Fruits of the Same Tree

Prologue: Parts of a Tree

Before I was born, my mother and father took a boat and sailed from San Juan, Puerto Rico to the lower east side of Manhattan. I always thought it was funny that they traveled thousands of miles to go from one tiny island to another. But of course it wasn’t just a trip to a different place; it was a journey to a different culture.

My parents came from a small town nestled among the vast mountain ranges and deep lakes of central Puerto Rico. It was a place of creeping, misty shadows that swallowed the tall peaks during the night. The morning sun always gave them back though, the steep, slippery roads snaking their way to the exposed green crowns.

Most of my father’s family still lived in Adjuntas. It was a tiny village consisting of a church, the courthouse and a few grand houses surrounding a small, unpretentious plaza. My grandparents had settled high in the mountains hidden amongst the deep and silent swimming holes and screeching macaws. Their wooden house grew with the family, warty and crooked, sprouting bedrooms off the kitchen and the back porch. It sat upon a mound growing out of the bottom of three giant mountains surrounded by narrow streams of cold, rushing water. I loved to walk upstream, my toes numbly gripping the loose stones, to the gap in the boulders where the water magically bubbled out. Papi said the little spout was fed from the rain that fell into the hole at the top of the mountain and dribbled down for us to drink. One of my favorite things to do was to catch the clear water in my cupped hands; I imagined I held only frigid air. But still I’d hurry to take a big slurp before the water seeped between my fingers.

We visited my grandparents every summer. Papi flew down with us but after a few days went back to New York. He had to work at the metal factory where they made trophies. Late in the summer, when the drawn out days broiled hot even in the high altitude, Papi would come back to get us and we departed as we had come, together. While he was gone, we lived with my grandparents on the small farm set upon the mound between the mountains.

My grandfather was a short, bandy-legged cowboy. He wore a battered straw hat whenever he walked the mountain paths. He’d wake up earlier than the sun and guide the cattle to the grassy fields and every afternoon he’d set out again to bring them home. Sometimes, he would take the older boys with him, to shepherd the bulls down to the corral. He would never take the girls though, which I thought was very unfair. But Papi explained that Abuelo was old country, he thought girls were best left at home. I set out one summer to prove him wrong.

It was still early in our visit, our skins pale and our tongues still hungry for the deli foods from the lower East side and the glorious weather and lush countryside had yet to make its annual transformation. I still felt the hard sidewalk under my feet and the ghostly, brush of strangers on the street. I walked too fast for my cousins and spoke too familiarly for my aged aunts. I schemed. That early in the summer, I was still a New Yorker. So I decided to shadow Abuelo and the boys, as furtive as a wild hare springing silently from bush to bush, until finally I would triumphantly reveal myself and graciously receive compliments on my sneakiness. I made my move one morning just as the dawn was peeking over the easternmost mountain.

My cousin Alvaro caught me hiding behind a tree even before the house was out of sight. He went straight to Abuelo. I ran down the path, Abuelo’s scolding words ringing in my ear as I slipped back into the quiet house. I spent the day planning what I would do differently.

The next day, I started out before Abuelo and the boys, and had almost made it to the point where it was too far to send me back alone when Angel caught me crouching behind a boulder. He pushed me down so hard, I thought I would roll down the hill all the way to the house. As I slumped back to the farm, kicking rocks and tufts of grass, I decided that I liked Abuela more than Abuelo. And the bulls were mean anyway.

My grandmother’s brown hands were as wide and wrinkled as a dried palm leaf. But pliant, like the long vines that can be twisted and bent. Those vines can never be broken either; they have to be cut. I was thinking that when I saw Abuela wring a chicken’s neck. She had tucked the chicken under one arm and with a flick of her right wrist, suddenly had a chicken head in her knobby fingers. It was a very neat job. Mami said it was easy to kill a chicken when you had ten children in the house. Times were difficult back then. No doctors, no money. She did everything she could to feed everyone. That’s why we decided to move to Nueva York. For a better life.

Yes, that’s true, Papi said sadly, but it was hard leaving the family.

But you got us, Papi! I would remind him.

Yes, I have you, querida. All of you.

Abuela would gather us around her in the evening hours, after we had eaten a plate of rice and beans for dinner. It was that time in the evening when the little frogs called coquis would start to chirp. Abuela would tell us stories, sometimes about real people and sometimes about the spirits that walked the mountains. Sometimes, she talked in riddles that I couldn’t understand until later, just as I was falling asleep. By morning, it would make sense, as though she had told me the story in my sleep.

One of those evenings as we sat around her, chicks around a hen, Abuela told us that our family was like the mango tree, the very biggest one that stood on top of the mountain. We were the parts of the tree, all of us she said, and together we could withstand the dry season and the violent storms of summer.

How are we parts of a tree, Abuela? I asked her.

Abuela drew in the dirt between her feet, using a stick as a pencil. Abuelo and I form the trunk that holds the rest of the tree up. Our children are the branches - she drew nine squiggly arms reaching up to the sky - and each of you is the fruit that springs from the branches. You will grow sweet and bountiful on the strong branches and you will one day feed the world. I thought about that and puzzled over the number of branches, wondering why she drew only nine instead of ten.

And what part is Tio Luis?, I asked about Abuela’s youngest son. He didn’t have a wife or children, so maybe he wasn’t a branch yet. Maybe he was a twig. But I was wrong.

Luis is a leaf. He floats above the ground looking down at life.

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t have a job; all that floating around, I added.

That is so, mi hija. Who can grow a family so far from the tree?

But Abuela, I said slightly alarmed, we live far from the tree too, thinking that while I lived in New York, most of my family still lived in Puerto Rico.

Yes, but you will scatter your seeds in the same forest.

And that was true, because our cousin Teresa, who had been born in New York like me, had married a boy from Adjuntas. They had already grown a baby mango. Her name was Luz.

We children ran off then, a dozen of us, cousins and brothers and sisters. We were the fruits of the same tree, growing from different branches. I looked at my grandmother one more time before I ran off. She was squatted over an open fire, plucking a freshly killed chicken. She pulled quickly at the tough skin, coming up with a handful of feathers. This is how I remember her always; brown hands working, an unlit stub of a cigar sticking out of her mouth chewing on it like a piece of leather. It is a memory set in my mind forever, even long after we had flown back to my other island home thousands of miles away, to New York City.

Stut

Hoping to submit this in the 3000 or under category.

It was one o’clock in the afternoon when Nick hauled himself off the bare mattress that reeked of screwing. He hadn’t minded that when he dropped down on it the night before; he’d been pissing drunk. Now halfway sober, all the stinks of his mother’s house pinged on his memory like a thumb and a middle finger on the back of his head.

He padded into the grimy kitchen, the floor adhering to his bare feet. Each sticky footstep served up an image; an odd sort of slideshow. By the time he’d crossed the room, Callie’s face was bobbing in his sodden brain, drenched in Bud Light and warped.

Talk to me, Nick. Why is that so hard?

She had stood by the window with her arms crossed. The setting sun sent orange shafts through the shuttered window. Her lips pursed. If he hadn’t been so wary, he would have kissed that tight mouth loose.

It’s time you got a another job, Nick. It’s been a month, I can’t carry the both of us forever. She stared at the side of his head. My parents think you’re a loser, Nick.

He finally looked at her. The sun’s rays had sharpened into daggers slicing slivers across the wall. Do you? he’d asked her. A moment of hesitation, too long, incredibly long. She knows this. His turn to look at the side of her head. Her ear is a perfect shell, smooth pink coral and cool to the touch. It catches even the smallest of sounds. She heard the hairline crack in his heart.

Just get a job, Nick. Something, anything, she pleaded. I’m trying to make it on my own. I don’t want to borrow money from my parents again. She reached out, knowing that the crack was widening into a chasm that she wouldn’t be able to breach. Go to school at night and get your GED. Then you’ll be able to work anywhere. I’ll help you. This last she said to his back, as he quietly walked out of her apartment.

The faucet cranked and sputtered bubbles into the plastic glass. Nick sipped the tepid water grimacing at the flat taste. He wanted a beer. Badly.

You’re drinking too much. When had Callie said that to him? You’re spending too much time with your brothers, Nick. They’re bad news. He’d remained silent, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the obvious. If you were working, then you wouldn’t be over there all the time. She’d sighed deeply. It’s time you got another job, Nick... The memory replayed again and again, the words sharper each time around. He threw the plastic glass into the sink and went in search of a beer.


He knew the basement door. It was four paneled and solid but even so it bore its share of scratches and dents. He’d put most of them there. The first time Clyde and Denny had lured him to the basement, he’d been clueless. Clyde had pushed him in and Denny had thrown the door shut so fast that it hit Nick on his skinny nine year old ass. He went down on his knees, his fists beating on the inside of the door. He’d spent an hour sucking air from the crack near the floor.

The next time he fought back, this time catching the door with the heel of his shoe as Clyde hauled him through the doorway. The dent was small but the scuff a foot long. He ended up on the landing anyway, crouched against the wall, his eyes wide in the dark. When the door creaked open two hours later, Ma was waiting on the other side, ready to smack him good for the scuff.

He shook his head, dislodging the images that rode the alcoholic wave. They pursued him relentlessly when he drank, populating his consciousness like a favorite bar. Arguing with Callie hadn’t helped any, that always sent him back to his mother’s house like a damned salmon swimming upstream. But the basement didn’t hold demons anymore, only beer. He pulled the door open, hinges complaining loudly.

Damn. She was right, of course; he had been sitting on his ass for way too long.


They had napped on that Sunday afternoon a month before, sharing the couch with the lazy, fat tabby with the broken muffler. He’d awakened first and the sight of Callie still asleep - her chestnut hair draped across her white neck, upper lip dotted with tiny beads of sweat - had seared permanently into his retinas. Even now, weeks later, that was what he saw when he closed his eyes.

