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Mara looped the edge of the tablecloth between her fingers, weaving the pattern between her knuckles, pomegranate finger pomegranate finger. She tugged, and when the cloth didn’t slide closer, she twisted her hand, the design winding around her palm.
Mom had only gone to the kitchen to get the apples, slices Mara had helped shape into a circle to match the bread and the stuffed tomatoes on fancy plates and the pomegranates still wrapped around Mara’s hand.
Mom would be back soon, but until then, Mara was alone with an uninvited guest, this towering man across from her, sitting in their dining room chair like it was his throne, skin glowing in the candle light.
He stretched his arms, his palms sliding along the table until his fingers brushed the edges of their dishes, then they curled, wrapping around the honey jar and rattling the Kiddush cup on its saucer.
Mara tugged at the tablecloth again as a voice said, Happy New Year, Mara.
“Shanah Tovah,” she mumbled back.
He squeezed the honey tighter, his skin pulsing. It was hard to breathe as she noticed—thought she saw; how could—his fingers getting longer and twisting around the jar.
“Did, did you want some?” she asked, feeling herself begin to ramble. “Can you even, um.”
He tilted his head towards her, this giraffe of a man, like he wanted her to repeat the question.
“Eat, you know.” Her eyes were burning, staring at his fingers. “With no mouth?”
You’re a very considerate young woman to think of that. How often you put others first.
Mara pulled harder on the tablecloth. She was proud of how she treated other people. Everyone deserved kindness, to be treated fairly, and not left out. More importantly, she needed to be a good example for her sister, who was still learning how to be a mensch.
But the way his voice sounded, oozing and slimy inside her head, reminded her of all the times she hadn’t done those things. When she yelled at Nini to make her leave. When she had to be told she’d said an extremely unkind thing, whether she meant to or not. Teachers telling her it didn’t matter who’d started it, and hearing her mom whispering to Vinny that maybe Mara was a little too much like Dad.
Where is your father tonight? the man asked, head tilted like a dog.
“At my sister’s house.”
The muscles in his face twitched, warping his skin around a mouth that wasn’t there. On such a festive occasion?
She gripped the tablecloth and twisted it in her shaky fist, explaining very slowly for someone who obviously had no manners, “He’ll be here tomorrow. He’s helping me open a pomegranate.”
“Bug,” her mom called out, and Mara winced, caught being rude to someone who was supposed to maybe be a guest, even if he wasn’t being a good one.
Mom looked confused as she put the apples on the table, then she turned and left, still calling for Mara as she walked into the living room.
Ready to get a talking to—anything was better than being alone with this weirdo—Mara let go of the tablecloth and tried to get out of her seat.
The skin over his forehead rippled, and he leaned ever so slightly closer. Mara.
“Mara?”
It’s a shame your father isn’t here. Why wouldn’t he want to be with his daughter?
There was sweat running down her back, her vision going black at the edges, hands shaking on the table as her mom came back and paced around the room, looking everywhere but at her and the man whose fingers were getting even longer.
Don’t you think he should be here with you?
For Mara, the sounds happened all at once.
The crack of the honey jar shattering.
The rattle of the cup falling over its plate.
Her mom’s gasp.
And the screech from her own mouth as his arms snapped back to his body, then shot out across the table, his hands locking around her wrists.
“Stop it! Stop, stop!” She threw her weight back in the chair, kicking at the table. “Stop!”
Something wrapped around her chest and yanked her against the back of the chair, and she shrieked, flailing her arms; every swing pounded the man’s arms against the table, but no matter how hard she thrashed, he wouldn’t let go.
And worse, so much worse, his fingers kept stretching and growing, right in front of her. She screamed as they twisted tight up her arms, and she was lifted out of her chair and pulled towards him.
Then one candle, quickly followed by another, went flying through the air where the man had been, hitting the wall and sputtering out as Mara rocked back into her seat and slipped off it into Mom’s arms.
Her sister was far away in the living room, sandwiched between Vinny and Jessa on the couch and loudly reading from her Dick and Jane book while SpongeBob played in the background. Mara was in the crowded dining room with the rest of the adults, looking at the messed up wall and choking on the smells of grape and honey.
Dad rubbed her back while he looked at the marks. “Did Steph have good aim, at least?”
One second the man had been there, and he was gone the next, that much Mara could remember. But if Mom had thrown the candles anywhere close to where he’d been? She tried think of they way they’d moved through the air, but it just made her stomach ache. She said, “I guess so,” with a shrug that knocked Dad’s hand off her back.
Mom scoffed, then wheezed, one hand on her chest, the other waving Dad’s concerned look away as she took slow breaths.
Jeff rubbed at a black smudge on the wall the way he rubbed schmutz off Nini’s face. “Truly, a valiant battle.”
“At least I wasn’t driving,” Mom said, still a little breathless.
“You wouldn’t be saying that if we’d attached the knives like we said.”
