by Jessica Hwang

The man behind the service counter stares at his computer screen. “You’re looking at a hundred and forty after tax and two and a half to three hours.”

Rain drums against the roof. A silver-blue river of lightning pulses in the dark sky, tributaries flaring and branching. The overhead lights flicker and Cassie jumps when thunder clangs. She pushes her dripping bangs off her forehead. Behind her, someone snaps an umbrella shut. Cassie says, “One-forty? Is there a cheaper model or—”

“That’s our cheapest. We take all major credit cards.” His nametag reads Bert.

“Three hours? I have to pick up my daughter…”

The customer standing behind her sighs. Cassie adjusts her purse over her shoulder. “Okay. Go ahead with the work.”

“Sign here. Should we call or are you waiting?”

“Waiting. I guess.”

“Coffee and water on the counter behind you. Wifi password on the whiteboard below the TV.”

“Thanks.” Cassie slides the signed form across the counter. The room smells of rubber and motor oil. She perches on a plastic chair. She logs into her credit card account to check her balance. Rain slashes against the dark windows. Headlights flash out on the frontage road. The muted TV is playing the evening news. Cassie dials Michelle’s number, counts the rings. Michelle answers on the sixth, out of breath.

“Hey, it’s Cassie. Listen, my tire blew out on 692 and I’m at the shop. They said it might be three hours. Is there any way you can keep Jayden—“

“Of course. Not hurt when the tire went, were you? Jayden’s just happy as a clam right now, playing dress up with my girls. Jayden! Come say hello to Mommy…that’s a good girl. Avery! Put it back! Now! Listen Cass, take your time, I’ll feed Jayden and we’ll see you when we see you. Aubrey, get down! Avery, I said, no!”

“Thanks, I—” Michelle has already disconnected. Cassie shivers, zips up her damp jacket. She stares at the TV screen. A handsome reporter is touching his earpiece and gesturing toward a tall building in the background. Maybe Michelle will agree to hold this week’s check until payday.

#

Cassie deposits her daughter onto the living room floor. Jayden reaches for the colorful wooden blocks piled in one corner. The apartment is freezing again. Cassie checks the thermostat, fiddles with the dial. The heat doesn’t kick on, there’s only silence.

“Mommy said a bad word!” Jayden climbs onto the sofa to retrieve her stuffed cat. “Mommy. Look at Kitty, Mommy. Mom. Mommy! Look!”

“Not now, Jayden.” Cassie tries the rental office and then the emergency maintenance number. She’s starving. She plops a can of soup into a saucepan as the automated message drones on. “It’s Cassie, in three-oh-one. The heat’s out. Again. Call me right away, please.”

She wrestles Jayden into pajamas, with a sweater and a pair of snow pants on top. Cassie sheds her blouse and pants and wriggles into worn jeans, zips a hoodie over a thermal shirt. She pulls on thick wool socks and rubs her wet hair with a towel.

Jayden has built a precarious tower with the blocks. “Mommy, can I have a cookie? Please, Mommy? I want a chocolate one. Mommy!”

“You had a snack at Michelle’s, Jayden. It’s time for bed in five minutes. Let’s pick up the toys.”

“I’m hungry!” The little face screws up tight like it does right before she’s about to throw a tantrum, her eyes slitted and her bottom lip pouched out.

“Stop whining, Jayden.” When the phone jingles, Cassie has to go into the bathroom and close the door in order to hear Ted over Jayden’s shrieks.

Fifty minutes later. “There we go. Fussy little bugger, ain’t she?’” Ted appears to be talking to himself, or perhaps the thermostat, and Cassie doesn’t respond. She can never tell the age of people older than her—Ted could be forty or sixty. She’s glad it’s not Jake, whose eyes always skim over the apartment and over Cassie while he stands in the doorway describing his motorcycle in great detail after he’s gotten the heat flowing again.

Ted bends over the register with one gnarled hand outstretched. “Yes sir-ee, we are cooking with gas now, indeed.” He gathers up wrench, screwdriver and flashlight.

Cassie thanks him. He shuffles to the door, wishing her a good night. It’s ten-oh-five. She removes from her purse the roll of toilet paper she stole from the Ladies’ Room at work and sets it onto the bathroom countertop. Four days until payday. On the back of the rent bill she jots: TP, beneath PB, jelly, bread, macaroni, chicken fingers, crackers, shampoo.

