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When Joyce brought in the last of her and the kids’ boxes down the Wheelers’ basement stairs that November, she made a point of keeping her eyes on the railing instead of Karen.
Joyce had known Karen Childress since they were six years old, back when Karen used to find her on the playground to talk without stopping for what felt like hours on end. More often than not, it was about the episodes of whatever sitcom she’d watched the night prior. Joyce would pretend she knew what Karen was talking about, but the truth was, she usually didn’t. The Maldonado house hadn’t had a television back then, and even if it had, Joyce doubted her parents would have let it stay on long enough for her to recognize the shows like Karen did.
Joyce could never quite tell whether Karen realized she was explaining things to someone who had absolutely no reference for them, or if she simply couldn’t stop herself once she’d started talking. Either way, she didn’t seem to mind that Joyce mostly responded with nods and the occasional “Oh really?”
Younger Karen also liked things arranged a certain way. If their teacher moved reading time from ten o’clock to ten-thirty without warning the class the day prior, Karen would burst into tears. By high school, she’d learned how to manage it, or at least hide it better. Cheerleading helped. She liked the structure and knowing the practice schedule weeks in advance always calmed her nerves.
From the outside, she fit in.
If anything, she only seemed a little particular about routines. A little disturbed when things changed too suddenly. Most people never noticed how hard she worked to keep her life on track.
Joyce wasn’t most people.
There were nights Karen would wander, a little drunker than she realized, and Joyce would find her sitting with somebody’s cat or dog, away from the actual party.
Karen would say she felt wrong. If Joyce tried to ask what she meant, Karen would laugh it off and change the subject. At the time Joyce chalked it up to the usual teenage miseries. It never occurred to her that Karen’s loneliness might have come from somewhere deeper than that.
Then Karen married Ted Wheeler.
Joyce hadn’t liked him from the start, even before she could explain to herself why. Ted wasn’t loud like Lonnie. He didn’t slam doors or throw things or pick fights in the middle of the night. But there was another kind of absence to him that felt just as exhausting to be around.
Ted treated Karen like an accessory.
She was something he expected to function without complaining. And for the most part, Karen functioned. She had Nancy. Then Mike. Then Holly. She kept the house clean, smiled at the neighbours, knew how to cook, and bought the groceries. She had a pretty face and a lovely home.
From the outside, it looked like she’d done everything right.
From the outside, Karen Wheeler had won.
Joyce, meanwhile, had gotten by in an old house with flickering lights and a husband who seemed to resent her for breathing.
She had always been a little too much. Too emotional, people said. Too quick to panic. Too quick to care. Far too strange to ever belong. She fixated on the wrong things. She knew when something wasn’t right when everyone else had already moved on. Lonnie used to say she made problems where there weren’t any.
Joyce Maldonado was strange.
Joyce Byers was stranger.
And still, somehow, Karen had never looked at her that way.
They had drifted apart for a while after high school, as people did, but pregnancy pulled them back together again. Nancy and Jonathan were born less than a year apart.
Joyce remembered those nine months vividly. Karen recorded everything in a notebook, whether it was the time of day the baby kicked, how many times it happened, her pulse, her weight, or how long she’d slept the night before. If the baby didn’t move when Karen expected it to, she’d worry. If the scale went up an extra pound, Joyce’s phone would ring.
“Is that normal?” Karen would ask, expecting Joyce to know. “It’s too early for labor, right? I would know if something was wrong, wouldn’t I?”
There were pancakes every morning in those days. Pancakes and lots of maple syrup. Same breakfast, same plate, same time, same brand of maple syrup. The morning she woke up craving eggs instead, she cried. Joyce had tried to soothe her, told her cravings were perfectly normal, that pregnancy ruined your habits whether you liked it or not. Not a single thing worked.
Joyce had never needed explanations for every human oddity.
People were strange.
Lonnie had taught her that much.
But Karen had always puzzled her.
Karen couldn’t stand being grabbed from behind. If someone slipped their arms around her waist, like one of the girls being playful between classes, or somebody getting carried away at a party, Karen’s mood would hit a rapid decline. Sometimes she’d laugh it off, but for the rest of the day she was off.
If Karen initiated it herself, it was different. She loved hugging Joyce. She even liked to hug when Joyce was sitting down, hunched over the back of a chair just to play with her hair for a minute or two. Joyce eventually decided it depended on Karen’s mood more than anything else.
Strong emotions caused the same sort of reaction.
Karen wasn’t cold. She was far from it. She felt things too deeply and had no real way of stopping herself from reacting. If someone else cried, Karen cried harder. When Patty Newby failed a chemistry test, Karen had been more upset than Patty herself.
Joyce had noticed other things too, once they were adults.
At parties or small gatherings, Karen rarely strayed far from Ted. She’d stay near him, keeping her hand on his arm or the sleeve of his jacket. She always wanted to leave early.
“The kids need to be in bed by eight,” Karen would say, even years later when Nancy was old enough to drive.
Joyce had always assumed it was simple maternal instinct. Karen had always been thorough about schedules, routine, and making sure everything happened when it was supposed to.
But the longer a party went on, the more restless Karen became. By the time she said her goodbyes, she often looked close to tears. Joyce had once seen Karen squeeze Ted’s hand so hard he actually lost circulation.
She had never believed it was her place to ask why.
For most of their lives, it really hadn’t been Joyce’s business.
Until it was.
When Joyce, Will, and Jonathan moved into the Wheeler house, everything changed. Karen still didn’t know anything about the Upside Down. She didn’t know what a demodog was, who Vecna was, or why Hawkins seemed to suffer a “natural disaster” every year or two. Joyce had made certain of that. The less Karen knew, the safer she would be. Sometimes, more often now, the lie weighed on Joyce’s conscience. Other nights it was the only thing that helped her sleep.
With more bodies in the house, Joyce was forced to observe more. Will and Karen got along wonderfully, though in truth they always had. Will was soft-spoken to begin with, polite, rarely pushed against rules, and he listened when people spoke to him. Karen seemed to relax around him where she didn’t with most teenagers. Jonathan was careful with what he did, and the few times Karen caught him smoking she had asked him kindly to open a window next time. But young adults still occupied a lot of space even if they didn’t mean to. There were more shoes piled by the door, more mugs left on the kitchen counter, more laundry appearing in the wrong baskets.
And Joyce herself wasn’t exactly an easy houseguest. She had a habit of letting the phone ring until someone else picked it up. More than once she’d left the stove on after wandering off to do something else. She’d accidentally ruined a set of curtains trying to wash them, and she’d left a few scorch marks on the countertops by leaving one too many cigarettes unattended.
Joyce noticed Karen getting quieter.
In the beginning, she assumed it was simple courtesy. Hosting three extra people was no small thing. But it wasn’t that. Karen started hiding in the kitchen more often, either to cook or just to stand at the counter. She’d read in bed for hours, only leaving to complete chores. If the living room got too loud, Karen would suddenly remember an errand she needed to run.
Even the kids noticed.
Nancy tried to fix her. She started sticking around in the kitchen, asking questions about her day, whether she’d slept well, or if she needed help with anything. Mike would offer to do the dishes and then immediately regret it when Karen started correcting how he stacked them. Holly grew clingier, confused by the shift in her mother’s energy, but also enjoying how much she liked cuddles when she was sad.
To the Wheeler kids, the quiet version of their mother meant something was wrong.
To Joyce, the quiet version of Karen meant something was extremely wrong.
── .✦
It had been a brutal weekend.
The tunnels had been soaked with vines and a goopy, tar-like residue Joyce had learned not to ask too many questions about. It had dripped from the ceiling and splattered across her sneakers and smushed into her socks. Hopper’s stubbornness nearly got him killed again, and they had come back with nothing concrete to show for it.
When they got back into the Wheeler house Friday evening, Joyce’s head was splitting down the middle. She’d been getting migraines more often lately. The constant running around, the dead ends, and the sleepless nights all seemed to be catching up with her.
Nancy and Mike were in the middle of a full-volume argument at the table, though neither of them could say what was actually bothering them. Holly sat nearby with a book open in front of her, attempting the impossible task of reading through the noise.
Across the table, Will and Jonathan were also in the middle of some simmering disagreement. They weren’t speaking directly to each other at all. They were relaying comments through Holly, who had quickly decided she wanted no part in it and buried her nose deeper into her book.
Ted sat at the head of the table, lecturing Karen about her “moderation.” Karen had drank three glasses of wine instead of two. To Ted, that was the real issue. Not the smudges of eyeliner beneath her eyes. Not the way she’d been running off to her room earlier and earlier each evening. What mattered was the third glass.
