The Funhouse

floor, pushing the girl's head down to the tiles, screaming like a madwoman, praying at the top of her voice…
        She shuddered.
         My God , she thought miserably, suddenly pierced by a painfully sharp insight, I'm like my mother! I'm exactly like Gina. I've cowed my husband just as she cowed hers. I've been so strict with my children and so preoccupied with my religion that I've built a wall between myself and my family-a wall exactly like the one that my mother constructed.
        Ellen felt dizzy, but not merely from the vodka. The patterns of history, the familiar circles drawn by repetitive events, startled and dazed her.
        She covered her face with her hands, shamed by the new light in which she suddenly saw herself. Her hands were cold.
        The kitchen clock sounded like a ticking bomb.
         Just like Gina.
        Ellen grabbed her drink and took a long swallow of it. The glass chattered against her teeth.
         Just like Gina.
        She shook her head violently, as if she were determined to cast off that unwelcome thought. She wasn't as stern and distant and forbidding as her own mother had been. She wasn't . And even if she was, she couldn't deal with that insight now. With Amy's pregnancy, Ellen already had too much to worry about. She could deal with only one thing at a time. Amy's problem had to come first. If some horrible thing was growing in the girl's womb, it had to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible. Maybe then, after the abortion, Ellen would be able to consider her life and decide what she thought of the woman she had allowed herself to become, maybe then she would have the time to reflect on what she had done to her family. But not now. God, please, not now.
        She tilted her glass and chugged the rest of her drink as if it were only water. With an unsteady hand she poured a little more orange juice and a lot more vodka.
        Most nights she wasn't really drunk until eleven or twelve o'clock, but tonight, by nine-thirty, Ellen was thoroughly intoxicated. She felt fuzzy, and her tongue was thick. She was floating dreamily. She had attained the pleasant, mindless state of grace that she had desired so strongly.
        When she glanced at the kitchen clock and saw that it was nine-thirty, she realized it was Joey's bedtime. She decided to go upstairs, make sure he said his prayers, tuck him in, kiss him goodnight, and tell him a bedtime story. She hadn't told him any stories in a long, long time. He'd probably like that. He wasn't too old for bedtime stories, was he? He was still just a baby. A little angel. He had such a sweet, angelic, baby face. Sometimes she loved him so hard that she thought she'd explode. Like now. She was brimming with love for little Joey. She wanted to kiss his sweet face. She wanted to sit on the edge of the bed and tell him a story about elves and princesses. That would be good, so good, just to sit on the edge of the bed with him smiling up at her.
        Ellen finished her drink and got to her feet. She stood up too fast, and the room spun around, and she grabbed the edge of the table in order to keep her balance.
        Crossing the living room, she bumped into an end table and knocked over a lovely, hand-carved, wooden statue of Jesus, which she had bought a long time ago, in her waitressing days. The statue fell onto the carpet, and although it was only a foot high and not heavy, she fumbled awkwardly with it, trying to retrieve it and set it back where it belonged, her fingers felt like fat sausages and didn't seem to want to bend the right way.
        She wondered fleetingly if the bedtime story was a good idea after all. Maybe she wasn't up l to it. But then she thought of Joey's sweet face and his cherubic smile, and she went upstairs. The steps were treacherous, but she reached the second-floor hallway without falling.
        When she entered the boy's room, she found that he was already in bed. Only the tiny nightlight was burning, a single small bulb in the wall plug, ghostly, moon-pale.
        She stopped inside the doorway, listening. He usually snored softly when he slept, but at the moment he was perfectly quiet. Maybe he wasn't asleep yet.
        Swaying with each step, she walked gingerly to the bed and looked down at him. She couldn't see much in the dim light.
        Deciding that he must be asleep, wanting only to plant a kiss on his head, Ellen leaned close-
        And a