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Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock.
She knows the sound well enough, by now; never a polite pause between each successive rap on the door; always in frantic, fast succession; a flurried and hurried sort of thing.
The tray of cookie dough to be frozen is, for the second, deposited onto the counter in favor of gliding with some urgency for the back door. There’s snick-clacking as she fumbles with the two locks, twists the knob, and shoves open to see: “Ocean, honey!”
She’s soaked to the bone, in nothing but well-loved sweats—that they bought for her, because of course, the O’Connell Rosenbergs never dress her warmly, they’ve never had the damned mind to—and a t-shirt in proud support of Brad Wall that clings to her frame as it shivers. No, jitters.
Her eyes are rimmed with red. “H–hello, Mrs. Blackwood.”
“Lord in heaven,” she cries, “it’s raining cats and dogs out there! Get in, baby, get in.”
Ocean, however, doesn’t budge for a brief second, until she ushers her in with a palm on the back—good God, she’s carrying around half her body weight in rainwater—and pulls the door shut behind her. The crashing of the storm to the pavement muffles, angry droplets banging on the windows, begging to be let in, but she’s safe now.
There’s beach towels upstairs—no time. Down here, nothing but a pair of dishrags behind the counter, but Robin’s always made done with what’s there, so she snatches one in each fist and rushes to sop up a collection of wet trickles going down her freckled arms.
“Thanks,” creaks Ocean. Her fingers get in the way of the rags a little, what with their scrabbling at her own skin until it turns pink, but it’s perfectly fine. She dries around. “Could I please, stay here tonight?”
“Sure, sure,” says Mrs. Blackwood, an automatic response—she’s still drenched, dripping, for Christ’s sake. “But first, can you please tell me what happened, pumpkin?” she asks, even though she already knows what the answers will be.
A walk.
“I went on a walk,” says Ocean. At eleven at night, of course. Without shoes. “Got, got caught in the rain. Too far to go home.”
She reaches her legs, with the rags. There’s a blossoming bruise on one thigh and a series of cuts and scrapes on the other, which, with no more streaming rainwater to wash away, are steadily dribbling red. “Alright,” says Mrs. Blackwood, endeavoring to stay steady. “What about these over here?”
Tripped.
“I fell. Just, on the sidewalk. Slipped.” Several separate times, in several distinct places. “I’m fine,” Ocean tells her, with all the false conviction in the world.
She wipes the falls clean before standing upright. Her pale, tattered face is there, lit by nothing but the LEDs of the display case and the light of the moon, and Mrs. Blackwood startles.
“Your eyes.” That one’s new.
They go wide. “What, what about them?” Ocean asks, a little wild.
Something in Robin cracks. “They’re red, baby.”
She’s not sure what answer; what possible, conceivable explanation she’s expecting. What excuse she’ll be making—to dodge an uncomfortable conversation, she wonders? To keep the manufactured image of her home as pristine as her own record? To keep them safe? She’s always been a terrible liar, this desperate little girl, and for a split second, Robin thinks she might just give it up and tell the truth.
They made me take some.
A long pause.
And: “I’m tired,” Ocean says, hoarse. Not entirely false.
Mama Blackwood doesn’t usually let fibs fly.
But evenings like these are always the exception.
“Come inside,” she murmurs, after a beat, “and we’ll get you fixed up.”
She steadies her when her gangly, bruised legs fumble up the stairs, clumsier than they usually are—should be. Lord forgive her, tonight she might kill a man.
“Thank you,” slurs Ocean, smaller than she should be; all warped and wilting and indecipherable, when she should be nothing but clean, crisp edges and proud volume.
She doesn’t dignify that with a you’re welcome, because this is a mother’s job, she thinks. One she’ll gladly do, when the rest of this damned town won’t.
“You’re safe here,” Mrs. Blackwood tells her instead. “It’s alright, honey.”
And a child crumples in her arms.
* * *
Knock, knock…knock.
This one is a distinct one; almost like the person on the other side started strong, considered changing their mind halfway through, then eventually forced themself to commit.
