Ellie
The sleep did a world of good. When I woke up, my arms hurt, but I felt more clearheaded than I had in weeks. Months, maybe. I understood why when I looked at my phone. I sat up so fast, I nearly hit my head on the underside of the top bunk.
“Two-thirty?” I shrieked, flying around the apartment. I put on my sneakers and raced out the door without even going to the bathroom or looking at myself in the mirror. It didn’t matter. I had to be at the school by two forty-five to pick up Isabella. All I needed was for somebody to think I was unfit when it came to picking my daughter up from school. And I couldn’t have her thinking I wouldn’t come for her.
I made it there with just a minute to spare, pulling into the pickup line in front of the school with a sigh of relief. I’d probably broken a half dozen traffic laws to make it there in time, but I’d managed to fly under the radar, thank God. Somebody up there was on my side for once.
A knock at the driver’s side window. “Hi, Ellie.” Carrie, one of the shiny, happy moms. Didn’t I used to be one of them—or, rather, didn’t I used to pretend to be one of them? I wished she had known me back when I was like her. When I used to get my hair done every four weeks, along with my hands and feet. When I used to exercise like a demon to keep myself in shape, or risk being called a fat cow. When I dressed impeccably rather than driving to my kid’s school without a bra on beneath my t-shirt.
The smug tone of Carrie’s voice told me everything I needed to know about my appearance. To think, when I was a kid I used to believe there were no such things as bullies once a person grew up. I wished somebody had told me bullies never went away. They just got bigger.
“Listen,” Carrie continued, “Mrs. Desmaris is going out on maternity leave at the end of the week, and all us moms thought it would be nice to put a card together for her. You know, with a gift card inside for a baby store or something.”
I knew where she was going. “That sounds great,” I said, smiling. I was so used to forcing myself to smile, it was sad.
“I figured you might not have the money, so I put twenty dollars in for you. You can get me back whenever you have it. No rush.” She smiled like she thought she was Mother Megan or something.
My pulse raced, my hands tightened on the steering wheel. “You know what? I’ll get you back right now.” I reached into my wallet, pulling out one of the twenty dollar bills from the previous night’s tip money. “Thanks so much for thinking of me. I appreciate it.”
“Oh, no problem.”
I rolled the window up before Carrie could continue speaking and make me feel like even less of a human being than I already did. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of watching me crumble, though. She wasn’t worth it.
Did they all think I was such a mess? Did they talk about me behind my back? Did they talk about my daughter, too? How her mother could barely make ends meet? I’d thought I hid my situation pretty well, all things considered. I still drove the Lexus, only because Connor had put it in my name when he bought it—one of the only generous things he’d ever done throughout the course of our relationship. I tried to keep myself up as best I could. Isabella’s clothes were always clean, always in good shape. She had plenty of food, always went on field trips even if I had to scrimp and save well in advance to cover the fees. What was I missing?
I didn’t have time to think about it, since Isabella walked toward the car only moments later. I climbed out, all smiles, bending down to gather her up in my arms. It was a challenge, since the pain had returned, but I needed to hold my baby. I only hoped she didn’t ask me to lift her into her car seat.
“Mmm, you smell so good.” I took a deep breath, catching the smell of her hair. “Like cookies. I wanna eat you up!”
“No, Mama!” Isabella giggled, making the little problems and worries in my head all but disappear. She had a way of doing that for me.
“Come on, big girl. We need to get you home so I can cuddle you forever and ever.”
“You don’t have to work tonight?”
“No way! This is my day off! We’re gonna hang out all night and have your favorite dinner and watch a movie on the couch.” Isabella practically jumped for joy. It was so easy to make her happy. I hoped she managed to keep that sense of joy no matter what life threw at her.
The whole way home, Isabella prattled on and on in the back seat. “And then, Mrs. Desmaris did this…and Lucy and Millie aren’t talking to each other…and then Mrs. Desmaris did that…and then…” I was perfectly happy to let her talk until she was blue in the face. As long as she was happy.
“Hey, Mama?”
“Yes, baby.”
“You were asleep when I woke up this morning.”
“I know, baby, but I kissed you while you were asleep. Mama was so tired when she got home that she just had to sleep.”
“Because you worked all night long.”
“That’s right. It was a very, very long night.” You have no idea, my love, and I hope you never do.
“Mama, are we poor?”
“What?” I nearly slammed on the brakes, I was so stunned by the suddenness of her question. “What do you mean? Why are you asking me that?”
