I’m crying
and trying to brush them off.
But they hold tight.
I smash my fingers
down my legs.
The little ant bodies
roll into balls
and fall into the grass.
Shew.
They’re gone.
I check and double-check.
Every ant is off,
but the bites burn.
Man.
Mom didn’t ever
hear me.
Sunday Sunset
Mom finds me in the mango tree out back.
“Come on down, Estele,” she calls.
But I don’t want to.
Up here,
alone,
I feel safe.
No ants.
No kidnappers
or bad dads around.
Just lots of green leaves,
getting ready to make sweet, sweet mangoes.
“Estele Leann,” she calls louder.
I take a deep gulp of mango peace
and shimmy down.
What About?
“What about kidnapping, Mom?
Is it super awful?” I ask.
“Super, super awful,” she says.
She puts her arm around my waist
and pulls me close
as we walk together.
“Is it worse than a dad leaving a family?”
“Worse,” she says.
“Because the kid could die?”
I look up at her.
“Let’s not think of that, Estele,”
she says to the red sky.
“Sometimes I wish Dad would die,” I whisper.
Mom stops for a second
and stares down at me.
“Let’s not think of that either, Estele.”
Creeped
Mom stretches out on the couch
and groans.
“Feel here, Estele.”
She grabs my hand.
A munching hardness
is creeping up
her belly of baby.
Inch by inch
it crunches up.
Mom blows out
a mouthful of hot air.
“Whoa,” she says. “Braxton Hicks contractions.”
I pull my hand away,
creeped out.
She smiles. “That’s my body practicing
to push the baby out.”
“Oh.” I shiver.
It is
going to come out soon.
Who is going to take care of it
when there’s no one
taking care
of us?
Names
“Do you still like the names
Kevin and Chloe?” Mom asks.
I shrug. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Me too.” She rubs her belly in a circle.
“But Dad likes
Dietrich and Gretchen,” I say.
“Bottom line is
I, you, and Dale-o like Kevin and Chloe.
And your father never will.”
That
makes them perfect.
Digging
I dig at an ant bite.
“Sweetheart,
what happened to your legs?”
“I sat on an ants’ nest, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I did.”
“Let’s get some aloe
on those bites.”
She heaves herself up
and waddles down the hall.
I scratch at my legs
till a couple of spots
start to bleed.
Off to Bed
It’s so quiet at night now.
Mom hardly watches TV
except for the news.
There’s no talking
between her and Dad.
His voice
doesn’t float out of his office
while I fall asleep.
It’s just quiet
until
one of us
starts to cry.
Milk
It’s Chris’s turn
to be milk monitor.
Gary goes instead.
Jarin passes it out.
Accidentally she puts one on Chris’s desk
and walks past me.
No dad.
No milk money.
I stare at Chris’s carton
sitting cockeyed in front of me.
I reach over,
snatch it,
secretly tear it open
in my lap,
and gulp it down.
No one notices.
Shew.
A Problem
“We seem to have a problem.
We are short one milk.”
Ms. Dryden examines the carry box
Nobody’s really paying attention.
They are talking and laughing.
I scootch way down
and swallow a burp.
“Well, they must have miscounted,”
she tells Gary who is standing there
looking really thirsty.
“Jarin would you walk over
and get another?”
“Sure.” She goes out.
I crunch the carton
under my desk,
stuff it in my lunch bag,
and walk up to throw it away.
I squeeze past Gary.
Ms. Dryden stops me.
“Feeling okay today, Essie?”
“Uh-huh.” I lick my lips
and stare at the carpet.
“Glad to hear it. I’ll take that trash
for you.”
She swipes it from my hands
and drops it in the can.
Shaking, I rush back
to my desk.
I’m a thief.
The police
are going to be after me.
I’m the stupid one
they’ll end up finding.
Spelling
Ms. Dryden
says to pass our spelling tests forward.
I get the stack from Wally behind me,
and stretch to pass mine and the rest forward.
Chris’s empty desk is between Buffy and me.
I lean forward as far as I can.
“Here.”
Buffy leans back as far as she can.