It’s an afternoon slow enough to, after a second of deliberation, flip the Be Back Shortly (and Sweetly!) sign on the counter and make for the back door. She takes two fingers, peels open the blinds, and, there he is.
Immediately, she finagles with the door and swings it open. He glances up.
“Noel!”
Diane Gruber’s boy; he’s stopped by, once or twice, to rehearse something or other with Connie. He has a penchant for raspberry danishes, and is always wearing some delightful little ensemble. Strange loops around his neck, sheer black top whose lantern sleeves flare like flowers, tailored pants. It’s a wonderful bout of self-expression.
Today, though, he’s donning none of it. Instead, hanging off of him are jeans and an oddly loose-fitting tee, splotched with camo colors that, frankly, don’t look half as great.
Mrs. Blackwood keeps that an inside thought and tries not to frown. “Sorry, sweetie. Connie didn’t tell me you’d be over. She’s just in her room, I’ll run up and grab—”
“No.”
She blinks.
Noel blinks back, like he’s surprised the word made its way out of his own mouth. His fingers start to chip at some minuscule bits of leftover polish—black—on his nails. “I mean, sorry. I’m not here to see Constance,” he amends. “I…think I’m here to, um.” One emphatic chip, violent enough to make the skin start to bleed. He doesn’t notice. “I don’t know what.”
Concern blossoms in her chest. He’s going to need a Band-Aid for that. “You don’t know?”
“Well, uh,” he says, tongue tripping, a little, “I was home, and then I—wasn’t. And, I started walking, and then I was here and knocking on your door and I think it’s because you were always so nice to me and—” Noel promptly cuts himself off. He flushes, then a hand tangles in his own hair. “Oh, my God. This is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever done,” he laughs, without any comedy to it. “Yeah, you know what, I’m so sorry about this, I think I’m just gonna—”
“Come in,” says Robin.
His tangling stops. Slowly, he looks up at her, with wide, vaguely wet eyes.
It’s not an offer. It’s an instruction.
That boy’s always known what’s good for him, so he obeys it.
She takes him by the shoulders and parks him in the corner booth—nobody’s here, it’s fifteen until closing, whoever the hell else can wait—and pops herself down across from him, elbows on table because manners are a stuffy myth, here. “Okay,” Mrs. Blackwood starts, soft. “Now, what’s going on, baby?”
“I had a fight with my mom,” Noel bursts, instantaneous. He can’t look her in the eye this time, takes a napkin from the dispenser and starts ripping it into a thousand little pieces but that’s just fine. “Maybe, I shouldn’t tell you, but, I, I think you know, I’m—I like boys.” He swallows, so thick it looks hard to get down. “And, she knows. Has known. But, she said lately, I’ve been, like, looking too much like I like boys. Acting like it, and”—the napkin’s become unrecognizable so his fingers switch back, to his nails—”and I shouldn’t do that, I can’t do that, this is Saskatchewan, nobody does that in Saskatchewan, and so she told me I need to just—”
He scratches and scratches and scratches at the black of his polish, like he’s desperate to get it off—to scrape away all traces of himself from his body, to be less, to do as his poor mother prays to God he will and just be anything but who he is but Robin flies two hands to his wrists and holds.
“Noel,” she says, and every time a child cries, a piece of her tender heart up and withers away.
You’d think she’d be better at this, by now; Jonah, the little ambulance of a thing, never stopped sniveling and sobbing, not so many years ago, and that left her with less of her vital organs than she’d have hoped. But her own Mama always said she had a huge one; always with enough love to give, and she supposes that’s right. Every time one sliver of her heart splinters with their tears, it renews with their laughter, their joy, and so it’s worth it, to stop this boy from tearing himself up inside and out.
His shoulders shake. “You,” Robin tells him, as deadly serious as serious can be, “are never too much. This brainless world is just not ready for you.” Oh, how she wishes it was. How she loves this place to pieces and how she wishes its backwardness was not what she has to explain to one brave boy. “Your mama loves you. She wants to protect you. She can’t change the world, so she asks you to change yourself. But between you and me”—she takes his face in her hands and holds that, too—”that’s just as dangerous.”