She pokes her head into the bedroom. The princess nightlight casts a soft glow. Jayden is lying on top of the sheets, covers thrown to the floor. Kitty is crushed in one dimpled arm. Cassie straightens the blankets, her hand hovering against the warm rising back. She crosses the room and climbs into bed.

Five-forty a.m. Cassie stands under a tepid spray for three minutes, her hair wrapped in a plastic shower cap. Deodorant, teeth, mascara. She pours cereal and splashes milk into mismatched ceramic bowls.

“Time to get up, Jayd, let’s go honey.” Her underpants are dry, so that’s something. “Come on, let’s go potty.”

Jayden pushes Cassie away, whining as Cassie tugs pants up over the pudgy velvet legs. There’s a brief meltdown when Jayden wants to eat in front of the TV, with Cassie quickly giving in. She roams the apartment, looking for her keys and for Jayden’s hat, pausing in the kitchen every few minutes to swallow a bite of cereal. The keys she finds in the refrigerator; the hat is stuffed inside a snow boot. Cassie gulps down a mug of black coffee.

Jayden has spilt her juice onto the couch cushions. It’s six-twenty. Cassie is already on Heather’s shit list this week, and the call center’s upper management team announced last week that they plan to start tracking tardiness. She bundles Jadyen—who has gone limp in protest—into her coat and carries her to the car, with its brand new hundred and forty dollar tire.

#

Yesterday’s rain has turned to sleety snow, falling in stinging needles. The pay-at-the-pump feature isn’t working.

“Dammit.” Cassie slams the fuel pump back into its metal slot. Her numb fingers unfasten buckles and straps. Her lower back spasms when she lifts Jayden from the car seat.

“And how old is this cutie pie?” The girl behind the cash register has a long glossy ponytail and looks annoyingly well-rested.

“I’m this many.” Jayden holds up two fingers and a thumb. “Mommy, I want candy!” The countertop and display cases are littered with early Easter displays: boxes of colorful jelly beans, cream-filled eggs and chocolate bunnies wrapped in pastel foil wrappers.

“Have a good day,” the cashier calls over Jayden’s shrieks, as Cassie pushes the dirty glass door open. She gets Jayden—kicking and catching Cassie on the thigh—situated in her car seat. Six-fifty-two. Jayden is still screaming for candy. A horn blares when Cassie nearly turns out in front of an oncoming truck.

“Jayden, shut up! Just stop, okay? You’re not having candy, so knock it off and be quiet! Do you want to get us killed? I’m trying to drive.”

Jayden begins crying in earnest, wet sniffles and hiccups drifting over Cassie from the backseat. Michelle’s house is only a mile and a half from their apartment—it’s why Cassie chose her from the online ads offering in-home day-care services.

In Michelle’s foyer, Jayden flings her face away when Cassie tries to press a kiss to her cheek. “Mommy mean.” Jayden clings to Michelle’s leg.

Cassie hovers in the doorway. “Love you, honey. See you later, okay?”

Jayden’s inserted herself into some game Avery and Aubrey are playing involving cloth puppets, with Avery directing the two smaller girls. Cassie thanks Michelle again for keeping Jayden late the previous evening and runs back to her car. Seven-oh-six.

#

Cassie presses play on the remote control. “Jayden, it’s time for our favorite show.”

“Because today is Wendys-day, Mommy?”

Cassie smiles. “That’s right.”

“There are currently over forty species of extant dolphins,” the narrator intones. “Dolphins aren’t fish—they are warm-blooded and breathe through lungs, not gills.”

            “Ooh,” says Jayden, when a group (a pack, a brood?) of dolphins leaps from the water as a synchronized unit. The silver crescent-bodies shoot for the sun and curve back toward the glistening water.

The narrator says, “Fishing gear and underwater noise pollution are major threats to dolphins.”

“She’s smiling!” Jayden waves at the TV.

            How freeing would it be to live in the depths of the ocean, surfacing only for air or sunshine? No ten hour shifts, no rude customers or micro-managing supervisors or dentist bills or broken heaters or bunions or having to style your hair every morning. Just the wide open blue. Cassie folds a pair of Jayden’s Scooby-Do pajamas.

“This pod of bottlenose dolphins…” Aha—a pod of friends and family to help rear the calf, which emerges already swimming. Jayden has lost interest and is sitting cross-legged on the carpet, (next to the grape juice stain management will take out of Cassie’s security deposit) using a crayon to color a paper doll cornflower blue.

