The Daughter Merger. Janice Kay Johnson

a couple of weeks ago. She’d called on a Saturday, about noon, which was the best time. Her mom would be up, but she wouldn’t have had her first drink yet.

      “Clairabelle!” Mom had cried, her voice lilting with pleasure. “Oh, I miss you so much.”

      “I hate it here,” Claire said with quiet intensity. “I want to come home.”

      “Just a minute, honey.” A few clicks and thumps later, her mother sighed. “Coffee. I desperately need that first cup.”

      Just as she desperately needed that first drink a few hours later. She was always saying she’d quit, or cut back, but it was hard. At school, Claire had learned that alcoholism was a disease. Her mother couldn’t help herself.

      “Now, what were you saying?” Mom asked.

      Claire repeated herself.

      “You know your father has custody now. The judge decided you have to live with him. I tried.”

      “What if we ran away?” Claire had been thinking about it. “If we just moved, and didn’t tell him. You could get a job, and I could baby-sit, and we could start all over.”

      “Honey…” Her mother paused. “What would I do for a living?”

      “Well…” That took her aback. “What you do now.” Mom was a bookkeeper. Wouldn’t it be easy to do that anywhere?

      “I’d need references. About the only kind of job you can get without any is to be waitress or work at a fast-food restaurant. Can you picture me behind the counter at The Burger Quickie?”

      “I could help! Besides baby-sitting, I could maybe mow lawns or clean houses or something.” She’d trailed off, knowing already that her mother wouldn’t do it.

      “I love you, too,” Mom said sadly. “But what you’re suggesting is impossible. Maybe, if your father was abusive, but he’s not a bad man. I know he’ll take good care of you.”

      “But I hate it here!” she’d said again. Tears were running down her cheeks, and she was hunched around the telephone as if it were a magic talisman, her only hope.

      “You know, I’m not the world’s best mother.”

      “I like you just the way you are!” Claire said fiercely. She had to swipe away tears.

      “I’m flattered,” her mother said lightly, “but I need to go now. Pete’s picking me up in…gracious, less than half an hour! You know me. Noon, and I still look a mess.”

      Claire sniffed. “Have you…have you had breakfast?”

      “Oh, just coffee.” She laughed. “Well, you heard me pouring it, didn’t you? I’ve always told you, I’m not a breakfast eater, but you never believed me, did you?”

      If Claire didn’t make it, she wouldn’t bother. In fact, she hardly ate at all if Claire didn’t put a meal on the table.

      “I’ll get a bite while I’m out,” she’d say airily. She went out a lot, most evenings, and came home after midnight even on weeknights. Claire would hear her fumbling at the door, the key missing the lock, until finally Mom got it open. Then a whispered goodbye to whoever had brought her, and then thumps as she knocked into furniture on her way to the bedroom. Sometimes she would pause in the hall outside Claire’s room, a dark silhouette that swayed unsteadily.

      It was Claire’s job to get her up in the morning. Sometimes she’d miss her bus when Mom groaned and put the pillow over her head and wouldn’t get up at all, or had to run to the bathroom to throw up. Her mother had a delicate stomach. She was always better if she’d had a real dinner the evening before. Claire wondered if Mom was sick every morning now.

      “Is everything okay at work?” she asked, not wanting to say Have you been fired again?

      “Oh, they’re being the usual poops, but I’m fine. They need me,” Mom declared. She had noticed the clock again and said a hasty goodbye.

      Today, the last thing Claire said to Linnet before they separated to go to class was, “Well, I won’t stay with Dad, no matter what! Even if I have to live on the street in Seattle.”

      In her math class, the teacher handed out a quiz. They were doing graphing, and Claire didn’t get it. She hadn’t even opened her book in three days. She stared at the paper and decided not to bother scribbling any answers at all. Instead she stood up and said, “Mr. Wilson, I don’t feel good. I need to go to the nurse’s office.”

      His eyes narrowed. “Fine, Ms. Whitcomb, I’ll write you a pass, but I’ll expect you after school to make up the quiz.”

      She ignored the whispers. “I have to take the bus.”

      “Then tomorrow during the lunch hour.”

      “Um…sure.” She didn’t quite curl her lip. Yeah, right.

      The nurse bought her story of an upset stomach, since she didn’t often use it. She spent the rest of the afternoon lying down in the nurse’s office, only leaving when it was time to catch the bus.

      She was hurrying out, trying to ignore all the creeps who went to this school, when a girl she really hated named Alicia called out from a bus line, “I heard you ran away.” Her expression was avid. “Did you sell yourself?”

      Claire looked her up and down and said coolly, “Is that what you would have done?” Amid laughter, she continued toward the bus.

      “Claire!”

      She turned at the sound of her friend’s voice. Linnet was tall and skinny, but she took dance classes, which made her graceful. Her light brown hair hung all the way to her waist. Right now, she looked pretty with her cheeks flushed as she rushed up to Claire.

      “I’ve got to go, but I had this idea,” she said, the words tumbling out. “Maybe you could live with me.”

      “You?”

      “I’ll bet my mom would agree. I’ll ask her, if you think you’d want to.”

      Dumbfounded, Claire stared at her. “You really think she’d say yes?”

      “I know she likes you.” Linnet glanced toward her bus line. “I really, really have to go. Do you want me to ask?”

      Little fizzes that might have been excitement or hope rose in Claire’s chest. What she wanted most was to live with her mom, but until she could figure out a way to do that…

      Somebody bumped her from behind, and she was being pushed away from Linnet toward the yawning door of the bus. “Yes!” she called.

      “I’ll phone, okay?” Grinning, Linnet ran.

      In a daze, Claire found a seat and didn’t even care that it was next to some seventh grader who had opened her notebook and was actually doing homework—homework! Claire was just glad not to be bugged.

      Claire didn’t know why Linnet’s mother would take in somebody else’s kid, but Linnet had sounded so sure. Was there any chance at all that Mrs. Blanchet really would agree?

      If she did, what would Dad say? Claire frowned. He had all kinds of reasons why she couldn’t go home to Mom, but none of them applied to Mrs. Blanchet. She didn’t drink, and Linnet went to school every day—in fact, she was almost a straight A student, which was an argument Claire could use in her favor. But Mrs. Blanchet didn’t seem to make Linnet do stuff. When Claire was spending the night, she’d ask for help sometimes, but nicely.

      “Any chance you girls could empty the dishwasher?” she’d say with a smile.

      Linnet was never grounded, like Claire seemed to be half the time.

      It had to be better than Dad’s.

      She hugged her day pack to her chest and stared out the window past the seventh grader.

      If Mrs.