Page 12 of Bent Heavens

“Good.” Her mother yawned. “Now what’s all this about Charles Dickens? A Christmas Carol. Tiny Tim. I remember George C. Scott as Scrooge. He flew through the night with a ghost. Doesn’t that sound lovely?”

Liv looked from the pile of ceiling plaster to the ruptured ceiling above it, wondering if the fracture was big enough to permit her passage when, at night, a certain ghost in a certain memory tried to pull her through it.

“Oliver Twist,” she said.

“Your school is doing the play, hm?”

“The musical. The one Dad did.”

“That’s odd.”

Liv sniffled hard, hoping the sharp inhale would spark her dampened rage. “How can they do that?” she pleaded. “It’s only been two years.”

“Has it been that long? Seems like”—Aggie clicked her tongue—“nothing.”

“Everyone will start talking about it again. The whole thing.”

“Nobody saw that show, baby. It was a … what do you call it?”

“Dress rehearsal. I know. But everyone heard about it. They still talk about it. Maybe you don’t hear about it, but I sure do.” Liv listened for any change in her mother’s breathing. “Doesn’t this make you mad?”

“I’m trying to be, baby. It’s just … I’m so. I’m so. The wine, I guess.”

“I mean, Ms. Baldwin—how could she? She’s a bitch. Isn’t she?”

Her mother yawned into Liv’s neck. “That’s right, baby.”

“With me still in school? She couldn’t wait one more year?”

“Shh, baby.”

“They won’t let it die. They won’t let him die.”

“We don’t own the play, baby. We don’t own people. We don’t own anything. It’s all just—poof. Dandelions in the breeze.”

Hot sadness filled Liv’s chest and burned to be cried out. Why was it only when her mother was drunk that she uttered words of such perfect, inadvertent beauty? Liv raised her hand, placed it on the back of her mother’s head, and pet it. The hair was brittle and poorly dyed, but still pretty. Liv’s hand, meanwhile, was not. Her nail polish was chipped to hell and her knuckles scabbed. She watched the scabs dive into her mother’s hair, then resurface, then dive, and it felt like her life.

7.

Two years of heading to the same seat at the same cafeteria table had her legs operating with the muscle memory that guided her to Amputator, Hangman’s Noose, and the other traps each Sunday. Though it wasn’t unusual for other students to greet her on her way to Monica’s table, it was jarring to have one cry out with such unbridled enthusiasm.

“Liv! Sit here!”

It was Bruno Mayorga. Her feet froze to her square of tile. No one, especially not a new kid, dared broadcast such a naked appeal—it could so easily be dashed. Liv glanced at her regular table. Only Darla and Phil had noticed the situation, and they both chuckled at her predicament. When she looked back at Bruno, he was already scooting over, making room. Others near him, a hodgepodge of kids who fit nowhere else, inchwormed down the bench. Feeling like every eye in school was on her, she walked over and cautiously lowered herself beside Bruno. She kept her spine rigid, a signal that she wasn’t getting comfortable.

“It’s me! Bruno!”

“I remember,” she said. “Three sisters, three dogs.”

He gestured at her tray. “What you got there?”

Liv stared down. Most of the cross-country team brought lunches from home, healthy menus advocated by Coach Carney. The majority, though, had parents preparing those lunches, or at least reliably buying the raw materials. On that front, Liv never knew what to expect; it was easier to roll the roulette wheel of cafeteria offerings.

“I believe they call this chef’s salad,” she said.

“Is that a side of fried cheese?”

“Probably.” She glanced at the brown paper bag spread before him, the scatterings of shredded cheese and salsa. “Taco?”