When Cassie was a kid they’d had a dog named Chip. Every Sunday evening—the dread of the school week looming over the last few precious hours of weekend—Cassie would envy Chip his carefree life. How would her furry friend spend Monday morning, while Cassie struggled to stay awake in Mr. Gregg’s history class or unenthusiastically chased a rubber kick-ball in P.E.?

Chip would probably spend the day lounging across the strip of living room carpet that caught the mid-morning sun, or curled up on Cassie’s bed, while Cassie agonized over algebra equations and tried to avoid being singled out by the class bully.

Jayden asks for a puppy approximately every other week. Cassie pulls a blouse from the laundry basket. Tiny cotton socks stick to the fabric and emit a staticky crackle when Cassie peels them apart. 

“. . . these majestic creatures of the deep,” the narrator concludes.

Jayden has colored a paper doll’s hair hot pink. She looks up. “Mommy, can we go to the li-berry and play a bideo game?”

“Not tonight, honey. They close in ten minutes. We’ll go this weekend.” Cassie flips the TV off, bracing for tears.

Jayden carefully runs a brick-red crayon along the border of a doll’s dress. “Okay, Mommy.” 

Cassie heaves herself off the couch. They’ll have canned tuna for dinner, or there’s half a box of spaghetti left. She’ll toss the noodles with butter and oregano. Her lower back is throbbing again, the pain radiating up the entire left side.

Jayden bangs her sippy cup against the tabletop. “Want mac and hot dogs!”

Cassie slides the plate in front of her. “We’re having tuna casserole, Jayden. There’s a graham cracker in the pantry if you finish your dinner.” She’s boiled the dregs of a box of instant rice and added a few crushed-up corn flakes and some frozen peas. A headache kicks up a rhythmic beat behind her right eye. Jayden flings herself backwards with a howl.

“Stop it, Jayden.” The Porters next door complained last month about all the screaming. If they get evicted . . . There’s only one other low-income apartment complex within thirty miles of the call center, and it’s a real shithole. Cassie lived there while she was pregnant with Jayden. Crumpled fast food wrappers and piles of fly-covered dog poop littered the parking lot. Loud music thumped day and night through paper-thin walls. Young guys drinking beer lurked in the hallways and every week there seemed to be some new issue—a broken faucet or leaky refrigerator—that management seemed incapable of resolving. Jayden pushes her plate away and it falls to the floor with a clatter.

“Dammit.” Cassie grabs Jayden’s arm and yanks her from the chair. A vice squeezes Cassie’s forehead, and her temples pulsate. She swats her daughter’s bottom and Jayden shrieks. Cassie carries her into the bedroom, drops her on the bed. Jayden slithers to the floor. Cassie grips Jayden’s legs and pulls her forward, gives her a little shake. “Stop screaming, Jayden. Do you want to get us kicked out? We’ll be homeless. What is wrong with you? Avery and Aubrey don’t throw fits like this.”

Jayden’s hands lash out to slap at Cassie’s wrists. Her face is red and swollen with tears. Her little feet in their Winnie the Pooh socks beat against the headboard. Cassie closes the door behind her. She props a kitchen chair beneath the handle as a makeshift lock. “You’re a bad girl, Jayden. You can have dinner when you’re ready to behave.”

#

“Let me have a taste.” Cassie swipes her finger through the icing on Jayden’s cupcake. “Mm.” She holds hers out and Jayden takes a giant bite. “Hey!” Cassie laughs. Frosting coats Jayden’s nose.

Cassie cleans the kitchen while Jayden watches a sitcom. There’s spilled flour and tiny granules of brown sugar scattered across the countertop and the linoleum.

Heather passed Cassie up for a promotion again this week, announcing that Leroy will be given the team lead position and the fifty-cent-an-hour raise that comes with it.

Cassie mops up gelatinous egg white that has dripped down the front of the stove. Her phone rings. She wipes her hands on a threadbare dish towel. It’s her brother, Tanner. He asks if he can stay with Cassie for a couple of weeks—there’s been a misunderstanding with the dates regarding his new lease. There’s a definite slur to his words and he hangs up in a huff when Cassie tells him no—they only have the one bedroom and she’s already on thin ice with management.  

“Time for your bath, Jayd.” Cassie’s throat aches from answering phone calls all day—she’s stayed until six p.m. every day this week in order to pick up overtime pay. Two-thirds of the extra money goes toward the weekly check made out to Michelle, for keeping Jayden past five p.m.