Karen hadn’t said a word.
She sat still, staring straight ahead at the table as Ted continued his lecture. The light over the table caught the shine in her eyes before the tears had a chance to fall.
“Honestly, Karen,” Ted went on. “It’s just not necessary. Two glasses is plenty. Three is excessive, especially when we have guests.”
Guests.
To Ted, Joyce and her boys were still outsiders. People who had wandered into the Wheeler house and simply never left. It didn’t seem to matter to him that they’d all grown up in Hawkins or that Joyce had known Karen since childhood.
Karen dug her nails into the centre of her palm, hard enough that the red polish at the base of her nails began to lift away from the cuticle.
Then she stood up.
Ted stopped, watching Karen push her chair in without looking back at him.
He chose not say anything else.
Joyce stayed seated, waiting five solid seconds before she pushed her own chair back and followed after her.
The kitchen light was harsher than the warm one over the dining table. It made an electrical buzz that Karen complained about constantly, though Ted refused to look at it.
Joyce didn’t hear it, but she believed her.
Karen stood near the refrigerator with both hands clamped over her ears. Her fingers were tangled in her hair, digging into her scalp as hard as possible.
“Karen?” Joyce said quietly.
She reached for her arm, but the second her fingers made contact, Karen moved away. Her hip whacked the edge of the counter, echoing a loud, painful thump.
“Jesus—are you okay?”
Karen didn’t seem to feel it. She shook her head, still covering her ears.
“What else did he say?” Joyce asked, trying to keep her voice low for both Karen and her own sake. “Did Ted do something earlier when I wasn’t here?”
At the mention of her husband, Karen let out a strained whine and dug her nails harder into her scalp.
“Okay. Okay, hey—“
Joyce turned toward the cabinet and grabbed a standard drinking glass. Water. Surely that would help her. Clear her throat. Give her something to physically handle for a moment.
Behind her, Karen shifted restlessly. Her hands fell from her ears, only to start rolling at her sides.
Joyce stood there a moment, holding the glass under the faucet, too distracted to turn it on. She set the glass back down and stretched up onto her toes and reached for the highest shelf in the cabinet. There, pushed slightly to the back, was the small plastic cup with Care Bears stickers around the middle. It was tiny compared to the others. She’d seen Karen gravitate toward it when she was drunk. That was, on the rare nights Karen valued herself enough to drink water afterward.
Joyce turned back to Karen, holding it up a little awkwardly. “You want this one?”
Karen’s eyes opened. She nodded.
Joyce filled it with apple juice instead of water. Karen had always had a weakness for sweet things. Joyce filled it nearly to the rim and passed it over, keeping her hands beneath Karen’s in case she dropped it or started fidgeting again.
Karen took the cup and drank immediately. She drained it nearly in one go, then set the cup down behind her on the counter. She kept the tips of her fingers on the cup, tracing it with her nail, moving from one cartoon stomach to the next, following each of their little tummies and symbols.
Joyce watched in silence, contemplating her next move.
But before she could make a plan, her head pounded intensely with pain. A rush of nausea ran up her throat. She held her fingers to her forehead and let out a soft groan.
The kitchen light was absolutely brutal.
She reached blindly for the switch beside her and flicked it off. The harsh overhead light vanished, and with it the electrical buzzing. From the dining room, the chandelier came through the opening, bright enough to outline the counters and cabinets but too distant to sting her eyes. Joyce blinked a few times, letting her eyes adjust while the pressure in her head weakened.
Across from her, Karen’s hands stopped moving.
Joyce leaned back against the counter. The migraine thumped less persistently, which lessened the nausea and pressure in her stomach and allowed her body a second to settle.
“You like it better like this?” she asked quietly, noticing that Karen had calmed down when the kitchen light went out. “Hurts less, right?”
Karen nodded in agreement, though she wrapped her arms around her own torso and began to intentionally squeeze hard. Her hands hooked into the fabric of her sweater and she pulled it inward as hard as she could manage, so much so Joyce could see the outline of her forearms going into her ribs.
Joyce wondered if she was hurting herself on purpose. It didn’t look like anger, though. Karen’s expression had changed, alleviated, if anything. The harder she squeezed, the more her face seemed to resolve. Maybe it was comforting to her.
“Does that feel good to you, honey?”
She expected Karen to brush it off, the way she often did when Joyce asked about the little habits she noticed. A shrug, maybe.
Karen nodded again.
“Do you want me to…” Joyce searched for the right phrasing. “Add some pressure? Would that help?”
Karen moved closer before Joyce had even finished her sentence.
Instead of grabbing her right away, Joyce rested her hands on Karen’s shoulders. Up close, the tension was obvious. Karen’s muscles were extremely tight, especially across her collarbones and the base of her neck.
Joyce slid her arms down and replaced Karen’s grip with her own, wrapping them around her torso. She pulled her in, using real strength. She still kept herself attentive to every shift in Karen’s posture, as she had no clear idea of how much pressure Karen actually needed. The last thing she wanted was to misjudge it and make things worse.
At first Karen remained rigid in her arms, but gradually her spine, shoulders, and the tightness across her stomach weakened. Her breathing deepened and the external pain abated.
Instead of returning to her tight self-grip, Karen reached around Joyce’s back and held onto her. It was a completely different kind of contact than the accidental touches they usually shared. Karen leaned into it, burying her face in Joyce’s hair.
The moment Joyce moved back a minute or two later, Karen’s arms fell against her sides and her hands immediately curled into tight fists.
Joyce reached for one of them and brushed her fingers lightly over Karen’s knuckles, sliding her thumb into the centre of her palm. “Gentle,” she reminded her. “Don’t squeeze too hard.”
Karen’s fingers resisted, still tightly curled. When Joyce shifted her grip, the edge of Karen’s wedding ring scraped across the side of her hand, making her jump a little. Joyce was careful not to catch it or twist it after that, knowing how much more Ted would loathe her if she broke it.
Karen was particular about her hands, too. Joyce had noticed over the years how careful Karen was about her nails, how she disliked people grabbing her fingertips. Joyce avoided touching there altogether, and instead changed her approach, gently pushing at the base of Karen’s fingers and along the knuckles where the tension was.
It took a moment, but eventually she managed to pry her fist open. Once Karen’s hand finally relaxed, Joyce laid her palm against it and laced their fingers together.
“We should move. The kids are gonna be done soon. I don’t want you getting startled when they run by.”
Karen squeezed her hand, her form of acknowledgment.
Not giving Joyce time to respond after that, she began pulling her toward the stairs. The sudden movement made Joyce wince, as the shift in position sent a rush of blood to her head.
As they reached the middle of the staircase, Joyce had to hold herself on the banister to not fall over.
From the dining room, Will looked up from his plate. His eyes drifted from Joyce’s face down to their joined hands. Joyce couldn’t gauge his reaction in time.
Karen remained oblivious, continuing to pull Joyce down the hallway and into her bedroom. She stepped aside to let Joyce enter first, then closed the door behind them.
Before Joyce could ask what else she needed, Karen grabbed the bottom of her sweater and pulled it up. The fabric bunched around her elbows and then slipped over her head. Joyce saw only a glimpse of the skin at Karen’s waist, her lower stomach, and the underside band of her bra before her brain caught up with what was happening. She turned around to face the wall.
“Oh, Karen—shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t—” She folded her arms awkwardly. “Do you—do you need help?”
A drawer slid open behind her. Another drawer closed. Joyce stayed where she was, staring at a framed photograph of the Wheeler kids on a low shelf. Mike was holding Holly while Nancy stood beside them, leaning into Karen with one arm around her waist. Karen’s hair was darker then, rich brunette instead of the honey blonde she had now.
A hanger knocked against the inside of the closet door, then everything went quiet.
“Okay,” Karen whispered.
“Okay as in…I can turn around?”
“Mhm.”
Karen stood a few feet from the bed. The sweater was gone, and in its place she wore a loose pink nightgown, with thin lace along the neckline and a tiny bow between her breasts. It looked like it was a size or two too big, but Karen seemed comfortable in it, like that had been the point. Her socks were gone as well.
Her hair had been pulled back into a tie at the nape of her neck, though her bangs hadn’t been touched and remained fluffy. Her necklace and earrings were gone too. Joyce knew Karen had a habit of fiddling with them when she was nervous, either twisting the chain or touching the dangling earrings.
Something still felt off.
