across the street to the park before anyone saw her—couldn’t she? She had to try; Juno walked decidedly for the door. She had to grind her teeth to keep from crying out. The pain wasn’t humming anymore, it was death-metal screaming. Juno had to relieve herself. She’d seen a bathroom, just around the way. She’d be quiet; boys slept hard. It was that or—she didn’t want to think about it.
Creeping along the wall, she passed the kitchen, moving away from the family room. Under the recess of the stairs was a small half bath. She didn’t turn the light on, and she only closed the door enough to shield her from being seen first.
The splash was loud. She tried to get everything done as quickly as possible, and then she was hoisting her pants up. Before she left, she opened the tap and bent her head to drink straight from the stream of water. She slipped noiselessly from the bathroom, once again passing the kitchen, but instead of turning toward the door she walked straight to the family room, her left shoulder brushing lightly along the wall.
Before she reached the family room, she spotted the blue glow of the TV. She listened for voices, even a snore, but there were no sounds—just the bouncing light of the TV on mute. She took a breath and looked around the wall. Two lumps lay under a mound of blankets on the floor and a third lay on the couch—that one was Sam. Juno could see the sandy hair in the TV’s glow. She didn’t move a muscle, but her eyes roved to the other side of the room. A table was set up, a light blue tablecloth spread over it. A sign that said Happy Birthday Samuel hung on the wall over the table in metallic blue letters. Juno could see the remains of a birthday cake—the side that Winnie had cut neatly into, and the side the boys had torn chunks out of when they went back for more. She was hungry; when had she eaten last? The sandwich outside on the wall; that had been yesterday, and she’d eaten that apple. She looked at the three mounds again, in a sugar and social exhaustion coma, and stepped lightly to the table.
Juno ate cake with her hands, great big chunks of it. It hit her stomach like a grenade. The frosting was blue and green like the Seahawks—no, Sam was a soccer kid—the Sounders.
There was a bowl of chips next to the cake (Juno didn’t dare eat those; they would crunch too loudly) and a tray of sandwiches sliced into little triangles. She took a plate, piled as many on as she could, and carried them back to the closet to wait.
No one opened the closet the next morning; she was so sure that Nigel Crouch would come to retrieve his golf clubs or Sam would get the itch to play one of the board games stacked on the shelves above her head. But no one came. The boys noisily ate breakfast, and they were picked up promptly at ten o’ clock by mothers who didn’t push their luck. Juno lay hidden behind the ski suits and winter coats as each of the boys said goodbye, her head resting on one of those airplane pillows. If someone were to open the door to her little hideout and really look, they’d spot her easily, but no one was looking. Her pain wasn’t any better, but her comfort was. She was ashamed to admit that lying on the freshly carpeted floor of the Crouches’ closet was the most comfortable place she’d slept in over a year.
After all of Sam’s little friends were gone, the family collected their shoes from the foyer.
“Will Grandma wait ’til the end of the night to give me my present or will she just let me open it right away?”
Juno didn’t get to hear the answer; the Crouches were out the door and heading to what Juno presumed was a family celebration for Sam. Before the door slammed behind them and the key turned in the lock, she heard Nigel punching the code into the alarm box.
Sure enough, when Juno opened the closet door five minutes later, the little screen read ARMED. The red light glowed above the word like an all-seeing red eye, mocking her. She shouted every curse word she could think of, shaking her fist at it. Had she really thought she was going to be