Lily pressed her teddy bear to her chest hard enough to make his fat arms look like sausages. She watched me for a long minute, and I could see the thoughts spin behind her clear eyes. Finally she seemed to reach a conclusion. Carefully setting the bear aside, she held out her hands to me. “You should have told me,” she said when I wove my fingers through hers. “I can take it.”
“But—”
“I want to know the truth,” Lily said.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I do.” Lily narrowed her eyes. “I might be a kid, but I’m not stupid.” She slid her hand up my arm and pushed the sleeve of my sweater away from my wrist. There were three yellow marks there, all that remained of an old bruise. Cyrus had just grabbed me harder than he meant to, but the end result was the same: I had evidence to cover.
“It’s nothing,” I said, tugging the sleeve back down.
“Fine.” Lily threw herself back on the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. “Go away, Mom. I want to be alone.”
I knew in that moment that I stood at a crossroads. I could go on pretending that everything was okay; I could continue to whitewash a home that was slowly, endlessly decaying. Or I could admit that the facade was only as deep as the thinnest coat of smiles and lies. As I studied my daughter’s huddled form, I realized that maintaining the deception was no life at all. Lily would never trust me again if I wasn’t honest with her. And I couldn’t lose my baby.
“What do you want to know?” I breathed the question so softly I wondered if she would even hear me.
“Everything,” Lily said definitively.
I squeezed my eyes shut and wished her request away. But I knew that she wouldn’t back down. My daughter was strong in ways I could only imagine. “Okay,” I said after several long heartbeats. “It’s not a pretty story.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m not a storyteller.”
“Mom.” Lily rolled to face me. “Stop making excuses. I want to know.”
“Why?”
She bit her bottom lip, considering. Then she sighed a little. “Because no one stood between you and the monster under your bed.”
My throat tightened. “Sweetheart …”
“I know it’s probably too late,” Lily continued, “but you once told me that sometimes all you need is someone to listen.” She gave me a brave, beautiful smile. “I’m listening.”
When I was Lily’s age, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one was listening. I had already taken to calling my mother Bev, not because she asked me to, but because she didn’t seem like much of a mom to me. My friends had mothers who baked cookies for them and braided their hair. My so-called mom told me cookies would make me fat and assured me that no amount of braiding would tame my curls. Her verbal abuse was hurtful in the beginning, but by the time I was old enough to realize what she was doing, it didn’t pain me so much anymore. Instead, I avoided her as much as possible and shrank away from the rest of the world for good measure.
Bev called me “mousy” once—a rather mild put-down in light of her usual slander—and after I met a mouse up close and personal I decided that I rather liked the comparison. I would happily be mousy all the days of my life.
One of the boys in my fifth-grade class caught a baby field mouse in his backyard and brought it in to our science class for show and tell. The little mouse became a mascot of sorts, and our teacher allowed us to keep it in an old aquarium that we filled with wood shavings and some old hamster paraphernalia that someone donated. Everyone loved the mouse, but no one understood the tiny brown-and-white pup quite like I did.
I loved to watch her curl into a perfect ball, her body round and seamless as a chestnut. She blended into the wood chips, so still and so perfectly camouflaged as to be invisible. And when the tiny mouse emerged to eat or drink, it was when no one else was looking. She seemed to tiptoe across the aquarium, sneaking furtive glances left and right and spinning herself into an impenetrable knot if anyone dared to knock on the glass. Her ability to blend in was admirable, and when the rest of my classmates lost interest in her I considered it a mouse-sized victory. She was autonomous, untouchable. I tried to be the same.
Of course, it didn’t work very well. Bev needed someone to be angry at, and whether I wanted to admit it or not, I still needed a parent in my life. My dad was always working, working, working, so when I required the assistance of an adult, it usually fell to my alcoholic mother. Besides, I remembered all too well the sort of help my dad could offer. The hideous Easter dress I wore went down in infamy among my peers.
