloaked with white.
I liked that. It was easier to imagine yourself as a shadow if everything else was a shadow, too.
I walked. I walked until my toes burned and then didn’t, until my lips cracked, until I was so far from the house I could pretend it didn’t exist anymore.
There was a dead squirrel frozen in the gutter, tail fluffed up, paws in the air like it was waving hello and goodbye at the same time. I thought about laying down next to it, just for a second, just to see if I could become part of the ground, part of the hard quiet.
I could have just circled the block, but some part of me liked the feeling of getting lost, maybe even hoped for it a little.
I imagined myself falling through a trapdoor in the sidewalk and coming out somewhere warm and bright. A place where pancakes came in stacks and no one yelled about who finished the milk.
