A crash echoed through the house. Something was in the garage.

Marie sighed. Her daughter Teresa had been in and out of there all evening with her little buddy Tasha, getting materials for some robotics project they were working on for their junior high’s science club. They were probably making a huge mess.

She set down Atomic Habits on the coffee table, crossed her living room—was the Eames recliner slightly out of place? (Mental note: talk to the cleaners about being careful with the furniture placement.)

In the kitchen, the banging reverberated through the walls, shaking the Le Creuset Dutch oven on the counter. And then, a low and steady breathing noise emanated—almost a growl rumbling from the deep. What the hell was going on in there?

“Teresa, honey, what are you doing?”

“What mom?” came the response—from upstairs.

Shit. They were being home invaded. Marie saw on the news it happened just four streets over last week. Of course, Rob would be gone on a business trip, as usual. Marie grabbed the closest thing, the Dyson, off the wall, ready to whack any intruders with the long pole if she had to.

“Get the fuck out of here,” she screamed. “We have Ring security! It’s all on camera!”

“Mom?” Came a voice from behind her. Marie jumped about a foot in the air. Teresa had quietly made her way down the stairs, her unruly brown hair appearing before a face did, eyes squinting out of the darkness of the landing. Tasha hovered in the background, her large glasses reflecting Marie clutching the Dyson.

“Honey, you scared me. Did you see anything in the garage earlier?”

“No.”

Another crash echoed, and then—laughing? No, chittering.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Marie exclaimed, then swung the garage door open. Her eyes searched the dark garage, running over the parked Lexus, Rob’s abandoned carpentry gear, boxes of Christmas and Halloween decor. And then, there—a glowing pair of eyes, staring at Marie from the gloom.

“It’s the racoons again!”

The fat creature chittered again and scampered away under the workbench.

Great—that meant there was a hole somewhere in here. Marie flipped on the light, observing the chaos the racoon had wrought. Boxes were scattered, and Rob’s granola had clearly been broken into.

“Um, I’m going to go, Teresa,” called Tasha from the kitchen. “It was nice to see you Mrs. Levy.”

“Bye Tasha,” she said. “Feel free to take some keto brownies for the road. Teresa, can you come in here and give me a hand?”

By how quickly Tasha’s footsteps left the house, Marie could tell the chubby young woman had not taken her up on the offer. Pity, she thought as she turned the vacuum on and started cleaning up the mess—Tasha could be pretty with a few less pounds, and without those ugly glasses.

“Teresa, honey, grab that old plank over there and put it against the wall behind the desk,” Marie yelled over the vacuum sucking up cardboard and oatmeal. Her daughter was much prettier, though there was more they could do. Straighten that hair for one.

Her daughter bent down to grab the plank and grimaced. Marie turned the vacuum off.

“Your back?”

Teresa nodded.

“Go upstairs, okay? Have you been doing your physio?”

“Yes.”

“Is your pain worse? If it is, I can make an appointment with Dr. Li. We might be able to make the case for you to get the surgery.”

“Mom, I’m fine. Just sore from working on the project and studying,” Teresa pleaded. “Can I go upstairs? I need to write about the project a bit before I go to bed. And I’m supposed to study for the 8th grade literacy test.”

“Of course—call me if you need help with anything. I’ll be up in a while to…”

To put the brace on. She hated that horrible thing. But Teresa knew what her mother didn’t want to say. She nodded but avoided eye contact.

“And remember to do your physio exercises!”

As Teresa trundled up the stairs to her room, Marie forgot about cleaning the garage, her mind whirling with thoughts of her daughter’s twisted back. She returned to the living room and sat heavily on the slightly out-of-place Eames. Two years ago, when a then 11-year-old Teresa was diagnosed with a 30 degree C-shaped spinal curvature, the doctors had prescribed a back brace. It wouldn’t fix the curve that was already there, but it would stop it from getting worse.

“What about surgery?” Marie had asked. Her daughter was so beautiful and could be athletic when she tried. Teresa had excelled in gymnastics, at least until she gave it up for science club. And of course, she was too tall to do gymnastics at any real competitive level, so it was no real loss. Still, Marie harboured hopes her daughter would find better, more engaging outlets than meeting with other nerdy kids like Tasha every day after school.

