as I started to understand the seriousness of the situation, my mother arrived with the scowling Mr. Reilly. Margie pulled the belt of her thick pink chenille bathrobe tighter. Identical pink rollers poked out all over the two women’s heads.
“I don’t see why you had to wake me up for this,” Mr. Reilly growled.
“Oh for God’s sake, John,” said my mother. “We need the rat out now, so we can use the toilet. Plus what if it got loose in the apartment and attacked Anne?”
Now I was getting scared and I shivered in the cool night air. Two people had said I was in imminent danger from this thing. In my mind’s eye the rat grew bigger by the second. I pictured him curled into a tight ball in order to fit in the bowl, ready to spring out when the lid was raised. He’d spray everyone with toilet water as he aimed his teeth at my neck.
I never did get to see that rat. My mother scooted me back to our bedroom after taking me downstairs to use the Reillys’ bathroom. My mother seemed very happy to leave the rat caretaking to the landlord and Margie.
The next morning, as I searched for words in my Alpha-Bits cereal, my mother and Margie talked about the previous night.
“I didn’t want to lift the toilet seat this morning. Are you sure Mr. Reilly really took care of the thing?” my mother asked.
I found a word short enough to fit onto my spoon—rat.
“Yes, it was horrible. And he had the nerve to complain that we couldn’t do it ourselves. He said he had to be the man for his own family and now for ours, too.”
“Jesus, we don’t ask a lot of him. We pay him good money for the rent. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask him to take care of rats and a few little repairs.”
They were silent for a minute. Then my mother said, “I wish to God I had a decent man to take care of me.”
“All men are scum,” Margie replied. “Most of them are lazy, good-for-nothing drunks.”
“Well, our father and Anne’s father were that way, so you’re right about some of them. But there are decent men out there.”
“Humph,” Margie said.
The landlord was no stranger to our flat. My mother and aunt had found doors and bureau drawers left open and said it had to be Mr. Reilly because he and his wife were the only people besides them who had a key. They knew that sweet Mrs. Reilly would never do that, and besides she was too busy with her seven kids. They didn’t know why Mr. Reilly snuck in—they never left money lying around and didn’t have liquor or valuable jewelry. Then one night after collecting me from Mrs. Reilly, my mother found our front door ajar. A week had passed since the rat visitation.
“That’s strange,” she said. “Anne, you didn’t leave it open when you went out to play today, did you?”
I shook my head seriously because I knew from the sound of my mother’s voice that this was a serious situation. My mother’s hand trembled as she pushed the door open. She told me to stay in the front hall while she walked around the apartment.
“Well, nothing seems to be missing,” she said.
When Margie arrived home thirty minutes later, my mother told her what she had found.
“Do you think it was Mr. Reilly again?” Margie asked.
“I’m going to go talk to him. He has no right to come in here.”
She pounded down the stairs. After five minutes we heard her raised voice, then Mr. Reilly’s voice, but we couldn’t make out the words. My mother soon stomped back upstairs.
“You won’t believe what he told me,” my mother said. “He said he let himself in to make sure we weren’t having any men in.”
“What?”
“That’s right. He said that no woman would be able to live without a man, so we must be trying to sneak men in. He said he didn’t want his kids to see any sinful goings-on up here.” My mother’s voice broke as she continued. “He said Anne was a bastard, and he didn’t want his pure little girls associating with her.”
My head spun at this. I couldn’t imagine not being able to play with the Reilly girls.
“What’s a bastard?” I asked. They ignored me. Or maybe they didn’t hear my small voice.
“Jesus,” Margie said. “That’s crazy. Was he drunk?”
“I think so. I could smell booze on his breath.”
Suddenly they noticed me listening. My mother began making dinner. Margie set the table and put in a load of laundry. I hung around the kitchen, waiting to hear what else they would say about the Reillys, but I was to be disappointed with their silence.
At 7:30 P.M., my mother sent me to bed with the usual stern instructions to go to sleep. As soon as I closed the bedroom door, I pressed my ear to the cool wood. I heard things like “sneaking up here,” “maybe he was looking for food,” and “filthy.” I couldn’t tell if they were talking about the rat or about Mr. Reilly.
The following Saturday afternoon the mail slot in the front door clanged. Margie went downstairs to collect the mail. She returned, leafed through several items, and handed most of them to my mother.
“Bills,” she said.
“What’s this one?” my mother asked.
They peered at the front of the envelope. Frowning, my mother sat down on the living room couch and ripped open the envelope. She read the letter inside and, to my great shock, started to cry. She handed the letter to Margie, who read it and also began to weep.
I sat on the couch close beside my mother.
“What’s wrong?” I could feel my lips quiver. I’d never seen either of them cry.
“The landlord is kicking us out,” my mother said. “We have to be out in two weeks. Jesus, how in hell will we find a new place right before Thanksgiving?”
“But where will we go?” I felt panicked that I’d have to leave home. I’d finally been allowed to live with my mother and Margie. At the same time it surprised me to see my mother and aunt so distraught. If being evicted upset them so much, I wondered why they’d sent me away so often.
“Don’t worry, Anne,” Margie said. “We’ll find a place to live.”
I hoped there would be room for me.
Our new apartment was the bottom flat of a converted farmhouse. The landlords, an elderly couple, lived upstairs with one of their adult sons. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson weren’t as fun as the Reilly girls, but they were kind. I would later adopt them as my pretend grandparents, although I wouldn’t tell anyone about it, including them.
On our first day in the new flat, my mother told me to stay outside, out of the movers’ way, but remain close so I could help her unpack when the burly men were done carting our furniture.
