Page 67 of Mad Mabel

“What does he want?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Control? To punish me for having the audacity to leave him? To feel powerful?”

“Persephone?” I ask. “Does he want her?”

She contemplates this. “As far as I can tell, his interest in her is only insofar as it hurts me. He’s never attempted to get custody of her or anything. That’s one thing to be grateful for, I suppose.”

“Buttnugget,” Daphne mutters. “Dickweed!”

I give her a look and she stops.

“So what now?” I ask Roxanne.

She looks exhausted. “Find a new place and hope to hell he doesn’t find us. Save some money because moving isn’t cheap. I can’t do night cleaning anymore obviously.”

“Can you clean during the day?” I ask.

“I can,” she says, “and I do. But the night cleaning pays the best.”

We drift into silence. I try to avoid Daphne’s gaze but I feel her raising her eyebrows and nodding at me. I sigh.

“What if Persephone stayed here on the nights you worked?” I say, under duress.

Daphne beams. “What a great idea!”

“I have a spare room,” I continue. “You could drop her here after she’s had her dinner and she could scuttle home in the morning when she wakes up.”

Roxanne stares at me. “No. No, I couldn’t ask that of you.”

“Corsets you could!” Daphne cries. “She insists!”

I roll my eyes. “I insist,” I drone.

“But… you think she’s an irritating little despot!”

I open my mouth to disagree, but her statement is factually accurate. And yet, I’ve always prided myself on the fact that I don’t do things I don’t want to. It makes me infinitely less likeable in the moment, but as I’m not known for my likability, I figure I don’t have a lot to lose there. For this reason, I know I must mean it when I say:

“If you’re happy to have Mad Mabel as a babysitter, looking after an irritating little despot is the least I can do.”

I stand in the hallway outside the spare bedroom, a cardboard box in one hand. The door is closed as usual. Even Nugget has learned not to scratch at it. I only go in there occasionally, privately—when no one’s around to see.

I was glad Roxanne agreed to let me watch Persephone. Not because I’m itching to care for a child—God forbid—but because it’s a practical solution to a messy problem. And I am, above all things, a pragmatic woman who likes solutions.

Still, a pulse of unease beats beneath my ribs. If Persephone is going to be staying in that room, there’s some work that needs to be done.

I rest my hand on the doorknob. The house is quiet. I inhale deeply, then push the door open and walk in.

It’s a proper mess. Unlike the rest of my house—tidy, spare, scrubbed within an inch of its life—this room is cluttered and full to bursting. It smells faintly of dust and furniture polish. The wallpaper is faded. The air in the room is stale and unmoving.

And he is everywhere. His face looks out from every surface. Dozens of photographs—some framed, others stuck up with curling blue tack—cover the walls and line the dresser, the desk, even the top of an old Singer sewing machine I never use. There he is in the front garden, holding a hose. Carrying a ladder. Wearing his ridiculous fishing hat, bought on special, of course. Laughing. Always laughing.

It’s a shrine, no two ways about it. A shrine to Peter.

It occurs to me that I owe Persephone my thanks. If she’d told anyone what she saw in here, I’d probably have been hauled off to jail, or a home for the insane. But I’m not insane. Despite popular opinion, I never have been. I’m simply… alone. Peter has been a bright spot in my little world for quite some time. A fixed point. Someone to care about, from a distance. Someone who, it seems, cares about me… even a little. I have no intention of pursuing a relationship with him—heaven forbid. I’d never invite such an opportunity for rejection. But here, in this room of my house, it feels safe to indulge such a fantasy. A fantasy of loving, and of being loved back.

I pop the cardboard box on the floor and sink into the worn chair by the window. I reach for the nearest frame, one of the more recent photos—Peter on his front porch, mug in hand, squinting into the sun—and gently lay it in the box. The next picture follows, and the one after that. My hands are slow, careful, like I’m packing up a person. In a way, I am.

Nugget wanders in and lets out a small sigh before curling up beside the box. I glance down at her. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s for the best.”