Air enters and leaves my body, but it doesn’t come as far in as usual, or stay as long. I’m waiting, but it’s not time yet, I’m sure, even though I don’t know what time it is. I try to interest myself in the adventures my naked and shorn Barbie doll is having without me, but fail.
Mrs. Lewis, my foster mother, comes out of the kitchen in time to watch me run to the front door again, with muted amusement. I peer through the etched glass panels and inwardly curse their opacity. Even the clear parts warp the sections of front lawn, street, and driveway that I can see. Mrs. Lewis has already gently scolded me (it felt like someone splashed boiling water across my whole body) about letting flies in, so I don’t dare open the door again.
“Go play,” she says now, humor making her voice dance across the room from the direction of her inscrutable face. “I told you, I’ll come get you as soon as she gets here.”
Mrs. Lewis doesn’t sound mad, but her sweet reprimand sends alarms echoing through my bones. I’ve never seen her angry, and I don’t want to. “Okay,” I say, so that she knows I’m not ignoring her, and wander back toward my room. Mrs. Lewis said I could play outside, and I want to see my mom as soon as she gets here, but it’s boring out there. Plus, I don’t know. I don’t want her to see me first. I want to see her first.
I find Barbie in the closet, and settle down on the floor. The closet is empty except for a box of facial tissues, which I use as clothing for the doll, and a small bottle of perfume that I use as hair spray, even though her hair is so short that I’m lucky if I can change the direction of some of the strands. I brush her hair forward with my fingers, and hold it there, trying to create bangs. I focus on where Barbie is, and what she’s doing. I drape a sheet of tissue across her shoulders and tuck it between her arms, making her a blazer. She’s at work. She does very important business things all day.
“Crystal, your mom is here,” Mrs. Lewis calls from the hallway. “Get your brother.”
The excitement of my mother’s visit diminishes with the reminder that I have to share her. I picture myself defying Mrs. Lewis, dashing to the living room, and tackling my mother in a hug—way before my brother gets to her.
I drop Barbie and run to the Indian kid’s room, not daring to face the possibly severe wrath of Mrs. Lewis. “Germy, Mom’s here,” I shout through the door, hoping that I chose right. I always look for my brother in the Indian kid’s room first. I dance impatiently to door-dulled screeches and thuds as I wait.
My brother opens the door, a 5-lb weight in one hand. Heavy metal seeps out between the door and its frame, but fades to nothing halfway down the hallway. Death metal is no match for the weight of silence in Mrs. Lewis’ house.
“What?” he says.
“Mom’s here,” I say again, dancing to the rhythm of anticipation.
“Okay.” He sounds uninterested, but I’m not fooled. I’m a few fast steps down the hallway before I realize that I’m not in a race. I stop, and turn.
He’s standing in the doorway, the door half-closed. “Aren’t you coming?” I demand.
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute,” he says, and shuts the door.
I stare at the door for a moment, stunned, but then I realize that my mom is probably sitting on the couch, waiting for us, alone. I race on into the living room. I’m glad that I get to see her first, but now I’m worried that she’ll be too sad, if Germy’s not there, to be happy to see me.
The couch is empty. Dismay from Mrs. Lewis’ betrayal makes me dizzy. I look around the empty living room and find Mrs. Lewis at the front door.
I breathe.
First through the door is a washed-out social worker. She’s tall and shabby with an apologetic air. I wonder where Sam is, but don’t really care. Social workers are as interchangeable as foster parents. I peer around the bulky woman, straining for a glimpse of my mom. Beyond my foster mother and the anonymous social worker is a rectangle of air and yard. Is she in the car?
Mrs. Lewis turns to me. “Aren’t you going to say hi to your mom?”
I want to. I wait for my mom to come through the door. After a moment of silence, I realize that Mrs. Lewis thinks the social worker is my mom.
Before I can explain, the stranger steps toward me. “Hi, Crissy,” she says, dropping her arms in front of her. “Aren’t you going to give me a hug?”
I step back. No. I stare at the woman, aghast. Why would I want to hug the social worker? I look to Mrs. Lewis, and she shoots me an encouraging smile.
I shake my head, poised to flee if the woman steps toward me again.
“Jeremy,” Mrs. Lewis says, looking past me. “Come say hello to your mother.”
I turn, relieved. Me and Germy can explain that this isn’t Mom.
I don’t know who this woman is, or why she’s pretending to be my mom, but she won’t get away with it. Roxanne kidnapped Bubba before he died, but the police brought him back the next day. Bubba was cute and sweet, though. Why would this woman want to steal us? But does she? Maybe I’m confused….
I wait for Germy to say something, to denounce this woman, but he studies the carpet, giving the woman only a darting glance or two. “Hey,” he says.
