“Matches!” her mother cried now. Voice no longer hushed, but booming, nearly gay. They could be at a birthday party, lighting candles on a cake. What a grand time! What a great adventure!
The little girl whimpered again. She tugged on her arm, trying to pull her wrist out of her mother’s grasp, struggling more forcibly.
But it was no use. At times like these, her mother’s fingers were talons, her entire body radiating a taut, wiry strength that was impossible to break. She would have her way.
Her mother yanked open the first kitchen drawer. Her left hand still clutched the little girl’s wrist, while her right hand raked through miscellaneous contents. A glossy white shower of plastic silverware rained down on the peeling linoleum floor. Sprays of ketchup packets, mustard pouches, bags of free croutons the little girl sometimes crept out of bed to eat, because her mother believed hunger would make them stronger, but mostly it made the little girl’s stomach ache, so she would pop croutons and suck on ketchup, before stuffing her coat pockets with mustard for her older sister, whom she knew was also starving but couldn’t move nearly as quietly through the house.
Soy sauce. Chopsticks. Paper napkins. Wet wipes. Her mother pawing her way furiously through drawer after drawer, dragging the little girl in her wake.
“Mommy. Please, Mommy.”
“Aha!”
“Mommy!”
“This will teach the fuckers!” Her mother held up a matchbook. Shiny silver cover, fresh black strike stripe.
“Mommy!” the girl tried again, desperate. “The front door. We can go through the front door. Into the woods. We’re fast, we can make it.”
“No!” her mother declared, voice righteous. “They’ll be expecting that. No doubt have three, six, a dozen men already waiting. This is it. We’ll torch the curtains. Minute the wall’s fully engulfed, they’ll flee the property. Fucking cowards.”
“Christine!” The little girl cracked her voice, changing tactics. She planted her feet, drew herself up as tall as her six-year-old frame would allow. “Christine! Stop it! This is no time to play with matches!”
For a moment, the little girl thought it might work. Her mother blinked, her face losing some of its overbright luster. She stared at her daughter, right arm falling lax to her side.
“The furnace shut off,” the little girl declared boldly. “But I fixed it. Now go to bed. Everything’s all right. Go to bed.”
Her mother stared at her. Seemed confused, which was better than crazy. The little girl held her breath, chin up, shoulders back.
She did not know about Them. But she and her older sister had been preparing, planning, and strategizing to survive their mother for their entire young lives. Sometimes, you had to play along. But other times, you had to seize control. Before their mother went too far. Before they really were running for their lives, their mother having done the unspeakable in order to combat the unseeable in her mind.
Years ago, the little girl had suffered from bad dreams. She would hear a baby crying, and the sound haunted her. Her mother, calmer then, softer, rounder, would come into her room to comfort her. She would brush back the little girl’s hair and sing, in a sad, pretty voice, of green grass and sunny skies and faraway places where little girls slept through the night in big soft beds with warm, full tummies.
The little girl had loved her mother during those moments. Sometimes, she wished she would have bad dreams just to hear her mother sing, feel the gentleness of her mother’s fingertips tracing across her cheek.
But the little girl and her older sister didn’t have nightmares anymore. They lived them instead.
The boy, in the woods. Maybe, if she jerked from her mother’s grasp hard enough, ran fast enough…
The little girl drew herself up. She didn’t really believe a boy could save her. Never had. Never would.
“Christine, go to bed,” the little girl ordered.
Her mother didn’t move. She let go of the little girl’s wrist, but her right hand still clutched the matches. “I’m sorry, Abby,” she said.