“You mean about Graham? No,” Charlene said. “Of course not, Mom.”
“It’s my fault. All of this. I know that.”
“No, Mom. It’s mine.”
Charlene felt that quaking within her again. She had the strong urge to put her head in her mother’s lap like she used to, even though a few days ago she’d have rather set her own hair on fire than cuddle up to her mom. Now she didn’t like Melody to even be out of her sight for too long. She didn’t want to be alone.
Melody put her hands on Charlene’s shoulders, gave her a gentle shake.
“No, Charlene. None of this is your fault. There are things that were set in motion before you were ever born.”
Charlene shook her head and fought back another rush of tears. It was exhausting to be crying all the time.
“Charlene,” Melody said. She looked down at the seat between them. “God, there’s so much you don’t understand.”
But it wasn’t true; she understood everything. She’d been there.
When Charlene came down the stairs, she’d found her mother on the kitchen floor weeping. At first Charlene thought something had been broken, spilling a dark, red, viscous fluid across the floor. Then she saw the bat beside her mother. And for the next few moments, she thought her mother was hurt-the way she was folded onto herself, as though doubling over in terrible pain.
And then she saw Graham, pale and moaning on the floor, a hand to his head.
“You goddamn crazy bitch,” he was saying, soft and low, over and over like a mantra.
“What happened?” asked Charlene. She kept her distance, standing by the doorway. This was new, Graham down and bleeding, looking like he was hurt bad. She remembered the price she paid for getting between them the last time. So she kept her distance.
Melody looked up at her quickly, surprised, as if she didn’t realize Charlene was in the house. And maybe she hadn’t. They might not have known she was upstairs painting her nails. Her mom’s purse was on the counter, a pile of mail next to it. It looked like they’d just gotten home from work. Charlene saw it then; the bill for her phone on top of the pile. She had forgotten to intercept the mail when she came home from school. She felt her stomach bottom out. Melody saw her looking at it.
“Where’s that phone, Charlene?” Her voice was surprisingly soft, almost sweet. “Bring it to me right now.”
“Mom. No.”
She wouldn’t give up her phone; it was hers. God knows she’d earned it by putting up with Graham. “It’s not a big deal. Everyone has a phone. I don’t use it in school.”
Charlene looked over at Graham. He looked really bad.
“Charlene,” he said. “Call 911. I’m hurt bad.”
But her mother started shrieking to bring the fucking phone. And the sound of it, like an alarm, and the sight of all the blood shook Charlene to her core. She ran upstairs and fished it out of her purse. Why didn’t she dial 911 right then? She should have. She’d had a lot of time to think about how if she’d done that, nothing that happened later would have happened at all. But she didn’t do that one thing, the right thing. She never could do that.
She brought the phone downstairs. She still didn’t want to walk into that kitchen, so she slid it across the floor to her mother. Her mother stood up, pitching and wobbling like a drunk, though Charlene knew she was sober. Melody lifted the bat high over her head and Charlene started to scream,
Charlene fell silent, drowned out anyway by her mother’s rant, and looked on, fixated, sick to the core with guilt and fear as her mother kept shouting, pounding on that phone, barely hitting it at all because it was so small and in so many pieces, until she seemed to just run out of gas and sank back down, weeping.
“I never touched her,” Graham said. He struggled to push himself up. Half his face was smeared with blood. “Tell her, Charlene.”
She shook her head, opened her mouth to speak, but wound up issuing a sob instead. Finally, “He didn’t. Mom, he didn’t.”
Melody looked up first at Charlene and then back at Graham.
“I know that,” she said. She had pulled her face into a nasty grimace, her voice more like a growl. “If you
“Mel, please, get me to the hospital. I’m hurt.”
He fell back then against the floor, his eyes looking blank and glassy. The moan he was issuing almost didn’t sound human; it was otherworldly.
“Mom,” Charlene said. “We have to help him.”
Still, Charlene couldn’t bring herself to cross the threshold into the kitchen. Melody just looked at her, and Charlene was sure she was going to start raging about what a slut she was, about how she’d ruined all their lives.
But instead, Melody said, “I’m sorry, Char. I’ve failed you in all sorts of ways.” And Charlene didn’t know what to say to that; they both cried.
“I’m going to call 911,” Charlene said.
“No, Charlene.” Melody stood and wiped her eyes. She sounded calmer, stronger. “Just help me. Pull the truck into the garage and help me get him in. I’ll drive him.”
“I think it’s better-”
And she’d done it, pulled the car into the garage even though her mother hadn’t even let her get her learner’s permit yet, and shut the door. Charlene had helped her heave Graham into the car, both of them straining under the effort, while he continued to groan. The side of his face looked purple and swollen, but the bleeding from his head and his nose had slowed.
“Charlene,” Melody said from the driver’s side window, “Graham and I will work out what we say about what happened. You weren’t even here.”
“But-,” started Charlene.
Her mother lifted a hand. “Please, Charlene, don’t say a word about this to anyone. You
She didn’t like the frightened, desperate expression on her mother’s face; she looked unhinged. Charlene nodded her agreement.
“Mom,” she said. But then the garage door was opening, and Melody was backing down the driveway. And then they were gone down the street.
Charlene went inside. Looking back, she didn’t remember feeling anything then. She was just hyperfocused on the task of cleaning all that blood. She went to the computer and looked up how to do it. Then she got some of the cleaning supplies from the laundry room and managed to do a fairly decent job of it, though she thought she could still see the shadow of the stain in the linoleum. After a certain amount of scrubbing with bleach, she felt light- headed and sick. She threw everything-gloves, rags, and scrub brush-in the trash outside.
When she was done, she looked at the clock. It was after seven; she knew Rick was waiting for her at Pop’s. She could call him there, have him come get her right then. But no. She wouldn’t do that. Charlene knew somehow that she’d passed through a doorway with her mother. Rick couldn’t follow her through, and Charlene could never go back with him. Thinking about that, about Rick waiting for her, about how she couldn’t just go and have pizza with him, fool around in the back of his car, laugh and complain about The Hollows and their stupid parents-fear and sadness left her. Anger filled her back up.
She went to her room and threw some things into a backpack. She had almost a thousand dollars in her drawer, rolled up in a plastic Hello Kitty bank saved over years from allowance, birthday, and Christmas money. She stuffed that deep in the bottom of her bag. This was it, the end of her life in The Hollows.
