Fitting Ends by Dan Chaon Page B

to run. The grass in the yard looked dense and wild, jungle green, and the branches of trees suddenly seemed to be snatching the birds from the air, rather than the birds alighting on the branches. She shivered and hurried inside.
    Her grandmother and mother were no longer in the kitchen. She called out nervously, walking through the living room, down the hallway, peeking in the doors. She found them in the grandmother’s bedroom. They were sitting on the grandmother’s big double bed and didn’t look up when Arlinda came to the doorway. They were sorting through a drawerful of things dumped on the quilt between them. They touched letters, gently as feathers they smoothed their fingers across the faded handwriting. Her mother held up a dull-golden earring, her eyes closing as if she were falling into a dream, and whispered “Oh!” as if it were a butterfly.
    But when Arlinda approached them, the spell was broken. She picked up the earring and saw that the gold paint was cracked and peeling off, like the shell on a boiled egg. “What is this?” Arlinda asked, and her mother just shrugged.
    â€œOld junk,” she said.
    â€œWhat’s this?” Arlinda asked, lifting a letter.
    â€œOh, why don’t you go play,” her mother said, her voice slurred and tired.
    And so Arlinda went back to the kitchen and turned on the TV. All that was on was the news, and she quickly fell asleep.
    When she awakened, it was dark outside, and the phone was ringing. The sound of the phone had reached into her dreams—at first just a distant echo, but then growing into an alarm that made the dream people freeze, looking into the air above them as if something were swooping from the sky.
    The phone kept ringing, and when she went into the living room, her grandmother and mother were both asleep. Arlinda picked the phone up herself. “Hello?” she said.
    â€œArlinda?” her father’s voice said. He sounded far away, his voice just a tiny, angry hiss of static.
    â€œHi, Daddy,” she said.
    â€œIs your mother there?” He spoke in his lowest voice, as if he were going to spank her. She set the phone down quickly and went to the couch where her mother was sleeping. Arlinda shook her, and she opened her mouth as slowly as a fish, lifting her head, her eyes squeezed shut. “What the hell do you want now?” her mother slurred, as if her tongue was hard to move.
    â€œDaddy called,” Arlinda said, and backed away.
    Her mother sat up suddenly. She was hunched, breathing hard, looking as sluggish and furious as the mole the dogs had caught in the garden and pulled into daylight, where it hissed and bared its teeth, circling around and around. “Tell him I’m not here,” her mother said, and Arlinda went hesitantly back to the phone.
    â€œMommy’s not here,” she told her father.
    â€œArlinda Sue!” her father barked. “I’m not fooling around. Now, you tell your mother to get on the phone right now. I’ve been calling everywhere, and I’m very worried and very angry.”
    â€œShe’s not here,” Arlinda said again, dully. Her throat felt like it was closing up. She watched as her mother rose like something ancient and heavy from the couch. She stumbled down the hallway toward the grandmother’s room, where the other phone was hooked up.
    â€œArlinda,” her father said, low and menacing, “you can tell your mother that if she doesn’t come to the phone right now, I’m going to drive out there myself. Tell her that.” Arlinda heard the click as her mother picked up the phone in the other room. “Has your mother been taking pills, Arlinda?” her father asked. Arlinda could hear her mother breathing on the other line, and she said nothing, knowing her mother was there, waiting, hidden. Did her father know she was there?
    â€œI asked you a question, Arlinda,” her father insisted.