Free Leaving Eden by Anne Leclaire Page B

were a dirty ashtray, a half-empty can of Pringles, and a balled-up tissue. It was probably the ugliest bedroom in three counties.
    I headed for the bathroom next and checked out the medicine cabinet. Toothbrush, toothpaste, stick deodorant, aspirin—the cheap, no-name brand—a ratty box of Band-Aids, disposable razor, and an aerosol can of shaving cream. The stuff could have belonged to a man.
    I returned to the bedroom, still looking for something worth the trouble of the hunt. I opened the top drawer of the dresser, prepared to find soiled underwear stuffed there but everything was folded in neat little piles. A stack of panties and another of bras, all practical and businesslike, white cotton, nothing pink or silky like Mama’s. I checked every drawer and each one was like that, as if all the mess was on the surface of Martha Lee’s life but underneath she kept things orderly.
    I found the pictures in the bottom drawer. There were tons of them, some so old, they were black and white. They were of Mama, going back to the time when she was a little girl. Baby pictures of her and my Uncle Grayson, school pictures, and a bunch of snapshots taken of Mama and Martha Lee lying on a blanket at a beach and several of the two of them in front of a Christmas tree. There was a Halloween picture: Mama in a flapper dress, sporting a headband and cigarette holder, Martha Lee as a gangster, with a dummy propped between them wearing a hat with a wide brim and holding a fake machine gun. Duane. Just looking at it, my chest got full of stones.
    Toward the bottom there was a picture of the three of them: my mama, daddy, and Martha Lee. I didn’t know when it was taken—shortly after I was born, I guessed, because there was a baby carriage in the corner of the photo. They were all holding hands, my mama in the middle. Daddy and Martha Lee were staring straight out at the photographer and looking like this was not their idea. I wondered how they got Daddy in the shot anyway. He always said he’d rather face the business end of a shotgun than have his picture taken. Mama looked so happy. Sometimes I almost forgot just how beautiful she was.
    After a while, I put the photos back, just like I’d found them, and headed to the kitchen to refill my orange juice. I drank it slow so I wouldn’t get sick pedaling home, then rinsed the glass. I wasn’t even mad at Martha Lee anymore, just lonely and sick in my heart from looking at the pictures.
    I was setting the glass in the strainer when I saw the First Federal envelope lying on an open shelf by the refrigerator. There was a wad of cash sticking out in plain sight, right there where any thief could walk right in and take it. I intended to walk away but I was sick with wanting for that money. It drew me to it, like I was hypnotized the way I’d once seen someone at a carnival I’d begged and begged my mama to take me to. The main show was in a tent, and there was a magician dressed in a shiny black suit with a red silk lining to the jacket and a narrow string tie like a cowboy might wear. After he did some dumb card tricks any four-year-old could figure out, he asked for a volunteer from the audience. When no one moved he chose Nell Mosley and kept at her until she climbed up on the stage, half laughing and making little brushing motions in the air with her hand. He got her to sit up on a tall stool, then he swung a watch in front of her face and told her she was getting sleepy, sleepy, sleepy, repeating this until she closed her eyes. He told her to stick her tongue out, and she did. Then he told her to get up and quack and waddle like a duck, which she did, too, right there in front of everyone, waddling around the stage in her ugly yellow dress, not even stopping when everyone screamed with laughter. I almost peed my pants I was so relieved it wasn’t my mama up there quacking.
    I had nightmares for a week after that, each one about a man turning all of us into animals. Mama was a cat,