Six Going on Seven, Chapter 3 ~ Ball and Chain

The cart Liseli grabbed had a squeaky wheel that stuck and skidded around corners.  She didn’t know why, but she always ended up with the bad carts.  Maybe they were all bad.

Eric wanted to walk, not sit strapped in the front of the cart, and Marcus wanted to ride, not walk.  That would be perfect if Marcus wasn’t big for a five-year-old, too big for the cart, and if Eric wasn’t so hard to keep from disaster.  Whenever she’d let him walk beside her in the past he’d knocked things off the lower shelves or fallen and bruised himself.  It was hard enough to keep Marcus from grabbing things and opening packages, much less have to keep a tight grip on Eric.  So she buckled him into the cart and ignored his crying and flailing as best she could, pretending she didn’t see the other shoppers looking at her as if wondering why she couldn’t just let the poor child nap at home.

She couldn’t let the poor child nap at home, because the poor child’s father had his friends over in the garage, again.  Liseli forced the cart around the end of aisle one, giving the Hostess snacks a wide berth and denying Marcus’s request for a twenty year old Ding Dong.  She unfolded her grocery list and snatched the envelope full of coupons away from Eric.  He thought coupons were confetti.  She hated coupons.  She hated clipping them from the paper and she hated choosing what food to buy based on what the best deals were.

Elly was gone.  She’d trailed after Liseli for about ten minutes before wandering away.  Whenever Marcus tried to wander Liseli would grab him by the back of his collar, but she hadn’t even noticed Elly in the act of slipping away.  Elly was good at the quiet getaway.  That child . . . .  Liseli shook her head, pulling a jug of grape juice off the shelf.  That child liked roaming stores alone.  It was unsafe to let her, Liseli knew, but what could she do?  Of all the books on child rearing none were titled, “How to Raise Elly Markson” and of all the advice she got from friends and (ha!) her mother, no technique seemed possible when it came to Elly.  Elly was not to be raised.  How did that song from “The Sound of Music” go?

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?  How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?  How, indeed.

When Russ was around she didn’t have to worry about Elly moseying off down aisles or through clothing racks by herself.  If Russ could be dragged on an outing, Elly stuck to him like glue, pulling him around with her, making him see the wonder in what she saw . . . and buy her the things that she wanted.

Elly always turned up unscathed.  That didn’t stop Liseli from worrying.  Elly didn’t get lost or hurt, but she just didn’t understand about people out there who would hurt her if they could.  The thought made Liseli grip the cart handle take a deep breath to steady herself.  If anyone . . . anyone, touched her children, they would die.  Not gently.

“Do you want chunky peanut butter or creamy?” she asked her sons, glad they couldn’t read the jars to see the kind with candy bar flavors swirled through the butter.

“I hate peanut butter,” Eric said sulkily, leaning against his restraints.

“I have a coupon,” Liseli sighed, more to herself than to him.  I have a coupon.  Stop the presses.  “Marcus?  Marc, put that back, I’m not buying jelly today.”  Because I don’t have a coupon.

Marcus was trying to tuck a glass jar of raspberry jelly under his elastic waistband, and Liseli pulled it away from him.  “Stop putting things in your pants,” she said, glancing around to make sure no one else was in the aisle before redepositing the jar on the shelf.  “Come on.”  She pulled him away from the tempting array of jellies and jams and chose the creamy kind of peanut butter before moving on.  Choosy moms choose Jiff, she thought, darkly.

Liseli stifled a yawn, trying to read her own handwriting, wondering why she couldn’t remember what her own abbreviations meant until she paused to decipher them.  Just tired.  She was getting sick of the overtime that was expected at the office, whether or not you had errands to run and a family at home to tend to.  The office.  She’d never wanted to work in an office; she hadn’t gone through college and gotten an English degree to do administrative work at an office.  But she had taken the job she could find, and that was it.

Russ had observed, once, that she could probably find lots to complain about at any job she found.  That was his way of saying he didn’t care to hear about her bitching about her workday.  Well enough.  She kept it to herself, after that.  It wasn’t as if she enjoyed reliving work hours, anyway.  When she got home there were children to take care of and chores to do, meals to prepare and dishes to clean, before she could have any time to do what she wanted to.  There had been a time she thought she’d be a writer.  But there was hardly any time for that anymore, and when there was, she was too tired to think.  The computer she wrote at was in the bedroom, where Russ wanted to be sleeping at night — in the dark and the quiet, he had hinted not so subtly.  Fine then.

Tuna fish.  Eric hated tuna fish, too, but she had a coupon.  Buy one can get the other at half price.  Oh.  Boy.

