Whisper Me This(5)

She dances across the kitchen and hugs me. I can’t fit her head under my chin anymore, she’s gotten so tall. Another inch and she’ll be looking me level in the eyes.

“Where did you learn that word?” I mumble against her hair, holding on to her as if she’s going to dissolve into the bacon smoke and be lost to me, a wraith, a memory.

“My English teacher wrote it on my last paper.”

“Oh dear. You need to pass English, Elle Belle.” I release the hug and tilt her chin up. Her eyes are the same changeable hazel as my mother’s—mosaic eyes, pixels of jade and mahogany, eyes that could mislead a casual acquaintance into overlooking the single-minded iron will behind them. My eyes can be blue or green, depending on the light. My father’s are gray. My genetics are as off-kilter as my sense of time.

“Mrs. Wilson needs to stop giving out such stupid assignments,” Elle retorts. “I am not going to waste my time writing about my summer vacation.” She makes air quotes around the last three words, her voice a mockery of her teacher’s.

“What exactly did you write?”

“A short story. Can we go out for dinner?”

“Now who is deviating from normal?” She is evading me, and I know it. Mrs. Wilson will no doubt be emailing to let me know that my daughter is persisting in a path of defiance and attach a copy of the offending story.

But I also know that one of these days, inevitably, Elle will turn up her nose at the idea of dinner with her mother. Every day that she wants to be with me is a gift.

“All right. Let’s go for dinner. Mexican?”

“What happened to losing twenty pounds before you turn forty?”

“I have a month. Close that window and get your shoes. Let’s make sure the bacon fire is out, though.”

When my phone rings, I glance at it, but don’t answer. Nobody I know. The only people I ever really pick up the phone for are my parents, and not always even then.

Elle is not like me.

She answers before the second ring. “Yep, she’s here. Just a minute.”

Ignoring my exaggerated headshaking and my lips forming the words “I’m not here,” she holds out the phone. “It’s somebody called Mrs. Carlton,” she says, and the world collapses inward, all in soft-focus slow motion, like an earthquake in a movie.

One of my bare feet is illuminated by light from the window; the other foot remains in shadow. Tiny blobs of bacon grease speckle the floor between them. A haze of smoke winds its way in a visible layer above my head. Elle’s eyes are bright with curiosity. Her hand, holding the phone, looks strong and capable, and the smooth curve of her nails is the same as her father’s.

I watch my own hand reach out for the phone. The fingers are longer than Elle’s, more tapered, the nails coated in glittery black. There’s a burn from a grease splash right next to the first knuckle. It’s red around the edges, forming a perfect fluid-filled blister at the center. All those little body cells, rushing around to do damage control, histamine alarms blaring, white blood cells rushing in.

Elle shoves the phone into my hand, reminding me that I’m supposed to do something besides stand here. The phone feels heavier than it looks, and my voice, when I say hello, floats upward to join the smoke above my head, a cartoon bubble of a question that doesn’t want an answer.

I’m going to get an answer though, whether I want it or not. A long, detailed, scorching one, because this is Mrs. Carlton calling. Mrs. Stay-Off-My-Lawn Carlton. Mrs. I’m-Telling-Your-Mother Carlton. Mrs. Shouldn’t-You-Be-Doing-Homework and Why-Is-That-Boy-Kissing-You Carlton.

“Maisey?” I hardly recognize her voice. It’s gone soft and quavery. She sounds like she’s eighty. But then, she was already old when I was sixteen. She might be eighty now. She might be pushing a hundred.

“How did you get my number?”

“It was on your mother’s fridge. I’m calling because I don’t think your father should be alone just now.”

“Why not?” That’s the first question. It’s followed by the crushing and more obvious one, the question that transforms my lungs from spongy air reservoirs into solid, impermeable plastic, incapable of retaining oxygen. “Where’s Mom?” That’s the second question, the one I don’t want to hear the answer to.

“The ambulance just left. The police are still here, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to arrest him. Heaven knows I can’t stay with him. I have things to do at my own house, and besides, I’m not sure I’d feel safe. You know?”

I don’t know. I don’t know anything. None of this conversation makes sense.

I can hear voices in the background. Male. Authoritative. Voices with answers.

“The police are there?”

“They came with the ambulance. I think they might call Adult Protective Services if they don’t arrest him, but you should probably—”

“Let me talk to the police.”

“You want to talk to the police?” She sounds scandalized, like I’ve asked to talk to somebody at ISIS headquarters.

There’s a sound of heavy breathing and shuffling feet, and another voice comes on the phone.

“Maisey?”

“Dad? What on earth is going on over there?”

“The police are here.”