“I don’t have time right now. Get your father to do it.”

“But you said-“

“Don’t argue with me, Megan! I said I don’t have time right now! When I drop you off at your father’s, you can ask him to take you to McDonald’s. Now go get your shoes, or we’re going to be late!” Megan’s mom glanced at her Rolex without seeing the time.

Megan left the room. The seven-year-old pushed her bedroom door open, slamming it against the wall. She hoped her mom heard. Megan grabbed a pair of sandals and walked out to the car.

On the ride to her father’s apartment, Megan said, “I hate Dad’s house. There’s nothing fun to do there. Why can’t you let Dad watch me at your house?”

“Because I don’t trust your father around my stuff.”

“Why don’t you let me stay at Grandma’s, then?”

“It’s too far away.”

“It’s only thirty more minutes away!”

“Megan, stop arguing! It’s not like you’re going to be spending the night there. I’ll be back to pick you up before 6:00. I promise.”

A few red lights passed before Megan spoke again. “If you don’t trust Dad, and if you hate him so much, then why did you ever marry him?”

Megan could tell her mom was getting upset. “People do stupid things when they’re young,” was all she said. She glanced at Megan. “Why aren’t you buckled up? Buckle up. Now. You know I could get a ticket if a cop sees you without your seat belt on?”

Megan did as she was told. She looked at her mom. Sometimes, her mom was the most beautiful woman in the world. Other times, though, she was ugly and Megan hated her. Like now. “You promised,” Megan said quietly.

Her mom’s painted eyebrows drew together in slight confusion. Then she realized what Megan meant. She sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t take you to McDonald’s, Megan. Really, it’s not that big of a deal, though. You’ll live.”

*     *     *     *     *

Megan was tucked away in her father’s apartment. The small, stuffy room had a smell that never left. It reminded her of the smell of the alfalfa fields where her other grandparents lived. Bitter. The carpet was stained with cigarette burns, and there was a naked mattress laying in the middle of the room. A large lamp that had been knocked over weeks ago lay on the floor beside the bed, and a few dirty t-shirts were scattered around.

Small sunlight pixies that danced in front of the window caught Megan’s attention. They were the only thing she liked about her father’s apartment. Her dad had told her that these pixies were just dust. But she knew better. Dust was the thick layer of gray stuff that covered the windowsill. It was the graveyard of the pixies. Megan had watched pixies die before. They landed on that gray sheet and never returned. The pretty, floating specks that made the sunlight glitter- those were pixies. Living pixies.

Megan reached out to touch the hundreds of small pixies dancing in the beams of sunlight that escaped the outside world and landed in the dark room. The gray blinds, no matter how tightly shut, couldn’t keep the light out. And as long as the light was there, so were the pixies.

Megan grabbed at the pixies, but when she opened her hand, it was empty. She tried again, faster this time, and she tried harder to ignore the talk her parents were having just outside the room.

“Fuck, Laura, why do you always have to dump her off on me every time I get a goddamn day off?”

Her mom’s voice was softer than her dad’s, but Megan could hear it just as clearly. “Because she’s your daughter, too, and I hardly ever ask you to babysit her!”

“You always make me babysit her. Every single fucking day off I’ve had since I got this apartment, I’ve had to watch her.”

“Who’s the one that pays for this apartment, Larry? Me, that’s who. Without me, you’d be on the streets. You owe me.”

Megan heard her father’s mocking laughter. “Look at this place, Laura. Look at this fucking place! It’s a dump! You give me enough money to pay rent and buy food, and that’s it! I don’t owe you shit.”

“You do owe me, and since I’m the one paying the rent, you’re going to watch her.”

Megan heard the front door slam and high heels march against the cement floor just outside the window. She watched as the bars of light were, for a second, torn by her mother’s shadow. She heard the heels stop. The car door opened, then banged shut, and then her mom drove away.

“Good,” Megan said, still trying to catch the pixies. “We don’t need her anyway.”

A few more moments of trying to catch the pixies passed before the playground at McDonald’s crept back into Megan’s thoughts. She decided it was time to go say hi to her dad.

He sat on a torn, dull orange couch. He had a hairy chest- that tangled, gray mass of curls was always the first thing she noticed about her father whenever she saw him. The second thing she noticed was the large roll of fat that hung over his jeans. It reminded her of Play-Doh.

“Dad, do you have any Play-Doh?”

“No. Why do you always ask me that?” her dad asked, irritated.

“I’m bored.”

“Aren’t we all?” Her dad’s eyes, where they should have been white, were pink, the shade Megan imagined pixies’ dresses were.

“I played with the pixies- oops!- I mean, I tried to catch the dust for you, while I was in your room.”

“Great.”

Megan nodded, happy. “That’s something I can do whenever I come over to your house-“

“Megan, I’ve told you before, it’s not called a goddamn house. It’s called an apartment. Jesus Christ, if you’re going to say it, say it right. You sound like an idiot when you say it wrong!”

“I like house better. I like to pretend like you live in a house.”

“Well, I don’t. It’s an apartment. Say it right from now on. Dammit.”

“Whenever I come over to your apartment,” Megan corrected, “I can catch dust for you!”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Megan paused for a second and bit her lip, thinking. Finally, she said, “Mom said you’d take me to McDonald’s.”

Her dad laughed. Megan didn’t know what he thought was so funny. Nervous, she laughed with him.

