A Flood of Posies

by Tiffany Meuret

  That was, until the lights went out. Like a game of Bloody Mary, Ma appeared in the doorway at the sound of Doris pulling the chain on her ceiling fan light, casting a long shadow that consumed the bed.

  “Not tonight,” she said.

  For a moment, Doris thought she meant sleep. She wouldn’t put it past her mother to keep her up all night as punishment. But it was quickly apparent that she was after something far more devious.

  “Go to your room, Thea.”

  Giggling and hidden, her sister missed the fatal seriousness of Ma’s expression. Instinctively, Doris drew an arm over the bed—a role reversal that was not lost on anyone.

  “Now.” Ma delivered the judgment with zero emotion. It was not a discussion—this was the law.

  Thea refused to appear. “No.”

  Doris felt the small, whispered word ripple through the room like dynamite. She was so little. She just didn’t know any better yet, and Doris was too slow and too stunned to do anything about it.

  Ma lunged forward, a machine, as if following instructions laid down by a god. She ripped the blanket to the floor, its ends whipping in the air from the force. Yanking Thea by the ankle, she dragged her out of the bed so that she thumped to the floor with a sound that made Doris wince. Thea kicked and kicked, hitting Ma square in the gut more than once, but it didn’t change anything. Ma just grated her toddler against the carpet faster and harder with every act of defiance.

  Before she could process what was happening, Ma was out the door with her sister, and just as Doris reached them to pull her away, Ma slammed the door in her face, locking it from the outside.

  Thea’s room was just across the hall, a handshake away, but locked inside, Doris was useless to help her.

  Thea screamed. Then she screamed again and again, wails of unimaginable intensity as their mother beat her—slapped her repeatedly—for her insolence. Doris pounded on the door. Stop STOP STOP, she silently begged. It was all her fault, not Thea. Not little Thea.

  She rammed her fists against the door until they were stamped with blood. She cursed. She said everything she could think of to ignite Ma’s fuse and draw her toward her. She might have killed her that night if it’d worked. The hinges wobbled, but never gave, and soon the slapping and the screaming stopped and all that was left was her own raspy breathing and condemnations.

  I fucking hate you.

  Fuck you. I hate you. I hate you.

  Poor Thea. Her baby. Her sister. Poor Thea.

  She slid to the floor. The noises ceased from Thea’s room, and Ma eventually retreated into her bedroom after an exhausting evening of delivering judgments against her children. Doris listened for her sister, not daring to call out to her. It bothered her that she couldn’t hear anything, not even a whimper. Silence was so out of character for Thea that for a brief moment, Doris despaired that she might be dead. There was slim comfort in the fact that Ma would never allow such a social faux pas to occur under her own roof.

  She never left the door that night, sleeping against it in spurts when exhaustion overwhelmed her fear. Every click of the air conditioner jolted her alert, and she’d press her ear against the door just in case it was Thea. Surely she was locked inside her room too, but her sister’s ingenuity never ceased to amaze Doris.

  I’m still here.

  Doris chanted it silently, pretending that her sister could hear her.

  I’m right here. Don’t be scared.

  She wasn’t sure how long she sat on the floor, but before she knew it her bedroom door swung open and banged against Doris’s head. Ma told her to get dressed and then disappeared.

  Before anything, she sprinted into Thea’s room only to find it empty. The bed was made, the room immaculate. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say everything about it was picturesque, which only served to inflame her further.

  Doris charged through the house, calling out to her sister. Not in the bathroom. Not in the hall. Not in the living room. She found her in the kitchen, sat at the table with a heap of eggs and toast on her plate. Eyes meeting hers, Thea began to cry. Eggs flew out of her mouth.

  Ma wrapped herself around Thea, calmly shushing her as if she hadn’t beaten the shit out of her just hours before. Doris grabbed Ma’s arm, taking extra care to dig her nails into her skin. “You get away from her,” she said, breathless with fury.

