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Beryl Grace was drunk by seven in the morning when Thalia got dressed and packed her schoolbooks alone.
At first, she tried to make her daughter breakfast, but the toast was always burnt and the eggs rotten. Some days Thalia could barely keep herself in her chair at school from hunger and the hollow stomach aches that haunted her. Nothing changed at home, not even when the school gave her a letter for her mother, in which the class teacher expressed her concern about Thalia's bouts of weakness. They threatened to put her in the care of some strangers, and that had Thalia sobbing with fear for an entire night. She didn't want to go live with strangers, not when her father could come back and get her any day now.
So, determined as she was, she began to provide for herself. She traded her homework for sandwiches and took over class chores for a packet of chips. In addition, she sometimes had small snacks that friends shared with her. Then Beryl lost the last of her contracts and welfare began sending monthly checks. Because her mother was usually too drunk to look in the mailbox, Thalia took the checks. She went to the grocery store alone, lugged the heavy bags back home, up the stairs, and stowed everything in the old, rickety refrigerator.
In the past, Beryl hadn't been the type to sit in the pub early in the morning. But that gradually changed when Thalia's father didn't return. She was always quarrelsome and made stupid remarks when Thalia was brooding over her homework. She herself only sat in front of the television and the apartment fell into disrepair. Before, she used to read a lot, and the bookshelves were full. Now they stood empty. Beryl always needed money for the pub and had sold the books. Thalia had tried in vain to dissuade her.
"No, Mom, no! Not the books!"
"They're only taking up space. And who's going to read them? You?"
"I will when I'm bigger!"
"Reading is nonsense. Make yourself nice and tidy. Reading won't get a woman far."
"That's not true at all!"
She wasn't really listening, just thinking about the debt she owed at the pub. Little by little she had sold all her books. Some were old and very beautiful, but she didn't get much money for them. Thalia could no longer talk sense to her. When she returned from school, Beryl was usually gone. She came stumbling home at midnight or dawn, hammered. Sometimes she couldn't find her key and just keeled over at the front door. Thalia woke up because there was a loud thump outside, went to the door in her pajamas and dragged her mother into the house. She could smell the sweat and cheap whiskey and shook with disgust. Then she threw a blanket over Beryl and left her snoring on the floor.
Sometimes people on the street recognized Thalia and said, "Oh, you're Beryl's daughter?" Once or twice she even ran away, just to avoid having to agree. But the shame of it remained, and every time she passed a video store that displayed her mother's films, Thalia turned away until she had walked past it. Her father, she always thought, wished, prayed, would come get her out of this miserable life soon enough.
One day indeed the handsome man from the pictures came back. He was just there when Thalia opened the front door, new welfare check in hand and speechless at the sight of him. He wore a fine pin-striped suit and a tie made of blue silk. His disapproving look swept all across the dirty, messy rooms of the house, and only when he turned around, he appeared to notice her.
"Thalia," he said. "Isn't that right?"
She had to swallow once, twice, three times before her sore throat would allow the words to pass.
"Yes," she croaked and was ashamed of her voice the moment she'd spoken.
The man bent down and took her schoolbag from her that she had been carrying over her shoulder.
"I suppose your mother is not home yet."
"She doesn't come home until it's dark," Thalia mumbled, still shy with shock.
He simply nodded and placed the bag down on the old wooden table in the foyer.
"How was… school?"
"Fine."
They were quiet after that and it was awkward. She didn't want to look into his eyes and he didn't want to look away from hers. Then, he cleared his throat and pulled out an elegant pocket watch with silver filigree framing the glass. It made a quiet snapping sound as it sprang open and began to play a soft little melody until he smoothly pressed a button to shut the beautifully engraved lid again.
"It is a little late for lunch, but if you're hungry, we can go eat something."
She followed after him in silence as he led her downstairs, out onto the street. Without saying a word, they walked beside each other. Suddenly, he touched her shoulder, then he seemed to give himself one last push and took her hand firmly in his own. Thalia looked up, eyes big. He didn't answer her gaze, but she could see that his stern face had relaxed.
They went to a nice restaurant and he had to order for her. She was too speechless, and she wouldn't have known what she'd like, anyway. Most of the food she had never heard of, having been raised on a diet of mostly peanut butter, stale bread, and the occasional canned soup. He watched her eat in silence, touching not a bite of food himself. Instead, he ordered dessert for her too. Ice cream with hot chocolate sauce, and she wolfed it down. There had never been anything so delicious in her life before.
