Stepmother, Not Mother, Mother

Stepmother locks Daughter in the basement, chain keeping her prisoner to the furnace. Daughter tries to reach the window where Mother might be, watching, waiting for a kiss.

Mother is there until she isn’t. Until Stepmother pulls them apart. Until the policeman takes Mother away.

In the window, there is Mother, lips pressed to the glass, blowing Daughter a kiss.

At a gas station, Daughter cries into a bag of Doritos and tells the adult behind the counter she’s lost. He asks where’s your mother? And she gives him the only number she knows.

*

A knock at the door.
Mother in the window, a kiss left on the glass.
Daughter wants to run.
Not Mother sucks her teeth, tells daughter not to worry.

*

Daughter belongs to Stepmother now.
Father doesn’t come home.
His addictions, Stepmother says.

*

Daughter is addicted to gambling. With the tooth fairy. She tells Father over lunch. Because of Not Mother, she says. You two should divorce.
We’re getting married, says Father. Says Not Mother coming in from the kitchen with
homemade muffins from ShopRite.

*

Mother retreats into the street, as she looks towards Daughter’s window. As she blows daughter a kiss.
Daughter watches her from her bedroom window.
Mother asks Father if he’s sober.
Daughter doesn’t understand.
Father says “abuse” and “divorce.”
There’s so little Daughter understands.
Mother is at the front door, screaming.
The same fist Mother used to break Father’s nose now gives the door a heartbeat.