Then her eyelids had shifted frantically as though seeking him in the dark, looking for him, leaving him shitfaced scared like never before, not even in those first lockups in the basement. Days passed into weeks and Callie grew puzzled, then annoyed. Yet he remained silent, unable to tell her that he was falling for her. Falling hard.


It took him a second to realize that the basement light was on. Clyde and Denny, last night’s drinking buddies. He shook his head in disgust and proceeded down the flight of stairs. There was beer down there.

“Callie?” He stood rooted at the bottom of the staircase, stupidly wondering why she was seated in a chair in the middle of the large basement room. She hated his mother’s house.

It sounds mean, she had told him. And even though he knew mean, he didn’t understand that. He had never heard it coming.

It’s all the creaking, Nick. The floors, the doors, even the windows shriek. Like someone’s in pain. Like someone’s causing pain. She didn’t know the half of it; he had never told her.

“Callie?” he asked again, but even as he did, he knew she wouldn’t answer; the duck tape had sealed her lips together. She watched him with enormous eyes, straining against the rope tied around her arms and middle. He took one step before going rigid.

“Well, look who’s here.”

Clyde sat in the battered recliner, his huge frame overflowing the armrests. “It’s baby bro.” Nick watched him, his breathing growing shallow.

“Whattaya think, Stut? You gonna be the hero today?” The sneer reached out in his voice, oily and metallic, like the .45 resting neatly across his beefy thighs. Nick took a step towards Callie.

“Naw, Stut. You can’t just take her,” Clyde grinned, his fingers stroking the revolver. “Wanna see who’s quicker?” A high pitched cackle emitted from the corner. Nick flicked his eyes to the left, spying Denny in the shadows. Front and flank; they were stalking.

“Ten bucks says he ain’t as fast as you, Clyde.” Denny jiggled in place, skinny fingers running through his greasy hair. “I bet he ain’t.”

Nick narrowed his focus. The words, first the words.

“Let her go, Clyde.” Smooth, frosty.

“You hear him, D?”

“Yeah, I hear him, Clyde.” Denny giggled, revealing yellow teeth. He absently scratched at a crusty sore on his cheek. His eyes were slightly glazed; he’d been dipping in the meth again.

“He says to just let her go. Said it like a man, too.” Clyde smiled again, a single gold tooth catching the beams from the naked light bulb. The tiny flash shimmered briefly before extinguishing with his next words.

“We gotta talk, Stut.”

Nick glanced at Callie before sitting down on the third step of the staircase. He waited for Clyde.

“That’s a good little bro. You know you ain’t worth shit to me. But her,” he gestured to Callie with the .45, “she’s worth 250k.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Denny shook his head rapidly. “250k...”

“Shut up, Denny,” Clyde said good-naturedly. Nick’s mind raced, desperately trying to connect the dots. Callie was worth a quarter of a million dollars? How? Did her parents have that kind of money?

“You’re h-holding her for r-ransom?” Concentrate, breathe. Now talk. “Don’t d-do this, C-Clyde. Concentrate! Callie doesn’t have that kind of muh-money.”

“Now you’re getting all nuh-nuh-nervous, Stut. Ain’t nothing to be scared about.” Clyde grinned again. Suddenly, the step under Nick’s ass seemed made of ice instead of wood. Cold, prickly claws scratched up his spine.

“You should try talking to your girlfriend Stut, instead of just doing her.”

“She’s loaded! Ain’t she Clyde?” Denny exclaimed. “Loaded, man, like a quarter mil ain’t nothing to her old man.” Denny skipped over to stand beside Callie. “Tell him...go on, tell him.” He poked Callie in the ribs until she nodded in short little jerks. She swallowed hard, the small bone in her throat bobbing.

“Her old man owns Edwards Industries. Millions little bro, you been screwing millions and you didn’t even know it, you freaking moron.” Clyde laughed deep from his belly, a derisive bell tone surprisingly rich and mellow. He’d used it to bludgeon Nick into humiliation many times. Denny cackled an octave higher, sucking breath as though an asthmatic.

Nick turned back to Callie, her disheveled hair framing her face wildly. She met his eyes briefly before looking away. He saw through her half-truths now, remembered how she’d change the subject when he brought up her family, pretending to be scraping by, only telling him the bare facts - parents still married, father in business, a younger brother in high school. Solid citizens straight down the effing line, middle class people with middle class bank accounts. Except that he didn’t really know that, did he? He’d never visited them, never talked to them, never even saw them except in pictures. In six months of being with her constantly, he knew almost nothing about her.

“All you gotta do, Stut, is let ‘em know you got her. But...” Clyde nodded graciously, “you’ll give her back. If they pay you for your time. Easy thing, little bro. Even for a stuttering freak like you.” Clyde studied him from under heavy brows, a faint smile on his lips. “I just wanna let you in on a good thing, Stut. Don’t make it hard on yourself.” He nodded his head, knowingly. “You know, you always end up doing it my way.”


The last time Nick fought the darkness, was also the first time he embraced it. He’d turned ten that day, a tall skinny kid with shifty eyes and a pinched mouth, who on occasion wet the bed. It was a full five minutes after Ma had left the house that Nick figured out that she had completely forgotten his birthday. He’d stared at the front door, the frost creeping up his insides like a heavy glacier, opaquely solid and heavy. Icy crystals touched his brain. He’d stood like that, frozen.

Then Denny had walked into the room, jiggly and stupid, just begging for it. It had taken Nick almost no time at all to get Denny worked up - a simple thing if you knew Denny - to the point where the froth bubbled up around the corners of his thin lips and his eyes grew wide and stayed that way.

Quit acting like you can’t see me, jerk, Denny had snarled at him. Nick had continued to look at the stain on the wall, doing his best not to smile. I know you can! Look at me! I’m here! and then Denny had thrown himself at Nick, hitting the ground instead, because even though Nick was younger by two years, he was faster in every other way.

Denny screamed at him from across the room. You bastard freak! Ma said you was found in the dumpster, in a box of dirty diapers. You ain’t our brother, butt-head, you ain’t got the same Ma as me and Clyde! That’s why you can’t talk. You ain’t human! And Nick felt the cold encompass him completely like an icy immersion; such a deliciously cool, breath sucking jolt. He welcomed it. The words came easier in the cold. He looked Denny in the eye and spoke clearly.

Retard. Denny’s Achilles tendon, because he was stupid enough to have been left back twice and smart enough to know how stupid he really was. Nick said it again and again, cool, frosty, polar, each time. Retard, retard, RETARD... until Clyde’s fat paw gripped Nick’s neck from behind, and used it like a handle to move him from the living room to the kitchen to the basement, all the while talking in his ear, You was born a bastard freak, you ain’t worth a damn to me, you wanna pretend not to see me too, asshole? Nick was so disoriented that he didn’t even try to kick the basement door that time. It was an easy thing to slam it shut on his face.

The oxygen eventually returned to his brain. Then he’d gone from a screaming shriek to a mumbling half sleep in a seamless transition, just in the time it took him to slide down the door. When he awoke fully several minutes later, he heard the silence. Clyde and Denny had left the house. An unfamiliar peace enveloped him; for the first time in his memory, he couldn’t hear the echo of flesh striking flesh.

He grew to crave the darkness. Even after Clyde had lost interest in locking him in the basement, he sought out the darkness himself. He found it in the oddest places - the blackness of an elevator shaft; the repetitive work on the night shift; the dark, mindless pleasure between Callie’s legs.


“Show him why he’s gonna do it, D,” Clyde said lazily. Callie sucked in through her nostrils as Denny pulled on a handful of her hair. He slapped her sharply across the mouth twice. Callie’s head swung left then righted itself in time for the second blow.

“How ‘bout now, Stut?”

“I ain’t done, Clyde,” Denny whined. “Can I do her? Can I? It won’t take but a minute. I’m ready.”

Nick watched Denny’s fingers roam over Callie’s breasts. He saw a single tear fall on Denny’s hand, rolling down in a straight path despite the knobby contours of his knuckles. It landed in a silent plop on Callie’s lap. Into the sweet darkness.

“Stupid bitch!” Denny slapped her mouth again. “She’s putting boogers on me, Clyde. Let me do her real quick.” He pulled on his belt.

Nick shifted his gaze back to Clyde. “Alr-right. But I get a c-cut.”

A deep groan vibrated in Callie’s throat, guttural and anguished. Clyde regarded Nick through carefully hooded eyes, a Cheshire grin playing on his lips.

“That’s more like it, Stut. That’s more like it.”

“Hot damn, what the hell...” Denny yanked on his zipper, caught on his grimy underwear. He pulled on it frantically, hopping from one foot to the other. Nick turned back to Callie.

He looked directly into her eyes and spoke to her like he did before he lost his job, before she broadsided him with her kindness and chestnut hair and deft fingers that knew exactly how to rub the sore spot on his neck. He spoke his love like he had never been able to before, and she heard him with those smooth, coral shells, mottled red now, those shells that caught Nick’s silent words like waves in a cupped palm.

Now.

He dove towards Clyde as Callie stuck her feet out, tripping Denny onto the concrete floor. Denny hit hard with his face, hands caught unawares somewhere down in his crotch. He rose cursing and spitting blood, murder in his eyes. Callie kicked him in the face with both feet. She fell over backwards, feet sticking absurdly up in the air.

Across the room, Nick landed heavy, scrambling on all fours behind Clyde’s chair. He dimly heard the crack of the gun as he swung his arm around the top of the recliner, pinning Clyde’s thick neck in the crook of his elbow. He gripped his wrist with his free hand and squeezed. Clyde swung about, jerking Nick from side to side battering him on the right side of the face with the revolver, another shot fired off into the ceiling. Nick tightened his grip. He squeezed until his shoulders popped.

The blows slowed. The revolver clattered to the floor and Nick lunged for it, standing and pointing it squarely at Clyde’s purple face in one motion. Clyde smirked again even as his color remained vivid. Two seconds went by; two even breaths, two heartbeats. Nick squeezed the trigger. A hole appeared in Clyde’s chest.

