Imagine my surprise when we arrive for the playdate and are greeted at the door by the girl's mother Nellie, who has just moved back in to play "Mommy" again, even though there is a court order preventing her from being around her family. But it's fine, she reassures me. She's totally off the meth now, totally learned her lesson. I can't decide if she is drunk at two in the afternoon, or if the slurring and darting eyes are just leftover meth damage that stayed like it will so often do.
"We're here for the playdate!" I tell her a little too loudly. I slap a big toothy smile on my face to cover up the fact that I am standing on her doorstep judging her from head to toe. She leans against the open door, stepping back with it when it moves with her weight. Her too-bright eyes land on my daughter and she draws herself down, too close. "You must be SueEllen's friend". My daughter turns and looks at me. She waves me in and I vice-grip my daughter's shoulder as we step inside the entrance.
The living room is barely recognizable for being that purpose, save the tiny children's recliner in the center of the room, parked in front of a tiny camper television on the floor. Aside from a one foot clearing around the chair, the rest of the living room is cluttered with an assortment of the most random things. An amplifier, some crayons in a mixing bowl, an empty birdcare on top of a soiled army cot, pizza boxes, a safe, books, magazines, papers, and for some reason I notice a tucked away pile of little ceramic decorative theater masks. The kind that were popular to collect in the 80's. My brain can't process what I am seeing as we wind our way through and into the kitchen.
A smell hits me in the face like a slap before my eyes focus and begin searching for the source. That rotted smell of something left so long that you can smell beyond the old smell a new mutating smell. Sickly, sweet, eye-watering. The inside of my mouth sweats and I know that if I stop biting on the sides of my tongue I will gag. I pray that we are going to the back door. I can see it now, and the fresh air behind the grease-smudged glass pane. But we stop just short of the door as she yells down a long dark flight of basement steps. SueEllen comes bounding up the steps, shrieking as she spies my daughter and the two run off to play in her bedroom. And while I haven't seen it, I say a little prayer of hope that my being too busy to wash her long, gorgeous hair these last three days is enough to keep the lice away. I will murder Nell in her sleep if I have to shave my child's head. Nobody will ever find her in these piles.
I'm not perfect. I have a past too. Days where my kid stays a ruffian. Days where I do too. I'm always secretly afraid that I might be a little bit white-trash but not today. Not here at this table. We are posted up in rickety kitchen chairs with a backdrop of dirty dishes, smoking cigarettes without the window open and ashing into half full glasses of god knows what. The stories she is telling me sound like a jailhouse letter to a sad lonely man with a dime bag. Her stories vindicate my insecurities and I suddenly have compassion for her, knowing she is pouring herself out in front of me, a half full glass of god knows what.
"At least you're trying", I tell her, looking around. It's her daughter I feel sorry for. And who I will continue to feel sorry for. Because while I believe everyone deserves another chance, I also believe you must treat that chance like the gift that it is and not squander it away just because trying is too hard. "There is a way to come back from all of this, " I sweep my arm out. "I've done it and so can you. And doing the dishes is a good place to start." So I spend an entire summer believing that she will do this. Because I have done this.
SueEllen spends most of their playdates with my daughter at our house. After that first playdate I always have a plan that requires us to be at my house. It's not spotless, but at least I know the spots I do have aren't bed bugs. Sometimes the spots at SueEllen's house move. I am dropping her off on one such afternoon when to my surprise I see their front lawn covered in piles of junk and furniture. "Are you having a yard sale"? I ask SueEllen. She jumps out of my car to intercept her father, who is carrying out a half broken headboard covered in bumper stickers that I recognize from the few times I've been inside SueEllen's room. He lays it on its side as SueEllen screeches to a stop at his side.
"We are trying to get refinanced on our home loan so I don't have to get a job" Nell informs me from the doorway. Loudly. Her neighbors glance up from their own driveway. "I want to be able to look after SueEllen, take her to school!" The elementary school is literally behind their back yard. They share a fence line. Taking her to school equals opening the back gate. Nellie is holding a pint of whiskey. It's almost empty. It's not even noon.
"Well that's nice I guess. So you're having a yard sale in case that doesn't work or..." I trail off, gesturing to the piles.
Nellie shakes her head. "No we have to clean this place up! They have to come out and do an inspection but we'll still get enough money off it to let me stay home."
"Oh." Secretly I think this inspection is great news. "But what about the damage? Like the hole in the bathroom door your pitbull ripped open trying to get that duck y'all rescued?" I see the neighbors glance over again out of the corner of my eye. They have slowed down cleaning their van to a snail's pace.
That duck bothers me so much. She brought it home as a newborn. I imagine that it was the last in a line of ducklings following their mother across the road at the park. The slow curious one that hadn't quite caught up to the rest of the flock. Snatched. She said she rescued it. Rescued it from what? I don't have the heart to ask. I don't want to know. She keeps the duck locked up alone in the bathroom upstairs in a tub full of water. The only working bathroom in this house because the basement bathroom got torn out and never remodeled.
"Oh we still have the duck," Nellie says. "They can't get us for that because it's a pet". I look down at the empty, dirty, birdcage amongst the rubble in the front yard.
The next time I drop SueEllen off, I agree to come inside because I am curious. The piles that graced the front yard for two weeks have disappeared. The house looks amazing. The living room has real living room furniture, the bay window I didn't know they had is clear of dog and child smudge, and the smell is almost gone. I can see all of the walls, all the way to the carpeting.
"It looks great in here!" I call out to Nell, genuinely proud that she managed to finally get her shit together. "You guys finally got rid of everything!"
"Got rid of it to the basement", she cackles. She takes another gulp of whiskey as she comes around the hallway. "Well most of it anyway, there were a few piles I just couldn't bear to move".
What's the difference if you hoard it in the basement or hoard it in your bedroom? I want to scream in frustration. Instead I look down at the little floaters in the glass of water she'd handed me. "Oh?"
"Well yeah." she says. "I seen them mice!"
Goosebumps break out across my flesh from head to toe. "Oh dear god Nellie! I wouldn't have touched it either!"
She shakes her head. "Can't. Not while they all have those little babies." She holds out a little dish filled with what I'm pretty sure is peanut butter. "Wanna help me feed em?"
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