When Women Were Dragons(37)

Even the sky seemed to feel it—heavy and waiting.

I missed Sonja. I missed her so much. Just thinking of her made my chest cave in and my bones ache.

Despite my learning how to have a friend—a real and true friend—that knowledge never transferred to any of the kids at school. They weren’t unkind to me. They were just . . . indifferent. As I was indifferent. I wouldn’t see a single one that summer. I wouldn’t miss them, nor would I be missed. I say this not out of self-pity, but simply to state the facts.

That summer, my mother’s garden was its most productive and abundant. Its swan song, I would realize later. She spent most of her days out of doors—wearing, I noticed, my aunt’s old coveralls, with the name patch ripped away, and the sleeves removed at the shoulder, and about five inches from the pant legs cut off to make them fit. In the evenings, she had her bath and put on her stockings and starched skirts and had the table ready for when my father came home. If he came home. She served his dinner and poured his whiskey either way.

I remember noticing that she started to poke holes in her belts to make them fit. I remember noticing the thickness of her foundation to cover the darkness under her eyes. I remember noticing that while our own plates were heaped with food, my mother ate less and less. I remember noticing these things, but I didn’t know what to do with that noticing, and so I simply filed them away. I was a child, selfish in the way children are selfish, sure of the world’s unchangeability in the way that children are sure of things. My mother was simply my mother. That time when she vanished from me was a thing that occurred in the world of then. In childhood, it is difficult to think of then. In childhood, there is only now.

I missed Sonja. I wrote her letters addressed to her old house, with the instructions PLEASE FORWARD on the bottom. I wrote her every week for my entire eighth grade year. At the beginning of June, right after school let off, the entirety of my letters were returned to me in a great bundle, with the words RETURN TO SENDER, NO FORWARDING ADDRESS stamped across her name. Her grandparents had a different last name, and I didn’t know what it was. I had no way to find her.

I took the letters and wrapped them in brown paper that I secured with twine. I hid them behind the false panel in my closet. Just in case.

That summer, my mother often put me in charge of Beatrice when she needed to lie down for a bit—something that was happening more and more. Beatrice, now six, was a whirlwind of activity. She climbed trees and leaped from the branches. She used the back fence as a balance beam. She climbed to the roof of the garage to take in the sun on the shingles. She used the morning glory trellis as a ladder.

I chased her into the storm cellar and I chased her through the neighborhood yards and I chased her all the way down to the end of our road, where it simply stopped at a tangled thicket separating our neighborhood from the decommissioned railroad tracks. At the end of each day, I had to hoist her over my shoulder and trudge her home as she howled with enthusiasm or rage or joy. It wasn’t always easy to tell which.

One day in early August, Beatrice made a break for it while I wasn’t looking and I had to search for her for hours. My mother didn’t know. She was having a lie-down. I searched everywhere, feeling annoyed during the first hour and frantic during the second. I berated myself for not keeping a closer watch. I tried to think how I would explain this to my mother.

Finally, footsore and panicking, I walked through the alley, peeking inside each of the neighbor’s trash cans, in case she was hiding, or sleeping, or worse. And that’s when I heard Beatrice laughing. I chased the sound of her voice, and came skidding to a halt at the back gate of the boarded-up house. Weeds curled up the fence and bramble tangled through the old garden. I could barely make out the old house, peeking through the green.

Feral chickens pecked through the weeds. Feral cats blinked through the gaps of house where the clapboard had fallen away. And Beatrice lay in a thicket of ivy, its tendrils winding around her arms and legs, making bright green knots against her grubby skin.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” I roared, leaping across the bramble and landing on my knees at her side. She turned her head, blinked a few times, and gave me a mild smile.

“Oh, hi, Alex,” she said, as though there was nothing more normal in the world than being away for hours and taking a nap in an abandoned garden. Breaking through the tendriled knots of the ivy, she brought her fists to her face and rubbed her eyes. She yawned. “Did you know there are chickens here?”

I leaned my forehead on my knees and sighed. “Yes, Beatrice.” I shook my head. “I did know that.”

“And kitties,” she said breathlessly. “There are so many kitties.” As if on cue, two kittens, who didn’t look like they had even been weaned yet, ambled over to her feet. Beatrice scooped them up and nuzzled their fur until they struggled and yowled. They weren’t altogether used to people. Beatrice kissed their backs and set them gently on the ground.

“I know about the kitties too,” I said patiently. “Maybe it’s time to go.”

Beatrice ignored this. “Why don’t we have kitties? They can sleep with me,” she added, probably to demonstrate that she had already thought this through.

“Daddy hates cats,” I explained. “That’s why we can’t have one.”

“Daddy is mean.” She stomped her foot and glowered. I had never seen her give my father a cross word. Never in her life. But now she looked like she wanted to kick someone.