She takes the papers
and turns around.
We stretched right through Chris’s spot
like it’s normal he’s not here.
Sometimes we forget.
It shouldn’t be normal.
As I Say
“Go on and wash up.”
Mom scoots us into the house.
“Why?” Dale whines.
“Just do as I say.”
“But I want a snack first, Mom.”
I toss my backpack on the couch.
She tugs my braids.
“Both of you now.
Your father may be coming.”
Dale and I stare at her.
“Get a move on!” she snaps.
Doozerdude and I
hustle to the bathroom
and start scrubbing.
Zings and Stings
Dale’s toothpaste blops into the sink.
“Do you think he’ll come?”
“I don’t know.
Just finish brushing.”
Bubbles hang from his sudsy mouth.
I redo my braids.
Yes zings around my heart.
No stings my brain.
Thanks
I dig the Corvette out from the washcloths.
“Here.”
“But I thought this was gone,” he says.
“Yeah, well, I found it.”
He globs me with a hug.
“Thanks, Es.”
“No problem, Doozerdude.”
Waiting
Dale stands at the window
and watches.
“He’s here!”
Doozerdude flies out the door.
“You’re home!
You’re back!
You’re home!
Look here’s your Corvette!”
Ugh.
I can’t look.
What if he’s not here
for forever?
Hi
“Hi, Essie-girl.”
Pasted grin.
He steps forward.
I step back.
He steps back.
“Hi.” I shrink.
Man, I want to run away
so bad.
Run to Mom,
run outside
to the mango tree,
or down the road
and never stop.
My legs are so jumpy.
I want to run from him,
before he runs away from me
again.
My toes grip the cold terrazzo.
I’m staying.
An Envelope
Dad hands Mom an envelope.
She clutches it.
“That should cover
the next few months,” he says.
“Thank you.” Mom looks down.
It makes me sick
she said that.
Why should she
thank him for anything?
His Sacrifice
Mom gets tinier and tinier
as Dad drives us away
to the mall.
Will he bring us back?
Don’t even think of that!
When
he brings us back,
will he stay?
I face forward.
Dad never goes to the mall.
for not coming last Saturday.
The Mall
“Come on,” I say,
and I drag Dale by the hand
in and out of packed shoe stores
to find new sneakers that fit
his wide feet
he inherited from Dad,
who follows at a distance,
supposedly
ready to use his credit card.
Now Dad drags my ketchup
all over my cheeseburger wrapper
with my last fry.
“What’s that over there, Essie-girl?” he jokes
to get me to look away.
He swallows my fry.
I look at him
and don’t laugh.
“Well, let’s hit that bathroom then, little man.”
He and Dale disappear
behind the men’s-room door.
Figures Dad would leave me alone
with the trash.
Waiting
I tie my straw
into knots.
I guess
I could
act
happy
and act
like everything is great
when it stinks.
I could
act
happy
so Dad would stay with us always,
seeing how happy I am.
I could
act
as good as Wally.
Forget it.
Paused
The three of us
sit in the booth
like we are on pause.
The whole restaurant
moves around us.
Trays clatter,
lines shift,
mops slop,
oil sizzles,
beeps blare,
talk hums,
music beats.
Everything moves.
We three sit still
and look at our laps.
I Have to Know
Dad slips a quarter into Dale’s palm.
“Go save the universe,” he says.
“All right!”
Dale runs over to the video games.
I cross my arms.
“We have to know
if you are back
for forever.”
His mouth opens
and kinda dangles there.
That big old fly
on the red wall behind him
could swoop right in.
“Essie-girl—”
I stare at him
while the begging jumps up
from my insides
and pours out of my eyes
as tears.
Dad crosses his arms.
“Your mother and I are separated, Essie-girl.
This is just a visit today.
I’m taking time to visit you.
I want you and the little man
to know I care about you still.”
It’s just a stupid visit.
Everyone
I wipe my eyes
so dry on the napkin
that no one can see I was begging.
He looks away
while I get it together.
‘Okay, Essie-girl.
Here’s the thing.”
He cleans his thumbnail.
“Everyone is divorced nowadays.