“Totally, let me just get my lance and go full tilt—”
“Didn’t you?” Jeff spread his first and middle fingers into a V, pointing at the gouges.
“You want to hit him with a car?” Mara asked, not knowing if she was scared or fascinated.
“Tried to.” Dad ran one hand through his hair, the other scratching his forehead. Frowning, he rested both hands on the back of his head. “Right after I tried going at it with a bat.”
Mara fidgeted with her sleeves, pulling on them to make sure the bruises were covered, thinking about what it would have been like if she’d started swinging at him. “Whoa.”
“Cut it out.” Mom sat down at the table, like they might pick up where they left off from the night before. “Someone clean something.”
Jeff picked up the plates of old tomatoes and went towards the kitchen. “Grab me a maid outfit while you’re out.”
“You heard her, Bug.” Dad picked a butter knife off the table and held it out to her. “Get the wax up before we’re back.”
Eager to fix her mistake, Mara took the knife and knelt in front of the wall.
“Don’t make her crawl around on the floor right now.”
“What? Come on, please,” she whined, but it made her stomach hurt again. Her mom was so pale and breathing shallow, and if she didn’t want Mara digging at the carpet, Mara didn’t need to make her mad.
Mom smiled though. “I just need you and your knife to help me scrape the honey off the table.”
Jeff dropped a fistful of grocery bags on the table and took more dishes away. “Watch out; she’s armed.”
Mara gave a few weak jabs with the knife at where Jeff had stood until Dad tugged on a piece of her hair, gave her a thumbs up, and pointed at the bread on the table. “Cut me in.”
She sawed the loaf in half while Mom and Dad teased Jeff about feather dusters and tiny aprons as he walked back and forth to the kitchen. Before she could cut the pieces into fourths, Dad grabbed an entire half. Startled, she dropped the knife on the plate as Dad raised the bread like he was toasting them and shouted over his shoulder at the living room, “I’m not going by myself.”
Jeff left for the living room, heading for Vinny and Jessa, who were trying to make the hardware store sound fun to a four-year-old, promising her there’d be so many cool Halloween things to look at.
Once they were alone, Dad asked Mom, voice worried and quiet, “You really sure you don’t want to go to a doctor?”
“And say what?”
“You tell me, you’re so good at talking around this shit. Why can’t you tell them you got hit by a tree?”
Mom closed her eyes and tilted her head back, and he moved in on Mara. Resting his hand on her shoulder, he asked, “What about you? How about some sparkly band-aids? An ice pack that looks like a penguin?”
She sighed and shook her head, playing with the hem of her shirt.
“All right,” he said and gently squeezed her shoulder. “You think of anything, you just let me know, okay?” He cradled her cheek and bent to kiss the top of her head.
Mara stared at the floor.
When he turned back to Mom, Mara peeked at them, at Dad kissing Mom on the bridge of her glasses until Mom stretched to actually kiss him.
Mara quickly looked away as Mom sat back in her chair, groaning. “More ice isn’t a bad idea.”
“Cool.” Mom snorted, but Dad went on, “I’m going along with this, but if you end up with pneumonia, I’ll kick your ass.”
Mom pressed her hand into her side and told him, without any anger, “Don’t be mean to me in front of our child.”
“Why not? It’s double for her.” Dad ruffled Mara’s hair while still holding the bread. “If you get worse and don’t say anything, you’re grounded ‘til you’re eighty.”
A soft thump of a couch pillow falling into Mom’s lap interrupted them. Jeff’s hand stayed spread over Mom’s head for a second longer, then he pointed at Dad’s hand, asking, “Is that your emotional support bread?”
“Don’t be mean to me in front of my kid.”
Mom made a weird little noise in the back of her throat and put the pillow against her side, watching as Dad marched over to Jeff and knocked the bread chunk into Jeff’s chest until he bent over for Dad to kiss him.
Mara was reminded of giraffes again, and her palms started to sweat. She tugged at her sleeves while the talking carried on around her, about whether they needed to move Nini’s booster seat and asking Jeff to save the rest of the bread and a reminder to please actually buy the stuff to fix the wall and not only Halloween stuff.
She gave a shaky wave as Dad and Jessa left with Nini. The door shut, and Vinny did his morning-hobble-walk to the kitchen carrying the last of the dishes. Jeff and Vinny were scraping plates and running the water, but Mara was standing in front of the table without the knife—gone with Vinny to the sink—and no way to help clean her mess.
She thought about using her hands to scoop up the honey, but that was probably another stupid idea, like sitting there and talking to him—
“How are your arms feeling?”
Mara shrugged. They ached with each heartbeat, and her shoulders hurt, too. And she thought she might puke if she touched the honey but it didn’t matter. Not really. But her brain just felt mushy, and her thoughts tangled. She needed to help but didn’t want to make it worse but didn’t know how and didn’t want to leave her mom even for a second, and it all tried to come out at once. She stuttered, “Should, but, Mom, do I.”