“You killed him! I saw you!” Denny shrieked across the room. Nick paused a moment, realizing that Callie was right; everything shrieked in this house. He pulled the trigger again, splattering Denny’s little brain across several cardboard boxes lined up against the wall.

He’d found the beer.

Nick lifted Callie off the floor, gently pulling the tape off her mouth, wincing as though it was pulling on his lips instead of hers. The ropes fell away as soon as he undid one knot; he rubbed her arms briskly. He looked up to see her studying him intently, a small frown between her eyes.

“What is it?” he whispered, dreading the answer.

“I didn’t know you stuttered.” She shivered. He rubbed her arms again, his fingers kneading the raw welts where the rope had cut into her flesh.

“Is that why you d-don’t like t-talking?” Her teeth chattered. He kept his eyes on her welts.

“It’s okay. I d-don’t m-m-mind.”

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “Me neither.”

Mike

Epilogue

I go to therapy. Actually, we all go. Bryan calls it a load of crap that takes time away from work and school and his girlfriend Jessica, Brittney having gone the way of all of Bryan’s other girlfriends. But he shows up every week and flirts with the psychologist even though she’s old enough to be our mother. It’s kind of sickening but she just smiles and keeps asking him questions that I know he doesn’t want to answer. Once in a while though, he does.

Grammy wouldn’t say a word at first but then Dr. Miller told her that this was the time for her to talk about what was on her mind. Well, that opened her up.

“Bryan’s a slovenly, disrespectful whore. He came that way.”

“And how does that make you feel, Mrs. Watts?”

“Why, it disgusts me! Once he gets going you can’t get a word in edgewise. Smart aleck too, as though he’s the only one in on the joke.” Bryan started to speak, but Dr. Miller beat him to it.

“Do you feel that his disrespect undermines your authority?”

“Well, that’s a stupid question!” Bryan snorted. “And then there’s Mikaela, with her quiet, sneaky ways. What did I ever do to her that she’s so afraid to talk to me?”

“Be a bitch.” That was Bryan.

“What do you say, Mikaela?” Dr. Miller asked, and I didn’t want to say anything, but I had to because everyone was staring at me.

“I…well…okay. It’s just that sometimes, well, Grammy, sometimes you’re not exactly in a good mood, and well…” I would have gone on stammering if Grammy hadn’t finished the sentence for me.

“I’m tired all of the time, that’s the truth. I didn’t expect to be working double shifts at my age. Maybe I need some more sleep.”

“A happy pill would go a long way, Doc,” Bryan added helpfully, “got any?”

“Why do you have to be such an idiot, boy?!” Grammy demanded; and that’s how our therapy sessions went, even after Aunt Ethel joined us. It seemed the natural thing to do, since she had moved in with us anyway.

She never spoke though; she just sat there the entire session, her eyes getting bigger and bigger as Grammy and Bryan went at it, and I told them why I cut. Three sessions in, and still she hadn’t said a word.

Then one evening, after a particularly wild session, that left me feeling like I’d just run 100 miles without Gatorade, Aunt Ethel knocked on my bedroom door.

She sat on my bed gingerly, dragonfly still, until suddenly she moved, looking at me with Grammy’s eyes. Only bluer, like an Easter egg.

“I would have done it too. If I had thought of it.”

My brain was so mushy, that I had no idea what she was talking about. “What do you mean, Aunt Ethel?”

“I understand what it’s like to be alone. If…if I had thought of it, I might have done what you did. To cope with the pain.” She wrung her thin hands so tightly, that the blue veins bulged slightly everytime she squeezed. “Instead, I kept myself apart from everyone I loved, hiding inside. I lived with a fear so great, that I died a little each day. And now, so much time has passed, that there’s no one left to answer for what they did.”

The realization of what she was telling me sent a shock of adrenalin through my belly. For all I had in common with her, I had no idea what to say. I watched as shy Aunt Ethel began to melt down. She trembled so hard, my bed shook.

Then it came to me, as gently as a butterfly landing on my knee. I touched her wrinkled hand. “I have a friend, Aunt Ethel. He’s something of an expert in his field. He’ll listen to you.”







Jess came to see me a few days after I got out of the hospital. He’d been by before that, but I always pretended to be asleep. Grammy settled it by sending Jess to my room and telling him to wait until I woke up. I gave up after 3 minutes of hearing him breathe heavily. You never knew what Jess was up to.

“What are you doing?” I asked flipping over, expecting Jess to be doing something sick.

“Nubthing.”

“Why are you breathing like that?”

“I hab a code.”

“Oh. What do you want?”

“Nubthing.”

“I thought you were mad at me.”

“I wuzth. But nob anymore.”

“How come?”

“I dumb know.”

“Want a coke?”

“Yeth.” I crawled out of bed. “Mike?”

“What?”

He glanced down at my bandaged arm. “I shoulda toad somebody. Tho that you would be safth.”

“Forget it. C’mon.” We had walked into the kitchen, before he spoke again.

“Juth tho you know, if you do it again, I’ll tell everybody, dube.”







I saw Tom a couple of weeks later. He stopped by the house after work. Grammy harumphed a bit and got him a cup of coffee, and then thanked him for keeping me from chopping myself into little pieces. She left the room with her nose in the air.

“That was a rough ‘thank you’, even from Grammy. What did you do to her?”

He smiled. “Stepped on her toes. She’ll learn to like me one day. So how are you doing?”

“Fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Your aunt came to talk to me. Some story.”

“So, what happened on the bridge?”

“That’s privileged, Mike.”

“You gotta be kidding! Fine, I’ll just ask her.”

“She can tell you, I can’t.” He smiled.

I was a little put out. “It’s not like anyone’s going to jail, they’re all dead.” Then something horrible occurred to me.

“Aunt Ethel isn’t going to jail, is she? For not telling?”

“No, Mike. The case is officially closed.”

“So who did it?” I asked, trying one last time.

“Let’s walk, Mike,” he said with a smile.

We went out the front door and walked away from Jess’ house; I didn’t want him to join us.

“Things okay at home?”

“Yeah, they’re better. We practically live therapy, you know. Grammy’s found out why she’s such a grump but Bryan’s still trying to figure out why he has a morbid attraction to dumb blondes. It’s a slow process.”

He chuckled. “And you?”

“Well, I had to stand up in front of everybody and say, “My name is Mike and I’m a cutter. One day I hope to be a butcher. I have experience…’ ”

Tom barked out a laugh. It always made me jump but I liked it too.

“You’re something else, Mike.”

“That’s what the shrink says.”

We sat on a low stone wall, somebody’s fence. Tom spoke. “My son says he knows you.”

“I think the whole school knows me by now. Who’s your son?”

“Lucas Green.”

“No crap, I mean, really? I know Lucas. He doesn’t look anything like you.”

Tom smiled. “He looks like his mother.”

“He doesn’t act like you either. You know, the art and…all that…” I ended weakly. His smile faded. We sat for a little while without saying anything. I couldn’t stand it.

“It’s not so bad, you know. That he’s gay…” I blurted out.

“Don’t want to talk about that, Mike.” His voice had an edge to it.

“He’s a good guy, it doesn’t matter that he’s g…”

“Mike,” he clipped my name so short, that I felt the breeze move my bangs. I stopped talking. But not for long.

“Dr. Miller says that cutting is triggered by stress which isn’t released in healthy ways. If you’re not careful, you might be at risk.” I looked at him from the corner of my eye. He exhaled heavily.

“Alright young lady, get it off your chest.”

“Lucas is artistic and smart and nice. I mean really nice, not like you and me. That means that you did something right. Nothing else matters.”

He watched the traffic for a moment, then looked at me. His gray eyes were soft like the clouds that bring a warm, summer rain.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Mike.”

I smiled. And meant it.




The End

Mike | Chapter 7

Present - Back in the Black Box

“So who’s making you hurt so bad?” he asks me quietly.

The words reverberate in my head. I don’t really understand what the Gray Man’s asking me. Who? There’s no one left who can hurt me anymore. They’re gone and they left me with nothing but betrayals and burdens, and memories that make me ache. There is no one left.

“Nobody. Nobody.” I strike each word as though with a hammer, affirming what had been true from the day my father burned to death in his car; that I’ve missed him because he was gone, and hated him for leaving me with a ghost.

“There are people who can help you if you have a tough time talking to your parents, Mike…”

“Don’t you get it? They’re not here to talk to.”

“Where are they?”

“My father’s dead. A long time,” I say flatly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I snap at him.

“What about your mom? Where is she?”

“Oh, she’s dead too,” I say, waving my hand dismissively. “Maybe you heard about her, she was all over the news. Victoria Watts. She took a bath with a plugged-in radio.”

He thinks for a moment. “Watts?” His expression changes as he makes the connection.

I smile. “You have heard of her. Everybody has.”

“That was a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess, I don’t really remember,” I say, not much caring when it had happened.

“I saw the case file at the station, Mike. It was ruled accidental. Why do you think she did it on purpose?”

“Because she was sick of being nuts.”

He looks at me with a kind expression on his face. “That’s tough Mike, losing her like that. Was she having a lot of problems?”

I choke back a cackle. “When wasn’t she having problems?”

“I’m sorry. Were you close to her?”

This time I laugh out loud. “How close can you get to a psycho?”

“Mike…”

“No really. Let me ask you this. Do you know if a crazy person is able to love? Tell me, do you know?” I don’t wait for an answer. “They can, Mr. Gray Man. Really they can, but here’s the thing. Their love is as crazy as they are.” I laugh again.

“It would help you Mike, to talk to someone. They could help you sort out your feelings. Find out why you need to cut yourself.”

“Don’t you think I know?”

“It’s hard to lose a parent, I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose both. That’s not something most people can handle by themselves…”

“I don’t do it because my mother’s dead! I cut because she lived!”

