in her adult life, and win. She realized now that she’d left one good thing behind in Omaha, and she could still claim it, if she wanted: herself.
“Help me,” the girl mouthed. Audrey’s resolve returned. She leaped from the folding kitchen chair, and charged. “Get out of this! You don’t need her…. RUN!” she shouted at the girl.
The girl (little Audrey!) hesitated. Betty did not hear. Only held the knife, and her daughter, too tight. Behind the closet door, the man scritch-scratched against the plywood.
“GO!” Audrey shouted as she ran, as if to tackle Betty.
The girl heard. Her lips turned up. Only slightly. Only if you were looking. She smiled, then jerked away from her mother in one fast motion. The knife cut deeper. Blood streamed as she spun, but the wound didn’t slow her down. She raced out the screen door and down the dirt road without looking back.
Audrey watched her go. Dirty, inconsequential girl. Wretch destined for a career in early motherhood and crystal meth. Audrey was so overjoyed by her escape that she shook with relief. “Good girl. Smart girl. I love you,” she said, because even if Betty and Saraub were inconstant, at least she would always have herself. And this girl she’d been, it turned out, was worth something, after all.
In the audience, the crowd oohed and aahed. The lights got brighter, and she could see their faces. There were about fifty of them, and they were all old, in their seventies at least, but their skin was pulled preternaturally smooth and tight. “You see!” Audrey cried out at them. “Don’t screw with me. I’ll fight. I’ll win!”
She expected to wake up, or to enter another dream, but instead the lights got dark again. Scritch-scratch. That sound remained. Only it carried more of a hollow echo, like the man was close to breaking free from the closet. The kitchen brightened like a stage set. So did the hole in the floor, and Betty’s wild blue eyes. In front of and behind her, letters briefly lit up the stage:
Audrey Lucas: thiS is YOur Life.
Audrey felt a breeze. She looked down, and saw that she was now wearing those same coveralls as the girl, only the safety pins had come undone. No panties. Her nakedness, exposed. She covered herself with her hands. A thick tuft of dark woman hair.
Betty turned and looked straight at her. Saw her. The feeling was like a stab in the chest. Audrey’s blood pooled at her feet. “Who are you?” Betty asked.
Scritch-scratch! Audrey could hear the wood shavings as they fell from the plywood closet. The man had almost dug his way out.
“This is a dream,” Audrey said. “You’re my subconscious. You’re not even Betty. I’m not your daughter. It’s just me, talking to me, because I’m upset about Saraub.”
“Really?” Betty asked as she cleaned the girl’s blood from the knife with her hands, then licked her fingers, so that the corners of her lips got bloody. Betty nodded at the screen door. “Little girl won’t get far. Only a few years. Twenty on the outside. Wounds like that bleed slow, but they’re fatal.”
“She’ll make it,” Audrey said.
Betty shook her head. “No, she’s damaged goods. Now come with me. Come see the floor.”
(Scritch-scratch!)
The audience got very quiet, and Audrey understood that something bad was coming. She and Betty stood on either side of the broken faux linoleum. Audrey’s coveralls flapped. “We’re the same, Lamb,” Betty said, as they both peered down. The hole was deep, and at its bottom lay a mirror. The two women’s black-eyed images were indistinguishable, because both were riddled with squirming red ants.
Scritch-scratch. The sound was very close. The man in the three-piece suit was almost out.
“Please wake me up, I don’t like this game anymore,” Audrey begged. Flap-flap, went her pants. So exposed. The red ants wound between mother’s and daughter’s reflections, then mounted the sides of the hole and climbed out.
Betty grinned. Her silken hair and dewy skin channeled an old Hollywood movie, where the people were charming, and nothing bad ever happened.
Scritch-scratch!
In a quick, jerking movement, Betty reached across the void. She squeezed the hole in Audrey’s coveralls. So shameful. So exposed. “You come from me. I own you,” Betty said.
The hole pulsed wider, its jagged sticker linoleum like teeth, and the ants a red tide bubbling up from its depths. “It wants to live inside us, Lamb. It smells our weakness. It climbs through our holes. Don’t you hear it?”