Luz had never seen the Vasquez household through a mother’s eyes before.
Maggie’s footsteps made little sound as he pulled her past the basketball hoop and up the step. He couldn’t help but notice the grass was underwatered. On the landing, he saw cobwebs in corners. Luz plucked a pair of tennis shoes and one of Hank’s filthy duffel bags from the disorganized shoe rack.
What Maggie saw was something less than her children did; to them, this was home and always had been. Now the place looked like something struggling to be anything. Through Maggie, Luz saw shortcomings.
Here, in the bathroom, while he swept medicine and toiletries into the bag alongside the shoes, he saw the rusted stains where Ana used to leave bobby pins, the drain clogged with soap scum, flecks of debris on the cabinet mirrors. Here, in her bedroom, emptying a drawer into the bag: the unmade bed, dusty picture frames on the nightstand.
Luz, lopsided from the weight of Maggie’s belongings, faltered during the walk down the hallway and to the kitchen. He noticed how the linoleum rippled and bubbled.
“You’re too hard on yourself, Maggie,” Luz whispered. “Really you are.”
Luz thought he might have seen something of this trait in Ana, something curiously absent in the Vasquez boys. Luz had seen in Ana the obligation to perfect the imperfect, to condemn her own failings in a way that Milo and Hank did not think to. Had it been in the boys, too, in a different form? Who put it there?
Maggie’s thoughts were quiet. “You don’t have to worry about this place anymore,” Luz assured her. “We don’t have to worry about them, either. Whoever they are.”
The time with Hank and Ana had been so long ago now, Luz couldn’t remember what it felt like to be them, what they felt like being them. It seemed that upon Luz’s leaving Milo only minutes ago, his memories of the children were fast fading.
Luz, standing in the kitchen entrance, was forgetting how Milo and Hank and Ana had felt about this room. He encountered a new thought. Perhaps he’d lived with a thousand families and left them, and when he left, forgot them all.
Even more chilling was the subsequent thought: he’d probably had this precise epiphany before, in endless kitchens.
This was exhausting. Above all else, Maggie was exhausted.
“You know,” Luz told her, stepping her into the laundry room, “I think Milo wanted to be older. Or maybe it was Hank. Or … Ana.”
He felt Maggie’s heart swell for an instant—not at his words, but at their names. He leaned on the dryer to catch her breath. “They should rethink that. This hardly seems preferable.”
He expected to feel her agreeing, confirmation that she would rather her children not grow up and face all the disappointments that colored her memories. Instead, Luz felt what he could only describe as a firm shake of Margaret’s head within her head.
No.
“Suit yourself. Let them grow up. It won’t be our problem.” Luz flipped on the light switches beside the garage entrance.
Beyond the door, the walls were reflective. The table at the center of the foil-covered room was a lonely surface. Luz dragged Maggie’s feet down the steps.
“Gosh, it’s like your mother’s mausoleum in Spring Green.” He spread Maggie’s body out on the table, let her feet dangle off the end. “Don’t pretend you weren’t thinking it. They were the living dead after Donovan left, weren’t they? When you and I go, will they care?”
Maybe, Maggie replied. Maybe not.
“So forget them, Maggie. I mean, if I can, you can. We’re going anywhere you want. You can die in a room with golden wallpaper in Rome after all. And I’ve got nothing to lose, quite literally.”
Luz chortled; Maggie’s tears transformed it into a gurgle. He sat her upright. The perfect ninety-degree angle made Maggie’s spine crack. “Stop that. Stop crying.”
They aren’t my tears, you sorry little thing.
Luz saw Milo and Hank, fast asleep, a memory of Maggie waking them up.
He blinked and found his knees sticking to the plastic. “What was that for? Enough.”
Luz put one hand on the table to pull the body back up, but down it went again.
Margaret followed up the last vision with one of her kids opening their eyes—all different ages at once, Margaret’s sons and daughter.
“Honestly, those are hardly good memories at all. They do that every day.”
Yes. They do.
Luz clutched Maggie’s ribs. A flush bloomed under them. “Fine. You want to pretend your children are angels? Is that your parting gift?”
The garage made him think of it. He dragged the memory to the surface.
“I don’t believe that. And neither do you.”