Jayden doesn’t look away from the TV. “No.”

“Yes. I said you could watch TV for thirty minutes but then you needed to take a bath. We agreed, remember?” The only other current internal job posting is for an accounts receivable clerk, which Cassie isn’t qualified to apply for.

“No.”

“Come on, honey. We can play dolphin in the tub. Doesn’t that sound fun?” Who knew when the next team lead or quality control position would come up? It could be months. There was a rumor Marsha was retiring this fall. If Heather decided to hire internally, that would create a position Cassie could try for.

“No.”

“Jayden, come on. Let’s go.” She’s almost out of minutes on her phone plan already this month. When Heather goes to lunch tomorrow, Cassie plans to log onto the internet from her work computer and pay her car insurance bill. The ten-day grace period ends on Friday and she can’t afford a late fee.          

Jayden hasn’t moved. Cassie warns, “One. Two. Three . . . ”

Jayden scoots toward the other end of the couch. Cassie reaches for her daughter’s arm and Jayden flops backwards against the cushions, arching her back. She lets loose a primal scream. Cassie’s eyes dart to the west wall. “Shh! Jadyen, stop. I’m going to count to—ow! Jayden!” She grasps Jayden’s arms and swings her off the couch. “Jayden. Get. In. The. Goddamn. Bathroom. Now.”

A spanking and a time-out follow. The cherished stuffed kitty is relegated to the top of the bedroom dresser, far out of reach.

Thirty minutes later, Cassie sits on the edge of the tub. Tears slide down her cheeks to drip onto the wet tiles as she strokes Jayden’s curls off her forehead. Jayden smiles up at her. She dunks her head beneath the surface, blows bubbles. She surfaces with a splash and a laugh. “Look, Mommy! I’m a doll-pin!”

#

Cassie wakes from a dream of dolphins, cutting through crystal waters and arcing through shimmering air filled with suspended droplets. She slaps at the alarm clock’s insistent buzzing and swings her legs over the side of the bed. Jayden’s birthday is next Sunday and Cassie has charged on her credit card a gray plush dolphin and a Barbie dressed as a veterinarian, a plastic cat included with the doll.

Cassie dresses in the dark and slips out of the room. In a kitchen drawer she locates tape and scissors. She wraps the toys in yesterday’s newspaper, filched from the call center’s recycling bin.

She grabs a can of tomato soup for her lunch, throws it into her purse. The windows are shiny black; they reflect Cassie’s sleep-puffy face. She sets the wrapped toys on top of the refrigerator. Outside, a dog is barking itself hoarse. It’s time to get Jayden up.

#

            God, will Heather fire Cassie over this? She jabs at the elevator button and pushes past two people exiting when the doors slide open. This is the second time this month she’s had to leave work early because Jayden was sick. Last time it was an ear infection.

Michelle said, “She keeps holding her hand against her head and crying. Her temperature is a hundred and two point four.”

Cassie parks crooked in the driveway and runs up the cracked sidewalk. Michelle says, “She just threw up.”

Cassie crouches in front of the sofa beside a plastic basin. Jayden lies curled on one side beneath a brown and white striped blanket. “Honey, Mommy’s here. My God, she’s burning up.”

They don’t bother with her coat, just wrap her in the quilt. Michelle follows Cassie out to the car. She stuffs Jayden’s boots into the backseat. Cassie’s fingers fly over the car seat buckles. “Her hands are like ice.”

Aubrey is standing on the front step, thumb jammed into her mouth. Cassie gets behind the wheel. “I’ll call you later.”

By the time she pulls into the clinic parking lot, Jayden is listless. Her head lolls to one side, eyes closed.

“Did she eat or drink anything unusual?” The nurse beckons. Her white shoes squeak against the tiled floor.

Cassie hurries down the corridor, Jayden hefted onto one hip. It reeks of disinfectant. “No. I don’t know. I don’t think so. She’s been at the sitter’s all day. She ate breakfast fine.”

The nurse is asking about allergies. Cassie’s mind tries to pin itself to last night: It tastes like fish sticks, Jayden. Just one bite, please, honey. No cookie, then, Jayden. Dammit, Jayden. Sit in that corner until you can be a good girl.” 

#

They’ve been transferred to the hospital. Spinal tap. CAT scan. Bacterial meningitis.

