Chapter 13

Before

It has always been like this for me, me with my eye for details. I see one thing, but I miss another. I watch with care yet am somehow unaware of what others notice with relative ease.

In my mind’s eye, I’m a child again, holding a report card that rates my social behaviors as extremely poor and that officially declares me a failure, and orders me to repeat my grade next year. I’ve been working alongside my gran at the mansion for nearly two weeks, and with each day that passes, I gain confidence in my abilities. But now, as I hold that report in my hands, my self-esteem evaporates in an instant.

I can’t even look at Gran. My cheeks burn red from shame. I want to rip the paper in a million pieces, light it on fire, and reduce it to ash. But a part of me is curious, too—curious about how I’m different from my peers.

“Gran, what’s it like to understand all social behaviors?” I ask.

She laughs. “Oh, Molly. No one, least of all me, understands all of them. Social interactions are complex. The more practice you get relating to others, the more you’ll see how everything fits together.”

“Explain,” I say.

Gran pauses to consider. “Sometimes it’s what you can’t see that gives something its shape and meaning,” she says. “You’ll suddenly be aware of what’s never said out loud, and yet you’ll know it’s an essential part of the equation—the missing x—even if it’s invisible, even if it’s not actually there.”

I try with all my might to make sense of what she’s saying, but I can’t. If something is missing, it’s not there. If it’s not there, there’s nothing to see. I decide in that moment that it’s hopeless, that I’m hopeless. I will never learn.

Gran crouches to meet me at eye level. “Don’t take this report card to heart, Molly. You’re not a failure. If anything is a failure, it’s the system. This is just a silly piece of paper that refuses to quantify your strengths.”

“Strengths?” I repeat.

“Yes. Strengths. You have plenty of them. You may miss certain niceties from time to time, but your heart and soul are in the right place.”

My heart is on my left side. I know it because I can feel it when I place my hand on my chest, and according to my research at the library, I am anatomically correct. As for my soul, I don’t know where it is. Maybe it’s like the mysterious x in Gran’s equation, something with a shape that’s only revealed by what’s around it.

“Since you’ve brought up social abilities,” Gran says, “I keep meaning to mention that you don’t need to say ‘Yes, madam’ quite so much in Mrs. Grimthorpe’s presence, or in anyone’s presence for that matter. It’s fine to show respect, but when you overdo it, people might think you’re obsequious.”

“O-B-S-E-Q-U-I-O-U-S. Meaning: overly obedient.”

“Yes, and servile. Someone lacking self-respect. And while you’re at it, when you want to know the meaning of words, you don’t have to spell them out. I love your spelling bees, but not everyone does. Maybe that’s something you can also do more sparingly?”

Gran approaches me then, and folds me into a hug, kissing the top of my head. “And Molly, just remember: no matter what, I’ll always be proud of you. You have just as much right as anyone to carry your head high.”

“Chin up, Buttercup,” I say as I look up at Gran.

“That’s my girl,” she replies. “Molly, I’m going to run downstairs to collect the laundry. I’ll fold it up and be back before you can say Jiminy Cricket.”

She has three loads to fold today, and even if she had only one, for the time it would take her to fold everything, I could probably say Jiminy Cricket a thousand times. But I know Gran is using an expression. She doesn’t intend it literally—meaning: precisely, strictly, exactly.

She opens the front door to leave, but then turns back. “If Mr. Rosso drops by, please give him the envelope I left on the kitchen table. And ask for the receipt, mind you. It’s that time of the month again,” she says with a weary look.

I know exactly what she means by “that time of the month.” It means the first day of the month, which is when our rent is due. Mr. Rosso, with his big, bulbous nose and his matching belly, will be here any minute, pounding on the door, demanding what’s his.

“Why is he called a landlord?” I ask my gran. “He does not behave like a lord.”

“Doesn’t he?” Gran replies. “He demands money for shoddy accommodations, expects deference for a lack of services, and covets property as if the entire world belongs to him. But give him the rent anyhow. After all, we want the lights to stay on. So be polite.”

“I always am.”

“Yes, you are,” Gran says. She smiles and walks out the door, locking it behind her. I can hear her humming down the hallway all the way to the stairs.

Once she’s gone, I crumple my report card into a satisfying ball and throw it in the kitchen garbage can.

It isn’t long before I hear a knock on our door. “Coming!” I say as I grab a kitchen chair and make my way to the entrance. Gran always makes me look through the fish-eye peephole before I open sesame, so I position the chair, climb up, and peer out.

