By eight p.m., Maggie had scrubbed the floor in front of the sink, bleached the bathtub, Windexed every window. It wasn’t as soothing as driving, but anything to keep moving.
Now she was stripping the linens.
Maggie saved the tugging of the wrinkled fitted sheet from Hank’s bunk for last.
She’d heard him tiptoeing out every morning, though he tried so hard to be quiet. Hank had always tried to be a lot of things.
Maggie suspected Hank tossed in his sleep as much as Milo, who woke every morning so thoroughly tangled that she’d nicknamed him the Human Burrito. But the only clue that Hank occupied this space at all was a heavy indentation in the mattress, a dip as big as he was.
Hank hit his first enormous growth spurt back in junior high, gained inches so quickly that he might as well have sprouted antlers. At the shoe store for the second time in three months, Maggie had watched him try and fail to pull a sneaker over his heel.
“Don’t force it, Hank.”
He slumped. “Think I’ll be as tall as Dad?”
“I have no idea. You should ask him.”
“I … but what do you think?” Hank’s grin slipped.
She tousled his hair like he was Milo’s size. “I think you’ll be even taller.”
Hank blinked twice in surprise. There was nothing slathered on about that smile.
Ana had a pantry, not a bed. She didn’t sleep with Maggie anymore.
Once that might have seemed like a good thing. Ana was a lot to handle on the best of days, perfumes and eyeliner on the pillowcases, even before her breakdown last year, when she started picking scabs in her sleep, speckling the bedding with blood.
Today the unstained pillow felt cold.
“If you want, Ana, I can set up camp in the living room.”
“Please don’t, Mom.”
“But you’re a teen now. You need privacy.” Maggie had stared at her daughter. Ana, propped up on cushions, manga from the library in her lap. “If you take this room, you can have people over. You won’t have to go to Marissa’s every time.”
A vision: Marissa’s mother at the poolside, sunglasses and lipstick perfectly offsetting her oval face.
“It’s fine, Mom. I told you. I don’t care.”
“Must be nice.” Maggie bit her tongue. Mothers shouldn’t sound like teenagers, even when one’s trapped inside them.
Ana set the book down on the nightstand and laid her head on Maggie’s shoulder. “Grow up, you will, Mom,” she said, in the Yoda voice that Maggie thought had been outgrown alongside Miyazaki hoodies. “Okay, you will be.”
Maggie reached the laundry room and found it occupied.
She dropped the heap of sheets in a basket that didn’t have a seven-year-old protruding from it. Milo had all the grace of an inchworm at the moment, bottom in the air and arms straight back on the floor, neck deep in stray socks and shirts.
“You’re going to have some major back problems one day, kid.”
The music from his headphones sounded nearer in the close space.
Maggie had never been the audiophile in the family. The music she cared for she’d never tried to share. Somehow she felt it could never measure up to all the psychedelic rock Donovan left in his wake, the songs he used to whistle in the shower.
Milo must have switched artists again. This new music was vast and beautiful, and for a moment Maggie didn’t want to wake him. Not now, not ever. Perhaps when Dr. Ruby returned next week, the two of them would still be asleep here, gathering cobwebs.
Before Dr. Ruby had departed, she’d sat with Maggie in the living room.
Their usual act, their usual setting. If this room were a stage, this was their pantomime: the concerned mother, the composed doctor.
“Sorry, I’ve called Hank and Ana, and left messages and—”
“Plenty of distractions on the first day of school. It may be a sign that they’re readjusting. And we can still talk about Milo. I’m wondering if you might need to make a different arrangement for him.”
Maggie frowned. “Just for Milo?”
“In many ways Milo’s condition seems the most severe. Yes, Hank and Ana are struggling. Aside from the obvious—the physical side effects in Ana’s eyes and Hank’s hands—both seem incapable of keeping their focus on the present. But attention deficits are par for the course when it comes to posttraumatic stress disorder. Milo’s situation seems more dire.”
“So … you think we should take him out of school?”
“I could provide an alternative for Milo. I’d be happy to work with him.”
“Work with him, or work on him?” Maggie whispered.
Dr. Ruby stopped smiling. “I have no intention of harming—”
“Then why haven’t you taken us out of here?” Maggie closed her eyes. “Taken us anywhere else?”
Those scars were so unreadable. “Normalcy is what your children need right now in order to heal.”
“Would that be the normalcy of being bullied, or the normalcy of being homeschooled by a scientist?” How many people had Maggie exhausted today?
“It’s up to you, Maggie. Of course it is.”
“People keep telling me that. But how am I more qualified than anyone else? How am I supposed to know better than teachers, principals, doctors, scientists?” Her voice broke. “A goddamn alien knew my kids better than I do!”