  But Ma simply tutted. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  The calmness of those words was quiet as barbed wire. Doris understood immediately what they meant.

  For a moment, she gaped at her mother as if she was someone else, something else. She couldn’t believe that she was human, let alone a mother. Weren’t moms supposed to love their kids? Colleen sure seemed to love Jennifer. Perhaps Doris was switched at birth, but then she’d look at Thea with her upturned nose and slight freckles just like Ma and feel guilty—if she had been switched at birth, then that meant Thea wasn’t her sister. The conflict of emotions tore at her, leaving her speechless.

  Ma reveled in the silence of her victory, eventually setting out another plate at the table for her husband, but none for Doris. There’d be no breakfast today.

  The rest of the day played the same—threatening tuts, little amounts of food, and a constant wall erected between Doris and Thea. Whenever one of them would balk or sigh or squint or breathe or exist, Ma would quiet in a way that reminded them who had all the power. Her face turned to glass; Doris began to form the fake expression she’d later hone to perfection. But even absolute compliance could not satiate Ma. She knew they were faking it.

  “If you’d just listen for once, you’d see that it’s not so bad. What teenage girl doesn’t want her own room anyway?”

  She wanted to scream. It wasn’t just a room she wanted—it was an entire life. How many times had she thought about stealing away in the night, Thea in tow? And every time she figured it would be best to wait. Now it was too late. If they were caught and returned home, Ma might finally finish what she’d started. She might not be able to control herself.

  But instead of screaming, her glass face cracked around the lips, revealing the only smile she’d ever wear—the same soulless smile over and over.

  That night, after Ma had presumably fallen asleep, Thea came into Doris’s room. The edge of the covers lifted like they always did, and her tiny body easily found its usual spot right next to her sister. Thea did her very best to stay quiet, but toddler quiet and Ma quiet were on two very different levels.

  Doris threw the covers off before either of them could get comfortable.

  “You can’t sleep in here tonight,” she said.

  Thea pretended to ignore her, but the tenseness of her back indicated that she’d heard her just fine.

  “Ma will hear.”

  And she’ll hurt you, again.

  Doris touched her shoulder. Thea flinched with pain.

  “You have to go, Thea.” It killed her to say it, killed her worse than hearing her scream through the door.

  “No, sissy.”

  Nothing moved. Ma hadn’t come. Maybe she could let her stay, just for a few hours. Maybe if she drank a bunch of water, she’d wake up early to pee and could get Thea back to her room before Ma noticed. Or maybe she could just stay up all night, letting her sister sleep in peace.

  But she couldn’t. Ma said as much.

  I wouldn’t do that if I were you.

  Doris scooped her up, avoiding her bruises as best she could. “Come on,” she said. “Your bed is so comfy anyway.”

  She wiped her tears away with her shoulder as she laid Thea in her own bed for the first time since she was a baby. Rolling her blankets over the top of her and planting a kiss on her head, she lingered just a second to stroke her hair. “I love you, Thea.”

  Thea rolled toward the wall. “Night night, sissy.”

  A gl
ance toward Ma’s room revealed the door was ajar, but she couldn’t tell if Ma was watching or not.

  She cried herself to sleep that night, and every night for months after. Thea would never again share her bed. She cried that night for herself, for her sister, and for the future that suddenly became a lot scarier.

  It had been a month and a new routine had begun to form—every night Doris would kiss the top of Thea’s head after brushing their teeth and wish her good night. Every morning she’d wake thirty minutes before everyone else. She’d start the coffee pot for her parents and decide what to make for breakfast and try not to seem as exhausted as she was. She hadn’t slept a night through in a month. Nightmares were a regular thing for her, but never this intense, and never nightly as they were.

  The first few mornings she’d wanted to get up and watch television just to have something to drown out the lingering unease, but Ma seemed to have a sixth sense for when someone touched the remote when they weren’t supposed to. Ma had a sixth and seventh and eighth sense for just about everything.

