1 Good night, Daddo!
Good night, Mommy!
Mommy and Daddo leave my room.
I pull the covers up to my chin.
Other Mommy comes out of the closet.
Hi, I say.
I’m so excited to see you again.
2 Bela, Mommy says to me. Eat.
I’m not hungry, I say.
But still. Eat.
I’m not—
I’ve got minutes, only minutes. Then work. Remember? That’s the place I go to make all the little money so we can buy things like food. So, you? Eat the food. Help me out here.
Little money? I ask.
Sometimes it feels that way, hon. Like the money I make is physically smaller than what other people get.
I eat. Mommy always gives me oatmeal. Daddo never gives me breakfast because one time he gave me eggs and sausage and I ate till I threw up and Mommy got mad at him and so now only Mommy gives me breakfast. But Daddo does the dishes.
I love you, Mommy says. Bela?
My mouth is full of oatmeal.
Say I love you too, Mommy says. Don’t make me ask you to say that, ’kay?
’Kay.
I love you, Bela.
Love you too.
What’s on your mind? she asks.
Nuthin’.
But there is something on my mind. I’m looking at the recycle bin.
Bela, Mommy says.
Eat. Where does it go? I ask.
Where does what—
But she looks to where I’m looking.
Are you seriously asking me about recycling right now?
I nod. She looks impatient.
I don’t know where it goes, she says.
Is it a better place?
Better place than what?
Than where we are?
Mommy looks at me the way she does when I say something that surprises her.
I don’t know what that means, Mommy says. The whole point is that it comes back, as . . . something else, I guess.
Something else.
I think of carnations.
Bela—
But she doesn’t need to tell me again. I eat. Then she’s up from the table.
Be good for your daddo, Mommy says.
When will you be home? I ask.
I don’t know yet. Might be late. I don’t know.
She looks frazzled. That’s the word Daddo uses when Mommy looks like this. She’s wearing her brown leather coat. Her black pants. I don’t have to go anywhere because it’s still summer. Daddo works all the time. Mommy’s schedule is all over the place. That’s how she says it.
Bye, Bela, Mommy says.
Bye.
She leaves the kitchen. Daddo is in the den working already, and I don’t hear her say goodbye to him before she leaves out the front door. I go quietly upstairs to my room. I wait for a second by the table with the flowers in the hall.
Other Mommy is already standing outside my closet doors.
I don’t want her to make the face I think she’s about to make. She gets impatient like Mommy does.
I know she wants to talk about carnations.
I go into my bedroom.
And I wave at her.
And I sit on the end of my bed, where I know she likes to talk.
She’s been coming out of the closet a lot more lately.
She walks over to me now. Sometimes it’s like she floats.
She sits on the bed too. Slowly. Next to me.
And she asks:
Can I go into your heart?
3 The first time I told Mommy and Daddo about Other Mommy they laughed. It was good-night time and I told Mommy good night and then I said it again and Mommy said,
Why did you say that twice, Bela?
And I said,
I was saying good night to Other Mommy.
They both smiled and their eyes got wide and Daddo made a funny sound like from a spooky movie. Then Mommy’s smile went away and she asked,
Who’s Other Mommy, Bela?
But I was embarrassed. So I said,
I’m tired!
Daddo laughed again and shut the light and they left my room, but I saw Mommy look back once through the crack in the door. Her eyes looked right at mine. Then she and Daddo went to their own bedroom.
Then Other Mommy made the grunting sound she makes when she stands up on the other side of my bed, in the space between my bed and the wall, when she’s been crouched down there on the carpet waiting for them to leave.
Copyright © 2024 by Josh Malerman. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
