“How well do we really know anyone?” Maria said. “And she's a child. I shouldn't say mean things about a child.”
And that's when Dayton started to cry. It shocked Maria at first. Even though Dayton has lived across the street for months and months, they've never really said more than “hello” and “nice weather” and so they don't really know each other. And here Maria was, lying on her kitchen floor in her bathrobe with someone she just met and the woman was crying. Carrie took her finger out of her mouth and screwed up her face to cry. But then, just as quickly, she plugged her finger back in and stopped.
“I'm sorry,” Dayton sniffled. “It's just â ”
“Oh, I completely understand,” Maria said. But she didn't. She had no idea why this woman was crying in her kitchen. Maria thought, I should be crying. I'm hurt. I'm lonely. I have no friends who ask me to play hockey. My kid doesn't like me. I'm angry all the time. My husband â
“It's just.”
“Yes, yes, yes. No problem at all.”
This went on for a bit. And then Dayton wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and got Maria a Robaxacet from the bathroom cabinet. She left a little while later. She had to put Carrie down for her nap.
Now Maria tries to roll over. The dark has completely set in. Tom and Becky have been gone for about an hour. Maria heard their voices carry down the street and disappear. She heard them come back for the car, and then drive off again. “Dog, Dog, Dog . . .”
Fucking dog, Maria thinks. What about me?
The kitchen tiles are filthy. Hair everywhere. Is that an olive slice from the pizza under the dishwasher? A hair clip beside the chair leg? It's amazing what you see when you get down to the level of the mess.
So many things to worry about. A woman alone on her kitchen floor. A dog with no name lost out in the dark. A stranger crying in your kitchen. This is when Maria realizes that she never called in to work. She missed a whole day of work and she didn't call in and they didn't call her. No one called. All day. Except Becky, when she was at Rachel's after school.
Didn't they wonder where she was? Didn't anyone worry about her? Or miss her? There was supposed to be a meeting today, Maria remembers. About a new insurance policy her company is considering. Better drug plan. Better dental. Maria wasn't there and no one noticed. Maria starts to get teary just thinking of it. She would have liked to have given input. She would have liked to have said something about orthodontists and prescriptions. Especially if pain killers were covered. And maybe physiotherapy coverage. Or massage.
On the news the other night there was a story about a woman who had died at her desk in her cubicle at work â a heart attack. She had died on Friday morning and they hadn't discovered her until Saturday afternoon. For an entire day the woman slumped dead over her desk and no one noticed. The weekend cleaning staff discovered her. Imagine leaving for home on Friday and saying, “Have a good weekend, Betty,” to a dead woman. How many people walked past, oblivious? It makes Maria wonder why she even has a job.
Well, money. Of course. That's why. She sometimes enjoys what she does. But it's definitely impossible to live off one income these days. Two incomes barely make ends meet.
“We're home.” Tom is standing at the back door. Becky looks defeated. “No luck.”
“He'll come back,” Maria says. “I'm sure of it, Beck. He has his collar on.” But she isn't sure. In fact, she's sure he's gone for good. Dog. Out in the real world. On an adventure. They've had him for eight years but, for some reason, Maria doesn't even feel sad that he's gone.
“I can't believe you, Mom,” Becky says. She is deflated. Her eyes are puffy. “I can't believe you lost our dog.” She kicks past Maria and heads up the stairs to her room, stomping all the way. Her door slams and then Maria and Tom hear her DustBuster start up. Becky cleaning. This is part of the reason why Maria thought Becky wouldn't mind that the dog was gone. He is, after all, loaded with dirt and hair and dead skin. He sheds everywhere.
“Poor Beck,” Tom says. He runs his hand through his hair. “I bet he will come back, though. Dogs do that, don't they? Remember when Frank and Trish lost their dog on the bike trail, and when they came home after looking all day for him he was sitting on their front porch?” Then he turns on the TV and settles in to watch something. After about half an hour Tom says, “can I get you anything?” Tom turns the volume up on the TV so he can hear over the DustBuster. Maria lies there, waiting for something, for someone, for anything.