He looks startled then nods slowly, agreeing with me, agreeing with everything I say. “You can talk about that too, Mike, tell them everything that’s on your mind…” He looks concerned. Worried. He feels sorry for me. Suddenly I hate him.

“Stop talking to me like I’m some kind of pathetic loser. I don’t need your pity!”

His expression changes with the quickness of a lightning bolt, jarring me with an unblinking stare, so unlike his kind look. He examines me, his expression unyielding and hard, the gray eyes that were previously soft and as insubstantial as vapor, suddenly turned into cold granite. Little lines form in the corners of his eyes.

“Then put the damned razor down!” he barks loudly. I jump. “If you don’t want pity, then don’t act like a helpless baby,” he commands me.

Anxiety begins to creep up into my stomach. “Screw you. I’ll do whatever the hell I feel like doing.” I tell him that, only I’m not so sure that I mean it. “I didn’t tell you to come in here. I wasn’t looking for some superhero to rescue me. I’ll deal with my problems my own way.”

“You call this dealing?” He has one hand resting on his knee, and with the other he jabs at me from several feet away. It feels like he is inches from my face, I can almost feel his hot breath in my eyes. “Just what the hell are you solving here, like this?”

I know he doesn’t understand; I thought I had said the right things, said the words that explained the cuts, the impulse that guides me through the worst moments. For some reason, I want him to understand. I try to explain; for the first time in years, I try.

“I don’t know!” I practically scream it; at him, since I can’t see anything but gray, piercing eyes. “This is how I don’t end up like my mother! This is how I stay alive!” He looks perplexed; I try one last time. “Cutting my arm keeps me from cutting my throat, Gray Man. What would the shrinks say about that?” And I feel the compulsion, I realize with an overwhelming sense of dread, and it is all I can do to stop myself from cutting again and again. But I want to tell him anyway; I want to tell him that I don’t really want to cut; that I hate it, but I can’t stop because it’s become the only way I know how to cope with what hurts me. In the end, I give in and cut again; two short cuts against the ones already there, crosshatching fat and blood and flesh. The razor slices like a knife through hot rubber.

Then a sharp knock on my forearm; the whole one, the one holding the blade, and my fingers pop open to drop the small sliver of metal. He binds my bleeding arm with a rag and then sits beside me, an arm around my shoulders. I lay my head against him.

“You didn’t have to hit me Gray Man, I was going to give you the razor.”

I hear a small laugh rumble through his chest. I hear his heart too; it’s beating very fast.

“My name’s Tom, Mike. Just call me Tom.”




I spent the night in the hospital. I don’t remember much about that afternoon and evening because I slept for fifteen hours straight, the longest I’d ever slept at one time. Tom was there when I closed my eyes, telling me that the pain would go away soon. For some reason my arm, the cuts, my entire body hurt like never before, as though a switch had been flipped.

Grammy was called from work; I saw her stalking down the hallway towards me with a fierce grimace on her face. I knew she was angry; furious, I’d seen that look before, and I wondered what to say, since all I wanted to do was sleep. Then Tom intercepted her, stepping neatly in front of her so that she disappeared from view and I only saw the fog again before slipping into sleep.

Hours later, I woke up to find Bryan sitting by my bedside. He was staring out the window, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy, just like they had been at Dad’s funeral.

“Did Grammy die?” I ask curiously.

His eyes widen and flicker in my direction. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think you wanted to know.”

A muscle twitches in his cheek. “You stupid little princess.” And with that statement, I knew that things would be alright between Bryan and me.

I talked to a psychologist before going home. She was big and friendly and shook her head a lot. I thought she was going to hug me so I sat as far away from her as I could. She didn’t seem to mind; and scheduled to meet with me during the week. I was going to have to try to open up, she said, so that I could learn how to deal with stressful situations without cutting. I didn’t think that was possible I told her, remembering Grammy’s severe scowl the night before, but I said, okay, what the hell, I would try.

Grammy, Bryan and Ethel took me home, Bryan talking about how his new girlfriend Brittney was so the one. I thought he was trying to be funny, trying too hard maybe, and that was strange because he had never tried before. Ethel sat quietly in her corner of the car, with a pained look on her face. Occasionally she would reach over and pat my knee. Grammy sat as still as a statue in the front seat, not saying a word. I knew a storm was coming from her direction, the air around her fairly crackled, making the tips of my fingers itch with the urge to grip a blade. I rubbed my bandages instead, picturing Tom and remembering the pain of the cuts. It would never feel good again; something had changed or maybe it was just that I didn’t have an excuse to cut in secret anymore. There were too many people wanting to listen to me. Everything had changed.

Grammy waited, at least until the front door closed behind us, before whirling around and confronting me. Her head stuck out at an unusual angle from her neck, towards me, like an arrow just before it strikes. Her features were in rictus, the tendons sticking out of her neck as stiff as twigs strewn in the forest. Spittle formed into lather at the corners of her mouth, reminding me of a kettle of soapy clothes left soaking in the backyard. She was mad; really, really mad.

“Just had to have more attention, didn’t you? It wasn’t enough, that the whole town knew about your mother? You had to go do this,” she said with revulsion, pointing at my arm. Her expression was so cold and brittle, that I almost expected to hear the crackle of ice laden tree branches. Her eyes glittered brightly; winter sky blue and quite beautiful, in a scary kind of way. I wished that she would look at Bryan instead of me.

“That’s all it is, isn’t it, you ungrateful child! As though I have nothing better to do except coddle you.” She was tightly strung, trembling with the effort to stay where she was and not throw herself at me.

“No, Grammy,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not like that. I didn’t want anyone to know, I wouldn’t have told anyone unless I had to.”

“Then it’s defiance, plain and simple, just to get back at me. You knew what you were doing was wrong! How dare you act like her, just so you could torment me.”

Support came from the unlikeliest place.

“She wasn’t being defiant, you ignorant old bitch,” Bryan said, face etched in fury. “She’s sick, and she needs help, just like Mom needed help that you decided not to get for her. You’ve got a fucking nerve to stand there and criticize!” He threw his hands up in the air. “The hell with you. You’ve never cared about either one of us, so why should you care now?”

Grammy turned towards Bryan, her head jerking so hard that her loose curls bounced. “Do you think you’re the only one to have it hard? To have lost someone you cared about? Bury your only child, then talk to me about hurt!” She sucked in a ragged breath. “You say it’s been so bad. Tell me one night you didn’t have food on the table, or money for all those school functions, money Granddad and I worked for all of our lives! There’s nothing left, nothing for me to live on, all of it gone to feed you and you.” She pointed an accusing finger at Bryan, then at me. “What more do you want from me? I’ve given you everything…everything…I have.” She ended in a whisper, her last words barely audible. She sank into her reading chair.

“Then you should have let us go,” Bryan said quietly. “To live with someone else. You should have put Mom away where she couldn’t drag us down into her hellhole. That’s what you should have done.”

I watched as a tear slowly rolled down Bryan’s cheek, large and perfectly shaped, and a memory of a distant Sunday morning popped into my head. It was a time when we slept late on weekends and laughed a lot and only fought about the last cookie. I just wanted to sleep, but Dad woke me up with a kiss me on the forehead. Mom was standing behind him with a cup of coffee. He said, ‘Princess, what are we going to do today?’ And Bryan walked in and sipped from Mom’s coffee cup and then jumped on the bed and listened to Dad too, because he was always good around Dad. Then we got up and Bryan launched himself at Dad and hit the ground instead, fracturing his wrist. A large, perfectly shaped tear rolled down his cheek. Dad picked him up, and Mom wiped away the tear.

He missed them. Maybe that’s why Bryan got in trouble later on, because he missed both of them. That thought had never occurred to me.

I reached over and carefully wiped the tear off his cheek.

“She couldn’t do that Bryan. We belong to her.” I looked at Grammy. “Don’t we?” She didn’t answer but turned towards the wall, her back as rigid as I’ve ever seen it.

“Even Mom. Even Mom belonged to you."

She didn’t answer, and I knew she wouldn’t turn around until she was ready. That was okay, because I understood now; I understood why she had kept Mom at home. Mom had belonged to all of us.

Bryan stared at the ground, his hands stuffed into his pockets, looking like a ten year old instead of like a senior in high school. I wanted to hug him, but he would probably hit me, so I sat down between them and waited until they were ready. It would be a long time, so I got comfortable.

Mike | Chapter 6

Ninth Grade

The last day of my life started like any other day. Okay, so it wasn’t the last day of my life but I wished it was. Everything started out the way it should have, but then this thing happened, a shift in the universe or something, and then nothing was the way it was supposed to be. Before the day was over, normal had become obsolete.

When I got up in the morning, things were still right. I found a pimple, a little one, so it wasn’t so bad. I watched Bryan suck down twelve bowls of cereal without taking a breath and then I received my daily orders from Grammy. Bryan no longer did any household chores, something about him being a man and working and all that blah, blah. Personally, I think Grammy just preferred my cooking over his. The only thing different that morning, was that Mom was up and dressed, gazing out of the kitchen window and sipping a cup of coffee. That was very unusual. But then she spoke, and that was just plain weird.

“Lucinda, the coffee is good and strong,” she said to Grammy. It’d been a long time since Mom had said anything in English. We all turned to look at her.

“Thank you, Victoria,” Grammy replied, without missing a beat, “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.” Mom turned back to the window, watching the birds hop the branches of the oak tree in the backyard.

“It’s going to be a lovely day, don’t you think, Bryan?” Mom asked, still following the movements of the jumpy little sparrows.

Bryan looked at her back, an unreadable expression on his face. He got up and left the kitchen without answering.

“He’s angry. He’s always been so passionate.” Mom turned to me. I felt my skin crawl. “You were the easiest child.” She smiled and I wished she hadn’t; it was immensely sad and full of regrets. I looked at the bowl in front of me, my stomach rolling like a tumbler, the toast I had eaten, spinning nauseatingly fast.

“Victoria, you must be getting tired dear, why don’t you go lay down?” Grammy asked solicitously.