“Then, what do I do?” he cries between her two palms, cheeks gray with eyeliner he hadn’t yet finished washing away.
Dear lord. How she wishes she knew.
“Be safe, but be you.” How she wishes there were a better answer than that one. How she wishes the pieces of her heart were the solution to every problem. She runs a thumb over his chipped lacquer, some scraggled flecks of black still there. “Don’t take this away. Don’t take you away. Just…” She sighs. “Be safe, baby.”
She holds him in her arms and lets him be, for a while, in that shirt that’s never suited anybody less and as that boy who deserves to be anywhere but here. She’ll be home away from home, she decides. She’ll be a pocket of safety in this minefield of a town and she’ll turn front what is back for these kids.
When he finally calms, she looks for his face, and finds a quiet determination burning in those eyelined irises.
Robin can’t offer them change. This, she knows.
But: “Would you like a raspberry danish?”
Noel smiles. “Yeah,” he laughs, wetly. “Yeah, Mrs. Blackwood, I’d love that. Thank you.”
She sure as hell can give them every splintered piece of her.
* * *
Knock. Knock. Knock.
This one is firm, loud, lingering; but never a bang. Resounding enough to let you know that, no, the sound was not a trick of your ear; someone is here. I am here.
Her eyes flit for the clock. It’s a few minutes before opening—there’s already the telltale bobbing heads of a line beginning to form out the front door—but someone can wait another five minutes for their espresso.
She stuffs the last cinnamon swirl muffins into the display case, mops her hands down the front of her apron, and bolts open the door.
There stands a boy—tall, broad—outfitted with the telltale, dress-coded St. Cassian uniform, and the not-so-dress-coded backwards cap, from which unruly sandy hair bursts out in puffs. Everyone knows everyone, in Uranium—but Robin does not know this boy.
“Hello?” she tries.
“I am here,” gruffs the boy, accent thick and dripping, but intention surely clear, “for bread.” He forms a sharp, rectangular shape with bent fingers, as if to say, it looks like this, if you weren’t aware, then promptly thrusts them back into the depths of his pockets.
She maybe should have the mind to be offended, but all that bubbles up is a chuckle. “Well, you’re in luck, because we’ve got plenty of that. But, we don’t open for another couple of minutes, sweetie. And the front door is”—she extends a finger—”that way.”
A second goes by. Then, he yanks his hands from his pants to gesticulate around, wildly. “I do not have minutes!” the boy booms. “I am telling you I will buy your bread! You have bread, no? I see—it is right there! I have my money to give you! Why do you not take my money?”
Now, certainly, would’ve been the time to get a little miffed. To shoo him out the door, maybe smack him upside the head with a cookie sheet and yelp that if he’d like to be served, he’d best park himself in the back of the damn line like the rest of the human beings running late to their jobs and schools out there.
But buried beneath his flailing, calloused hands, twisted expression, there’s some—panic. Some fear. Some sort of defense, like a hedgehog with its thorns shielding a soft and tender underbelly.
She might be just a little insane.
He’s breathing hard, panting, a cornered animal. The look in his eye flickers, like he just became aware of what he did.
“Here’s what’s going to happen.” Robin stares up at him like she’s six feet taller. He watches, quiet, scanning every move. “You are going to come inside. You will have first pick of the bread—just this once—if you promise to come in through the front and wait in line next time. And”—she narrows her eyes, in the Mom Mug—”you will not raise your voice at me, or anyone else in this establishment, ever again. Understand?”
A very, very thick pause.
Then: “Yes,” he says, markedly quieter. Thorns retreating, hackles falling. “I understand.”
A mother knows, she decides.
“Good. Then, come inside.”
He does.
As he shuffles up to the counter, slowly, his hands pry themselves from his pockets, and his saunter straightens into an upright sort of gait (which adds several more centimeters to him). Mrs. Blackwood inserts herself behind the counter, and pretends not to notice the conspicuously inconspicuous way he jams the open flaps of his button-down into his pants.