Dr. Li explained that surgery was now only an option in the most extreme cases of spinal curvature. “You have to understand how invasive the procedure is,” she’d told Marie and Rob, who had likely been tapping away on his phone the whole time. “We have to peel back the skin covering her spine, exposing the delicate vertebrae that cover nerves and blood vessels. The surgical team would begin to straighten the spine out slowly, carefully, so as not to damage all the precious nerves contained within—one wrong move and Teresa could lose the use of her lower limbs. To keep the spine in place, we fuse an aluminum alloy to Teresa’s spine. She’d lose some amount of mobility forever. We want to avoid that, for as long as possible.”

So instead, Teresa would live her life twisted. Unless Marie could show that she needed the surgery. There would be some sacrifice, of course. But it would mean Teresa would be forever tall, forever straight, forever perfect.

***

A few hours later, Marie, zoned out with the help of two episodes of Grow with Grace and a glass of Chardonnay, walked up the stairs to help her daughter get ready for bed. But the door would not give. Marie pushed hard against it—nothing. The door was locked.

Teresa never locked her door.

“Honey—it’s time to get ready for bed. Did you mean to lock your door? I need to come in.”

There was the sound of shuffling. A long pause.

“I don’t need help. Good night.”

“Sweetheart, we need to put…the thing on.”

The lock clicked. Teresa opened the door just a hair, one eye peeping out at her mother. “I can put it on myself.”

“It has to be on tight,” Marie said. “You really need help.” She tried to walk into Teresa’s room, but her daughter pushed up against the door frame.

“I can make it tight enough. I’m not a little kid. I know what I have to do.”

“What if I watched you do it? Just to make sure you do it correctly?”

“No, mom,” she said. No? Since when did Teresa say no?

“Are you okay?”

Teresa watched her through the slit in the door. “I’m turning 14 in January. I’m going to high school next year. I have to take care of myself,” she said. “And Ms. Lanvin said it’s okay to set boundaries.”

The stupid guidance counsellor. Teresa had started meeting with her after some bullying at school—some girls had told Teresa she was annoying and wasn’t allowed to eat lunch with them anymore. If only those brats had been disciplined. But the school admin said it wasn’t healthy to deal with tensions between girls that way. Instead, they all met for counselling sessions with Ms. Lavin, a blonde young woman who smelled of patchouli and weed.

“Well, you are still my kid, and we have to make sure it’s on perfectly,” Marie spat out through clenched jaw. “Don’t you want to have a straight spine?”

Teresa stared hard at her mother—and then the door slammed shut. The lock clicked back into place.

“Hey!” Marie yelled. She pounded on the door. Inside, music began playing—some Korean boy band crooning about the girl that got away. “Teresa, open this door right now.” Did she have a key? There had been a key somewhere. If only she had it—then Teresa would have to wear the brace.

“Goodnight mom,” yelled Teresa, turning up the music. The light under the door switched off. This was not happening right now. This was teenage rebellion when Teresa wasn’t even a full-fledged teen yet. They were supposed to have at least one more year before this bullshit.

“We are not done with this conversation, Teresa Jane Levy,” she screamed. Inside the room, the music volume went up another notch.

Marie stood stock-still outside the door. Never had Teresa fought with her like this. Never had she pushed back on putting the brace on. Did something happen at school? Was she being bullied again? Had those simpering twats in her grade discovered her spine wasn’t straight? Was it another thing to tear her daughter apart for?

What would Grow With Grace say? The fitness and parenting guru was Marie’s idol. She even sometimes watched episodes with Teresa, hoping to inspire her daughter to better self-improvement. Grace believed there was nothing we couldn’t fix without a positive attitude.

“Your body is a temple, and it’s up to you to take the best care of it,” Grace said in one of the videos Marie had re-watched tonight, for about the 50th time. “You have to do anything in your power to make it the best place to live. Eat organic, exercise, and don’t put anything toxic inside you.”

Grace had never specifically spoken about scoliosis, despite Marie’s emails to her asking about it. But she felt the advice applied to their situation regardless. But tonight, she was being prevented from making sure they could treat Teresa properly.

“We are having a long conversation tomorrow morning,” she yelled. There was no response inside the darkened room—just blaring K-Pop.

If there was not to be resolution tonight, there at least would be dissolution. There was still half a bottle of wine left. Marie headed downstairs, intent on finishing it.

***

Marie woke up on the couch. It was dark outside. Her mouth was tacky. Something was banging—was it in her head or out of it? Out, definitely out. She looked at the oven clock through the kitchen door. It was 3 a.m. and there was a dull thudding in her house.

A gurgling noise emitted from her stomach. Marie had forgot to eat dinner. The empty wine bottle and a half-full glass perched on the coffee table. A streetlight outside bounced off them, creating tall shadows on the opposite wall. Another thud echoed from upstairs—from Teresa’s room?

