Speak with love.
Live with intention.

Through the Walls

Lucy had drawn five people beneath a yellow sun. She had given her father, Evan, his blue work shirt and her mother, Claire, the green dress she wore on birthdays. Eight-year-old Maisie stood between them holding a flower almost as large as her head. Ben, who was six, had asked for a cape. Lucy had drawn one, although it made him look as if he were flying away. She had put herself beside him. The picture hung on the refrigerator beneath a strawberry magnet; whenever the door opened, its loose corner lifted and settled. It lifted now.

“You bought more?” her mother said.

Her father stood with the refrigerator door open. “They were on sale.”

“We have groceries.” Claire stood by the counter, still holding the receipt.

Evan glanced over the refrigerator door. “Then why did you tell me to stop?”

“I told you to get milk.” Claire folded the receipt along an existing crease.

“I got milk.” He reached into a bag and set the carton on the shelf.

Claire held up the receipt. “And eighty dollars of other things.”

Lucy sat on the living room floor with her spelling notebook across her knees. She had been writing beautiful five times. On the fourth one, she had forgotten the u. From where she sat, she could see her mother’s hand resting on the counter and the edge of her father’s boot. The wall hid their faces, which sometimes made it easier to keep doing whatever she was supposed to be doing. Beside the coffee table, Maisie lay on her stomach coloring a fox. She had chosen orange for its body and purple for the tip of its tail.

Ben was building a bridge between the couch and the armchair. He had used every long block in the box. A little wooden car waited at one end.

“You could have called,” Claire said.

“For permission to buy groceries?” Evan asked.

“For once, Evan, you could have thought,” Claire said.

Lucy pressed her pencil into the paper until the point broke. There was still time for the evening to go another way. Her father could say he was sorry about the money. Her mother could say she was tired. One of them could laugh about the three bags of chips he had brought home, and they could eat them with sandwiches. Then Lucy could show them the spelling grade folded inside her notebook. Ninety-six. She had been saving it for after dinner.

“Be careful,” Lucy told Ben.

Ben had placed a small block on top of a large one, making the middle of his bridge lean. “I know,” he told her, steadying it with one hand.

In the kitchen, a cupboard closed hard enough to rattle the glasses inside.

“I worked ten hours today,” Evan said. “I’m not standing here getting talked to like I’m an idiot.”

“Then stop making me handle everything,” Claire said.

“You handle everything?” Evan asked.

Claire spread her hands over the counter. “The bills. The school forms. The appointments. Every single thing that requires someone to remember it.”

“Funny. You remember everything except what I do,” Evan said.

“I remember.” Claire looked toward the bags. “You make sure I remember.”

Lucy set her notebook on the floor. Maisie had stopped coloring. The orange crayon rested beneath her palm. “They’re talking about groceries,” Lucy said quietly.

Maisie looked at her. Lucy wished she had said something else. Maisie knew what groceries sounded like. From the kitchen came the scrape of a chair.

“You know what your problem is?” Evan asked.

Lucy’s stomach tightened. She set the broken pencil down, listening.

“Please,” Claire said. “Tell me.”

“You need somebody to be wrong so you can feel like you’re better than them,” Evan said.

“And you need somebody to clean up after you,” Claire said.

“There it is,” Evan said.

“You leave me alone in all of this, and then you act wounded when I say it,” Claire said.

“Nothing I do is enough for you,” Evan said.

“Maybe because you do the bare minimum,” Claire said.

Ben pushed his car across the bridge. Halfway over, the leaning block slipped and the whole thing fell. Usually he made a crashing sound when that happened. Sometimes he flung himself onto the rug and announced that the driver needed an ambulance. This time he began gathering the blocks without a word. Lucy stood.

“Where are you going?” Maisie whispered.

“Just to get water,” Lucy said.

She did not want water. She passed the dining table, where three lunchboxes sat open for the morning. Her mother had put crackers in small containers and lined up the lids beside them. A peeled clementine waited on a napkin. Her parents stood on opposite sides of the kitchen. Claire still wore her coat. She had come home twenty minutes earlier, kissed Ben’s hair, and asked whether anyone had started dinner. Evan’s shirt was dark beneath the arms, and a pale scratch crossed one knuckle.

They both looked tired. Lucy held on to that. If she reminded them she was there, perhaps they would stop. “Mom?”

Claire looked at her, then back at Evan. “Give us a minute, Lucy.”

“You’ve had plenty of minutes,” Evan said.

“I was speaking to her,” Claire said.

“You speak to everybody like that,” Evan said.

Claire gave a short laugh. “Like what?”

“Like we’re all disappointing you,” Evan said.

Lucy moved to the sink. There was a blue cup beside the faucet. She picked it up and held it with both hands. She could still leave. She could take the cup upstairs and tell Maisie they were almost finished.

