Little Ships (eBook)

1

The Beckers—Nick, Karin, and their adolescent daughters Tilde and Juni—had been living in a two-bedroom apartment half an hour south of Portland, Oregon for four months, since Nick got a job installing new computer software in the pharmacies of a chain of drugstores all over Oregon. He enjoyed the challenge and the break from being cooped up in a pharmacy kiosk counting pills and advising customers. It meant he did a lot of driving and once or twice a week stayed over out of town. He had rented their apartment in a two-story complex right off the I-5 freeway, promising they would get a house as soon as the job settled down, but he hadn’t mentioned moving again. He and Karin talked about putting the girls in public school so they could join some sports teams, but he drove away in their only car every day, and the middle school was across the freeway and another two miles after that, so the girls didn’t go. At their age, they should have been in seventh and eighth grades, but their mother said they were good readers, and what else mattered? They had both taken required state tests for fifth graders two years earlier (to keep the state off their backs), and though Juni was behind in math, the state did no more than send a form letter urging attention to the deficient skills. The girls had a big carton of homeschooling books and workbooks and a laptop computer that had been sent to them from the state education offices in September, when they were living in Salem; and there were certified teachers who could have helped the girls online, but the internet had been cut off because Karin didn’t pay the bill. She had lost interest in school stuff, so the girls dipped in the box when they wanted to. Juni read the language arts books—anthologies, novels—and any parts of the science texts that were about animals. Tilde read a lot, too, and worked through the mathematics books—hers and Juni’s; her mother said she was like a caterpillar chewing through parsley. Sometimes the girls drilled one another on spelling science vocabulary, easy words like muscle and environment and savanna and terrestrial. The state materials included fabric-bound journals for both girls. Juni wrote poems in hers, and lists of places she wanted to go in the world, and designs of clothes she would buy if she could, and sometimes, cats with large paws. Tilde copied her favorite (hardest) mathematics exercises into her journal, and drew sketches of trees, plants, and fish. Neither girl ever wrote about what was going on or not going on in their lives, any more than they spoke about such things. Each had memories they didn’t talk about. They had no friends—they never had had—but they had each other and the open promise of the future.

If there was a library, they hadn’t found it, but they knew where all the fast food places were on their side of the freeway, and there was a discount mall where they spent hours looking at things like tennis shoes, camping equipment, stuffed animals and baseball caps. Once in a while they shoplifted something cheap and useless, but they seemed to be invisible and it wasn’t a thrill. Whatever they took they threw behind a bush on their way home. There was a pocket park nearby with two swings and a shabby backboard with a basketball hoop. Homeless people had tents and sheets of plastic to sleep under at the edge of the park, and they hung out in the day; sometimes the girls stood at the edge and said hi if someone noticed them, then ran away. Sometimes the girls waited for their mother to nap, and then they sneaked out and ran across the freeway overpass like vagrant dogs. There was a cluster of nicer stores over there. If no cops were around, they begged, and they always got a few dollars and coins. Once a lady with gray hair cut short as a man’s gave Tilde a five-dollar bill and offered them a ride. They gave her wide-eyed looks and Juni said, We’re not allowed!

Nick always stopped at a grocery store on the way home and brought in milk, sacks of cereals, soups, sandwich meat, bread, margarine and candy bars—the sort of things you bought to go stay for a weekend in a cabin in the woods. Karin never left the apartment. She played solitaire, watched TV, looked at magazines, colored intricate designs on pages she tore from the girls’ journals, and slept a lot. She had been thin, but now she was fat in the middle, while Nick was skinny like a stick. The girls washed clothes in the basement’s coin-operated machines. When Nick got home at night, he ate a sandwich and sometimes played cards or Scrabble with the girls, and then he went in his room and smoked.

If he hadn’t lost his job at the big box store in Salem, the family would still be in a house, and the girls might be going to school.

