Sadie(16)

She squints. “Why do you talk like that?”

“N-never heard a st-stutter before?”

“Course I have. I wanna know why, is all.”

“Just l-lucky, I guess.”

“And you’re looking for … Darren,” she says and I nod. She sighs and heads back into the kitchen. “Well, don’t just fuckin’ stand there.”

I’m in pain, my skin too tight against me. I have to force myself to a mental place past the sun’s sear just so I can move. When I finally get into the kitchen, Marlee’s there, leaning against the counter. The place is a mess, but it’s not disgusting. It just speaks to a woman who can’t be expected to wash the dishes and look after the kid she’s got at the same time. The sink is piled high with plates and bowls and glasses and sippy cups. Across from it, there’s a small kitchen table against the wall underneath a window that gives a full view of the schoolyard across the street. There are two chairs on either side of it. The stuffing is coming out of one’s seat. Everything’s sort of retro, but not by choice. It’s too hodgepodge for that. The floors are peeling laminate and the walls are beige. The window curtains are a deep forest green. It’s ugly.

“N-nice p-place.”

She knows I’m lying, but she doesn’t care. Marlee scrutinizes all there is of me to scrutinize, from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. I dig into my bag for the photo and then I hand it to her. Her fingers are long and when the scene on the eight-by-six registers, her hands shake just slightly enough to leave me wondering if I imagined it.

“Jesus,” she murmurs.

“I’m his d-daughter.”

I don’t know if I need the ruse, but I don’t want to find out I did when it’s too late. Marlee laughs, that same brittle sound I heard earlier. She hands the picture back to me and opens a drawer, pulls out a pack of smokes. She lights up, relishing that first hit of nicotine. When she inhales, all the lines around her mouth are cast in sharp relief.

“You’re telling me Darren Marshall’s got a daughter.” Her lipstick leaves a mark on the cigarette’s filter. I see the struggle on her face, the words not sitting quite right. She takes two more puffs and then coughs and I swear I can hear whatever it is she can’t shift out of her lungs settling there, accumulating. “And that’s you.”

“Sure.”

“The little one too? She belong to him?”

“N-no.”

“You want a drink or something?”

I nod. I want something to drink and more than that, something to eat. She opens her fridge and hands me a Coke. The shock of cold aluminum against my palm is the best thing I’ve felt for hours. I pop the tab open with a satisfying hiss and listen to the fizz.

“He must not have been in your life long,” she says.

“L-long enough.”

“He’s really your father?” She waits until I’m mid-drink before she asks. I let the carbon bubble in my mouth, a nice, fleeting sensation. “… Darren.”

“Why d-do you say his n-name like th-that?”

It sounds alien on her tongue, something her voice is fighting against.

Before she can answer, that soft child cry I heard earlier fills the house from upstairs. Marlee says shit, tosses her cigarette in the sink and runs the water over it. She points to one of the chairs. “Park your ass there. I’ll be right back.” And she doesn’t move until I park my ass. She hurries out of the room and tells me don’t even think about taking anything over her shoulder as she goes. That kind of warning is enough to make me want to reconsider the whole place because up until she said that, nothing here struck me as worth taking. There are bills on the table, though. Past-due notices. Seeing them puts a knot in my stomach the size of a grapefruit. That sort of dread you don’t ever forget once you’ve known it. The crushing panic of needing money you don’t have.

She comes back a few moments later with a baby boy on her hip. He’s got the same white-blond hair as his mama, shaped into an unfortunate bowl cut. His eyes are bluer than the sky outside and he’s got a button nose planted on the roundest face I’ve ever seen. Pudgy arms and legs. I guess he’s where all the grocery money goes. He’s squirming all over the place until he sees me and buries his head in Marlee’s side, suddenly stranger-shy. Marlee points to the high chair folded in the corner.

“Unfold that for me?”

Five minutes later, the baby’s in his chair and Marlee’s rooting around her fridge again. Her son keeps his eyes on me and it’s creepy in the same way those evil kids in Village of the Damned are creepy. The only baby I’ve ever really liked was Mattie. In all my days, I’ve never seen one as cute as she was. She was so round and soft and sweet. She had a little tuft of blond hair right at the center of her head, and that was all the hair she had for the longest time. It looked just like a toupee. Made me laugh. And her tiny hands were always in fists, like she was spoiling for a fight, waiting for the day she’d be old enough to hit something. She loved clutching each of my fingers in this surprisingly strong grip. She was so strong.

She was perfect.

“W-what’s his n-name?”

“Breckin.”

She gets him settled in and then grabs some applesauce and spoons it into his mouth. He burbles and half of it ends up down his shirt. This makes Marlee laugh, but it’s different than the laughter I’ve heard so far. It’s indulgent, kind. It’s the nicest her voice has sounded to me since I got here. She murmurs some nonsense at him.