“Come here, Bug.”
Mom’s left arm was locked around the pillow, and she couldn’t move her right one a whole lot either, but she spread her hands, and Mara got the idea.
She very carefully put her arms around her mom, but one hand was only grabbing the pillow and the other could feel how hot her mom’s skin was, even through her shirt, and Mara couldn’t stop herself. Tears and mangled apologies just starting pouring out of her.
Mom ran her fingers through Mara’s hair and told her, “This isn’t your fault. You didn’t do this.”
“I should have told him to leave. I should’ve hit him like Dad.”
“No. No, you really shouldn’t have.” Mom’s fingers were shaking against Mara’s head. “It’s my job to keep you safe, and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
Mara didn’t know what to do, put on the other side of this apology, and then Mom took her for another turn, dread coming down on her as Mom said, “But you can help us keep Nini safe.”
She scrunched her face up, like maybe if she squeezed her eyes shut and smushed her lips closed, it would stop up her ears too, and she wouldn’t hear what she couldn’t do. But she heard Mom loud and clear.
“Don’t tell her about this yet. All she needs to know is we had an accident with the candles.”
Ever since Mom had gotten the whole story told to Dad and Vinny, then Jessa and Jeff, everyone had treated Mara like she was sick. Someone was always asking her if she felt okay, if she wanted anything. Touching her face like they expected her to have a fever. Covering her with blankets on the couch, never left alone for long, and not allowed to sleep in Nini’s room.
A miserable whine had been building in her chest all morning, ever since she’d woken up and still been kept apart from her sister because she’d done something really, really wrong. Now there wasn’t even a way for her to make it right, and the whine came out as more of a squeaky grunt, her lips still pressed together tight.
“What’s wrong?”
Mara felt like she was turning into a puddle, like she wasn’t a person anymore, like she might fly apart when she had to let go of her mom. She held on just a little tighter, squeezing the pillow, and Mom’s hand touched Mara’s cheek. “Bug?”
Her lungs were shrinking and her breathing struggled, but she could still whisper, “She already knows about him.”
Some hurt oh came out of Mom’s mouth. “It’s okay if you told her. You didn’t know,” she said, her hands falling from Mara’s scrunched up face to her throbbing arms.
If she didn’t say anything, they might not ever know how bad she’d screwed up. She could let them think he’d just shown up, and he was something new, and if Nini wasn’t supposed to know, it’s not like they’d be asking her about him. Mara could keep it to herself and let the shame eat her forever.
Mara shook her head, and, heart pounding, opened her eyes, the words coming out between one more stuttered breath and even more uncontrollable tears, “She saw him first.”
Nini had screeched, begging Mara not to tell, after Mara had asked, stunned, “You were talking to a stranger by yourself?”
Mara’s main concern at that point was getting her sister to shut up so Vinny wouldn’t make them come inside. She hissed, “Quit it okay I won’t tell,” anything to get Nini to stop, and she could figure out who the stranger really was.
Only to end up rolling her eyes at the rest of the story. Mara couldn’t believe she’d been so worried about Nini’s imaginary friend with his no face.
Nini wouldn’t have Mara’s attitude. She smacked the concrete, smudging their drawings, and ordered Mara, “You gotta be his friend, too.”
It sounded like Nini had invented a less interesting Jack Skellington to play with, and while Mara thought Nightmare Before Christmas was okay, she really didn’t want to play pretend with any of the characters. The whole idea seemed so boring, but she agreed so Nini wouldn’t start yelling again.
Mara almost mentioned it when Mom picked her up, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how weird they’d all been when she’d pretended to have a dog a couple years ago, after getting to pet a Great Pyrenees at school. They’d emptied everything from her room and cleaned it like it was turbo-Passover. They’d crawled around the edges of her room, checking for gaps and cracks. She thought she’d seen her dad with a knife in his hand when he’d gone in her closet.
She quit talking about dogs completely. Even the neighbors’. And she never brought up Nini’s imaginary friend to Mom.
Besides, she was starting to have fun with her sister’s games. They pretended they traveled to far-away towers (the stop sign on the corner acting as a substitute). They dug with their hands in the yard for treasure chests, with Nini swearing she’d seen one once before, filled with gold coins and matchbox cars, for some reason. They put on their raincoats and stared into puddles, and Nini told her stories about what their reflections did when the rain dried up.
The only thing Mara hadn’t liked was Nini messing with her by telling her what Mara had been doing in her third grade class, and she quizzed Nini about which preschool kids had a sibling in Mara’s grade until Nini lost her temper at Mara for “playing dumb.”
“Our friend sees you, and he tells me,” she said, pulling up a wad of grass and throwing it at Mara’s legs. “Duh.”
“Then why don’t I ever see him?”
“He’s shy! He doesn’t understand how to be friends,” Nini whined, turning her big brown puppy dog eyes on Mara. “And you’re a good friend.”
