Hilltop House

Maeve, Three

Maeve was not a day drinker—not normally, anyway—but after spending a practically silent morning with her angsty daughter, she felt like she might need a little something. Another cup of coffee would have to do; if she gave into alcohol today, she might start finding excuses for the subsequent days.

She wished she could really talk to Cora, tell her things, but the girl was already broken enough. She hadn't deserved anything that had happened so far, and she wouldn't deserve what might come if Maeve started talking too much. It was hard, though, keeping secrets. Maeve had kept them for years, but secrets had a freaky way of threatening to reveal themselves, and it was sometimes better to run than to face the revelations.

Cora trudged into the house, no mail in hand, and slammed herself into her bedroom. Maeve didn't ask any questions. No doubt Cora would go off and write some of her bleak poetry, now.

Not that Maeve had ever read any of it. Her daughter's writing could be about ponies and rainbows, for all she knew . . . though she doubted it.

There was a lot to do in the next two weeks before Cora went back to school. Maeve had to start her new jobs, first of all. In a past life, she'd been a pharmacist, long, long ago. But since taking in Cora, she'd held down a number of odd jobs, mostly secretarial at a number of places: a vet clinic, a salon, a real estate agency. The most recent job, before they'd left, was at a home for the elderly. She'd cleaned rooms and cleaned people and helped them eat and dress and wheel themselves about, and she'd listened. Even when they'd said strange and incomprehensible things, she'd listened, and nodded, and acted as if she cared. And she did care, sometimes. When she wasn't wrapped up in her own concerns.

But whatever jobs Maeve had managed to keep, she'd tended to work retail on top of them, whatever was needed to keep them afloat. Cora hadn't really understood what her mother did or why she did it, but she'd definitely been annoyed that Maeve wouldn't help her get a car when she'd turned sixteen. A car! That was the last thing her daughter had needed, even if Maeve could've afforded it, which she certainly couldn't. Their rent and electricity and water and phone bills not to mention food had kept them living paycheck to paycheck. Cora had been good enough with it all, never minding shopping at Good Will; at least Maeve's mother had taught the girl how to thrift. And overall, lately, Cora hadn't given her much cause for concern. Maeve had other reasons for being strict with her daughter.

Oh, Maeve missed her mother. The old woman had been quirky and annoying in her blunt, southern, overbearing ways, but she'd also been a shield against the things that went bump in the night. Maeve had felt confident placing her daughter in her own mother's care; nothing could've hurt Cora under Luce's protection, but when that scare had occurred, when it'd been made clear that the old woman was showing signs of dementia, Maeve could no longer risk Cora's safety. She'd pulled her away as fast as she'd been able to, and Maeve had felt like a fugitive ever since.

There'd been another scare, about a month back, some wayward comment at a bar that she'd probably taken too seriously; it'd prompted their move.

Maeve poured black coffee into the one mug she could scrounge up, sought milk in the refrigerator and added just a bit. She wasn't sure how much longer she could really do this. It'd been five years since she'd taken in her daughter; how long could they run? And how long could she hide it from Cora?

She started work tomorrow, she reflected, heading toward her bedroom to grab a book she'd been reading. Her new day job was in another elder care home, nothing crazy. In fact, one of her purposes in driving through town was to check the place out. She'd been hired over a zoom interview; it was a nothing job with dirt pay, so she'd have to find something else on top of it, but for now, it would do. Maeve still had some money her mother had left her when she'd died.