I stare at him, willing him to give the woman a longer look. She’s not our mom, I want to shout. I want him to shout. He catches me staring, and I open my eyes wide; a silent panic signal. He glares in response and goes back to visually mapping the carpet texture. I glance down. The carpet is gray and not that thick. I don’t know what fascinates him about it.
I’m on my own.
I face the stranger and Mrs. Lewis. What should I do? I could tell Mrs. Lewis that this woman isn’t our mother, but somehow the woman has already convinced her that she is. What if Mrs. Lewis doesn’t believe me? What if she can’t do anything, even if she believes me? I can stall, maybe. My real mother is supposed to be coming. If I can keep this woman from taking us until my mom gets here, everything will be okay.
“Why don’t we go out and sit on the grass and talk,” the woman suggests.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Mrs. Lewis says.
My brother shrugs, apparently intent on memorizing the color and texture of the flat, beige ceiling. “Okay,” he says.
What if there are big men with a van outside and a baseball bat and they’re just waiting for us to come out? What if we don’t come out, and one of the men comes in? What if he hits the Indian kid and Mrs. Lewis with the bat?
The world expands, stark and friendless.
I let the woman go out first, and then I go. If I see a van, I’ll push Germy back inside and slam the door shut and then Mrs. Lewis can call the police.
There is no van, and the woman settles, criss-cross-applesauce, on a greener part of the grass. As my brother pokes around the bushes that border the house, I tower over the woman, trying to find the internal fortitude to scream. All I can do is stand here and glare, demoralized by my brother’s passivity. What if this woman is our mother and I don’t recognize her? But she’s not! He hasn’t even really looked at her yet. But he’s looked at her enough to know. I knew as soon as I saw her that she was no one.
“Sit down,” the woman invites. She nods toward the grass next to her, and smiles up at me.
I shake my head, still glaring.
The woman unzips her purse and roots around for a moment before pulling out a pack of Necco Wafers. “Do you want one?” she asks, peeling open the wax wrapper.
I shake my head.
“Sit down and talk to me, Crissy,” she says, smiling up at me. She seems so nice, and she calls me “Crissy,” and she eats my mom’s favorite candy, but all that stuff only makes me angry. She’s wrong. She studied my mom and figured out what she was like, and now she’s trying to convince me that she’s really her. But who would do that? And why? Who would be stupid enough to think that I wouldn’t know my own mother well enough to recognize a fake?
A car passes by. It’s not a van, and it doesn’t slow down, but I feel my heart-heart-heart-heart-heart. Germy is kicking the fence that borders the yard. We’re already outside, so if we can’t get back inside we could run to Mr. Lewis’ house. He might have a baseball bat. But I don’t know if he’s home. Or we could run to the cemetery. It’s just up the street and it’s big, with lots of trees to hide in, and it’s not easy for vans because there’s so much grass. And dead people. Bubba’s grave is there. We left a McDonald’s whistle on his name plaque the last time we were there. It wasn’t long ago that we left it, but I wonder if someone took it. Bubba’s in the graveyard for kids, so maybe someone else’s brother or sister came and found the whistle and took it home. Maybe That Guy ran over it with his lawnmower. Maybe you’re not allowed to leave stuff on graves.
The woman loses her smile. “Sit down,” she demands. Recognition reverberates through me, and kicks the backs of my knees. I fall, more than sit. I know that tone. Mom’s do-what-I-tell-you-now Tone. And Mom’s voice.
How is it possible? I search the stranger’s face, trying to remember what my mom actually looked like. Faces don’t stay right in my head—they blur, like drawings smudged by rain. I never thought to memorize her, just always assumed I’d know her when I saw her. The signposts appear. The mole just above her lip. I remember the first time I’d noticed it, back before Bubba died. She’d called it a “beauty mark,” but I hadn’t bought it. I remember thinking at the time that she’d look better without it.
And her long nose with the flat tip like the end of a chopped-off carrot, and her thin lips, and her blonde hair, but sadder now, with its old familiar feathers in tatters. It’s still a stranger’s face, but I start to see my mother in it.
She’s lost The Tone and is chattering about the place she found for us to live in. It’s an empty office building. I immediately picture a huge, empty skyscraper—a metal-and-glass castle. How many of the rooms would be mine? How many floors?
“Do you remember Tony?” she says. “He used to be our landlord. He says we can live there until we find an apartment or a house. I want us to live in a house.”
My mother has been swallowed up by this bloated, gray-faced woman, but she is in there, somehow. Her gestures as she speaks are as precise and graceful as ever. Her voice holds the power her eyes do not. There is something in her presence—something that is just her. But how come I didn’t know her at first? Maybe it is a trick, and I’m falling for it. I’ll play along for now, and if my real mom shows up, she can save me.
My—mom?—holds out the package of candy. I don’t like Necco Wafers. I don’t like the crispy ghost of chocolate flavor, but I accept it.
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