The Taken

“Just handle her in a few minutes. She’s going to be feeling a little under the weather tonight.”

Martha released the doorknob and stood back a couple of feet, as if expecting the door to dissolve and admit her on its own terms. She and her grandmother listened to the sounds emanating from below, a combination of heavy footfalls and hoarse mutterings that seemed liberally sprinkled with language one didn’t usually use in front of a child, even a thirty-three-year-old one.

“Son of a fucking bitch,” they heard, and then the sound of a drawer being thrown.

“She does sound a little under the weather,” said Martha, grinning nervously at Emily. “Was she sick when she left for work this morning?”

“Something like that,” said Emily.

“MOTHER!!” came Hazel’s voice from below, volcanic.

“You want to go down there?”

“Maybe I’ll wait another few minutes,” said Martha.

“Hand me that bottle.”

Martha passed her a full two-sixer of J &B.

The basement apartment was littered with thrown things: two full drawers, towels, shoes, sections from various newspapers. She was puffing in a corner of the room like a bull. The door to the upstairs had opened, and she heard her mother descending. “Are you armed?” said Emily from behind the basement door.

“You better not be coming down here without something for my back.”

Her mother opened the door six inches and held out the bottle of J &B. “This is the best I can do.”

Hazel strode to the door and snatched the bottle out of her mother’s hand. She was beginning to feel the heebie-jeebies: it had been almost twenty-four hours since her last pill. Waves of nausea accompanied the anxiety. There was a tumbler in the bathroom meant for drinking water out of; she filled it to the rim. When she came out, Emily was standing in the middle of the room, looking around at the mess, her arms behind her back. “You want a straw?”

“You had no right.”

“I had no right.”

“I had surgery seventeen days ago. I have pain and I have a prescription for pain killers. What the hell were you thinking?”

Her mother was dressed nicely, in a grey wool dress with a thin, shiny black belt around her waist. Elegant. She hadn’t put her shoes on and she was tilting back and forth on her heels in her black hose. “First off,” she said, “keep your voice down. There are people upstairs planning a nice evening for you and they don’t need to hear you swearing like a fusilier.”

“Fuck ’em,” said Hazel. “Where are my pills?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

Emily pushed past her in the bathroom doorway, grabbing Hazel’s arm on the way in. Whiskey sloshed onto the cold tiles. She tugged her toward the toilet bowl. “There they are,” Emily said, lifting the lid. “They’re down there somewhere. If you can’t find one, maybe you should just lap the water. You might as well, with the mess you’re making of yourself.”

Hazel saw something on the floor behind the toilet, and shook herself loose of her mother’s grip and leaned forward to close the toilet lid. She sat down on it, straddling the toilet tank, and put the glass of whiskey down on the floor as she felt around behind. She was sure she’d seen an escapee, a pill that had bounced off the toilet rim and rolled onto the floor. Her finger grazed it, pushing it farther along the floor, but then she had it. She closed her hand around it and stood. Her mother was shaking her head ruefully.

“Look at you,” she said. “Look how small you are now.”

“Get out.”

“Give me the pill.”

“You’re not supposed to go cold turkey. Did you know that?” “Your daughter’s here,” Emily said. “You want her to see you like this? I can call her down right now.”

“You’re lying.”

Emily turned her head toward the door. “Martha!” There was nothing for a second, but then they heard footsteps coming down.

“Jesus Christ,” said Hazel, hanging her head. “It’s my birthday. This is what you do to me on my birthday?”

“For you,” said Emily. “Not to you. Now give me that pill.”

“Can I come in?” Martha was standing just inside the apartment. “Mum?”

Emily took a step toward Hazel, a careful step, like she was approaching a mad dog, and she put her hand out. “You’re an addict, Hazel. Now give me that pill.”

She turned her fist over into her mother’s hand and opened it. The pill fell out silently into Emily’s palm. Emily looked at it and then, to Hazel’s surprise, her mother popped it into her mouth. “What the hell are you doing?”

“It’s a Tylenol,” said Emily. “After all this nonsense, I need one. Now go say hello to your daughter.”

But Martha had crept slowly into the room and she was already standing in the doorway. “Mum?”

“Sweetie,” said Hazel, going to take her child in her arms. She tried to ignore the nausea roiling inside her. “What a wonderful surprise.”

She did her best to behave. Glynnis had made duck breast with a tart raspberry sauce that made Hazel’s stomach flip when she smelled it, but once she started eating, her gut settled down. It was, frankly, one of the most delicious things she’d ever eaten. And Andrew made a serious toast, one without a single euphemism in it, wishing her a year of renewal and happiness, a year of closeness with those she loved, and success in her work, and the entire time, Glynnis had sat beside her new husband with her glass raised, beaming at Hazel. Was she happy because she knew with Hazel back to work she’d be out of her house soon, the devil in her basement? Or was she – this strange, strange woman – genuinely happy to see Hazel up and about, despite the fact that only six days ago, she’d caught her husband feeding her spare ribs in the bath? Nothing had ever come of that, Emily had been right, no angry words, no delayed consequences. It really had been, in Glynnis’s eyes, an instance of her husband “caring for another human being.” It wasn’t right. It should have blown up in all their faces. Is that what Hazel had wanted? Maybe. But in that, she had failed as well.

Martha sent her mother shy looks of love and sadness from the other side of the table. They hadn’t seen each other since February, when Hazel had felt well enough to go down to Toronto for an afternoon and they’d had coffee. Their meetings didn’t always end well. The undercurrent of Hazel’s worries about the girl infected a lot of what she said, and Martha heard her mother’s criticisms of her life in everything. Hazel could not offer to pay for Martha’s lattes anymore when they met because such a gesture – no matter how natural it might have been for a mother to buy her daughter a cup of coffee – Martha saw as a judgment on her joblessness, her failure to choose a path and stay on it, her eternal singleness, her at-least-once-yearly need to be bailed out of some mess. All of this in a three-dollar cup of coffee. When Martha had been in her late twenties, Hazel and Andrew had talked about it all as a phase – she was young; she would find her way; this generation started everything later; she’d be sorted out by the time she was thirty. Then, after the breakup, Hazel excused her daughter’s rootlessness as a reaction to what was happening to her parents. But now she was thirty-three, and there was no sign of her waking up. What was going to happen? Would she find someone to share her life with, who would shoulder part of the burden that loving this girl entailed? What if she or Andrew died? What if Martha became dependent on her sister? Would she ever be able to stop worrying about this child?

And yet, here she was, her thin white skin shimmering in front of the candles (although not the special candles), and that wan, loving smile on her face. How could she not want to save her, this gorgeous, lost child? Hazel reached across the tabletop and took one of Martha’s hands in hers. “This is the best birthday present I’ve gotten so far.” She was, perhaps, now a little drunk on wine and whiskey, but Martha still smiled broadly at her and accepted the compliment. “Thank you for coming.”

“Happy birthday, Mum.”

“Another toast,” said Andrew, standing. They all raised their glasses again. “To family,” he said, and again, Glynnis was beaming that bright, terrifying gaze of pure joy at her. But she drank and the clocks struck ten and she