by Tawni Waters
“Wow,” Henry says. I hate the way he’s copying her.
“You’re an artist, huh?” Xylia asks.
I shrug. “Someday.”
She grins. Those teeth. So white. “You are already.” She goes to one of my drawings, a mouse, and studies it. “This has beautiful lines,” she tells me. “It makes me wanna cry. I don’t know why, but it does.”
I walk up behind her. I can smell her. Not thick like Momma’s perfume—soft, sweet. Like flowers. “I was really sad when I drew it,” I say. “I get sad when I draw little things. They seem so . . .”
“Vulnerable?” she asks.
“Exactly.” Jesus Christ. Twice I have taken the name of the Lord in vain. That’s how much I love this girl. She knows everything about me without knowing me at all. She feels like home.
“Mice are vulnerable,” Henry says. I’d forgotten he was there.
“How do you know?” Xylia turns toward him, interested.
“It’s hard to explain,” Henry says. “I feel what others feel.”
“You’re psychic?” Xylia asks, her eyebrows raised high.
“I don’t know if I’d call it that.”
“Sounds like it to me,” Xylia says. “You have a gift. You should develop it.”
Henry beams. I want to smack him.
“Mara Stonebrook,” Momma says from the doorway, and I whirl toward her. “Here you are. Neglecting the rest of your guests. It’s time you started the party games. Your father and I are going to take a walk.” She gives me a meaningful look, which I’m meant to interpret as, “Now go and get Elijah Winchell to propose marriage,” or some such bullshit. I have no idea what party games she’s talking about, because we never discussed party games. Are we in first grade? What the hell does she want from me? Jesus Christ. This time I think the Lord’s name in vain because my mother is an idiot.
“All right,” I say, and we all follow Momma downstairs. Before long I’m sitting in the living room with my guests, trying to figure out how not to neglect them. Everyone’s being really quiet and staring at the walls, which, let’s be frank, are not all that interesting. I know I’m supposed to liven things up, but I don’t know how.
“Maybe we should dance,” Xylia suggests.
Everyone looks at her like she just suggested we cut off our right boobs, the way the Amazons did.
“Or not . . .” she adds, eyeing me like, What the hell is wrong with these people?
I shrug apologetically.
“I have an idea,” Elijah Winchell says. He’s sitting on the couch with his feet on the coffee table. Daddy would kill him if he saw it.
“Elijah has an idea,” Iggy echoes.
“How about we play spin the bottle?”
The girls start to giggle.
“What’s that?” I ask.
Then everyone does more than giggle. They laugh at me hard.
“You don’t know what spin the bottle is?” Elijah taunts.
“Neither do I,” says Xylia, and she grabs my hand defensively. Right there on the damned carpet, I almost melt into a mess of blood and bones and love. Xylia’s touching me. I don’t give a shit what the game is now, until Elijah explains it.
My heart pounds. I love this. I will spin that bottle until it breaks or I kiss Xylia. Her hand in mine is soft and hot.
Before I know it, we’re all in a circle. There’s a bottle, and Xylia is sitting right next to me. I wonder if I can spin the bottle just a little so it will land on her.
“I’ll go first,” Elijah says. He gives the bottle a hefty spin, and I swear to God, when he’s done, it’s pointing right at Henry.
“It landed on Missy,” Elijah says.
“No, it didn’t,” someone says. “It landed on Henry.”
The laughter starts again.
“That’s sick,” Elijah says. “No freaking way am I kissing that faggot.”
I look over at Henry. He’s frozen, staring at the bottle, as if no one will see him if he doesn’t move.
Even though I was mad at him two minutes ago, I feel sorry for him, especially since Xylia’s still holding my hand, not his. “He’s not a faggot,” I say. “He’s just smart enough not to go all crazy for fake boobs. I mean, who’s stupider? The people who get all hot and bothered about lumps of silicone, or the people like Henry, who hold out for the real deal?”
My party is quiet. I’m not sure if that means I’m making my point, or if they just hate me. “And anyway, he’s my friend. If you make fun of him in my house, I’ll punch you in the teeth.”
Xylia squeezes my hand. Henry looks up and smiles at me. Elijah’s acne burns.