It’s a normal event.
The kids are normal.
The parents are normal.
And besides”—
he looks at his clean nails—
“like I said before,
your mother and I are only separated.
So come on, Essie-girl.
Give a go
at acting normal for me.”
I cram my knotted straw into my empty cup.
Other kids are fine.
Lots of kids at school come from divorced homes.
Their parents are friendly.
They live at both places.
There are a bizillion books on kids
dealing with divorce.
“So maybe I’m not normal,” I finally answer.
Or maybe I am,
and the rest of the stupid divorced world
isn’t.
Did You Know?
“Did you even know
some man kidnapped
a kid from my class?”
I kick the table leg.
Dad nods and wipes his forehead
with his crumpled napkin.
He takes a sip of his orange drink.
I kick the leg again.
“Some guy wanted a kid
so bad he took someone else’s.”
Dad sputters the sticky stuff
across the table.
“I guess he knew not to pick me either.”
I stomp
to the bathroom
while Dad chokes at the table.
Mystery
How can one man steal kids
and another man
run away from them?
Is it the men who are nutballs
or are the kids wacked-out?
Going Home
Doozerdude and I scootch low
in the backseat of Dad’s car.
No one talks.
Dale spins the Corvette’s wheels.
It’s so hard not to kick
the back of Dad’s seat.
Hard.
More than once.
Instead I step on his seat belt
softly.
Slowly
I put more and more pressure
on the strap.
I imagine
his guts being strangled.
His eyes glare at me in the rearview mirror.
“Oh, sorry,” I say
and lift my foot.
He looks back at the traffic.
I slouch more
to drive my knees
into the back of his seat.
Dale hooks my pinkie with his
and shakes his head.
“Don’t” he mouths
and points to his new shoes.
I sit up
and hold Dale’s pinkie
all the way home.
In Our House
Mom barely says, “Hey,”
before she slips off to their bedroom.
Her bedroom.
I sit on the couch. At least he brought us back.
Dad wrestles Dale
until Doozerdude gets a bonk on his nose
and starts crying.
“Hey, hey, little man,” says Dad.
“I’m not a man!” wails Dale.
“I’m a kid, and you’re supposed to be
the man.”
Doozerdude crams the Corvette
into Dad’s shirt pocket.
I start bawling too.
It just blasts out.
Which makes me mad
and my head start hurting major big time.
“Not you too, Essie-girl,” he begs.
“I can’t take this.”
Dad walks out
again
and drives away
super fast.
He didn’t even give Dale
the Corvette back.
Steam
“He was supposed to stay
for forever,” whines Dale.
Mom comes out of her room
and hugs Dale and me tight
even though it’s really muggy tonight.
“For forever,” sobs Doozerdude.
Mom doesn’t even hear him.
“Did he feed you?”
“Not until like eight o’clock.”
“He didn’t feed you dinner
until eight?”
I feel the heat
steaming off her,
especially her armpit,
where my shoulder happens to be.
She’s like the fumaroles
we studied in science a while ago.
Those holes on the side of volcanoes
where all the steam shoots out.
I want to slip away
when she says,
“Oh, Estele Leann.
Why didn’t you say
you needed to eat earlier?”
“It’s not my fault
what he does.”
Did I say that out loud?
“You’re right, sweetheart.
I’m sorry.”
I am right.
In Bed
The ice cube
melts against my forehead,
runs down my cheek,
and stops in the hollow
of my throat.
It is so hot tonight
that even the ice cube
burns my fingers.
I sit up and spread the water over my face.
The cube disappears in my hand.
After Dad left,
Mom tried to make up
the hugs and kisses
he forgot.
But Dale kept saying
he didn’t want to be the man of the house.
And that Dad was supposed to stay
for forever.
And he didn’t even want Mom to hug him.
And I just wanted to be alone.
We all went to our own rooms
mad.
No air comes through my screen at all.
The mango tree
is perfectly still.
Even the quiet
is sticky hot.
Being mad
burns you up.
What Would Mrs. Crow Say?
Separated.
Not divorced.
Like that’s supposed
to make me happy.