Julia's Daughters

When I wake up, Mom’s not in bed with me. I figure she’s in the bathroom, but when I push Mr. Cat off me and roll over, I see her in bed with She Who Shall Not Be Named. When I see her over there instead of here, I’m a little bit jealous. It’s been really fun sleeping together, having her here in bed with me so I can just roll over and touch her, if I want. I guess it’s only fair that the other one should have a turn too. But hasn’t she had a lot more turns than me already? Since she’s almost eighteen?

Most people think that the youngest kid in the family is the spoiled one. People talk about how parents give the youngest one whatever they want, how they fawn over them and stuff. Not been my experience. Maybe I was the favorite when I was little. I don’t remember when I was a baby. But once She Who Shall Not Be Named went to high school? Everything changed. That’s when I became invisible to Mom.

Three years, eight months ago.

I know. I was six; I was in the first grade. How could I remember that? I have a really good memory. Especially about this.

I remember it clearly. The oldest one went to high school and all of a sudden Mom was crazy busy with stuff going on in She Who Shall Not Be Named’s life: parents’ council, homecoming float chairman, dance chaperone, you name it. And Caitlin was really getting into cheer by then, so Mom was busy on weekends with her, hauling her all over the state to competitions, doing her hair, helping make cheer outfits with other moms.

It’s not like suddenly everyone was mean to me, but when my sisters hit high school and became super important, I just kind of faded into the background. Dad started disappearing around the same time. I mean, he was still here, but . . . he didn’t seem as interested in me as he’d once been. I guess if I’m really fair, if I’m objective (I spelled it wrong on the last quiz. No k before the t), Dad didn’t just start forgetting about me. He started to forget about all of us. I guess he just got tired of us.

Mr. Cat climbs back on top of me and starts to purr. What is it with him wanting to sit on my chest all the time? When I grow boobs, which should be any day now, where does he think he’s going to sit?

I scratch his head and glance at Mom and She Who Shall Not Be Named. Something’s going on with them. Or something went on. The night before last. In the drugstore, of all places. She Who Shall Not Be Named went in and didn’t come out. Then Mom went in. Then they both came out looking like they’d been crying. I asked Mom yesterday what happened, but she just shook her head and told me that if I wanted to listen to the radio for a little while, I could. Mostly we haven’t been able to listen to it since we left home because we’re supposed to be working through things. Or at least the one cutting herself with sharp objects for fun is.

I hear movement from the other bed and I look over to see Mom opening her eyes. She smiles when she sees me and it makes me feel so good, the way she looks at me, that it almost makes up for her sleeping with the crazy girl instead of me.

“Morning.” Her voice is soft and floaty.

She looks pretty this morning. And not sad. I’ve noticed the last couple of mornings that when she wakes up, she doesn’t look as sad as she does later in the day. It’s like, as the hours pass, the more dead Caitlin is. Which kind of makes sense because when I first wake up in the morning, I sometimes forget that she’s pushing up daisies.

“Sleep okay?” Mom asks me, still only half awake.

I nod.

“Good.” She stretches and then pushes her hair back and turns her head to look at me. “Why don’t you hop in the shower before Haley gets up?”

I groan really dramatically. I don’t like it that Mom thinks I need to be told to take a shower. I’m old enough to know if I need a shower. My hair’s hardly even dirty. And when I wash it, it gets all frizzy. And the only thing worse than red hair is frizzy red hair.

“Go on,” she says.

And because I can’t just flat out say no the way Haley does, I get up to head for the bathroom.

“Put him in his kennel,” she tells me, meaning Mr. Cat.

“He’s fine. He’s too old to run away.”

A few minutes later, I’m in the shower, scrubbing my pits with a little bar of soap I got from a basket on the sink, when the bathroom door opens. The glass is pretty fogged up, but I can see that it’s She Who Shall Not Be Named. She’s wearing her stupid black T-shirt and my Little Mermaid pants.

I almost yell, Do you mind? but I catch myself. I’m not talking to her. Not ever again. She wasted my sister. In Caitlin’s memory, it’s the least I can do.

I turn around so if she can see through the steamed-up glass of the shower stall, she’ll see my bare butt and get the hint.

I hear the toilet lid go up. I can’t believe she’s got the nerve to pee while I’m taking a shower.

“Mom says to move along. She wants to get on the road.”

I hear her peeing, which is totally gross.

“You hear me, pipsqueak?” She flushes.

