“Who the hell are you?”
I’d put her close to forty, or maybe not quite. Her white-blond hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, her mouth a gash of red lipstick. High cheekbones. Her eyebrows must be white too, either that or she doesn’t have any. She’s bony, almost in the way that Mattie was bony, but not because she’s growing—from drugs or an eating disorder or not having enough money. I recognize all of these things, but I can’t always tell them apart. She’s wearing cut-offs and a T-shirt with vintage Mickey Mouse on the front and it’s knotted just under her breasts. Silver stretchmarks line her pink abdomen. I don’t see any marks on her arms, not like Caddy.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She’s got a flinty kind of voice, one I can’t imagine as a whisper or a song.
“—”
A rope around my throat. I lock on nothing for far too long. She looks like she’s a minute away from calling the police. Spit it out, I think. Just spit it out. Keith used to snap that at me when he got tired of waiting. If I was close enough, he’d grab me by the face with one hand, like he could force the words out of me if he just squeezed hard enough.
“Hello?” She waves a hand in front of my face. “What the hell are you doing sneaking around my house? Give me one reason I shouldn’t call the cops right now.”
I exhale sharply. “I’m l-looking f-for s-someone.”
Marlee puts her bony hands on her bony hips. I think I could wrap my fingers around her wrists once, twice, three times. Maybe I could break her in half, but there’s something about her that makes me think I wouldn’t get too far in the attempt, like my throat would be slit before I even knew what was happening. It’s hard not to respect that.
“In my house?” She steps forward and I resist a step back. “Let’s try this a question at a time, real slow: who the hell are you?”
“L-Lera.”
Sometimes I wonder how my mother came to put Sadie Lera together. When I asked her she’d always say, I had to call you something, didn’t I? But there has to be more to it than that. I want there to be. Even if it’s just that she liked them both enough to mash them together, despite the fact they don’t sound nice together at all.
“Lera…?”
“C-Caddy Sinclair g-gave me your n-name,” I tell her. Her eyes flash in a way I don’t like. “He said you c-could help me.”
“Did he now? Who is it you’re looking for?”
“Darren M-Marshall.”
She laughs, a brittle, unpleasant sound that makes my spine crawl.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” she says. It’s not a question. She sniffs and runs an arm across her nose. The vaguely muted sound of a baby crying inside floats out onto the street. She spares me half a glance before making her way toward it.
“Go home, girl,” she says and then she’s gone.
I hear her front door slam shut.
But I didn’t come this far to go home.
I round the house and I sit on her stoop, legs stretched in front of me and crossed at the ankles, my bag by my side. I stare at the sky and watch its forget-me-not blue deepen into something a little more, what’s the word … cerulean. I stare until the sun puts itself directly in my line of vision and forces me to look away. I let my skin bake, then burn, let my mouth dry. Is this self-harm? Feeling the pain happening to you and letting it happen?
I could die, I think, and it feels like nothing.
It’s just after three when Marlee’s door creaks open, pulling me from a hazy stupor. I don’t raise my head until she says, “Get your ass in here.”
The door slams shut behind her and I begin the painstakingly painful task of rising to my feet, my body stiff, my skin sore and sunburnt. I force myself to draw my shoulders back and walk into Marlee’s place like I own it. The house smells stale and smoky, like someone made a point to close every window just before opening a pack of Lucky Strikes.
I stand in a dim hallway before the stairs leading to the second floor. It offshoots in two different directions, the living room—which I’ve already seen—and a kitchen. That’s the room Marlee steps out of, wearing something different now, a pair of jeans with such artistic rips in the legs I can’t tell if they’re on purpose or not and a red tank top that grants a full view of her collarbone, where she has a tattoo of a knife surrounded by flowers, daring me to look at it.
“Didn’t suppose there was any other way to get you off my stoop,” Marlee says and I nod in agreement, crossing my arms. She crosses hers. “You’re all sunburnt.”
“Y-yeah.”
“That’s gonna hurt tomorrow.”
It hurts now.
“L-likely, yeah.”
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?”