What am I going to do with all this plastic cutlery?
That was Maggie’s thought when, after forty minutes of pacing the driveway and swatting flies away from a birthday cake shaped like an anthill, she conceded that nobody was coming to Milo’s seventh-birthday party.
Half of the Eustace Elementary first graders had been invited. Mostly boys, as that was expected. Milo claimed that Antonio wouldn’t come if too many girls were there, because, Milo confessed, “I think Antonio may be sexism, too.” Maggie wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry about that.
Which was how she felt now. It was rare to have them all outside at the same time. Maggie had insisted. She hardly let Ana out of her sight these days, and hadn’t since the hospitalization. Ana complied, with the concession that she be allowed to sit in a lawn chair and not be expected to pin tails on anything.
Hank was hanging the piñata from the basketball hoop. From the satisfied expression on his face, you’d think empty card tables and untouched cake were of no concern. Maggie didn’t mind seeing him happy. She understood the cause. The piñata was a model of the Golden Gate Bridge, sculpted with care by Eustace’s finest artist.
Speak of the devil. Brendan Nesbitt came out of the house with Saran Wrap for the punch bowl. Maggie didn’t wonder what her kids saw in Brendan Nesbitt. There were times when, not without guilt, Maggie envied his parents. The day Hank had introduced her to him, she’d noticed immediately how real Hank became, breathless beside him, and wanted Brendan never to leave.
“Do you need help with anything else, Mrs. Vasquez?”
“Depends. Can you find a way to turn these one hundred sporks into an art project, Brendan?” She rattled the box at him. “You’re our only hope.”
“I think, Mrs. Vasquez, the question is not whether I could, but whether any man should.”
“Ms. Vasquez, Brendan. It’s Ms. So forget the sporks. Do you know anything about herding teachers?”
He shook his head. “Usually your species is trying to herd us instead, right?”
“Right.”
Staff from Eustace Elementary had also been invited. Maggie was far from the oldest mother, but also far from the youngest. Of course, it was hard to drag teachers anywhere in the summer.
Serves me right, I guess.
When was the last time Maggie had bothered attending any of their functions? Graduation parties, weddings, and baby showers had been neglected. Maggie often told herself she had enough on her plate.
The only things on her plate now were tortilla chips and guacamole.
“Milo, do you wanna go ahead and open some presents?”
Milo was quite the sight, statuesque as a gargoyle on a long two-by-four plank stretched across the base of the yard. He’d invented a game after Maggie had informed him that bobbing for apples was unsanitary. The rules were a little incomprehensible, but seemed to involve kids tightroping across the plank while Milo threw tiny doughnut holes at them, which they had to … catch in their mouths?
It was either genius or ridiculous or both. It was 10,000 percent Milo.
“Or maybe have some cake, Milo?”
“Sorry, Mom. I’m keeping an eye out.”
“I can keep two eyes out while you eat.” Hank always bent when he spoke to Milo to accommodate their vast height difference. “I’ll report any suspicious activity directly to you, sir.”
“Nuh-uh, Hank. This is my responsibility as the birthday boy. Bike lessons could start any minute!”
“Well. You’re the captain.” Hank hitched his smile up higher.
“Oh, come on. It’s worse if we lie.” Ana got out of her lawn chair. “Milo, are you a child? Hey, Milo? Are you a stupid little kid?”
“Ana!” Maggie hissed.
Milo stood on his bridge. “I have a high Lexile. I’m not stupid.”
“Then I’m not going to pretend you are. Milo, your birthday party started more than an hour ago. No one’s coming.”
Milo turned his back on her. “They don’t have to. I don’t care if no one comes, so long as Dad gets here soon.”
“Dad is definitely not coming. He doesn’t care about us.”
“Hey—” Hank started.
“Maybe he didn’t care about you, Ana,” Milo pondered.
The words weren’t spoken with cruelty. Milo was just stating a fact, an actual possibility. From the way Ana cringed, clearly she thought so, too. From the way Hank closed his mouth tight shut, he couldn’t deny it, either.
It was strange, really—seconds before, Margaret had been livid with her daughter. Now she found herself suddenly at the end of the yard, taking Milo by the back of his T-shirt, dragging him to the garage. Along the way his fingers caught on a plastic tablecloth and tore it free, spilling Cheetos and cake onto the blacktop.
