The Other Mrs.(66)

Mouse looked at her beloved bear lying on the ground. He looked to Mouse like he was asleep, or maybe he was dead on account of Fake Mom shaking him so much. Even Mouse knew you weren’t supposed to do that to a living thing.

Mouse knew she should shut her mouth. She knew she should do as told. But she couldn’t stop herself. Without meaning for them to, words came out. Mr. Bear isn’t stupid, she yelled as she reached for her bear, clutching him to her chest, consoling him. Mouse ran her own hand over the stuffed animal’s downy fur and cooed into his ear, Shhh. It’s okay, Mr. Bear.

Don’t you talk back to me, Fake Mom said. Your father isn’t here now, and so you listen to me. I’m in charge. You pick up after yourself when I’m here, you little rodent, she said. Do you hear me, Mouse? she asked right before she started to laugh.

Mouse, she called her mockingly this time. She said how much she hated mice, how they’re pests. She told Mouse that they carry feces around on their feet, that they spread germs, that they make people sick. She asked, How’d you get a nickname like that, you dirty little rodent?

But Mouse didn’t know, and so Mouse didn’t say. That made Fake Mom angry.

Do you hear me? she asked, getting down into Mouse’s face. Mouse wasn’t a tall girl. She was small, only about three and a half feet tall. She barely reached Fake Mom’s waist, right where she tucked those pretty shirts into the waistband of her jeans. You answer me when I ask you a question, Fake Mom said, pointing a finger at Mouse’s nose, so close that she swatted her. Whether she meant to hit her or not, Mouse didn’t know, or maybe it was one of those things that happens accidentally on purpose. But it didn’t matter because either way it hurt. It hurt her nose and it hurt her feelings.

I don’t know why Daddy calls me that, she said honestly. He just does.

Are you being sassy with me, you little rodent? Don’t you ever be sassy with me, Fake Mom said, grabbing Mouse by the wrist. She shook her like she had the bear, until Mouse’s head and wrist hurt. Mouse tried to tug her arm away, but it only made Fake Mom hold tighter, long fingernails digging into the skin.

When she finally did let go, Mouse saw the red impression of Fake Mom’s hand there on hers. There were crescent-shaped indentations in her skin from Fake Mom’s fingernails.

Her eyes welled with tears because it hurt, both her head and her hand, but even more, her heart. It made her sad when Fake Mom shook her like that, and also scared. No one had ever talked to or touched Mouse like that, and Mouse didn’t like it. It made a drop of pee sneak out from her insides and slide down a leg where it got absorbed in the fabric of her pants.

Fake Mom laughed when she saw Mouse’s little quivering lip, the tears pooling in her eyes. She asked, What are you going to do? Cry like a little baby? Well, isn’t that just dandy, she said. A sassy little crybaby. How’s that for an oxymoron, she laughed, and though Mouse knew many things, she didn’t know that word oxymoron, but she knew what moron meant because she heard kids call one another that at school. So that was what Mouse thought, that Fake Mom had called her a moron, which wouldn’t have even been the meanest thing she did that day.

Fake Mom told Mouse to go somewhere where she couldn’t see her, because she was sick of looking at her sassy, crybaby face.

And don’t you come back until I tell you you can come back, she said.

Mouse carried her bear sadly up to her bedroom and gently closed the door. She laid Mr. Bear on the bed and hummed a lullaby into his ear. Then she lay down beside him and cried.

Mouse knew even then that she wouldn’t tell her father what Fake Mom had said and done. She wouldn’t even tell her real mom. It wasn’t like her to be a tattletale, but more so, she knew how much her father loved Fake Mom. She could see it in his eyes every time he looked at her. Mouse didn’t want his feelings to be hurt. Because he would be sad if he knew what Fake Mom had done, even sadder than Mouse felt. Mouse was an empathetic little girl. She didn’t ever want to make anyone sad. Especially her father.



SADIE


I commit the address to memory. I get in my own car and drive to Courtney’s home. I parallel park on the street, sliding easily between two cars. I step from my car. I bring Courtney’s keys with me.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t do something like this. But my back is to a wall.

I knock before attempting to let myself inside. No one comes to the door.

I finger the keys in my hands. It could be any one of them. I try the first key. It doesn’t fit.

I glance over my shoulder, seeing a woman and her dog near the end of the park where it meets with the street. The woman is bent at the waist, cleaning the dog’s mess from the snow with a plastic bag; she doesn’t see me.

I fiddle with the second key. This one fits. The knob turns and the door opens, and I find myself standing in the doorway of Courtney Baines’s home. I step inside; I close the door. The interior of the house is charming. It bursts with character: arched doorways, wall niches and wooden built-ins. But it’s also neglected and unloved. There isn’t much in the way of things. The house is unkempt. Stacks of mail are strewn across the sofa, two empty coffee cups on the wooden floor. A basket of unfolded laundry waits at the base of the stairs. Kids’ toys wither in the corner of the room; they haven’t been played with in a while.

But there are photographs. They hang from the wall slightly askew, a layer of dust coating the top ledge of them.