“I think I’ll do some sketching. It’s been so long…” Mom trailed off, a distant look in her eyes.

“Yes dear, the pencils are in your room.” Mom left the kitchen with the cup still in her hand. Grammy turned to me.

“What are you waiting for? Get to school.” I got up to leave. “Mikaela?”

“Ma’am?”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“I won’t,” I said.








I made it just in time for first period. I had taken the long way to school to avoid meeting with Jess. We hadn’t been seeing eye to eye on anything lately and I was still a little weirded out by Mom to deal with him. I slipped into my seat, Anne Clare pursing her lips at me. Mr. Marx stepped up the aisle before I could tell her to ease up on the Botox. He was handing out the results of the end of term exam, his fingers placing each test down on the desk with a little snap.

“I was quite surprised and very pleased to see that most of you studied for this exam!” He had a habit of ending all of his sentences on the upswing. “Of course, this will be a full third of your final grade!” He stopped at Anne Clare’s desk, laying her test down. “Well done!” She squeaked and looked around, extremely pleased with herself. Mr. Marx turned back to the class.

“I haven’t checked all of the averages yet, but most of you should benefit from these results!” He was smiling broadly; I don’t think he had been a teacher for more than a couple of years, he was still enthusiastic. He took one more step and stood in front of my desk. He looked concerned as he placed the test paper facedown. I reached for it, but his skinny finger was holding it down. “See me after class,” he said quietly, and with a little hop stepped up to the desk behind me.

I waited until he was in the next row before lifting the corner of the paper to glance at the grade. 58. In bright red marker. I knew Jess was watching me from across the room, curious to know what my grade was. I refused to look his way and slumped down in my seat instead.

Jess was waiting for me outside of the classroom, munching on a candy bar. “So what’d he say?” he asked through a mouthful of chocolate.

“Same crap,” I said, without looking at him. “ ‘I can see that you’re having trouble keeping up! We have tutoring after school, don’t be embarrassed to go! I’m going to have to fail you this semester!’. Same crap as always.”

“Seriously dude, you’re flunking? Look, if you need help, I can study with you…”

“I don’t need help, there’s nothing hard about history. I just don’t give a damn.” I picked up the pace, making Jess jog to keep up with me.

“I’m just saying, I can quiz you or something, make sure you know the stuff…”

“Last time I looked Jess, I was the smart one, you were the moron. Back off.” I left him standing in the middle of the hallway. I knew his color would be up, first his neck, then his ears, until he looked like a pomegranate.

He followed me down the hallway and stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop. He was mad, madder than I’d seen him in a long time.

“Screw you.” His lips were thin white lines. “You always do that, you stuck up, stupid jerk. You think you can just blow people off, like they don’t count.” He waved his hand in front of my face. “You only think about yourself. That’s the only thing that’s important to you, isn’t it? Well, here’s news for you. Just because you’re smart, it doesn’t give you the right to mess with other people.” The hallway was clearing rapidly although a few kids stopped to listen to Jess’ rant. “So your family’s screwed up! You think you’re the only one?” I tried to step around him. I wasn’t even angry; I just wanted to leave.

“And don’t think I don’t know about your secret,” he said in a low voice as I walked by him. I stopped and he looked me in the eye. “I know about your arm. I know what you do.” My heart pounded loudly in my ears. “If I find out that you’ve done it again, I’ll tell.”

I left him standing there, breathing heavily, his belly shaking with each breath. I was unmoved by his anger, curiously detached and unemotional. But as I walked away, I felt the need to say one last thing to him.

“You’re a bigger moron than I thought you were. Screw you.”

Sitting in my next class, I thought about what Jess had said. I knew that he knew. He’d figured something out last summer when I wore long sleeves everyday. I’d always change the subject and point out his fat knees or his frizzy hair. There was that time though, when I showed up at his house after a fight with Grammy. She was arguing with me all of the time now, usually over chores. Jess and I were sitting at his kitchen table, finishing up a plate of homemade cookies, when Jess noticed that I had my fingers up my sleeve, rubbing back and forth. It was soothing to feel the ridges of my scars, particularly when I was stressed out and couldn’t cut. If I touched them a certain way, it was as though I was writing a secret language. There was something strange and mysterious about that. But I hadn’t realized I was doing it, until I saw the look on Jess’ face.

“What are you doing?” he asked, without taking his eyes off me.

“Scratching, what do you think?” I reached for another cookie. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a homemade cookie before.”

“Why?”

“Cause nobody at home bakes them, that’s why.”

“Why are you scratching your arm?”

“It’s a bug bite, okay? Let it go.” He continued to stare at me. “Let it go, Jess.” He dropped his eyes. He hadn’t mentioned it since. I knew Jess, if he was really going to rat me out, he would’ve already.

A large backpack thumped on the desk beside me, pulling me back into the present. Lucas Green sat down.

“Hey, Mike.”

“Hi. What’s going on?” He looked like he’d been running hard; his cheeks were rosy and his hair messy; but in actuality, he’d left his house that way. His cheeks are always rosy and his hair fashionably messy. Every girl in the school either loves him or hates him, for the same reason - he’s insanely gorgeous. Personally, I’m immune to his shiny hair and blue eyes, but I think it would be humbling for him to get at least one pimple while he’s in high school. Oh, I’ll admit it, I thought he was cute in the 8th grade - but it got a little weird after he told me he was gay.

“What’s that?” I asked pointing to the oversized portfolio he carried, in addition to his backpack.

“Mrs. Clarkson asked me to bring my work in.”

“What for?”

“She wants to put a portfolio together to send to Hillman Art School.”

“She thinks you’re good enough to go to art school? That’s a real compliment Lucas; she’s really snooty.”

“I believe ‘discerning’ is the correct word,” he said with a smile. He has perfect teeth.

“Whatever. So she likes your work, huh?”

“I guess. It’s just an idea. Assuming Hillman likes it, my dad is never going to let me go.”

“Why not?”

He stuck his chest out and tucked his chin in. “ ‘It’s an unreliable way to make a living,’ ” he said in a deep voice. “ ‘No son of mine is goin’ to mooch off other people, just so he can color pictures all day.’ That’s what he’d say.”

“I bet that if you got accepted, he’d come around.”

“No, he won’t. You don’t know my dad, he’s still military even though he’s been retired for three years ago. He still has all of his uniforms perfectly aligned in the closet.” Lucas gestured to the portfolio. “This is just a waste of time.”

“You could bring up your mother. Just tell him, ‘mom loved art, she would be crazy happy that I’m talented’; something like that.”

“I don’t even remember my mother, Mike; for all I know she hated art. Nothing’s going to change Dad’s mind. He wants me to be cop or a soldier or a wrestler or something.”

I looked at Lucas from head to toe. He was taller than me and not too skinny. “Well, I suppose you could be a cop, but a wrestler? Gimme a break.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I just want to paint. I wish he would understand that.”

“Tell him.”

“I have. He’s stubborn. Nothing’s going to change his mind.”

“If you give up before…”

“It’s not just about art, Mike. There’s more to it.” He fidgeted. “My dad’s afraid that if I leave home, he won’t be able to stop me from dating.”

“Oh. Would you? Date, I mean.”

“Of course, I would. I’m normal, you know.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re about as normal as I am.”

He gave me a brilliant smile; long, dark eyelashes swept downward in a long curve, his lips turned up in a disarming grin.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“With your eyes…never mind.”

Mrs. Moreno walked in, followed by Ms Restor, the vice principal. I tensed for a moment. Wait a minute, it can’t be for me, this isn’t English. I relaxed.

“Mikaela Watts, would you please come with me.” It is for me. The class started talking and giggling. Mrs. Moreno quieted them down. “Clase, por favor…”

Ms Restor stood patiently by the desk. I was confused. They had never come for me before, and besides, I hadn’t done anything.

“It wasn’t me,” I said perturbed.

“You’re not in trouble Mikaela. Come, I want to talk to you. Your brother is in the hallway.” And that’s when the shift in the universe happened.

It wasn’t just Bryan out there, but Uncle Billy, too. He’s tall and fat and happy, the opposite of Grammy. He had a small, sad smile on his face. Bryan was leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“What?” I asked. I stood there with my unzippered backpack hanging from my arm, books slipping out one at a time. Bryan waited until History hit the ground and split open, before telling me.

“Mom’s dead.”





The house was full of people. All I saw, everywhere I looked, was black. It was a good idea, in this family, I thought, to always have a clean black outfit; you never knew who was going next.

I sat in the corner reading chair, watching the mourners mingle and eat ham. The house smelled like a delicatessen, everybody brought a casserole, handing it to Aunt Betty at the door like an entrance ticket. It was a good thing too, the way they ate. We wouldn’t have had enough food in the house.

I saw that most of the people there were Morgans, Grammy’s family. There was Aunt Betty and her husband Frank, who always smells like gasoline, and their fat daughter Margaret, who also smells like gas. Uncle Billy and his similarly jolly wife, Maureen; and their three grown, pleasant children - Bill Jr., Peggy and Joan. Dad had once mentioned that he and Peggy had shared a first kiss when they were eleven years old. I watched her move around the room, laying her hands on everyone, rubbing shoulders and smoothing hair. What would have happened if they’d kissed twice? Cousins, yuck. Besides it doesn’t matter anymore.

Aunt Ethel was there too, skulking along the wall like a cockroach, watching me. I watched her back; she had a look about her that I had never noticed before. A closed off house, that’s what she looks like; locked up and dusty, a lone face staring out of the upstairs window. She had a secret, and now that I knew about it - the bridge and Charlotte Cross - it felt like she was practically screaming it out loud. I chuckled quietly in my corner, the only one aware that Aunt Ethel was an accessory to murder. She watched me. I watched her back.

There were Watts’ there too; lots of them, names I couldn’t remember, but I remembered their faces because they had been at Dad’s funeral. I didn’t understand why they chose to come to Mom’s. I wouldn’t have, if I’d had a choice.