Isabella looked down at her shoes. Shoes that needed to be replaced. “Lucy said her mommy said we were poor.”
Damn that Carrie. I wanted to have a word or two with her majesty the next time we ran into each other. “What else did Lucy say?”
“Nothing. Just that we were poor. Are we, Mama?” Isabella’s chin quivered.
I glanced in the mirror to find my baby on the verge of tears, and there was nothing I could do about it. No, bullies never went away. “No, baby, we’re not poor. We’re just having a tough time right now.”
“What does poor mean?”
I could have laughed. The kid didn’t even know what the word meant. She probably knew enough about it from the way that little brat Lucy said it, though. If ever a little girl was destined to grow up like her mommy, it was Lucy. “Poor means we don’t have a lot of money. Like, we have to save up for things. And we can’t take vacations like we used to, or go out to eat all the time.”
“Because we don’t live with Daddy anymore,” she said.
“Right.” It was like a minefield, never knowing where to step. The next step might lead to an explosion.
“Because you and Daddy got divorced.”
“That’s right. And you know what divorce is.”
“Oh, yeah. Lots of people have divorces. I know what that is. How come I never get to see Daddy? Breanna and Millie see their Daddy on the weekends.”
I wanted to scream—not at my daughter, but at her worldliness. Why were three-year-olds talking about things like this, anyway? “That’s a very long story, sweetheart. Daddy and I don’t get along, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.” Oh, I hated lying to her. I didn’t think her father was capable of love, but how could I explain that to a three-year-old? Hell, I wouldn’t have told her about it if she were thirteen, or eighteen. It was too much for her to handle. For all his distance, for all his neglect, Isabella had idolized him. She’d learned to hang on every little bit of attention he gave her, the poor thing.
“I understand.” She sounded so old, so wise.
You’ll never understand, I wanted to say, because I’m going to keep it from you if it kills me. You’ll never understand the man he truly is. You don’t need to know. It’s too much for you to know.
“Things are okay for you and me, aren’t they?” I asked, glancing at her again as I drove. “I mean, you’re happy with us living together. Right?”
“Yeah, I love living with you.”
“Even though the apartment is small?”
“I like when we play games, and when we watch movies and sing songs and stuff.” She was so resilient, too. Looking for the positive in everything. Even though the apartment was roughly the size of the kitchen in the house she’d grown up in, she didn’t appear to mind. I hoped she hadn’t also learned how to lie to make her mother feel better when she learned about divorce and the way certain people looked down on others who were poor.
Once we got home, I didn’t have much time to think since my daughter’s needs eclipsed my own. I helped her with homework, which thankfully was still only a little bit at the age of three. The fact that she had homework at all was shocking to me at first, but that was before I heard kindergartners were learning about computers. A simple three-line synopsis of a book we read together didn’t seem like such a big deal in comparison.
I left Isabella in the living room to watch her favorite show while I went in to take a shower. “I’ll get dinner started as soon as I get dressed,” I promised, knowing I couldn’t live another minute with the smell of food still in my hair from the double shift. I turned the water up as hot as it would go, and the heat helped my muscles relax. I tried to remember if I had a heating pad somewhere, and laughed at the thought of shoving one more thing into the cramped place I called home. There was nearly nothing in terms of closet space. Where would I store a heating pad?
I was still chuckling almost deliriously as I went back to the room I shared with my daughter. The mirror hanging on the back of the door told me what I needed to know about my arms. There were big, nasty bruises around both biceps. I dried off in a hurry, throwing a shirt on to cover them before Isabella got bored and decided to visit me while I dressed.
I’d left my phone on the dresser, and it buzzed angrily with an incoming call. I looked at it, then recoiled in horror. Connor. No way I was going to take his call. A fist-sized ball of fear took root in my stomach, growing bigger and bigger. I stepped away from the phone like it was a deadly animal, until my back was against the opposite wall. It wasn’t very far.
Why was he calling? He hadn’t called in weeks, maybe even an entire month. What did he want from me? Did he plan to finish the job he had started at the diner? My stomach churned—had I had a bite of food in it, I might have thrown up. I closed my eyes instead, forcing myself to breathe. In, out. In, out. Slowly. Deeply. With purpose. Counting to four on the inhale, then four on the exhale. Over and over until the nausea and panic passed.
By then, the phone had stopped ringing. I picked it up, gasping to find ten missed calls. He’d been calling all day—I just hadn’t checked the phone carefully when I first woke up, in all my haste to get out the door. It was the first time I was paying attention. The horror grew.