“Alright.” She smacks two palms on the wood and drums a collection of fingers against the grain. “One bread. They’re all in”—she waves the case—”here. Take your pick.”
He peers down his craggled nose to inspect today’s offerings—cinnamon-spangled, cheddar-infused, sesame-crusted—through half-lidded, still vaguely simmering eyes. Nothing seems to light him up. He lifts a hand, readying it to point to nothing but plain sourdough.
And then it finally sparks him.
“There.” His finger all but makes a beeline for it, face creased like it’s tried and failed to conceal some form of deep, deep wanting. “This one.”
Raisin babka.
It’s not a great seller, but they’ve always kept it on the menu, anyway. Why, she’s never been sure.
Maybe this is why.
With the utmost care, Mrs. Blackwood removes a loaf—the largest one, if only by a small margin—from the case, and swaddles it in Saran.
She’s tying it off with a bow of twine when she says, “This one, huh?”
It’s quiet for a very long time.
“In my home country,” he finally answers, his voice as small as she knew it could be; this wolf of a boy really just a dog, wandering lost in the back alley of a place so foreign, “my мама make like this.”
Without saying much of anything about it, Robin swathes another loaf of raisin babka and plunks them both in the bag.
“Пáска.”
It’s said beneath an outward breath, trembling and broken.
She’s not sure what to do to mend it.
“Well,” she sure as hell tries, “I’m not sure this is the same, sweetheart.” She cracks. “Maybe it’ll never be the same, as your mama’s.” Tries for a smile, wooden as it is. “But it’ll keep you fed.”
“I am sorry,” the boy bursts out, all at once. “I was loud.”
Robin chuffs out a laugh. “I’m a mama myself,” she tells him, soft. “I’ve handled way worse than you, baby.”
He looks hesitant to take the bag.
“I also know the look of a boy who misses his mama.”
It slips out before she can cork it. Everyone in this town says she sticks her nose where it doesn’t belong, shoves it several inches too far.
Maybe that’s where it ought to be, she always resists telling them.
The scared little boy looks up, eyes wide.
Mrs. Blackwood pulls in a breath. “You’re free to come on in through the back door when you miss her.”
Another long while.
The boy dredges up all the cash from his pockets and pastes it to the counter. “For bread,” he says.
“Okay.” She plunks the cluster of loose coins and bills into the paper bag and shoves it right back in his possession. “Have a nice day, now.”
He hacks and splutters, his pride surely urging him to protest somehow, but she’s already shooing him down the steps, away, to school, or to wherever home now seems to be for him, if he’s got one. She waves him down the street and then slips back inside, to flip the fateful little sign from SORRY - WE’RE CLOSED to COME IN - WE’RE OPEN.
Maybe, one day, one loaf at a time, she can make this home, for him.
* * *
Knock, knock, knock.
This one is on time, like clockwork, every Wednesday, just before she swabs the counters and kills the lights. The display case’s unsold contents have already been emptied into two industrial-sized to-go bags, and she hangs the handles of one around each wrist before sailing to the door.
The first time wasn’t so seamless.
Bang-crash-wallop!
That was the first commotion she heard against the back door; no polite knocks, hollered greetings, jingled bells. She’d nearly had a stroke, seconds from promptly faceplanting into a hot tray of brookies straight from the oven.
Oh, my God, thought Mrs. Blackwood, frozen with pan in oven-mitted hands, recipe-testing in an empty kitchen at a glorious eleven at night. We’re being broken into.
She was never down here alone—not this late, but this fall’s new menu was calling, and—oh, Jesus. Lucas wasn’t home; the kids were sound asleep, as was the rest of the town, for that matter. Or, not? Please don’t be a raccoon. Good lord, that might be worse.
Another thud-thump.
Clattering the brookies to the counter and stripping herself of mitts, she skidded for the one of the collection of industrial-sized ovens and yanked loose—a cookie tray. That was, hefty, right? God, whatever, it’d have to do. Anything was a weapon if you had enough Blackwood Grizzly Bear in you.
