Splinters of Light (20 page)

“Are you going to sleep with him?”

Ellie’s face burned. She
thought
she was going to. She wanted more of those feelings she got in her midsection when he kissed her, those wild flips that felt like tadpoles wriggling right under her ribs. And sex had always been something she’d planned on talking about with her aunt, never her mother, even before her mother got sick. But now that Mariana’s eyes were on her, she felt angry. Tricked, somehow. “I don’t want to talk about it with you.”

“That’s fine, little one.”

Ellie tensed, her legs and arms stiffening. “I’m not
little
. I’m so fucking
sick
of you and Mom treating me that way. Can you just go away, please?”

“But . . .” Whenever Ellie had spent the night with Mariana in the past, Mariana always slept in the bed with her, not that she’d ever shown up this late before. It was part of the fun, part of the girls’ weekend fun. Ellie had never asked to sleep alone there before. And if truth were told, Ellie didn’t
really
want to sleep alone tonight in this big old house that didn’t sound like hers. But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—ask her aunt to stay with her. Like a baby.

“Okay,” Mariana finally said. “I’ll drive you home first thing. And you better be wearing chain mail. Your mom is gonna be pissed like she hasn’t been since I crashed that stupid car.”

Even though the story of how Mariana had failed to set the parking brake on her mom’s old beater Civic, allowing it to run away, unoccupied, down a hill, across a highway, and into a copse of trees where it smashed into tiny pieces, was one of her favorites, Ellie didn’t smile. She closed her eyes and gave a fake yawn.

When she opened them again, her aunt wasn’t in the open doorway anymore, and the only sound was the distant, mournful bleat of a foghorn through the open window. Ellie was alone. She pulled her feet up, tucking them against her butt.

She closed her eyes and prayed to have no dreams at all.

A
fter the fireworks stopped, Nora crawled out of Harrison’s bed, her limbs heavy. “I have to go home. I have to wait for her.” Harrison nodded and pressed her hand, barely waking.

At home, Nora didn’t sleep. She sat on the sofa downstairs, the television on the Home Shopping Network, the volume off. When her eyes drifted closed, she propped them open using determination born of fear. Her leg muscles cramped with disuse. She straightened and shook them, then stuck her heels under the couch cushion Ellie liked to hold against her belly. From outside came random pops and squeals followed by the occasional M-80 blast that set off car alarms and made neighborhood dogs bark.

How could she possibly go to bed? Her daughter was gone, missing. It might be her fault. No, it
was
her fault. Ellie had probably been right—she’d probably asked for chicken. She shouldn’t have argued with her daughter about it—oh, god, she remembered it all over again. Ellie hadn’t left because of the chicken.

Ellie had left because Nora had hit her.

Confronted with the reality of her newly untrustworthy mind, she’d hit her own daughter across the face as hard as she could.

She didn’t blame Ellie for not coming home.

The analog clock on the wall read a time, but it had been getting harder and harder to decipher it lately. Maybe she needed her contacts prescription checked. She knew what was important: it was predawn—the morning paper had just slapped against the front stoop, and cars were still using their headlights. And her daughter still wasn’t home.

Nora placed her fingertips against the blank piece of paper in her journal.
Responsibility.
She could write that to her daughter.
Responsible women . . .

Didn’t hit their children in anger.

No, it was even worse than that. It hadn’t been anger. Nora had hit Ellie in fear.

Fear was displacing the hope. Every day less of one, more of the other. Nora couldn’t control it, she couldn’t iron it out, she couldn’t deep clean it, she couldn’t paint over it, she couldn’t make it pretty and tasteful. She couldn’t write a funny column about it. She couldn’t make it anything else but what it was, which was . . .

Even now, she was having a hard time staying on track with her thoughts. She kept thinking that she’d get up and do something
useful
while she was waiting, but then she needed to finish her tea, and then she got caught up in whatever the HSN girl was displaying. Even with the volume off, the whapper-icer-dicer looked interesting enough to warrant watching for a while.

Or hours. In the dark, with just the clock she couldn’t read to tell her where she was in time, Nora didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there. She was completely alone. Technically, she knew that on the other side of the globe, whole nations were awake and functioning—laughing, loving, dying—in daylight
hours. But here, in her living room, it was possible it would never be light again. That’s what she was scared of. Every night, and especially this night, the night she’d struck her daughter because she was scared that Ellie was right about everything, right that Nora had asked for chicken, right to be horrified at her mother’s tantrum, right about all else that would ever happen, ever.

Ellie would be the right one from now on.

Nora’s shoulders ached from the tension in her neck. She rolled her head and heard a satisfying pop. No, Ellie wasn’t even responsible enough to check in to tell Nora where she was, which proved both her ignorance and her youth.

