When Women Were Dragons(70)

“And the children? Our . . .” I didn’t know what to call them. My brothers? My half brothers? I wasn’t sure.

She didn’t even glance back. “I took them to my mother’s,” she said. “I have no intention of you meeting them.” I held on to Beatrice’s hand.

The living room looked nothing like it did before. My mother’s crocheted window sashes and table runners were gone, as were the pictures on the wall of the four of us pretending that we were a happy family. Gone, too, was the photograph of my mother’s parents standing in front of their old farmhouse in their Sunday best. The furniture was different, and the walls had been covered in a patterned paper that I did not care for.

“Well,” my stepmother said. “Let’s have you get your things. I haven’t got all day.”

I told Beatrice to sit on the couch with the comic books she had brought with her, and made my way to the basement. It was mustier than I remembered. It looked as though no one had swept or aired it out in a long time. The boxes were heavy, but not overly large or awkward. Five in all. Each had my mother’s name on them in my father’s handwriting, each partially obscured by another marking pen’s scribbles over it.

“This everything?” I asked.

“Yep,” she said, not meeting my eye. “I hope you’re not expecting me to help. My back can’t take it.”

“I wasn’t,” I said as kindly as I could. “I’m small like my mom, but I’m strong like her too.”

“I’m not sure you should be angling to be like your mother,” my stepmother snapped, and went back up the stairs, leaving me to haul boxes on my own. I saw our old sleds, each made of wood slats over metal runners. If I gave Beatrice the lighter one, we could make it home okay. I found a bottle of mineral oil and a rag and greased the metal to help it slide over the snow more easily. In my head, I made a quick plan for how the boxes would stack, and which knots I would use, and then got to work. I hauled the sleds outside, and then, one by one, brought box after box upstairs and lashed them onto the sleds.

I returned to the living room, my coat already on, my bag slung across my shoulders. Beatrice was absorbed in her comics. My stepmother sat across from her, reading a magazine. If Beatrice and I had not been sent away, if we had been allowed to be a family, maybe this is what it would have looked like. Both my stepmother and Beatrice turned the page in synchrony; they both tilted their heads to the left. I wondered if it could have worked. Perhaps Beatrice’s cheerfulness would have eased my stepmother’s anger. Perhaps a house full of children would have softened my father. Perhaps . . . but then my stepmother looked up, caught my eye, and the sharpness returned.

Perhaps not, I decided.

I realized with a sudden and inexplicable ache that this might be my last time in the house. My breath shook for a moment, and I did my best to calm it. I found myself, all of a sudden, crowded with memories. My mother in her coveralls. My mother in her embroidered dress. My mother playing cards with my aunt at the table, both tipping their heads back and laughing. My mother in the nude on the bed, my aunt rubbing oil into her wounds (two bite marks where her breasts had been; the shiny red remains of targeted burns; I know, obviously, that it wasn’t a monster that gave her those wounds, but oh! Memory is a funny thing). My mother tottering inside, returning from the hospital. My mother unconscious and bleeding on the floor. This house was filled with my mother. And also—

I gasped.

My aunt.

The last time I saw her.

“Um,” I began. “Is it okay if I go see my old room?”

She asked me to take her secret treasures. She asked me if I had a hiding spot.

My stepmother frowned. “Whatever for?”

My mother never knew.

I slid my hands into my pockets to keep myself from fidgeting. “Just to see it,” I said. I tried to keep my face neutral. Blank. Just like my mother. I rocked back on my heels in what I hoped was a nonchalant sort of way.

My stepmother tucked her magazine under one arm. “Suit yourself,” she said, walking out of the living room and toward the stairs. She kept talking without turning around. “Don’t expect me to see you out. I’m going to take a bath. Saturdays are supposed to be for me, you know.” As though all of this had been my idea. As though I was trading on her goodwill. She turned at the top of the stairs and closed the bathroom door behind her. I waited until I heard the taps turn on. I hurried upstairs. Beatrice didn’t follow. I don’t think she looked up from her comic book even once.

It didn’t look anything like it used to, my room. The clouds my mother had painted were gone, as was the old advertisement poster declaring JOIN THE WAVES that my aunt had given me. Also gone was the soft lavender paint on the walls. Instead, the walls were white, nicked and smudged by the rough play of rambunctious boys, and toys were everywhere.

I opened the closet and knelt on the floor.

The loose panel was still loose. I reached in and pulled the contents out—several notebooks, a series of drawings, a hand-bound book of paintings that Sonja had given me long ago, and the dragonish booklet and bundle of letters that my aunt had given me. I didn’t look at any of it. I didn’t linger. I just stuffed the lot of it into my bag, replaced the panel, and hurried out.

My stepmother had already retreated into the bathroom, with the thundering taps. Beatrice looked up from her comic book.