She noticed Sam watching her. Their eyes locked. She flinched, like he had caught her at something. She put one protective arm around Little Pete, who had buried his face back in his game. Astrid blinked, looked down, took a deep shaky breath, and deliberately turned away.
TWELVE
272 HOURS, 47 MINUTES
“COFFEE.” MARY SAID the word like it might be magic. “Coffee. That’s what I need.”
She was in the cramped, narrow teachers’ room at Barbara’s Day Care, searching the refrigerator for something, anything, to feed a little girl who refused to eat. She had almost fallen into the refrigerator, she was so tired, and then she spotted the coffeemaker.
It’s what her mother did when she was tired. It’s what everyone did when they were tired.
In response to Mary’s desperate, late-night plea for help, Howard had supplied the day care with a single box of diapers. They were Huggies for newborns. Useless. He had sent over two gallons of milk and half a dozen bags of chips and Goldfish. And he had sent Panda, who proved to be worse than useless. Mary had overheard him threatening to smack a crying three-year-old and had shooed him out of the building.
But the twins, Anna and Emma, had come on their own to help out. It wasn’t enough people, not by a long shot, but Mary had been able to get two full hours of sleep.
But then, when she woke that morning—no, it was afternoon, wasn’t it, she had lost track. She was so groggy, she not only had no idea what time it was, for the first few seconds she had no idea where she was.
Mary had never made coffee before, but she had seen it done. With bleary eyes she tried to figure it out. There was a scoop. There were filters.
Her first effort was a long wait for nothing. Only after sitting and staring in a comalike state for ten minutes did she realize she had forgotten to put water in the machine. When she did put the water in, it erupted in a spout of steam. But after five minutes more she had a fragrant pot of coffee.
She poured a cup and took a tentative sip. It was very hot and very bitter. She had no milk to spare, but she did still have some sugar. She started off with two big spoonfuls.
That was better.
Not good, but better.
She carried the cup back into the main room. At least six kids were crying. Diapers needed changing. The youngest kids needed feeding. Again.
A three-year-old girl with wispy blond hair spotted Mary and came running. Without thinking, Mary reached down. The coffee spilled onto the child’s neck and shoulder.
The girl screamed.
Mary shouted in fear. “Oh, God.”
John came running. “What happened?”
The little girl howled.
Mary froze.
“What should we do?” John cried.
Anna came running, a baby in her arms. “Oh, my God, what happened?”
The little girl screamed and screamed.
Mary carefully sat the coffee cup on the counter. Then she ran from the room and from the school.
She ran weeping to her home two blocks away. She fumbled the door open. She could barely see through her tears. Deep sobs racked her whole body.
It was cool and silent inside. Everything just like it always was. Only so quiet, so quiet that her sobs sounded like harsh, animal sounds.
Mary soothed herself. “It’ll be all right, it’ll be all right.” The same lie she’d been telling the kids. She quieted the racking sobs.
Mary sat at the kitchen table. She laid her head on her arms, intending to cry some more, quietly. But the time for tears was past.
For a while she just listened to the sound of her own breathing. She stared at the wood grain of the table. Exhaustion made it swirl.
It was impossible to believe that her mother and father were not home.
Where were they? Where were they all?
Her bedroom, her bed were just up the stairs.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go to sleep. If she did, she wouldn’t wake up for hours and hours.
The kids needed her. Her brother, poor John, coping while she freaked out.
Mary opened the freezer. Ben & Jerry’s fudge brownie ice cream. DoveBars. She could eat them and then she would feel better.
She could eat them and then she would feel worse.
If she started, she wouldn’t stop. If she started eating when she felt like this, she wouldn’t stop until the shame became so great, she would force herself to vomit it all back up.
Mary had suffered from bulimia since she was ten. Binge eating followed by purging, again and again in a quickening cycle of diminishing returns that had left her forty pounds overweight at one point, and her teeth rough and discolored from the stomach acid.
She’d been clever enough to conceal it for a long time, but her parents had found out eventually. Then had come therapists and a special camp and when none of that really helped, medication. Speaking of which, Mary reminded herself, she needed to get the bottle from her medicine cabinet.
She was better now with the Prozac. Her eating was under control. She didn’t purge anymore. She had lost some of the extra weight.
But why not eat now? Why not?
The cold air of the freezer wafted over her. The ice cream, the chocolate, there it was. It wouldn’t hurt. Not just once. Not now when she was scared to death and alone and so tired.
Just one DoveBar.
She pulled it out of the box and with fumbling, anxious fingers tore open the wrapper. It was in her mouth in a flash, so good, so cold, the chocolate slick and greasy as it melted on her tongue. The crunch of the shell as she bit into it, the soft luscious vanilla ice cream inside.
She ate it all. She ate like a wolf.