“Hazel?”
It’s good to hear her voice. It’s sane.Real.
“Maria? Why are you up so early?”
“Quick pro go,” I hear her say. It takes me a moment to realize what she means.
“Ah, okay. It’squid pro quo, Maria. You want to give me something?”
“I want more gum.”
That’s it. There’s nogood morningorplease. No pleasantries of any kind. Just straight to the point, no messing around. It’s refreshing, in a way. Concise.
I reach into my pocket for the pack, leaning close to the door so she can hear me. “You have to give me something in return, remember?”
Something is passed beneath the door. Another photograph, faceup this time. It’s of a smiling little girl sitting on a woman’s lap. She is holding a plastic doll in her hand and looking wide-eyed at a birthday cake topped with three candles. I turn it over. A date has been written there.Nov. 2013.
“Is this you?” I ask.
“Me and my mum. That’s my cake. I was three.”
“Looks like you got a Bratz doll. Man, I loved those dolls. We were never allowed one because my mum said they looked like hookers.”
I peer a little closer at the photo, holding it under the light. The little girl in the photograph has a corona of white-blond hair, a round cherubic face. I can just make out a thin line running from her top lip into her nostril. A cleft lip, like Joe had had as a kid. He’d had surgery as a baby and been left with the same white scar, thin as a thread. We used to compare our scars, call them His ’n’ Hers. Before things went bad.
“It’s a secret photo. I keep it under my pillow.”
“Well, you know I can’t keep this, Maria. Here. Take the gum. Put it back under your pillow. Hold on to it.”
“I want to try the cherry flavor.”
I peel open the pack and pull out a strip. I wait until she has taken the photo back before saying, “Do you still have my bag out there? It’s an old rucksack.”
“Yuh.” She sniffs. “But it’s upstairs now. He takes what he wants out of it, and the rest he gives to me.”
She’s talking quickly, and I can sense her impatience, the hopping, agitated dance. I know she’s probably had a big sugar hit, and like Teddy said, Wonderland is so full of sugar it’s borderline illegal.
“What do you think your brother will take out of my bag, Maria?”
“Don’t know. Sometimes it’s a small thing like a key or a lipstick. He keeps them in a box and buries them like treasures, only he doesn’t call them that. He’s got a special word for it, that sounds likeserving-knees.”
“Serving-knees?”
“Yuh. That’s why I just call them treasures. I always mess the other word up. Can I have my gum now?”
I’m frowning, staring at a knothole in the wood.Serving-knees.When you say it out loud, it almost sounds French.
“Hazel?”
“Souvenirs. That’s what he’s saying, isn’t it? It means ‘keepsakes.’”
“Yes!” Maria must be right up against the keyhole because the volume of her voice startles me. “They are the things he keeps. Little things. He puts them in a box and he puts the box in the ground and he thinks I don’t see him bury it, but I do because my window looks out over the old greenhouse and I know where he goes.”
I slide the gum beneath the door and she snatches it up right away.
“Well, now listen. I need something out of my bag. It’s a receipt. You think you can find it for me?”
“Areceipt.” She sounds out the word slowly, already chewing down on the gum.