“Are you, um, is this from the wine?” she asked cautiously. “Are you nauseous? You know you can talk to me about this stuff. Um. Was Ted—“
Karen’s fists hit the sides of her thighs the second Ted’s name was said, clenched tight again.
“Shit,” Joyce said under her breath. “Sorry. Forget it. Forget I said anything.”
Karen looked away, toward the dresser, staring at the jewellery she’d removed. Joyce could almost see the internal debate of wanting to reach for the familiar objects, but she held herself back, resisting whatever had made her remove them in the first place.
Karen approached the bed and pulled the covers back. The baby pink sheets were tucked in tightly at the corners. She paused, glanced at Joyce, checking whether she was still there, then bent down and lifted the edge of the bed skirt. She reached far underneath, stretching her arm deep into the darkness beneath the frame. Her shoulder hit the mattress as she searched for something out of sight, then pushed the other arm in as well.
When she pulled back, she had a small square of fabric in one hand. It was soft-looking with little cream-coloured satin tags along the edges. In the other hand, she held a stuffed white bunny. One ear was mangled and the fur over its belly was slightly matted, presumably from repeated handling.
Curiosity got the better of her. Joyce got closer to the bed and crouched down as well, lifting the bed skirt herself to peek underneath.
There were brown bears in different sizes furthest away, at least six Care Bears in the middle of the frame, a small calico cat with humongous, beaded eyes off to the left side, and something that might have once been a duck to the right. None of them looked new. Most of them were clearly well-loved.
Joyce let the bed skirt fall again and slowly looked up. “What are they for?” she asked softly.
Karen fidgeted with the fabric in her hand. Joyce then realized it was not a cloth or rag, but a small blanket, meant for a toddler. “I just like them.”
Joyce held eye contact for a second, trying not to sound surprised in the wrong way. “Right. That’s…nice.”
Karen didn’t look completely reassured by her response, but she nodded. She placed the battered rabbit on the bed and climbed in beneath the covers. She pulled the quilt up and wiggled back against the pillows, bringing the little blanket with her. Instead of spreading it out, she folded it against her chest so the square rested under her chin. She found one of the tags and began rubbing it.
Then she patted the mattress beside her.
Joyce was still in her jeans and the flannel she’d thrown on that morning, and there was probably still residue from the tunnels somewhere on her sleeves or knees. She felt like vomiting because of her migraine.
But honestly, she was about two minutes from collapsing anyway.
Joyce sighed and went around to the other side of the bed. The sheets were lightweight and surprisingly cold. She shifted onto the pillow, wincing as her head indented the silk case. She kept her eyes open despite the burning sensation in them. The darkness was easier than the kitchen had been, but her nerves still felt like live wires.
“I like my hair played with,” Karen said after a long minute. “It’s really soft.”
Joyce hummed. “Yeah?”
Karen reached under her own shoulder, tugging a few curls free where they’d been pinned beneath her head in the loose bun. She laid them across the pillow, closer to Joyce’s side.
It took her a second to understand what Karen was asking for.
She lifted her hand and held it just above her before making contact. She started at the ends of Karen’s hair, gently combing through the strands.
Karen’s grip on the silk tags grew weaker. The restless twitching switched to a gentle rub between her thumb and forefinger. “You don’t think it’s silly?”
Joyce didn’t stop moving her hand. “No.”
“I meant the plushies.”
“No.”
“Even at my age?”
Joyce shook her head. “At our age, we get to like whatever the hell we want.”
She continued brushing through Karen’s curls, keeping a slow pace. She traced small circles at the base of Karen’s scalp, then went back through the length of her hair, eventually untying it completely. The repetition soothed her own nerves, too.
Minutes passed.
When Karen’s fingers finally stopped rubbing the tag, Joyce realized she was asleep. She hooked one curl gently around her finger and let it spring loose.
What the hell had just happened? Nothing explained the way Karen had shut down.
Joyce replayed dinner in her mind. Had there been something important? Some huge detail Joyce had missed while her own head had been pounding?
The more she thought about it, the more she realized she’d been missing quite a lot lately.
For starters, the entire ecosystem under Karen’s bed. The Care Bears. The collection of brown bears. That tiny calico cat with the really unsettling plastic eyes. The duck-shaped thing. Even the little blanket was startling.
At this rate, Joyce expected to lift the bed skirt next week and find Strawberry Shortcake, Barbie, and an entire Cabbage Patch family set up for a tea party.
How the hell had she never known about any of it?
They’d known each other for decades. They’d grown up together. Karen was her best friend.
Joyce slowly wound another curl around her finger, then let it fall.
Why had she been allowed to see it now?
Maybe it was the wine. Three glasses wasn’t exactly excessive for Karen, not by her usual standards, but maybe it had lowered whatever barrier she normally kept in place.
Or maybe it was something else.
Menopause crossed Joyce’s mind. Hormones could do strange things to a person. Then again, exhaustion alone could hurt someone just as much. And doctors rarely took that kind of thing seriously anyway. If it involved women’s bodies, or women’s minds, it usually got dismissed.
Was she the variable here?
Karen had dragged her upstairs. Karen had let her see under the bed. And Karen had fallen asleep within minutes beside her.
At what point had their friendship shifted from sharing booze in someone’s basement to lying in bed together with a stuffed bunny between them?
── .✦
Joyce didn’t remember falling asleep.
One minute she had been awake, running her fingers through Karen’s hair, and the next it was morning. She didn’t remember shifting closer, or pulling Karen against her, or tucking her chin over a cloud of blonde curls. But that was how she woke up.
Her eyes opened to a wall of soft, tangled hair in her face. For a second she didn’t understand what she was looking at, but the texture eventually registered. A few strands had found their way into her mouth and tickled her lips. Karen’s hair always smelled sweet, but when she was this close it was overpowering. Light citrus perfume. Vanilla shampoo. White wine.
She shifted her hand to move the tangle out of her mouth and realized that her palm had been resting at the base of Karen’s head the entire night.
Karen was still asleep.
Joyce squinted toward the vanity across the room, where Karen’s little clock was beside a tray of perfume bottles and her jewellery.
8:47.
“Shit,” she murmured.
Karen never slept past eight. Not even on Fridays. Not even if she’d gone to bed late.
Joyce’s first instinct was panic, of course.
Karen had been exhausted, and maybe her body had taken what it needed. She wasn’t exactly a morning person, she just forced herself to be.
Still.
Joyce gently nudged her shoulder. “Karen,” she murmured, but received no response.
She brushed a few strands of hair away from Karen’s face but stopped when she saw the smudges of mascara under her eyes. She’d fallen asleep in her makeup. That alone told Joyce how tired she’d been. Karen never did that. Not once in all the years Joyce had known her.
She nudged her again, a little firmer. “Karen.”
Karen grumbled. Her brows creased before her eyes even opened, and when they did, the morning light hit them and she squeezed them shut again.
The hangover had arrived.
“It’s okay,” Joyce whispered, sliding an arm around her shoulders. “You’re alright.”
Karen let out a soft, miserable whine and held her midsection a little tighter.
Joyce slipped a hand behind Karen’s back and helped her sit upright. Karen followed sluggishly, rubbing her hands under her eyes, smearing the leftover mascara even further.
“You slept in a bit,” Joyce said gently. “I’ll get the kids breakfast if they haven’t already eaten. You wanna take a bath first? Or just sit for a minute?”
Karen blinked at her, still foggy. “What time is it?”
Joyce glanced at the vanity again. “Almost nine.”
“What?” Her expression shifted in seconds. “No. No, that’s not right.”
“It’s okay. I think you needed the sleep—“
“It’s not okay. It’s not okay at all. I have to wake up at eight-oh-six. I have to. You know that.”
Joyce frowned. “Eight-oh-six?”
Karen’s breathing picked up. “It has to be eight-oh-six. I can’t wake up later.”
“It’s just a little later. We can still have a nice breakfast. It’s Saturday, we’ve got nothing big planned anyway.”
Karen’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s ruined,” she whispered. “We can’t do anything now.”
“Woah. Hey. No, that’s not true.”
Karen started rocking back and forth and Joyce could see the indentations from where Karen’s nails were digging into her thighs. The skin along the inside of Karen’s thighs showed older damage too, with thin scratch marks, some of them only half-healed. The skin there looked irritated, like it had been picked at recently.
Karen followed Joyce’s eyes.
Almost immediately she pulled her hands away from her legs and clasped them together in her lap. But the urge didn’t fully disappear. Instead, she began picking the edges of her fingernails and cuticles.