If the dress incident with my dad was his personal low point, the worst memory I had of Bev was a snapshot taken at the junior high bake sale. We were trying to raise money for new band instruments, and everyone had to contribute in some way. As I reached my hand into the ice cream bucket filled with scraps of paper that outlined our various tasks, I prayed that I would emerge with one of the duties that I could perform alone: painting signs, taking money, or cleaning up after the event. Instead, I picked baking. I had to bake four dozen cookies to sell.
I didn’t know the first thing about baking, and I was pretty sure that Bev didn’t either. But I found a recipe on the back of a bag of stale chocolate chips in our pantry, and decided that one way or another I would struggle my way through. It seemed easy enough. The ingredients were listed in order, and the instructions were very straightforward.
There was a large glass bowl in the corner cupboard that I assumed would be big enough to hold the dough. At least, it looked about the right size if I could trust the Toll House commercials. I set the bowl in the middle of the counter, and then collected everything I could find from the pantry and refrigerator. The only ingredient that gave me trouble was baking soda. I couldn’t find anything called baking soda, but there was a tall, narrow cylinder that had Clabber Girl Baking Powder on the label. I figured that was close enough.
It only took me half an hour to assemble everything in the order given. My biggest hang-up was sifting the dry ingredients. I didn’t know what it meant to sift, so I had to halt the entire process and look it up in the dictionary. To separate something. To put through a sieve; to remove large particles. We didn’t have a sieve; at least, I didn’t think we did. So I used a slotted spoon to sift the flour, baking powder, and salt to the best of my ability. It worked okay. It wasn’t as disastrous as my attempt at cracking eggs.
I was pretty proud of myself by the time the first batch of cookies was in the oven. It felt like a huge accomplishment, knowing that I could not only make something from scratch, but do it entirely on my own. I even imagined telling everyone at the bake sale that the secret baker behind the delicious chocolate chip cookies was none other than mousy old me.
It didn’t take long for the warm, inviting smell of baking cookies to draw Bev to the kitchen. Since it was late in the afternoon, she had to hang on to the doorframe to stop herself from tipping over. I remember being mildly surprised that she hadn’t stirred amid all the ruckus and noise of my first attempt at baking, but the subtle scent of cookies roused her from wherever she had escaped to.
“What are you making?” Bev had a habit of overenunciating her words when she was tipsy. But her tongue was thick and swollen, and they never came out quite right. She sounded like a speech coach with a wad of cotton in her mouth.
“Cookies. The junior high bake sale is tomorrow.”
“I didn’t know you could bake.”
“Neither did I.” I was prepared for a verbal onslaught, but Bev seemed too surprised at my newfound talent to muster an appropriately nasty comeback. Instead, she walked carefully to the table and sat down heavily on one of the chairs. “I need four dozen for school,” I warned her. “I don’t know if I’ll have any leftovers.”
“You will.”
I couldn’t figure out how to work the timer on the stove, so I watched the clock like a hawk for the entire ten minutes of baking time. When it was fi
nally up, I opened the oven door with serious trepidation, and was rewarded by the sight of perfect, round cookies dented with hot pools of melted chocolate chips. To say I was elated would be an understatement, and I think the fierce joy I felt in that moment only made it that much worse when Bev bit into my first cookie and spat it right back out.
“What did you put into these things?” She demanded.
My heart sank. “What do you mean? I followed the instructions …”
Bev pushed herself up from the table and began to paw through the ingredients that still littered the counter. She passed right over the demolished egg shells and the little bottle of imitation vanilla I had found in the cupboard. Her hand finally stopped on the cylinder of baking powder. I watched as she looked at it for a moment, a wrinkle of confusion parting her brow. Then she snorted a giggle. “Baking powder? You put baking powder in the cookies? I don’t know much about cooking, but I do know you can’t use baking powder in place of baking soda!”