Then her mother said, “Sometimes I think I would have been better off if I had never married you.”

Her father’s face changed. Lucy had seen him angry before. This was quieter. He glanced down, rubbed his thumb over the scratch on his hand, then looked at Claire.

“Believe me,” Evan said, “I wonder the same thing.”

The cup felt slippery. Lucy looked at the five people on the refrigerator and wanted to press the loose corner of the paper flat.

“Please stop,” Lucy said.

Neither parent answered her.

Claire shook her head. “You don’t get to act like you’re trapped. You’re the one who—”

“Please,” Lucy said again. Her voice rose before she could stop it. “Maisie can hear you. Ben too. Can you just stop?”

Evan turned toward her. “Shut up, Lucy. Go to your room.”

Lucy did not move. Her father looked directly at her, and she waited for him to change what he had said.

“Now,” Evan said.

Lucy set the cup on the counter carefully. It made a small clicking sound. She looked at her mother. Claire’s lips parted, but Evan was already speaking again, and Claire turned toward him.

“Don’t put this on me,” he said.

“I didn’t say anything,” Claire said.

“You were about to,” Evan said.

Lucy left before either of them could look at her again. At the foot of the stairs, she passed Ben carrying an armful of blocks.

“Are you in trouble?” Ben asked.

Lucy shook her head. Her mouth was pulled tight, and she could not make it stop.

“What happened?” Ben asked.

“Nothing,” Lucy said.

She climbed the stairs with one hand on the railing. Halfway up, the first sob came, sudden and ugly. In her room, she shut the door and sat on the unmade bed. A sweater hung over her desk chair. Beside her pillow was the photograph from the lake last summer: her father holding Ben upside down, her mother laughing, Maisie reaching toward the camera with wet fingers.

She had interrupted. They had been having a conversation, and she had interrupted, and he had told her to leave. She tried arranging it that way in her mind. She had only asked them to stop, but perhaps she should have waited. She pulled her knees against her chest. Downstairs, her mother’s voice rose again, and Lucy pressed her face into the blanket.

Maisie waited until Lucy’s footsteps reached the top of the stairs, then went into the downstairs bathroom. She shut the door, pushed the lock, and turned on the faucet, hoping the water would cover the voices. The room smelled of the lemon soap Grandma Ruth had brought them. A damp towel hung crookedly beside the sink. Maisie straightened it twice while her father said something she could not make out. Her mother’s answer reached her clearly.

“You sound exactly like your father,” Claire said.

Maisie sat on the closed toilet lid and covered her ears. She pressed harder, folding the tops of her ears beneath her fingers. The voices became muffled, but she could still hear one rise and the other cut across it. She hummed the song from school about a boat and the sea. Unable to remember the next line, she went back to the beginning. A chair scraped in the kitchen, and her hands jerked against her head.

“Stop,” Maisie whispered.

Her palms struck the sides of her head. She covered her ears again and held them there.

“Stop,” Maisie said.

For a second, she heard only the humming inside her mouth. Then her father’s voice came through. Maisie struck herself again, frightened by the sting and still unable to make the kitchen quiet. There was a soft knock at the door. Maisie froze with her hands against her ears.

“Maisie?” Ben asked.

“What?” Maisie asked.

“Can you come out?” Ben asked.

“I’m using the bathroom,” Maisie said.

“No, you’re not,” Ben said.

Maisie looked at the floor. Ben stayed on the other side of the door.

Then he said, “Lucy’s crying.”

Maisie stood and turned off the faucet. When she opened the door, Ben was holding the little wooden car from his bridge. He looked at her face, then at her ears. She brushed her hair forward.

“Come on,” Maisie said.

Ben had a place he went when the house got loud: a beach with a green boat pulled up on the sand. He had made it himself. Beneath the seats was a little room with blankets, a lantern, and a cupboard full of food. The food never ran out. Nobody had to work, and nobody got mad about money. Tonight, while picking up his blocks, he had imagined walking across the sand and opening the little door. Then Lucy cried on the staircase, and he heard Maisie making a strange sound in the bathroom.

He couldn’t go to the boat while they were still in the house. After knocking on the bathroom door, he followed Maisie upstairs. She held the railing and moved slowly. At the top, she waited for him before knocking on Lucy’s door.

“Go away,” Lucy said.

“It’s us,” Maisie said.

They heard the mattress creak. The door opened. Lucy’s face was wet. She wiped it with the heel of her hand and stepped aside. Maisie went straight to the bed. Ben shut the door behind him, although he knew it would not keep the voices out. For a while, none of them spoke. Lucy sat against the wall. Maisie leaned into her side. Ben climbed up beside them and put his car on the blanket.

“Is Dad mad at us?” Ben asked.

“No,” Lucy said.