Mara tried to be, but more importantly, Mara wanted to be a good sister, so she waved at the dead tree and shouted hello when Nini did, gawking when it looked like the branches waved back. She’d just started to consider that the weird looking tree hanging around her sister’s house could maybe be Nini’s “imaginary” friend. She never though he’d show up for dinner, grab her, and try to kill her mom.
“She told me about about him,” Mara cried, “but I didn’t know.”
Mom sat forward in the chair, grunting as the pillow dropped, and pulled Mara into her arms. “I know you’re scared. I am, too.”
Mara dropped her eyes to the floor, breathing like she’d been in a race, bracing for the but. If she had to, she’d apologize until her tongue fell out. She’d clean the entire house and paint the wall herself. But if she had to keep away from her sister—
“But,” said Mom, her voice cracking, “I don’t think you’ll ever know how proud of you I am right now.”
There was just enough room for her to wedge herself between Vinny and Jeff in the big recliner. They were hurting, too—Jeff wouldn’t stop wiggling his legs and Vinny had hopped into the living room—but her other choices were sitting by herself or sitting next to Mom, who looked even worse than she did this morning. So Mara tried to stay small and still between Jeff and Vinny and focus on not being more of a problem.
But everyone’s phones starting making noise, playing the same guitar riff, and suddenly she was terrified of what Jessa could be saying and desperate for sister to come home.
Mom had her phone out immediately, shaking her head at it and snorting. “Notice how there’s nothing for the wall in that basket.”
Jeff held his phone up for Mara. Dad was pulling the cart by the basket, Nini’s head turned to look at him while sitting there with a wicked looking plastic jack-o-lantern in her lap and pumpkin garland around her shoulders like a boa. “She’s taking after your dad, clearly,” Jeff said, with a gentle nudge.
She stared blankly at the screen, thinking about that, her sister taking after their dad. For all of Mara’s big ideas about being a good person, she’d failed miserably. If the whole thing had been reversed and Mara had the friend no one had seen, Nini would have said something.
There weren’t any comments about the pumpkins from Vinny, nothing said about who Nini favored. He’d rocked forward, back bent, and stayed that way while Mom and Jeff had checked the message. His breathing sounded the same as Mom’s as he asked, “Steph, spare a pillow for the needy?”
Ahead of him, Mom already had Vinny’s favorite pillow in her hand and lobbed it at them before he really finished the question. It landed a little on Mara’s lap but mostly on Vinny’s. “Bug, you’re my witness. You gotta vouch for my aim now.”
Mara nodded, still somewhere else, thinking about yesterday and what Mom had been throwing and why.
Vinny rocked forward again, shifting to put the pillow behind him, and Jeff was still moving his legs around, and they were both bumping into Mara.
She wished she could push herself into the cushions and disappear under the chair. Her eyes were scratchy, and her head was fuzzy, and she still thought she might puke even though they weren’t near the honey, and nothing about this made sense, and her sister was in a shopping cart across town because Mara was an exceptional kind of stupid, and Vinny put his arm around Mara and said, “Sorry, promise not to squish you.”
And it just, it just—
Mara burst into tears.
All she wanted was to curl up into a little ball somewhere quiet, but instead she was crying over her own stupid mistakes again and diving under Vinny’s arm because her mom was whispering to Jeff, “Sorry, neuralgia boy, I think you gotta tap me in.”
Vinny kept her close, telling her shushing words while she cried all the harder under his arm. We know. It’s okay. You’re safe now.
She shook her head. Nothing was okay. It’s wouldn’t ever be okay. She was bad. She was dumb. Mom was right; she shouldn’t have hit him. She should have let him take her away.
Mom’s fingers crept back into Mara’s hair, and Mara was starting to wonder if that was another mistake she’d made, asking to have it cut short after she’d been told about Jewish hair stuffed into pillows and turned into cloth. At least hair grew back. Moms and sisters didn’t.
“Can you say what hurts the most right now?” Vinny asked, while Mom gathered Mara’s hair into a stubby ponytail.
Mara shoved her head into Vinny’s armpit, pulling her hair out of her mom’s hand, and moaned, “I want Nini.”
“They’re probably already on their way back.” Vinny made it sound like a question, and Mom backed him up with a quiet yeah, that’s what Jessa said. “Then they’ll be here soon. You'll see her soon.”
“Really?”
Maybe she shouldn’t have sounded so unbelieving because Vinny was holding her tighter and still asking his doctor questions. “Yeah, of course, but will you tell me why you don’t think you’d see her?”
It should be obvious, she thought. Wouldn’t they know, since they’d been the ones to quarantine her? Why were they quizzing her, because they wanted her to admit how bad she’d messed up? Fine. Mara shouted into Vinny’s side, “Because I didn’t take care of her!”
“Oh, baby, then neither did we,” Mom wheezed, rubbing Mara’s back. “You were being taken advantage of, you and Reina, and you didn’t know because we didn’t tell you. We thought keeping secrets would keep you safe, but we were wrong. Again. None of this is your fault.”