One more resounding clang.
She sent up a prayer to the Lord and Savior and pelted for the door. One hand fumbled open the deadbolt, bursted it open, two arms primed a cookie sheet high above her head, metal glinting in the light of the moon, and as Mrs. Blackwood primed to strike—
It was a kid.
The telltale pleated pinafore, proud red bow—a St. Cassian kid. She turned around.
And didn’t scream.
“Is this your dumpster?” she asked.
Mrs. Blackwood, frankly, felt the need to compensate with a shriek of her own, but she did not. The cookie sheet, inch by inch, lowered to hang limply over her front. The dumpster she was currently elbow-deep in? “Yes. Yes, that’s the one.”
“Oh.” She had the decency to look at least a little guilty. The trash schhlloped as she adjusted herself to face her somewhat more directly. “Um, sorry. About that.”
Robin released one hand on the tray to pinch the bridge of her nose, which must have just grown a new wrinkle or two, because this whole ordeal maybe aged her six years since its onset. She’d simply love to send her away and call this a night. This child was rummaging about in the dumpster out back—trespassing, to do so.
But she knew, even with all the blood currently pumping away from her brain, that this was very few kids’ ideas of a good time.
She dropped the tray to the concrete—it was rusted and in need of disposal anyway—and took a knee, right then and there. The girl’s eyes grew wide, half of the nutbrown hair that was initially in two dismantled braids now laying flat and frizzy down her back.
“What are you doing here, honey?” Robin asked, softly.
The girl shook her hands of grime and goop, then planted them on her ginghamed knees. “Cafés usually throw away what they don’t sell,” she said, like that explained everything.
It got halfway there, to her credit, but she’d liked to hear the rest. “And you prefer your baked goods with leachates on them?”
She seemed to shrink. “No,” she murmured. “He doesn’t, either.”
In conjunction with her nose, Robin’s brow developed a pair of new creases. “Who?”
“My brother.” The girl looked at her filthy, draggled hands, and suddenly her face was a lot older. “We’re hungry. Sorry about this.”
Similarly, Mrs. Blackwood was really feeling those six years right about now.
“We don’t throw away our leftovers, baby,” she told her, a little flimsy. Damn it all. She loved this town. Damn this town. “We donate them.”
The girl scraped a crusting of who-the-hell-knew-what off her fingers. “Oh.”
“But we can donate them to you.”
She looked up.
“We do our deep cleans on Wednesdays at five.” She’d feed them. “Why don’t you come by and take what you like?” She wished she didn’t have to. “If it’s not enough for the week, please don’t go foraging the dumpster.” But she would. “Just knock.”
The girl blinked. “Are you serious?”
There went the crack in Robin’s heart, again. “Yes, honey. Yes, I am serious.”
She almost lifted her cruddy, soiled hands to wipe at her own eyes, then thought better of it inches from her face, and twisted to smear her cheeks in the shoulder of her sleeve instead. “Thanks. Thank you. Yes, please. That’s really nice,” she said, a little wonkily.
Was it really, though, Mrs. Blackwood thought? Was this not simply life’s true purpose? “Tell me something,” she said, and she swore it would be the only thing she ever asked of these children. “What’s your name, love?”
The girl cleared the frogs from her throat and looked back with a wet smile. “It’s Penny.”
Today, the door swings open.
“Hi, there, Penny,” says Mrs. Blackwood, goods secured in hand. “We’ve got your favorites, today.”
Her face brightens the cloudy day this happens to be. “Really? Ezra’s, too?”
“Black sesame buns?”
The zest with which she grabs for then proceeds to pop open the bags is answer enough. “Oh, he’s gonna lose his mind,” she says, grin splitting her in two. “Thanks, Mrs. Blackwood.”
“No problem, honey.” Really, it would never be.
It’s at this moment that she lingers on the steps, rocking on her loafered feet. “Do you think I could stay, for a minute?” Penny asks.
“Oh, dear. Is this not enough?” She’d give them more.
Immediately, she shakes her head, braids twirling. “No, no. It’s great. I just, think I need a quick second to—”
“Come in.” It doesn’t matter.