“He was mad at you,” Ben said.

Lucy looked down at her hands. “I know.”

“Why?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know,” Lucy said.

Ben turned the car over and spun one wheel. “Are they getting divorced?”

Maisie lifted her head. Lucy thought of Hannah at school, who went to a different house on alternate weekends. Hannah knew where she was going after soccer. Lucy did not know how the adults decided, or whether someone would ask the children first.

“I don’t know,” Lucy said.

Maisie began to cry then, quietly at first, with her chin tucked against her chest. Lucy put an arm around her.

“I shouldn’t have gone in there,” Lucy said.

Maisie shook her head. “You asked them to stop.”

“I made Dad mad,” Lucy said.

“He already was,” Maisie said.

Ben watched them. “Can we call Grandma?”

“Which one?” Maisie asked.

He shrugged. Lucy looked toward the little phone charging on her desk. She could picture calling her father’s mother. Grandma Ruth would ask what was happening, and Lucy would have to explain the words. She could picture calling her mother’s mother too, but Grandma Beverly would want to talk to Claire. Then somebody downstairs would know they had told.

“Maybe in a minute,” Lucy said.

Ben picked at a loose thread on the blanket. His mother sometimes prayed with him at bedtime. He thought of her sitting beside his pillow, waiting while he remembered all the people he wanted to name.

“Could we pray?” Ben asked.

Lucy looked at him. “For what?”

“So somebody helps,” Ben said.

From downstairs came a sharp sound, something set down too hard. Maisie squeezed Lucy’s arm.

“Please,” Maisie said.

Lucy took Ben’s hand. His fingers were warm and slightly sticky. Maisie reached for his other hand, closing the little circle. Lucy bowed her head and tried to find something to say.

“God,” Lucy began. Her voice caught, and she swallowed. “Please help Mom and Dad.”

Ben shut his eyes tightly.

“Please make them stop saying those things,” Lucy whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”

Maisie tightened her grip on Lucy’s hand.

“Help them hear us,” Lucy said.

For a moment, all three waited.

Then Maisie said, “Please make our house feel safe.”

Ben opened his eyes. “And stay with us until it does.”

Lucy could think of nothing else to ask. “Amen,” she whispered.

Maisie leaned against her, and Ben kept holding her hand. The argument continued downstairs.

Near the bed, unseen by the children, three guardian angels had been listening. One stood beside the lake photograph. Another knelt near Maisie, and the third waited by the door. The prayer had risen haltingly, with pauses wherever the children had run out of words. Now the angel beside the photograph lifted his head, listening to an answer none of them could hear.

“It is time,” he said to the others.

The angel near Maisie rose. The refrigerator motor continued downstairs, a loose window rattled, and rain began against the roof. Then the sounds seemed to draw away, leaving the children sitting together in a stillness they scarcely noticed.

Evan was reaching for his keys when he realized he could no longer hear Claire. She stood across the kitchen from him, one hand braced against the counter. Her mouth had been moving a moment earlier. Now she was looking past his shoulder. He turned. A stranger stood beside the refrigerator.

Evan stepped back, striking the table with his hip. “Who are you?”

The stranger’s gaze moved to the keys in his hand, then returned to his face. Claire reached for her phone. Its screen remained dark.

“How did you get in here?” Evan demanded.

The stranger looked like a man until Evan tried to guess his age. Light from the kitchen fell across his face, but another light seemed to come from behind it. Evan glanced at the refrigerator, expecting to find its door open. It was closed. A floorboard creaked upstairs.

Claire looked toward the ceiling. “Lucy?”

“She is with her brother and sister,” the stranger said.

“What have you done?” Evan asked.

“They are being cared for,” the stranger said.

Claire moved toward the doorway. The kitchen lengthened. She stopped. The passage to the stairs was still there, but it seemed farther away than it should have been. Beyond it lay a pale distance that had never belonged to their house.

“Evan,” Claire said.

He went toward her. The keys slipped from his fingers. Claire stared at the suspended keys. The stranger stepped aside, and the refrigerator, Lucy’s drawing, and the room around them faded into a pale distance. Claire searched it for a doorway she could understand.

“What is happening?” Claire asked.

The stranger looked from Claire to Evan.

“Your children asked for help,” the stranger said.

Evan glanced toward the ceiling again. He remembered Lucy standing at the sink with the blue cup. He had sent her upstairs. He could not remember what he had said afterward.

“We need to go to them,” Claire said.

“You will,” the stranger said.

“Now,” Claire said.

The stranger’s expression softened, and for reasons Claire could not explain, that frightened her more than anger would have.

“First, you need to hear what they heard,” the stranger answered.

The kitchen vanished. From the darkness came Lucy’s voice, small and close.

“Please stop.”

End of Chapter One