‘Says you. Anyway, easy for you to say. Jack’s stuff is all mixed up with my stuff. It’s our stuff.’
Is it? Either a thing is yours or his. Nothing belongs to you both anymore. Looks to me like you’re hoping he’s going to walk back in that door one day.
Louise was briefly her much older self, chewing her fingernails, then reverted to her unlined younger self. She got out her compact and preened in the mirror. Billie bristled. Louise could be so smug, it made her want to spit. To flounce out and slam the door.
‘No, I do not! And if he did, why, I’d tell him to…to just get lost. Git, I’d say. Take your suitcase right out of here, and go back to Miss Slutsville.’
A pause, as she noted the photograph above the phone, from that trip to Disneyland just before Willy. The kids had been too old to admit to having fun with their parents, and they were not smiling. And yet, now she thought of it, they really had been happy that day. She was convinced of it.
‘Jack is not welcome in this house anymore. Unless he’s here to visit the kids, of course. Which he has to do. Which I want him to do. But let him try and move back, well, no siree!’
Uh-huh, said Louise, then she squinted at her sister.
Hey, you going to do something with your hair?
‘What’s wrong with my hair?’
And your face. You look like death.
‘You can talk. You keep morphing.’
Billie yawned, threw the empty yoghurt pot in the garbage bag and walked back to her bedroom. It was strangely comforting to bicker with Louise. Since Jack left, she really missed arguing.
Men are all cheating lying bastards, said Louise in a reasonable tone as she followed Billie down the hall. You know Mom always considered Dad a prime example of bastardly-ness. Of course Jack was going to be one too.
‘How dare you lump Jack in with Dad.’ Billie slipped back between the sheets.
Oh, come on. You still think he’s different?
‘Of course.’
Billie Molinelli. You always did think you were special.
‘My name is Mrs Jack MacAlister,’ she whispered, adjusting the quilt around her toes.
La di fucking da.
‘Anyway, anyone can be special, Loulou. Nothing special about being special, it’s just that not many people really want to be. You could have been special, if you’d wanted.’
Who says I’m not? I just don’t think you are, not as much as you think you are.
‘Goodnight.’
Listen, Billie. I’ve got an idea. Who needs a man? Get a puppy!
‘Are you nuts?’
Remember Sally? You loved Sally. She was your shadow all through high school, that mutt.
‘Jack hates dogs.’
Jack Schmack, said Louise.
Then Louise was gone and Billie could hear blue jays, and other birds she didn’t know the names of, and a dog was barking to be let out for a pee. A puppy popped into her mind. One puppy in particular, and this changed from Labrador to spaniel several times as she pictured the way it would follow her around the house, toenails clicking on the wood floor. It would curl up at her feet wherever she sat, and she’d make new friends. Dog people. She let her head fall back on the pillow. It was still too early to get up and she felt her being, made up of whatever it is that made her Billie and not anyone else, drift away from her body. She wondered if this was what dying felt like. If so, then it wasn’t so bad after all. This lifting sensation, this liberating of her truest self from everything that…everything that fretted it. And darling little Charlie – well, what separated her from him didn’t feel so very substantial after all.
No Jack! She’d been crying into her pillow for more than a year. In fear, sadness, regret. No Jack! she silently sang now as she went back into sleep, puppies bouncing around in a pink clouded backyard. For a second, she pictured a Louise-like guardian angel hovering over her, edging her drowsy heart in the direction of joy.
When Billie woke again, she felt odd. Almost drug-sedated. Was something wrong with her? Should she go to the doctor? She smiled, imagining that. Of course, she wouldn’t go to the doctor. She’d find a puppy! She slowly rose, put on her robe and walked down the hall to check on Willy. Still sound asleep, bum in the air, thumb planted in mouth. The room smelled of pee and Johnson’s talcum powder. In the kitchen, she asked her teenagers the questions she did every weekday morning. Had they done their homework, remembered to put it in their school bags, did they need lunch money? None replied further than the reflex: ‘Yeah, yeah.’ And: ‘Nah.’
‘Elisabeth, is that my cashmere sweater you’re wearing?’
‘You said I could have it if I wanted. Don’t you remember anything? Pathetic.’
‘Danny, you need a haircut again. Take a tenner out of my bag. Go to Supercuts.’
‘Mom, I told you I’m growing my hair, remember?’
‘Donald, that shirt needs to be ironed. Take it off, I can do it right now.’
‘It’s supposed to look like that, Aunt.’ He said aunt in his new sarcastic way, as if he was making little quote marks in the air with his fingers. Was he going to mock her for the rest of his life?
‘Sam, those jeans are way too long, the hem’s all frayed. Why you don’t trip over, I’ve no idea. And listen, what time are you coming home? I need you to be home when you say you’ll be home.’
He’d been late every day this week, and she felt the need to exert some authority over at least one child. He complied with a long mumble. Impossible to decipher, but this didn’t bother her. In fact, it pretty much met her expectations. More mumbling, arguing, shuffling up and down the hall. Then, in dribs and drabs over ten minutes, they all took turns slamming the front door on their way out, and each time Billie said: ‘Shush! Willy is still asleep! Have a nice day at school!’ Then she made herself some toast, whistling softly and perfectly in tune. Outside it rained the thin warm rain of October, and the drum of it on the roof gave her peace, not the usual agitation. She considered phoning someone – perhaps Irene? Willy might like to play with her son. The edge of loneliness that might impel her was absent, but nevertheless it was good to know Irene was available if needed. Like a loaf of bread in the freezer, poised for defrosting. Billie leafed through the new Sunset magazine, aware that Louise was loitering nearby, plucking her eyebrows again. Jiminy Cricket, life was sweet when your vanished sister had begun hanging around and you were on the verge of a puppy.
She’d spend the day puppy hunting with Willy. He’d adore a dog. They all would. A dog would distract them, bring them closer, might make home a place to love again. She looked at her watch. Six hours and twenty-two minutes till the older children poured back through the front door, smelling of hormones and cheap deodorant.
Better get a move on, lazy bones, said Louise, passing by and going out the door without opening or closing it. She was about seventeen today.
