Lucretia and the Kroons

16

Loochie’s mother came home an hour later. Loochie was in her mother’s bedroom, down on her hands and knees. She had a sponge and a dish towel and she’d just finished scrubbing away the cigarette ashes she’d vomited earlier.

By the time Loochie’s mother hung up her coat and pulled off her shoes Loochie was in the kitchen squeezing the sponge dry, then running it under water and squeezing it dry again. She didn’t want there to be any ashes left. She’d already wiped up all the mud she tracked into the apartment. Had already washed the mud off her jeans and T-shirt in the bathtub. They were in the hamper.

Then her mother was there in the kitchen. Loochie couldn’t believe how happy she was to see her mother. Suddenly she felt weightless. Loochie hugged her around the stomach and didn’t let go. Her mother leaned into the hug, patting her daughter on the neck.

“You changed your clothes?” her mom asked.

“They got a little dirty,” Loochie said.

The rain boots, also washed off, were under Loochie’s bed. The knit cap lay under Loochie’s pillow.

“You two must’ve had some fun.” Loochie’s mother laughed. “Is Sunny still here?”

Loochie pulled away from her mother, looked into the woman’s face.

“Sunny’s gone,” Loochie explained. Her mom nodded but clearly didn’t understand what Loochie was trying to tell her.

Loochie’s mother took out some diet soda, and grabbed a tray of ice cubes from the freezer. She saw the last bit of birthday cake on the table, still on the plate.

“You and Sunny didn’t want to eat it?” her mom asked.

“We were too busy,” Loochie said. “You can have it.”

Her mom cracked the tray, scooping out two ice cubes for her soda. “I ate too much already today. But it seems like a shame to waste. I wish you’d share it with someone.”

Loochie looked over her shoulder. “Louis came back?”

“Hah! He was so mad at me. He wouldn’t even stay at the lawyer’s. I met with the man by myself.”

Loochie picked up the ice tray and put it back in the freezer.

“Oh but the lawyer was a bastard,” Loochie’s mother said absently. She wasn’t really talking to Loochie, just out loud. She gulped the soda. “And his secretary. Rude and she dressed badly. Like a whore or something.”

Her mother left the glass on the table and walked into her bedroom. Loochie picked up the plate with the last of her birthday cake. Her mother’s suggestion was a good one. She should share it with someone.

She pulled back the security gate. She lifted the window as quietly as she could. Loochie crept out onto the fire escape. She climbed toward the sixth floor. She held on to the fire escape railing with one hand. Loochie peeked at the sixth-floor window. It was open. The kitchen stayed dark. Loochie listened for life inside but all she heard was the traffic of passing cars down on the street, the voices of kids calling to each other. And, soon, her own name.

“Loochie!”

It was her mother, and she sounded pissed.

Loochie set the plate of cake down on the fire escape landing, right outside the open window of 6D. Her neck prickled with the heat of fear and her heart bumped violently when she got close. As soon as she let go of the plate she snatched her hand back.

“Lucretia!”

No time to linger. Loochie hurried back down to her place. She was through the kitchen window just as her mother stepped out of the bedroom. Her mother carried one of the bare foam heads.

“What did you two do with my wig!” she shouted.

Loochie stood there, looking almost bashful. “I gave it to Sunny,” Loochie said.

Her mother watched Loochie quietly. Her lips were clamped tight, holding in a rage.

“I went upstairs,” Loochie said. “Sunny didn’t come down so I went looking for her.”

Mom squeezed the foam head’s neck tightly. “What does that have to do with my wig?”

“I was wearing it,” Loochie said. She grabbed the back of a chair for balance. Then she told her mother everything. Climbing up to 6D. Being yanked inside. Finding the park inside the living room. Running for her life as the Kroons pursued her. The Playground of Lost Children. The flying rats. Sunny’s rescue. Alice. The muddy meadow. Swimming in the void. Absolutely all of it. Well, almost all of it. Loochie left out the cigarettes.

When Loochie was done both she and her mother were sitting at the kitchen table. Her mother cradled the foam head in her lap the whole time. When Loochie was finished she felt relieved, even happy. Certainly her mother could understand, after all that, why giving the wig to Sunny had been so important.

“I don’t know what to say,” her mother told her.

“Say you’re not mad at me about the wig,” Loochie offered.

Her mother looked down at the foam head. Her movements were slow, stunned. “I’m not mad about the wig.”

Loochie nodded happily, relaxed in her seat.

“But you don’t really think …,” her mother began. “I mean, Loochie, please tell me you’re joking. You don’t really believe any of that happened, right?”

“You think I made it up?” Loochie asked. She felt as if she’d been stung all over her face.

Her mother looked up from her lap. Her eyes were moist. Her jaw hung slack and her lips were open.

Loochie didn’t try to argue. Instead she hopped out of her chair and marched to her bedroom. When Loochie returned she held Sunny’s blue knit cap in one hand.

“Well then how did I get this?” She shook the knit cap, its pompoms dancing.

Her mother looked at her daughter’s evidence. “It’s just a cap,” she said quietly.

“But you should’ve seen my clothes when I came in!” Loochie said. “They were covered in the mud.”

“Bring them to me,” her mom said. Loochie went and yanked them from the hamper. The clothes looked worn down and wrinkled and wet, but they were clean.

“That’s just ’cause I scrubbed them!” Loochie shouted.

Loochie’s mother touched her daughter’s forehead with the back of her hand. She dropped her hand and watched Loochie with a grave seriousness.

“Go to your room,” her mother said, her voice lacking any emotion.

Loochie didn’t know what to do just then so she just got up. Her mother didn’t believe her.

Slowly, Loochie’s mother shuffled back into the bedroom. As she did she looked over her shoulder at Loochie one more time. A look of confusion, pure bafflement, was there.

Loochie turned to the kitchen window. She was about to close it, but before she did she leaned her head out. Her mother’s doubt seemed to infect her. Could she really have made it all up? She looked to the sixth floor, just in time to see a long, narrow hand reach out from the apartment. Loochie knew that hand. It was Alice’s.

“I hope you like it,” Loochie whispered.

In another year, at the age of thirteen, Lucretia Gardner would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Over the rest of her adolescence she would see many different doctors and be admitted to a number of different mental hospitals in Queens. In the first year of her illness Loochie’s mother would tell the admitting staff about the time Loochie claimed to have battled monsters inside a park inside apartment 6D. To her mother, and the doctors, this counted as a clear manifestation of mental illness, an amped-up delusion, the trick of a troubled mind. Loochie learned to stop arguing otherwise. Folks like that could never be convinced. Sunny’s death was no delusion, though. Neither was Loochie’s grief, which lasted a year. The doctors and her mother, and later even her brother, dismissed Loochie’s story, but she never doubted that it was true. Louis had turned out to be right about one thing, however: Being young didn’t protect anyone. Horrors came for kids, too. She understood that now. But that didn’t have to be the end of the story. Because of Sunny, so much joy had come for her as well.

After Loochie saw Alice take the cake, she closed her kitchen window. She shut the security gate. She went to her room just as her mother had told her to do. She lay down in bed. Sunny’s blue cap was tucked under her pillow. Keeping it close comforted Loochie. That night she slept the good sleep. In her dreams there were no monsters, only friends.