Once she was done with her meal, he took her shopping. The check was crumpled and sweaty in her hand by then, and she stared anxiously at it. The rent was still due and the money was never enough. He told her to put the check away. Then he had her pick everything she liked, even three bags of sweets and a candy cane, and paid for it all with a sleek black card. This time, it was him who carried the heavy bags while Thalia trotted along beside him, happily nibbling on her peppermint candy cane.
In the evening, he watched over her as she did her homework. He was great with figures, he did them all in his head without even looking at the calculator. When she said she had an essay to write about the Second World War, he told her about the battles as if he'd been there.
When Thalia began to nod off at the kitchen table under the naked light bulb, he picked her up and carried her to the sofa, covering her in the scratchy wool blanket. She heard the snap of his watch and the soft melody and turned towards it sleepily. It wasn't long until she drifted off. From afar, it seemed to her, she heard voices. Her mother's slurred words, the man's deep, firm responses. Someone cried, then a slap. After that, the bed in the other room squeaked in its rusty frame and Thalia was fast asleep.
He left the watch, and her mother as smiling and happy as could be.
When Thalia woke up to the silver trinket in her hand and her mother singing quietly in front of the mirror as she put on makeup and brushed her hair, she nearly cried. It would all be as it had been in the beginning when she'd still been little.
Beryl went out and came home with fresh croissants, she sang and danced with Thalia in the living room, and in the evening they made popcorn and watched a movie on TV that Thalia couldn't quite understand, but it made her mother laugh, and that was enough for her to keep watching.
They cuddled, and Beryl squeezed her tightly. She whispered that it would be alright now. Tomorrow, she would look for an agent, try out for a new series they were shooting nearby. Thalia went to sleep and woke up on Sunday morning to a clean kitchen and scrambled eggs drenched in ketchup, just how she liked them. Beryl gave her money for ice cream and a ticket to the children's show at the cinema, then she went off to speak with her agency.
For a while, things were good.
Sometimes, the man came to stop by. He looked over Thalia's homework and nodded at the good grades she got. He also scolded her for eating too many sweets and forgetting to brush her teeth, but then he would put her to sleep on the couch and leave to speak with her mother.
It went on like this for some time, and Thalia had almost forgotten the many months she'd been left to fend for herself. Until the day she woke up to find her mother in the bathroom, white as a sheet and clutching her belly.
"Did you drink again?" Thalia asked as she wet a towel under the faucet and wiped Beryl's face. "You said you wouldn't!"
When she got back in the afternoon from school, all the alcohol bottles had disappeared from the apartment and she went to do her homework contentedly. But the nausea didn't stop, even after Thalia had personally checked all the hiding places her mother had used for her drinks and made sure there was not a drop of alcohol left in the house. At first she cried, thinking her mother was sick, but then Beryl's belly started to round.
The next time the man stopped by, they argued so loudly that Thalia couldn't sleep where she was curled up on the couch. It ended in her mother crying, and then the front door slamming loudly. There was a certain finality to the noise, as if to tell Thalia that things had changed once again. That her life was now barreling down the wrong road towards a dead-end with the brakes cut and the steering wheel blocked.
The man never returned again.
Instead, Jason arrived, calm and sweet and without making a noise as he regarded Thalia from where he was swaddled in blankets in Beryl's arms the evening she returned from the hospital. Thalia stood on her tiptoes to see his little face. He was adorable – his cheeks soft and rosy and his eyes blue like a warm summer sky. She should be happy to have a little brother. Instead, all she felt was dull resignation, because Beryl put him down in his crib and poured herself a glass of wine, blind and deaf to the baby's soft cries.
The money Beryl's short time working had brought in was gone faster than Thalia could carry out the empty alcohol bottles. She did so on the daily, careful not to let the neighbors see her. The school sent letters, and a few times, the police came knocking on the door with a concerned looking social worker behind them, but Beryl somehow always managed to make them turn away.
They came because Thalia was skipping school, because she didn't show up to class three days out of five. She was afraid to leave Jason by himself at home – or worse, with her mother. Beryl didn't take care of him, sometimes it even seemed like she didn't know he was there, or that she was ignoring him on purpose. It was Thalia who held him when he was fussing, who watched as he played with the old building set she'd dug out from underneath her bed, who read to him at bedtime until she fell asleep on the edge of his crib. He smiled when she looked at him, and his first little noises sounded treacherously like "Lia."
