Prologue

Tuesday

February 14, 2018

Maddie

Maddie lies in bed, tapping her fingers on her tummy, just the way she’d practiced on Miss Ellie’s piano.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

She doesn’t like spiders, but that song is stuck in her head. An earworm, Mommy had called it, wriggling her finger behind Maddie’s ear and making her giggle. Mommy is good at being a silly goose and making her feel better.

But sometimes Mommy is grumpy. Daddy too. Like tonight. And it makes her tummy hurt. So she pulls the covers up over her head and practices every song in the I Can Play Piano book Daddy bought her.

Snug under her blanket fort, Maddie can still hear them shouting in their outside voices. Louder than the rain beating its fists against her window. Daddy’s yelling reminds her of thunder, even though she’s never heard it in real life. And tonight, it’s worse than ever. So loud she drags her blanket and Mister Bear into the closet where it’s dark and cold and probably full of spiders. But at least she can’t hear Daddy.

She wonders what she’s done now. What she’s done wrong.

Once, she’d heard Daddy say Mommy turned into a different person after Maddie was born. That Mommy didn’t love him anymore. But Maddie knows that’s not true. Mommy is the same Mommy as she ever was. And she loves Daddy a bajillion because she’d told Maddie so.

Just today, Maddie had asked, “Mommy, who is your Valentine?”

And Mommy said, “You.”

“But what about Daddy?”

“Of course, Daddy. Daddy too. I love you both.”

“A bajillion?”

Mommy giggled at that. “Yes, a bajillion.”

Before Mommy got home from the doctor, Daddy had taken Maddie and Mister Bear on a special trip, and he’d let her eat all the Valentine’s candy from school. Even the lollipops and those little hearts with words on them that tasted chalky and too sweet. Maybe that’s why her tummy hurts. Maybe that’s why they’re fighting. Because Mommy found out about the candy or she’s sad they went someplace special without her.

A door slams somewhere, and Maddie clings tight to Mister Bear, afraid the whole house is falling down. Or maybe it’s an earthquake. “Earthquake, earth shake,” she whispers, feeling clever.

“Madison? Where are you? I told you to get dressed.”

She peeks out from the closet, and Mommy is there, standing by the dollhouse. And her tummy really hurts now, because Mommy looks scared and sad and furious all at the same time. Probably because Maddie didn’t use her listening ears the first time.

“I don’t want to leave Daddy.”

“C’mon. It will be fun.” But Mommy doesn’t sound like she’s having fun. She’s not even very good at pretending. “We’ll spend the night.”

“Like a sleepover?”

Mommy nods. And then Daddy’s in the doorway, yelling again. “The hell you are. You’re not taking her anywhere. Do not get dressed, Madison.”

Maddie starts to cry—she can’t help it. She doesn’t want to go with Mommy, not if Daddy can’t come too. She holds her hands over her ears and puts her head down into Mister Bear’s soft fur. She cries and cries and cries. Until she stops. And Mommy and Daddy are gone.

Then, Mister Bear has an idea, and Maddie thinks it’s a good one. She pats him on the head as she searches for her princess backpack in the cave at the back of the closet, next to her rain boots. In the front pocket, she finds the two chocolate hearts she’d hidden there. The ones with the pretty seashells on the wrappers. She’d been saving them for tomorrow. But Mommy says chocolate makes everything better. Maybe it will fix Mommy and Daddy too. The way Mommy’s kisses fix her ouchies. All better.

With the hearts buried in her fist like Jack’s magic beans, she makes her way down the hall toward the bedroom, toward the shouting. Except now, it’s quiet. Somebody’s crying.

Mommy is crying. “Don’t. Don’t, Ian.”

“Why not? You don’t care if I die. You don’t want me. You don’t even love me anymore.”

It’s Daddy, but he sounds like the kind of monster Caleb told her about on the merry-go-round right before he jumped off and skinned his knees. The kind of monster that hides under the bed, just watching you. Watching and watching and waiting. That’s the worst part, the waiting. The never knowing what’s going to happen next.

“Stop it, Ian!” Mommy doesn’t sound right either.

Maddie hurries down the stairs. Away. She won’t be able to hear them in the kitchen, she’s certain of that. She’d gone there the last time they had a fight. And Mommy found her asleep on the floor the next morning.

The light from the back porch makes a rectangle on the kitchen floor, and she feels smart knowing that. A rectangle has four sides. Just like a square. The window by the door is a rectangle too. The rain is coming down hard on it. Washing that old spider away.

And only then, she realizes—her hands are empty. She’d been so scared, she dropped the chocolates. She lost her magic beans. And now she can’t fix anything. She’s just a stupid little girl. A fraidy cat, like Caleb said.

Mommy screams upstairs, and Maddie thinks of the bookcase in the foyer. The one with the shelves where Daddy stacks the books he and Mommy wrote together. That bookcase has a secret. It’s not just a bookcase. It’s for hiding too. Mommy showed her once.

But when she hears the front door creak open, she doesn’t dare look into the foyer. It’s the monster, she thinks. Creeping around on long monster legs.

Maddie starts to hum again, hiccupping through tears. She won’t let that monster know she’s afraid. She’ll be a big girl. A good girl. So she sings out loud the whole “Itsy Bitsy Spider” song so many times she loses count. Until the last time. She doesn’t finish. The sun never comes out and dries up the rain, and the spider stays all wet.

Because Daddy’s friend is at the window, waving. Soaked with no umbrella. Just like that spider.

Somehow, Maddie feels certain everything will be better now, so she wipes her sad face on her hand. She walks to the door.

She opens it.