Date Night

Christopher Linforth

In the bathroom, our babysitter comes at us with tincture of benzoin. She unscrews the lid and holds the glass bottle above her head. The amber liquid swishes inside, spills over the lip. We cower behind the shower curtain. I see you, she says. As she pulls back the curtain, we turn the shower head her way, spray her face with steaming hot water. Our babysitter shrieks that she will call our parents. She hates that we’re twins, but not twins, the pair of us almost identical to strangers. Our spindly bodies look pale, rarely exposed to the outside world. We hop out of the bath and surge past her. We hear her footfalls as she follows. We dive into our parents’ room and jump onto the bed. Our babysitter snatches our ankles, trips the pair of us onto the coverlet. Our parents’ odor puffs into the air—all three of us can smell the stink of our stepfather’s semen, our mother’s sweat, the cheap hairspray she overuses every morning. Our parents always rut after returning from their Saturday night dinner. They carry in leftovers, a bottle of late-night supermarket wine; they pay the babysitter with a check, call her a taxi. Tell her to go. They smack us when we refuse to sleep. They leave bruises on our arms and chests. Tonight, before they left, our mother egged on our stepfather. She told him we did not view him as our father. He threw us to the floor and slapped us around, his class ring nicking our cheeks. We blamed the cat when the babysitter arrived. She asked to see the tabby, which died years ago. We don’t remember its name. Now our babysitter wrinkles her nose. Enough, she says. She climbs onto the bed. She hunches over and tips the bottle of benzoin onto a wad of tissue. She dabs at our arms, cleans up a little blood. Then she moves onto the second of us. We brace for the pain. Now stay still, she says. This will toughen you up.