Jayden is sleeping and Cassie is waiting for the blood culture results. She paces the over-bright waiting room, her cell phone pressed to one ear. “Representative. Operator . . . Yes hello, I’m needing to check my daughter’s health insurance coverage. I filled out the forms but they said I needed to come in person and I couldn’t get time off work—”

“Please hold.”

She drops onto a hard plastic chair. Jayden, forgive me. Was Jayden—sweat-soaked and feverish—remembering Mommy’s voice raised in anger, the ugly twist to her mouth as she spanked her? Was she remembering the gnawing hunger as she pounded tiny fists against the bedroom wall? What if—

“Thank you for calling. Your call is important to us…” She digs for a quarter, punches the vending machine button. The coffee is bitter.

“Thank you for calling. Your call is important to us…”

When they arrived, they were rushed back to a curtained room. Jayden spewed projectile vomit toward a paper bag a nurse held beneath her chin and then lay limp in Cassie’s arms while a young doctor wearing red plastic eyeglasses inserted a needle into her lower back.

Cassie will get her shit together, practice meditation. She’ll count to ten whenever Jayden pushes her buttons. Or a thousand, whatever it takes. Please God, I swear, never again…

“Thank you for calling. Your call is important to us…” Cassie hangs up. She leaves her mother a voicemail, without high hopes of a response. Her mom is currently touring the southern states—she’s Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. Michelle has sent two texts: How is she? and What did they say?

Here comes a doctor, striding down the hallway, lab coat flapping around her knees. Is she coming to Cassie? She looks young enough to be in high school. Cassie jumps up but the doctor stops before a middle-aged man, speaks in low tones. Cassie sinks back onto the chair and leans her head against the wall. She does an internet search on her phone. Potential permanent deafness. Brain damage is always a risk. Death is a possibility.

A young woman on her cell phone is speaking another language—Russian? German? and staring out the windows at the parking lot. An old man flips through a magazine. The guy behind the information desk checks in a young couple with a screaming infant, a middle-aged woman clutching her abdomen and a young man who appears to have been in a bar fight. Codes are announced over an intercom. Phones jangle. Nurses call out patient names, usher people behind a set of swinging doors.

Cassie asks the harassed man behind the desk for Jayden’s status but he has no new information. Is she allowed to go back to her daughter’s room? She follows the signs for the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, twice getting turned around and having to backtrack.

Jayden lies still and pale. A blue paper tag encircles her tiny wrist. Adhesive holds an intravenous needle in place at the crook of her elbow. Cassie’s fingers wind themselves into the sweaty curls. She drops to the chair. “Jayden honey, Mommy’s here. I love you.” Cassie begins to describe the dolphins, their velvety silver skins that flash in the sunlight as they leap from the water.

The doctor with the funky eyeglasses is coming through the door. Cassie tries to read his face. She stands.

#

The stuffed dolphin is for some reason called Walter and has replaced Kitty as the faithful companion. Jayden, wearing a raspberry sweater that matches the flush of her round cheeks, spins circles across the living room carpet, singing some made-up song.

Cassie jiggles the thermostat dial. “Are you kidding me?” She leaves a message for maintenance. By seven-thirty, it’s freezing. She’s left the oven turned on after dinner, with the door propped open. A thin gust of heat drifts out and quickly evaporates. Jayden dumps out her box of crayons onto the kitchen floor. Cassie sits at the table to write out checks for the electric bill, her car payment and her cell phone bill. There’s some problem with Jayden’s health insurance, and Cassie can’t seem to get anyone to help her. She’s terrified of the hospital bill, hopes it gets lost in the mail. She’s heard if you make payments, even small ones, they can’t demand payment in full or garnish your wages but is that true? It might still affect her credit score.

Beneath the bills is a glossy brochure for the local community college. Cassie opens the junk drawer and tosses the brochure on top of a kinked-up metal tape measure and a package of safety pins.

“Look Mommy! I drawed doll-pins!” The gray crescents have exaggerated fins and giant smiles.

Later, after Ted has come and gone, and the vents are puffing warm breath into the empty room and Jayden’s sobs have subsided and Cassie’s rage has fled, leaving only exhaustion, her fingers brush the silver crayon marks.

Jessica Hwang’s fiction has appeared in Reservoir Road Literary Review, Bright Flash Literary Review, Mystery Magazine, Tough, Shotgun Honey, Uncharted, Failbetter, Wilderness House Literary Review, Moss Puppy Magazine, Samjokoand Pembroke Magazine. You can find her at jessicahwangauthor.com.