Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Grim Marie’s mother was dying. She had been dying for several years now, off and on, but this time seemed like it might actually be THE TIME.

“I’m not ready for you to go, Mama,” Marie whispered to nobody in particular. She was putting together a basket for her mother, full of treats and homemade breads and jams. Grim Marie liked to cook. It set things right in her mind. She spent the morning pressing flour, salt, eggs, and water together to form noodles. She rolled them into dough. Cut them into strings. Let them dry around the tiny apartment like Christmas tinsel made of carbohydrates. Spider webs of love.

“Talking to yourself again?”

Aleta appeared in the doorway. Her dark eyes were lined in black. She’d pierced her nose and lip and dimple. She had tried her tongue but regretted it almost immediately.

Marie tried to smile at her, but her lips didn’t quite work right. She felt them twist and shape themselves into something almost eerie. She let the attempted smile fall from her face and it cracked on the floor like a brittle mask.

“At least I know what I’m going to say.”

Aleta stepped over and kissed her mom on the hair. Quick, neatly. Not like a child kisses a mother at all. More like a distracted parent kisses a child when their silky heads bumble too near their lips.

“The soup smells good.”

“Thanks, dear. Most of it is going to Grandma’s, but I have some put aside for us, too.”

Aleta floated over to the stove, sniffing the chicken soup again.

“You can buy this stuff in cans, you know.”

Marie shrugged. “It isn’t the same.”

Aleta grinned at her then, and her too-round face thinned into something Marie remembered from too-long ago.

“You look like a kid when you smile,” she said, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Aleta’s eyes went scared and then empty. She packed her grin away and tucked it safely into her back pocket.

“I’m sorry,” Marie said, but Aleta shook her head.

“Don’t be sorry, Mom. I know what you meant.”

“I don’t want to upset you . . . ”

“Stop it.”

Aleta would always be upset. She knew it. Grim Marie knew it. Talk of childhood and hopes and secrets would always remind her of monsters. Talks of bedroom doors and hands over mouths and footsteps in the hall would bring her back to that place.

“I’m sorry,” Marie said again for the one millionth time. Her mouth said it. Her eyes said it louder.

“Don’t be.” Aleta tried that half smile again, where one side hitched higher than the other, but it didn’t work, seemed garish. She pulled her lips back and showed her teeth, and it wasn’t anything beautiful or comforting at all.

“Come here, baby.”

Marie held out her arms and Aleta walked into them. She smelled like incense and new floral deodorant and herself, that smell that was more familiar than baby powder. It pulled deep and guttural at Marie’s stomach, reminding her of something older than time. Like frankincense. Like a strange piece of music that makes you weep when you hear it, missing your mother and your father and everybody else who knew you before you even technically were.

“You’re kind of losing it, Mom.”

Aleta pulled away and studied her mother with eyes that shouldn’t have to show such concern at age 12.

“You’re tired.”

“I’m always tired.”

“You’re afraid Grandma is really sick this time?”

“How do you know so much?”

Aleta grinned, and it was real, and it was wonderful.

“I’m a mature and astute child, mother.”

“Smart aleck,” Marie said fondly, and threatened jokingly to swat her daughter on the behind with the wooden spoon.

“When are you going to have time to run everything over to her?”

Marie sighed and her hand fluttered to her brow. A headache was gnawing at her temples, winding steel bands around her forehead. She wanted to gouge out her eyes with the spoon, to relieve the pressure. She wanted to bash her face against the counter again and again and again until the rotten pumpkin that was her head simply exploded and the pain was no more.

“I’m not sure, sweetie. I want to get it to her by dinner, but I just have so much to do. I was planning to spend tonight in the hospital with her. You don’t mind, do you? Or you could come with me, if you’d like, but there really won’t be anywhere to sleep.”

Aleta rolled her eyes.

“Don’t make it so hard. I’ll bring it to Grandma for dinner. You come after work and we’ll stay. It isn’t a big deal.”

Marie thought. “I suppose I could run you over and . . . ”

“Run me over? It’s over half an hour away. I’ll take the bus.”

Marie opened her mouth to say something, but Aleta cut her off.

“It’ll be fine. You worry too much. Give me a few minutes to pack a bag and I’ll do it, okay?”

She stuck out her tongue and ran up the stairs, her legs looking frail in her skinny jeans, the flash of red Converse looking like fire flowing up the steps.

She wanted to do this. She wanted to smooth the worry from Marie’s eyes and push at her cheeks until they were sweet and soft and happy. Marie swallowed hard.

“Let her go,” she whispered to herself, and ladled the soup into a thermos. “She isn’t your baby anymore. Let her go.”

The extra few hours would be nice. Perhaps she could even slip into the bathtub before she went to the hospital, with its scent of bleach and plastic tubing. Her stomach lurched at the thought of it.

“Do you think they’ll let us bring Grandma home?”

Marie hadn’t heard Aleta creep back down the stairs. She turned and saw her daughter shrug into the bright red hoodie that she always wore.

“I don’t know. Sweetheart, she might not come home this time. It feels a little . . . different than before. More serious.”

Aleta nodded, a wise little sage.

“Will you be okay if that happens?”

Her daughter shrugged, but it wasn’t the shrug of indifference. It was the shrug of not knowing, or not being able to predict the future. “I’ll be okay” and “I’ll miss her” and “Why do people have to leave” and “There’s one less person in the world I’ll trust” pressed their faces to the space behind her eyes, but all she did was shrug.

“We’ll get along all right” Grim Marie told her. She nudged Aleta with her elbow, teasing out a smile. “We always do.”

“Take a nap,” Aleta told her, and she slipped the food into her backpack. “Maybe a bath. You love baths.”

“Maybe.”

She kissed her daughter’s cheek. Aleta slipped her earbuds into her ears, flashed her eyes at her mother over her shoulder, and walked out of the door.

Grim Marie thought about that moment often. The red hoodie. The dark eyes. The door closing

Closing

Closing

And then it was closed.