“Because of Mom?”
Mary nodded, her brain above her left eye pounding, feeling as if it were knocking on her skull.
“What happened?”
Mary closed her eyes, feeling the pain in her head and color and pulses and light. “She had to go away.”
“Is she going to come home?” asked Hannah.
But Mary said nothing. And Hannah let her face drop against Mary’s thigh, where she rubbed her tears away, back and forth.
When Hannah’s eyes started to slip shut, Mary finally carried her from the office. She lifted her up, her head rolling back against Mary’s forearms. Mary felt weak, as if her knees might buckle, as if her arms might give.
She set Hannah in bed and pulled up the covers, not bothering to change her clothes. Then she went to the bathroom, closed the door, and stuck her pointer finger down her throat, feeling her fingernail cut the soft tissue at the back. When she leaned over the toilet and wretched the Pool’s chicken into the bowl, she tasted blood.
IT WASN’T LONG AFTER HER MOTHER’S DEATH that Mary learned there was no money. That Diane Chase’s estate—if it could even be called that—was in the red.
“The motel owes a significant amount in back taxes,” an attorney in a brown suit told her, his elbows resting on his laminate wood desk.
“What does that mean?” Mary asked sharply. But Mary knew what it meant. It meant that the only inheritance Diane Chase had for Mary and Hannah was the Water’s Edge. And it would be like a stone tied to their necks, pulling them slowly down through the depths.
“It means that the debts owed by the Water’s Edge are likely to exceed the value of the business, including the property itself.”
He took his glasses off and looked at Mary. “It’s quite an unusual situation,” he said. “To have so much responsibility at your age. You’re only eighteen.” And Mary hated him. She hated that his plump fingers had run over their mother’s private documents and papers. She hated the way he looked at her now, with leering curiosity. Because it wasn’t just the Water’s Edge that belonged to her: it was Hannah. In the eyes of the law and everyone else, Mary was Hannah’s guardian.
“Well, this has been incredibly useful,” said Mary, standing abruptly. “Just incredibly fucking useful.”
That night, while Hannah lay sleeping, Mary stood in front of the utility sink and stared at the steady stream of water coming from the faucet, slowly grinding her jaw from side to side. The laundry room at the Water’s Edge was tiny and down to one working fluorescent bulb, but Mary had taken to going there since Diane died, sitting on the concrete floor and leaning against the washing machine as it worked, feeling somehow steadied by its rhythmic motions.
When the water was near scalding and its steam thickened the air, Mary pulled an old plastic bucket from one of the makeshift wooden shelves and stuck it into the sink, letting it fill. She grabbed a scrub brush and a container of Comet, and marched out into the cold night, the hot water sloshing onto the ground as she walked. Then she pushed open the door to a vacant guest room, went to the bathroom, and dropped to her knees. She plunged the scrub brush into the water and let her hands linger there, thinking of nothing quite as satisfying at that moment than the shocking temperature, than the heat against her skin.
She went to a new room each night and scrubbed it clean. She cleaned until her heart would pound and strands of her hair would stick to her neck and her forehead. She cleaned until the skin of her fingers would pucker, then crack. And when she ran out of rooms, she started over again. So it was on the floors and the tubs and the sinks that some of Mary’s ferocity and fear was unleashed.
It was after another such evening that she returned to her and Hannah’s room to find Hannah awake, lying limp on the bed with a terrible cough. “Bunny,” Mary said, rushing to her sister. And that night, Mary sat in the bathroom with Hannah on her lap, steam filling the air and calming Hannah’s breath. When she fell asleep again, Mary held her still, watching her chest rise and fall, tensing as her body quaked with its periodic coughs. Mary was late to homeroom the next morning; Hannah hadn’t wanted to go to Mrs. Pool’s.
“Nooooooo,” she whined, her arms wrapped around Mary’s neck as Mrs. Pool tried to pull her away. “I want to stay with yooouuuuu.”
“You can’t, Bunny,” whispered Mary into her hair. She kissed the top of her head. “I have to get to school.”
And when Mary had walked into Mrs. Violette’s classroom and the squat, dowdy teacher asked for a note, Mary went right past her and sat at her desk, acknowledging neither the teacher nor her request.
“I asked for a note, Miss Chase,” repeated Mrs. Violette. Mrs. Violette hated Mary. Hated her beauty and her insolence. Hated her mind. Mrs. Violette, unlike many of the teachers at Bergen Shores, was entirely unmoved by Mary’s recent loss.
Mary rested her feet against the chair in front of her. “I don’t have a note,” she spat.
“Then get back up,” began Mrs. Violette, relishing her words, overenunciating each of them. “Go to the main office and get one.”
Mary stared at her for a moment, then made a noise of disgust. “Stupid bitch,” she muttered, shaking her head.
Without another word, Mrs. Violette marched out of the room, and Mary took down her pony tail, shaking her long brown hair loose over her shoulders and looking out of the window as the class began to buzz and pulse with her defiance. Did you hear that shit?
Mrs. Violette returned with Mr. Alvetto who said—all stern and somber—“Miss Chase, please come with me.”
With her arms crossed, Mary walked behind Mr. Alvetto through the school’s silent hallways into the main office. He nodded once at Bonnie, who sat at the front desk, and Bonnie smiled. All the women who worked at the school thought Mr. Alvetto was handsome. Mary followed him into his office, and he turned and closed the door behind her, and it clicked shut.
When he looked back at Mary, her face was in her hands. “I know I shouldn’t have said it,” she said, her voice muffled and wet with emotion. “I’ve just had such a short fuse lately.”
“Mary, please, sit down,” he said, but instead of sitting, Mary rushed him, burying her head into his chest and letting out a quiet sob that could break your heart. “I know what you’re going through has been very difficult,” started Mr. Alvetto, gently laying a paternal hand on her back, as if thinking this were a moment he would soon be proud of: one when he would deftly handle the behavioral difficulties of a grief-stricken girl. “And all of us here at Bergen Shores are here for you.”
Mary took a deep breath, the sort a mournful girl might take to steady herself, but as her chest filled, it pressed against Mr. Alvetto’s. “I know,” she said.