She always can.
They all can.
Penny smiles a smile that doesn’t quite split her this time, but is one all the same. “Thank you.”
She ducks inside, and ends up staying for just fifteen minutes. She sits quietly at the corner booth for half of them, then, lifts herself up and still without words, helps to polish tables and sweep crumbs and dumpster trash until she slips out the way she came in.
For those fifteen minutes, Robin’s heart is full.
* * *
Jingle, jingle.
There’s a bell, for this one.
This one began to come through the front door, not a small batch of months ago. He has a favorite table; most regulars do, but in fact, after a little too much ruminating on Mrs. Blackwood’s part, it has a pattern.
If it’s in the mornings—occasional, but if true, early, because by the St. Cassian vest and tie he’s got to make it into school by eight—he lingers near the back. The sun rises behind the building, unobstructed through the square windows—because what kind of dull and dreary mood would it be in here if the blinds were shut?—and he makes use of every solitary ray of it, until the clock strikes seven forty-five and he packs himself up and jingles right out again.
Usually, however, it’s the late afternoons that he shows, when the sun is either high or setting, and in that case, he situates himself in the beloved corner booth by the front. He tips his crutches against the wall, plunks his backpack at his left, and spreads an array of stationery across the gnarled wood, along with his ever-invariable order: a chocolate chip muffin and a warmed glass of whole milk.
On the occasions he’ll stay until the sky grows dark—in the winter, most often, but some odd days in the warmer months, too—he moves. He takes his markers of rainbow shades, pencils and pens, college-ruled notebooks stacked one on top of the other, and hobbles himself as close to the counter as he can make it. Robin would wonder, on said occasions, why.
After a little too much sticking her nose where it wasn’t invited—or, as she likes to call it, observing—it turns out, it’s because he needs the light. From the sun, or in the evenings, the LEDs of the display case. Not because he’s chipping away at his homework, as she thought at the onset of this discovery before.
But because he draws.
Such a thing was unearthed on a particularly dusky evening, when he was the only one left in a chair and really the place was supposed to be closed for a half hour by now but how could she possibly ask him to leave?
She’d discovered such a wondrous thing as she brought him one refill of a gently steaming cup of whole milk, and she didn’t mean to. Really, she didn’t. But her eyes just happened to catch the most fleeting of glimpses over his shoulder, just as he glanced up.
Cats. Real ones, cartoonish ones—lady ones?—but nonetheless, all cats. Robin’s breath stuttered in her throat.
Such artfully sketched cats.
“Oh, my goodness,” it slipped, just before she could keep that brief snoop to herself.
His brows arched in unison. He said nothing.
She suddenly was very aware of the ambiguousness of the situation. “Sorry, sorry, there, honey,” bumbled Mrs. Blackwood. “You looked like you needed a refill, and I got a peek, and— Goodness gracious, you’re talented.”
Thank God, a grin lifted the corners of his lips, and he looked pleased beyond belief. She wondered how often—if ever—anyone had told him such a thing.
Still, however, his mouth was sewn shut.
She frowned—maybe it was offensive? “Oh, I’m sorry, darling. That was nosy of me. Carry on, I’ll leave you be, I shouldn’t have—”
But just as she was moving to sweep over one shoulder, fingers yanked backwards on her sleeve. They were weak, but she obeyed them all the same.
This time, the expression he wore was troubled, brows low and knitted, eyes flitting this way and that like he was struggling for—something. Then, it struck him. He snatched a stubby, oft-used 2B charcoal pencil from the collection.
Scribble, scribble, scribble.
He scrawled around the page for what felt like longer than he should until he snapped up straight, spun his journal around and shoved it across the table—for her.
Mrs. Blackwood stopped its grand slide with a palm and squinted down.
I have a rare degenerative disease which has caused me to lose the full function of my vocal chords, so I could not reply to you verbally. However, in reality, I was very thankful for your comments. And for the free milk. Thank you. Your kindness is much appreciated. I also enjoy your establishment.