“Why wouldn’t you kiss him?” Xylia shrugs. “In San Francisco, guys kiss guys all the time. Nothing wrong with it.”
Elijah turns so red, his head might blow up. “That’s an abomination.”
Xylia laughs scornfully, like he’s a world-class loser. “Whatever,” she says. “You’re stuck in the Stone Age.”
Henry looks like he’s about to bolt. But before anyone can do anything, Elijah leans across the circle, grabs Missy’s face with both hands, and kisses her hard on the mouth. Her eyes go wide. She wasn’t quite ready for it. When he pulls away, she makes a face. I would be grossed out too, his pimply face so close to mine.
“You used your tongue,” Missy says angrily. She swipes her mouth with the back of her hand and rubs it on the carpet.
“So?” Elijah says. “That’s how you kiss. Who’s next?”
Someone says, “Let’s just go around the circle.” Which means that my brother is next, since he’s sitting next to Elijah.
He spins, and it lands on Christa, who’s sitting next to Xylia. She’s one of the ugliest girls in school. She has an extra row of teeth. It’s weird. Iggy leans in to kiss her, and she jerks back. “No way,” she says. “I’m not kissing that freak.”
Iggy’s face falls, like he isn’t sure what’s going on, but he’s pretty sure he’s going to cry. That’s when Xylia makes me love her forever and ever and ever.
“Freak?” she says. “He’s the hottest guy here.” And she leans across the circle and gives my brother with the broken brain a long, wet kiss.
CHAPTER 6
MY PILLOW IS WARM, BUT my sheets are cool when I move my legs. My party’s over. Has been for hours. But the barn owl outside my window has been screeching all night. Maybe that’s what’s keeping me awake.
Wrapping my pillow around my head, I try to make my brain shut up, but it won’t stop talking. It says things about Xylia, about the flowers she gave me and the way she held my hand. It reminds me that I never got to kiss her.
As soon as she kissed Iggy, Elijah said the game was stupid and threw away the bottle. I tried to suggest playing again, but no one listened. They just went back to talking and eating.
I opened my presents, and I have to say I got some pretty cool stuff. Henry gave me a hawk feather, which he explained was his totem and would bring me good luck. He gave it to me after everyone left, so no one would laugh at him. I kissed him on the cheek and hung the feather over my bed.
Elijah gave me a book about Shakespeare, which I’ll admit I liked. But nothing was as good as the flowers from Xylia, who kissed my broken brother. As jealous as I am, she saved him. And I love her even more for it. I keep seeing the way she smiled when she declared him “hot.” I hope someday she says I’m hot. But maybe she won’t. I can’t tell if she likes boys or girls. Probably boys. Doesn’t everyone but me like boys?
Something wails. At first I think I’m dreaming, but I sit up, and I hear it again, a gurgling cry coming from outside my window. My stomach knots up. I creep over and part the curtains, afraid of what I might see, but too curious not to look. I peep out into moon-wrinkled night.
My momma’s hunched over a pile of pea pods on the picnic table. Her hands are shaking, but she’s busy. Break the pod. Pull back the string. Drop the peas in the pot. Ping! Put the pod on the pile. As if it’s an instinctive behavior, the same
as nose picking or butt scratching. She doesn’t know I see her. She thinks she’s alone.
I’m frozen, wanting to run from and to my momma at the same time.
Momma picks up the glass I knew would be beside her, even though I couldn’t see it behind the pot, and takes a swig. I admire her ladylike insistence on drinking from a glass, even at night when she thinks no one is watching.
She mumbles something I can’t understand. Then she says louder, “Damn him.” I know she’s talking about my daddy. Her cool eyes stare up at the ghost-stone moon, and she says it over and over. “Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.”
I want to be angry that she’s drunk, but I only feel sorry for her. Maybe she never loved my Daddy. She always says she did. My, wasn’t he handsome in his football uniform? My, didn’t his eyes sparkle just so? But when I see her tears, I can tell that Momma has rewritten her story, made love out of necessity, Romeo out of Frankenstein. She’s had to lie to survive. She had to lie to herself, to Daddy, to us. But she can’t lie to the pea pods.