“Hey,” Joyce said, trying to get her fingers between them. “Gentle, remember?”
This time they wouldn’t budge.
Karen’s hands were locked shut. The tendons in her forearms stood out under her skin. Joyce tried the same trick she’d used the night before, slipping her thumb toward the centre of Karen’s palm, but her grip was too strong. The harder Joyce tried, the more rigid Karen seemed to get.
“Karen,” she whispered. “Look at me.”
Karen shook her head again, the rocking gaining a little speed. “Eight-oh-six,” she said. “It’s supposed to be eight-oh-six.”
Joyce’s mind scrambled. It didn’t ring any bells. Not a birthday, not a school schedule. She thought she knew Karen’s routines well enough. Coffee around eight-fifty. Breakfast soon after. Kids out the door by nine if it was a school day. But eight-oh-six?
Had that one always been there and she’d just never noticed?
Joyce slowly let go of Karen’s fists. Forcing them open clearly wasn’t helping.
“Karen?”
No response.
“Kare.”
Still rocking.
“Honey, I need you to look at me.”
A few seconds passed before Karen’s eyes lifted. “I have to wake up at eight-oh-six, Joyce.”
Nodding sympathetically, Joyce cupped her face, very careful not to overwhelm her. As light as she could, she rubbed her thumbs over Karen’s soft, slightly puffy cheeks. “I know,” she whispered.
She didn’t actually know, but correcting her right now wasn’t going to help anything.
“I know you like eight-oh-six, but we can just get up now. We can still have coffee. I bet the kids aren’t even downstairs yet.”
“It’s wrong. It’s wrong to wake up at nine.”
“It feels wrong. That doesn’t mean it is.”
Karen squeezed her hands tighter. Joyce wrapped both of hers around them, enclosing her in warmth.
“You’re not in trouble, honey. Nothing bad’s going to happen because it’s eight-fifty. It’s just a little later.”
“I don’t like when it’s wrong.”
“I know. We’ll fix it together, okay?”
Nearly a minute passed before Karen finally pulled her hands back and pushed the blankets away with her foot. The sudden shift in texture seemed to bother her, and so Karen nudged the quilt farther away until none of it brushed her legs anymore.
She stood and walked on the tips of her toes to her dresser. She stared into the open drawer for a moment, unfocused, then reached in and pulled out a pair of jeans. They slipped through her grasp and fell to the floor.
The sound wasn’t loud, but it was sudden enough to make her eyebrows raise.
Karen bent quickly to pick them up again. She pulled them on under her nightgown, aware Joyce was still in the room and trying to preserve some shred of modesty. The button gave her trouble and she had to try twice before it slid through the hole.
Joyce sat on the edge of the bed, watching her for a moment.
Right.
Why the hell was she just sitting there watching Karen get dressed like some kind of creep? When did that become acceptable territory? When had she started treating Karen like someone who needed monitoring every second?
As Karen removed her nightgown, Joyce noticed the light freckles along her back, as well as the stretch marks around her hips. Karen pulled a sweater over her head, the fabric momentarily catching in her hair. She made a frustrated sound but tugged harder instead of stopping to untangle it.
Karen went straight to her jewelry tray after that. Her dresser was organized in small compartments, separating her rings, earrings, and necklaces. At least, that was how it was meant to look. Somehow one of the chains had shifted, knotting her necklace through two others.
After a while of fiddling, she freed the clasp and lifted the necklace around her neck. The tiny hook slipped twice. She gathered her hair up with one hand, lifting it off the back of her neck so it wouldn’t obstruct the clasp.
Her earrings went in easier.
Muscle memory, probably.
Joyce pushed herself to her feet. “Well,” she sighed, “might as well make the bed.”
The mattress was still warm from where Karen had been sitting. She ran her hands along the sheets to smooth them out, yanked the comforter back up to the top, then lifted each pillow and gave them a firm shake.
It felt strange sleeping in a proper bed again. For months she’d been rotating between the couch downstairs and an old mattress she’d dragged into the spare area down there. She’d insisted she didn’t need a frame or box spring because she’d only be staying a few weeks. That had turned out to be wildly optimistic. Her back reminded her of that every single morning.
Actual sheets felt embarrassingly luxurious.
Joyce reached down and picked up the stuffed bunny from where it had been half-hidden in the blankets. When she lifted it, an unclear scent came from the fabric. Warm milk. Sugar. Maybe cookies. There was a little cloth tag sewn into the bottom seam. Joyce rubbed her thumb across it and noticed how worn out the edges were. Karen must fidget with it often. Joyce placed the bunny carefully in the centre of the pillows and nudged it upright so it sat between them.
Karen turned just in time to see.
Her eyes widened and she practically ran across the room, moving faster than Joyce had seen her move all morning. She scooped the bunny off the bed and dropped down to her knees beside the mattress.
The bunny disappeared underneath.
By the time Joyce opened her mouth to ask what the hell that had been about, Karen was already standing again. She slipped into the bathroom, firmly shut the door, and a second later the faucet came on.
Okay.
Karen needed space.
── .✦
The kitchen looked like a storm had passed through it. The pantry cabinet was open, with two boxes of cereal already on the counter. Cheerios had rolled into the crack beside the stove, a few wedged so far back they’d probably stay there until someone actually moved the appliance. Lucky Charms had piled up on the floor, and several of the marshmallows had already been crushed under someone’s shoe.
Joyce’s nose wrinkled.
Something was burnt.
Her eyes went to the stove. A frying pan sat on the burner with the handle sticking out at a precarious angle. Inside it was something that had once been an egg. The whites had hardened into a rubbery crust. Beside it, a small clump of cheese had melted into the pan and then burned, creating a sticky, yellow patch that looked like it would take some serious scrubbing.
She lifted the pan and slid it into the sink.
That was a problem for later.
Joyce opened the dish cupboard, pulling out two bowls. The Lucky Charms were closer, so she grabbed that box and poured some for herself, added milk, and set it on the table.
The second bowl she left dry. She set it in Karen’s usual spot and placed the carton of milk beside it. Joyce had noticed over the years that Karen picked at it if someone poured the milk too early. The few times Joyce had tried to make breakfast for her before she came downstairs, Karen had eaten it but very reluctantly.
Joyce grabbed two spoons from the drawer and dropped one into each bowl, then sat down and started on her own cereal, though her appetite wasn’t exactly cooperating. The events of the previous night, and that morning, sat in the back of her mind, still making her feel a bit nauseous.
About four minutes later, Karen appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Her curls were still frizzy from last night and she hadn’t bothered to tame them. The only effort she’d made to her usual routine was the light makeup she had put on.
She turned her head slowly toward Joyce.
“Uh—looks like the kids tried to make eggs,” Joyce said, nodding toward the sink. “Emphasis on tried. They left the pan in pretty rough shape. I figured…maybe you could take a break from pancakes today. Lucky Charms are fine, right?”
Karen walked over to the round table that connected the kitchen and dining area, looking down at the bowl waiting for her.
Thirty seconds might have been an exaggeration, but it felt like that long. Joyce expected as much, since Karen had always given her a puzzled look whenever she did something outside of her breakfast routine.
Karen sat down and picked up her spoon, though her head turned just as slowly as it had before, now toward Joyce’s spoon. “…Can we trade?”
“Trade what?”
“Spoons.”
Joyce looked down. “They’re the same.”
“No.”
Joyce picked up her own spoon and held it between them. “They’re identical, Karen.”
“That one’s flatter and a little smaller. I would like the smaller one. Please?”
Joyce looked again.
Okay. Technically, yes, they were different. One had a shallow edge, and it wasn’t as long. The difference was barely noticeable unless you were looking for it.
“But—” Joyce stopped herself.
Who the hell cared?
She sighed and held her spoon out across the table. “Here. But I licked it already.”
Karen swapped them, placing her spoon on Joyce’s placemat and taking the one Joyce had been using.
For a while she didn’t seem particularly focused on the bowl itself. She stirred the cereal more than she ate it, pushing the marshmallows around, letting the oat pieces sink into the milk. Every now and then she took a tiny bite, but most of the time she just watched the shapes drifting.
Joyce pretended not to notice and finished her own bowl, eventually standing. “Hang on,” she muttered, rubbing the side of her head.
The migraine hadn’t fully disappeared, and she knew better than to let it get worse. She opened the cabinet above the counter beside the stove, grabbing the small bottle of Midol she and Karen shared.
She was gone for less than a minute, but when she turned back to the table, Karen wasn’t sitting there.
