“Shoes off,” Rose said.
Hazel peeled off her shoes without untying them first, something Rose hated her to do. It stretched the shoes, and who knew when they would find another pair? But Rose held her tongue. She had decided to be less of a nag. Hazel didn’t pay attention to nagging, anyway, so they might as well have a little peace.
They put their bags down. Layers of tarp covered the dirt floor of the hut, with flattened cardboard boxes spread over the tarps. On top of the cardboard were pieces of carpet taken from a Dumpster.
“It doesn’t look like he stole anything,” Rose said.
“He just stunk up the place,” said her daughter.
“The smell will go away.”
Hazel had a bed, a single mattress up on some boards and milk crates. The mattress came from the trash pile outside someone’s house on garbage pick-up day. Rose wrapped it in plastic garbage bags before she allowed Hazel to sleep on it.
Rose slept on the floor, on a mattress made from extra pieces of carpet. Their blankets came from bags left on the front step of the Salvation Army in the middle of the night.
Hazel flopped down on her bed and pulled the blankets up over her head.
“You’re not going to help me unpack?” Rose asked.
Hazel huffed and got up off the bed.
“I’m not happy with your attitude lately,” Rose said. “You used to help without complaining so much.”
Hazel didn’t answer. She bent low over her sack and started pulling things out. Her bed was soon loaded with books, sweaters, socks, and packages of food.
“You want mice in your bed?”
Hazel took the food and put it on the piece of particle board they used as a table. The square of board, peeling at the corners, was propped up on bricks and covered with a piece of red cloth. A jar usually held wild flowers, but Rose noticed they hadn’t picked new ones in a while. The jar now held just stems and dead leaves. The flowers had died, and neither mother nor daughter had bothered to replace them.
This is not good, Rose thought. I have to try harder. I can’t let us get sloppy. This may be a shack, but it is still our home.
Hazel still wasn’t talking. Rose let her be quiet. Silence was the only way they had any privacy. For four months, neither had been out of the other’s sight. Rose hated for Hazel to be more than an arm’s length away, so she could always grab her.
The food haul was good. Rose built up a tiny fire, just outside the hut, and cooked all five eggs together, scrambling them without oil or butter. She cut up two of the less-battered oranges and then brought all the food back into the shack.
“Wash your hands,” she said to Hazel.
Hazel was back on her bed, thumbing through the books she’d found.
“While it’s hot,” said Rose.
Hazel left the books and squirted hand sanitizer into the palms of her hands. Rose did the same, and they sat on cushions in front of the low table.
They ate directly from the pan. Rose let Hazel eat most of the eggs.
At least she’s eating, Rose thought. She’s safe and she’s eating.
Rose ate the eggs that Hazel didn’t want, and she finished the orange pieces that Hazel was too full to eat.
It was usually Hazel’s job to clean up, but Rose did not trust her daughter’s new moody attitude. She did the cleaning herself. She took the food scraps out into the bush and covered them with dirt. Then she went to the river’s edge with the frying pan.
She was careful not to step on the little toy village Hazel had set up among the tree roots and rocks. Little McDonald’s toys from the Salvation Army, Disney figurines, tiny Care Bears, and cars were arranged around houses made of twigs and garbage. Hazel had even built a little marina, with tiny hand-made boats she could sail.
Rose squatted down and scrubbed the pan in the river.
The distant sounds of the busy city waking up drifted down to Rose’s ears. What was it the nuns used to say? Be in the world but not of the world. Rose was in the city, the city she’d lived in all her thirty-one years, but she was no longer a part of it. The quiet around her was an unexpected blessing of their new life.
“The water’s dirty,” Hazel said.
Rose jumped at the sound and got to her feet. Hazel was watching her.
“The heat from the fire kills any germs,” Rose told her.
“How do you know?”
“What?”
“You say that like you know. How do you know? Did you do a germ test? In school, in science class, we did experiments to prove something. Did you do that?”
“Yes,” Rose lied. “At university.”
“You studied history at university.”
“There was a required science course. Heat from fire destroys germs from water.”
“All the germs?”
“Yes. All the germs.”
Rose did not like the look on Hazel’s face. It was not defiance, or anger, or even sadness. Rose could not identify the look, but she did not like it.
She shook the water out of the pan and headed back to the shack. “Let’s get some sleep,” she said.
“I’m not tired.”
“Well, I am.”
Rose held her breath until she heard Hazel fall into step behind her.
At least she’s still obeying, Rose thought.
Their outdoor latrine was a hole in the ground, surrounded by boards to step on. An old shower curtain hung from the trees provided some privacy. They’d used the washroom in the donut shop before heading back to the shack, so they didn’t need to use their latrine now.
Hazel’s pillow was near a window. She picked up one of her new books and turned her back to her mother.
Rose piled up the carpet pieces and got her blankets out of the garbage bag that kept out the damp. She made up her bed. Before crawling into it, she got the long piece of string from the hook. She looped one end around her ankle then took hold of Hazel’s foot.
Hazel kicked her away.
Rose took hold of her foot again.
Hazel kicked again and snorted out a whine.
“Enough!” said Rose.
Hazel finally allowed the string to be tied around her ankle.
There. They were joined together.
No one could steal her daughter without her knowing.
Rose crawled into her blankets. The floor still stank of the intruder, but she could ignore that. She closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn’t have a nightmare.