Late at night was the worst, Dayton told Maria. When the dark settled in and Carrie was asleep. When the trees outside scraped against the windowpanes. “That's when I'm afraid,” Dayton said, “that he'll come for me. That he'll come and take Carrie back.”
Trapped there, on her kitchen floor, an imprisoned woman, Maria could only blink in response. What more could she have said to Dayton? Of course he will come. He wants his daughter back, doesn't he?
“You'll figure it out,” Maria said. “I'm sure once the lawyers get involved it will all be figured out.”
Dayton shook her head. “That's the problem,” she said. “He isn't communicating with my lawyer and I don't think he even has a lawyer. He's crazy, Maria. I don't know what to do.”
“Restraining order?”
“I took his child.” Dayton began to cry again. Carrie joined her this time. And then Carrie found her thumb and became silent. Maria wished that Dayton would use her own thumb, plug her own mouth.
“Oh dear,” Maria said.
Dayton waved her arms in the air. “John just hurt me so much. I needed to get away. I wasn't thinking. I didn't think the whole thing through.”
Maria didn't like this story. Not when it was being told to her and not after. In the late afternoon, as she lay on her kitchen floor alone, after Dayton had gone home, she felt as if someone were sitting on her chest. She felt sick and scared and angry. Men who cheat on their wives. Such unfaithful cowardice. Why not just leave? Why cheat? Women who steal their babies into the night. How did she get Carrie out of California without her father's consent? Maybe she forged his signature? Why not just go the legal route? Why not ask for help? Surely someone would help, even if you had to pay them to help you? The Robaxacet was working and Maria felt disoriented and confused. She wondered if Trish knew about this â about the cheating ex named John. Left in California. Maybe if Trish had known about this she would have thought twice about asking Dayton to play hockey. Or, at least, Trish would never have let Rachel babysit for a woman whose ex-husband cheated on her, for a woman who stole her child away from the child's father. After all, it takes two to tango. Right? Isn't that always the case?
Maria would never let Becky babysit for Dayton. Not for a second. Dayton and her history. And who knows what kind of man she'll take into her life again. She's attractive. She's young. Surely the house will be swarming with boyfriends soon enough. And they'll probably cheat on her. She'll become more unstable, insecure, get more boyfriends â the cycle will go around and around and around. Maria could see it. Maria spent the day thinking about it. That poor girl, Rachel, sitting over there in the dark on hockey nights while Dayton skated away on a team Maria should have been invited to join. If Trish had only asked Maria to play hockey with her she would never have put Trish's daughter in moral danger. Right? Bad influences. Maria isn't sure, but this sounded right in her mind. It's not as if she didn't like Dayton. She was nice to come rescue her when her back went out and her baby was well behaved and quiet. Just the kind of baby Maria appreciates.
And then Maria fell asleep.
This has happened before, this back problem. Maria thinks she has a weak spine. The doctor says she has osteoarthritis but she doesn't believe him. He says she has bone spurs that press on the nerves in her back. How can she have bone spurs? After all, she's young. Healthy. Once, every couple of years, she has to lie still for four days, take muscle relaxers and stay completely still, and then, after those four days, she will get up and the pain will be gone. A miracle. Three days doesn't work. She isn't sure about five days, as she's never tried it, but four days is the cure.
Tonight Maria lies alone on the TV room floor off the kitchen. She didn't want to move, no matter how Tom begged her and told her that he would carry her gently to the couch, that he wouldn't jar her spine. The couch is too soft. The floor is hard and unforgiving. Just what her back needs. But tomorrow Tom will carry her up to their bedroom and she will lie there. Tonight she wants to lie on the TV room rug and not move until morning. Tom carries her into the bathroom for the second time, Maria screeching in pain, helps her in there and then makes up the TV room floor with a stiff yoga mat, a pillow, quilts and blankets. He places the phone and a flashlight beside the mat and settles Maria in for the night. He then kisses her forehead like she has watched him kiss Becky's as he tucks her in for the night. She listens as he climbs the stairs to their room to stretch his long frame out on the empty queen-size bed and fall into oblivion. Tom works hard. She appreciates that. He may not notice things sometimes, but he is a good man. He would never cheat on her. She knows this. She is sure of it.