“Again?” Mara asked Vinny’s armpit.
“Yeah, again,” Mom said, exhausted and sad. “Maybe I shouldn’t keep disabusing you of the notion that we don’t make mistakes, but we do. A lot.”
Vinny pulled back from her a little, angling his face to look at hers as he told her, “We don’t always mean to hurt each other, but sometimes we do.”
“And it doesn’t make us bad people.” A clump of tissues poked her in the leg, and she turned her head, blinking in the light. Hunched over, sitting on the coffee table, Jeff poked her leg until she took them.
Mom let out the tiniest grunt. “You just missed the mark, and you do better next time. That’s all you can do.”
They made it sound so easy, to just keep going, like every mistake was practice for the big performance. Maybe they would know that, too, since this whole thing sounded like they were reading from a script.
She didn’t get a chance to call them out on it. Outside, a car door slammed, followed by another, and another. And another.
Jeff squinted at the closed curtains. “So, that was the trunk.”
“Well, the pumpkin.” Vinny trailed off, looking at Jeff. “No, she’d want that next to her.”
“I bet they got a whole gallon of paint,” Mom said, her hand creeping back into Mara’s hair. “Might be good in case Nini gets artistic again.”
Did they expect her to wipe her face off and get over it or what? They’d jumped from, you know, her putting her sister in mortal danger to her sister’s misadventures with Mara’s markers. They acted like this was a mistake equal to giving the art supplies to Nini without watching her.
Vinny sat back farther, his hand dragging down her forearm just enough to get her attention. “Please don’t beat yourself up. He isn’t…normal. You’re not really you anymore when you’re around him.”
Not normal.
Her head buzzed when she thought about him and how she sat there talking to a man who had to have bent in half to make it through their front door, whose face she couldn’t remember because he had to have face. Her bruises looked like she’d been tied up with rope, but there hadn’t been any rope; it was only his hands and fingers.
And she’d let him stay near her sister.
The front door opened, and Mara was staring at the wad of tissues in her hand, thinking that maybe she didn’t deserve to be near her sister, but there was the rattle of a bunch of shopping bags hitting the floor, and Dad was shouting, “Whoa!” and Mara jerked her head around so fast she felt her neck crack.
But Dad just had Nini held by her armpits, swinging in his hands, laughing and kicking her feet. “Let’s do an airlift, so we don’t knock the ribs clean out of Stephie, okay?”
Jessa set the paint can down on the coffee table and messed with Jeff’s hair. “She’s wiggly. Can you guys handle wiggly?”
“If my options are moving or being wiggled, I’ll take the wiggling,” Mom said, tugging on Mara’s shoulder. Because they needed to make room for Nini. And if they didn’t make room for her, she would make room for herself. Because no one was telling Dad no.
Mara finally let go of Vinny to give her mom a look of pure disbelief. Mom wanted Mara to lean on her, no pillow between them?
“There won’t be room otherwise.” Mom’s hand still wouldn’t stay out of her hair. She combed through the strands, then rubbed Mara’s back and promised, “I’ll tell you if it hurts.”
Even Vinny was pulling the shoes off Nini’s dangling feet, saying, “Let’s get these off so you don’t kick my hip off either.”
“That angel?” Mom asked. Finally, Dad looked a little unsure about the whole thing, but it was too late. Vinny had hold of Nini and was lifting her out of Dad’s hands, whispering, “Little girl, what are we going to do with you,” and trying to hold her on his lap.
Mara didn’t have a chance to scoot over. Nini got on her knees to face Mara and grabbed for Mara’s hands. “Dad said he hurt you.”
“And Steph, too. So be easy,” Vinny said, pressing himself against his pillow and closing his eyes.
Mara nodded, agreeing more that Nini should be gentle for the other people in the chair rather than because she was hurt, but Vinny may as well have said nothing because Nini rocked forward and shoved up Mara’s sleeve.
Mara whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Nini asked, eyebrows scrunched together and pushing up Mara’s other sleeve.
An apology was better when you showed you knew what you did wrong, so Mara explained, “I should have known that he wasn’t a safe person and that he would hurt you if—”
“He hurt you!” Nini jammed her finger into a bruise. “Why are you sorry if he hurt you? He should say sorry.”
Mara winced and dropped her tissues to rub her arm. Her gut churned at the idea of what an apology would look like from someone like that.
“That’s too rough, little girl.” Vinny put his hand on Nini’s chest, like that could rein her in. “Bug’s very scared right now, but more scared for you than about anything else.”
Was that true, that when Mara’s hands shook, it was from fear for Nini’s safety? Or was it just because she was afraid she’d screw up again. Because despite what anyone else said, Mara had failed pretty hard at being a good person, and her family was left cleaning up after her.