It’s not Mr. Rosso. It’s a young lady I don’t recognize with jet-black hair and skittish eyes.

“Good day!” I call through the door. “Might I ask—who are you?”

“I’ll tell you my name if you tell me yours,” the young lady says from the other side of the door.

I pause to think about this, never taking my eye from the peephole.

“Gran says I’m not to tell my name to strangers. I’m also not supposed to open the door to them.”

The woman shifts her weight from foot to foot as though she urgently needs the washroom. “I’m not a stranger,” she says. “Your gran knows me well. And I know you. Her name is Flora, and your name is Molly. I’ve been here before, you know. You just don’t remember because you were knee-high to a grasshopper, as your gran used to say.”

This sounds reassuring, but I’ve read Ali Baba, so I know better than to open doors before sesame is said. “Prove that you’ve been here before,” I demand.

She scratches her head. “Um, okay…Your grandmother’s favorite teacup is the one with the cottage scene on it. She keeps it on the shelf by the stove in the kitchen.”

She is absolutely, 100 percent right. And this is a detail only someone who has been in our apartment could know.

Still, I decide to exact another proof of truth. “How do you know my gran?” I ask.

“Oh,” she says as she tries to look through the peephole. “Um, we used to work together?”

“Where?”

“At…um…that mansion. The Grimthorpe mansion.”

“What did you do there?”

“What do you think? I was…a maid.”

That settles it. I jump off the chair, turn the lock, and open sesame.

The young woman stands in front of me, staring down at me with wide eyes. Her face looks sunken and wan. She could use a bit more sunshine, and she’s shaking as if she’s cold, though it’s not a cold day at all. I notice red marks up her arms. I know how she got them. We had bedbugs once, too. My legs were raw like that, a constellation of itchy connect-the-dots.

The young woman stares at me wordlessly.

“You’re a friend of Gran’s, you said?”

“Yeah.” She nods vigorously.

She does not look like any friend of Gran’s I’ve seen before. Gran’s friends tend to have gray hair and glasses, just like Gran. They arrive with wool picked up from garage sales or freshly baked cookies they made themselves. But when I open the closet and take out the shoe cloth to clean the young lady’s footwear, she takes it from my hand and knows just what to do. It’s more proof that she’s telling the truth—she most certainly has been here before.

She wipes the bottoms of her dirty, old sneakers and takes them off, placing them neatly on the mat inside. Her eyes take in the apartment.

“Wow. Time warp. Hasn’t changed a bit.” She notices the chair at the entrance. Resting proudly on it is Gran’s recently completely embroidered pillow.

“She still does crafts,” she says, picking up the pillow and reading out loud. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Whoa,” she says. “Sounds like my old sponsor.”

“Sponsor,” I say. “Meaning: to promote, to support.”

“Something like that, yeah.”

I realize then that I’m being impolite. It’s not often that I’m in charge of guests. In fact, it’s never happened before. “Would you like to come in?” I ask, thinking how proud Gran would be of my manners.

“Where is she?” the young lady asks. “Where’s your gran?”

“Folding laundry downstairs,” I explain. “She’s got three loads today. We saved up lots of quarters in the Special Jar. Come,” I say as I lead my guest into the kitchen. She stands in front of the table, extends a hand to touch it, gently, as if she were petting a friendly cat rather than a worn piece of furniture.

“Would you care for a cup of tea?” I ask.

“No,” she replies. “That’s okay.”

“Please have a seat.” I gesture to Gran’s usual spot at the table.

“Thanks,” she says as she pulls out the chair and cautiously sits. “You’re really…polite. You’re totally different from what I imagined. Come here, let me get a good look at you.”

I stand in front of her and she grabs my hands in hers. She leans forward, her face close to mine. And just like that, she begins to sob.

“I’m terribly sorry,” I say. “I recently learned I’m a social failure and that I’m not at the level of my peers, so whatever I did to upset you, I assure you, I didn’t do it on purpose.”

She lets go of my hands and wipes at her eyes. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she says.

“Maybe you don’t like me,” I say. “Not many people do.”

“No, I do like you. You have no idea. It’s just…it’s like looking in a mirror.”

And then it comes to me. I know just what to do. I take a tissue from the box on the kitchen table. “Tissue for your issue?” I say.

She takes the tissue from my hand. “Thanks,” she replies. “Molly, the last time I saw you, you didn’t speak at all. Your gran was worried. She was worried that maybe you’d turn out…” She pauses like she can’t find the word.

