Dad would kill her if he knew she was there with them.
Smiling, Barbie was shaking her head. “They’re fine,” she whispered back quickly and Kelsey stared at her. Was her mom okay? Even after all these times seeing her, she couldn’t get used to the short, choppy hair and no makeup and sloppy clothes. She remembered her mom being beautiful.
Of course, maybe that was just kid stuff.
“Don, sweetie, come on over and meet Kelsey,” Mom said. She squeezed Kelsey’s hand so hard her fingernails cut into Kelsey. “Kelsey, this is Don.”
The bigger of the two men, the one with the beard that mostly covered his mouth and made it so you couldn’t tell if he was smiling or getting ready to spit, came over, his big boots making a lot of noise on the tile floor, which, as far as Kelsey could tell, covered the whole house.
“Hi there!” he said, rubbing Kelsey’s head. She wanted to jerk away but she was afraid to upset her mom. Her mom wasn’t doing so good today. She was in one of those moods where she could be happy and then all of a sudden cranky.
“Hi,” she finally said, leaning into her mother.
“So your mom here tells me you’re in fourth grade.”
Another squeeze of her hand. “Uh-huh.”
“You like your teacher?”
I’d like it if you’d go away. “She’s okay.”
“You get good grades?”
“Uh-huh.”
Did Mom really live with this guy? When she could have Daddy?
“I’ll bet you have lots of friends, a pretty girl like you.”
Kelsey felt creepy. She wanted to leave.
Her mother’s nails bit into her hand again, reminding Kelsey that she hadn’t answered.
“Uh-huh.” If she didn’t love her mother so much, she’d never come back to this place, for sure. She hoped Mom wouldn’t make her. She liked driving around in the car more—even if it was old and rusty and had ripped seats and a bad smell.
“Cool.” Don smacked his lips, leaned down and gave her mother a wet, messy kiss that lasted so long she could smell that he stank. He slid a finger through the hole in the thigh of her mom’s jeans. Just when Kelsey was going to jump up and leave, Don stood and went out the garage door. Kelsey listened for a car, hoping he was leaving, but there was only quiet.
Mom let go of Kelsey’s hand and gave her a hug and a soft kiss like she used to do at bedtime. Kelsey almost had to wipe it off. She didn’t want any spit from that awful guy on her, anywhere.
“You remember that ‘fluffy puppy’ book we used to read?” her mom asked, like she’d read her mind or something.
“Yeah.” Kelsey still had it.
“Remember how the cover was all stained and torn?”
“Yeah.” She liked it that way.
“The story was still the best, huh?”
What was even better was that her mom remembered. And was talking like those days were important to her, too. “Yeah.”
“Well, that’s how Don and his friend James are. They’re kind of rough-looking
on the outside sometimes, but inside they’re the best.”
Oh. Well, she hadn’t looked at the puppy book in a long time. It was probably covered up with her puke and stuff.
“He has yellow teeth.” The hand running through her hair stopped.