Page 5 of The Wrong Family

“Ridgeway,” Sam finished.

“Yes. That’s right.” Juno nodded.

“Yates, and um…yes, there was that one man who was truly evil. Targeting children—just disgusting. Dodd,” she ended with a smack of her lips.

“My parents freak out when they see me looking at that stuff online.”

“Well, do you blame them? If your mom was obsessed with watching violent car crashes every night before bed, wouldn’t you be concerned?”

“My mom is obsessed with a lot of things that concern me.” His face was blank, but she saw the humor in his eyes.

Juno couldn’t help but smile. The kid had a sort of wry adult sense of humor.

“Moms are obsessed with mom things. Kids are obsessed with kid things. Nothing wrong with having different interests and loving each other the same.”

Juno was surprised at how easily she slipped into the counseling role after all these years. She was also surprised at how flat her words sounded.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m not even their kid.”

“Maybe you’re not,” Juno said it casually, her tone light. Wasn’t there a time in every adolescent’s life when they convinced themselves they were adopted?

Sam is a special boy, Juno thought to herself now as she stood in the doorway to the bathroom, her gaze sliding over the bottles of perfume and lotion that sat on the subway tile next to the bathtub. She completely avoided her own reflection, already knowing what she would see and not wanting to see it—the raw, red butterfly mark across her nose and cheeks. She would see the puffy, jaundiced eyes, and she would see skin mottled like a duck egg.

She slipped the light switch on and stepped inside. She shuffled through the door, her back still stiff from the way she’d slept last night, to the sink where glass bottles were arranged around a silver tray. Eucalyptus, tea tree oil, jasmine. Juno chose from the rows and carried them over to the tub. This was her favorite part of the day, when she had time to let the water ease the pain from her body. She let the water rise as high as it could, and then, lowering herself into the water, she made the sounds a very old, very tired woman made. She tried not to look down at herself as she sank to the bottom of the tub, though she caught flashes of bony thighs, the skin so vellum-thin she averted her eyes.

She’d enjoyed her chat with Sam at the park yesterday. But now, lying in this tub and recollecting the moments she spent with him, she found that the therapist she had retired years ago was stirring inside her again.

Sometimes I feel like I’m not even their kid, he’d said.

It means nothing, she told herself.Just enjoy your bath.

Juno opened her eyes. There was no clock in the bathroom, but she knew what time it was by the light reflected on the wall. It was time to get out and move on to the next thing.

It was late afternoon, and Juno’s hair had dried to a springy gray halo—erratic curls that would shoot up instead of down. She tugged on one as she made tea, another nervous habit that had accompanied her from childhood. Her hair had been red once, but that was a long time ago, when she drank gin martinis and smoked clove cigarettes. Another life and another woman. Everyone had wanted to touch it: fat red curls that fell to her waist. Old women often stopped Juno on the sidewalk to comment on the color and tell her they used to pay for color like that. And now Juno was the old woman. The corner of her mouth lifted in half amusement as she sipped her tea. She was less funny-looking now that she was older, or maybe her eyes were the problem. The tea was strong and sweet. Juno drank it fast, thinking of her pain pills downstairs in the haven she’d made for herself. She was running out; she’d counted six last time she’d looked. She’d have to count on the Crouches to bring more. Juno’s mood turned sour; the tea suddenly tasted wrong in her mouth. She hated relying on people. She dumped the rest of her tea down the sink and went about cleaning her mess, a new worry ticking at her brain.

At four o’clock, Mr. Nevins from next door parked his Tahoe right outside the living room window, and Juno poured herself a finger of Nigel’s whiskey even though she didn’t like the stuff and had pretty much given up drinking. She carried it upstairs to the sitting area that looked down at the park. She always felt prickly at this time of day, knowing they’d be home soon. They filled up the house with tension: often sexual, other times just the naked, ugly kind.

The second floor sitting area was the best part of the house, the view somehow both hectic and peaceful. The house sat on one of the busier streets surrounding Greenlake Park, one that fed to and from I-5. Juno sank into a rocker, letting the whiskey do its job, watching the commuter traffic begin its slow crawl. Nowadays this was her window to the outside, where she rarely stepped any longer. But she knew the sounds and smells well enough to use her imagination. Two women paused on their walk to take a selfie as a Maltese dog sniffed the grass around them, and a man in tight neon yellow running shorts almost collided with them. He jumped to the side at the last minute, narrowly dodging them and almost landing on the Maltese. The women straightened up from their selfie, none the wiser.

Over the grass and in the park, a family with three teenagers gathered in a little huddle, holding Starbucks cups and laughing. They looked cold. Sam wouldn’t be home for another few hours from practice, but she liked when he was home because a light spot developed between his parents, easing the mood of the house. She knew each of them by their steps, and Sam’s were the clumsyclomp clomp clompof a loose-gaited boy. A baby giraffe, skidding and bumping corners. It was so cute; she remembered it from her boys. The sun was coming down over the lake now; it dashed right through the windows where she was sitting. Leaning back in her chair, she let the sun touch her all over.

It was time to go downstairs.

Near the front door, pushed in a rush toward the wall, were the remnants of Nigel’s attempt at the doorbell. Juno looked over the mess, touching her tongue to an infected molar on the right side—wires, coils, and screws scattered over the wood, failed DIY confetti—and then she stepped over it.

5

WINNIE

“Hold on.” Nigel was forcing himself to stay calm. She heard him switch the phone from one ear to the other. When he came back on, his voice sounded strained. “Did you say your brother is staying with us?”

As Winnie launched into a quick recap of Dakota’s latest scheme, her stomach sank lower. She watched as Carmen stepped off the elevator, a white paper bag clutched under her arm. She raised a hand as she passed Winnie’s desk, but Winnie didn’t give her the cursory smile she normally did.

“He took his paycheck to the racetrack and bet it all on a trifecta. Manda kicked him out.”

“As she should,” Nigel said. “But Dakota needs to—”

“It’s just for a bit,” Winnie said cautiously, and then into the receiver she hissed, “Shelly took him in last time, it’s technically our turn.”

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