Alone on the TV room floor, the house dark and creaking around her, the fridge humming, the light on the microwave blindingly green, Maria begins to worry about Dog. She hears rain hit the windows and she imagines him out there in the blackness, under a bush. She imagines him hungry and sad and confused and wet. And then she thinks of Becky upstairs. Becky who wouldn't come down again to say goodnight but instead stamped around on the second floor, smashing her feet into the floorboards, pounding out her frustrations on top of Maria's head as if she wanted to come through the floor and crush her mother's skull. Sometimes Maria wishes that Becky was dead. Gone. Away. Sometimes she thinks about how great her life would be if her kid disappeared. Then she begins to cry.
Maria didn't know why Dayton told her that story about her ex-husband, John, and how he had many affairs culminating in one big one. She didn't know why Dayton wanted her to know about it. Maybe it was because Maria was trapped on the kitchen floor. She couldn't run from the story, she couldn't stop it from being told. She had to hear Dayton through to the end. Maybe Dayton had no one else to talk to. This thought made Maria wistful. Even though Dayton is playing hockey with Trish, she is just as lonely as Maria. Usually women don't confess their weaknesses, and a cheating husband is definitely a weakness. The women Maria knows do everything in their power to hide the fact that their marriages aren't all that they pretend them to be. They talk about other women they know, they chastise, they say that their child/husband/pet/parent would never behave that way. Inside, though, they all have problems and they are all terrified of the truth.
Luckily, Maria doesn't have problems. Not really. A few things here and there. A back problem. She doesn't really enjoy her job. And Becky. With her cleaning and her moods. With the fact that she doesn't actually like her mother. That's a problem. Other than that, though, Maria is A-okay. Hunky dory. Peachy keen.
Tom is slightly less attentive than he could be. A little distracted. But nothing to worry about . . .
“All he has to do is tell the police I took Carrie without telling him where I had gone.” Dayton's eyes were vacant, empty, glazed. Maria wondered if her new neighbour was on drugs. Wouldn't that just kill Trish? Her kid babysitting for a drug addict?
“But he's Carrie's father,” Maria said. As if that made all the difference. “Shouldn't he be allowed to see her?”
“You don't understand. She's my baby,” Dayton said, shrugging. She held Carrie up then and both women studied her. A chubby, beautiful child. Big eyes. A smile that melted hearts. Carrie bubbled up some saliva and laughed a bit. The women laughed.
“She's his daughter too, though. Right? His daughter. I think firmly that both parents â”
“No. This is different.”
“But it takes two â”
“I said no.”
Dayton stared at the floor tiles and that was when Maria noticed all the dirt and hair, that's when she noticed the crumbs and how many crumbs there were on her kitchen floor. What was Dayton seeing on the floor? The way she was staring. So intently. Maria wasn't sure.
The noise wakes her. She was dreaming about a handsome man. He was bending down, offering his hand to her, and she was going to take his hand and rise up from the floor. She's not sure what she would do once she got up, but she sees his face in front of her still. Really handsome. Chiselled features. Blue eyes.
The noise again. A scratching over there, by the back window. An outside noise or an inside noise? Maria isn't sure. She lies there waiting for it to happen again. Listening hard. Nothing.
And then again. There it is. Scritch-scratching. Like a mouse. Oh god, a mouse. What if there is a mouse in the house and it runs over her, runs over her face, into her hair. Oh god. But no. Not a mouse. Maria listens. It's outside. At the back door, not the window. Rain? A tree branch? Tapping at the window?
Dog?
Why, Maria wonders, did Tom give her the phone? It's not as if she can phone him on the same line in the bedroom. Why didn't he give her the walkie-talkies they got for the ski hill so Becky could go off with her friends and they could call her into the lodge for lunch? The friends Becky never made at the ski hill, preferring instead to spend her time cleaning her ski mask with the little squeegee they got her for a stocking present at Christmas. But the phone? What was he thinking? Maria picks the phone up and looks at it. She drops it beside her. The scratching continues.
Oh Dog.