Lauren is waiting when I get in.
‘Where have you been?’ She is breathing too fast.
‘Calm down, kitten. You might pass out.’ It has happened before.
‘You are seeing a lady,’ she screams. ‘You’re going to leave me.’ She seizes my hand between her sharp teeth and bites.
Eventually I get her to sleep. I try to watch monster trucks but I am exhausted by the day. Feelings are hard.
I wake in the night-time, sudden and breathless. I feel the dark on my skin like a touch. The record player is supposed to be on constant repeat but it’s old now or maybe I did something wrong. In the silence, I can hear Lauren crawling across the floor. Her sharp little teeth click.
‘You bad man,’ she whispers. ‘Out, out, out.’
I try to soothe her and settle her again. She cries out and bites my hand again, this time drawing blood. She fights me, crying, all night.
I say, ‘Even if I were seeing someone, I would still love you best.’
I know immediately that was the wrong thing to say.
‘You are! You are!’ Lauren scratches and fights until morning leaks grey into the room.
I meet the day tired and bruised. Lauren sleeps late. I use the time to update the diary. This is a habit Mommy instilled in me.
One day a week, she examined the house from top to bottom. The examination must be made twice, she was very clear about that, because of human error. She missed nothing. Each speck of dust, each spider, each cracked tile. She recorded everything in the book. Then she gave the book to my daddy so he could fix it during the week. She called it herdiary of broken things. Her English was very nearly perfect; it was always a surprise when she missed the shade of a word’s meaning. Daddy and I never corrected her.
So each Saturday morning after dawn, I take the book around the house. I do it again in the evening just before dusk. I do one circuit around the boundary of the property to make sure the fence is all good and so on, and then I come in for a tighter circle, to check the house for damage – loose nails, rat and snake holes, signs of termites, that kind of thing. It’s not complicated but, like I said, it’s important.
The three locks on the back door open loudly.Thunk, thunk, thunk. I wait. I never know what will wake Lauren. But she sleeps on. The day is blinding, the earth baked hard underfoot, cracked as old skin. The feeders hang empty. No breeze moves in the trees, each leaf is still and silent in the rotten heat. It is as if death has put its finger on the street and pinned it down. I lock the door again behind me and go to the tool shed around the side of the house.
In the lean-to it’s cool and dim, filled with the scent of rust and oil. It is the scent of all tool sheds, everywhere. I must be careful – scent is a highway for memory. Too late; in a shadowed corner of the lean-to Daddy stands tall and silent. He reaches for a box of screws, and the brown bottle behind it. Little Teddy tugs at his hand. He wants to get in the car and go but Daddy has to deal with Mommy first.
I get the tools quickly and go, blinking with relief in the burning sun. I lock the tool shed.You stay in there, Daddy. You too, Little Teddy. There is no place for you out here.
I write everything in the book very clearly. It’s not the same book, obviously. I keep my diary of broken things in an old textbook of Lauren’s. I write on top of the maps.
Mouse in kitchen is back, I write carefully in the pale blue sea off the coast of Papua New Guinea.Bathroom sink – faucet drips. Bible fell off table again?!?!? Why? Table legs uneven?!?!?!
And so on. The hinges on the bedroom door are squeaking; they need oil. A sheet of plywood on one of the living-room windows is loose and needs nailing down. A couple shingles have come off the roof. It’s raccoons; they’re bad for shingle. But I like their small, clever black hands.
I do what I can now, and the rest I’ll get to this week. I have to be both Mommy and Daddy for Lauren. I like repairing the house, fixing holes as if I’m making it watertight. Nothing gets in or out without my permission.
The chocolate-chip pancakes are ready just as Lauren is waking. Personally I find pancakes a waste of time, like eating pieces of hot washcloth. But she loves them.
I say, ‘Wash up first. I’ve been working outside and you’ve been pedalling that bicycle with your hands.’ She’s so smart. She lies on her tummy on the seat and her arms go a-whirring. Lauren doesn’t let anything get in her way.
‘It’s easier with my hands,’ she says.
I kiss her. ‘I know. And you go so fast, these days.’
We wash our hands at the kitchen sink, getting right under the nails with the brush.
Lauren is quiet as she eats. Yesterday was bad; she exhausted herself with anger. She goes back tomorrow and the prospect ofher absence makes us both very gloomy. ‘We can do anything you like today,’ I say without thinking.
Her attention sharpens. ‘I want to go camping.’
I feel the hot stroke of helplessness. We can’t go camping. Laurenknowsthat. Why does she always have to push me? Always tugging, nagging like one of those little dogs at the heels of a bull. No wonder I get mad.
But sorrow tugs at me too. It is unfair. So many kids get to go to the woods and make fires and camp and so on. It’s not even special for them. Maybe all the stuff with the Murderer has made me sad, maybe it’s because I’m tired of the house, too, but I say, ‘Sure. Let’s go camping. We leave at dusk.’
