“I can’t get close enough to you,” he’d said the other night, kissing her. She wasn’t sure what he meant—physically, emotionally, maybe both. She liked him—Jason. He was smart, could play the guitar. He was a doorway to the kind of life other people had. She thought about packing her bags now, taking her very few things, and leaving Pop with his new project. She could go. She had her games, her own money now. She didn’t think he’d try to stop her.
“Sure,” said Pearl loudly. “Why not? I’ll clean up the puke. Like I’m the maid.”
But he had already left her behind to take care of Gracie.
There wasn’t much vomit, just a small puddle of nearly clear bile. She might have felt bad for the girl, if she didn’t hate her.
She was aware of a bubbling anger, something mean and small. What kind of bullshit was this? Some stranger in the house that was supposed to be their forever home. Their place safe from the world.
She heard a wail from upstairs, followed by Pop’s soothing tones. Another wail.
Had she been such a wreck at first? she wondered as she mopped up, threw away the paper towels, scrubbed with a little bleach. She washed her hands in hot water.
No, she hadn’t been.
“There aren’t many girls like you, Pearl,” Pop had said—more than once. “You might be one of a kind.”
Looking back, she saw Gracie joining them was the first dark omen. After that, bad things started happening. Wasn’t that always how it worked? One mistake leading inexorably to the next, like a trip down a steep flight of stairs. But maybe it started back in Phoenix. The Bridget thing.
“Don’t be mad,” said Pop, returning to the kitchen alone. Pearl was still washing her hands, scrubbing them raw in hot water. They hurt when she turned off the faucet.
“Why would I be mad?” she said, sharper than she’d intended.
“She’s for you,” he said, staying by the door. “A sister.”
Did he even hear himself? She almost laughed but then she looked at him—dark circles under his eyes, a fatigued sag to his eyelids. She knew he hadn’t been sleeping. She heard him at night, moving around his room. He’d aged since the problem in Phoenix—deep lines had settled around his mouth and on his brow; he’d grown thinner, taking on a hard, wiry quality. Something about it had rattled him hard. He hadn’t regained his footing.
He came to the table and she sat across from him. She could still smell the vomit, mingling unpleasantly with the bleach.
“You don’t just bring home a sister,” she said. “It’s not like getting a puppy.”
He bowed his head, looking down at his cuticles, which were gnawed and rough. “You are mad.”
“No.”
Yes. She was mad. Not just about the stranger in their home; there were a thousand things. Nothing she could name—just that, lately, she felt like an animal in a cage, pacing. That she was bound to him somehow, without wanting to be. That she could leave him, should leave him. But she couldn’t. She didn’t say any of it.
“You haven’t been yourself,” he said into the silence. “What’s going on?”
“I could say the same to you.”
She got up, put on a kettle for tea—just to get away from him. That stare, those intensely staring eyes and how they saw everything about everyone and knew just how to exploit whatever want, need, fear was lurking beneath the surface.
“It’s your father,” he went on, not turning around to face her. “That whole thing.”
She shrugged, glad he couldn’t see her. She wasn’t sure she could keep the rush of emotion off her face.
“It went well,” she said, her voice going higher than she liked. “Big payout. Just like you said.”
Yes, a big payout. She had a pile of cash, delivered with the promise to never communicate with him again. Then, when she could have gone far from him, never thought about him again, let it all go once and for all—
“You burned him down,” Pop said.
She heard the note of disapproval in his voice. It bothered her, more than it should.
She looked at her watch. She was late for Jason. She was late for Elizabeth; her normie self. Student. Waitress. Ordinary small-town girl. Nothing special. The teakettle started to whistle, and she took it from the stove, poured the hot water into the two mugs she’d retrieved from the cupboard. World’s Best Dad, one of them read. The world was full of little ironies, wasn’t it?