Free House Arrest by Mary Morris Page A

glass and pretended to be snow queens while our father tried to break up the ice in the driveway with a pickax, whacking like a prisoner trying to escape. But the driveway was too long and the ice too thick, and once he had broken it up there was nowhere to go.
    We dressed up in long cotton skirts and our mother made grilled cheese sandwiches. We ate them in front of the fireplace with pickles and potato chips. The sandwiches were hot with thick, runny cheese, and the pickles stung my tongue. When we were done, our father said to carry our dishes back to the kitchen. Lydia never wanted to carry heavy things because she dropped them, so I loaded up the tray. But when I passed our father on the three stairs that connected the living room to the kitchen, he said, “Maggie, you’re going to drop that tray.”
    “I won’t,” I told him.
    His nostrils flared; his jaw was set firm. “Yes, you will.” Even as he said it, I felt my foot tangling in my skirt. The tray grew heavy in my hands, tilting as the dishes slipped forward. I listened as the dishes tumbled down the stairs, shattering on the floor. “You see,” my father said, as he walked away, “I told you you would.”

Eleven
    T HE RINGING of the phone wakes me and for a moment I am not sure where I am. My surroundings aren’t familiar and I cannot recall what city I am in or how I got here. Then I hear a voice, speaking Spanish to me. “I’m afraid I’ve woken you,” the voice says apologetically, and I know it is Major Lorenzo. I struggle to sit up.
    “It’s all right. I should be getting up.” I reach for my watch, which is on the nightstand, and see that it is only eight o’clock in the morning, but I have been asleep since the previous afternoon. There is a hollow pit in my stomach and suddenly I am very hungry.
    “There are some people who would like to see you.”
    “Oh,” I say, “are they here?”
    “No,” he replies, drawing out the word, as if this thought never would have occurred to him, “we are going there.”
    “I’ll be down in a few minutes,” I tell him. I am about to get up, to shower quickly, but as I lie there, I am struck with the odd feeling that I have not been alone, as if someone hasbeen in the room, watching me. Looking at my belongings, at me as I slept. I am warm, sweating, as I get up and go through my things. My head seems to be reeling, as if I have fallen into a dead sleep. I open drawers, peer into the closet. Scan the walls for holes, hidden cameras. Everything seems to be in place, as I left it. When I close my eyes, I can almost hear another person breathing, yet I know no one is there. Still I undress in the bathroom, where I take a cold shower; I put on my clothes before leaving the bathroom.
    That is when I notice the frog. It is a small, green frog, wedged between the wall of the bathroom and a window that must have once opened onto the outside. How the frog got into my room, let alone into that wedged place between the window and the wall, I’ll never know. But it makes a deep, guttural sound. The window is locked shut, so I’ll try to find a maid to let the frog out.
    As I leave the room, I see a maid and signal to her, but she just looks at me, then scurries away. I hear her whispering to another worker in the corridor as I walk by. They know, I tell myself. Everyone knows who I am. And what I have done.
    Major Lorenzo sits in the lobby, leaning forward, speaking with his aide, who even inside wears his reflector shades. I have yet to see his eyes. Major Lorenzo is dressed in perfect military attire and looks like a man who is going somewhere. As soon as he sees me, he stops talking and rises. So does his aide, and people turn, looking my way, since there aren’t many men around in reflector shades with semiautomatic weapons strapped to their waists.
    Major Lorenzo extends his hand and I notice that he smells of after shave. Canoe? Old Spice? Some brand my father usedto wear. “Well, Maggie,” Major