It was 3 a.m.—Teresa went to bed hours ago. Marie was imagining things. It could be a dripping drain. She might even still be a little drunk. And yet, Marie crept quietly up the stairs, listening hard.

But as she reached the landing, Marie was convinced she could hear a low whine; like a wounded animal. Maybe those goddamn racoons were in the ceiling. Good, she was glad one was hurt. May they die painfully and slowly. How dare they invade her perfect home?

Marie teetered in the hallway. The dying racoons were somewhere above Teresa’s room—the room she was now banned from.

The wine took charge. Marie’s hand shot out and jiggled the handle, but the door did not budge. She was still locked out—barred.

“Fucking boundaries,” she muttered.

The house was now silent, save Marie’s loud breathing. So the racoon got scared. Or better yet, finally shuffled off this mortal coil. Though they’d still need to get the pest control guy out. They didn’t want a rotting raccoon in the floorboards.

Somewhere in the distance, a car horn sounded. She had a full day of meetings tomorrow, plus the school run. She had to go to bed. Marie stumbled into her bedroom and clambered into bed. Somewhere deep in the house, she thought she heard crying. Just her imagination. Just a drunken revery. Nothing to worry about.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow they would call the pest guys, and they would get rid of the racoons. Tomorrow everything would be perfect.

***

No one would ever know Marie was hungover. She was bright eyed as ever, even if her mouth still felt pasty. She took a green juice shot—one from Grow with Grace’s line—while she waited for the kettle to boil. That would help get rid of all the wine toxins.

“Teresa, honey, time to come down and go to school!” Marie had decided not to get to into yesterday. It was just a bad night, and she’d already been stressed by the racoon issue.

But the house remained silent. Teresa walked to the bottom of the stairs, listening for signs of life.

“Hon?” she shouted up the stairs.

She thought she heard a whimper. God, had those racoons somehow managed to get inside the house? She raced up the stairs.

“Did something get in your room?” she shouted, reaching again for the door handle. And this time, it opened.

Teresa’s room was a mess—papers covered the white carpet Marie had picked out for her at Pottery Barn, and the desk was strewn with textbooks showing schematics and human anatomy. Something for her science class. At least she cared about what was going on with her body. And in the corner stood a robot arm with—was that their pizza cutter attached to it?

There was, however, no Teresa to be seen. But then the toilet flushed in Teresa’s bathroom.

“Teresa, what is going on?”

“I don’t feel well,” came the voice from the other side. The door cracked open, and Teresa stumbled in, paler than her already white pallor. (God that girl needed some sun.)

Marie put a hand to her daughter’s forehead. She did feel cool. It could be that she was finally getting her period.

“My stomach hurts,” she said. “Can I stay home today?”

“Are you sure you don’t just need a green shot?”

The girl nodded no, avoiding eye contact.

“Teresa, are girls bugging you at school again? You just need to tell them to leave you alone. Stand up to them.” That had always worked for Marie, and she had ended up the most popular girl by the end of junior high.

“No,” Teresa snapped. “I really just don’t feel good and want to get back into bed.”

“Okay, okay,” Marie said, as her daughter got under the sheets. “You’ll have to be solo today, I have too many meetings, and Rosita is on vacation.” Why oh why had she let the maid go on vacation the same week Rob was away?

“No problem.”

“Call me if you feel any worse. Try to have some green juice.” Marie’s eyes fell again on the robotic arm. “That’s for the science competition?”

“Robotics competition,” said Teresa. “I told you. We have to use robots to make and serve a pizza. Tasha and I are in charge of the cutting robot.”

“Well, it’s very impressive,” Marie said—and Teresa smiled, genuinely delighted.

“I think you’ll be really impressed when you see what it does.”

***

Marie didn’t even get home till seven. She parked the Lexus in the driveway, knowing that the garage was still a mess she didn’t want to deal with right now. The pest guys couldn’t even come till Friday—typical. She’d been lazy, getting two vegan bowls from Kim’s Loving Kitchen for dinner, and was grabbing the containers when she heard the front door of her house slam. Tasha sprinted out, far faster than Marie would have imagined she could run.

“Tasha?” she called out from the open car window.

The girl stopped at the end of the lawn. Her chin wobbled—had she been crying?

“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Levy,” she blurted out. Then the girl took off down the street, sobbing.

What on earth? Had Teresa somehow picked a fight with the only friend she’d made in junior high? Dreading what was waiting for her inside, she stomped in.

