Hold Me Close. Megan Hart

He sounds truly apologetic.

      She can’t wait any longer, or she’ll wet her pants. With mincing, timid steps, she feels her way in the dark along the wall until she bangs her knee against the porcelain. She bites her tongue to keep from crying out, but it hurts bad. She fumbles with her skirt, then her panties, and manages to get them down while crouching over what she hopes is the toilet. Her mom taught her to hover-squat over public toilets, but in the dark Effie’s not sure she won’t pee all over herself.

      She risks it, letting go. Her bladder empties, urine spanging loudly against the porcelain. She lets out a long, low sigh of relief. Her thighs are almost cramping by the time she’s done, and she did splash herself a little, but it’s not as bad as she’d feared.

      “Hey! Is there any paper?” She looks toward the sound of shuffling and sees a shadow moving.

      “No.”

      “A paper towel? Scrap paper? A washcloth, anything?” She wriggles, trying to drip dry and balance while keeping her skirt up and out of the way.

      From the open doorway, a shadow shifts. “Nothing. I used the last of it yesterday. Sorry.”

      “Stop saying that,” Effie snaps as she pulls up her panties and stands to let her skirt fall around her thighs. “I guess you can’t really help it, can you?”

      He doesn’t answer her. Effie holds out her hand, waving into the darkness to find him. She’s afraid to move without him guiding her, although her eyes have started to adjust to the dark.

      “Where are you?” she says.

      “I’m right here.”

      Effie gives her hand another slow wave. “Help me?”

      In a second, she feels the heat of his fingers curling in hers. Heath’s hand is big and rough. He doesn’t squeeze too tightly. Just enough to give her the confidence to take a step toward him. Then another.

      As he guides her through the doorway into the other room, she can see the square of light from the bedroom. She lets out a small noise. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been yearning to see it.

      From above them comes the creaking of footsteps. Then...music? Effie stops short and loses Heath’s grip.

      She knows this song. Something about sailing away. Her mom sometimes listens to the soft rock station in the car, and this song is always on. Effie makes fun of her mom for singing along to the high-pitched lyrics, yet right now she thinks she’d give anything to be in the front seat of her mom’s Volvo rolling her eyes and trying to convince her to change the station. Bright lights from above blaze so fiercely Effie has to cover her eyes, wincing at the pain.

      “Hurry,” Heath says in an urgent yet somehow flatly blank voice. “That means he’s coming.”

       chapter four

      Polly was settled at the breakfast bar working on her homework while Effie’s mom pulled a pan of cookies from the oven. Oatmeal raisin, Polly’s favorite. Effie hated raisins in anything, especially cooked. Their soft and gooey texture made her gag. But then, she wouldn’t eat chocolate chips, either, even though she liked the taste. She simply couldn’t bring herself to trust them, because they looked too much like rat turds or broken bits of cockroaches.

      “Nana, I’m going to be in the school play.” Polly’s blond ponytail swung as she rocked a little on the stool.

      “Polly,” Effie warned. “Sit still, or you’re going to tip the chair.”

      In perfect tween style, Polly sighed and rolled her eyes, so much Effie’s mini-me that she couldn’t even be annoyed. God help her when Polly hit teenagerhood in a few years. Her mother’s wish that Effie would be blessed with a child just like her had never been meant as a compliment.

      Effie wanted to squeeze and kiss her daughter but held herself back. Polly would suffer the embrace, of course, but Effie had decided when she was pregnant that she wouldn’t be that smothering kind of mother. The kind who licked her thumb to clean a smudge off her kid’s soft, fat cheeks, or who hovered. Anxious. The kind who baked cookies, she thought as Mom slid the edge of a metal spatula beneath each perfectly shaped cookie to lift them onto the cooling rack.

      “What part are you going to play?” Mom turned with a smile.

      Polly shrugged. “I’m in the chorus. I get to be in all the scenes where they need people in the background.”

      “That sounds like fun.” Mom tugged open the fridge to pull out the jug of milk. She poured a glass and set it in front of Polly.

      “It’s not a real part,” Polly said.

      “It will still be fun.” Effie went around her mother to open the fridge herself. She pulled out a can of cola and popped the top, then grabbed a glass from the cupboard. She poured the clear fizzy liquid into it and held it up to the light before turning.

      Mom had been staring with that look on her face. The one that meant she was trying hard not to comment. Effie sipped slowly without looking away, daring her mother to confront her about the habit and knowing she wouldn’t. Not in front of Polly, anyway.

      “I’ll wash the glass, Mom, don’t worry,” Effie said.

      It wasn’t that, of course. Mom was in her element when she was scrubbing and sewing and baking and cleaning. A single dirty glass was nothing to her. It was Effie’s reason for using the glass instead of drinking straight from the can that bothered her, but what was Effie supposed to do about it? Some things never left you, no matter how much you wanted them to.

      Polly closed her math book. “I have to be an office worker and a hot dog seller, with a cart. Meredith Ross gets to be the ice cream seller, which I think is better, but they wouldn’t let us trade parts. Meredith thinks she’s so great, though. Can I have a cookie?”

      Mom nodded. “Sure. But only one. You don’t want to spoil your dinner.”

      “Sure she does,” Effie said. “Who wouldn’t want cookies instead of meat loaf?”

      “You used to love meat loaf.” Mom’s voice was sharper than usual.

      Effie looked up. “I used to love cookies more.”

      “I like your meat loaf, Nana. And scalloped potatoes. And red beets,” Polly said. “But no green beans!”

      “No green beans,” Mom said with another long look at Effie. She took a cookie from the cooling rack and gave it to Polly. “If you’re finished with your homework, why don’t you take Jakie out into the backyard and play for a bit until it’s time for dinner?”

      “Mama, when are you leaving?”

      “Soon.” Effie watched as Polly hopped off the stool. “Jacket.”

      When the girl had gone out the back door with Mom’s aging Jack Russell terrier at her heels, Effie braced herself for the lecture. It was better to take it than avoid it. Otherwise, it would be twice as bad the next time. Kind of like letting a teakettle heat without the lid down on the spout—you could avoid the screaming, but you could also forget it was on the stove until it caught the burner on fire when the water all boiled away.

      “You’re too thin,” Mom said flatly. “You have to eat, Effie. You’re going to get sick, and then what will happen to Polly? You don’t have health insurance!”

      Effie had not actually been sick in years, not longer than a day or so anyway, and nothing more serious than a few sniffles or a cough. “I do, actually, Mom. There’s a little thing called Obamacare, remember?”

      “And if you get sick and can’t work, how will you pay for it?”

      “I just got a very nice royalty check from SweetTees, and one should be coming