He cried when she left the room, and he cried when Beryl tried to pick him up. One time, Thalia could just so yank him from her mother's arms before she dropped him because he was crying and twisting to escape her hold. As soon as he'd seen his sister's face, Jason had calmed down instantly, reaching for her hair to tug on it, and uttering a content "Bwah."
The baby was just another burden Thalia was left alone with, and yet she couldn't help but love him.
When he learned to crawl and eventually walk, his first destination was always her lap where he would sit, sucking on his pacifier and playing with the chain of the silver pocket watch she showed him. His big, trustful eyes would always look up at her with all the love such a tiny being could possibly hold, and Thalia melted like an ice cream cone in the summer sun.
Jason was her friend.
He looked at picture books with her, he laughed when she made silly faces, and he always cried when she was crying, which always made her smile through the tears. And he seemed to see the things she saw. Sometimes when they sat by the window and looked outside, his eyes would grow big and he'd hide against her chest with a whine, and when she looked, she'd see one of the many looming monsters she'd figured were hallucinations from her constantly empty stomach.
One time, she carefully lifted him up and looked right at his face.
"You see them too?" she whispered in disbelief.
He only returned her gaze, still frightened by whatever he had seen. As time passed, he began to point at the creatures also, and Thalia knew then. That he was like her, that they belonged together.
No, she couldn't leave him. Never. If she ran away, or if her father came to pick her up, she would take Jason.
One day – after a rare school visit and dozens of concerned questions from her teacher – Thalia returned home to find her pocket watch missing.
She always kept it in the little drawer next to the couch and at bedtime, she and Jason would cuddle up together and open it, watching the filigree hands of the clock tick on while the soft melody played. Tonight, when Jason was already in his pajamas, yawning past his pacifier and rubbing his eyes, she went to fetch it in vain. The drawer was empty.
Her breathing stopped short. The watch had disappeared. She stood in front of the drawer – for how long she didn't know. She thought of nothing, just listened to the familiar creaking of the floorboards in the apartment above them, to her own heartbeat. After a while, she thought that maybe she had perhaps taken it with her to school. But she didn't bother to look in the pocket of her parka. She already knew the truth.
Someone had taken the watch, her watch, her father's gift. And who had taken it, Thalia knew too. She got up silently, went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee. It was hot, way too strong, and tasted disgusting. She choked it down, rinsing her mouth out at the sink. Then she sat down at Jason's crib, humming the tune of the clock, and gently rocked him to sleep. The couch squeaked softly every time she moved.
"Be quiet," she whispered, as if she were talking to a living creature.
It was already broad daylight when Beryl came home, but the sky was rolling with dark storm clouds. Thalia must have dozed off, because suddenly she heard heavy, unsteady footsteps. She flinched and was wide awake within a second. The front door flew open. Beryl staggered into the hallway. Then, mumbling to herself, she staggered through the living room into the kitchen. Suddenly she caught sight of Thalia and stopped. Her hair was disheveled and stuck to her temples. She smelled of sweet vomit.
"What are you doing there?" she slurred.
"Where's my watch?"
Beryl held onto the door frame.
"Your watch? What watch?"
A clap of thunder from outside, far nearer than the others had been.
"Dad's watch. It's mine now."
"Yours?" Beryl narrowed her eyes. "Who said that?"
Thalia raised her head challengingly.
"He gave it to me. And I want it now."
Beryl rubbed her hands over her face, her entire body shaking. She seemed unable to get even a single word past her lips. Thalia straightened up.
"Where's my watch?"
She emphasized each syllable without mercy. Her mother swallowed. The pathetic grin of a simpleton, an idiot, distorted her face.
"Sold it," she said, "I sold it. I needed money. Had to pay something back."
Silence. Thalia felt like her head was a hollow rattle filled with useless thoughts that just fell back and forth, back and forth. Finally, she could speak.
"Who did you sell it to?"
"A guy on the street. He's gone. It's gone," Beryl muttered to herself, but the echo of her words settled in Thalia's mind for all eternity.
Her mother was breathing heavily.
"It's best you don't think about it. Your father isn't here anymore."
"You're wrong," Thalia replied, on the verge of tears. "He is. He sees everything."
They were the only steady words she could think of. Beryl ran her elbow over her sweaty forehead, breathing loudly through her nose.
"Had trouble," she said tonelessly. "Slipped in deep. Had to pay."
