As I closed the front door behind me I heard her say, in a low voice, ‘Ya, ma ankou.’ It was all getting weirder and weirder.
I got vanilla ice cream. That was the only flavour she liked. I can still feel the numbness of my fingertips where they met the cold tub, see the delicate sediment of ice that covered the lid.
I come into the kitchen and see her. In a way, it is all I have seen, ever since. The sight is inside my eyelids. My mother is floating in air, swaying gently. She is a dreadful pendulum. The laundry line creaks as she moves. Her teeth bite her blue lower lip as if caught in a last moment of doubt.
Her favourite possessions are stacked neatly by her drifting feet. Her little vanity case, packed with the gauzy blue dress, her nightgown, perfume. Her soft suede handbag, the colour of a doe’s belly. A note lies on the case, in her formal French schoolchild’s copperplate.To be taken to the woods, it says.
I had to wait until night. She had told me that. But I did not want to leave her hanging there. I was afraid someone would knock on the door and insist on coming in. Then they would see her. I was not afraid of getting in trouble. But she looked so exposed upthere, with her twisted blue face. I did not want other eyes on her.
So I took her down. It was difficult to touch her. She was still warm. I folded her up small and put her in the cupboard beneath the sink. ‘Sorry,’ I said to her, again and again. I cleaned the floor, which had mess on it beneath where she had hung.
I wanted to send all her clothes with her, but I couldn’t find her big suitcase. I did my best by adding a couple of things to the little overnight vanity – everyday things she might need in the woods. I put in her suture kit. I packed the copy ofAesop’s Fablesthat lay by her bed. She could never fall asleep without a book and I worried about her, lying wakeful in the cold forest.
Night came like a blanket. I put Mommy and her things on my back, and carried her into the trees. She had grown stiff and clammy. Things seeped out of her. She would have hated that. I knew I needed to get her to the forest. As soon as we were under the trees I felt better.
She seemed to grow heavier as we went through the night forest. I gasped and stumbled. My spine felt as though it were being crushed, my knees trembled. I welcomed those things. It was right that this should be a difficult journey.
I buried her in the centre of the glade, near Snowball the mouse. I buried her blue dress in the south corner, her favourite leather handbag to the west, her perfume in the east. As the earth took each thing it became a god. As I laid her down in the hole I felt the earth take her in its arms. ‘I hold you in my heart,’ I whispered. She started to transform. The white trees watched like a hundred eyes.
Lauren whispered in my ear, ‘Get in. We can lie down with her.’
For a moment I thought about it. But then I remembered that if I died, Olivia died too, and Lauren and Night-time, and the little ones. And I found that I didn’t want to do it.
When all the gods were safely in their homes I piled earth backon top of them. Even after they were buried I could still feel them radiating. They shone without light beneath the earth.
Mommy had acted just in time. The police came two days later. I stood outside, under a sun like a burning star. I became a picture for the man for the newspaper. When they searched the house they found nothing, of course. There was a case missing, and some clothes.
Where did she go?they asked me. I shook my head, because I really did not know.
Before she did it, Mommy had mailed a letter to the Chihuahuadachshund-terrier lady. The woman was on vacation in Mexico but she read the letter when she got back. The letter said that Mommy was going away for her health. She was a very private woman, my mother. She was thorough. She did not want to be known, even in death. Perhaps that is the only thing that I ever truly understood about her.
So Mommy is gone, and has never been found. The little girl is still gone too. I do not think that they are in the same place, however.
Lauren was six years old when she first came to me, and she stayed that age for a long time. I never thought of it before, but it’s the same age Little Girl With Popsicle was when she went.
Eventually Lauren started to grow up. She grew slower than me, but she grew. Her anger grew with her. It was bad.
‘I don’t have anywhere to put all the feelings,’ she kept saying. And I felt so bad, because it was the pain she took from me. I loved her for that, no matter what she did. She hates the body. It’s too big and hairy and weird for her. She can’t even wear the clothes she likes, star-spangled leggings, little pink shoes. They never fit. They don’t make those things in the right sizes. Maybethat time at the mall was the worst. It was so sad for her. I feel as protective towards her as a father. I promised that I would try to be that, for her. I know I’m failing. I’m too messed up to help anyone.
I went to the inside house when I needed comfort. Olivia with her little feet and her curious tail was always waiting. Olivia didn’t know anything about the world outside. I was glad of that. When I was with her I didn’t need to know either.
Nothing is perfect, of course. Not even the weekend place. Sometimes things show up I don’t expect. White flip-flops, long-lost boys crying behind the attic door.
I fall silent. We seem to have reached the end. Lauren is gone. I am so tired I feel I might evaporate like water.
‘Maybe I should have guessed,’ he said. ‘Champ knew.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He likes you. But that day he just went crazy, barking at you in the street. I thought I saw something in your eyes, just for a second. Like someone else was in there. I thought I imagined it.’
‘That was Olivia, my cat,’ I say. ‘She was trying to get out. Never mind. We’ll get to that another time.’
The man gets up to leave, as I knew he would.
‘Who’s looking after your dog?’ I guess I want to keep him there a moment longer, because I won’t see him again.
‘What?’
