Page 6 of Rat Park
It was clear from the moment Dominic stepped inside that this house didn’t know how to keep secrets. It was all white and clean, and the floor didn’t even creak. The people inside the house didn’t know how to keep secrets either.Miriam and Charles, they were introduced, hisfoster carers.
He didn’t need foster carers. He already had a mom.
The first thing he did inside the room they said was his was break a lamp and a mirror. He stood in the middle of the broken pieces, looking at Miriam and Charles defiantly.
“We understand that you’re upset,” Miriam said. Dominic frowned, waiting for them to shout. “We don’t break things in this house on purpose, okay? This time, I’ll help you clean up. Here, let me get something for the mirror, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Dominic watched her leave, confused. This wasn’t right. This was all upside down.
Dominic tried pretty much everything to make them send him back, but he couldn’t even get them to scream at him or throw something at him to shut him up. He didn’t believe them when they said he could bring people over for his birthday, but when he returned from school the day he turned thirteen, they had a cake for him with frosted lettering like in the movies. It was so big he ate it for dessert for the next four days.
Dominic started feeling like an idiot, raising his voice when nothing came of it. The house, even when the TV was on, was always just a little too quiet. It kind of scared him when he went to bed, that prolonged, dead breath of the night. Miriam and Charles noticed he was always tired, somehow, and got him to confess. He didn’t know how they did it. It was like he couldn’t keep secrets anymore, just because he didn’t have to.
Charles came back from work with a little CD player the next day. They set it up in his room and showed him how to play soft music when he went to bed. That night, Dominic managed to fall asleep before he even knew what was happening.
Dominic started getting used to it. Charles picked him up from school, and they would always ask him about his day. In the beginning, Dominic stayed sullen and silent. Those people didn’t deserve any of his secrets. But he slipped up when he told Miriam about the basketball game he won in P.E., and then it got harder to say nothing after that. They never started laughing or shouting suddenly. They were easy to predict.
Dominic still got to see his mom, though. At first, he was happy during each supervised visit, but he started getting nervous the longer he stayed with Miriam and Charles. Mom would always cry when she saw him. “My baby,” she’d say, and hug Dominic for a long time. Dominic hugged her back and felt bad because he knew he didn’t think about her as much as he should.
Sometimes, he didn’t even miss her.
Still. Dominic had to stay loyal. He was the man of the house. His mom needed him. Now Dominic knew for sure she loved him, or she wouldn’t cry.
Dominic told the social worker he wanted to go back home when she asked. He didn’t like it at Miriam and Charles’s, he lied. When the social worker asked why, Dominic didn’t have an answer. He just wanted to go back.
He stayed with the foster carers for almost six months before the social workers finally told him he was returning home. Dominic told himself he was happy about the news, even though he felt a little sick inside.
He let Miriam and Charles hug him when he left. They told him he could visit them, but Dominic knew life didn’t work like that.
*****
Mom hugged him for a long time as soon as he was home.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” she said.
“Me too,” Dominic replied, feeling a lump in his throat.
Things were okay for a little while. There were no more parties, and Mom cooked most days and cleaned sometimes. She was never happy, though, not like she was before. It was like she had too much energy but was too tired to use it, left to vibrate in a place inside her. Dominic would watch her hands pluck at her eyebrows until they were both almost completely gone. The house always smelt like cigarette smoke, his mom burning through one after the other. She’d look out the window and it was like she wasn’t even there.
The smell was his first clue that things were about to crack. He smelt it as soon as he stepped inside the house. It was everywhere, another one of its secrets. He walked slowly to his mom’s bedroom and creaked the door open. She was slouched on the bed, the bulb and snout of the pipe and its acrid crack smell held limply in her hand.
She opened her eyes as Dominic paused just inside her door. She smiled slowly, but Dominic didn’t approach.
“Just one time, baby. Just one time,” she said. Dominic didn’t say anything, closing the door again after him.
He lay on his bed for a while, feeling weird and hollow.
Things didn’t take long to return to their kind of normal after that.
**********
Dominic was at the park despite the frigid night, huddled around with the boys he usually hung out with. They were smoking and kicking a ball around to keep warm, waiting for someone to bring drinks to really get the party started.
“Oi. Nickie,” Mason called, shoving Dominic in the ribs before he could even respond.
“What?” Dominic grunted, shoving Mason away, but the smile didn’t drop from the other boy’s face.
“Come ’ere.”