The lines were rickety, but legible. Upon closer inspection, so were the strokes of his drawings—and yet, from far away, even what appeared to be mistakes were almost…cohesive. Like he’d harnessed what others may have told him were his shortcomings and wrangled them into something beautiful.
Robin chuckled, hoarsely. What wonder lived in this town. “Of course,” she said. Then, hesitated, because she didn’t want to tell him the rest, but: “Actually, I stopped by because, we closed about a half hour ago, honey.”
His eyes widened. He darted to scribble and scrawl some more.
She put a hand up. “No, no, don’t be sorry.”
He froze midway. Then, softened. Oh, you get me.
“But you can come back tomorrow, or whenever you like,” said Mrs. Blackwood, “if you tell me your name.”
He put up a finger. One second.
The boy flipped over a new page, and bent right over. His arm traveled in wild flourishes, tottering but intentional, with expert efficiency, other hand twisting the page to aid where his wrist didn’t seem to go, and he made art, surely, but maybe the movie of this process was a complete work in itself.
In under a minute, he was done. But this time, he ripped it straight out, and handed it to her with great pride.
Ricky, said the paper, in a popping three-dimensional font that leapt off the page, spangled with stars and bolts of energy and vague impressions of supernovas. All in under one minute.
When that name was on books and credit screens and art galleries, she thought, she wouldn’t forget it.
Now, when she sees Ricky Potts, just before closing she comes sailing in with a refill, yes, but also an ear—rather, an eye.
“What’s cookin’ today?” she’ll ask him, and he’ll tell her.
Today, he’s already prewritten his explanation; on the left of his sketchpad is the illustration in question—a gorgeous thing, shadows of cats and cat-ladies alike slinking up a throne framed by a rising sun—and on the right, a formatted story, complete with bullet points. Mrs. Blackwood drinks in every word and stroke.
At the end, he hands both to her, and good. “I was looking for a new one to tack to the fridge, thank you.” Next to Jonah’s dinosaurs playing basketball, Connie’s original recipe for fudge brownie pops, and Ocean’s perfect report card.
Ricky sends her a smile that puts a few new stars in the sky.
He comes because he doesn’t have ears and eyes anywhere else, Robin thinks. But she’ll give all five senses to him. She’ll sit down, and listen, and love, and have the privilege of seeing pages of magnifying glasses taken to his brain.
Because she will not let this town stifle minds and worlds such as Ricky Potts’.
* * *
This one never knocks.
Why would she? Why should she? While everyone else is only offered what’s for the taking, this one owns it all. It is hers. There is no knocking, no asking, no wondering if she can thunder up those steps or waltz behind that counter or lay horizontal on that sofa. What’s here is hers. Until all Hell freezes up and withers away, until the Earth stops spinning on its axis, until nothing is left of her to give, this place is this one’s home.
Lately, she takes less and less of it. The knob will turn and the hinges whine with her presence, but there are few other signs of her, as there once were. She will creak up the stairs to the apartment nestled above, stay down long enough only to toe off her uniform’s loafers into the pile by the foyer, and soon enough her door spattered with the almost sardonic flowers and hearts and clouds will crash shut, and there will be no more of her until she has to tie her apron on or preside at the dinner table.
She does only what she is asked to do, and doesn’t stick around a second more. Mirthlessly, she thinks that any parent in this town would beg to trade places with her; to have what she has; a child so flatly, unobtrusively obedient.
But damn them, damn it all, because a part of her longs. For the way she once flicked water off her fingers in her brother’s direction as she scrubbed dishes at the kitchen sink; the way she’d moan and whine at her favorite show being taken off the television because it was time to turn in to bed; the way she’d sneak seconds and thirds of recipe-tested sweets when the hard rule was one only, but how could anyone possibly be mad at that sugar-flecked face when it said, “Then why’d you make it taste so good, Mama?”
She longs, for the playful rebelliousness, the truthful apologies, the ugly tears and the unfiltered laughter of a child. Her child.
