Free Roost by Ali Bryan Page B

ambiguously.
    “Where?”
    “They’re having a bath.”
    “All of them?”
    “They wanted to.”
    “Dad, Joan can’t take a bath unsupervised!”
    I charge down the hall to the bathroom. All four kids are jammed in the tub. Bottles of shampoo and conditioner float between them. Their labels have been picked off. The water is cool. Liam is blue.
    “Did Grandpa wash your hair?” I ask, fingering through Joan’s dreadlocks.
    “Look at this, Mommy,” Wes says, holding up a wrestler. “I pulled his head off.”
    “Why would you do that?” I ask, irritated.
    I can hear Dad cheering from the hall. He says, “Come look at this replay!”
    “I’m trying to get the kids out of the tub.”
    “You’re going to miss it!”
    “That’s okay,” I assure him.
    I hear him clapping as I lift the kids out one at a time andtowel them off. I brush my kids’ teeth and give Dan’s kids dental floss. After I dress Wes and Joan in their pajamas, I tell them to go pick out a book. Hannah and Liam dress themselves. I give them my bed.
    “Check it out,” my father says, pointing to the TV . “Watch this shot.”
    “Emma has Mom’s mouth.”
    Dad looks away from the screen. His posture falls apart.
    “Sorry,” I say. “But you have to see her.”
    He covers his face in a childlike way. But I don’t have time for another child.
    “Did you feed them?” I glance at the clock in the kitchen, it’s 7:30.
    “We had microwaved English muffins, cheese slices and some of that left-over chicken.”
    Who microwaves English muffins? I look at Wes, sitting at Dad’s feet with a Hot Wheels. I go into my bathroom to restock the toilet paper and feel exhausted. Other people’s grief. The new baby. I won’t have another baby. I begin digging through my drawers behind vials of separated foundation and purse tampons for my stash of cigarettes — the menthols I occasionally smoke on weekends when the kids are with Glen. There are two left in the pack. I remove one and conceal it in my hand.
    When I return to the living room, Dad is explaining curling to Wes, who grinds his teeth between saying, intermittently, “Peep!”
    “Are you peeping?” I ask him, to which my eldest responds, “Peep.”
    “Do you have a piece of paper?” Dad asks.
    “On the second shelf,” I reply, nodding in its direction.
    He gets the paper and begins drawing a sheet of ice. “This is the hog line,” he points.
    “Peep!”
    “Stop peeping!” I yell. “I have to run out and get some milk. Do you mind watching the kids for a bit longer?”
    Of course Dad does not mind because I get TSN and he has basic cable.
    “Go ahead.”
    “Thanks.” I put my boots on and pick my coat up off the floor.
    Wes walks by the entryway and says, “Peep.”
    “STOP peeping. Did anyone see my keys?”
    “Me come!” Joan says.
    “Mommy will only be gone for a minute.”
    “Peep.”
    “Wes! Dad — have you seen my keys?”
    “Sorry honey, I haven’t.” He moves to the edge of the couch, drawn to the TV . “Yes!” he raises his arms in victory.
    “Peep.”
    “Where the hell are my keys?”
    Wes points to his room. I remove my boots and my left sock gets stuck so I throw the left boot angrily into the hall closet and call it a bitch.
    I find my keys on Wes’s bed. I sit down momentarily to count to ten and there to my left on his bedside table are Wes’s wrestling figurines, each with a cigarette taped to his plastic lips. Eight wrestlers smoking. Wes stands in the doorway. He yells, “Peep!” and runs into the kitchen. I sit down on the bed. Joan runs in and yells, “Peep!”
    In the living room a commercial break comes on playing “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
    I sing in my head,
Two peeping children, and a mo-ther-er in a pear —
    Fuck. I still haven’t put up a tree.

21
    Our artificial tree leans to the left
. Despite hours of searching, I can’t find the box of Christmas decorations. So we improvise, hanging popcorn strings and household