Then the seesaw tilted again, and Nora thumped down to the hard ground of truth. She had struck Ellie. It was her fault. Good for her daughter to take herself out of an unsafe situation. How many drills had they run on that over the years?
What do you do if your boyfriend hits you?

Ellie would roll her eyes.
Leave.

What if you’re married to him?

Do you really think I’d marry an abuser, Mom? God.

What do you do?

Run. Leave. I know this.

What if he only hits you once and you know it was an accident and that he’d never do it again?

On a groan of exasperation, Ellie would give her the right answer.
Leave forever anyway. If he does it once, he’ll do it again. Can we go back to the movie now? Please?

Nora was the guy. Nora was the abusive boyfriend, the violent husband. And her daughter had done exactly the right thing. The pain of that realization lacerated her gut as if she’d swallowed a razor; the only thing that kept her alive was the stubborn, low-grade pride that knitted her partially back together, sloppily lacing up the wound that kept slipping open.

Ellie was a good girl. She’d be a good woman.

Nora picked up her pen, finally ready to commit the words to the page. She wished for humor, like she injected into her columns. But the pen wouldn’t move on the page until she found the right words. They weren’t the ones that would make her daughter laugh.

Responsibility is a thick woolen coat. We don’t wear those here, so you probably don’t know about the weight of a peacoat. They were popular when your aunt and I were growing up, and we sweated through way too many dates while wearing them. I gave mine to the Salvation Army as soon as I realized I couldn’t afford to have it dry-cleaned and that the smell of sweat would never come out of its armpits. Too heavy, too warm, too much.

One day, though, it might get actually cold. Maybe it will snow. (Have you ever seen snow fall? I think you haven’t. I’ve failed you in this, too.) When the blizzard hits, you realize it feels good to pull that thick coat on over your cotton sweatshirt. You won’t believe me now, but responsibility is like that, too. You’re scared of paying bills until you’re grown-up, but the day that your checkbook balances and you’re left with a dollar or two more than last time in savings, you realize you enjoy the heaviness on your shoulders. Calling the plumber gives you a sense of satisfaction, and if you manage to fix the leak yourself, without calling him? It’s even better, the coat even warmer.

I don’t think I’m leaving you my coat. It’s already gone, or at least, it’s going. You’re going to have to find your own. I’d tell you what thrift store I donated mine to, but I can’t remember anymore, and besides, your shoulders are wider than mine ever were. You were born stronger than me.

You can do everything.

And I’m so sorry you’ll have to.

I’m so sorry.

Nora closed the book and wrapped her fingers tightly around it. She went to the front door and made sure it was unlocked, just
in case Ellie had forgotten her key. Upstairs, she undressed slowly, deliberately. She put on her pajamas, the ones she’d worn on New Year’s, and she got into bed.

If Ellie never came back, she would never get up again. That was the easiest answer. The only one, really.

T
he morning drive over the Golden Gate Bridge was quiet. Mariana told Ellie she could choose what they listened to on the way. She prepared herself to listen to KMEL. That was fine. She was forty-four, not ninety-four. She actually liked Jason Derulo and Pitbull. She could even sing along with some of the lyrics. That came from hanging out with Luke in the shop, not because she was cool, but she wouldn’t tell Ellie that.

Instead Ellie turned her head to gaze out at the water. “Okay.” She dragged headphones out of her jacket pocket and stuck them into her phone.

“I meant you could choose something on the radio.”

Ellie froze her with an iced glance. “I thought you said I could choose.”

“Fine. Go ahead.
Fucker!
” A red convertible—probably a tourist in a rental—cut her off as they took the slight turn at the foot of the bridge. “Him, not you.”

Ellie turned up her music so loud Mariana could almost
make out the words. She countered by turning NPR up so that Scott Simon’s voice thumped the bass speaker at her left knee. He was reporting a news story on a plane that had crashed in a jungle somewhere. Or at least Mariana thought it was a plane. Maybe it was a boat. Or a bus. All she could hear was the tinny beat Ellie’s earphones emitted. “God,” said Ellie, at a volume that was almost—but not quite—inaudible over the radio, “NPR is so
stupid
.”

How did mothers do it? How did they put up with solid years of disdain broken only by occasional glimmers of a better future? Ellie was a good one, as teens went. Nora had lucked out. But when Ellie pushed back, she was as talented as any other sixteen-year-old girl at making someone who loved her feel as low as slug bait.

At least new mothers with small babies got to get used to being the one in charge. The slights were small at first. They probably hurt less. The first “no.”
The first “I hate you.” You started small and got bigger.

Mariana held the wheel tighter, wishing she could play the alphabet game with Ellie like they used to, grabbing an
A
from a license plate and a
B
from a passing billboard. But Ellie’s eyes were closed, and she was busy moving her lips along with the song in her headphones.

