Page 31 of Bad & Bossy

Four, with nothing but a wooden sign out front that read, “Santa, stop here!”

And five, Jenny’s house, with intricately placed Christmas lights along every edge of the house and wrapped around the dying bushes and trees. Blow-up decorations littered the lawn, a waving Santa and a swaying Rudolph in the heavy wind.

I sprinted up the front steps and knocked on the door. Jenny’s mom, Ms. Alice, opened the door with Jenny’s book in hand.

“Hi, Dana,” Ms. Alice cooed, a smile spreading across her cheeks before falling abruptly. “You’re all alone?”

I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Mom said I was big enough to go on my own,” I grinned, putting my hands on my hips like a superhero. “She’s napping.”

“Oh. Okay,” Ms. Alice said, her brows scrunching together and creating lines on her skin just like my parents. “Do you want to come in? I was just about to make hot chocolate for Jenny.”

“Oh, no thanks, Ms. Alice. I’ve got to get home and start reading.” The idea of a hot chocolate and Jenny’s clean house was tempting, but I didn’t want to worry Mom by being gone longer than she’d said it would take. So instead, I gratefully took the book from Ms. Alice’s hand and waved her goodbye with my mitten-covered fingers as I skipped off her snow-shoveled walk.

The cold had started to settle into my jacket as I began the short walk home. I didn’t bother to count the houses this time since I knew the front of ours like the back of my hand, even covered in heavy snow. Maybe if I was lucky I’d be able to convince Mom to get up and make me a hot chocolate like Ms. Alice.

Wiping the snot from my nose, I followed my own footsteps through the front yard and up to the door, trying to line them up perfectly backward so my boots wouldn’t be covered in snow. I pulled open the noisy screen door and turned the handle, but it didn’t give way.

Confused, I tried again.

And again.

“Mom?” I called, shoving my shoulder against the door before trying the bell. She must have turned the lock while I was gone, but she knew I’d be back…

“Mom!” I tried again. I knocked, rang the bell, and shoved my face against the window trying to look in before my breath fogged it up. But there was no movement inside.

I bounced from toe to toe, trying to warm up a little. Why wasn’t she answering? Something had to be wrong.

I banged on the door again, harder this time. It hurt the side of my palm. “Mom!” I shouted. “Mom, let me in! It’s cold!”

I don’t know how long I stood between the screen and the front door, pounding on it and shouting. But by the time Dad’s car pulled into the driveway with Vee in the front seat, my fingers and toes had gone numb and my body had started to ache. I was shivering, my face burning from the lack of shelter or warmth, and I almost envied the redness on Dad’s face when he stepped out of the car and slammed the door. At least his was from heated anger, not from the biting cold.

“Why are you outside?”

I gestured weakly to my pocket where I’d shoved the book once my hands had started to hurt from holding it. “I had to get a book for school from Jenny’s house. Mom’s not?—”

“So you just left?”

“No, I asked Mom to come with me and she told me I was big enough to go alone that she was tired,” I explained, my words sounding a little funny from my chattering teeth. “But then she locked me out.”

“For fucks sake, Dana,” Dad grumbled. “How long have you been out here?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know, time was still confusing for me and it had felt like an eternity. “I left at two,” I said.

“You’ve been out here nearly an hour?” Dad fumed, his nostrils flaring as he fished his keys from his pocket. “Why didn’t you go to a neighbor’s house? Or back to Jenny’s?”

I watched as he shoved the key in the lock and twisted the door open. Quiet music filtered through the open door along with the sound of the television and that sickly scent I’d been smelling a lot lately when Mom was acting weird. “I…”

Vee looked at me in bewilderment as she stepped into the house.

“I just wanted Mom,” I breathed.

————

The memory stung as I watched Drew begin to squirm in his carrier. I didn’t know until later what had happened that day. Mom had been drinking, and after I’d left she’d entirely forgotten I had stayed home with her instead of going with Dad and Vee to the mall. So when she’d noticed the unlocked door, she locked it, drank herself stupid, and passed out on the bed. She’d been dead to the world until Dad woke her up.

I didn’t want Drew to have to grow up experiencing things like that. He’d never have to question whether I loved him, whether I cared. And he didn’t need her or anyone like her in his life.

“Andrew and Dana Beechings?”

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