She tried to shake herself out of those thoughts.  Margaret had a little quote pinned above her desk; “Happiness is not a state of being, Happiness is a state of mind,” and Margaret seemed able to live by that.  She was always upbeat, talkative, chipper.  Liseli had never heard a hint from her that she and Dave ever had any major disputes.  Margaret.  What did Margaret know?  It was easy for her to be content, easy for her to get along with her husband.  Easy for her to claim that all Liseli had to do to have the same happiness was come to her wonderful little church and meet all her wonderful, happy, content friends.  It was easy for Margaret.  Margaret had never let her child die.  Margaret had never killed anyone.  Margaret was not a millstone around her husband’s neck.

Stop it.  Liseli forced her thoughts back to the food on the shelves.  She’d started to outwalk Marcus and she stopped, letting him catch up.  He had a package of Fig Newtons in his hands, and she sighed.  No one in the house liked Fig Newtons, except maybe Muttface.  The other times Marcus had begged her to buy them, he’d ended up not eating more than one bite.  He seemed to forget that he didn’t like them until she’d wasted money on them.

On a regular Monday she’d be able to go shopping in peace.  Russ could look after the children at home.  But today he’d been waiting impatiently for her to get off of work, pick up Elly from school, and get home so he could hand the boys off to her.  He and the band had to prepare for the massively important gig Friday night.  Naturally.  She hadn’t said a word about it, loading the kids into the car and leaving for the store while the band hooked up their equipment.

She was going to make taco salad tonight, if she ever got home from the store.  It was something Russ always said he liked.  A favorite. She didn’t know why she was making him his favorite after the way he’d been behaving, but . . . no, she knew why.  No one was going to accuse her of being spiteful about this.  She threw the packet of taco seasoning into the cart.  His words from the day before still smarted and she fought back a wince. I’m only good at two fucking things in my life and I’ve already given one of them up for you.

They hadn’t really talked since the argument.  They’d said the rote things needed to pretend to the children that they weren’t “not talking,” but nothing more.  They’d slept in the same bed but kept pointedly to their own sides, except when late in the night Russ rolled over and draped his arm across her in a sleeping habit.  She had never banished him to the couch, in the ten years they’d been sharing a bed.  She’d threatened to, but never had.  Liseli had trouble sleeping alone.

Still, she marveled at how good they were at being together and being apart at the same time.  Together and alone.

Eric had worn himself out, and fallen asleep in the cart.  His head lolled in a way that looked uncomfortable, but she didn’t try to move him.  She just steered the cart more carefully, refraining from rattling it when the wheels stuck.

Would you get over this fucking victim complex and deal with it?

I wouldn’t mind so much, Russ, if you tried thinking through your so-called plans.  I have nothing against bands, they’re fine.  But Jake?  I’m sorry, brother or no, he’s not my idea of a good bandmate.  He’s got a pregnant fifteen year old girlfriend, for God’s sake!  Noah, okay Noah has ambition and maybe he’d do good on Jeopardy, but he’s a dreamer, impulsive, doesn’t think things through.  Wes and Sam have the collective personality and intelligence of a turnip.  How far do you think you’re going to get with these guys?  You’re the only one with real talent in the whole bunch; why do you throw it away on them?  Why?

Russ had used to play the guitar for her.  He didn’t remember those times she asked him to play for her, but she did.  She still remembered how the first time she’d seen him with a guitar he’d been playing it for Eliasha Erykumyn, that poor dead girl . . . .  But she hadn’t been poor or dead then, and Liseli had found him playing the guitar for her.  After that he didn’t play it for Liseli until she’d asked him to, until she’d told him that she liked to hear him play.

Not that he remembered.  Not that he ever played for her anymore.  Now he rarely even played his acoustic guitar, instead he banged out Noah’s kind of rock on his electric guitar.  Now he didn’t play it the way she liked.  The way Jake and the rest liked it was obviously more important.

Liseli blinked, realizing that she was wandering up and down the aisles without picking anything out.  She turned around and went back, gripping her list and concentrating on the task at hand.  It was getting late.  If she was to get home and make dinner in time to eat she’d have to hurry up, and stop letting her mind wander.  Arguing with Russ was pointless when he wasn’t around.  It was pointless when he was.

Elly stood by the fishtanks in the meat section, her hands on the glass as she stared into the eyes of a listless crab.  Liseli said her name and she turned her head, giving her mother a look so Russ-like that Liseli didn’t say anything more.  It was his what’s your problem now? look.  Annoyed Russ.  Annoyed Elly.  They were so alike.  “Come on, I want you to stay with me,” she found her voice again.  “And don’t touch the fishtank.”

Elly slid her hands away from the glass and reluctantly rejoined her mother.  Liseli tried to think of something cheering to say, and heard herself suggest, “I need you to help pick out the cereal.  Okay?”

