“Tell Laura I Love Her,” but it didn’t play. WKNG was stuck on
love songs, “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin” and “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me” and “Stand By Your Man.” We pulled into the driveway,
and Mrs. Clapp turned the engine off, then got out and began to fuss with the packages in the trunk. My sisters were already
headed inside and I knew I should be too, but I didn’t want to move. The sad songs were out there, flying through the air
toward the radios in cars all over the world and toward me, if I could just sit still and wait for them, bent like an antenna.
Reaching. Pining.
W E LEFT THE C LAPPS the way all of our leaving happened abruptly and without discussion. This time our social worker came to school to pick us
up. A teacher’s aide brought us out to her car, which was parked and purring in the circle drive marked FOR BUSES ONLY . Our clothes were in bags, as were a few of the toys we’d gotten for Christmas a few months before. Mrs. Clapp didn’t let
us keep anything the first time we left, so I was surprised to find my autograph dog with the permanent marker snapped to
its collar and the watch with Minnie and Mickey Mouse ticking up and down on a seesaw with the seconds. The dog was my favorite
toy and doubly special because Olivia had signed it with eyes in the O and a tongue hanging crazily. Our new school would
be Palo Verde Elementary on the far west side of Fresno: I wouldn’t see Olivia again.
The first time I’d worn my Mickey Mouse watch was Christmas Eve. As my sisters and I watched “Frosty the Snowman,” I lay on
my side, supporting my head with my hand. Later, when we got ready for bed, I’d taken my watch off and saw deep, red slashes
on my wrist. I thought it strange that impressions could be left and read this way, like a brand or a kind of tattoo. The
watch had been on my wrist for an hour, only an hour. How long would it take for the marks to go away? How long would other
things, like sweaty fingers or the press of a mouth, have to be held to a body to leave Α mark that would take? I think that’s
why I decided to tell Mrs. Clapp what her husband was doing — because I thought she knew anyway. She knew because she could
read the signs on me and was mad at me for not telling.
The business with Mr. Clapp began soon after we came to them, when I was five, continued for the months before we went to
live with Dad and Donna, and picked right up again when that fell apart. One night, after a breakfast-dinner of French toast
and sausage links and jiggly fried eggs that I couldn’t bring myself to even look at, I walked by Mr. Clapp in the living
room, reading his paper as always.
“Hey, Paula,” he said, like the song, “why don’t you come sit with me?”
I nodded okay and clambered up into his chair. His gray slacks felt as rough as a cat’s tongue and familiar.
Had this happened before?
I couldn’t remember. Maybe I had just looked at the fabric so many times, at his disembodied legs under the
Fresno Bee.
He scooted me up against him, moving the paper around in front of my body like a screen, and seemed to keep reading, though
I was in the way of the words. He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t say anything. I’m not certain we breathed. My sisters
were in the playroom hunched over a half-finished puzzle of Big Ben, Mrs. Clapp spooned leftovers into Tupperware not fifteen
feet away in the kitchen, but I couldn’t see them. They couldn’t see us, or didn’t. We were alone in the chair, the house
pushing back and away to leave us in our bubble.
The world can be this small.
I thought. Mr. Clapp’s forehead loomed like the surface of Α planet, his wristwatch ticked like a bird’s heart, and there
was no other sound but the rub of pages as he turned them.
“Go on now,” Mr. Clapp said finally. He helped me off his lap but kept one of my hands, pressing it to his groin hard, like
he wanted it to hurt. Then
love songs, “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin” and “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me” and “Stand By Your Man.” We pulled into the driveway,
and Mrs. Clapp turned the engine off, then got out and began to fuss with the packages in the trunk. My sisters were already
headed inside and I knew I should be too, but I didn’t want to move. The sad songs were out there, flying through the air
toward the radios in cars all over the world and toward me, if I could just sit still and wait for them, bent like an antenna.
Reaching. Pining.
W E LEFT THE C LAPPS the way all of our leaving happened abruptly and without discussion. This time our social worker came to school to pick us
up. A teacher’s aide brought us out to her car, which was parked and purring in the circle drive marked FOR BUSES ONLY . Our clothes were in bags, as were a few of the toys we’d gotten for Christmas a few months before. Mrs. Clapp didn’t let
us keep anything the first time we left, so I was surprised to find my autograph dog with the permanent marker snapped to
its collar and the watch with Minnie and Mickey Mouse ticking up and down on a seesaw with the seconds. The dog was my favorite
toy and doubly special because Olivia had signed it with eyes in the O and a tongue hanging crazily. Our new school would
be Palo Verde Elementary on the far west side of Fresno: I wouldn’t see Olivia again.
The first time I’d worn my Mickey Mouse watch was Christmas Eve. As my sisters and I watched “Frosty the Snowman,” I lay on
my side, supporting my head with my hand. Later, when we got ready for bed, I’d taken my watch off and saw deep, red slashes
on my wrist. I thought it strange that impressions could be left and read this way, like a brand or a kind of tattoo. The
watch had been on my wrist for an hour, only an hour. How long would it take for the marks to go away? How long would other
things, like sweaty fingers or the press of a mouth, have to be held to a body to leave Α mark that would take? I think that’s
why I decided to tell Mrs. Clapp what her husband was doing — because I thought she knew anyway. She knew because she could
read the signs on me and was mad at me for not telling.
The business with Mr. Clapp began soon after we came to them, when I was five, continued for the months before we went to
live with Dad and Donna, and picked right up again when that fell apart. One night, after a breakfast-dinner of French toast
and sausage links and jiggly fried eggs that I couldn’t bring myself to even look at, I walked by Mr. Clapp in the living
room, reading his paper as always.
“Hey, Paula,” he said, like the song, “why don’t you come sit with me?”
I nodded okay and clambered up into his chair. His gray slacks felt as rough as a cat’s tongue and familiar.
Had this happened before?
I couldn’t remember. Maybe I had just looked at the fabric so many times, at his disembodied legs under the
Fresno Bee.
He scooted me up against him, moving the paper around in front of my body like a screen, and seemed to keep reading, though
I was in the way of the words. He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t say anything. I’m not certain we breathed. My sisters
were in the playroom hunched over a half-finished puzzle of Big Ben, Mrs. Clapp spooned leftovers into Tupperware not fifteen
feet away in the kitchen, but I couldn’t see them. They couldn’t see us, or didn’t. We were alone in the chair, the house
pushing back and away to leave us in our bubble.
The world can be this small.
I thought. Mr. Clapp’s forehead loomed like the surface of Α planet, his wristwatch ticked like a bird’s heart, and there
was no other sound but the rub of pages as he turned them.
“Go on now,” Mr. Clapp said finally. He helped me off his lap but kept one of my hands, pressing it to his groin hard, like
he wanted it to hurt. Then
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