Ophelia Drowned

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Mom was pacing in the kitchen.

That's what she always did when she was on the phone. She had gotten back this morning, but with all of her time on the phone, it felt like she was still gone.

To make things more depressing, Hex wasn't returning my texts. It was as if he had fallen off of the planet since two days ago.

"Of course I didn't put her up to it- I told you this would happen!"

Judging by the tone of her voice, Mom wasn't on a business call. If I knew anything at all, that was the voice she used when she was talking to Dad, catching up on all the excitment she had missed since I had last seen her.

"-even so- I'm sure it was an accident-"

I admit, it hadn't been my proudest two days.  But now I was fairly certain I wouldn't have to go through any more of them.

"-in the dryer? Well, what did you expect? I'm sure she just forgot! -No. I'll talk to her."

Crap. It was too late to try to make a get away. After the incident over baby names, I had decided that a small outburst wasn't enough for my dad to fully appreciate how upset I was. From there on my acts of tyranny  had ranged from tiny things, like consistently mispronouncing Veronica's name, to watering her plants with the contents of a bleach container (I had insisted it looked like a watering can).

Despite her determination to be understanding and gracious, even Veronica seemed pleased to see me go.

Mom said a short 'Goodbye' into the phone and marched into the living room. She stared me down and said, "Really, Maggie? Are you seventeen or seven?"

"What did I do?" I asked, immediately defensive.

"You're going to replace Veronica's plants," she said. "And you're going to promise to leave that poor dog alone."

"That isn't a dog," I insisted. "That's a rat with a collar-"

"Apparently he's a purple rat now and they found him in the dryer!"

 " It's not like I was going to turn the dryer on! I just needed to get him out of the way. It's just marker, it'll wash out."

Mom didn't look even faintly amused. But she usually didn't. She sat on the  couch next to me.

"How's therapy?" she asked, predictably. She always asked that when I did something she thought was unstable or weird.

I snorted.

With a glance at her phone, Mom changed the subject. It was this thing old people did when they wanted to seem in the present and interested- but weren't. I could have told her that the therapist was a baboon in a wig who liked to throw crackers at me and sing show tunes, and she would have just nodded and moved on to a new subject anyways. That's why I didn't bother much with answers. They didn't matter. "Were you in my bathroom? I'm missing some things.."

A whole jar of pills? I wanted to ask. But I didn't. Ellie hadn't mentioned anything to her about my attempt to die like Sylvia Plath and I sure wasn't going to bring it up now that it had gone so poorly.

"No," I said, automatically.

She looked me over for a moment, probably weighing the pros and cons of pursuing the matter. She must have decided it wasn't worth the argument because she stood up again and started prodding at her phone's screen.

 "Go tell your sister to turn her music down," she mumbled. "And make sure all of your homework is caught up. You're back to school tomorrow, remember?"