Sometimes the girls wandered along the freeway and talked about what would happen if they hitchhiked—north or south, it didn’t matter. They didn’t have any real sense of where they were or what was beyond them. Their grandmothers were four hours away, and they knew if they called them, one or both would come get them, but you can’t leave your parents like that, just when they are having a hard time. It was understood: the family was a unit. You are my ruby ring, Karin told Tilde; you are my opal brooch, she told Juni. You are my heart, Nick said. You are my girls. Juni and Tilde believed them.

One night, Nick called from Bend to say he was late and they shouldn’t wait up for him. A little later he called and said he was going to get a motel. He was too tired to drive.

Karin said, oh well, we can watch TV. She liked QVC. The girls scrambled the last four eggs and watched them congeal in the skillet, then cut them into wedges like pie.

Karin lay on the couch with her swollen leg stretched out, bundled in a blanket because she was chilled. She had a ring on one toe, and she couldn’t get it off. She turned on the TV and sent Tilde to get her credit cards from the shoebox under their bed. Tilde brought back bracelets, too. The girls sat on the floor, leaning against the couch. They held their hands up so the bracelets wouldn’t fall off.

It was time for jewelry. Karin decided to buy matching necklaces for the three of them. She shuffled a deck of cards for a while, then picked one, held it up as if it had an answer, then called in her order. Her hair was wet around her face and her skin was bruised under her eyes, purple like the swollen toe.

Are you sick? the girls asked. Are you okay, Mommy?

Karin said she was tired and limped off to bed. Her bracelets jangled. The girls watched TV until they were too sleepy to undress, and they crawled into bed together.

Early in the morning, Karin woke them with her howling. They ran in and begged her to stop. What’s wrong? what’s wrong? they cried. Karin was tossing around on the bed. After a while she got quiet, and the girls couldn’t wake her. Their daddy came home soon after and called 911, and off he went with their mother in an ambulance.

The girls watched from the window as they pulled away.

They were hungry. There was cereal but no milk. They found a can of pineapple and one of lima beans. They watched TV. They spread their mother’s credit cards out on the kitchen table and they drew their own. Tilde’s had fish on hers; Juni’s had birds. They slept through the long afternoon. When it was dark they put on pajamas and went to their room.

Juni said, Let’s play store.

They took out all the boxes from the ends of their closet and from under the bed. Many boxes were still wrapped in shipping paper and tape, and they had to get a paring knife. They opened all of them and set the boxes around the room, nested in their lids. They lined the walls and the closet doors three deep. They put on all the jewels they could wear: two on every finger, up their arms to the elbows, heavy around their necks. There were tiaras for both of them. They got lamps from other rooms to make theirs bright.

When Nick got home, he came into their room carrying the credit cards from the table. He looked around the room like he had never been there before, then plopped the cards down on their bed. It was low and his skinny knees stuck up. Tilde pulled the shoeboxes full of bills from under the bed and dumped them beside him. He rustled the envelopes with one hand, swish swish, and threw the cards on top. He put his hands out on the bed and wadded the sheet. He was crying without making any sound. In a little while he told them he had brought a pizza. Then he went out again.

The sisters lay down on the floor. They spread their limbs like snow angels. The lamplight shone on their glittering arms.

When Nick hadn’t come back from the hospital in the morning, the girls looked around the house until they had a few dollars, then walked to McDonald’s and split a pancake breakfast and a cup of orange juice. Tilde put a sausage between her teeth and bent toward her sister; Juni bit off half.

Tilde said, “Remember Mormor’s pankakkor?” and Juni said, “If we wait a little while, we could have a hamburger.” But they were out of money. They filled their juice cup with Coke. They sat away from the service counter, looking out at the traffic, sometimes knocking each other’s legs under the table, never changing expression. They didn’t talk, but they called out words: aphrodisiac! sentimental! anthropomorphic! indubitable!

The counter clerks watched them; they weren’t causing trouble.

They rushed back to the apartment to pee. The door was ajar and the apartment reeked of marijuana. They looked in their parents’ bedroom. Nick was asleep on his bed....