She pulled herself laboriously up by the doorpost until she stood close to Thalia. She reached out to stroke her daughter's cheek. Her face was sticky and contorted.
"Thalia, I'm sorry, honestly. If I had known..."
Desperate anger sprouted from the pain. Thalia felt only anger, boundless, bitter anger, such as she had never thought possible. She dodged her mother's hand, hastily jumped back.
"Don't touch me!" she screamed. "You.... you have..."
Her voice broke, violent, unrestrained sobs rising within her. Through the haze of tears, Beryl's face blurred before her eyes, becoming an indistinct dot. She could hear Jason crying. Taking a deep breath, she choked down the tears with extreme effort. When she spoke again, she did not recognize her own voice. It was like a stranger's, brittle, muffled, and miles away.
"You shouldn't have done that. Dad will be angry."
Beryl turned her face away silently.
"Thalia, sweetheart..."
But Thalia did not let her finish. Whatever she was about to say, it held no meaning. She stumbled into the bathroom, slammed the door and locked it, her legs giving way under her. Panting, she settled down on the floor, leaning her back against the wall. The storm outside got more and more violent.
It happened fairly often that Ronnie, the owner of the bar next door, sent for Thalia in the middle of the night. He was a reasonable man in a rotten neighborhood. He said to her, "You better get your mom home before any of those guys take her."
He knew that when Beryl was drunk, she didn't listen to anyone but Thalia. Usually two or three patrons of the bar dragged her out from underneath one of the sticky tables and set her on her feet. Then Thalia would take her by the hand and say, "Come on Mom, let's go," and Beryl followed her like a child. It had already happened, however, that she simply couldn't walk by herself. Then usually a kind soul would be found to carry her up the stairs next door and deposit her on the bed in the bedroom.
She usually found the money for her binges somewhere, never had she used the charity checks for that.
Before today, that was.
When Thalia came home that first of the month and reached into the mailbox for the envelope, it was empty. It remained empty for the next five days. Jason cried from hunger, often all night, and Thalia grew more and more desperate. At school, she couldn't keep her eyes open from fatigue, and when she was at home, her empty stomach drove her crazy. One afternoon she returned and Jason only looked at her with exhausted, dull eyes from his playpen anymore, like he'd given up hope his big sister would finally bring him some food. He didn't understand why there was no more snacks and meals before the TV, and her heart nearly broke.
The room spun before her eyes and went black. Thalia fought the hatred that threatened to tear her to pieces. Somehow, she had to keep calm. Think. Not go crazy. She dropped to her knees and buried her face in her hands. When her breathing had calmed down again, she stood up and poured herself a glass of water with trembling fingers.
If her mother wanted war, then Thalia would go to war.
She laboriously dressed Jason and opened the gate of the playpen. He trotted exhaustedly beside her, tugging at her jacket again and again.
"Lia," he murmured. "Hungry."
"I know," she whispered, squeezing his small hand in hers. "I'm hungry, too."
Ronnie's bar was already open, country music blaring all the way out into the street. Thalia hated having to drag her little brother in there. The air was stuffy with smoke. On the walls hung the pennants of various football teams, some bleached skulls of deer, and a number of rusted weapons. A few men sat at the tables, others on stools at the bar. In the dim light, everyone looked over at the two kids.
Ronnie was polishing some glasses behind the counter. He nodded sheepishly at Thalia.
"Hi, kiddo."
"Where is she?" asked Thalia.
Ronnie gestured silently to the pinball machine. Beryl sat at a table next to it, had her head resting on her arms, and was dozing. Thalia stepped over to her with Jason holding her hand, but she didn't move. Ronnie turned down the music. It had gone quiet in the bar.
"Mom," Thalia said, "I need to talk to you."
She didn't respond, yet Thalia knew full well that she had heard her. She shook her mother by the shoulder.
"Mom, come on!"
Beryl pushed her hand away.
"Get out of here!" she growled.
A terrible feeling, no longer anger but fear, made Thalia feel everything in a blur.
"Come on!" she said, "We need money, Mom. Jason needs food. He's hungry."
Beryl lifted her face, coated in alcohol sweat, and grinned at the others at the bar.
"That's how she treats me. She says she needs money, and I'm supposed to cough it up."
No one replied. The faces around them were completely impassive.
"Mom, give me money."
Beryl suddenly jumped up.
"Watch out before you get it, you little whore."
The bar was silent as a tomb. Thalia's whole body trembled.
