FOUR

The smell hit Lola when they walked into the unlocked house. She sat Margaret in a kitchen chair and ordered Bub to stay with her while she made a quick search, not knowing precisely what she was looking for.

Not a body, thank heavens; it didn’t have the whiff of putrefaction with which she’d become all too familiar during her time overseas. Lola held her hand over her face as she ran from room to room, flinging open doors. The house was empty, the smell receding the farther she got from the kitchen. She retraced her steps, opening windows in each room so the wind could chase away the reek she at first attributed to the empty, unwashed cans of ravioli marching down the kitchen counter, and finally to a trash can under the sink, soupy with the rotting remains of what appeared to be most of the contents of those cans. The neck of an empty liquor bottle poked up through the glop, as if seeking oxygen. Lola thought of the blast-furnace temperatures of the last few days, of the pasta and sauce breaking down with the plastic confines of the trash can, of the microbes swimming through the stinking mess, multiplying exponentially every few
seconds. Even Bub, who’d crept away from Margaret’s chair and across the kitchen floor to Lola, wrinkled his nose in fastidious distaste.

At least Pal had had the foresight to line the can with a trash bag. Lola gathered the crusted cans from the counter and tossed them into the bag, then knotted it and carried it out onto the porch and beyond, leaving it in the yard. She noticed a long-handled shovel by the front door, and gave a moment’s thought to burying the bag. They’d left the house, what—three days earlier? Not a long time for such serious disarray. She searched for rubber kitchen gloves, thinking to scrub down the counters, but found none, determining only that canned goods appeared to be the sole form of sustenance in the house. The ravioli alone was new. The rest of the cupboards’ contents, including several neatly labeled jars of home-canned jams and vegetables, were so outdated that Lola consigned them to a fresh trash bag. She turned her attention to the duffel she’d seen in the bedroom. She hadn’t noticed the smell when she’d picked up Pal at the airport. But the bag had ridden in the bed of the truck. Now, in close quarters, it reeked. Lola unzipped it. “Pee yew, Mommy,” Margaret protested. Lola averted her face and upended the contents into the washing machine that stood in one corner of the kitchen. It was possible, she thought, that Pal hadn’t washed her fatigues at all for her last few months in Afghanistan. “Bet she was a treat to be around,” she said aloud. Someone must have forced Pal to shower, to put on clean clothes for the trip home, she thought.

She located a box of laundry detergent that appeared prehistoric, its contents solidified into a sort of cement. Lola retrieved a paring knife and jabbed away at it, chipping off pieces into the washing machine. Pal didn’t have anything in the way of delicates, as far as Lola could tell. Her underwear was industrial-strength cotton; her bras, yellowed sports varieties.

The screen door banged open. Lola spun around. Margaret slid from the chair and ran to her side. Bub stood his ground and barked. Lola couldn’t hear Pal’s words over Bub’s racket, but had no problem at all making them out.

“What the fuck?”

Eyes boring straight through Lola as she said it, no concern whatsoever that a child was within earshot. Bub shut up, so that when Pal said it again, the words rang through the kitchen. “What the ever-loving fuck?”

Margaret tugged at Lola’s jeans. “Quarter in the jar, Mommy.” It was their rule that whenever anyone cursed—anyone mostly being Lola—a quarter went into a jar. Every so often, Margaret was allowed to spend the quarters on a book.

Lola picked her up. “I don’t think she plays that game.”

Pal stood backlit in the doorway, face in full shadow, but her fury palpable, not just in her words but her stance, leaning forward, balancing on the balls of her feet, hands clenched.

Lola threw some anger of her own right back at Pal. “Jan was worried about you. And with good reason. You’ve trashed this place in just a few days. It stinks in here. Don’t you ever take out the garbage? Your clothes are disgusting. I’m probably going to have to wash them twice, just to get the smell out. You just cursed—twice—in front of my daughter. And speaking of my daughter, you’ve been drinking in here, too. That shit—sorry, Margaret—stops now. At least, not in front of my daughter. I don’t know if you smoke. God knows, that’s the one smell I didn’t pick up on. But if you do, you’re not to smoke around Margaret, either. In fact, not in the house at all. I’m going to stay here until I’m sure that you’re eating decent food, wearing clean clothes, and generally taking care of yourself. And then, believe me, I will be gone as fast as I can drive that truck away from here. Are you getting all of this?”

Pal stepped into the room. The door slammed behind her. She wore a sweat-soaked tank top and abbreviated shorts and wide-soled running shoes. Lola gave herself a moment to be impressed. Pal didn’t look as though she had the strength to run, especially given the ferocious hangover she had to have. The woman had grit. And some sort of discipline, which apparently fled the moment she stepped into the house and confronted the basics of nutrition and cleanliness.

“You need to leave. Right now,” Pal said.

Lola’s ire flared anew. “We’re not going anywhere. Margaret, you take your things into the bedroom where we stayed before. Bub, go with her.” As long as Margaret was safe, she reasoned, she could handle whatever Pal might throw at her—perhaps literally.

“What the—”

Lola cut her off before she could curse again. “Not in front of Margaret. I’m serious.”

“What gives you the right to do this?”

“Your cousin. She’s a pain in the ass—it seems to be a family trait—but she’s the closest thing to a sister I’ve ever had. Which apparently is how she feels about you. Here’s why you’re going to let me stay.”

Sweat ran into Pal’s eyes. She swiped an arm across her forehead and shook the moisture from it, wincing.

Lola pointed to Pal’s forearm. “That had to sting, right? All that salt in those cuts?”

Pal looked at her arm as though she’d never seen it before.

“Either we stay here until you’re back on your feet—and that had better only take a few days—or I’m telling your cousin about those.”

Pal folded her arms across her chest, too late to hide the fact that she’d added two new scars across two of the old ones, three X’s now marring the skin covering her scrawny forearm.