At my mom’s closet, I stand staring at her collection of women’s skirt suits circa the nineties from her days as a department store retail clerk. I remember trying on her clothes as a child when she was at work, letting the garments swim around me, inhaling her sugary scent. I’d even get in her bed, wrapping myself up in her blankets, pretending they were her arms. It was against the rules—the doctors warned that even though it appeared I only reacted to skin-on-skin contact, I had to still be careful around things that had prolonged contact with other people, like bedsheets and towels. Allergies are tricky, they said. But I took the risk, and fortunately never reacted. It was my little act of rebellion, but it was something else, too—the only way I could feel close to her. I pull a black suit jacket off its wire hanger and shrug it on over the white tank top I slept in.
I turn and look in the ornate mirror hung over Mom’s dresser, and I scrutinize myself for the first time in years. The realization that other people will be looking at me—seeing what I see in the reflection—churns my stomach. I haven’t had a proper haircut in years, relying on a few snips here and there with my nail scissors, and it shows. My hair’s never been obedient, but it’s grown especially unruly and wild in its freedom, brown curls crawling every which way from the crown of my head to my elbows. I try to smooth them down with the palm of my hand, to no avail.
Then I remember the suit I’m wearing and my eyes are drawn to the padded shoulders. It’s as if someone is asking me a question and I’m shrugging to indicate I don’t know the answer. The rest of the suit is slightly ill fitting. My mom was a little slip of a thing, aside from her large breasts. While I’m not much bigger, the sleeves are a tad too short, the skirt too snug around the waist. It will have to do.
As I bend down to look in the bottom of her closet for a pair of shoes, I swear I catch a whiff of vanilla body spray and my stomach lurches. I sit down on my butt, pull the lapel of the jacket up to my nose, and inhale.
But all I smell is musty fabric.
DOWNSTAIRS, I PICK up my handbag from the side table near the door. I rifle through it, eyeing the two bright yellow EpiPens clustered at the bottom. They expired years ago, but I convince myself they’ll still work in an emergency. And then I pick up my gloves. I wonder if I should put them on. I always found it kind of overkill as a child—the yellow knit gloves I wore in elementary school, graduating to more adultlike, but just as weird, leather gloves in high school. It’s not as if I was going out of my way to touch people—or them me. It’s not that hard to keep your hands to yourself, especially when you’re treated like a pariah. But then I think of all the ways people can make contact without even thinking about it: exchanging money at cash registers; handshakes; someone in a hurry pushing past you, their arm brushing yours.
I slip the gloves on.
Then, before I can change my mind, I snatch my keys off the table beside the front door, turn the handle, and step over the threshold.
The brightness of the blue September sky assaults my eyes and I squint, raising a hand to block the rays. It’s 7:34 a.m. and I’m outside. On the front porch. Though I’ve hurriedly opened the door under the cover of night to bring in packages left by the postman and my weekly grocery delivery, I can’t remember the last time I stood here. In broad daylight.
Blood rushes to my head and I clutch the door frame, dizzy. I feel exposed. As if a thousand eyes are on me. The air around me is too loose, shifty. As if a current could just pick me up and fling me unwilling into the world.
I will my foot to move. To step forward.
But it won’t. It’s as if I’m standing precariously on the edge of a cliff and one step will send me into the great abyss. The world will swallow me whole.
And that’s when I hear it.
The metal clanging and squeaking of the garbage truck turning onto the street.
I freeze.
It’s Thursday. Trash day.
My heart beats wildly against my chest, as if it’s trying to burst out of my body.
I search for the knob behind me, turn it, and step back inside, shutting the door firmly behind me.
Then I lean against it and concentrate on slowing my breath, so the rhythm of my heart can return to normal.
Normal.
Normal.
I glance at my gloved hands and snicker. And then a full burst of laughter escapes my lips and I reach up to my mouth with leather-clad fingers to suppress the sound.
What was I thinking? That I could just leave the house and go to my mother’s funeral like a normal person?
If I were normal, I would wave to the garbagemen. Or say hi. Or just ignore them completely and get in the car, as I’m sure other people do a hundred times a year without even thinking about it.
My shoulders begin shaking as my laughter mutates into crying.
I’m not going to my mother’s funeral. Lenny will wonder where I am. Anything my mom’s told him over the years about my being a bad daughter will be confirmed.
And while all of that is troublesome, another thought floats on the periphery of my brain, waiting to be let in. A terrifying thought. A thought that I realize maybe I’ve known deep down but haven’t wanted to admit to myself. But it’s hard to deny it when I’m leaning against the front door inside my house, unable to slow my heart or stem my tears or stop my body from shaking.
And that thought is: Maybe there’s another reason I haven’t left my house in nine years.
Maybe it’s because I can’t.
two
ERIC
THE FISH IS dying.
I don’t think it is dead yet, because when I gently poke at it with the eraser end of a pencil, it flaps its fins and swims erratically around the small glass bowl for about ten seconds until it appears to give up and float to the top of the water again. It’s not belly-up, though, and isn’t that the telltale sign?
My eyes dart around the boxy apartment as if the solution to save this fish’s life will present itself. But the beige walls, of course, are bare. The rest of the small living room only contains my couch, a glass coffee table, and a few boxes with LIVING ROOM written in black marker on the side. The pencil appears to be my only hope.
I poke at the fish again and look over my shoulder as if a PETA representative is going to be standing there shaking a finger in my face. I’m sure this is tantamount to animal abuse, but this fish needs to live. At least for the next fifteen minutes. And the pencil is my only hope.
The fish finishes its bizarre dance and resumes floating.
Jesus Christ.
“What are you doing?” The small voice gives me a start.
“Nothing,” I say, jabbing the fish one more time and then setting the pencil down. “Feeding Squidboy.”
“I already fed him. Last night. I feed him every night.”
I turn to face Aja’s large, dark, knowing eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses and marvel—not for the first time—at how he can so often make me feel like I’m the child and he the adult. Even though he looks exactly like his dad, Dinesh—acorn skin, silky black hair, lashes long enough to be a mascara ad—he’s the complete opposite of him personality-wise. Where Dinesh was impulsive, charming, personable, Aja is cautious, quiet, introverted. More like me, I guess.