There’s something hopeful about pea pods, isn’t there? I’ve always thought so. The way they look so full, so young. I can understand why the pregnant pods made Momma feel empty enough to weep.
Still, my world goes topsy-turvy with my momma’s sobbing, the way it always does, no matter how many times I see her cry. There’s something cold about a mother’s tears, colder than any murder you read about in the news, more chilling than all the wars of the world put together.
Momma should be safe. Momma should be warm. Momma should be happy, happy, happy, ready to mend your scrapes with the Band-Aids in her apron pocket. Ready for anything that comes along. She irons out wrinkles. She combs out tangles. She bakes peanut butter cookies, even when it’s 102 degrees outside, with no thought for the rivers of sweat that run along her hairline and down that hollow place between her boobs. Momma shouldn’t cry. Momma crying is like God crying. It makes the walls of the whole world come crumbling down.
I want to go to her, bury my head in her lap, tell her everything will be all right, but what I really need is for her to tell me she is fine so the world can go back to being a safe place. She will tell me, won’t she? I tiptoe down the stairs.
When the screen door swings open, Momma jumps up so fast, she knocks over the pot of peas, and they go rolling on the ground like a thousand little ants. She swipes the tears from her cheeks and straightens her nightgown. It’s so cold, my teeth are already chattering, but she doesn’t notice. She falls on her knees and begins to retrieve the peas, one at a time. Ping. Ping. Ping. The brown outline of her nipples shows through the flimsy fabric, and it scares me that her boobs are not as neat and pointed as they are when she traipses around the house wearing her fancy brassiere and her starched blouses.
“I heard you crying,” I whisper, staring at her drooping chest.
She manages a weak smile. I wait. I want her to say that it’s just her allergies, or that she’s crying for the sheer joy of being alive. Say something, for God’s sake!
She doesn’t. She stares at me with eyes that seem tiny without their makeup. I fall to my knees and bury my face in her shoulder. Her skin’s soft and warm. I want her to be the momma she might have been once upon a time, before my daddy started breaking Iggy. She begins to cry again, softly this time, like the whispering of the river at the first spring thaw.
“It’s just so cold here, Mara,” she whispers. “Why does it have to be so damn cold?” It is cold. It’s so cold, the grass blades are frozen spears. But I know she isn’t talking about the weather.
“Yeah, Momma,” I whisper. “It’s cold.”
She smiles wanly. “Well, then.” She gets to her feet, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. “We should get inside. You’re barefoot. Haven’t I raised you better than that?” She sighs. “Of course I haven’t. I mean, I tried.” She picks up the pot of peas. There’s only a handful now. They look lonely. She picks up her glass. “God knows, I tried.”
She heads for the house, and I have no choice but to follow. I pick my way across the frosty ground, listening to my Momma’s lament. “I mean, you always were barefoot, even when you were a baby. Did you know that?”
“Yes, Momma.”
“You were a hurricane in a handbasket, Mara Stonebrook. I’d put your shoes on, and the second you left my sight, you’d have them off. Even in the snow. Even in the snow, you and Iggy had to go barefoot. I thought you’d catch your death of cold.” She laughs weakly. “I did try, though.”
We slip inside, and she heads for the kitchen. I wiggle my toes on the soft, warm rug. Momma switches on the pantry light.
“Aren’t you going to bed, Momma?” I ask.
She turns, and her ghost eyes are still there. They scare me.
“These peas need attention.” Momma sets the pot and her glass on the table and slumps into the chair.
When she sits like that, I’m reminded of when I found her writing that letter. I see it clear as day. That paper, all pink and poisoned with rosewater. Dearest William. I’ve been so busy dreaming about Xylia and getting ready for my party, I forgot all about it. My heart bangs. It’s hard to swallow. What happened to the letter? I remember shoving it into my pocket. But what pocket?
“Night, Momma.” I rush upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, wondering what that letter said, knowing it couldn’t have been anything good. I flip on my bedroom lamp and rush to my closet, rooting around in the pockets of all my jeans, swearing like Daddy each time I come up empty.
My closet and my dresser are gutted, and still no letter.