Mama. Papa. She hasn’t said it in so long; always Mom, Dad, or nothing at all. Is it her fault, she wonders? Are these the pains of growing her own Mama once told legends of? It was so long ago. Was she ever so empty, so even, so solemn at seventeen years old? Or is this the consequence of some cosmic mistake she so regretfully committed? One too many lectures on staying up past midnight, not enough recipes taste-tasted after dinner?
She wonders often. Well past midnight, the hypocrite she is, staring up into the water stains blemishing the ceiling and she only stops when she lifts out of bed, pads down the hall, and strains her ears to hear the snores smothered behind the flower- and heart- and cloud-spattered door. The same ones since she was a babe.
Only then, can she forget.
Today, she’s wondering a little harder. She’s wondering as the night grows too old for comfort, sun just past setting, when the Fall Fair should be done and over by now. She’s downstairs with a dishrag swabbing glasses that don’t need to be swabbed just so she can be there for the knob’s turn and the hinges’ creaks the very instant they do, and then she’ll go. She’ll even neglect to envelop her in a bear hug and press a kiss into the top of her pigtailed coils, because she stiffens when she does. She won’t do any of it. She’ll let her retreat behind her door and be seventeen in the way she needs to, if she would just come home.
Knock—knock—knock.
Her rag freezes.
It’s flimsy, tremoring, fragile. For a moment, her mind tries to fill in the blanks: Ocean? Noel? Mischa? Penny? Ricky?
But then, the unmistakable, wrenching heave of a sob.
Constance.
This one never knocks.
Today, she does.
Mrs. Blackwood’s instincts light on fire. The glass drops and shatters and it doesn’t even matter. She tears for the door, trips for the lock, and throws the damned thing open.
“Mama,” cries her baby.
She all but comes apart in her arms, but she’ll hold her together. She’ll pick her all up off the floor and sit there with the glue and the cuts on her fingers, at seven, seventeen, or seventy-seven years old, if it means she sticks around this planet another day.
Without hesitation, Robin’s daughter is slotted into the space carved for her against her chest, one arm fastened tight on her back and the other cupping her head, holding her hair, buried in her curls. “Connie,” she cries right back, “baby, what is it? What happened? Where—”
“I’m sorry,” she wails into the fabric of her apron, a more truthful apology than Mrs. Blackwood thinks she should have asked for. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Mama,” says Constance Blackwood, in pieces.
“No, no, no,” Robin tells her, trying to keep herself in one whole. “Shhh. It’s okay, baby. Mama’s got you. No more sorrys, honey, please.”
“We, we almost”—Connie swallows, fast and fitful—”fell, and the track, I thought— we had, we had this dream, but the ride—it stopped, everything was okay, but, b–but we got off, and, I realized, the whole time. Oh, God, how horrible I was.”
She can’t make sense of that. Any of it. Maybe one day, Connie, too, will understand, just how ridiculous it all is. Because a daughter can never be horrible.
Especially not this one.
She starts to struggle for breath, gasping, weeping, and she has to pull away from her only to drop to her knees and look her in the eye and shock some oxygen back in her system, and dear Lord, Mrs. Blackwood supposes she got those ugly, undisguised tears she asked for.
“Listen to me,” she trembles, very well about to succumb to them herself, “you are not horrible. You cannot be horrible. You’re my Connie.” Now, she does. Robin weeps. “You’re my baby.”
Her baby hangs on for dear life, and she’ll be her anchor among roaring waters. “I love you,” sobs her baby Connie, and if only she could just keep her in these arms forever. “I love you, I love you, I love you, Mama.”
Mama Blackwood says it back. She says it plenty, and yet not nearly enough. She holds her on this loved old hardwood and doesn’t let go until she does, which is a long time. She thinks she’ll let her stay up an extra hour and take her pick of whatever’s on the kitchen counter tonight. She thinks she’ll start seeing her flick her dripping fingers at innocent dry faces and toe the lines more often. She hopes she’ll see her take up more space in this house and this world. She hopes this means the growing won’t be so painful anymore.
But if it is, she’ll still forever soothe her every ache and bruise.
It’s what a mother does, after all.