“It doesn’t surprise me she’d say that.”

“So, will you?” Hope flashed in Megan’s eyes.

Her dad scratched the stubble on his cheek. “Yeah, alright.”

Megan grinned and skipped to the door.

“Wait! I didn’t say we were going now! I got some pans over there that need washing.” He pointed across the room to a few heavy-looking skillets that were piled among tons of dishes in the metal sink of the kitchen. Megan took one look at the skillets and groaned. "Wash those first, and then we’ll go."

“Can’t we just go now, and I’ll do them later?”

“Hey, if you want to sit there and argue with me, then we just won't go at all. How do you like that?”

Megan dragged herself to the kitchen and looked at the chore. The skillets were black and slippery, sort of like a toad’s skin, only not quite, because the pieces of meat and cheese that were baked onto it made it look more like Megan’s mom’s casseroles. Megan cringed at the thought. She cleaned the skillets as quickly as possible, her small toes supporting her weight.

“I’m done!” she called after about five minutes of running the dish scrubber over random parts of the skillets. “Can we go now?”

Her dad heaved himself off the couch and went to the sink. He picked up one of the drying skillets. Chunks of meat clung to the side. “Are you blind?”

“No.”

“What the hell is this?”

“Umm...”

“Do it over again, dammit. Stop being a damned moron. Wash them again, and if you mess up this time, we’re not going to McDonald’s. Got it?”

He went back to the couch and stared at the wall. Megan picked up the scrubber and "accidentally" dropped it as hard as she could. She picked it up again and forced it against the skillet, making as much noise as possible. Water sloshed around, and the skillet crashed against the sink a couple of times.

“Hey! Stop making all that noise, or we aren’t going anywhere! Got it?”

That shut Megan up. After a few minutes, Megan decided she was Cinderella. Megan cleaned dishes, and so did Cinderella. Megan decided that she, the true Cinderella, had been zapped out of the fairy tale. Now she was here in her dad’s apartment, doing chores and waiting for her chance to go to the ball. Her mice friends had also traveled with her to this new world. They were roaches now, and on the sticky counter, they danced beside her. She smiled at them.

At least fifteen minutes passed. When she was finished, her arms were sore, and her toes hurt. Her father, much more slowly than before, went to check the skillets. They were clean. But the rest of the dishes weren’t.

“Okay. Now make me something to eat. Make me some peanut butter sandwiches or something,” he said, plopping back down on the couch.

“But I thought we were eating at McDonald’s!”

“I haven’t had breakfast yet, Megan. Now go make me something to eat!”

“But-“

“If you don’t fix me something to eat, I’ll die.” He sounded completely serious. “I haven’t had anything to eat all day, and all I’m goddamn asking you to do is make me something, so I won’t die. You don’t want me to die, do you?”

“No...” Megan was scared. She turned and wiped tears away from her eyes. The thought of her father’s dead body made her tremble. Her hands shook while she fixed the sandwiches. “You wouldn’t really die, would you?”

“If I went without food? Hell, yeah, I would die. You would, too.”

Megan didn't want to hear anymore. She pushed the thoughts of death away. She imagined banishing them to a far-off land, like Grandma’s back yard, where Pebbles, Grandma’s mean little terrier, would tear them to shreds.

Megan brought the sandwiches to her father and waited while he ate, each bite chewed slowly. Megan wanted to scream. Bored, she kicked at the chair, only to be told to shut up. Forever eventually ended, and her father smacked the last piece of sandwich, licked his fingers, and belched.

“Now can we go to McDonald’s?” Megan asked.

Her father smiled. “No.”

Megan groaned. “What do I have to do now?”

“Nothing. We ain’t going.”

Megan’s body went numb. Her one sharp canine tooth bit down on her lower lip, and she tasted blood. “But you said-“

“Nope. You didn’t finish the dishes, like I told you to.”

“I’ll finish them!”

“Nope.”

“You didn’t say I had to wash all the dishes! You said just the pans!”

“Nope.”

“But that’s not fair!” Megan screamed.

Her dad laughed. “Life ain’t fair! Get used to it!”

He stood up from the couch and went to his room. “Wake me up when your mom gets here.”

*     *     *     *     *

Megan’s mom didn't return that day. She had to work late. That’s what she said, anyway. Megan’s dad had gone to his room hours ago, and he left Megan to sleep on the couch. She lay there for hours, bored and miserable, until she finally had enough. She needed water.

She got up from the couch and carefully made her way through the darkness. She found the edge of the kitchen counter and, stretching her arm as far as it would go, opened the cabinet above. She knew a few cups were on the top shelf. 

Megan lifted herself up and crawled onto the counter, then stood. Her heels peeled away from the filthy counter as she stood on her toes and grabbed one of the cups. Just as she was about to jump down, she felt something crawl onto her foot. Startled, she lost her balance and fell to the hard tiled floor below.

Landing on her side, Megan struggled to keep her cries inside as a few stubborn tears ran down her face. “Fuck,” she whispered.

She stood and limped over to the sink, got some water, and found her way back to the couch.

The pixies were fluttering all around her, she supposed. They were everywhere, but they never caught her when she fell. She left a little water in the glass before she set it down on the floor, a tiny part of her hoping some of the pixies might land in it and drown. It wasn’t like they were alive anymore. To her the pixies were nothing but dust settling in an old, shabby apartment.