Em Garner - Contaminated

“What?” My little sister looks up at me, her pencil still clutched in one hand.

“I found her.”

Opal stares at me for too long without saying anything, so long, I start to worry. Then she throws down her pencil, leaps from the chair into my arms. We dance together, slipping on the ratty rug. We’re laughing, dancing, crying.

“I found her! I found her!” I say it over and over as we squeeze the breath out of each other.

“You found her! When can she come home? When?”

The top of Opal’s head comes only to the center of my chest. We hold each other tight. I can’t believe that I used to hate her sometimes.

“They have to run the tests to make sure she’s really our mom. They told me it would take about a week.”

Opal pulls away, frowning, brow furrowed. She’s probably thinking of the TV show. “She’ll be okay until then, right, Velvet?”

“They said yes. And the lady who works there is really nice. She’ll make sure Mom’s okay. She promised.”

Opal squeezes me again. “You’re sure it was Mama?”

“I’m sure. She was wearing Mama’s shirt. And it looked like her.” I think again of the times I’d passed her by, and of how she’d reached out a hand to grab at me. Of how I’d have missed her if she hadn’t. “It’s Mama, Opal.”

“Hooray!”

I love that she can still say stuff like that. “Yeah. Hooray. Hey, finish your homework now. Maybe we can play a game after I get something to eat. And guess what I got!”

Opal squeals when I pull out the cake. I have to hold it up high so when she tackles me, I don’t drop it. We dance again around the kitchen while we get plates and forks.

I have my own homework to do, though it feels pointless since I’m taking only three classes now, because I have to work every afternoon at the assisted-living home. There’s an entire basket full of laundry, too, which means a trip to the communal laundry room. And that phone call to Tony to make. It’s already close to five and his mom doesn’t like it when I call after 9 p.m. Or maybe she just doesn’t like me.

“Can I invite Carissa to come over?”

Carissa Lee lives a couple of buildings over with her grandma. I think she lived with her grandma even before everything happened, but Opal’s mentioned a few times that her parents are also gone. I like her, even if when she and Opal get together, there’s way too much screeching. I like her grandma, too, and I send Opal off to invite both of them.

She comes back with Carissa and Mrs. Lee, who brings along a platter of sugar cookies. Also the new lady who moved into the place just beneath us. She has a little baby and no husband, and she looks shy when I open the door, like I might tell her to get lost. She holds out a paper sack of apples and a bowl of cream-cheese dip.

“I said she ought to come to the party,” Opal says as everyone shuffles into our tiny apartment. “Carissa, c’mon, let’s put on some music.”

Just like that, it’s a party. I feel a little bad that we’re celebrating finding our mom when the new lady, whose name is Anne-Marie, is still looking for her husband. But she’s laughing and smiling, bouncing her little boy, Hank, on her lap. His mouth is smeared with chocolate cake.

“Thank you for letting us come,” she says as Carissa and Opal perform some sort of dance routine to an old pop song on the radio. “This is really… I need this, Velvet. Thank you.”

I’m not sure what to say, so I nod and offer Hank a cookie. His tiny fingers pluck it from mine, and he stares at it like he’s not sure what to do with it. Then he takes a cautious bite and beams from ear to ear. And drools.

“It gives me hope,” Anne-Marie says quietly. “If you found your mom, I can find Jake. I know it. He’s out there. I’ll keep looking.”

I’m not sure I feel okay with her using me as an example—it’s not like I did anything special other than not give up. Her praise tickles me with warmth, though, because for the first time in a really long time, I don’t feel like I want to go to sleep and never wake up. My stomach stuffed with treats, I watch Opal and her friend shaking their booties until they fall onto the carpet, wriggling with laughter. It’s important to me to hear. When I see my baby sister laughing, it makes me feel like I can smile, too.

WE FINISH THE ENTIRE CAKE AND PLAY Apples to Apples and Connect Four for about an hour, and then it’s time for our guests to leave.

“We should do this every week,” Opal says.

Before I can tell her there’s no way we can party every week, Mrs. Lee nods. “Next week, my house. I’ll make a chicken pot pie.”

“I’ll make a nice salad,” Anne-Marie offers, hitching baby Hank higher on her hip. “Night, Velvet.”

After they’ve gone, I tell Opal it’s time for her to go to bed while I do the laundry. “Lock the door behind me.”

Opal rolls her eyes. She’s had a shower and her hair is tangled. I told her to comb through it, but she’s only made a halfhearted attempt. I should stay here and supervise, but we played too long and it’s getting late. I really want to finish this laundry so I have something clean to wear tomorrow.

“I’m not stupid, ya know.”

I know she isn’t, but she’s also only ten. When I was ten, I still played with my stuffed animals and watched cartoons. Opal has hardly any toys. We left most of them behind. And the cartoons are only on once a week, on Saturdays, the way they were back when my mom was a kid. Like almost everything else, ten’s not the same anymore.

“Sure you are,” I say. “Ugly, too.”

Opal sticks out her tongue and crosses her eyes at me.

“That’s an improvement,” I tell her, and she chases me around the table until I hold her off with one hand on her forehead while she swings her arms, unable to reach me. “Back off, booger brat. I have to go wash these clothes.”

The cake and dancing must’ve mellowed her, because instead of fighting with me about it, she stops flailing. She doesn’t like being alone here, but there’s nothing I can do about it. She has to get to bed so she can be ready for school in the morning. The thought of my bed, my pillow, my warm blankets, is so much better than facing the laundry room. Opal will happily wear the same outfit a week at a time, if I don’t make her change. She doesn’t care about laundry. Or cleaning the toilets or mopping the floor. Those are all grown-up tasks, and she’s still just a kid. I envy that.

I pick up the basket, pushing it against my hip. The detergent usually makes the basket heavy and unbalanced, so I shift it, but tonight it seems lighter than usual. Maybe I’m getting some guns from all the lifting. More likely, Opal hasn’t put all of her dirty clothes in it and I’ll find them later under her bed.

“You put all your dirty stuff in here, right?” I give her the stinkeye.

She gives me puppy face. “Yes!”

I heft the basket again, sorting with one hand through the clothes. She really has. I guess I’m sugared up from the cakes, because instead of making my back hurt almost immediately, I feel like I could carry this for hours.

“Lock the door behind me, Opal. I mean it.”

Only when I hear the bolts slide shut do I head toward the stairs, but before I can move, the door across the landing opens. Mrs. Wentling looks out. She’s got that frowny face on, not that I’ve ever seen her with any other kind.

“What’s all that noise? Haven’t I told you girls to be quiet?”

It makes me want to punch her in the face, her complaining about a little noise when her stupid, yappy dog barks and barks all the time, or when her stupid, delinquent son comes home drunk and pounds up the metal stairs with his heavy boots, talking on his cell phone at the top of his lungs. I don’t like feeling as though I want violence. There’s been too much of that.