How did anyone leap into motherhood feetfirst?

In Tiburon, Mariana took the winding road into town at a safe speed, even though she knew Ellie loved it when she drove just a little too fast. In front of the house, Ellie was out of the car before she’d shut off the ignition. She ran up the driveway, ignoring Harrison’s wave next door. The front door opened and then slammed.

“She all right?” Harrison called, shutting off his hose.

“She’s sixteen. Other than that, she’s fine.”

Harrison nodded. He hadn’t shaved yet, and there were silver patches in his stubble. It suited him, Mariana thought. He’d
always looked older, even when he was younger. He was just growing into himself.

“Nora’s been a wreck.”

“She knew Ellie was with me.”

Harrison glanced at the door Ellie had just run through. “I don’t think she did.”

“I texted her.”

Shrugging, Harrison said, “I don’t think she got it. She woke me at seven a.m. She’s not acting like she got it.”

“You’re shitting me.” Mariana fumbled for her phone. Proof. She’d show him. “I texted her, look. Oh, god
damn
. Shit.” A little red dot indicated the text hadn’t gone through—it was something she’d been having trouble with lately, something she’d meant to figure out, but it had only been happening intermittently, and she hadn’t remembered to check . . . “She’s going to kill me.”

Harrison grimaced. “I’m thinking your living trust should be in order before you go in.”

“What should I do?”

She wanted him to say,
Apologize.
But she knew, like he did, that it wasn’t going to be enough.

Nora’s face, when she pushed open the door, was white. “You had her. And you didn’t bring her home.”

Mariana had never seen Nora so furious, ever. “I am
so
sorry, Nora. I texted you, but—”

Nora stood in the doorway, blocking it with her body. She shouldn’t have been able to do it—the doorway was large and they had narrow shoulders. But the entire entrance was closed by the combination of Nora’s body and her rage. Mariana wasn’t coming in. “You should have put her in the car. You should have driven her to me. Last
night
.”

“She wanted to stay with me. She was upset. And I texted, but my phone—”

“She’s a
child
,” said Nora. “You bring children home. Do
you have any idea how worried I was? How terrified? It was the Fourth of July. You know how many drunks were out there? I thought she was dead.”

“Ellie’s okay,” Mariana said. “She was with me.”

“But where was she before she was with you? Do you have any idea how common meth is nowadays? It’s more common than underage drinking—did you know that?”

Mariana shook her head. “First, I can’t believe that’s true.” She wouldn’t mention the smell of weed and cigarettes that had risen off Ellie’s clothes. “And second, she’s fine.”

“This is why you can’t be trusted with anything.” Nora’s voice was calmer, but the words were devastating. “You can’t be trusted with
her
.”

Mariana tried to inhale. She focused on her belly, on the motion it made as she attempted to find oxygen. Then she said, “That’s not true.” Was it? It might be—that was the worst part. No, she’d texted her sister (even though it hadn’t worked) and she’d made sure Ellie was safe, in one piece. She’d hugged her. She’d put her into a warm bed. She’d talked to her.

That wasn’t much. Jesus. She’d been the cool aunt, playacting at being in charge of Ellie a few evenings a year. It counted for exactly nothing in the end. BreathingRoom was the only thing that had ever flourished under Mariana’s hands, and it was still just a fledgling, still just a wish. “That’s not—”

“You don’t know how to protect a child.”

The bay wind was cold, straight off the water. Mariana managed, “She’s almost seventeen.”

Nora’s voice was brittle. “So what? Do you remember what you were like at seventeen?”

Mariana’s heart sunk. Nora at seventeen—as at all ages—had been just fine. But Mariana at seventeen had been reckless, never listening to Nora’s cautions. At nineteen, Mariana had been the one tossed in jail for being so drunk she thought she’d try to climb the police officer like a palm tree. By twenty,
Mariana had been the one who’d racked up tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt before claiming bankruptcy, the same year she was stupid enough to go into that room with Bill, the asshole who almost raped her. At twenty-one, she’d been the one who had dropped out of college in her very last semester, she’d been the one who’d run away to India with Raúl—even Mariana could see the daddy issues she’d wrapped around that man—leaving Nora with having to pay full rent on their apartment without warning or help. Mariana was the one who hadn’t come back for three
years
, with only two postcards to prove to the person she loved the most that she’d still even been alive.

A whole life’s history of Mariana’s fuckups hung between them, unspoken.

Then Nora shut the door in her face. Mariana heard the deadbolt turn with two outraged clicks.

She bent forward at the waist and breathed in again. Then she shouted, “I texted you!” Then, childishly, she yelled as loudly as she could,
“I have a key, you know!”

The door remained closed.