Robin Hobb - The Inheritance and Other Stories

After four or five months, I noticed Mom wasn’t keeping the house as clean. She still swept and stuff, but not like before, and I was doing almost all the cooking. Something had gone out of Mom and left her flat, something more than just a baby coming out of her stomach. I think she had expected more, had thought that Lisa was going to be better, somehow. Disappointed was how she acted at first, and then later, uninterested. I felt mad about it, and I’d try to make her pay more attention to Lisa. I’d take her to Mom and show her how Lisa was learning to smile, or how she could sit on her own. But it didn’t do any good. Mom would hold her awhile and look at her, and then she’d go set her down on the couch, without even making sure she couldn’t roll off. She never talked to Lisa or played with her. And after a while I knew she never would. So I started loving her even more, to make up for Mom not loving her.

It got harder as Lisa got bigger. Summer went okay, but by the time school started again, it wasn’t safe for me to leave her all day. I tried putting her in a cardboard box while I was gone, but it was hard to find ones that were strong enough. She’d get hold of the edges and try to stand up, and I was afraid she’d fall. She was eating more, too, so even if I left a bottle inside her box for her, she’d still be really hungry when I got home. Mom didn’t notice her at all, and of course she couldn’t hear Lisa’s silent crying. Mom didn’t seem to notice much of anything. She’d tidy up the house each day, and then just sit at the table. Late at night, she might put a scarf around her face and go out for a walk. But that was about all she did, and it didn’t make me feel any safer about leaving Lisa all day. So after Christmas I just didn’t go back to school and no one ever noticed.

When I think about those days, with Lisa starting to be a real person and all the time we had together, they’re almost as good as the days with Lavender. Lisa’s eyes turned brown, but they never lost that Lavender look, where she could look right through me while I rocked her to the music. Her hair was dark like Mom’s, but curly at the back of her head, and she was almost always smiling. I hated dressing her in stuff made from old T-shirts. The stuff was too small, and Mom hadn’t made her any new clothes. So I asked the aid lady who came about once every two months then, and she told me where I could get baby clothes that rich people gave away. She gave me slips for Lisa and me and Mom and helped me write down the right sizes on them. That aid lady wasn’t too bad.

On Monday I took the slips and Lisa and went, using my aid pass to ride the bus. Everyone on the bus thought Lisa was cute and kept calling her honey and touching her hands or bouncing her feet. She was real good about it. One old lady who sat beside us part of the way gave me a five-dollar bill and told me to buy my little sister something with it. She was really nice. When she got off the bus, she kept saying, “Bye-bye, sweetie. Bye-bye,” like she expected Lisa to say something. “She doesn’t talk,” I told her, and the old lady just smiled and said, “Oh, she will pretty soon. Don’t you worry.”

It was the same at the clothes place. A lady at the counter kept talking to Lisa, saying, “You such a sweet thing! You such a good girl, aren’t you?” Lisa would smile, but never make a sound.

“She’s shy, isn’t she?” the lady said. “I bet she babbles her head off at home.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and then felt bad for lying when the other lady came back with three bags of clothes for us. They showed me the stuff they’d picked out for Lisa, little dresses with lace and a new blanket and a chiming rattle that Lisa grabbed right away. Lisa’s bag was the fullest of all, probably because she was so cute.

I should have felt good going home. But the bags were heavy, and it was hard to carry them and Lisa. There was another baby on the bus, making fussy angry noises. It sounded awful, but I wished Lisa could do that. Her being quiet at home had never worried me, but now I was thinking, she won’t always be a baby at home, and what then?

I got off the bus with the heavy bags, and Lisa was wriggly. It was getting dark and starting to rain and I had eight blocks to go. I felt like I couldn’t take another step when the fat Skoag bounced out of an alley right in front of us.

“Hello, little boy!” he honked.

“Stuff it up your ass!” I said back, because I was really scared. Even if I dropped all the clothes, I couldn’t run with Lisa. In the dark and the rain I might fall on top of her and kill her. I squished her close to me, hoping the Skoag wouldn’t see Lavender’s eyes, and kept walking. Maybe if I just kept walking, he’d leave us alone. But his flipper feet kept on slapping the wet sidewalk beside us.

“I’ve got something for you,” he said, and I got even scareder, because that was just like the guy in the Okay to Say No book at school.

“Stuff it up your ass,” I said again and walked faster. One of the bags tore, and I wanted to cry. I’d have yelled for help, but it was dark and there was no one on the streets. This close to home, even if I did yell for help, no one would want to come.

“Boy,” he tootled softly. “It has been hard to find you, for it was commanded that none should speak of it. Every time I speak to you, I put myself in danger of a most unfortunate occurrence. Please take these and free me of a heavy promise.”

Lisa was wriggling in my arms, trying to get a better look at the tootling voice. She kicked out and one of my bags went flying. Before I could grab it up, he took a package from his pouch and dropped it into the bag. Plastic baggies, taped together, but I couldn’t tell what was inside them. I stood still and stared through the dark at him. I was scared to pick up the bag because I didn’t want to get close to him and I didn’t know what he’d put in it. Drugs, maybe, something I’d get arrested for having. But it was the bag with Lisa’s clothes in it, the ones I’d gone through all this for.

“What’s that?” I demanded, trying to sound tough.

“One for each of your months. Green trading paper, what is the word for it? Money. For you to take care of the Mom.”

“Lavender.” I said his name, knowing there was a connection but not figuring it out yet.

“Silence!” the fat Skoag honked, and he sounded like a scared Volkswagen. “To speak the name of a blasphemer is to invite a most unfortunate occurrence.”

“But . . .”

“My task is done, until your next month begins. Next time I call, do not run away. This task is heavy and I would call back the promise, if I had known what would befall the one who asked. Go away quickly, before I am seen with you.”

He waddled off like a frightened duck. I managed to snag up the fallen bag. All the way home, my heart was banging against my lungs. I felt like I’d seen Lavender’s ghost, that he was still around somehow, looking out for us. I kept wondering about the money in the bag. Not how much it was, or what I’d use it for, but what Lavender had been thinking when he made the fat Skoag promise. If he’d known he was going to die, why’d he go to the Skoags who killed him, why didn’t he go to the police or something, or even just come home and ignore those message boxes?

Somehow I got Lisa and the bags down the ramp and managed to turn the doorknob without dropping anything. When I got inside, there was only one light burning and Mom wasn’t there. I didn’t know if she’d gone looking for us because it was so late or just gone out on one of her night walks.

Some things you just have to do first. So I changed Lisa and got her a bottle and put one of the new nightgowns on her and put her in a cardboard box with her bottle, the chiming rattle, and the new blanket. She looked so sweet, all done up in new stuff that it was suddenly worth all I’d gone through. I turned the stereo to some soft music and she settled down.