Elly shrugged, looking away.  She’d been silent and surly all day, or at least, since Liseli had picked her up from school.  Liseli couldn’t understand why; she’d asked her questions all the way home and it didn’t seem that Elly had had a bad day at school.  But all her answers were monosyllabic and eye contact was denied.

In the cereal aisle, Elly moved to all the boxes Liseli usually forbade, the candy-and-cookies-in-a-bowl brands that made Liseli sick just thinking about.  But Liseli let her put them in the cart, saying nothing every time Elly paused to glance at her before sliding each box in over the edge.  Marcus took the opportunity to add his own disgusting choices to the mix, but Liseli decided that she just didn’t have the energy to dispute them, today.

When they pulled into the driveway things were suspiciously quiet.  Elly ran to the garage as soon as she could get out, but emerged from the side door an instant later, looking crestfallen.  So the band had dispersed already.  Good.

Liseli carried the groggy Eric inside, and found the house empty and quiet.  The only light on was the one in the range above the stove, and taped to the range was a note.

I’m going out with the guys tonight, I’ll get dinner with them.  Be back later.

With Eric dozing on her shoulder she turned away.  Of course he would choose tonight to take off and hang out with the guys.  Of course.  She’d gone shopping, brought back ingredients for his favorite dinner, and he wasn’t even there.

She put Eric in his bed, and he complained that he wasn’t tired even as he succumbed to the temptation of his stuffed dinosaur and T-Rex patterned blankie.  “Stay here for fifteen minutes at least, okay?” she said, running a hand through his black curls and kissing his forehead.  Eric, her tottering disaster, still with the scab from his injury the day before.  She imagined Russ had been like that, as a boy.

She shut the door quietly behind her, then headed out to unload the car.  She tried to ignore the shaking in her hands.  She would not get upset about this.  She hadn’t told him to make sure he was around for dinner, and it was just dinner, she would not get upset.

“Guys, help me bring the groceries in,” she said to Elly and Marcus, who had already found their way over to the television.  “Come on, there’s nothing on tonight, I checked the paper.”

She tried to ignore the look Elly gave her.  Some boy she liked must have been teasing her today, Liseli thought.  Or something like that.  Liseli could barely remember first grade, but it was fraught with that sort of playground drama and that was just probably it.  “Guys, come on.  I don’t want the freezer stuff to melt,” she said from the door.  “Turn the TV off.”

“Where’s dad?” asked Marcus.

“He went out with the guys.”  Liseli was happy it came out so nonchalant.  “So you’ll have to use your big muscles and help me lug in the bags, okay?”

That got Marcus up, but Elly stared at the floor as if she hadn’t heard.

“Eliasha.”

She looked up.  “I don’t have big muscles.”

“If you want dinner, move.”  Liseli snapped her fingers impatiently, then turned and went outside.  She wasn’t going to stand there arguing with a six year old.

It seemed pointless to make the taco salad, now.  Liseli didn’t realize it until all the groceries were in and put away and it was time to start making dinner.  She stood with the pan for the meat poised over the burner, and stared at the note.  It was pointless to make a whole meal when Russ wasn’t even coming home for leftovers.  She reached up and tore the note off, glancing toward the living room where Elly and Marcus had set up a board game.  Checkers.  Most five and six year olds didn’t play Checkers, but they weren’t really playing Checkers.  It was something Russ had taught them, something he’d learned somewhere far away, but it worked with a regular Checkers set.  Liseli hadn’t wanted to learn what it was.  She didn’t know why, but she just didn’t want to.

She turned around, crumpling the note in her hand, tossing it into the garbage under the sink.  Then she got out the tuna and mayonnaise and started to make tunafish sandwiches.  For the kids.  She wasn’t really hungry.  Not anymore.

When she woke up Eric and called the other two into the kitchen, Elly walked in slowly and stood looking at the sandwiches, baby carrots, and sugar snap peas set out on three plates.  Marcus hopped into his chair and dove in, ignoring the vegetables in favor of the sandwich.  Liseli helped Eric up onto his phone books.  “Sit down, Elly.”  She nodded over toward Elly’s place.

“Why aren’t you eating?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Liseli tried not to feel Elly’s eyes boring through her.  Those were Russ’s eyes, Russ’s disapproving stare.  Why aren’t you eating?  I think you should eat.  “Well,” Elly said, “I guess I’m not hungry, either.”

“Elly, eat.”  Liseli’s patience was all but gone.

“I—”

She snapped her fingers again.  “I want you in that chair and eating now.”

Elly pulled her chair out and sat down, then slowly picked up a carrot and very deliberately bit down.  Her eyes never left Liseli’s face.  But she hadn’t mastered it the way Russ had.  Liseli could still refuse Elly’s disapproving stare.