Clara wiped her eyes. She didn’t want to cry over Beatrice. She wanted to stay mad at her. It seemed easier that way, to punish Beatrice silently, not to ache for her.
Clara lay back on her bed and thought about her new life. She knew she would have to accept it eventually. Her mother didn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon, and while Clara didn’t really want her there, she also had to admit that she didn’t want her to go either. For the first time in ages, she didn’t have to worry about money, or at least not the way she used to. She could be a teenager.
There was a soft knock on the door.
“Yes?” Clara called, wiping away the last of the tears.
“It’s Beatrice. May I come in?”
Clara hesitated before saying yes.
Beatrice walked in tentatively and sat on the end of the bed. She was careful to keep her distance from Clara knowing Clara was angry with her but not understanding why.
“I learned a new word today,” Beatrice said. She waited for Clara to ask.
“That’s nice.”
Beatrice’s face fell. “It’s a really good one.” She tried to make it as tempting as possible.
“Well, what is it?”
“‘Innocuous’,” Beatrice replied. “Do you know that word, Clara?”
“Yes, I know that word, Beatrice,” Clara said. She stared at the ceiling. What the hell does ‘innocuous’ mean again? she thought.
“Don’t you think it’s such a lovely word?”
“It’s a lovely word.”
The girls grew quiet, Beatrice trying to work up the courage to ask Clara why she was so mad, and Clara trying desperately to remember what “innocuous” meant.
“All right,” Clara huffed. “What does it mean?” and she felt Beatrice plop on top of her and wiggle her arms under Clara’s neck to squeeze her tightly.
“Oh Clara! I knew you had forgotten the word and you were just so mad at me that you pretended to know it!” Beatrice cried into the pillow.
Clara smiled and wrapped her arms around her sister.
“May I tell you, Clara?”
“Yes, Bea.”
Beatrice rolled off of Clara and lay beside her in the bed. Clara turned to the side to face her sister.
“It means innocent or harmless,” Beatrice said. “She got her feelings hurt even though he meant for the statement to be innocuous.”
“Very good,” Clara replied. “Did you make up that sentence yourself?”
Beatrice nodded.
“It’s a very nice sentence,” Clara said, and Beatrice grinned.
“Clara?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you so mad at me?” Beatrice asked. Her blue eyes looked like they would drown in tears at any second, and Clara finally understood.
Beatrice was just a little girl. For all her big vocabulary words and declarations of being born an old lady, she was just a ten-year-old girl. How could Clara be angry with her for wanting her mother? She was a little girl who needed her mother, and suddenly Clara felt all of the anger and hurt over being forgotten by her younger sister melt away. Beatrice never intended to hurt her. She was only behaving in the way that any child would.
“I’m not mad at you, Bea,” Clara said tenderly. “And I’m sorry that I’ve been treating you badly. I won’t anymore. I promise.”
Beatrice’s face lit up. “Clara?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for taking care of me while Mom was away.”
Clara’s heart swelled. “You’re welcome.”
***
“I’m going to prom with Evan,” Clara said at dinner three nights later.
Beatrice squealed with delight. “Oh Clara! How very romantic! When did he ask you?”
“A few days ago. I’m going tomorrow after work to shop for a dress.”
“May I come, Clara?” Beatrice asked.
“I’m actually going to do this one on my own,” Clara replied. She watched her mother’s face fall, but Ellen remained silent.
Clara decided to try a consignment store she found online at school. It was a shop that catered to economically disadvantaged girls, so Clara knew she could afford a dress. She still functioned the same way with money even after her mother came home. Part of it was habit, but more of it had to do with an underlying fear that her mother would leave again. Clara didn’t trust Ellen, so she kept working her two jobs and saving her money, waiting for the day that she would have to drain her account all over again to pay the bills because her mother would be gone.
“I’m not working tomorrow afternoon,” Ellen said tentatively. “We could all go together. It might be fun.”
Clara tensed. “I don’t think so.”
Ellen let out a sigh. Beatrice noted the tension between her mother and Clara and tried for a different topic.
“I’m a finalist for the regional spelling bee,” she offered.
Clara never took her eyes off her mother’s face as she responded. “Way to go, Bea.”
Beatrice thought it was a distracted reply, like Clara really wasn’t interested in her accomplishment.
“Clara, I wish you would let me go with you,” Ellen said seemingly unaware of Beatrice’s statement.
“Don’t you want to congratulate Bea, Mom? She’s a finalist for the regional spelling bee. That’s a big deal. A very big deal,” Clara added with emphasis.
Ellen’s anger intensified. “How much longer do you plan on punishing me?”
Beatrice slunk out of her chair and headed for her bedroom.
“Punishing you?” Clara asked. “Hmm, let’s see. How long have you been back? Around three months? And you left us alone for five. So I’d say you’ve got another two months to go.”
“Watch the way you talk to me,” Ellen warned. She dropped her fork on her plate.
“You’re acting like a child,” Clara spat. “You’re angry that you can’t have your way and come dress shopping with me. Why on earth would you ever think I’d want you to come with me?”
Ellen got up from the table and walked to the sink. She all but threw her dishes in and wheeled around to face her daughter.
“I’m trying, Clara!” she screamed. “I’m trying to be better! To be a good mother!”
Clara looked at her mother with disgust. She felt it everywhere inside her, coursing through her veins to replace her blood, pumping in her heart to make it contract with darkness, inflating her chest as she breathed, filling it with the black smoke of hate.
“Try harder,” she said, and left the table.
Chapter 21