We started laughing at the image of my mystery parent and couldn’t stop. When the tears came I crawled into my sister’s lap and shared with her the terror that gripped me constantly. Her hug lent me camaraderie, but even the slight touch made me yelp in pain.
“Maybe he’s my father, too. You never know. Just because I don’t have red hair doesn’t mean a thing.”
Four minutes before Mom came home, the table was set and dinner ready to come out of the oven. Brandy and I decided that we would never give her another opportunity to lash out at me again.
* * *
Sundays were the worst for me. I had always loved church. Well, maybe not so much the sermons, but the music and the picnics and the activities of our youth group. Mom didn’t allow Brandy and me to go out with friends very often, but she never challenged the leaders of the First Methodist and gave us free rein to attend almost every get-together they had.
Now, instead of Sunday afternoon skate parties or our Thursday trips to the nursing home, I was in charge of preparing a family meal and having it on the table by the time Mom and Brandy arrived home.
I loved setting a formal dinner table. In the past Brandy had done most of the cooking. We always relied on Mom for clean-up duty, as each of us took our turn with one segment of the chores, and quite frankly she was much better at scrubbing the pans than getting them dirty in the first place.
But since I had moved in with Dad, I had taken over all of these responsibilities.
I still enjoyed table setting. Last Christmas Mom gave me several books on napkin folding and building center pieces that she found at a yard sale. Every Sunday since I have used one book or another to create my very own masterpieces.
Looking at my presentation, I was pleased with the autumn assortment I had picked out of the linen closet. Pumpkin was my theme color and also the flavor of our meal. Brandy and I had baked pumpkin bread on Saturday afternoon. Now Mom’s favorite pie sat cooling on the kitchen counter, the crust delicate yet as picture-worthy as the one on the cookbook cover.
Even so I couldn’t help but be nervous. Mom and I hadn’t had an episode since the one over the swim team, and I could feel it brewing in the air. As I glanced at the mashed potatoes growing cold on the stove and again at the clock, I worried about the condition of our main course. Mom liked to amble in the back door, put down her purse and jacket, and then take a three-minute break in the restroom before sitting down to eat. She performed like clockwork. She expected everyone else around her to do the same.
Which translated into having a hot meal ready to be moved to the dining room table the moment she entered the house. Usually I poured the side dishes into serving bowls as soon as I heard the car approach. Brandy would follow Mom into the house but immediately start carrying food so there was no delay.
But not today. I wondered if the congregation was sharing lunch or if Mom and Brandy had had some tragedy coming home. Since we no longer used a house phone, I couldn’t call. Plus I would never be able to explain why I was calling Mom from France to see why she wasn’t home for dinner.
I stood vigil by the stove and waited. While the buns warmed with the ham in the oven, I contemplated rolling the potatoes into balls and blasting Brandy with them when they finally came home. Tippy and I had a good laugh over this, but we both knew it would never happen.
Instead I refolded the napkins, did cleanup work, wrapped saran around the pie after it had cooled. When my family was two hours late, I cut a bit of meat for myself and gave Tippy a couple of scraps. She was overjoyed at the treat, and I had grown incredibly hungry while waiting.
At 4:30 the car sounded warning, crunching up the gravel drive.
Tired and not knowing which way to jump, I kept my post by the oven. The meal was ruined, although the meat and rolls were still salvageable. Mom would be furious, either that I had wasted food or that I had eaten part of the ham without permission.
I had no idea how to proceed.
Brandy’s voice drifted into the kitchen as they hurried from the car. Mom was even laughing! I desperately wanted to run open the door or pull aside the curtains and wave at my family.
But this was forbidden.
“Hey, Luce.” Brandy smiled at me as she hurried through the kitchen and then caught sight of the table. “Oh, wow. That looks fantastic!”
For an instant I was offended by Brandy’s happiness. The fact that she hadn’t wasted hours, emotionally spent, waiting for the disaster that lurked behind the kitchen door. My sister could have hurled one of the potato balls at Mother and fallen over in hysterics as the food fell out of her hair while Mom chased me for the outrage it caused.
Life was not fair. It was not a circus, either.
Mom entered the house and glared at the inedible food. I could feel goose bumps marching up my arms in double time.
“What is this all about?” She waved her hand at the stove.
“I kept trying to keep it hot for you, but I think I’ve cooked it too long. I’m sorry.”
I watched Mom’s hand hover in the air. But instead of hitting me, she put it to her side.
“Well, I’m not surprised. You certainly can’t cook like your sister.”
“No, Ma’am, I can’t.” I lowered my eyes.
“Clean it up. We’ve already eaten.”
Brandy reappeared and rolled up her sleeves. She started to draw dish water and made herself immediately comfortable working around Mom and me.
The woman continued to glare. My skin grew hot with tension.
“Here you go, Luce. Let’s scrape these for the compost bin and I’ll run that out in a second….” Brandy stepped in front of Mom and gave me a chore list.
I hopped to it.
Later, after the threat of violence had dissipated, I asked Brandy where they had been.