  Instead of sitting around thinking about how shitty everything had become, she decided to distract herself with tasks, and tasks soon evolved into breakfast and coffee. Even Ma, who generally played dictator of the kitchen, seemed to relax to the thought of being served by her daughter. And Doris was keen to do anything to keep Ma from losing her temper again.

  Like every morning for the past month, Thea rose last of everyone and plopped in her seat at the table, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The sight of her frizzy bed head used to make Doris smile, but now all she could think about was how far away her sister seemed.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said.

  “Hi, sissy.”

  Hi, sissy. That’s all she seemed to say to her anymore.

  “Pancakes or waffles?”

  A resounding yes to waffles later, Doris was pouring the pre-made batter into the waffle iron, thinking about how the clattering of her cooking was the only noise in the house. Dad had already left for the hardware store after announcing that he needed some screws. He always needed screws or nails or bolts or some made-up something for a made-up project that would never be completed. Unless his project was to collect various thingamabobs from Home Depot. He was acing the hell out of that.

  Ma had eaten her whole wheat toast with one shave of margarine and retreated to her room to “fix herself up.”

  It was just Doris and Thea and a mountain of unsaid apologies.

  The urge to just sit next to Thea and watch her eat was overwhelming, but Doris was afraid that Ma would catch them. She’d begun treating them like illicit lovers instead of siblings, as if their closeness was somehow immoral. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or maybe the silence had finally broken her, but Doris couldn’t hold it back anymore. She wanted her sister back; she wanted everything back. She wanted to sleep through the night again.

  Chair squealing against the floor, Doris sidled next to Thea at the table, as close as she could get without suffocating her. Content to simply sit and watch her eat, she’d have managed some semblance of decorum if not for Thea’s smile. Not saying a word, the three-year-old grinned with relief, as if she was thrilled to finally be breathing again after a month of constant smothering.

  Thea’s cheeks were sticky with syrup, but Doris pinched them anyway. It was good to be close again.

  It was good.

  Neither girl spoke, just smiled and poked each other. Thea stretched her face in weird ways and giggled a little too loudly. Doris let herself laugh too, just a little, while picking up the remains of Thea’s waffle massacre.

  Good waffles, she thought, congratulating herself. Ma’s waffles were always too crispy. Thea batted Doris’s hand away from her plate even though they both knew she wasn’t going to eat any more. They giggled louder.

  The moment must have lasted only minutes, and to an outsider might seem like nothing more than a regular morning. But how precious were those regular mornings? Didn’t everyone else see how lucky they were to have them?

  She was just settling into their old routine when the clicking of Ma’s shopping heels set the room on ice. Doris couldn’t help but flinch, whipping her hands away from Thea and into her lap.

  Thea swirled a finger in the syrup pooling at the edge of her plate. Turning the corner, Ma eyed them, zeroing in on Doris’s hands. She was squeezing them together so tightly that her knuckles went white.

  Of the many things to be expected, what actually happened was not one of them. Ma smiled—the real kind—and waltzed toward the kitchen sink as if her reaction was totally normal, as if her mere presence hadn’t frozen the laughter of the room to the ceiling. Pulling on blue rubber gloves with a snap, Ma leveled her gaze at Doris.

  “Why don’t we do the dishes together today?”

  “Really?” Her response emerged too quickly, too eagerly, but shock overrode her composure. Never once had Ma offered to do something with her, as opposed to to her or for her, let alone a chore that Doris was regularly tasked to complete by herself.

  The joy she felt quickly dissolved—this felt like bait. Even Thea had the presence of mind to snort, her ability to detect bullshit still elegantly honed despite her age and recent beatings.

  But Ma’s sincerity continued unabated. “You know what? I think I’ll just do them today. Why don’t you girls go wash up?”

  What was this? “I’ll do the dishes, Ma. Really.”

