Malcolm watches yet another hour of C-SPAN. It’s a mush of words, but the punctuated “Q this” and “Q that” comes through all too clearly.
I’ll have the same ugly dreams, dreams of dancing Qs with long, reaching tails that describe swooping arcs. In each curled tail I see a child, a teenager, a person.
I see them strangling. I see them like this in the quiet of night, and I wonder if Freddie sees them, too.
FIFTEEN
When I wake up, it isn’t Malcolm next to me in bed but Freddie. She’s all preteenager limbs, and her arms and legs wrap around mine like squid tentacles, squeezing me. I’m not in my bed, and there are pink flowers on the border near the ceiling, so I must have fallen asleep in Freddie’s room.
“Mom?” she says, her voice syrupy with sleep.
I love her like this, calm and relaxed, all the anxiety of the day yet to squash her under its pressure.
“Yes, baby doll?”
“We still going to Oma and Opa’s house today?”
I hold her close, wrap her pink blanket tight around us. “Absolutely.”
“Is Anne coming?” she whispers. Already the thickness has gone from her voice. I can hear the twinge of fear and worry in it, like needles.
“Maybe not.” Definitely not, I think. Malcolm will keep her home and have a lovefest about how wonderful Daughter Number One is. “Let’s get you dressed and hit the road, okay? I’m going to take a shower.”
Her hand locks onto my wrist as I slide out from under the bedclothes. “Can you take one in my bathroom? And sing something?”
“Sure, hon. Sure.”
Under the hot water, wet brush working through hair that’s become long enough to start being annoying, I sing a medley of Beatles’ tunes. Mostly their old stuff, before dope and mysticism turned the Fab Four into the Just Plain Fucking Weird Four. I know it all by heart, and the words come out automatically, which is good because while I’m soothing Freddie, I’m also planning what I’ll tell my parents when we get there. And whether I’ll have the guts not to come back home.
After Malcolm’s threat last night, I know the consequences of choosing Freddie over Anne, if only until I can sort out a new option. It’s a horrible choice, one I would have imagined unthinkable, but it’s not the worst one I’ve ever made. Not by a long shot.
When I come out of Freddie’s room, a quart of conditioner weighing down my hair, I’m shivering because I forgot to fetch clothes from my own closet first. I dress quickly, and out in the kitchen Freddie’s holding up last year’s Wonder Woman costume.
“Can I wear this to Oma’s house?” she says, eyes pleading with me. She is already inside the kid-sized red boots and has on those shiny arm bracelet things, which are really coated in plastic, but to Freddie they’re all-powerful. I wish they were.
Malcolm only shakes his head at the scene. “Shouldn’t she have grown out of that nonsense by now?”
“She’s nine, Malcolm,” I remind him. “Nine. And it was just Halloween, for chrissake.” Then, to Freddie: “Of course you can, but you still have to wear a coat over it.” When she comes back five minutes later, Freddie has the costume on—cape to boots.
Malcolm shakes his head again.
I leave him in the kitchen without a word and go to my closet again, swap out the purse I’ve been carrying for a Dooney & Bourke satchel I could fit most of Brazil into, and start loading it with the barest of clothing essentials. Underwear and bras go in the bottom of the bag, an extra pair of jeans and a sweater, and the crap from my other purse on top. It doesn’t look full. Not too much.
Out in the kitchen, Malcolm is making an egg white omelet with low-fat cheese, crumbled tofu, and barely cooked kale. His version of a power breakfast. I make a promise to stop at McDonald’s for a sausage and egg biscuit for me, hotcakes and hash browns for Freddie. Anything she wants.
“Where you going, El?” he says, watching me button my