"Mom, Jason needs food."
Her mother fell back in her chair, laughing fitfully.
"I don't give a damn!"
Thalia clenched her fists. She felt dizzy, so much so that she thought she was going to fall.
"Give me money so I can buy him something to eat!"
The room became denser, more suffocating. Thalia felt her veins throbbing, a strange pressure weighing on her chest. She looked at her mother, the maniacal grin, her crooked mouth. A hand suddenly came to rest on Thalia's shoulder. It was Ronnie.
"She paid with this. Here, take it. And get the little man over to the bar. I'll make you kiddos some sandwiches."
The check was stained and torn at one corner, but it was the welfare check. Thalia could have cried with relief. Ronnie lifted Jason onto one of the bar stools and Thalia climbed onto the one next to it. They devoured the sandwiches hungrily and Jason looked like he was going to nod off before he even finished the last bite. Full for the first time in a good week, they went to bed without a stomach ache.
Thalia didn't realize she was crying until Jason's small hands clumsily patted her cheeks.
"Don't cry, Lia," he whined, and immediately began to cry along in sympathy.
She held him tightly and stroked his soft hair until he fell asleep, snuffling in her embrace.
Beryl was almost on her knees with remorse when they woke up the next morning. She had baked cake - dry and burnt, but with chocolate icing, and Jason was happily stuffing himself with it before breakfast had even begun.
"I'm so sorry for what I said yesterday," Beryl sobbed as she wrapped her arms around Thalia and gave her a squeeze. "You're such a great little sweetheart, I'm sorry! And you know what, to apologize we're going to have a picnic today, alright? We're going to pack a picnic basket and go out into the countryside, yes?"
Thalia reluctantly followed her to the car. Normally she would never have let Beryl behind the wheel when Jason was in the car, but her mother seemed surprisingly sober. So the two children climbed into the back seat. Thalia put Jason on her lap and buckled them both in with the seat belt. Laughing and squealing, he looked out the window as they drove out of town.
Thalia showed him the cows grazing beside the road and the distant farms out in the fields. He looked at everything with wide eyes. As the drive went on and on, he finally dozed contentedly with his head against Thalia's chest while she kissed his hair and gently stroked his back. Just as she too was already starting to nod off, Beryl stopped. They had arrived at a gentle hill surrounded by green meadows.
"We are here, my darlings," her mother said softly. "You know, Thalia, I'll go ahead with Jason. Can you take the picnic basket out of the trunk?"
Reluctantly, Thalia let her lift Jason out of her lap, then she opened the door and slipped out of the car. She had to stretch first, her limbs feeling stiff and heavy after sitting still for so long. While her mother carried the whining little boy up the hill, Thalia circled the car and unlocked the trunk. It was empty. Frowning, Thalia returned to the front of the car. She glanced at the passenger seat, then at the floor.
There was no basket anywhere to be seen.
"Mom?" she called out loudly. "Are you sure you took the basket?"
The feeling in her stomach that she had thought was hunger until now became a cold ball of fear that weighed heavily in her guts. She didn't see her mother or Jason – just how fast had they gone up the hill?
"Jason!" yelled Thalia, starting to run. "Jason! Jason, Jason!"
She got no response. She never got a response ever again.
Not from her little brother.
She could not cry.
Her eyes were burning, but that was all. For an endless eternity, she just lay there on the couch staring at the ceiling, Jason's favorite book in her hands. As if in a trance, she lay there. She felt like she hadn't blinked once, that she was just staring and staring. Then came the night with the thunderstorm. The lightning flashes outside the window startled her. She wandered aimlessly through the apartment on legs that kept buckling. She folded Jason's baby blanket and laid it neatly over the kitchen chair.
Then she reached for her backpack. She stuffed clothes into it, everything she had. She unlocked the mailbox, pulled out this month's check, and tore it into little shreds. After that, partially content, Thalia went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator. Beryl must have gone shopping. She drank milk, took a slice of bread and spread it thickly with peanut butter, chewed slowly. Thinking was easier now. She swept up the crumbs on the table, threw them into the sink.
Into her backpack went the loaf of bread, the peanut butter, and a bar of chocolate she'd hidden from Jason beneath the sofa cushions. She made coffee, filled a thermos bottle with the steaming, dark liquid. A pocket knife, matches from the kitchen drawer. Then she took her parka off the hook, threw the bag over her shoulders, and left. The door remained open behind her.
Her mother would know what it meant.