I saw a couple of Wagners wandering around the food table; Mom’s family, an
aunt and uncle maybe, I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. Neither one talked to me. They left shortly after they had arrived. Something like what Mom had done.

Bryan came to the funeral with all of his ex-girlfriends. They had formed a ring around him at the cemetery and sobbed throughout the service even though none of them had ever met Mom. Uncle Billy thought it was funny.

“The boy’s got himself a harem, Lucinda.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Billy,” was all Grammy said.

Bryan disappeared immediately after changing out of his black suit, squealing out of the driveway, four other cars packed with girls following him. We didn’t see him for two days.

I avoided everyone as much as I could, their conversations were making me queasy; ‘poor children; such a tragedy; blessing that Lucinda is here for them.’ Poor, what did that have to do with anything?

Once in a while, someone would sit with me.

“You’ve grown so much, Mikaela,” a Morgan aunt asked me between bites of deviled eggs. “How old are you now?”

“Nine, ma’am,” I replied.

“My, you’re tall for a nine year old!”

“Yes ma’am. It’s been a problem.”

Later, it was Cousin Peggy. “Are you hungry, honey?”

“No ma’am.” I watched her hands, prepared to move if they came towards me.

“Shannon was asking about you.” Shannon was her daughter. “She’s not sure how to approach you, but she’d like to spend some time with you.”

I looked across the room where Shannon was standing. Perfect face, perfect figure, perfect hair. I tried not to sneer. “Yes ma’am, that would be nice.”

“I think we can find something that’s fun for a fifteen year old and a nine year old.”

“Is Shannon nine?” I asked innocently.

“Why no, I thought you were! That’s what Aunt Jean said.” She pondered. “Where would she get that idea?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “No telling, ma’am.” I glanced over at her. Her eyes were crinkled at the corners. I looked at the ceiling.

“Are you sure I can’t get you something to eat?”

I shook my head. “No ma’am.” She reached over and rubbed my arm before I could scoot away. I knew she couldn’t feel the ridges of my scars through the thick sweater, but I moved my arm anyway.

“Do you want to talk, honey? We could go somewhere quieter.” She didn’t try to touch me again.

“No, ma’am, I’m fine,” I said, wondering what I could say that would make her go away.

Grammy saved me by fainting in the middle of the potato salad.

Everyone rushed to pick her up. She’d made a huge mess; it was funny watching the potato chunks fall out of her hair; Bryan would have gone to town with this one.

There was a lots of exclaiming and fussing; I didn’t know what everyone was so worried about. It would take more than a little potato salad to take Grammy out. She hadn’t even hit the floor; Uncle Doug, Granddad’s brother, had caught her before she went down all the way. He had been hovering around Grammy the entire day, no, the entire weekend. There was something pretty wrong about that, but I wasn’t sure what. Maybe it was that Grandad had only been dead ten years.

So I stayed in the corner reading chair, and watched everyone flip out. That’s when Aunt Ethel made her move.

She’d waited until all the other women escorted Grammy to the bedroom, presumably for a shower, and the men sat around the television set or went outside for a cigarette. Except Uncle Billy, he guarded the food. And Uncle Doug - he waited outside Grammy’s door while she argued with Betty and Peggy and the others, inside the bedroom. I had taken my eyes off Aunt Ethel while Grammy was collapsing, so I hadn’t noticed that she had crept closer. When I looked for her again, she was three feet away from me. Only behind me. I looked at her. She looked back. Then she sat down beside me and watched Uncle Billy fill his fourth plate.

“Billy’s going to gain weight, if he doesn’t watch what he eats,” she said in a soft voice.

“Going to?” I added sarcastically.

“He’s always loved food.” She sat with her ankles crossed, her knees pressed
together. It was a few seconds before she spoke again.

“Lucinda is a strong woman; I’m sure she’ll be fine.” I wondered what Aunt Ethel wanted. “She needs help around here, though.” She glanced at me timidly. “I’m going to be staying for a few days.”

I tried to be polite. “I don’t think we need help, Aunt Ethel. You’d be wasting your time.”

“I don’t have anything else to do, I would enjoy it.”

“There’s no one at home the whole day, you know. Grammy fights with me and Bryan all the time. You wouldn’t want to be in that mess, would you?”

“Maybe with me to help around the house, there would be less things to argue about.” She wasn’t getting it.

“There’s no room for another person, Aunt Ethel. We’re crowded.”

She blushed. “I don’t want to impose, of course…”

“We don’t need anyone butting in,” I said, a little too sharply. Her eyes were enormous. I felt like I’d just kicked a kitten.

“Aunt Ethel, it’s just that…we’ve only got Mom’s room, you wouldn’t want to sleep in there, would you?”

“No, of course not,” she said gently. “I thought I would sleep in your room since you would be taking Victoria’s.”

I felt the blood leave my face. “No ma’am. I’m not taking that room. I’m staying right where I’ve always been.”

“Well then, I guess I’ll take Victoria’s room, if you don’t mind. Only for a few days, of course.” She smiled shyly.

Why did I suddenly feel duped?

Uncle Billy joined us. “Hello girls.” He offered us his heaping plate of food. “Anybody want a bite?” We both declined. “This ham is great, I’ll have to find out who brought it and from where.” He took a bite. “That was some exit, wasn’t it?” he said through a mouthful. “Lucinda was trying to get away from everyone, and they went and followed her into the bedroom. Heeheehee.” Uncle Billy’s giggles were incredibly silly, especially after a funeral.

“Are you girls sure I can’t tempt you with an olive?” He held one between his beefy fingers. “This one still has a caper in it.”

“Uncle Billy, don’t you think it’s a bad idea for Aunt Ethel to stay with us?”

He thought about it. “You know, that’s a great idea. No need for you to be alone, Ethel…”

You’re not getting me, Uncle Billy.” I shook my head at him and arched my eyebrows. “Aunt Ethel would be very uncomfortable here.” I emphasized each word.

He looked at me questioningly. “You mean sleeping in Victoria’s bedroom? Oh, well, a fresh coat of paint, new furniture; it’ll be spiffy in no time. I’ll let Bill know.” He took a bite of prosciutto and smiled at Ethel as she accepted the olive he offered her. I slumped in my chair, refusing to accept defeat.

Aunt Ethel moved in five days later. Bill Jr. and a couple of other cousins painted Mom’s room a creamy white that gave the impression that the lights were always on. When they replaced the battered furniture, it was as though the room belonged in another house. Grammy took one look at it, and ordered Bill and Bryan to paint the living room and kitchen too. I refused them entry into my little closet; I liked it just the way it was.

Bryan was reticent initially, coming in late and going out early, until one evening he stayed for dinner. Aunt Ethel had taken over the cooking; I didn’t care, I told myself, it wasn’t like I was going to miss it or anything. Bryan was hooked after one bite of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Aunt Ethel beamed when he told her it was the ‘best mashed potatoes I have ever eaten in my entire life!’. Then he turned to me.

“Real potatoes, Mike. Maybe that’s what you should have tried.” I almost threw my plate at him.

But I had to admit, that despite the fact that we had an old spinster mouse living with us, she was incredibly productive. Besides the cooking, she did the laundry and the housework too. Grammy’s house had never been cleaner. That left me nothing to do after school except homework, which I didn’t want to do anyway.

Which is where I got seriously confused. Mom’s death meant a stop, I thought, to the craziness. It was supposed to be the end of the insanity that floated around Grammy’s house like dandelion seeds in a meadow. But instead living a normal life - which is what everyone else seemed to have slipped into - I discovered that those seeds had already implanted themselves in me, and I couldn’t stop the lunacy from bubbling over at the end of the day.

So I cut. I cut when I was down and miserable. I cut after I had finished a delicious dinner during which Grammy and Ethel laughed like girls. I cut when I could get away with it, and sometimes even when there was a chance of getting caught; I just couldn’t control the impulse anymore. And I realized one night, as I gripped the blade tightly between bloodless fingers, that cutting had a hold on me like Mom never did, and I had no idea how to stop it.

Chapter Seven

Mike | Chapter 5

Eighth Grade

Eighth grade passed in a blurry, dimmed kind of way. It could be that I had a surge of hormones that year and that's why I can't remember most of it; or that it was boring and not worth remembering. But it could also have been that it was a pretty bad time and I just chose to forget it.

A couple of things are so clear though, that the edges of those images cut into my mind like glass. I remember the awkwardness and I remember the betrayals, both intertwined like the branches of a tree, and impossible to separate. I don't remember one without the other and sometimes I wonder if I had caused the betrayals to happen, simply by growing up.

It started with a pimple; a clear, unmistakable sign that I was in puberty. My face, which had been smooth and clear - if you didn't count freckles - gave in without a fight one night while I slept unsuspecting. It was the middle of eighth grade by then, and I hadn't had even one zit, when I woke up in the morning with a huge one on my forehead, round as a goose egg and almost as big.

Once I realized it was there, I couldn't forget it. Sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of lumpy oatmeal in front of me, I touched it obsessively. I traced around its perimeter and imagined I could feel it coming out of my face. I looked at it cross eyed, and between feeling it pulse in my head and trying to look at it, I almost got lost in sensory overload. It was strangely hypnotic.

When I blinked to straighten out my eyes, I caught sight of Bryan across the table. He was shoveling huge spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth like he hadn't eaten in a week.

A drop of milk, which perched on his lower lip like a quivering white frog, suddenly jumped back into the bowl as he chomped down another spoonful, devouring countless, little cheerios.

"What the hell are you looking at, moron?"

"Beats me," I mumbled, annoyed that he'd caught me staring at him.

"Quit touching that zit," Grammy said, "dirty fingers will infect it."

"No it won't," I said contrarily, but dropped my hand anyway.

"Yeah, then it might get big," Bryan snickered, "not small and non-noticeable, like now."

"You mean, un-noticeable, stupid," I said scornfully.

"Whatever, at least I don't have a zit that's bigger than my nose."