“Sit down.” Margaret shoved Milo into a seat at the picnic table in the shade. “Sit down and open your damn presents. Be normal, please. Just this once.”
Ana vanished into the house. Hank looked completely disgusted with Maggie for half a second, before pasting on a smile. He spoke sweetly to Milo, pulling long legs over the bench. He tried to entice Milo with gifts, shaking them in search of Lego.
Brendan Nesbitt patted Maggie on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Mrs. Vasquez.”
“Jesus.” She spun on her heel. “It’s Ms.”
Maggie slammed the door to the laundry room behind her and cried.
She felt as bad as her own mother, back in the Wisconsin woods. Her mother made amazing lebkuchen at Christmas and gave great advice about summer jobs and college applications, but also had a tack on the kitchen wall from which hung a flyswatter with a masking-tape label: Child Rearer.
Who the hell was Maggie? How was she allowed to keep these kids, when she couldn’t keep herself?
That evening, Maggie couldn’t keep Milo. She came outside to apologize, and found Brendan and Hank entangled in each other.
“Where’s Milo?”
The rest was not her story.
“Tell me you didn’t wish to be anywhere else, anyone else, that day, and I’ll tell you to sit down and open your damn presents.” Luz smacked the switch on the wall. There came a screeching crunch as the garage door lifted, taking the foil with it.
Night had overtaken the cul-de-sac. “Tell me you aren’t thrilled to leave them, and I’ll call you a liar.”
They approached her car. The stars reflected on the windshield looked more like Christmas lights, tiny blinking bulbs of artificial spirit. Another memory of Maggie waking them, this time declaring: “Look, everyone! Santa came!”
All moms are liars, Luz.
“You’re completely impossible.” Luz pulled the car keys from Maggie’s pocket and reached for the door—
The keys hit the concrete. The duffel bag slipped from fingertips and plopped at Maggie’s feet. The body froze in place.
“What?” Luz could move Maggie’s mouth, but nothing else. It was inexplicable. “What are you doing, Maggie?”
Parenting, Luz.
This was nothing like occupying a young Vasquez. It wasn’t even like fighting Carmella. There was no fight. Maggie simply took command of herself as if Luz had no more weight or power than cold cream, foundation: something she wore but could wipe away.
“… how?”
Maggie reclaimed her mouth, shoved Luz back from her tongue. “I’ve taught a thousand children how to tie their shoes, how to read, how to multiply, and how to be kind. I used to lift Hank; he was heavier than you. I used to argue with Ana; she’s cleverer than you. And you can try to be alien all you want, but you’ve got nothing on Milo. This is easy, Luz.”
Luz reverted to speaking within her skull; she gave him no choice. You said we’d leave. We’ve outgrown them and we’d travel the world away from here. You said.
“Again: moms are liars.” She was walking them away from the car, toward the canyon. “Leaving isn’t good enough, Luz. You nearly threw my son off a cliff.”
Where are you taking us?
“You know, all this time I thought if I met you, I’d understand my kids. What they went through, what you did to them.” Maggie threw one leg over the canyon barrier, and then the other, and set them down on the other side. “But I’m disappointed. You’re not even an ounce of what Donovan was, and he’s pretty small himself.”
They began the descent. Perhaps it was traces of Milo’s mind in Luz, fleeing down the pit, but the departure from the stars seemed vital.
You won’t do this, Maggie.
Luz heard voices cry out as they sank below the horizon, but Maggie did not stop. Even when the scuffing of shoes and the clumsy, heavy pounding of feet grew louder, the cries of “Stop!” became shrieks, the plummet continued.
Ending your life won’t end mine. It won’t!
“You don’t sound certain. And I know you’re curious. Maybe I am, too.”
Maggie didn’t stop until they’d reached the observation deck. She pressed her body against the polished railing.
“Ana was right about the view,” she murmured. “It’s beautiful.”
Beauty means nothing to me. Try as Luz might, Maggie’s mind was unfathomable. There was no dissuading this. It won’t be my loss.
Maggie ran a palm along the railing and received not a single splinter. She put a foot on the lowest rung of the railing. “You’re wrong, Luz.”