She stood by the trash with the cereal bowl in her hand, sending a soggy clump of marshmallows into the garbage bag.
Joyce leaned her hip against the counter. “Is there something wrong with your breakfast?”
Karen turned, alarmed but quickly suppressing her surprise. “Oh, no. It’s fine. I’m just not hungry.”
“Uh-huh…” Joyce answered, trying to sound neutral. “I have to run to the store. Need cigarettes. They’ve got those oatmeal cookies Will likes on sale as well.”
“Can I go with you?”
“Uh…yeah. I’ll go get dressed. You can wait in the car.”
Joyce headed downstairs and shut the door behind her. She leaned back against it for a couple seconds, letting out a deep sigh.
Jesus.
Had she done something?
Karen could be intense. That much had always been true. When things didn’t go the way she expected, she wouldn’t let it go. Tiny details that most people would shrug off would bother her for hours. Ted called her bossy and said that she liked things her way and didn’t know when to drop it.
Joyce had rolled her eyes about it plenty of times herself over the years.
But deranged?
No.
Perhaps confused.
Joyce pushed away from the door.
She stripped out of her clothes, tossing them onto the chair in the corner. She grabbed a shirt from the small pile near the bottom of the steps and pulled it on over her head.
If she was honest with herself, there had been moments before now. Little ones.
The Fourth of July came to mind.
Karen loved fireworks. Loved the colours. But when one exploded too loudly or there were multiple in a row, Joyce had noticed Karen’s hands covering her ears before she forced them back down again. There were other times, though, when Karen’s excitement got the better of her. She’d clap or kick her feet when the really colourful bursts released.
Joyce sat down on the last step of the stairs, pulling on a loose pair of jeans.
Karen was her best friend. Why were these things suddenly making Joyce feel so happy?
── .✦
At the store, Karen was anything but ordinary. Or maybe she was ordinary. Joyce could no longer tell.
The second they walked through the doors, Karen changed. Her posture lifted. Her shoulders rolled back. Her chin no longer wobbled. She smiled at the young man by the door. She stopped to greet a cashier and asked how her kids were.
Karen moved down the breakfast aisle and grabbed a box of strawberry Pop-Tarts. She didn’t even look at the other flavours. Then chocolate pudding cups. A bag of gummy worms, which Joyce recognized. Karen used them when she made those little layered dessert cups the kids loved. She grabbed a bunch of bananas and a carton of blueberries too.
They turned the corner into the next aisle and Karen lit up. “Oh my gosh—Carol? Is that you?”
Joyce groaned internally.
“Karen! I haven’t seen you in forever!”
Carol touched her arm, then her hand, then leaned in and kissed her cheek.
The last part made Joyce queasy.
Kids were discussed. Then husbands. Then school. Then groceries. Even vacuuming found its way into the conversation. Joyce didn’t follow how, nor did she care to know. She drifted a few feet away and pretended to look at the canned soups.
Yammering.That was the only word for it.
She had just picked up a can of vegetable beef soup when a young mother exclaimed that she’d left her wallet in the car. Before Joyce could even process what was going on, Karen was soothing the child in the woman’s stroller so she could go grab it.
Joyce knew this Karen. This was the Karen she’d always known. Charming. Social. Kind. Sweet.
Strangers trusted her within seconds.
Joyce liked this Karen.
But this wasn’t the Karen Joyce had started to feel something deeper for.
By the time they finished shopping and walked back out into the parking lot, Joyce’s stomach had formed a knot. She couldn’t quite tell what was wrong, only that something about the day felt strange.
Karen loaded the groceries into the trunk one at a time, fitting everything perfectly.
A man waved from a few cars over. Joyce glanced up and immediately recognized him. Gary. She could never remember the last name. One of Ted’s old high school buddies. Joyce knew for a fact Karen thought he was a creep. She had complained about him more than once.
Gary had been one of the men egging her on at a barbecue a few years ago, telling her to drink a little more when she was already clearly wasted. “C’mon, Wheeler,” he’d said. “Live a little. You’re still looking pretty good for a mom of three.”
The only time Joyce had ever seen her actually yell at him was when he’d made a comment about Joyce’s ass while Karen was standing right there.
“That’s disgusting, Gary. You’re acting like a pervert,” she’d said.
Five minutes later she’d found him again, apologized, and claimed she was just tired.
Now she smiled back at him like none of that had ever happened.
Karen shut the trunk and walked around to the passenger side. She slid into the seat and pulled the door closed, and all of her previous energy depleted. Her smile disappeared like it had never existed in the first place. She leaned her head back against the seat and let out a deep sigh.
Joyce climbed into the driver’s seat. She sat there gripping the steering wheel for a moment, staring straight ahead at the rows of parked cars.
She promised herself she wouldn’t ask.
She lasted about five seconds.
“What the hell just happened?”
"What?"
"You. Just now. You were fine."
"…I am fine."
Joyce leaned closer, lowering her voice. “You’re acting weird with me, but you’re completely normal with everyone else.” She paused. “What did I do?”
“I’m not acting weird.”
“Karen, you smiled at that jackass Gary like he was your best friend, but the second you got in the car with me you just—shut down.”
“I just had an off morning. I haven’t shut down.”
“Tell me the truth.”
Karen gently took Joyce’s hand. “I am. I’m fine.”
“Fine,” Joyce said slowly, starting the car. “But if something’s wrong, tell me.”
Karen ran her thumb slowly over Joyce’s knuckle before pulling away. “I will, don’t worry.”
Joyce turned back toward the steering wheel and reached into the pocket of her coat for the fresh pack of cigarettes she’d bought at the counter. She tapped the pack against her palm a few times until one cigarette pushed up through the opening. She slipped it between her lips and cranked the window down, angling her head out so she blew the smoke away from Karen.
She focused on the people entering and leaving the store, trying to cool off.
Then Karen’s fingers began moving. Her right hand slid across to her left, in search of the wedding ring on her finger. She began twisting it slowly around the base of her knuckle. Her eyes went between the stone digging into her skin, Joyce’s lips around the cigarette, and her own reflection in the side mirrors.
“Do you like them?” she asked suddenly.
Joyce exhaled smoke out the window. “Like what?”
“My Care Bears.”
Joyce coughed, leaning farther out the window as she waved the cloud away from her face. “What?”
Karen turned a little in her seat, watching her with an uncertain expression. “Love-a-Lot Bear. Or Cheer Bear. Or Secret Bear. Or Funshine Bear. Or Wish Bear. Or Birthday Bear. Which one do you like the most? Do you have a favourite?”
Joyce pulled her head back inside the car with the cigarette paused between her lips. “What the hell is a Funshine Bear?”
Karen’s face fell instantly. “Oh.” She looked down at her hands, twisting the ring harder, digging her nails harshly into the side of her knuckle.
“Funshine Bear is one of the original ten,” she said quietly. “They have a sun on their tummy. They’re very…perky. Very happy. Always sunny. And, um, in the new movie—the one that came out this year. The Care Bears Movie. Nineteen eighty-five.” She rubbed the side of her knuckle where the stone had left a mark. “They’re in that one too. They’re…one of the main ones.”
Joyce tapped the cigarette on the window. “Karen,” she said slowly. “Have you been sniffing something? Any sort of powders I should be worried about?”
Karen’s entire expression crumpled. Whatever flicker of hope that had been in her eyes disappeared.
“No,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to worry about that. I wouldn’t—no. I’m sorry.”
Karen had taken her question literally.
Joyce’s brow furrowed deeply. “Hey.” Her tone shifted to be much softer. “I just was kidding.”
”Oh.”
”No, no, no. What’s wrong?”
“It’s silly.”
“It’s not—”
“It’s childish,” Karen whispered quickly, like she needed to say it before Joyce could. “I know it is. I know it’s dumb, and I act too childish for my age, and I know that you think I’m stupid. I’m sorry.”
Joyce leaned back in her seat a little.
Okay.
Apparently joking had been the wrong move.
But was she supposed to pretend she understood what was happening?
Because she didn’t.
Care Bears?
Out of nowhere?
It wasn’t stupid, exactly. But it was…new. And the way Karen looked at the moment worried Joyce a hell of a lot more than any cartoon bear ever could.
Joyce wasn’t about to lie and claim she suddenly had some deep emotional investment in Care Bears, but judging by the way Karen couldn’t quite look at her, dismissing it clearly wasn’t the right move either.
So, for the sake of figuring this whole mess out, she played along. “Uh, you asked me which one I liked? Which…Care Bear was my favourite?”