I shot him a hteful look. "Pimples don't last forever. Stupidity does."

"So does UGLINESS, good luck getting a boyfriend, princess. Oh, wait a minute, you're already hooked up with carrot boy, aren't you?"

"Shut up about Jess. He's not my boyfriend."

Bryan smirked. "Take it back," I said.

Bryan sat back in his chair, a smug expression on his face. "No."

I picked up my bowl of oatmeal and slowly raised it. "Take it back," I whispered menacingly. "Now." His smirk grew. I aimed the oatmeal at his chest; Grammy saved him.

"Mikaela, put that bowl down, I don't have time for your nonsense. Bryan, I'll be working until 7 tonight, cook dinner and keep a plate warm for me for goodness sakes. I need to eat too. Mikaela, make sure your mother gets some food in her this time, and get the laundry..."

"Not my turn tonight," Bryan interjected, "got other things to do," and stood to leave.

"I'm not asking you, boy. I believe there are pork chops in the freezer and mashed potato mix in the pantry."

"I'm not doing it," he said defiantly.

"You will and without backtalk."

"No, I won't." Bryan leaned casually against the table and crossed his arms. Chin cocked and challenge laid out, he waited for Grammy's response. This scene was a familiar one to me since it was playing out almost daily. I couldn't pinpoint exactly who's fault it was or who it was that started the fights. Sometimes it was that Grammy didn't ask but just told, and Bryan didn't do too well with that. Sometimes it was that Grammy was tired after a shift and a half at the store and sometimes it was that Bryan was irritable and moody. But sometimes, it was that Grammy hated us for being there; or that Bryan was just spoiling for a fight.

"I'm going out tonight," he said cockily.

"If you think I'm going to break my back supporting you while you spend your nights getting in trouble with those hoodlums..."

"I don't care if you like my friends, I'm still going out."

"I don't like your friends, and I won't have you picking up bad habits either. Not as long as you live in my house!"

"It wasn't my idea to live in your house! I don't want to be here!"

My eardrums felt full, as though water had been poured into them. It muffled the shouting enough so that the angry words became indistinguishable noises. I got up quietly and slinked out towards the back porch. Glancing back before closing the screen door, I thought maybe they'd change their minds and let it go. But that's not what I saw. Grammy had gripped the back of a chair, her blue eyes, which always reminded me of plastic toy crystals, glinted fiercely in the morning light. They looked like chipped ice.

Bryan, having lost his cool demeanor, stuttered and spit, the blotches on his cheeks deepening with each hateful word. He pointed and prodded the air with his finger and paced back and forth. The last thing I heard on the way out, was a chair being slammed on the floor.

Five minutes later, I was halfway to the middle school, Jess chatting nonstop beside me.

"So what's with the screaming, dude?"

"Nothing."

"C'mon, there's always something up with your family."

"Not today."

"Okay, I get it." He grinned. "I feel taller this morning. Let's measure."

"Jess, it's getting old."

"You told it, dude."

"Yeah, but why? Why is it so important for you to be taller than me?"

"Just is."

"Fine, but this is the last time."

"Right here." We stopped at a light pole and Jess pulled out a red marker. "You first," he told me. I stepped up to the pole and turned so that I was facing him.

"Well?" I said, "go ahead." Jess grinned wider and reached up to put the marker on the top of my head, pressing down. I could feel the little metal hook sinking into my scalp.

"Jess, ease up, that hurts!"

"Right, my turn." He switched places with me. "Don't mess with my hair, I worked really hard on it this morning."

"Why?"

"Umm, no reason," he said evasively.

"Yeah, there is. Tell me or I won't measure you."

He rolled his eyes. "No big deal. I'm just going to talk with someone."

"Who?" I asked, curious. "Talk about what?"

"Nobody you know. C'mon, measure." He stood erect with his back to the pole, waiting for me. I knew that if I looked down, I would see him standing on his toes. I held the marker in my hand. This stunk like a betrayal.

"Uh, uh. Not until you tell me."

"Mike. C'mon," he whined. He rubbed his nose and sniffed while looking at the sky. I waited.

"Okay!" he burst out, turning a light shade of red. "I'm going to ask Whitley out."

I twisted my lips in disgust. "Titley Whitley? She's such a freak!"

"Don't call her that! She can't help that she's...developed," he stammered. "My mom says that kids develop at different rates, that's why you're taller than me right now..."

"Whitley hasn't developed at all." I laughed out loud. "She stuffs, stupid!" I laughed some more.

"That's really mean, Mike. Just because you're as flat as my math book..." I cut him off, suddenly angry.

"And you're short! I know that you grow your hair straight up so that you'll look like you're taller than me. You're not fooling anybody!"

"So! You're not just tall, you're mutant tall! Nobody can keep up with you, freak!" He shouted loudly at me, his face turning a darker red.

"And you're fat!" I screamed back, feeling the heat in my own face.

"At least I'm not starving skinny, don't you have any food in your house?! Or are you so busy yelling at each other, you don't have time to eat?" He suddenly clamped his lips together and stared at the ground. I threw the marker at his chest and stalked off, fuming, biting back the words that were still on my tongue. By the time I got to school, I had cooled off, having decided that I wouldn't talk to Jess for the rest of my life.

I saw him two different times that morning. The first time, I made sure he understood that he was no longer on my Favorite People list, having been erased in a single stroke. I wouldn't even walk on the same side of the hallway as him. He didn't look sorry either, the one time I snuck a peek.

The second time was really a bunch of times because it was math class and he sat two seats and one row over from me and I had to look at his red afro the entire class. It was about six inches above his forehead with frizzy curls on top. And you're still shorter than me. HaHa. He looked back at me a couple of times and each time I looked away, sticking my chin up.

The last time, he looked before I turned away, he grinned and twisted his lips like he might be sorry. So I thought I might give him a second chance to apologize after class. But when the bell rang, Whitley got to his desk first and smiled at him. Not just smiled, but smiled, like that, and then Jess smiled back. I walked right by the two of them, Jess completely and forever off my Favorite People list, never to be resuscitated.

At lunchtime, I skipped the food line and went straight out to the break area. There was hardly anyone else out there, apparently most of the kids ate the school lunch.

I pulled out a notebook, the one that looks like the rest of the notebooks. After Grammy found my papers in my book bag that one time, I figured that she wouldn't know that the stories were there if I wrote them in a notebook that looked like the others. I was hiding it in front of her face.

I sat down on a bench with my back against the concrete wall and crossed my legs. With my notebook open to a clean page, I wrote.


The Brilliant Girl Who was Really a Princess


A really brilliant girl, who was surrounded by many evil morons, yes many, wanted to claim the throne her Genius King Father had left her when he was kidnapped and dragged away in the middle of the night.

The Evil Hurtful Witch, who was also the king's mother, had zapped the Beautiful Mother Queen into a permanent psychotic spell. The Hurtful Witch took control of the throne and ruled unjustly. The Fool called Bryan, was right beside her.


I crossed it all out; it sounded way too much like my own family and I didn't want to think about them at all. I was getting good at forgetting about them, an expert even. I started writing a new story.


The Evil Ones

The girl hid in the darkest corners of her room, hiding from the evil creatures that searched for her. They couldn't see her because she wore the powerful invisibility ring, which was studded with diamonds.

This girl was called Moira, after the beautiful princess of the land which she had been switched with at birth. That year all of the girls born were called Moira too, but the girl knew beyond a doubt that she was the real Moira.

Moira touched the two holes in her neck. They were red and swollen like angry volcanoes. Moira knew it was her own fault that she had gotten bitten, she hadn't listened to the Genius King who gave the people his wisdom before disappearing forever. He had said,

'Don't trust anyone! There's evil everywhere, even in your own homes!'

But Moira hadn't listened, and now she had two holes in her neck that were disgusting.

Moira cold hear the evil Old Woman and the evil Stupid Teenager and also the Demon Possessed Queen, (who the evil Old Woman kept as her pet), coming closer. Moira the princess, was in trouble.

So she hid in the darkest corner and hoped that the powerful invisibility ring would protect her. But the evil ones came at her and she realized that the ring was fake and that she had been deceived by the Red Headed Betrayer. As the evil ones reached for her, she remembered the Genius King's final words:

'Beware! Families are like vampires that we invited in...'


Hmmm. I thought a little perplexed. Have I read this story somewhere before? It sounds familiar.

"What's that you're writing?" I jumped about a foot in the air. Anne Clare was standing uncomfortably close, just out of sight on my left, like a traffic cop. I looked around and noticed that the break area was pretty crowded. I had lost track of time.

"I said, what are you writing?" Anne Clare's whiny voice buzzed unpleasantly. She resembled one of those big blue flies, the ones with the giant globes for eyes. Anne Clare had those too.

"Are you journaling?" she asked brightly. "Mama says that journaling helps us appreciate our blessings." Anne Clare was always optimistic, it came with being so spoiled you stunk.

"Even orphans like you have something to be grateful for," she continued. "They could have put you in a home. You know, they make really pretty journals now, you shouldn't use school notebooks. Ms Phillips wouldn't like it if she knew."

I turned to face her. "Have you gotten your period yet?" He eyes widened in surprise then hurt. "Maybe you should see a doctor about that," I added, as she spun on her heels and walked off. "Don't forget to journal it!" I called after her. Immensely pleased with myself, I packed up and went to class.

I had history next, which was sometimes interesting, if Mr. Luther didn't talk. He sounded like moose with a cold and when he lectured it made me sleepy. I preferred to read the textbook. Jess wasn't in that class, but Anne Clare was and when I went to sit down, I noticed that she had been crying. I tried to ignore her, but that was hard when I could see and hear her sniffling and hiccuping. After a while I started to feel guilty. I mean, I guess I did kind of hurt her feelings even if she is a spoiled crybaby. But I suppose, it I thought really hard about it, she wasn't the one who had made me mad. That had been Jess. Well, maybe it wasn't Jess, he'd just walked me to school. It had to be Titley Whitley's fault for butting in on my time with Jess, which she was only able to do because he fell for her big boobs. But they weren't real; so maybe it wasn't her fault either. She couldn't help that she was flat and needed to stuff.

