After Mother Died, the Don Followed Her

Tonight Daddy said he was going out with Auntie Benita, and Mommy didn’t fight him about it.

She had a handkerchief balled up in her hand, soaked through with the blood she kept coughing up.

I knew Mommy was going to heaven soon.

That was how Grandpa told me it would be, back when Grandma coughed up blood like this.

Daddy looked at Mommy, narrowed his eyes, and his voice went cold.

“Isa needs a whole family. A smart woman learns to look the other way.”

Mommy didn’t shield me and argue back the way she used to.

She just said, softly, “Fine. I’ll charge by the visit. Every night you spend with her is one million.”

Daddy laughed and wired her the money.

After that night, Daddy went out a lot, and every time, Mommy reminded him to send the money.

Mommy got so thin that her cheeks caved in, but her eyes were still bright.

She took me lots of places, introduced me to lots of people, and made me write my own name over and over.

She said she was going to leave everything to me.

I held her tight.

“I don’t want your things, Mommy. I just want you.”

Something dripped onto my face, and it was cold.

I looked up and saw that Mommy was crying.

“Isa, I’m so sorry. I only have three more months with you.”

Before Grandma left, she had smiled and said she was going up to heaven to be an angel.

Mommy must be going there too.

That was all right. There was no Daddy in heaven, so Mommy wouldn’t be sad anymore.

I counted on my fingers and blinked up at her. “Three months is enough. You can still take me on the kindergarten field trip.”

Right as I said it, Daddy came home with Auntie Benita.

Mommy always said Daddy was the Don, and very busy, so he usually came home late.

Today he was early.

Daddy smiled at me. “Isa, I brought you a present.”

I ran over, and Auntie Benita held out a little puppy.

I stopped, looked back at Mommy, and shook my head.

Auntie Benita hugged the puppy and suddenly started crying, like a puppy somebody had thrown away.

Mommy always said grown-ups don’t cry unless something hurts them deep inside.

I was about to comfort her when I heard Daddy’s cold voice.

“Charlotte Avery. Is this how you’ve been raising my daughter?”

Daddy was angry, and I was so scared that I stood there and didn’t dare move.

Mommy came and held me, and she was warm.

She patted my back gently and started to say something, but Daddy grabbed her face.

His grip was hard, and Mommy went pale and couldn’t get a word out.

It must have hurt so much.

His face was vicious, but the corner of his mouth was smiling.

“Let me guess. You’re the one who taught Isa to keep her distance from Benita.”

“What kind of person uses her own child as a weapon?”

Mommy’s chest was heaving, and the color rushed back into her face, angry and red.

Auntie Benita held the puppy out to me again.

Was Daddy squeezing Mommy because I wouldn’t take the puppy?

I grabbed it fast.

Auntie Benita smiled. “Isa, isn’t the puppy cute?”

I pressed my face into its fur and whispered that it was.

All at once Mommy found her strength. She shoved Daddy away, rushed over, and snatched the puppy out of my arms, her voice frantic.

“Isa can’t touch animals. She’s allergic to fur!”

My eyes were already red and itchy, I couldn’t stop sneezing, and my throat itched something awful.

Daddy froze and said nothing.

Auntie Benita looked even more upset than Mommy, and started crying again.

“Don, I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t. Charlotte never told me—”

Mommy started coughing again.

Daddy ignored her and went to wipe Auntie Benita’s tears.

Then he slapped Mommy across the face.

Her head snapped to the side.

“I knew you were low. I didn’t think you were this low. Using your own daughter to turn me against Benita?”

He shook his head, his voice ugly.

“You don’t deserve to be Isa’s mother.”

Mommy turned her back to him, and I saw her wipe the blood off her mouth with the handkerchief.

Then, slowly, she turned around.

Her face was different than before.

Other times when they fought, Mommy would get furious, so angry her eyes went red.

Now it was as if nothing had happened at all. She just looked at him, quiet.

Daddy paused, and he seemed uneasy. It took him a while before he said, “Don’t make the same mistake again.”

Then he took me to the hospital, and Mommy came too.

Auntie Benita got into Daddy’s car and sat beside him.

Mommy held me in the back seat, her face turned to the window.

Everything outside was running backward, as if a monster were chasing it.

At the hospital, the nurse put me on an IV and told me to be good and stay still.

Mommy said she would go buy my medicine, and then the big hospital room had only me in it.

I was a little scared. I wanted to call Daddy to stay with me, but he and Auntie Benita were out on the balcony.

They had their arms around each other, kissing.

I missed Mommy, because Mommy liked to kiss my face too.

I climbed down off the bed to go find her.

I knocked the IV stand over, and the needle popped out of my hand, and it really hurt.

People came running when they heard the noise, and Daddy and Auntie Benita came back in with them.

“What kind of parents are you?”

The nurse looked at the blood on my hand, furious. “You left a little kid all alone on an IV?”

I tried to explain it to her.

“Daddy didn’t mean to. He just went to play the kissing game with Auntie Benita.”

“She’s not my mommy. She’s only Auntie Benita.”