  “No, no. Just go get dressed. I promise it’s okay.”

  This was uncharted territory, and Doris hadn’t a clue how to proceed. “How about I help you, then?”

  And, oh, how Ma smiled. “That sounds lovely.”

  Dutifully, Doris collected the leftover dishes and arranged them on the counter by the sink. Thea wrapped her arms around her plate, unwilling to give it up. Doris let her keep it to avoid the inevitable tantrum that would destroy the weird calm permeating the room. Not that she trusted it quite yet herself, but it was better than the alternative.

  The water scalded her hands, but she wasn’t about to complain. They worked in silence, Ma plunging the dishes in the soapy lava, Doris rinsing and drying. It wasn’t long before they fell into a quiet routine. Ma scrubbed faster than Doris could dry and put away, and an assortment of breakfast dishes collected on the counter. Ma said nothing, knowing full well that her daughter would have it cleared up before she was done draining the sink.

  Her head felt overstuffed—as if the moment passed in slow motion. She didn’t want to feel so good about it. All her instincts collided into a soup. In her haste, she accidentally dropped a plastic plate on the floor. Ma clicked her tongue but asked for the dish back. “We’ll just rewash this one.”

  “What?” Doris couldn’t stop herself.

  Ma didn’t hesitate, repeating herself with a deadly calm usually associated with anger. “Just a quick wash.”

  All this time Thea hadn’t spoken a word, observing the display as if the syrup on her plate had glued her in place. When she eventually broke free from her chair, her shuffling made Doris jump, having forgotten that the little girl was there at all.

  It startled her even more when a plate came crashing into the sink, flinging suds and water all over the counter and the floor.

  “Thea!” Ma said. “Look what you did.”

  “I want to clean too.”

  Ma unraveled the dishrag from its place on the over handle and threw it at the floor. “You can clean your mess.”

  But Thea pointed steadfastly at the sink. “No, that.”

  “You can clean your mess and then go to your room.”

  Doris knelt for the rag, but Ma stopped her with a palm. “She will do it.”

  As it turned out, Thea would not do it, instead slapping a bare foot into the puddle so that it splashed all over Ma’s pantyhose.

  Ma’s demeanor switc
hed in an instant. It was frightening in its swiftness and subtlety, nothing but a steel glaze in her eyes to indicate that she was milliseconds from ruining your life. But Thea persisted, screaming every inch that she was hauled off to her room.

  By the time Ma returned, Doris had already wiped up the floor and begun putting clean dishes away in the cupboards.

  “Thank you, Doris,” Ma said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  They finished the task in silence.

  She’d sworn she heard something. Ear pressed to the door, Doris strained to hear through the two-inch wood. Thea had been crying, she was sure of it.

  Doris had spent most of her day pacing up and down the hall. Thea hadn’t been allowed to leave her room except to use the restroom, and even then, Ma timed it so that Doris was distracted whenever allowing Thea out of her confinement.

  It was after midnight and Doris couldn’t sleep. At first, she thought she imagined the whimpers, but they had become too loud to ignore.

  Thea cried often, but usually out of frustration. Sad tears were a new development. The shiny calm of the day evaporated with the sun. Now it was dark and all she had was the dread calcified in her gut.

  She wanted to run to her, but Ma was listening. She was sure of it. Ma was always listening.

  Thea didn’t understand. Poor thing was only three years old. How could she?

  But Doris did.

  Doris was older. She was wiser. She was doing the right thing.

  She was doing the right thing.

  Palming the door, she whispered to her sister through it, understanding with an acuteness beyond her years that a piece of them was dead and gone. At the time, shuffling back toward her own room with its lonely bed, she imagined their slow recovery. Their adult reminiscence. Their eventual rekindling was all that allowed her to sleep at night. Doris was patient, even when Thea was not. All it took was a few years under their belt and Ma wouldn’t be such an imposition. They would find their way back to one another.