What's Mine and Yours(9)

“You were always too proud, Lacey May.”



With her nine dollars, Lacey bought a tin of coffee, another block of cheese, a magazine about TV stars and their weddings, and a fistful of bubblegum lollipops for the girls. She drove back with the heat on low so she could idle in the driveway for a few extra minutes with the engine on.

When the girls clattered in after school, Lacey gave them each a lollipop, and Diane, who had lost three baby teeth to cavities, looked at her mother, as if to see if she were sure. Lacey nodded at her and said, “That’s right, sweetheart. Go ahead, let it rot your teeth.”

She asked the girls to tell her what they had learned in school while she made their sandwiches and mixed chocolate powder into hot milk. Noelle sliced the cheese into perfect thin squares. “You could perform surgery with those hands,” Lacey said. “Gifted hands!” She’d heard the phrase before, but she couldn’t remember where. Noelle didn’t seem touched by the compliment.

“How come Daddy doesn’t come back on the weekends? We’ve been to the beach—it’s not too far to drive.”

Lacey gave her a little tap on the nose. “Cause that’s when they catch the biggest fish—something about the tide. When he calls, I’ll have him explain it.”

“Is it still winter in our house?” Margarita asked, and Lacey kissed the top of her head.

“Yes, ma’am. Isn’t it fun?” She turned on the TV.

They watched a cop show, and the girls didn’t mention their father. They didn’t notice Lacey look away when the officers caught a burglar, wrestled him onto the shoulder of the highway.

The phone rang, and Lacey leapt up. It was Robbie! He’d received the money she put in his commissary, and soon it would all be worth it. The girls would hear their father’s voice, know he hadn’t wanted to leave them.

“Miss Ventura,” said a bland voice. It was the receptionist from yesterday.

“Yes, this is Mrs. Ventura.”

She waited to hear they’d found her a job, maybe in a laundromat, selling tiny bottles of detergent to people who had forgotten theirs, or a doctor’s office where she could label the samples of pee, point people to the bathroom. She had a good manner—her boss at the Hot Wing had told her so. She had her smile. Most of all, she wasn’t stupid. There was plenty she could learn to do.

“Mrs. Ventura, the check you gave us with your application bounced. We can’t process any paperwork until you write another and refund the thirty dollars we got charged for your bad check.”

“I had the money when I first wrote the check. Why’d you wait so long to cash it?”

Lacey didn’t hear the receptionist’s answer because Margarita had started to cry.

“Mama, I’m so cold. Why is it so cold?”

“Cause Daddy left us,” Noelle said. “He doesn’t want us anymore.”

Lacey dropped the phone and slapped her child. Diane tried to defend her sister and say they shouldn’t fight, so Lacey slapped her, too, and then Margarita for good measure, and sent them all to bed.

She knew they would be warmer if they all gathered in her bed, but she let them cry softly into the dark. They were carrying on as if the heat weren’t on at all, as if she weren’t trying to do what was right. She hadn’t wanted to send the last of her cash to Robbie, but he needed all kinds of things in there: underwear and cups of instant soup. He needed money to place a call.

In the night, Lacey went to check on her daughters. She sealed the covers around their skinny bodies like cocoons. They slept heavy. How lucky they were. How little they knew. They sensed his absence only in the few hours before bed—Lacey never got away from it.



Diane woke with a fever. She was eating her cereal too slowly, and when Lacey touched her hand to the girl’s forehead, her skin was burning up.

Noelle stood up from the table, hand on her hip. “You did this. This is all your fault.”

“It’s sixty degrees in here!” Lacey screamed. “That’s the temperature right now in California!” She had made up the fact, but it sounded true. She started yelling that they were spoiled, ungrateful children. They’d be off to school soon where it was warm, while she was stuck here.

“Well it’s Friday now!” Noelle shouted. “What’s going to happen on the weekend?”

And while Noelle yelled at her, and Margarita started moaning about her daddy, Diane vomited on the kitchen floor. Jenkins started to lap it up, and Lacey kicked him hard.

The girls nearly missed the bus, and Lacey had to chase it down in her slippers and her robe. The only girl who kissed her good-bye was sick little Diane, her face crimson, her hair sticking to her face with sweat. She knew she had to have the heat on by the time the girls came back.

Lacey went to the shed for her rake and shears, then she walked across a quarter acre of woods to knock on the door of the fat, unmarried nurse. Lacey read the name on the mailbox—RUTH GREEN. She started rehearsing the lines in her head.

It was a while before the door opened, and Ruth, fleshy and tall, stood in checkered pajamas, her hair in a big wet knot on top of her head. Lacey could feel the heat streaming out the open door. It licked her fingertips, her cracked lips.

“Morning. I wanted to see if I could help clear out your yard.”