“Don’t you remember? The second Sunday of September is always the autumn banquet. God, I wish you could have gone. It’s so boring without you, and Mrs. Bradford made that Jell-O salad you love so much….”
“Thanks.”
“Lucy, I can’t do anything about her. You know that.”
“No, I wasn’t being sarcastic. Thanks. For what you did, getting her out of the kitchen.” I had no trouble holding eye contact with my sister.
“Listen, kid. It’s getting better, can’t you tell?”
My nod brought tears. Brandy took her dish towel and wiped them away.
“Are you hungry? I bet you haven’t eaten a thing, have you?”
Brandy made me a ham sandwich and stood guard while I wolfed it down.
* * *
“I wish she would let us listen to the radio again,” Brandy said as she dipped a canning jar into soapy water.
“Yeah. I get so lonely during the day that I could go just as crazy as….” I didn’t need to finish my sentence.
We were doing Saturday chores, an often random list that Mom developed to keep Brandy and me busy. Last weekend we had recaulked the bathtub and cleaned the floor vents. This time we were assigned the dusty job of cleaning the often bug-infested canning room.
“I listen to the music the kids play at lunch. I get so jealous sometimes! I wish I could sit in my room and chill out and put on some country tunes…well, you know what I mean. I suppose it’s just as bad for me to want it as it is to listen to it.”
“I sing all day,” I announced, sharing my secret with Brandy. “Tippy and I make up songs or try to remember the good church hymns and sing those.”
“Remember the music Mom used to buy? Faith Hill? She was the best.”
Unfortunately Brandy had lost music for us entirely. Even after Mom had disposed of the television she used to let us listen to the radio. We each had one in our rooms, and one in the kitchen for family time. Many evenings when we were playing board games at the kitchen table, a song would come on that we loved, and all three of us would jump up and put on a stage show while the dog howled along.
Until Brandy discovered rap. Why she would e
ver listen to such nastiness, I can’t figure. But the night Mom caught her reciting gangster lyrics was the night Brandy couldn’t stand up from her bedroom floor and actually peed herself while Mom punished her.
After that, no radio. No music. Very little singing.
* * *
My nightmare startled me awake. I lay on the bed, panting, my dark thoughts still clinging to my hair and jabbing at my face. My heart ran in a flat out panic.
When I sat up in my bed I could barely breathe.
I concentrated on bringing reality back, coaxed myself to be calm, and drew a few deep breaths until my lungs stopped burning.
It took only a few seconds to get my surroundings, but when I did I thought my heart would explode this time.
Standing in the corner of my room was Mother.
She said nothing as she pulled herself from the shadows. I took my cue from Brandy and made myself smaller, wilted back onto my sheets, felt the heat from my body dissipate instantly.
Mother waited. I closed my eyes but could feel her holding court near my dresser, hovering and casting judgment upon me.
I wished her away.
Silently prayed and wished her away.
* * *
After Brandy and I cleaned up from dinner, we were usually allowed to entertain ourselves. Brandy completed homework and gave me quiet lessons in some of her subjects. I read her textbooks, practiced math techniques, and voraciously inhaled the books she checked out from the school library.
Together we started a yoga routine and stretched on her bedroom floor. Since Brandy’s room was twice the size of mine, we could both spread out and not bump into each other while we exercised. Plus, her room had so many more amenities: a scrap of blue carpet that was thick and much more comfortable than the rag rug decorating my floor, a mirror attached to her dresser, which allowed us to watch ourselves and improve our form, and two windows.
From one, I could witness the solitude of our neighbor, Mr. Wyckoli. Even though I couldn’t open the curtains and look directly out, I hid against the wall and spied from the side of the window, ensuring he was sitting in his kitchen and still alive. The tiny TV he kept cast enough light that I knew he was home, enjoying his game shows.
Television had been banned from our house for so long I could barely recall the names of the programs we once watched. We spent our entertainment time playing cards, Scrabble, the board games barely contained in old boxes bound with rubber bands. Usually on Saturday afternoons—when all chores were completed—Brandy would pull out the Monopoly board and we’d set up a game.
Before Mom became mentally challenged, more often than not she’d join in. The three of us had a great time, teasing each other and relishing the cinnamon toast Mom prepared as a treat.
Now Brandy and I continued our traditions but did so under great duress. We had no idea what Mom did with her time after dinner; she would retreat to her bedroom, lock the door, and stay there for hours. Not that we complained.
Brandy, the risky one, would sometimes tiptoe to Mom’s door and listen to the chanting that drifted into the hallway.
“I don’t know. It sounds like she’s talking to some guy named Jerry about delivering groceries in the springtime.”
“What?”
“Oh, come on, Lucy. Have a sense of humor. I can’t understand any of it,” Brandy said. “Do you ever go in her room while she’s at work?”
We switched to silent mode. In the past month we had both become incredibly adept at reading lips.
Once. I mouthed.
What does she have in there?
I didn’t touch anything. All I saw was a Bible and her tea mug. A photo on her nightstand of some old woman that kind of looks like Grandma, if she had worn her hair in a braid. I hadn’t dared to snoop through Mom’s things. One look at my face and she’d know I was guilty of something.