“I didn’t know,” I stuttered as she began to laugh. Maybe she was playing a joke on me. The cookies looked fine. They smelled fine. I grabbed one and took a bite.
Bitter. They were salty and bitter and starting to flatten.
“I didn’t know,” I repeated, feeling the tears begin to form in my eyes.
If Bev noticed how upset I was, it didn’t seem to faze her. “That’s why they print instructions,” she snorted, leaving the room with a decidedly careful gait: heel, toe, heel, toe. “The ability to read is a prerequisite of baking.”
My mother had laughed at me before, but the hot shame of what I thought would be my glory was one of the deepest wounds Bev ever inflicted on me. I cleaned up the kitchen with shaking hands, and when I spilled flour on the floor I had to get down on my hands and knees and scrub it like a chambermaid. In that moment, with the cold linoleum bruising my shins and the seemingly perfect cookie dough discarded in one lumpy mass in the garbage can, I vowed that I would never make such a fool of myself again. Before I left the kitchen, I grabbed Bev’s small library of cookbooks and began the slow process of reading each one cover to cover. The next time I made cookies, they were bakery perfect.
But my second attempt at baking didn’t happen for another six weeks, and in the meantime I was still required to produce four dozen goodies for the junior high bake sale.
I only had one option. When my dad came home from work that night, I sidled up to his La-Z-Boy and made my plea. His hair was still wet from the shower and exhaustion radiated off him like cheap cologne. I thought he was watching TV, but a second glance revealed that he had fallen asleep with the remote in his hand. Again. I didn’t want to disturb him, but I figured I didn’t really have a choice.
“Dad?”
He didn’t respond.
“Dad?” I gave his shoulder a little shake.
“Wha-what?” He startled awake, straining the springs in his life-beaten chair. “Oh, Rachel, you scared me half to death. Was I sleeping?”
Of course, you were sleeping, I wanted to say. You work and sleep. What else is there? But I didn’t say that. I just gave him a little nod and launched into my rehearsed speech. I explained the bake sale and skimmed over my culinary failure, highlighting the fact that Bev was not exactly Betty Crocker. I couldn’t count on her to provide something for me.
“You want me to bake something?” Dad asked. The fact that his eyes were round as my ruined cookies assured me that he boasted no hidden talent with a spatula.
“I guess not,” I murmured. My shoulders slumped and I turned away without another word. I would bring nothing, and suffer the derision of my classmates and teachers. There was no other option.
But the chair squeaked behind me, and before I could slink away to my room, Dad caught me by the arm. “Hey,” he said. “I can’t bake, but we can buy something.”
“We’re supposed to do it ourselves.”
“Semantics,” he smiled. “We’ll buy it ourselves.”
“Everyone will know my goodies aren’t homemade.”
“Not if we buy them from the bakery.”
“That’s too obvious,” I pointed out. “Everyone knows what the bakery cookies look like and taste like.”
“We’ll rough them up somehow.” Dad narrowed his eyes as he thought. “I know! We’ll buy plain sugar cookies and then frost them and put sprinkles on top. No one will be able to tell that they’re store-bought cookies. At least, not by looking at them.”
As I considered the possibility, a ghost of a smile passed over my lips. All my cookies had to do was fool my classmates. I didn’t care if whoever bought them later suspected that they came from the Everton bakery. “Okay.” I shrugged.
“Okay?”
“It might work.”
“It’ll definitely work.” Dad actually seemed excited by the possibility. “I’ll go get what we need while you finish your homework. We can have everything done by bedtime and no one will ever be the wiser. Our secret.”
My smile was tightlipped, cautious.
“Come on,” he coaxed, holding out his pinky to seal the deal. I was too old for such gestures, but he looked so happy and earnest that after a moment I linked my pinky with his. We shook.
For half an hour while he was gone, I felt an almost unnatural peace. My cookies might have been a flop, but my dad had actually come to the rescue. And even though I would normally be skeptical about such a harebrained idea, it sounded to me like it just might work.
