“Stop screaming,” I said.
“When you’re a baby you have a nap in the morning,” she screamed. “I don’t have a nap in the morning. My baby’s having a nap in the morning. She’s a baby.”
“How long have you been living with that woman?” I asked.
“My baby—”
“The woman who was just in here. The woman who made the cake.”
“Mammy?”
“She’s not really your mammy, is she? Did you go to the adoption agency? Did she see you there?”
“Come on, baby!” she screamed into its face. “It’s time for breakfast!” She picked it up by its ankle. I thought maybe it needed to be adopted too.
“How long have you been living with that woman?” I asked, nearly shouting. “How long has she been your mammy?”
I would have shaken her to get her to listen if the beautiful woman hadn’t come in with the tea tray. She put it in the middle of the rug because there was no table, and she gave Ruthie the plate with the chocolate cake on it and herself the plate with the fruitcake on it and me the plate with both cakes on it. I remembered to chew on the right side of my mouth, so the cake didn’t even hurt me, it just filled me up. Ruthie only played with hers—peeled off the crackly chocolate layer and dug out the icing with her fingers. Brown smears outlined her mouth, and the beautiful woman spat on a cloth napkin and wiped them away. If I had known she was going to do that, I would have tried to make a mess of my face too.
I had just finished my squash when the unpacking man came in with another box of toys. Ruthie saw it, abandoned the baby, and ran to him. He stroked her head. I had never seen two grown-ups kiss and cuddle and stroke a kid so much. You could almost forget what Ruthie’s cheeks and top of head looked like, because there was barely a second when they weren’t hidden under a grown-up hand. She put up with the kissing and cuddling and stroking the way you put up with bedbug bites: they were annoying but you knew they weren’t going to go away, so you just had to try to ignore them.
“Pat, this is Chrissie,” said the beautiful woman to the unpacking man. She put her hand between my shoulder blades and my insides shivered. “She lives down the street. Did you say it was number eighteen, pet?”
“Yes,” I said.
“She came to meet Ruthie. Ruthie’s so excited to have another girl to play with.”
The unpacking man leaned down to shake my hand.
“Pleasure to meet you, Chrissie,” he said. He wore glasses with fine gold rims around the edges, and there were two little patches of steam at the bottom of the two lenses. “I’m Ruthie’s da. Lovely for her to have a big girl to play with.”
“Yes,” I said. Too-big girl, I thought.
“How’s it looking?” the beautiful woman asked the unpacking man as he sat down on the couch.
“Not too bad,” he said. “Put most of the boxes in the right rooms. Just need to unpack them now. Chilly up there.”
“Have you put the heater in Ruthie’s room? Ought to turn it on for a couple of hours before she goes for her nap.”
“Yep, it’s on.” He leaned back, steepled his fingers on his chest, and closed his eyes. The beautiful woman gave me a look that said, “Honestly, my silly husband, going to sleep in the middle of the morning!” and I gave her a look that said, “Yes, honestly, your silly husband, going to sleep in the middle of the morning!” I felt cozy when we made that look to each other, like we were wrapped in a blanket that was squeezing us together until our noses touched. Then Ruthie’s voice came, a shrill squawk, and she was in between us.
“Is my room big, Da?” she screamed.
“Your room is the perfect size for a little girl like you,” he said. “Why don’t you take Chrissie up and show her?”
In the hallway the cold bit my bones. It was sunny outside, but the house was chilled the way houses get chilled when no one lives in them for a long time, the way the alley houses had been chilled since the poorest people had stopped living there. Ruthie led the way up the stairs, her soft-soled shoes stamping on the bare wood. When we got to the landing and I saw the open door at the end I realized her bedroom was a twin with my bedroom, in her house that was a twin with my house, in her life that should have been my life. Inside, I sat on the bed, not listening to Ruthie clattering more toys out of more boxes, and my ticking turned on like a light. It rang in my ears, pumped to the tips of my fingers, so loud I thought I would explode. When it was pulsing in every bit of my body I pulled back the bedclothes, crouched, and peed on the mattress. It sounded different to how it had sounded in the blue house, more muffled, and the pee stood in a round puddle before soaking in. It made the ticking quieter. When I finished I put the covers over the wet patch.
Ruthie had stopped screaming. She was watching me with her big, serious eyes. “That’s for the toilet,” she said.
“You’re for the toilet,” I said.
She didn’t seem to realize what a very clever and mean thing that was to have said, because she didn’t gasp or cry. She went back to grabbing toys out of boxes and throwing them on the floor.
I wanted to do a lot of things in that room. I wanted to cut a long