I slouch against the wall. I wish I had some pea pods to talk to the way Momma does, but I don’t. I just have me and my empty pockets and maybe God, who Reverend Winchell says will always listen to a good woman, like the “Proverbs 31 woman” who always takes care of her husband. I’m sure I’m not a good woman, but God is my only shot, so I take a chance and whisper a prayer.
“God, if you’re listening, I’m sorry for all my mistakes and for liking Xylia and all that. But the thing is, I gotta find that letter. If you could help me, I’d appreciate it.” I don’t know what else to say, so I just whisper, “Yours truly, Mara Stonebrook.” Then I bury my head in my hands.
Outside the window, our barn cat yowls. I get even sadder, thinking Rapunzel’s still weeping for her dead kittens. I picture them writhing in that burlap sack as Daddy carries them off to the river, and myself standing at the window, all dressed up in funeral garb, crying for them. And then I remember. That was the day Momma wrote the letter.
My heart bangs in my throat as I tiptoe down the hallway, past Iggy’s room, to Momma and Daddy’s bedroom. From the other side of the door, I can hear Daddy snoring.
“God,” I say inside my head. I’m on a roll with this prayer thing. “I just need to ask for one more thing: Don’t let my daddy wake up, or he’ll kill me.” I reach for the doorknob, then realize God may need more of an explanation. “I know it’s a sin to steal, but it’s a bigger sin to kill, and I’m guessing whatever is in that letter will get Momma killed.” I imagine God asking me how I know that, and I say, “I just know.”
The door squeaks a little, and the dark lump that is Daddy rolls over. I freeze, coming up with excuses to tell him, like, “I had a bad dream,” even though I know he’ll just get irritated and tell me to get off back to bed, I’m sixteen years old, for God’s sake. But Daddy doesn’t move again.
I tiptoe past the bed, where I can safely say I was just looking for comfort, to the closet door, where all my excuses fly right out the window.
Please God, please God, please, I think. Then I open the closet door. I slip inside, closing it gently behind me. I wait, listening for signs that Daddy’s finding a weapon to use to kill me. A shoehorn. A pair of scissors. Anything. The only sound, though, is Daddy’s deep snoring. Holding my breath, I rustle around in Momma’s dresses, trying to figure out which one is her funeral dress. They all feel the same in the dark.
> Please God.
More fabric, scratchy and cool, and then I feel buttons, the round, pearly ones.
I thrust my hand into the dress’s pocket—one, then the other. My fingertips meet paper. I grasp the letter and try to shove it into my pocket, but my nightgown doesn’t have a pocket. I fumble around, stuffing it down the front of my panties. I feel like throwing up. Daddy’s still snoring, and I have to walk past him again. If he catches me this time, he’ll kill me twice. But if he finds me here in the closet tomorrow, it’ll be worse.
I open the closet door again. Daddy mutters something and rolls over. I wait. He returns to snoring. I tiptoe past him, breathing a sigh of relief when I get to the side of his bed, knowing I can use my bad dream excuse again. I make it all the way out of the bedroom. As I close the door, the bed creaks.
“Cora?” Daddy mumbles. “Is that you?”
I wait, scared.
“Cora?”
Momma hears him. “Just shelling some peas, honey,” she calls from downstairs. Her voice is quiet, but I can make out her words. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Damn woman,” I hear Daddy say. The bed creaks some more, and his snoring starts again.
I almost run back to my bedroom. I hold the door shut, gasping. Then out comes the letter. I would never know Momma had written it, had she not told me herself. The handwriting is jumbled and splotchy, not clean and slanted, the way Momma usually writes. Still, I can make out the words if I squint.
Dearest William,
I don’t blame you for running away. I know what happened. He told you to run or he’d kill you. He admitted that to me when he was drunk. He said he made you run. So I don’t blame you a bit.
Sometimes I remember the way you put that yellow flower in my hair and told me I was pretty by the river. I think about how you looked at me, your eyes shining blue as the sky. You must have really loved me. You must have, right?
The thing is this: I know he told you I’d be better off with him, but I’m not. He hits me. Worse than that, he hits Iggy, Willy. Sometimes I am afraid he will kill him, and what will I ever do? How will I ever live knowing my husband killed my son, and I stood by and did nothing?