I rode a wave of optimism until Dad came back from the store with a plastic grocery bag in his hand instead of a white box with the Everton bakery stamp.
“I thought you were going to the bakery,” I said, confused.
Dad didn’t bother taking off his coat. He crossed the kitchen in a few strides and sat beside me at the table. “We weren’t thinking, Rach. The bakery is closed.”
I deflated so quickly it was as if his words were needles. Of course the bakery was closed. It was eight o’clock on a Tuesday night. It had been closed for hours. “What’s in the bag?” I muttered.
Instead of answering, Dad drew out a package of Chips Ahoy cookies. “It’s the best I could do,” he said. His eyes pleaded with me to understand. “I looked everywhere. But you know how small the grocery store is. They don’t stock many baked goods, and at this time of night the shelves were empty …” He was rambling, but the sting of disappointment was too sharp, too fresh for me to give him any sort of reprieve. “It was either this or Oreos, Rach. Look, I bought some frosting, too, and we can still doctor these up. We could make little sandwiches out of them or something …”
“No thanks.” I pushed away from the table. “I won’t take anything.”
“But—”
“I said, no thanks.” Maybe I should have lessened the sting a little. Maybe I should have said, It was a good idea. But I didn’t have the heart. The truth was, a good intention was nothing more than a hollow promise. And I knew all about that particular emptiness.
CHAPTER 8
RACHEL
October 15
With Cyrus gone to the West Coast, I didn’t need to worry about keeping my weekly engagements. I could even skip Bible study. But after Sarah covered for me, I almost craved her company. I felt like we had a connection, and even though I wasn’t willing to share my secrets with her, a small part of me wanted to. I trusted her. Or I was beginning to trust her.
The coffee shop where we met once a week was warm and smelled of cider and freshly baked bread. A quick scan of the room revealed that the ladies in my Bible study had already claimed a table in the back corner. I slipped off my sunglasses and began to make my way across the tile floor. But before I reached our designated study spot, Sarah stood up and came to greet me.
“Sorry, I’m late,” I said, silently cursing myself for staying an extra minute with Max. We were right in the middle of something, but I should have dropped it all the same. I didn’t want to arouse any more suspicion.
“Oh, you’re
not late.” Sarah smiled. “I just wanted to catch you before we enter the melee.” She snagged a thumb over her shoulder at the exact moment the women at the table burst out laughing. We took our Bible study seriously, but no one could deny that we were a fun group of girls. Or, at least, the rest of them were fun. I usually buried my laughter deep and considered myself lucky that they made room for me in spite of my reputation for solemnity.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.
“Not at all.” Sarah took me by the arm and steered me toward the counter where a spiky-haired barista waited to take our orders. “Coffee’s on me this morning. A skinny hazelnut latte? Tall?”
I nodded.
“Make it two.” Sarah directed her last comment at the barista, and began fishing around in her purse for her wallet. A moment later the espresso machine whirred to life and we were enveloped by the familiar din of Everton’s only coffee shop. Sarah used the blanket of noise to lean close to me. “I hope I didn’t get you in trouble last week.”
I knew exactly what she was talking about, but her choice of words threw me off guard. Trouble? Was it that obvious that Cyrus ran a tight ship? I shook my head. “Not at all. Thanks for covering for me.”
“It’s kind of disturbing how easily the lie fell off my tongue.” Sarah’s eyes sparkled. She didn’t seem the least bit upset that she had been less than honest with my husband.
“I thought lying was a sin,” I said, not even sure myself if I was teasing or baiting her.
Sarah’s expression went flat. “So is hurting your wife.”
Her words were a sucker punch to the gut. I almost bent in half. “What?”
“Thought so.” Sarah softened immediately and tucked her bottom lip between her teeth in an expression that was a mixture of compassion and contrition. “I’m sorry, Rachel, I didn’t mean to spring that on you. It’s just, I’ve suspected for a really long time.”