A single buzz. A voicemail. I closed my eyes, trying to decide if I should listen or not. I knew what I would hear—blatant insanity. Evilness. Threats and ugliness. I didn’t need that in my life.
Still…I couldn’t help myself. I opened my voicemails and listened to the latest one.
“You fucking bitch.” I recoiled in horror, his words hitting me like a hand across the face. “You think you can do this to me? You think I’m gonna roll over and play dead while you keep my kid from me? Oh, no, sweetheart. Do you have another thing coming. Oh, do you have another thing coming to you. You’re gonna be so surprised when you find out what I have for you. And then Isabella will be mine, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Enjoy her while you still can.”
I couldn’t listen to anymore, and deleted that message, along with all other messages. My hands shook almost uncontrollably as I did so.
What could I do? I felt trapped like an animal. I took even more deep breaths, telling myself to calm down, that there was nothing he could do to us. Still, I checked the locks on the door twice when I got back to the living room, just to be sure.
“Are you okay, Mama?”
“I’m just fine, sweetie. I’m gonna get dinner ready now. How about your favorite spaghetti and meatballs in the whole world?” We threw an impromptu dance party in honor of the spaghetti and meatballs, then I danced my way into the kitchen. As soon as I was out of my daughter’s field of vision, the dancing stopped. I leaned against the counter, arms around myself, shivering. What was I supposed to do?
# # #
“Mama? Did you quit your job? Did I quit school?”
“No, baby. Why do you ask?” It had been five days since Connor’s insane string of phone calls. He’d stopped calling since then, relying on text messages instead. The thing was, no sooner had I blocked one number then he’d started texting from another number. We’d played that game for the first two days, until I gave up. Still, he’d left us alone—physically, at least.
I looked up at my daughter, where she worked on a page in her coloring book. I looked forward to the weekend—at least then I wouldn’t have to feel guilty for keeping my child out of school. I did, however, feel guilty about calling out of work all week. I wasn’t sure how much longer our savings would last.
Isabella kept her eyes on the page she colored while she spoke. “I was just wondering. I didn’t go to school anymore this week. I didn’t get to say goodbye to Mrs. Desmaris. It was her last day before she has her baby.” I heard tears in my daughter’s voice, and the sound tore at my heart. I’d been praying she wouldn’t pay attention to the calendar, that Friday would come and go without her remembering that her teacher was leaving for months.
“I’m sorry, honey. Do you not like the time we’re spending together? Like I said, I thought it would be fun to have a vacation, just the two of us.” I did everything I could to make things sound as fun as possible, but even I knew how terribly I’d failed.
Isabella, at least, tried to make me feel better. “I love vacation, I just don’t know why we took it. You didn’t say anything until Tuesday morning.”
“It was a surprise, like I said.” My patience was quickly wearing thin, and I told myself to stay cool for the sake of Isabella. None of it was her fault. I couldn’t take it out on her.
“Will you get fired from your job?”
I slid off the couch, lying on my side on the floor beside my daughter. “How come you care about so many grown-up things, huh? That’s the sort of thing Mamas worry about, not their little girls. Okay? You let me worry about that. You just color in your book, and we’ll put on a Disney movie in a little while, and I’ll make popcorn. Okay? And tomorrow’s Saturday, and then Sunday. Hopefully by Monday, we’ll have things worked out a little more, and vacation will be over. Okay?”
“Okay.” Isabella went back to coloring in her book. I bit my lip, watching her. No way I could extend our “vacation” past Monday. I had a choice to make. Either I could pull her from the school, which wasn’t mandatory, or I could find some way to get Connor out of my life for good.
How could I manage that, though? Aside from murder—which I’d considered many, many times—there was no realistic way of getting rid of him. I couldn’t very well run even farther away. I didn’t have enough money in the bank to fund a big move, and without my mother, I wouldn’t have anybody to watch Isabella when I needed help. I didn’t think I’d be able to afford a babysitter or daycare—that was why I’d put her in school, even though I didn’t think kids needed to be in school so young.
I sighed, rolling over onto my back. I stared up at the popcorn ceiling, with its faint glimmer of glitter here and there. Why had anybody ever thought that was a good idea?
“What are you thinking about, Mama?”
“Hmm?” I looked at Isabella, who watched me carefully. She was always doing that, watching when I least expected. The wisest little girl I’d ever known. “Oh, I don’t know. I was just thinking about bad choices. Like the paint on that ceiling.” And so many other things.