But she doesn’t leave the bathroom and finally I can’t stand it and I turn around. The warm water hits my back. What? I want to holler at her. What do you want? But I just look at her through the steamy glass, one hand covering my nipples and the other my lady parts. I know she used to change my diaper and stuff, but I have a right to privacy, now that I’m almost a teenager. Don’t I?

“Izzy.” She’s still standing there, her hands at her sides. She’s staring at the floor. “Izzy, I just wanted to tell you . . .” She stops.

I look at her through the steam that makes her seem all blurry. She sounds like she’s going to cry and a lump comes up in my throat.

“Never mind,” she says. “It doesn’t matter.”

And then she leaves.

Then Mom comes in. And pees.

“Is this a train station?” I holler from inside the shower.

“The phrase is, Is this Grand Central?” She flushes. “I’m going to run downstairs and get coffee and talk to someone at the front desk.” I hear her messing around at the sink. Then water comes on. “I don’t think they gave me my discount.” Her words are garbled. She’s brushing her teeth. “Move along. I put the cat litter box in a bag in the trash. We’ll open a new one in the car. Bring Mr. Cat down when you come. I’m not going to come back up. I want to get on the road.” She shuts off the water.

I don’t say anything.

“You hear me, Izzy?”

“I hear you. I left my clothes on the end of the bed. Can you bring them in here?”

“Sure.”

I hear her leave and then come back. “Out of the shower, Izzy. For a girl who doesn’t like to shower, you sure like the shower.”

She closes the door and finally I’m alone. Next time I take a shower, I’m definitely locking the door.

I get out and wrap my hair up in one towel and I wrap the other one around my body. I take a washcloth and wipe at the steamy mirror. I look different with my hair up in the towel. Older. And a little bit like Caitlin. It makes me smile.

“See you downstairs,” I hear Mom call from the other side of the door. Then I hear the door to the hall close. Great, now I’m stuck here with She Who Shall Not Be Named, who will probably talk to me like she thinks I’m going to talk back.

I dry off and put on my clothes, which is kind of hard to do because the room is so steamy that I can’t get completely dry. But there’s no way I’m dressing out in the room with her.

I dry my hair a little bit with the hair dryer attached to the wall and then I brush my teeth, grab my nightclothes, and go into the room. She Who Shall Not Be Named is sitting on her bed, watching the news. She’s dressed; her backpack is sitting next to her on the bed. I turn my back to her and stick my stuff in my bag. I get the little kennel we bought for Mr. Cat and I put it on the bed and then I get him and put him in it. He hates getting in it and I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to go in a cage either.

“It’s cold in Maine still,” She Who Shall Not Be Named says. “It went down to thirty-five last night. We’re going to freeze our butts off.”

I close the door on the kennel kind of hard and it startles Mr. Cat and he jumps inside. Without saying anything, I grab the kennel and my bag and go to the door. There’s no way I’m staying here alone with her if I don’t have to. The hotel room door closes behind me before I hear her holler, “I guess that means you’re ready to go.”

I hear the elevator ding which means it’s going to open and I run for it. I don’t want to ride in the elevator with She Who Shall Not Be Named. By the time I get there, people have stepped off and the door is starting to close, but I make it just in time. As I turn to face the doors, they close and I smile.

Guess she can catch the next one.

I see Mom standing at the front desk in the lobby, but I keep walking. No cats allowed in the hotel. I don’t want to get caught and have Mom get in trouble. There’s no way they’re giving her the discount if they know Mr. Cat stayed last night.

It’s not until I get to the car in the parking lot that I realize what a dunce I am. I don’t have the key to the car. I put my bag and then the kennel down on the pavement. I see a piece of paper stuck under the wiper on the windshield so I walk around to get it. An advertisement for two pizzas for ten dollars.

A car goes by me in the parking lot and I check out the people inside; there’s a mom and a dad and a little boy and an old grandpa. I never had a grandpa. Dad’s and Mom’s dads are dead. Mom didn’t know the first one. Her stepdad died before I was born, which I guess isn’t a big deal since apparently no one liked him, not even my grandmother.

I walk around to the back of the car again. Still no Mom, but I see She Who Shall Not Be Named coming out the front door. I wonder if she has the key.

Another car goes by. Just a man in a suit. No kids. No grandpa.

I glance down at Mr. Cat’s kennel.

I’m so shocked that the paper drifts out of my hand.

The door to the kennel is open and Mr. Cat is gone.

I feel like I can’t breathe and my eyes fill up with tears.

I look around and I don’t see him. Then I see something dart out from under a car and cut across the space between this row and the next row of cars. It’s something furry. A tabby cat!

Before I can think, I turn toward the hotel and scream, “Haley!”