“Will Grandma wait ’til the end of the night to give me my present or will she just let me open it right away?”

Juno didn’t get to hear the answer; the Crouches were out the door and heading to what Juno presumed was a family celebration for Sam. Before the door slammed behind them and the key turned in the lock, she heard Nigel punching the code into the alarm box.

Sure enough, when Juno opened the closet door five minutes later, the little screen read ARMED. The red light glowed above the word like an all-seeing red eye, mocking her. She shouted every curse word she could think of, shaking her fist at it. Had she really thought she was going to be able to just walk out of here? And then her arm fell uselessly at her side and hung there. Where did she have to be? Nowhere, Juno, you dumbbitch. She’d graduated from calling herself an idiot to a dumbbitch.

Things were going downhill fast. She wondered if the house was armed with motion sensors. Well, she’d soon find out. She took two steps forward, two steps sideways...then she shimmied to the kitchen door and back. Nothing happened. Juno laughed. She went straight to the bathroom, but this time she climbed the stairs to Winnie and Nigel’s, lowering herself over their toilet. And as she sat with her head resting on her fist, she looked around at lush towels and bottles that clearly hadn’t been bought at the drugstore.

Why not? Juno thought, flushing. There had been so many “why nots” lately; maybe the fact that she hadn’t been caught made her take such a big risk. First things first. She swung open the door to the medicine cabinet and her eyes scanned the bottles. When she found what she was looking for, she popped the lid and poured six of the pills into her palm. She replaced the bottle and popped two of the pills between her lips, pressing them to the roof of her mouth with her tongue.

Blessed relief. They hadn’t even melted into her yet, but it was comforting just to know she’d taken them. She had the vague sense that she was floating as the sour powder of the pills coated the inside of her mouth. Juno worked harder, warming it up with her spit and her tongue. Who had taught her to do this? Bless them, she thought swallowing the glue. It was bitter, but it would get into her system faster this way. Whomever had taught her the trick was temporarily forgotten as she stepped out of her clothes and into the bath.

She could avoid the mirror all she wanted, but there were her feet—filthy, the nails jagged and yellow—resting on the spotless floor of the tub. She wriggled her toes and reached for the faucet. When was the last time she’d had a bath? Sometimes she got into the shelter early enough to use their shower, and sometimes she just cleaned herself over the sink in any random, unoccupied bathroom she could find. But a real bath? They’d had a tub in the Albuquerque house, the one on which the bank had foreclosed...when? Five years ago? It wasn’t the time or the place to summon the desert into her current state of bliss. She dismissed the thought because she could, because that was one thing she was great at in her old lady days—forgetting.

The water rushed around her, and Juno sank into it. A noise came somewhere from the back of her throat; she didn’t know if it was from pain or pleasure, but she allowed herself to lie back until her ears were submerged and her hair wafted around her face. There were bottles lined up along the lip of the tub; she selected one at random and poured it into her hair. The smells were clean and fresh, reminding Juno of her childhood, when her grandparents had owned a laundromat. She scrubbed herself, using Winnie’s nail brush to clean every speck of grime from her hands.

When Juno finally climbed out of the bath and the water drained away, there was a rim of grime where the water had leveled. She found a sponge and powdered Clorox and scrubbed at the filth her body had left behind. When it was spotless, she found a towel at the bottom of the hamper and dried the bathtub before shoving the towel down to the bottom again.

Now for the problem of clothes. Her own lay in a pile at her feet in different shades of filthy. Juno was still naked, and her less-filthy clothes were in her pack, shoved underneath a bush in the park. She carried her clothes downstairs, walking to the closet opposite the one she’d found herself hiding in, and opened the door. There was a garbage bag tied and sitting at the ready, a pink Post-it stuck on the front with the words DONATIONS scrawled in Sharpie. Juno quickly worked at the knot, and then the bag was open. She lifted things out quickly: a sweatshirt that had Baywatch printed on the front, a pair of women’s yoga pants, and there were shoes, New Balance, nicer than anything she’d owned in years. She even fished out a pair of Thanksgiving-themed socks before shoving her own filthy clothes to the bottom of the bag and reknotting the red drawstring. The Post-it note repositioned, Juno closed the door firmly and began to dress.

The clock above the back door ticked its slow circle; it had been two hours since the Crouches had left. Juno wanted to be back in the closet long before they got home. Long after they could smell her moving through the rooms of their house. She’d considered looking for a safer place, but none provided the quick exit she would need. In her new clothes, Juno walked to the kitchen feeling both 100 percent better and 100 percent worse. Her shame was magnified by her hunger. In the pantry was a loaf of bread and peanut butter. Juno made herself two sandwiches, cleaning as she went. She ate one as she used the facilities for the last time and tucked the other into a paper towel in her pocket. Making one last trip to the pantry, she found some boxes of Lärabars and took one of each flavor, a can of peel-top SpaghettiOs, a can of green beans, and a jug of apple juice she hoped they wouldn’t miss. Oh, what did she care? She was already squatting in their junk closet. She carried it all back to the space behind the coats and snowsuits, stacking everything in the corner.

Juno made one last run-through of the house, keeping her eyes on the street whenever she was in view of a window. They’d be back any minute, she just knew it. Call it a sixth sense. Animals had it, too—they knew when a predator was near. And that’s all people were, really, wasn’t it? Animals dressed up. She found a small puddle of water on the bathroom floor that she’d missed before, soaking it up with a wad of toilet paper. She dropped it in the toilet and flushed. Good as new. In the kitchen she dried the sink with a piece of paper towel and replaced the knife she’d used for the peanut butter in the drawer. No crumbs, no errant wrappers, no wiry gray hairs. Everything was as it should be.

      12

   JUNO

Ten minutes after Juno rested her head on her airplane pillow and closed her eyes, the front door opened and the Crouches returned. They walked into the house laughing, wrapping paper and gifts bags crackling in their arms. She was clean and comfortable, her belly was full, and most importantly, she was warm.

She slept.

It carried on like that for the weekend. She knew her best shot at leaving the house was on Monday when the Crouches went back to their weekday schedules. So she rested, listening to the voices of the family she had been watching for months while lying beneath the hems of their abandoned winter gear and Halloween costumes. It was comforting to lie on the new carpet, her back pressed against the wall, which was always warm. To herself, she’d started referring to the closet as Hems Corner. It was a safe space, comfortable and warm and familiar.