She suddenly felt like she was on display. Her mom hadn’t stopped scraping her fingers through Mara’s hair, and Nini shouldn’t touch her, and everyone was looking at them but saying nothing. Mara was going to explode if the air in the room got any heavier.
Not that any of that affected Nini apparently, who turned her eyes back to Mara—like everyone else—and started rubbing clumsy circles on Mara’s arms. “You don’t have to be scared. I’ll make sure he won’t come back.”
Mom’s hand finally fell out of Mara’s hair, and Vinny let out a huge sigh and took his hand off Nini, who flung herself at Mara.
Mara caught Nini, just so they wouldn’t hit Mom, but then Mara had her sister, safe for the moment, in her hands and couldn’t make herself let go.
The curtains stayed shut into the afternoon, the whole house stuck in fake twilight while Mom fixed the wall, not letting anyone else help, even though she was doing it all one-handed. Mara paid more attention to Mom moving around and Nini talking with Jessa than to Dad’s instructions, ending up mutilating the pomegranate and squirting juice everywhere.
She just wanted to lay down on the couch instead of opening another one—someone had turned on Detective Pikachu, and her arms were tired—but Dad set the first one in a bowl in front of Nini, who started beating it with her spoon, seeds flying onto the newspaper around her, and passed another one to Mara.
It didn’t fare much better than the first, not that it mattered. There were plenty of seeds, broken or not, left to pick out by hand, so Mara swapped this pomegranate for the one that had been smacked to death and sat down on the floor across from Nini, back facing the dining room.
Dad was trying to say something about it not being break time, but Mara put her head down and pushed the seeds out, not caring if the flesh was going with them.
“If Steph wants more, we can open another one later,” Jessa said, slouching against the counter. “I’m thinking it should be break time anyway because I’ll be the one picking out all the white bits.”
Mara hunched over and kept flicking out seeds, tuning out everything around her. Whatever else Dad and Jessa were saying, the crack of the pomegranate coming apart, the tap tap of Jessa putting in their pizza order. Even Pikachu turned into background noise as she worked, thinking only about what was in front of her.
Until Nini scooted closer to Mara, whispering, “Why did he grab you?”
Mara looked over her shoulder. It was only the three of them in here now, but even though Jessa hadn’t moved—still at the counter, still messing with her phone—Mara could feel her attention shift to them. Nini could whisper all she wanted, but that didn’t make it private. Anything they said was getting back to Mom and Dad the second the talking stopped.
The talking-to would happen either way, so resigned to her fate, Mara shrugged, her eyes and hands still focused on the fruit. “I don’t know. He just got really mad when I wouldn’t agree that Dad didn’t love me.”
“That’s stupid. Dad loves you lots.”
“Yeah, that’s what I told him, basically.”
Nini smacked the second pomegranate a couple times, then grunted, and dropped her spoon on the newspaper. Staring at Mara, she asked, “Are you okay? You’re being weird.”
Mara didn’t know what to say. She thought, frankly, she’d never be okay again. A whole other side to the world just showed itself to her, and her brain still fuzzed out whenever she thought about him. Her arms would heal, and her mom probably wouldn’t get pneumonia, but this man, who could let himself into their house, who talked without a mouth—
Jessa tapped her phone one more time and slipped it into the pocket of her cardigan, then sat down with them and said, “It’s okay if you’re not.”
Mara squeezed her pomegranate chunk too hard and a couple seeds overshot the newspaper.
“They all…” Jessa gestured out there—out in the living room, bathroom, wherever—and brushed a seed off her leggings. “They’re used to it. The rest of us, not so much. I think they forget that.”
“Oh,” Mara said, slightly dazed, it all finally clicking together that her family had been dealing with whatever this was for longer than she’d known, that maybe they understood exactly how she felt. But they’d kept it a secret, and they were still keeping it secret because all they’d told her was there was a secret. But her mom had tried asking her to keep it a secret, too, and was that a trick or did they just think it was top secret or what.
Mara closed her eyes, like that could stop her thoughts from getting worse. Her head hurt so bad, and nothing made sense anymore. She was old enough to know about the endless lines of bodies being burned to ash, but this was too much for her? But also, she couldn’t be trusted either, so why should they tell her anything.
A few more tears dripped down her cheeks, and she dropped her piece of rind to wipe them away, but Nini reached for her messy hands before she could lift them to her face.
Gently this time, Nini pulled back the edge of Mara’s sleeve and bent over to kiss a bruise. “I love you,” she said, smoothing her hand down Mara’s arm so her sleeve went back in place. “Man is dumb, and we won’t ever talk to him again.”
Mara whispered, not because it was secret, but because she didn’t want her voice to shake, “Love you too, but I don’t want to even see him again.”
Nini nodded quickly. “Yeah. Good-bye, Man.”
“Amen,” Jessa said, starting a quiet playlist on her phone and picking up de-seeding the pomegranate where Mara left off.
There was only one reason Dad would ask for Mara to help pick up dinner after the awful time with the pomegranate, but as long as she got to sit in the front seat until they got Jessie, she told herself she didn’t really care.