Karen’s shoulders lifted. “Yes. I wanted to know.”
“Why?”
”Because if you liked them, maybe—well, maybe it wouldn’t feel so embarrassing.”
“You think I’m embarrassed of you?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know what you think.”
“I think that I don’t know what a damn Funshine Bear is.” She sighed and tapped the cigarette out the window again. “But, I don’t think you’re crazy for liking them. And If you’re willing, I think I’d like to hear all about this Care Bears movie.”
── .✦
For the next two weeks, Karen was everywhere.
Joyce started noticing that wherever she went, Karen somehow managed to end up there too. If Joyce stood up to refill her coffee, Karen stood up too. If Joyce stepped outside for a cigarette, Karen followed. She didn’t smoke, she just stood there. Sometimes she talked, either about something she’d heard on the radio, or a recipe she wanted to try, or whether Joyce thought raspberry muffins were good. If Joyce turned on the television, Karen appeared with a blanket. If Joyce mentioned wanting a bath after a long shift, Karen didn’t follow her in, but she sat in the hallway. Anything, it seemed, just to keep the conversation going.
She wanted to do everything together.
She even moved her seat at dinner.
Karen’s usual chair was her spot, always had been her spot. The chair beside Joyce, though, was slightly angled, closer to the wall, and much closer to the noise from the television in the living room.
One evening Joyce walked in and found Karen sitting beside her instead. It looked, if Joyce was honest, physically painful. But she stayed there.
She didn’t move back to her old chair.
She invited Joyce to drink with her twice that week.
Then three more times the week after.
Every time Karen appeared in a doorway and asked if Joyce would stay with her a little longer, Joyce found herself saying yes before she’d even thought about it.
She liked listening to her, liked going to the theatre.
Seven times. Maybe eight.
Joyce lost track of how many times she’s seen The Care Bears Movie.
The first time she’d sat there with her arms folded, wondering what the hell she’d gotten herself into. By the third viewing, Joyce found herself noticing smaller things. Karen mouthed the words under her breath. She laughed at the same moments every single time. Her hand drifted toward Joyce’s sleeve whenever something super exciting happened.
And Joyce liked it. She liked the routine that formed afterward, too.
Most nights Karen was clearly exhausted by the time the kids went to bed, but she still seemed too wound up to actually settle herself. So Joyce started walking her up the stairs and tucking her in.
Joyce also discovered she liked hearing Karen talk about herself.
Not about Nancy’s grades.
Not about Mike’s newest obsession.
Not about Ted’s complaints at dinner.
Not about Holly’s books.
About Karen.
Joyce had also learned that Karen believed eye contact was important. Karen thought that it was “wrong and horrible” to look away while someone was speaking. She genuinely seemed to believe it was a rule people could get in trouble for breaking. She didn’t understand that most people wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care.
Two weeks earlier Joyce had still been trying to make sense of all of it.
Now she was lying awake at night wondering when exactly she had stopped being the concerned best friend and started being a completely, helplessly infatuated idiot.
── .✦
By month sixteen of living at the Wheeler house, Joyce had stopped pretending Karen was merely quirky. She was more than peculiar. And whatever it was, whatever specific, intricate wiring made her different, Joyce stopped pretending she didn’t like it.
Karen and Ted’s arguments had gotten worse lately. Everything with the kids and the Upside Down was escalating too, things Joyce tried very hard not to think about for too long. She’d even started smoking again after swearing she’d quit.
And still, every strange and inexplicable thing about Karen somehow made the rest of it easier to bear. Joyce hadn’t known what she was missing until it was standing beside her explaining the personality traits of a yellow bear with a sun on its stomach.
Karen didn’t seem to realize how Joyce felt.
Or maybe she did.
Karen was perceptive in some ways that bordered on uncanny. She could notice the smallest shift in someone’s routine. The tiniest wrinkle in a tablecloth. The exact day someone changed their shampoo. But she could also miss things that seemed painfully obvious to everyone else, even more so if those things weren’t presented in a familiar pattern she recognized.
Joyce wasn’t exactly a hopeless romantic, but she understood the basics.
Karen didn’t give her basics.
Karen gave her access.
She told Joyce things she didn’t tell anyone else, things that seemed irrelevant on the surface but felt intimate once she realized how hard Karen tried to hide them. She explained which foods she loved and which ones made her stomach hurt. She talked about the books she’d adored as a kid and which characters she’d secretly pretended to be. She described, in oddly accurate detail, exactly how she liked to sleep. She confessed that bright overhead lights gave her migraines. She even told Joyce which fabrics she couldn’t stand touching and why they felt “wrong.”
Joyce had watched Ted for years.
Karen did not give him those things.
It was early autumn the morning Joyce finally decided she couldn’t keep ignoring the feeling that had been gnawing at her for months. Whatever it was, it flared up whenever Karen was near and refused to stop no matter how many times Joyce told herself to get a grip.
8:41 a.m.
Karen came downstairs at exactly that time
Thirty-five minutes after 8:06. Not a minute earlier. Not a minute later.
Her hair was only halfway defined. A few months ago she would have spent nearly an hour making every curl perfect. Lately she’d stopped doing that. Now the curls fell more naturally around her shoulders, some tighter than others, a few still wet from her bath the previous night.
The kitchen, on the other hand, looked like a mild disaster. A large mixing bowl on the counter was covered with flour. The measuring cup beside it was in a similar state. There was even a small clump of powder on the floor where Joyce had missed the bowl on her first attempt.
Cooking spray sat beside the burner.
A baby-pink spatula, which was Karen’s favourite, was on a folded paper towel.
The batter in the bowl was mostly gone.
Karen stopped in the doorway. “What are you doing?” she asked hesitantly.
Joyce smiled over her shoulder. “I’m making you breakfast.”
“No,” Karen said immediately. “That’s very kind, but I don’t like eggs. I don’t like bacon. I certainly don’t like Eggos or waffles or French toast. I only like pancakes for breakfast. Sometimes eggs, but after I have my pancakes.”
Joyce stepped aside from the stove. “Good thing it’s pancakes.”
Karen’s fingers curled into the sleeves of her sweater. “But I don’t want them.”
Joyce’s smile faded. “Really? But you just said that you like pancakes? You only eat pancakes?”
“No, I like pancakes.”
“Are they wrong?”
Karen nodded.
Joyce waited. She had learned that if Karen was trying to talk, interrupting only made it harder for her to articulate. But Karen seemed pretty stuck.
She’d used Karen’s cookware. The same cast-iron skillet Karen always used. She’d pulled out Karen’s handwritten pancake recipe card from the drawer. She’d even used Karen’s favourite spatula.
“I used your pan,” Joyce said gently. “Your recipe. Your ingredients.” She picked up the pink spatula and held it up. “Your favourite tool. What’s wrong?”
Karen’s bottom lip quivered.
“I really, really appreciate it,” she said. “I love your kindness and your effort and that you wanted to do something for me.” She took a deep breath, and Joyce could see how hard she was trying not to cry. “But I can’t eat those pancakes.”
Joyce opened her mouth to answer, to say something, though she wasn’t entirely sure what, but Karen spoke again before she could.
“I need to make them. I need to wake up at eight-oh-six and come downstairs at eight-forty-one and mix them myself or they’re not right. I need to wait for the bubbles and I need to flip them for one minute and twenty-nine seconds. And If I don’t, I can’t enjoy them. And if I can’t enjoy them, then I can’t enjoy my day.”
Joyce stared in complete shock. She turned the burner off before the pancake burnt any further.
“Shit,” she muttered. “I’m sorry, Karen. I wanted to do something nice. I didn’t—I didn’t think that—“
She slid the spatula beneath the pancake and lifted it out of the pan.
Karen hadn’t really looked at it before, as she’d been too busy trying to keep her breathing under control, too focused on explaining something she knew sounded totally dumb, but now she saw it.
Joyce placed the pancake on a small white plate sitting beside the stove.
It was a heart.
Joyce wiped the spatula on a paper towel, keeping her eyes on the counter. “I’ll just give it to Ted or something,” she said quietly. “He won’t care.”
Ted.
The idea of Ted sitting at the table, chewing through the pancake Joyce had made for her, not noticing the shape, not wondering why Joyce had bothered to make it for her, not seeing the effort behind it, not realizing Joyce had woken up early to make it—
Karen’s heart began to pound.
Ted taking what Joyce had tried to give her. The thought made her feel irrationally sick.
She grabbed the plate. “I’ll eat it.”