Luz heard panting behind them, but couldn’t turn Maggie’s head. He heard the boards creak as bodies put weight on the platform.
Funny how Luz could remember the rawness of hands and the perspiration on brows that didn’t belong to him. He could just remember building this platform, and knew what it meant to Maggie.
But really Luz knew he’d had no part in it.
Maggie turned around. Luz wasn’t at all shocked to see Hank, Ana, and Milo standing on the platform, wearing matching facial expressions. Luz wasn’t at all shocked to see the company they’d brought, scattered up the slope behind them, pausing to listen. A handful of high schoolers, and some adults, and the little girl with pigtails.
None of the kids said a word. They moved closer, bloodstained and unified. Luz felt a twinge in Maggie’s chest.
Stop that. I don’t want to feel that.
“Get out of her,” Hank growled.
“It’s me, Hank. It’s Mom.”
She signed words to prove it. Milo’s eyes blew up. He started crying. Another twinge; Luz shriveled in his nothingness. Maggie refused to let him retreat from it.
“Go back up to the house.” Maggie’s voice quivered. “I’m taking care of this.”
“Mom,” Ana said, “I know what you’re thinking about doing. Don’t. The heroic sacrifice is one of the worst movie tropes! Remember me in the hospital. Remember how it didn’t make anything better.”
“Ana, it isn’t like that. I’m just … I’m trying to be a good mother.”
“You are a good mother, Mom.” Hank’s bloodied fists were lowered, trembling. “You don’t have to die to prove it. Just be here, like always. Okay?”
“Mom,” Milo sobbed. “Please stay.”
Luz could feel Maggie’s heart swelling. He wanted to carve it out, to make it go away. Feeling all that she felt now: this was pain incomprehensible.
Maggie staggered; Luz took her back.
“And what about me?” Luz asked. He tried smirking, but found Margaret’s face curiously limp. “Do you even realize it? How loving you is a nightmare? God. If you could feel what your mother does, you’d be worse than crying. You’d be jumping off this deck, too.”
They didn’t back away, but their posture changed. Cold, clear rejection. Milo wiped his eyes on his sleeve and took Ana’s hand. Ana took Hank’s.
“It’s downright sickening, how much you’re all loved. You’re spoiled with it. Like that time Hank and Milo—you two, yes—ate all your Halloween candy in one sitting. Ruined your dinner. Do you remember?”
Luz’s borrowed voice broke. “Because I’m forgetting.”
As one, they came closer.
“I’m starting to forget it all.” He stepped down to the deck. “Each of you is such a mess of memories, such a constellation of disasters. I can’t keep you together. I can’t keep you straight. You are chaotic. Who would choose you?”
“You did, Luz.” How tall Hank had grown, inside and out. How big he was in the ways that mattered. “You chose us.”
“Madness, isn’t it? Next time I’ll know better. ‘Luz, if you must have bodies, do pick some that aren’t fucking wrecks.’ You ever heard your mother swear like this? She does all the time when you’re not around. And oh, man. The secrets she keeps! I could tell you, if you want. Just let me stay?”
“Enough, Luz.” How tall Ana stood, how firmly she held herself. The heart swelled again. Luz hissed; this was beyond untenable.
He shook Maggie’s head. “You made me this thing that I am. You gave me this damn heart but did not teach me what it meant.” He punched Margaret’s chest. “Not this borrowed one. You gave me my own with no way to contain or comprehend it. How cruel are human beings?”
Milo stepped forward, alone. Margaret showed Luz what she saw—a boy, once mute, speaking clearly: “That’s because we kind of loved you, Luz. But you have to go away. Okay?”
“You loved me?” Luz beamed wider than Margaret’s head. He leaned back against the fence, eyes aimed skyward once more. He released a laugh that was his and no one else’s. “You perfect, perfect pieces. Don’t you realize? That means you love yourselves.” Luz tipped Maggie’s head farther back. “The pointlessness revolts me. So go ahead. Have it.
“I’ll take the abyss. It is infinitely more real to me.”
Before he became nothing, before he beaded through her pores and evaporated like glittering sweat and let her children catch her, Luz realized:
Darkness looked exactly the same through these eyes as it had through any others.