“You have a point, Maggie.” The roles shifted. How, Maggie couldn’t say, but Dr. Ruby no longer seemed professional. “There’s not a lot of logic behind it, is there? We’re only human, and this is the way things are. No matter what else the parasite was, it wasn’t their mother.”
Before leaving, Dr. Ruby shook Maggie’s hand. She always did. Her hands were always warmer than Maggie expected they’d be.
“I apologize for the mess.”
“Your home is always spotless, Margaret.”
“… I apologize for the mess.”
Maggie lifted her littlest from the laundry basket, noting how little he wasn’t, waiting for Milo to cling to her as he had this morning. To her relief, she still wanted to hold him.
Milo opened his eyes.
“Milo, can you help me with something, please?”
She saw him watching her lips.
“I WANTED TO HELP WITH FOLDING.”
“Tell me, Milo.”
“I THINK THE RHYME IS ‘RED ON BLACK, PLEASE STAY BACK.’ ”
She enunciated carefully: “Do you want to go to school tomorrow?”
He looked at her, eyes miles away, and suddenly snapped to. “OR WAS IT ‘BLACK ON YELLOW, YOU’RE A DEAD FELLOW.’ ”
Would she ever make sense of him?
There came the metallic clanging of the front door, the sound of moccasins scuffing the carpet in the entranceway, making their way down the hall.
“Mom?”
She nearly dropped Milo. When had Ana last called for her? “We’re here. The laundry room!”
Ana stepped into view. She looked hardly any worse for wear: a hoodie and sweats, lank uncombed hair. But now she had sunglasses and a little color in her cheeks, as though she’d been shouting.
“HELLO ANA.”
Ana looked at him. “Hey, Milo.”
“I’M TRYING TO FOLD.”
“I can see that. How’s that going for you?”
“I’M AFRAID I’LL SOUND SEXISM BUT CAN YOU HELP?”
“Where were you?” Maggie found she wasn’t angry, but relieved.
“School.” Ana reached for lumpy dishcloths, folded one. “Mom. Can I try out for the school musical?”
Maggie started. A year ago, certainly—Ana flitted from one extracurricular to the next as if they were ephemeral things that shriveled and died the moment she lost interest in them. But in no universe had Maggie anticipated this request today.
“Of course you can.”
Milo finished inspecting Ana’s folded dishcloth. “VERY GOOD ANA, THE CORNERS ALMOST MATCH UP. B+ I THINK.”
“I’ll take it.” Ana squatted beside him.
Maggie could feel the weight of the phone in her bathrobe pocket. “Any idea where your brother is?”
Ana shook her head.
“And … and how was your first day back?”
Ana appeared to actually consider the question before the inevitable shrug. “Could have been worse.” Milo dug deep, yanked a fitted sheet from the bottom of the basket, and threw it at his sister; Ana caught it. “How was yours, Mom?”
Maggie froze.
Those calls to her children she’d told Dr. Ruby about—she’d never made a single one of them, and not because Maggie believed her children wouldn’t come home.
Because Maggie believed her children had not been home for a long, long time.
Over the summer she’d lost them, or maybe even before. Not in an evening, but moment by moment. Only weeks ago Maggie had walked into her own kitchen and caught the three of them operating in silent unison after midnight, cooking, communicating on some level she couldn’t understand.
They’d spun to face her as one. Maggie had wondered who they were.
So Maggie hadn’t tried to find her children today. It felt too much like sending capsules into space, hoping someone on Alpha Centauri might take the time to hear a snippet of Beethoven from an earthling tin can.
She watched Ana peel a dryer sheet off one of Hank’s jerseys.
“EUREKA!” Milo cried, holding it. “THAT’S TWO DAYS OF GOOD LUCK FOR YOU ANA!”
Maggie pulled her phone from her pocket. From Hank:
Sorry I missed dinner. I’m with Orson. Be home late.
“MOM? TOMORROW I WANT TO SIT BY PENNY DAWSON.”
Maggie lifted her head. “I’ll let Mrs. Stuart know first thing in the morning.”
Milo’s music faded. The dryer clicked off. For half a beat, the three of them listened to the whirr of crickets beyond the open window and the distant echo of living things rustling in the canyon.
They folded until there was nothing left. Ana wandered away to make the beds while Milo helped Maggie start the washing machine. He could reach the buttons without the footstool now.
After tucking Milo in, Maggie messaged Hank:
Be safe. I love you.
She’d decided not to wait up.
When she got to her room, Ana was under the covers. A penlight was taped to the inside of her sunglasses, but by her breathing, Maggie knew she was asleep at last.