“I thought you couldn’t—“
Karen held the plate closer to her chest. “I can.”
Joyce very gently took it back. “Karen, it’s fine. I’ll toss it. Or give it to a squirrel. I don’t care.”
The syrup bottle was open beside the stove. The burner was off. The batter bowl still had enough mixture for at least three more pancakes. Her routine was already wrong. She’d already realized someone else had been standing at the stove before her. It was like an itch she couldn’t quite reach. Her body already knew the order of things had shifted. She would still need to measure the flour herself, to stand in her exact place by the stove, wait for the bubbles to form, and flip the pancakes at the exact right time.
The sequence had already broken.
“I want it. I want the heart one.” She took a deep breath, building her confidence. “I’ll still make them my way, but I want this one first. And I want you to stay with me. I want to have a good morning. I want us to talk and I want to listen to your voice and I want to not care about the fact I want to cry.”
Karen’s face had turned bright red by the time she finished speaking.
“Okay…” Joyce said slowly. “Got it. I need to get dressed.” She started moving toward the doorway. “You start eating. Uh. Don’t cry. Please. I’ll be back in a minute. Okay?”
“Thank you,” Karen said with a little nod. She took the plate over to the table and sat down in her usual chair, dousing the pancake in a river of syrup.
A tear slipped down her cheek, but she wiped it away before Joyce noticed.
Meanwhile, Joyce hurried down the basement steps. Karen had never actually insisted that she keep everything down there, especially given how long they’d lived together now. She’d actually insisted on the opposite more than once. Joyce could use Karen’s own dresser. She could take as much space as she needed. Karen had even gone so far as to show her exactly where things could go, opening the drawers, shifting a stack of folded sweaters to demonstrate how much room there was.
Joyce just hadn’t taken her up on it.
Iif she was being honest with herself, the distance gave her somewhere to run to when her feelings for Karen started rising too close to the surface.
Every now and then their things crossed paths regardless of how Joyce tried to keep things in line. Karen’s flannels had a way of ending up on Joyce’s shoulders, especially the light blue one that felt like a blanket. Karen seemed pleased whenever she saw Joyce wearing it.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped.
Will and Mike were asleep on the couch under a pile of blankets. The remote was on the floor and the TV was pure static, so she figured they’d fallen asleep only a few hours ago.
Mike had kicked his Star Wars blanket off. It was bunched around his ankles, leaving his shoulders completely uncovered. Under his chin, he was holding a stuffed bear with a patch of missing fur near the ear. Will’s hand rested loosely around Mike’s forearm. Even in his sleep, his fingers traced over the freckles there.
Joyce picked up the Star Wars blanket and pulled it over Mike’s shoulders, then tucked the edge around Will’s side.
Mike’s fingers were moving, stroking a tag on the bear’s bottom.
She turned away before her mind could wander too far. She really didn’t want to think about it.
She didn’t want to imagine Mike growing up with the same compulsions Karen had. She definitely didn’t want to imagine Will someday learning his routines the way she had with Karen. The accommodations. Standing in certain spots. Handing over a spoon without them actually having to ask. Learning someone’s patterns because they were the sweetest, most interesting person you’d ever met and the idea of upsetting them felt like ripping open a fresh wound.
Joyce knew how closely Will watched Mike.
She’d seen it for years.
And she didn’t particularly enjoy realizing she probably looked at Karen the exact same way.
Joyce stripped off the pyjama pants she’d slept in and grabbed a pair of jeans laid over the back of a chair. She buttoned them quickly and put a clean top on, then ran a hand through her hair.
Even once she was dressed, that strange flutter was still there in her stomach.
As Joyce went back upstairs, the kitchen smelled like butter again, only stronger.
Karen had tied an apron around her waist and taken a clean mixing bowl from the cabinet. The plate Joyce had used earlier was now in the sink, rinsed and leaned beside the drying rack.
The heart-shaped pancake was gone.
Joyce leaned her shoulder against the doorway. “The boys are still asleep, you might wanna make extra.”
Karen glanced back over her shoulder. “I will.”
There was a small plastic container on the counter with a lid on it.
“Hey. What’s that?” Joyce asked.
“The rest of your batter. For another day. It was good, so I didn’t want to waste it.”
Joyce pushed off the doorway and wandered a little closer. “You know I just used your recipe, right? My cooking is really shitty. Not worth saving for later.”
Karen grabbed her pink spatula and nudged Joyce lightly with her elbow as she passed. “You can make heart pancakes,” she said, sliding the spatula underneath the first pancake. “I can’t do that.” She flipped it, landing the golden surface perfectly. “So you have that over me.”
Joyce rolled her eyes and moved toward the coffee pot. She grabbed a mug from the cupboard without looking, poured herself a cup, and sighed.
Her attention drifted back to Karen’s back at the stove only seconds later. “Karen? Uh. I have silly question.”
Karen nodded, but didn’t look up.
“Have you…always minded? You know, when I make pancakes? Or when I give you cereal for breakfast?”
Karen almost dropped the next pancake, unfocused as she thought about how to answer. “I don’t really like changing my routine, but that’s not your fault.”
Shit.
Joyce thought about how many times she poured Lucky Charms into Karen’s bowl since it was quicker.
The times she’d grabbed a different brand of syrup at the store because it was on sale.
The mornings she’d rushed Karen along because the kids were late for school or the phone was ringing.
How many times had she just bulldozed over her?
Joyce set her coffee down and walked back over.
“Shit. I’m so sorry, Karen. You have to tell me that stuff. I don’t ever wanna mess you up like that.”
Karen was visibly startled by how suddenly Joyce was standing beside her. “Really, Joyce, it’s okay.”
“It’s not if it makes you anxious, or upset, or…”
Karen turned the burner down a notch. “It does make me anxious,” she admitted quietly. “But I have a hard time saying it in the moment.” She set the spatula on the edge of the pan. “Sometimes by the time I figure out how to explain it, the moment has already passed. That’s just how it is.”
“You don’t have to say it perfectly. I’d just like to know so that I can make you feel safe.”
“I do feel safe. Very safe.”
Joyce’s nose scrunched. “You do?”
”Mhm. Always.”
Joyce stepped closer before considering if it was the right thing to do.
Karen’s shoulders dropped, making room before Joyce even touched her. She tucked in her elbow so it wouldn’t knock into her.
Joyce gently rested her chin on Karen’s shoulder and slid her arms around Karen’s waist. “Does this bother you?” she asked quietly. “The touching?”
“I don’t particularly like being touched,” Karen mumbled back. “Most of the time. But I like when you touch me. I like when you hug me. And I really, really like holding hands with you. It’s my favourite.”
“Good to know.”
Karen adjusted the way she was standing, pushing her lower back against Joyce’s hips. She seemed to be thinking hard about something else.
“I, um.” She cleared her throat. “I like when you hold my waist too.”
Joyce raised her head a little more so she could see the side of Karen’s face. “Yeah?”
“It helps,” Karen said, thinking she needed to justify it. “My back. It makes me stand a bit straighter.”
“You have back problems?”
Karen shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve always had bad posture.”
“Oh. You never told me that.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
Joyce thought about the number of times she’d seen Karen bump her hip into the edge of the counter, and she had learned to expect the thunk followed by Karen rubbing the spot for the following week.
Sure, she was clumsy sometimes. But she seemed to have more issues with balance and motor skills than Joyce had thought.
Joyce loosened her hold. She pulled away, not wanting to crowd Karen too much. Karen liked contact, Joyce had realized, but she also liked knowing she had room to move.
From the space against the counter beside her, she reached behind Karen and picked up the loose apron strings, twisting them around her fingers.
“Well, I like your slumpy posture.”
Karen glanced sideways at her. “You’re one to talk about slumpy,” she teased.
“Hey. Be nice.”
Karen smiled and turned back to the stove. The last pancake had finished cooking, puffed perfectly in the middle. She lifted two of the warmest ones from the stack beside the stove and placed them onto a clean plate.
She slid it across the counter toward Joyce. “Yours.”
Joyce accepted it with a small smile.
Karen assembled her own plate after, with two pancakes again, though slightly smaller than Joyce’s. She grabbed the maple syrup from beside the stove and poured generously, coating the first pancake completely. She tilted the plate as she poured syrup over the second one, making sure the syrup ran all the way to the edges.
Karen set the bottle down and adjusted the fork in her hand. She held it in an unusual way, with her fingers curled higher up the handle and her grip closer to the middle than most people would naturally use. Her wrist bent slightly inward.
