Free The Mermaid of Brooklyn by Amy Shearn Page B

a deadbeat roommate in an invisibility cloak who never took a turn doing the dishes or walking the dog. A waft of his scent beneath Juniper napping on the nest of his coiled sweater, a residue of shaved stubble gunking up the bathroom sink, his running shoes taking up an aggressive amount of space on the shoe rack in the closet. I was beginning to realize how many things he normally did around the house, even with him working such long hours. Our household was, after all, a decently oiled machine, but it worked only when Harry was there to reach the glasses in the high kitchen cabinet, to take the meticulously sorted recycling down to the street, to read books to Betty before bed while Rose nursed like her life depended on it. What made me feel like I was drowning was not wondering where he was but realizing there was a mouse carcass mummifying in the trap beneath the sink and no one but me to disinter it. The worst was Betty, who kept saying mournfully, “Daddy’s still at work? Still? ” “Yes, honey. He’s on a business trip. So we won’t see him for—a little while. You’ll just have to wait.” Here she was, looking to me for some explanation for this strange occurrence, for someinformation about the world. As always, my response was cruelly incomplete.
    At an unsettlingly early hour in the morning, the buzzer rang. We all stopped what we were doing. Betty looked at me questioningly. “Gwoceries?” she guessed. “Chinese food?” Rose dropped the rattle she’d been turning over in her hands and scrunched up her face. “Uh, hello?” I called into the pointless intercom. An energetic exclamation of static replied. I pushed the button to unlock the front door. Meter reader, UPS man, Jehovah’s Witness, jewel thief. I guess my heart lightened a little. Maybe it was Harry. Having lost his keys. With some story of mischief and hijinks that would explain it all, perhaps a souvenir. Or, more likely, someone for one of the neighbors, confused by our doorbell’s cryptic arrangement of buttons, numbers, and names. I had practically forgotten about it when, nearly a minute later, the apartment door opened. “Jenny?”
    Sweet Jesus. Sylvia. I cast a panicked look around the apartment. The sink contained a bulbous moonscape of plastic plates and sippy cups, the kitchen table glossy with a sealant of juice. Every toy that had ever been invented, sold, resold at a stoop sale, or abandoned at the park by a thoughtless child with an unvigilant nanny congregated on the living room floor—a good distraction from the weeks’ worth of crud stiffening the rug. I am not exaggerating when I say there were tumbleweeds of dog hair. I could smell milk rotting somewhere but had not been able to ascertain the source. Betty sat under the overturned toy bin, still in her pajamas, which she had also worn the day before and the night before that, eating her breakfast. Rose was trying her darnedest to roll directly beneath the couch. When Juniper heard the door creak open, she leaped over Rose and threw herself at Sylvia as if they were long-lost lovers.
    Sylvia, perfectly turned out in a tidy jogging suit, gasped and staggered back. “Oh God, this dog.”
    “Juniper! Juniper!” I impotently waved a rectangle of graham cracker. “Here. Come here .” I lunged forward and grabbed the scruff of her neck. When Juniper was stashed in my bedroom, scratching at the door and whimpering pathetically, Sylvia stepped all the way into the apartment. “Sorry, Sylvia. I wasn’t expecting you.”
    “Clearly,” she said, jabbing her nails into her stiff hairdo, as if even Juniper’s attentions could shake loose a shellacked strand. Sylvia’s silvery helmet of hair reminded me of the antique taxidermy at the American Museum of Natural History, resembling something living but only distantly. She’d had her boys later in life, and Harry was a little older than I; more than once I’d accidentally referred to her as his grandmother. The few