But when he waited until they’d turned out of their neighborhood before saying, “So, I’m hearing this whole thing was about me,” she still rolled her eyes. Even though she knew she was coming, it didn’t make a talking-to less mortifying.
“Because he made it about you. I don’t care how many nights you stay at Vinny’s.”
“Got it.”
Mara leaned her head against the window, then straightened up when the seat belt dug into her neck. She snuck a peek at her dad, wondering if that was it.
It wasn’t.
“Because I love you, so much,” he said, eyes on the road. “You don’t know yet what it means to me, that I get to have you in my life.”
The force of Dad’s undivided affection could be overwhelming, but she just felt irritated by the reminder that she was only eight, old enough to know better but not old enough to do anything about her problems. Instead of responding to how much he loved her or to the unintended insult, she twisted the seat belt in her hands and picked at the idea of why she wouldn’t be in his life—and whose fault that might be. “Jessa said that you’d been dealing with him for a long time.”
“That’s right. Him and a few others.”
Her mouth dropped, but she couldn’t say anything. Dad just knocked down all her ideas of how this new world worked. Now there were more? A few other what?
“But it’s getting better each time we have to deal with his skinny ass. I don’t know if better is the right word, but maybe it’s why he’s going to you two now, because he’s not getting what he wants from us. Or he mined us dry.”
Still stunned, Mara repeated, “Mined?”
“Yeah, you’re right. Bad choice of words if they told you about Pennsylvania.”
“No one told me about Pennsylvania.”
“Oh.”
“…what happened in Pennsylvania?”
“It’s not important—”
Mara scoffed. She was getting brushed off again. Another secret that shouldn’t be kept secret but still was, for some reason that was also secret.
But Dad didn’t stop talking.
“—as what happened after.”
They hit a red light, and Dad drummed on the steering wheel for a second. “After Pennsylvania. That’s when we got to be a family. It’s when we started learning what it means to take care of other people instead of just yourself.”
Then he gave her a smile. “Not that you need any lessons in that.”
“Everyone keeps saying that, but it’s not true,” she whined. “I didn’t take care of her.”
“Steph told me how proud of you she was. Did she tell you that?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But you said something. You spoke up. That counts for everything here.”
The light turned green, and Dad’s eyes were back on the road, and Mara’s hands were ready to twist the seat belt clean off the door.
Dad reached over and squeezed her hands. “You can’t always protect her, but you can always be an example for her—sorry, that’s just how it’s gonna be as the big sister—and you showed her how to do right just by speaking up. Don’t keep that shit to yourself, you know?”
“No?”
He laughed and patted her hands before pulling away, and Mara went on pulling at the seat belt.
“If your feelings are hurt, say something. If someone’s giving you shit at school, tell us. If someone’s hurting you.” He breathed in through his nose loudly. “Don’t wait for it to get worse.”
“I’m not trying to—”
“Hey, hey, not trying to accuse you. Just making sure you know you can come to us for anything; there’s no point in suffering.
“Besides,” he said, turning onto Jessie’s street, “I told the Bean the same thing. I also told her this isn’t something you tell people outside our family, but we’ll see how that works out.”
Mara’s shoulders drooped. “Who would believe us?”
“We would. We will always believe you,” Dad said, stopping the car. He unbuckled her seat belt, which she refused to let go of, and put his hand over hers until Jessie opened the front door. “Gotta get in the back, short stuff.”
The lock popped on her door, but she ignored it, choosing to swing herself around to prop her knee on the armrest between her and Dad. Jessie had to open the door because Mara was busy crawling between the front seats, grumbling, “I’m almost as tall as Jessie.”
“Uh huh,” Dad said, “almost means you’re still just a tiny little Bug.”
Mara was squeezing past Nini’s booster seat when Dad asked, “Hey, so, Steph told you which asshole invited himself over for the party last night?”
“God, yes,” Jessie said, disgusted. “Mara, how are you doing?”
Well, she almost got the most important people in her life killed, so pretty bad. But apparently, all the adults around her already knew about this guy and weren’t even surprised by the whole thing, so if Mom already told Jessie about it, Jessie didn’t need a retelling of Mara’s crimes.
She settled on her next most pressing concerns while buckling in behind Jessie. “My arms hurt, and I’m so grounded.”
Jessie started loudly and repeatedly asking why they would ground Mara. Dad answered her just as loud, swearing he would never, both of them talking over each other until Dad’s voice won out.
“I was joking about grounding you if you got sick or something.” He started driving, taking them back to the main road. “You’re the opposite of grounded.”
“What’s the opposite of being grounded?” Jessie asked.
“I don’t know. Like, if we had a farm, I’d buy her a pony.”
Mara’s preschool had done field trips to a farm, and it wasn’t nearly as nice as getting to pet dogs at her elementary. She gagged thinking about the smell.
