My father spent days locked away in his office, so my mother was left to entertain us. She would often pack my siblings and me into the car and we’d drive to nearby towns. We’d go to the supermarket or the drugstore, or the movie store to pick a video to rent. She’d give each of us a quarter, and we’d push and shove as we ran for the machines that dispensed handfuls of candy. Our palms became sticky as we clutched our treats, momentarily distracted, allowing our mother a few moments of quiet reprieve.
On one of these trips, William and I were bickering. Annabelle was just a baby, strapped into her car seat.
William pinched my arm.
“Mother,” I screamed. “William pinched me.”
“Stop it,” my mother sighed.
I leaned over and grabbed the skin on his leg, pinching it as hard as I could between my thumb and forefinger, leaving behind a red imprint.
William shouted, “Mother, Grace pinched me.”
“I’m warning you two.” My mother regarded us in the rear-view mirror. “Stop that now.”
William stuck his tongue out at me.
I stuck my tongue out back.
“You’re adopted,” William whispered.
“Mother, William said I was adopted.”
“She stuck her tongue out at me.”
“You did it first.”
“That’s it.” My mother slammed on the brakes. My body jolted forward, my seat belt catching me. She turned around and shouted, “Get out of the car, both of you.”
“No,” we whined in unison.
“Now.”
“But Mother.”
“Now!” she screamed.
Reluctantly, we opened the door and climbed out onto the shoulder of the road. We stood in silence, expecting her to tell us to get back in. “Close the door,” she called. William pushed it shut, giving it an extra kick with his sneakered foot, huffing loudly.
The wheels spun on the gravel, kicking up a cloud of dust before the car pulled away. I began coughing as we watched it grow smaller and smaller, eventually disappearing completely over the hill.
William reached for my hand and squeezed it gently. His little face was pink and twisted with anger. Neither of us said a word.
Finally, he broke the silence. “Don’t worry, Gracie, it will be fun to live outdoors. More fun than being in that dumbhead house.”
I stared at the road: nothing coming or going.
“We can eat bugs and sleep under trees if it rains.”
“But I don’t wanna eat bugs,” I whimpered.
He poked my cheek. “You used to eat bugs all the time.”
I smiled, wiping my runny nose with the back of my sleeve. “That was when I was a baby.”
William always joked when he was nervous. We had taught ourselves to laugh when we really wanted to cry.
We stood there, waiting, scanning the distance for the car to return. My stomach hurt as I kept smiling, trying not to cry. My mother had dropped us on the side of the road before, but she had never driven out of sight.
William grabbed a stick and sat cross-legged in the gravel, tracing a circle with its tip. I sat next to him, my eyes following the lines he created.
I counted the seconds as high as I could, until I didn’t know what came next.
Then, as if nothing had happened, the station wagon appeared. A dot on the horizon, growing bigger and bigger until it was upon us. My mother stopped the car, and we crossed the street and climbed in. I sat in the middle seat, between my siblings, and remained quiet. The gnawing feeling in my stomach—the one that I have grown all too familiar with—wouldn’t subside, even as we pulled into the driveway of our home.
That was the day I realized I didn’t know what my mother was capable of.