“Different?” I offer.

“Yeah. That.”

“I am different,” I say. “But I can speak just fine. In fact, it’s hard for me to follow the rule of ‘children should be seen and not heard.’ Or ‘not seen and not heard.’ Or whatever the rule is. I enjoy words. Do you? I like the word ‘loquacious.’ What word do you like?”

She blows her nose into the tissue. “I like simpler words. Right now, I like the word ‘home.’ ” She starts to cry again, but then her eyes spy the envelope on the table. Her tears turn off instantly, the same way the washroom tap does when I twist the knob right after rinsing my hands.

“Jesus. First of the month,” she says shaking her head. “That same slumlord still own this place? What was his name…”

“Mr. Rosso,” I say. “He’s still the landlord. I expected him at the door, not you.”

She starts to breathe in and out really fast. She scratches her head hard, so hard it makes me nervous.

“Molly,” she says. “Do you have any Band-Aids?”

“Oh,” I say. “You don’t have to be ashamed of your arms. Bedbugs aren’t your fault. Gran says they spread from apartment to apartment because landlords don’t spend enough on sanitation. It doesn’t mean you’re not clean.”

“I’m not clean, Molly,” she says. “That’s exactly my problem.”

I go down the hall to the washroom and open the cupboard under the sink. At the back is our first-aid kit. I remove it and take out three of the biggest Band-Aids to offer Gran’s friend. When I leave the washroom, she’s standing by the front door putting on her dirty, old shoes. She’s wiping at her eyes with the crumpled tissue in her hand.

“Are you leaving already?” I ask.

“I gotta run,” she says.

“Aren’t you going to wait for Gran? I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you.”

“No. This was a mistake. I don’t want her to see me like this.”

“Here are your Band-Aids.”

“Keep ’em,” she says. “Who am I kidding? Can’t hide what I am.”

She turns the knob and opens the door.

“Hold on!” I say. “What should I tell Gran?”

She stops for a moment. “Tell her…tell her she’s taking really good care of you. And that I miss her.” She starts to cry again, and I feel a hurt in my belly and my heart, a heavy pain I don’t understand.

“Wait!” I say. “I don’t even know your name.”

“My name?” she says, pausing for a moment to look at me. “It’s Maggie.”

“It was nice to meet you, Maggie,” I say. I reach out a hand, but instead of shaking it, she squeezes it in hers and kisses it before letting go.

“Come back for a visit anytime,” I say.

She puts a hand on my hair, then takes it away. “Goodbye, Molly.”

She turns away from me and pulls the door closed behind her.

I bolt it immediately. Lock the door tight, in the day and in the night.

I lean against the door for a moment. I feel off-kilter, dizzy but excited, too. I feel like a bona fide grown-up. I’ve hosted a visitor, my very own, all by myself! If this is what grown-up socializing is, maybe I can do it. It’s not like this with kids, who are horrible and mean, rude and insulting. And even though Gran’s friend was sad, I figured that out right away. And I knew how to make her feel better, too.

I head to the washroom to return the Band-Aids to the first-aid kit. As I’m putting them away, I hear the key turn in the lock. I exit the washroom as Gran enters with a heaping hamper full of neatly folded laundry, which she puts down with a big huff. “My heavens, Molly, it’s hot as Hades in that laundry room,” she says as she closes and locks the door. She removes her shoes, wipes them, then goes straight to the kitchen for a tall glass of water. I follow her in.

“Gran, we had a visitor,” I say. “But don’t worry. I knew she wasn’t a stranger because I asked her questions, and she answered them all correctly. I knew she knew you, and she knew me, too, back from when I was only as tall as a grasshopper’s knees. She’s a maid, Gran. You worked together. It was nice to meet another maid, even if she has bedbugs. It’s just like you said. You can’t blame people for their circumstances. Oh, and she says you’re taking good care of me and that she misses you. I’m supposed to tell you that.”

Gran puts down her water glass with an audible thunk. Her mouth is wide open, so open that if we still had bedbugs, they could climb right in. Her gaze turns to the kitchen table.

“Molly,” she says. “Did Mr. Rosso come by? Please tell me he picked up the envelope.”

I look down at the kitchen table.

That’s when I understand it, what Gran was saying earlier about invisible things.

Two variables come together in my mind: our recent guest and the envelope containing our rent money. I see the equation forming, but it’s too late.

Both are gone.