Dad adjusted the rear view mirror and asked her, “You don’t want a pony? I thought all girls wanted ponies.”
Even without the smell, a pony didn’t come close to making her usual wish list. She was still hoping for a dog one day. And karate lessons. And getting to spend a summer with the grandparents she’d never met—and didn’t understand whose parents they actually were—but was told lived somewhere in Florida. Topping all of that would be being at home right now, asleep or not, alone in her room or not, whatever, just not out getting pizzas when she didn’t care anymore if she ate at all tonight.
She wasn’t brave enough to say any of that though, so she just made retching noises every time Dad mentioned a farm animal while they finished their errands.
Dad stood over her and Jessie like a bodyguard, eyes on the people enjoying the rest of their Saturday, while Mara fed quarters to the soda machine and Jessie scrounged Mara’s next dose of Tylenol from the bottom of her bag. Mara thought about asking if they wanted something to share, then thought better of wasting time and just hit the top button. Even knowing it was coming, they all jumped when the can fell. When Mara tossed the can away, Dad shuddered as it hit the bag.
Inside it was packed, and Dad made them stand against the wall, close to an exit where he could still see outside. Mara got shuffled between the two of them, backed into the corner next to the candy machines and fake plants. She was tired, hot, ready for her medicine to melt, and couldn’t stop thinking if this was what her life was going to be like from now on, always wondering who wanted to hurt her for who she was.
Mara tugged at her sleeves, one side then the other, making sure to pull harder where Nini had raised it to kiss the hurt.
That made it all the more important that she really make up for what she’d done, but everything was so mixed up in her head. How do you apologize when no one thought you’d done anything wrong? What do you do if no one accepts your apology? What would the rest of the ten days be like if she couldn’t make it right?
Could she ever make it right?
Mara grabbed her dad’s hand.
He stopped talking with Jessie mid-sentence and looked at Mara, squeezing her hand back.
Even though he wasn’t saying anything, it was still noisy, and Mara asked quietly, not sure if she was hoping he wouldn’t hear her, “Did you ever hurt someone so bad, you didn’t think you could make up for it?”
“Yeah.”
She jerked her face up to really look at him. “So what did you do?” she asked, much louder than before.
He lifted her hand and held it with both of his, pressing them into his belly, and told her, “A lot of really fucking stupid shit before I realized I wasn’t fixing anything like that.”
His hands flexed around hers, then he let them fall away from his belly. “It’s hard not living in the past, but I have people to take care of now, and that’s more important than trying to beat myself up for what I didn’t get.”
That…wasn’t as specific as she wanted it to be. She sighed and said, “You sound like Vinny.”
“I sound like Dad.”
He had the same tone as Mom had had—exhausted, kind of sad—and he wouldn’t look at her or Jessie, so Mara held his hand with both of hers now, but the whole time, she thought she probably looked like the picture of the lady trying to do math in her head while she tried to figure out what he meant. “You mean, they’re your mom and dad?”
“Just wait,” he said, making a face as he dragged his right hand through his hair. “I’m sure everyone at home is figuring out a PG-13 version of this bullshit to explain to you.”
Jessie carefully stepped behind Mara to knock her shoulder against Dad. “There’s nothing PG-13 about you.”
He took the bait, and they started joking and arguing, and Mara took a deep breath and started weighing what she knew.
Which wasn’t easy. Everything was jumbled up in her head, like she’d dropped a stack of note cards, and nothing would go back the way it was supposed to. She knew she hadn’t meant to get anyone hurt, but…here she was, with everyone hurting, and she still didn’t have a way to fix it, no matter how she twisted her thoughts around it, because how do you make up for almost killing someone. It’s not like she could just promise not to do it again and toss it in the creek with the rest of her breadcrumbs. Killing a person was the same as destroying the whole world.
But there was an opposite to that, that saving a person was the same as saving the whole world.
Mara let one hand drop, so she could tug at the hem of her shirt until Dad raised their held hands to point at the counter, where bags and boxes were being stacked, and they could finally go home.
When they get back, the wall is smooth and waiting to be painted. There’s a rug on the floor where the wax dripped, and the scratched candlesticks are back on the table. Jessa has her phone up for Mom and Jeff to look at, and Vinny is helping Nini count out paper plates, until she sees Mara’s back, then she’s off—running at Mara, grabbing her wrist and pulling.
Mara winces, and Vinny’s mouth opens, but Mara says first, “Wait.”
Nini stops, and Mara shakes her wrist free, then holds Nini’s hand. Mara gives a quiet okay, and Nini burst back into motion, pulling Mara towards the table again, telling her to count the plates too and saying they’re going to sit next to each other and asking what an anchovy is because Daddy keeps calling her that but won’t say what it means.
Mara follows along to the table, and says, “but you already counted everything” and “an anchovy is a little fish.”
And when the time comes, she sits next to her sister and looks at a pomegranate seed stuck in Nini’s hair as she thanks God for sustaining them to this moment.