So I sat there watching Anne Clare's neck for a long time, watching her hiccup then bounce with each hiccup, wondering why I didn't know who had made me mad, when I knew who hadn't. I was only getting myself more confused when Anne Clare breathed in and out in a huge sigh.

"Anne Clare," I whispered. She sniffed. "Anne Clare, I didn't mean it." What was it Jess had said that morning about growing up? "Ummm, kids grow at different rates, you'll get yours really soon."

She sniffed again and turned around. "Are you saying you're sorry?"

"You just surprised me by standing so close to me."

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "So are you? Saying you're sorry?"

I resisted the urge to squeeze her neck. "I...I was mad at someone else. I...um, yeah."

"Oh. Okay." She looked down at her desk. "I did go to the doctor." Don't tell me anymore! Please!!
"He said I would just have to wait patiently, that I couldn't be first in everything. Mama wasn't pleased with us."

I don't know whether it was the tone she used, or the way a frown line appeared between her eyes or how her mouth turned downward when she mentioned her mother.

"Was your mother mad at you?" I asked, despite all the little warning sirens going off in my had. Beware! Anne Clare wants to talk!
"No. She's just concerned that I haven't gotten my cycle yet." Her lip quivered. "Well, maybe a little disappointed. But she has every right to be, I am going to be the last one."

Mr. Luther snapped his fingers at us and Anne Clare turned around. I watched her bend over her notebook, wondering how she'd managed to make me feel sorry for her.

I finished the day without seeing Jess, a good thing since I was still mad at him. I took the long way home too, avoiding Anne Clare who followed me around the rest of the afternoon like I was her best friend or something. I knew that I was going to pay for being nice to her. I'll have to insult her her tomorrow.

Home was dark and quiet when I walked through the door. I peeked into the living room and saw that Mom was watching the TV with the volume off. She was wearing day clothes instead of pajamas and that meant she was having a good day.

"Mom? You okay?"

"Yes, dear. I'm watching television."

Her voice seemed stronger today. "Everything all right?" I asked warily, still not convinced that she was okay.

"Yes. I took a shower. I feel much better."

I left her there, watching a show about whales with the volume turned down and went to do my homework. I checked in on her several times that evening, as I did my chores and started dinner too, since I knew Bryan wasn't coming home. Mom seemed okay each time and I wondered if she was getting better. But it was so brief a thought that I might have imagined it, passing as it did like a puff of smoke in a hurricane. And yet she was dressed, and talking a little and even ate a couple of bites of dinner without too much prompting. Maybe that's why I was caught unaware later on that night, when all hell broke loose in Grammy's little house.

Grammy came home before Bryan, and without saying a word, ate her pork chop and mashed potatoes. I had gotten a lot better at cooking in the last year, so the pork chops were only black on the edges.

"Where's Bryan?" she finally asked.

"Don't know, Grammy. Maybe at the library?" I said cagily.

"Hmmph. He doesn't have a library card."

"You don't need one to study there..." I trailed off, both of us knowing that Bryan wouldn't be caught dead in the library. Or studying.

At 10 o'clock, she told me to put Mom to bed. I hesistated. I hated touching Mom. But one look at Grammy's face convinced me to save the arguments for another day. It turned out to be easy though; Mom was sleepy, I could tell, because she was staring at the spot above the TV, instead of the TV itself. I tried to get her to put her pajamas on in the bathroom, but all she did was sit on the pot and pee. So when I pulled off her shirt and pants, I focused on the dresser to my right, and never looked at her. I had once, and dreamt about skeletons coming out of the grave and making me feed them. She went to sleep instantly, a small smile on her lips. Once in my own bed, I fell asleep quickly too and slept without any dreams.

I awoke slowly sometime later, the loud voices prods with a dull stick, until the sound of crashing furniture poked me sharply, pulling me into full consciousness.

Bryan's home. Grammy's awake. My first and second thoughts. And my third. They're really going at it. I waited for the worse to pass, for them to finally calm down and walk away, which they had always managed to do before. But that night, the timbre of their shouting was different, desperate, out of control, and slowed only by the need to suck in breath. So I got up. I knew I couldn't stop either one of them; understood that I was not the cause of this particular fight, and yet somehow a part of it. I tiptoed into the hallway, with no intentions at all, no reason to be there, no way to help. But Mom, I saw, had gotten up first.

She stood in the doorway of the living room still unseen by Grammy or Bryan, the light passing through her gown and illuminating her figure. It hung on her, Dad had given it to her the Christmas before his accident. She was vey thin.

I was so busy watching Mom, that I didn't realize that Bryan was incensed enough to throw a chair across the room. It crashed into a set of silver frames, pictures of Granddad and Grammy and Dad as a baby; of a boy that looked like me, happy, growing up in this house. Grammy froze, the glass pieces scattered all over the floor, one shard poking through a picture of Dad with his arm around Grammy.

I think she lost her mind. That's the only explanation I could think of, as I watched her run across the room and begin beating Bryan with one of the frame pieces. He tried to get away, but that only made her madder, so she hit him with her fists too. I think she might have beaten him unconscious if Mom hadn't added to the insanity. I suppose one could say it was her motherly instinct keeping in, but she didn't have any of that according to Grammy, so it had to be that she wanted to share her own brand of craziness.

She screamed. And screamed and screamed. And stopped long enough to gulp a lungful of air and then scream again. I think she might have continued nonstop, if Grammy hadn't stopped beating Bryan and gone over to her. She didn't beat Mom though, only slapped her twice and then a third time when Mom started to mewl and whimper like a crated dog.

The fight ended there. Grammy put Mom to bed, then herself. Bryan began to pick up the pieces of broken furniture and after a few moments, I helped him. I heard him sniffle and remembering Anne Clare, I thought he might be crying. But glancing over at him, I saw that it wasn't tears that had made him sniff, but a bloody nose. He left me silently once the living room was reasonably cleaned up, walking out the front door without looking back. I was left alone.

I don't know what made me go down to the basement that night. I had the house to myself, everyone else having retreated to their rooms, and if Grammy had given Mom her sleeping medicine and maybe took some herself, they were probably both asleep. But I guess the basement was light years away from my room or the kitchen or the living room with the carpet peppered with little pieces of broken glass. I had been down there several times already, and had fixed a small corner by the furnace with a rug and old blankets. I had stocked it with books and a spare notebook too. It was mainly a place to escape the screaming and the endless chores, and mostly I sat there and thought of little.

It was different tonight though. My hands shook, it hurt to keep my eyes open, I twitched. So I sat on my little rug and leaned against my pillows and pinched myself. And I found that if I pinched hard enough, I felt better. It hurt at first, but then the pain faded, and I felt better. And I pinched again. Until I settled down enough to go to bed. I slept well that night.

In the morning, everything was back to normal. Bryan sat across from me, shoveling corn flakes this time, into his cavernous mouth. Grammy was setting out the crockpot for chili and Mom was still asleep. Even the living room was clean; I'd heard Grammy vacuuming at 5 in the morning.

The only difference was that I had an interesting pattern of bruises on my forearm, which I kept covered up with my long sleeve. Yes, everything was back to normal.

The fights started several days later, but not as bad as that one night; bad enough though, that my stomach always felt tight and my hands trembled. I don't know who was more nuts those few weeks in eight grade - Mom or me.

Then a miracle happened; Bryan got a girlfriend. He name was Ashlee and she was pretty and blond and probably dumber than him. But none of that mattered. What was important was that she kept Bryan occupied, and because she was expensive, Bryan had to get a job after school. That meant that Bryan and Grammy rarely saw each other and never had time to fight. I don't remember what happened to Ashlee, except that she didn't last long; after a few weeks she sort of disappeared and was quickly replaced by another girl who found Bryan hot. Which didn't say much about her either.

What I do remember clearly, is that I got tall in the spring of eighth grade. My body seemed to be rushing through the process to get it done overnight. It was probably the most malicious betrayal to date, making me an alien among all the little humans. My head floated above everyone else's; how was I supposed to blend? I passed Grammy on the way up to the stratosphere, and crushed Jess' chances of catching up with me. He never really had a chance anyway, his mom made him get a haircut after he poked her in the eye with his afro.

The other thing about that year that I remember as clearly as though it still lingers in my nose, is the smell of the sofa - stinky and sweet, like Bryan's socks and Grammy's shampoo mixed together. It wafted up my nose every time I plopped my head unto the rough fabric. I slept a lot on the sofa that spring, forced there by Mom's nightly walks that always ended up in my bedroom. The first time she climbed into my bed, I awoke instantly, and managed to get her back in her own bed. But it was as though she were on autopilot and my bed was her destination, and she showed up every single night.

I slept on the sofa for a while, or at least tried to, since I lay awake half the night waiting for her to find me in the living room. I eventually moved down to the basement, taking my alarm clock with me so I could get upstairs before Grammy got up.

That's where pinching became a habit. When that didn't work anymore, I scratched; long, red gouges that rose into velvety smooth lines. But I bit my nails badly, bad enough that sometimes I only had ragged nubs on the tips of my fingers. For a while I tortured myself trying not to bite them, I enen dipped my fingers in alcohol, but that burned fiercely because I had cheated and bitten them anyway.

I had no trouble finding something sharp in the basement. After the first cut, which was really hard to make because it was so, I don't know, violent, well, it wasn't so hard anymore. I had discovered that cutting made my stomach unclench and my hands steady; it helped me get through another sucky day at school and I slept so much better, even when my arm throbbed.

After Grammy found out that Mom was wandering the house at night, she increased her sleeping medicine. I was able to go back to my own bed. But I did it anyway, I cut anyway, because it took away the dreams and made things just a little bit easier.

Chapter Six