Brandy sat thinking for a moment and then dropped the subject completely. She started talking about school, giving me the gossip about couples and friends who were fighting, kids who had gotten arrested for vandalizing the gymnasium. She was my only outlet to the real world and took her role seriously.
* * *
“When do you think this will end?” I asked Brandy as she brushed my hair.
“I don’t know. Sometimes when I talk to Mom, I think she’ll start yelling ‘April Fools!’ and the whole town’ll be in on the joke. She’ll let you out of the house, people will clap and joke about how easy it was to fool us, and everything will go back to normal.”
“Yeah, I get that same feeling. But then it goes just as fast as it came.” I couldn’t help but gasp when she hit a big snarl and my head hit the back of the chair.
“Exactly. I look in her eyes and wonder if there’s anything left inside her.”
“So what do we do?”
“Nothing yet.” Brandy sighed.
“When is it too much? When do I get worried?”
“Oh, sweetie, this is a cake walk. What would someone say about your situation? Everyone here spanks their kids, so getting slapped a few times is nothing. You aren’t in classes, but Mom could just say she’s homeschooling you. So you do some extra chores. We don’t have TV. Is it really that horrible?”
I turned in the chair and faced my sister. One look at my anger and she started laughing, letting out a hideous cackle that made my freshly straightened hair start to curl again.
“Luce, honey. You don’t have to glare at me like that. I’m not the one responsible for your problems.”
Brandy put the brush on the top of her dresser, wrapping her arms around my shoulders in a giant bear hug. I felt her lips kiss the side of my head and watched our reflection in the mirror. My sister stared straight back at me, her embrace growing tighter.
“Or am I?” she whispered.
I pushed her off me, knocking the chair backward as I jumped up.
“Jeez, Luce, I was only kidding. Lighten up! I know she’s got you stressed out, but I’m on your side, remember?”
Chapter 2
Joan
No one in my family had crimson hair.
You fought me for twenty-one hours, and when you finally arrived I saw nothing but your red hair coated in all that muck. Never have I felt such horror.
When you started crying, I did the same. The nurses thought I was just exhausted, and maybe that was part of it. Looking at you I couldn’t help but shriek. I begged them to take you away, and they did, for a few hours. What I had really wanted was for them to make you disappear.
But Brandy fell in love with you.
“Mommy, she looks like Christmas,” Brandy told me when the staff let her visit.
She had been excited to be an older sister. For my entire pregnancy I had gorged on fear and could barely get out of bed, I missed poor Alex so much. But Brandy had planned for everything. She drew a hundred pictures of what the new baby might look like, made up names, and told everyone in town that you were on the way. When we went shopping for baby things, I told her what I needed and she ran around, filling the cart while I stood behind it, not even double checking what she picked out.
I couldn’t nurse you, didn’t really want you near me at all. The staff brought you to my room, but it was Brandy who fed you. I just lay on the bed, staring at Alex’s daughter, then following her eyes down to you.
No one in our family had red hair. I knew this wasn’t a coincidence. You were everything I’d been raised to fear. Cunning, even at birth, like Satan himself, your tiny dimples a constant reminder of the fiend I was born to bear.
Where were the women in my family when I needed them the most? They had been quick to condemn me as a child, blame me for what was yet to come. But now that you had arrived, set their ancient fears in motion, none of them were left to help me.
Not even Mother.
I would have left you in the hospital if Brandy hadn’t taken to you so fast. She and I were a team, and I hated to let her down. If you hadn’t come out covered in all that hair I
might have shared her delight, but instead I fought through my revulsion just to hold you and faked enjoyment at birthing a second daughter.
The nurses called it postpartum depression. I called it postpartum terror.
Brandy mothered you while I prayed for my own mother, dead since the moment of your conception, to help me. She would have known what to do. My mother would have taken care of everything for me, just let me lay back and close my eyes while she dusted it all under the rug.
How I missed her. Missed all of them.
Alex most of all.
In the end I brought you back to our apartment. Dutifully I smiled while the neighbors kissed the top of your head and told me what a beautiful child you were. I nodded, I laughed, I did everything a mother is supposed to do.
“What’s her name?” people asked.
“Lucy!” Brandy said proudly.
She hadn’t been there when the nurses named you. Brandy had still been safe with Mrs. Belast, the secretary of our church, when the doctor raised you as they cut that damned cord that bound us together.
“Lucifer!” I had shouted, my voice muffled under your first cries for air.
The nurses had started calling you Lucy right away. Although Dr. Smythe had certainly understood my cry, his helpers had only heard the first half of your name.
“Lucinda,” the blonde nurse had said. “What a pretty name.”
And so you became mine.
Chapter 3
Lucy
My instructions became much more specific. Brandy called Mom’s notes an exercise in micromanagement, but I didn’t mind. The more direct her orders, the less doubt I had about my performance.
I was handed a timeline. Mom also gave me a very detailed verbal explanation of her plans. From across the room, I could see Brandy mouth the word Cinderella.
Mom must have seen a flicker of light cross my face as I tried not to laugh.
The Eye Unseen Page 2