Karen cut off a small piece and brought it to her mouth. She seemed relieved.
Joyce could tell it wasn’t really about the taste. The pancakes she made earlier had been perfectly edible, maybe even good, but this was different. She’d made them herself and been much happier about it.
“Does your wrist hurt?” Joyce asked.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“You’re holding it differently.”
“I guess I don’t like when the metal touches my finger here.” She tapped the side of her index finger with the handle of the fork. “There. It feels wrong.”
“Oh.” Joyce nodded slowly. “Okay.”
Add that to the list.
Joyce cut into her own pancake. Karen had been generous with the butter when she’d cooked them so the inside was warm and fluffy. She had added a modest drizzle of syrup compared to Karen’s thorough coating, but it was still sweet enough.
A near-transparent line of syrup fell through the corner of her mouth and stuck on her bottom lip before she noticed.
Karen noticed immediately.
She’d already been looking there, following the movement of her lips as she chewed. Watching people’s mouths made it easier to follow what they were saying sometimes, though this time she was simply observing Joyce’s lips.
Karen brushed two fingers across Joyce’s bottom lip, wiping the stickiness away before it could drip.
At the same time, Karen leaned closer.
Joyce instinctively shifted back to make room, assuming Karen was moving past her toward the sink or the coffee pot. Her lower back bumped against the counter behind her.
Karen had always been particular about personal space. Joyce had noticed early on and made an effort to respect it, keeping distance and letting Karen be the one to close it when she wanted to.
Karen liked her space. She also liked Joyce’s space.
She lifted her hand again, and this time placed her palm against Joyce’s cheek.
Now was perfect.
She was going to tell Joyce that she was grateful.
She was going to tell her that it had been years since she had felt this safe with another person.
Joyce didn’t sigh when Karen needed things done a certain way. She didn’t laugh when Karen paused before answering a question. Joyce noticed those things, but she didn’t treat them like flaws.
Karen had spent years sitting in doctor’s offices trying to find an explanation for what was wrong with her. They had given her plenty of words, but no real answers.
Schizophrenic. Traumatized. Oversensitive. Difficult.
None of them had felt right.
Karen had always felt there had to be another answer somewhere. Some word that explained why her brain worked the way it did. Maybe someday someone would find that word. Maybe someday it would all make sense. Maybe someday she would finally feel normal.
Her thumb brushed lightly along Joyce’s cheekbone.
For so many years she had hid pieces of herself that even her own husband barely knew her. Joyce knew more than she knew about herself.
Karen had tried to flirt with her. She had offered Joyce bites of her food. She had given her sweaters and cardigans when Joyce complained about being cold, even though Karen liked those sweaters very much herself. She had played her favourite mixtapes during long car rides. She had shown her the Care Bears under her bed.
Joyce had even chosen a favourite.
Tenderheart Bear.
Karen found herself hugging that particular bear more often these days.
Joyce’s eyes dropped to Karen’s mouth.
Karen noticed the change in her expression but didn’t quite understand it in time.
Joyce wasn’t someone who spent a lot of time overthinking intimate things. Most of the time her instincts carried her forward. Right now there was only one clear thought in her head.
Kiss her.
Joyce leaned forward and their lips met. She tilted her head a little, angling the kiss so it deepened.
She had imagined this before, wondering what would happen if she ever closed that final inch of distance. Whether Karen’s lips would feel as soft as they looked, whether she’d freeze up or lean in.
Now she knew.
Joyce pulled back just as Karen began to reciprocate the kiss, creating a small pocket of space between them. Karen’s eyes were wide. Her pupils were blown and nearly hid the beautiful caramel brown.
Joyce was ready to apologize if she’d misread the situation, but Karen didn’t give her the chance. She was the one who leaned in, her hand sliding from Joyce’s cheek to the back of her neck.
Rather than kissing her mouth again, Karen kissed Joyce’s cheek.
“Was that, um…” Joyce cleared her throat. “Was that what I was meant to do?”
Karen blinked a few times. “I don’t know.”
“You’re married,” Joyce pointed out softly.
Karen’s eyes dropped to Joyce’s collarbone. “I don’t care.”
“That—okay. I mean—right. So you…do you feel the same way?”
To Joyce’s surprise, Karen let out a sudden, hushed giggle. “You’re even stupider than I am sometimes,” she whispered against her cheek.
Joyce couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “Am I?”
“Mhm.”
Karen’s hands slipped away from Joyce’s neck. They hovered awkwardly in the air before dropping to her sides. Almost immediately her fingers curled, forming tight fists. Her hands flexed open and shut again.
Joyce noticed and reached for Karen’s wrists, gently prying her fingers open and guiding Karen’s hands to her waist instead. Karen hooked her fingers through the loops on Joyce’s jeans.
“There,” Joyce said softly. “If you need to mess with something, let it be me.”
Karen began rubbing the belt loop, but after a few second she slipped out of her arms. It was so sudden it might have looked like panic to anyone else. Most people would have assumed something had gone wrong, that Joyce had misread her, or that Karen had outright rejected her.
But Joyce didn’t panic.
Karen went over to the refrigerator.
“Your pancakes are getting cold,” she said. “Do you want milk? Milk is nice with pancakes. Or I could make chocolate milk, if you want. I like chocolate milk.”
Joyce stayed still, letting Karen move at her own pace, breathing through the little blurb of tension. She needed a moment.
“Why would I want milk,” she asked, “when I’ve got the prettiest woman in the world in front of me?”
“Prettiest?” Karen repeated, checking if she’d heard right. She slowly set the milk carton back down.
“You, Karen.”
Joyce reached for Karen’s hands and gently pulled her away from the fridge. She nudged the door shut with her arm, not taking her eyes off Karen.
“I think you’re the prettiest. And you’re beautiful, and smart, and stubborn, and kinder than you think you are. And very, very sweet.”
“Those are pretty big words for you.”
Joyce rolled her eyes. “Oh, shush.”
Karen pressed her lips together, trying not to smile.
── .✦
Mike sat on the top step of the staircase with his knees pulled against his chest, still in his pyjamas. From where he was sitting, if he leaned just a little to the left and angled his head around the corner of the wall, he had a clear view of the kitchen.
He probably wasn’t supposed to be spying.
But he was.
His thumbs pressed deep into the centres of his palms, digging into the same spots over and over again. Behind him, one step lower, was Will. He had his arms folded over his knees, watching Mike rather than the kitchen.
Mike hadn’t noticed when Will came up the stairs or when he sat down behind him.
That wasn’t unusual.
Mike leaned a little farther around the corner. “They’re still being weird,” he muttered.
Will tilted his head. “Weird how?”
Mike shifted his weight on the step, leaning even farther out before pulling himself back again. “It’s just weird,” he said. “But they’ll probably stop soon. And then we’ll get our pancakes. I told Holly to try making eggs again. I’m still kind of annoyed about last time—she couldn’t even get an egg right.”
Mike kept rubbing his thumb into his palm.
”Sorry. That was mean. I know she tried.”
Will watched him for a few seconds before finally reaching forward and gently taking Mike’s hand. “Hey.”
“What?”
“You’re gonna make your hands sore.”
Mike tried to tug away immediately. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
Mike looked down at where Will’s fingers were wrapped around his wrist, then flexed his fingers outward. The skin in the centre of his palm was blotchy and irritated from the constant friction. He scowled. “They’re still being weird,” he repeated. “They’ve been so gross lately.”
Will glanced toward the kitchen but didn’t lean far enough to actually see what was happening. He just listened for a moment.
“They’re just talking.”
“They’ve been talking for forever.” Mike’s shoulders slumped a little. “I don’t get it,” he mumbled.
Will rested his chin on the top of his knee. “Don’t get what?”
“Why she gets to have everything.”
“Your mom?”
“Yeah.” Mike shrugged like he didn’t care, but it wasn’t convincing. “Like…she has us. And the house. And now she’s got—” He stopped, clearly irritated that the words weren’t coming to him. “I don’t know.”
Will shifted his grip slightly, squeezing Mike’s hand. “Maybe she didn’t always have everything.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“You could have everything too, you know.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean it.”
Mike gave him a skeptical look over his shoulder. “And how’s that supposed to happen?”
“You just have to say what you want.”
“That’s stupid.”
Mike pulled his hand away and peeked around the corner one last time. “They’re definitely being weird,” he whispered, scrunching his nose.
“They’re not really being weird.”
“Yeah they are.”
Will sighed. “They’re probably just happy.”