“Teresa, are you feeling better?” She yelled up the stairs. “Tasha just went running out of here. What is going on?”

She marched into the kitchen to drop off the vegan bowls. Everything seemed in order. The house was clean and quiet. The sun was low in the clear blue sky, casting rays over her Japanese-inspired rock garden. It was going to be a beautiful evening.

And then, a large racoon ambled across the rocks.

It was those assholes making the racket last night! The damn thing wasn’t dead after all. Agog, Marie watched it nimbly scale the drainpipe, speedily for a portly fellow.

It was undoubtedly to the roof, where there was probably some hole into the attic the bastard was burrowing in to take over her home.

Marie shot into the garage, grabbing one of Rob’s hockey sticks. This vile rodent would not ruin her home. She’d chase it out of the attic with her own two hands, with an assist from Bauer Hockey. She crashed back through the kitchen, took the stairs two at a time. She could enter the attic through a scuttle hole in the hallway ceiling by Teresa’s room.

There it was again, though—that moaning. There must be two racoons. What if it had rabies? Maybe running up there wasn’t the smartest instinct. Marie listened closely. The moaning was to the left. Over Teresa’s room. In Teresa’s room.

It wasn’t coming from above. It was coming from within.

Marie swallowed. “Teresa, honey?” No response. A moan grew, then cut out suddenly.

She jigged the door—locked, again. Why the hell would Teresa do that?

What if a racoon got in her room? Or attacked her? Where was that fucking key?

The hockey stick clattered to the ground as Marie ran to her bedroom and dove into Rob’s junk drawer beside his side of the bed. There were all sorts of keys in here—ones for old gym locks, departed cars, little used luggage. Nothing looked like one that belonged to a lock in this house. Why the fuck did Rob keep this little pile so messy? Marie could kill him.

What about downstairs? They kept some keys in the hall sideboard. Marie flew to the first floor, feet barely touching stairs. She dug in each drawer. “Teresa,” she screamed. “Hold on hun. I’m coming in your room!” Transit tickets, expired ID, gum—no keys. Where was it, where was it, WHERE WAS IT?

And then, hiding in a dark corner of the topmost sideboard drawer, Marie saw a glint of silver. It looked very much like the old front door key, before they got it replaced with a keypad. This had to be it.

Back up to the second floor in a flash. The key slid into the lock easily and she felt it unlatch. Marie’s shoulders released. Thank God.

This was nuts. The racoons and the fight with her daughter had made her crazy. Teresa would scream at her for coming in the room.

But the room was silent.

Teresa was not in her bed. Teresa was not sitting at her desk. The shower in Teresa’s bathroom was silent—no sound of running water.

Marie took one hesitant step forward into the room. The white Pottery Barn carpet squished between her toes. It was wet.

Why was it soaked? Why, Marie thought as she looked down, was it dark red instead of bright white? The colour spilled over her toes, seeping into her heels.

The funny robot arm was hanging over the bed, a dark red liquid dripping from the William Sonoma pizza cutter onto Teresa’s lilac sheets.

It wasn’t possible.

On the desk was one of the anatomy textbooks, open to a picture of the muscles and bones in the back. On Teresa’s laptop, the face of two people grinned out at her. Two YouTube videos, paused. One Marie recognized—it was Grow with Grace, in a video she and Teresa had watched a million times about how home medicine could be just as, if not more effective, than pills.

She didn’t recognize the other. It was a young man with a strong jaw, smiling broadly. The video was called: How To Make Yourself Taller Without Expensive Surgery.

From the far corner of Teresa’s room, behind the bed, a strangled cry—like a dying animal—emanated.

“Teresa,” Marie whispered, staggering over the strange wet beast of a carpet.

The scene did not make sense. Teresa lying on her floor facedown, her head cricked to the side. Her breath was shallow and rapid. She wasn’t wearing a shirt or pants. She was naked. The red that soaked the room came from her, like the spring that feeds the river. It flowed over the skin peeled away on Teresa’s back, the glistening white rib bones hidden within gleaming like rocks under the water of a mountain stream.

“What have you done?” Marie whispered. “Teresa, what have you…”

Teresa wasn’t moving her arms or legs. Why wasn’t she moving her arms or legs?

“Mom,” she croaked — barely a whisper.

Marie opened her mouth. Nothing came out. No sound was possible.

“Look,” Marie stuttered, gasping for air. “I…tried.”

H.G. Watson is a writer based in Toronto. Her fiction has been published by Dark Matter, and her non-fiction has been published by Vice, The Guardian, Toronto Life and others. She is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program.

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