Mom goes quiet, and they keep hugging until Brooklyn tries to push between them, laughing like it’s a game and squealing, “It’s just a weekend, goobers!”
Clearing her throat, Mom nods as she turns. She dashes away her tears, stands taller, goes from soft to hard as if she’s poured all her sweetness into the hugs and has nothing left. “I’ll be back soon. Text me with anything you need. Take care of each other.” She meets Ella’s eyes, and the utter desolation there strikes Ella to the core—Ella feels it, too. “And no matter what you do, don’t let her hurt you.”
Ella can only nod through the tears, and then her mom is gone.
18.
Chelsea doesn’t speak to her mother as she hurries for the door. What else is there to say? When someone is driving the knife into your heart without a single iota of mercy, nothing else seems to matter. Chelsea can’t give her orders for taking care of the girls like it’s just an innocent weekend sleepover, and if she tried, her mother would just say something so infuriating that she’s afraid she’ll lose control. And not in the way of the Violence. What her mother is doing brings such a wide, deep sea of fury to the fore that she can easily imagine her digging her fingernails into those cold blue eyes.
For her part, Patricia likewise says nothing. She stands at her kitchen island, a marble statue of a woman, perfect fingers wrapped around a glass of iced tea, mouth pursed like she’s spotted a roach skittering across the floor and is trying to decide whether to call the exterminator or just get a flamethrower. Her phone is right there, ready to make the call that will put Chelsea away if she attempts any kind of fight or argument. At least this way, she has a chance.
So she leaves.
Just walks away from her daughters and gets in her minivan, hands clenched on the wheel, willing herself not to have a full-on meltdown where one of them might see it through the curtains. She holds on to a picture in her head, her two daughters in Iceland riding fat ponies, vaccinated, fed, safe, happy. She knows her mother is a narcissistic black hole of a human, but at least the girls won’t have to see their father again for a long time.
Oh God. What if he gets home and files for divorce and custody? He would hate having to spend that much time with the girls—he’s never been a fun dad who enjoys their company—but would he do it just to spite her?
Just as her mother has done this to spite her?
Definitely.
If he can’t strangle her with his hands, he’ll gladly do it with his lawyer.
He has always enjoyed hurting her, and she can see it so clearly now that he’s been forced to stop.
On the way home—well, back to the house, as she shouldn’t keep calling it home if she can’t live there anymore—she gets stuck again at that same goddamn light, staring at what she’s pretty sure is a corpse, but this time there are other cars behind her and around her, so she doesn’t turn on red even though she wants to. She thinks about calling 9-1-1 to let them know there’s a body, but since she’s infected with the Violence and being harassed by a cop, she’s not willing to take that chance.
Even when life seemed good, she hated this light. She hates the little yellow building, hates imagining what it would be like to stop here and go inside, the structure so tiny and cramped that she knows it would smell like twenty years of body odor and probably the off-gassing of a thousand cheap carpet samples. Whoever Big Fred is, the sign for his store has always infuriated her.
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU…TO BUY ME NEW FLOORS.
CUT A RUG WITH YOUR BEST GIRL. WE’LL SELL YOU ONE CHEAP! THE RUG, NOT THE GIRL!
HOP ON IN FOR EASTER SAVINGS AND SHE WON’T MIND THAT YOU BEEN FISHIN’.
GIVE HER WHAT SHE REALLY WANTS: NEW CARPET!
She hates it because every message assumes that women are powerless and have to wait for some big, strong man to come along and provide something as basic as a floor covering. Because it’s assumed that women are screeching fishwives who must be appeased with linoleum. Because every message is a joke between men about how materialistic and easily manipulated women are.
Whoever hurt Big Fred, they really did a doozy on him.
Literally, she thinks as she stares at the plaid-marked body under the eaves, the bloody splatter on the yellow wall right at head height. It’s not a kind thought, but she hopes it was a woman that took Big Fred down.
Give her what she really wants: a cure for all this violence against women.
Lower-case v.
The light turns green and she’s on autopilot. She passes by her grocery store, noting that there are very few cars there. When the Violence first broke out and people thought it was contagious, they repeated their coronavirus scare and bulldozed every shop for hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, and toilet paper. Once they realized it wasn’t contagious but that anyone could randomly break out in a Violence storm, those who could stayed away from public places—and other people—as much as possible. It’s almost funny, how America didn’t take Covid seriously because it was “just like the flu,” but now that a pandemic could result in being beaten to death, they’re a lot more willing to stay home.
New delivery companies have sprung up overnight, tough guys and adrenaline junkies and the truly desperate eager to make money by turning grocery runs into something from an Indiana Jones movie. Those who can afford it wear protective gear and helmets, carry tactical batons and other not-quite-illegal weapons. The government has been overrun with concealed-carry permits. Everybody wants to be a hero while forgetting that they could randomly and for no reason become the villain.