by K. E. Garvey
Chapter Seven
Gail - 1995
Under all the makeup, and when she could see past the tired, Gail always thought her mother was pretty even if not beautiful. She had one of those faces that changed depending on who she was talking to like a chameleon changed to match its environment. When her mother was taking to neighbors or people at church, her face went all kind, her eyes soft. On the rare occasions she had time to play with her and Cheryl, her smile stretched as wide as her face where her perfect teeth grew large and the corners of her mouth wrinkled into soft lines. But when her parents argued, which was most of the time these days, the creases in her forehead deepened, her ears turned red, and her eyes dulled in misery.
On the rare occasion her mother got out of the house without Warren, it was only after a fight. He liked to keep what he viewed as his within his grasp. They had fought the entire summer over whether the girls would be returning to public school come fall. He had wanted their mother to homeschool them and fought hard to that end. It was the only fight she could recall her mother ever winning.
Now that she was in junior high, progress reports sent through the mail replaced the parent-teacher conferences of elementary school. Warren had always walked in with his thumbs hooked in his waistband, mean-mugging everyone as if they knew his secret and were challenging him to give them reason to tell. On the ride home, her parents would usually fight over one or another of the foolish things he had said to the teacher. She recalled one particular conference when he was more ornery than usual, having embarrassed her and her mother, angered the teacher, and given parents waiting for their turn something to gossip about for weeks to come. He had stormed out when the teacher abruptly ended their meeting leaving her and her mother to catch up. Once they were out of earshot from the other parents and children, but before they reached the truck where Warren was arguing with himself, her mother bent slightly, and whispered, “He’d make a better memory than he’s ever made a man,” giving her something to lie awake in bed thinking about.
She sat on the couch half-watching an episode of My So-Called Life while her mother readied for the first conference of her sister’s third grade. Cheryl was an average student getting good enough grades to keep Warren off her back, but not good enough to please him into a good mood. Her own grades had always been better, but along with them came unwanted attention. The fuss he’d make over her report card seemed to be a precursor to his becoming touchy-feely. First the verbal acknowledgment, then the five-dollar bonus, then the rough-housing that began as tickling and ended with his hands “slipping” up her shirt or grabbing her bottom to keep her from falling.
She had figured him out by the time she was eleven. If he did those seemingly innocent things in the presence of her mother, her reaction to them would be greatly diminished should Gail ever work up the courage to come forward. Warren was grooming her while desensitizing her mother. She had learned the word in school and instantly paired it with his behavior. Another word she had learned in school was flaccid. During the annual spelling bee, she was asked to spell the word and use in a sentence, to which she replied, “Flaccid. F-L-A-C-C-I-D. Flaccid. A flaccid penis looks a lot like a fat nightcrawler.” Her sentence drew giggles from the other students and gasps from faculty, which spurred a call home that evening. Warren had been the one to take the call. He listened intently and injected several “Hmm's” and “Uh-huh’s” before taking control of the conversation. In as calm a voice as she had ever heard him use, he made a joke out of the situation, called her “smart as a whip,” and said he and her mother would start paying closer attention to who she was spending her free time with. He even went as far as to blame the boys at school for having hit the age of horniness. What began as a door to the truth opening wide without her being the one to turn the knob had become a discussion about pre-teens and their wayward ways. The door slammed shut before a single hinge squeaked. That was the day she realized Warren had an uncanny ability, almost a sixth sense, to smell trouble a mile off and somehow always managed to find a hidden exit before trouble threw the first punch. She wished her mother was half as observant.
“Okay, we’re leaving,” her mother said as she breezed through the living room, Cheryl following closely behind. “Tell your father we waited as long as we could. I’m going to miss the meeting time if we don’t leave now. Stay inside, lock the door, and don’t answer it for anyone, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And tell your father his dinner’s in the oven.”
He can find it himself. She nodded obediently.
Her mother blew an air kiss and guided Cheryl out the door with a hand on her shoulder.
During the first commercial after her mother left, Gail heard the back door open. Warren rounded the corner, gave a quick look around, and then asked, “Did your mother leave already.”
“Uh-huh.”
The next time he scanned, he turned to take in the kitchen, too. “And Cheryl went along?”
Unsure whether it was his question or the gleam in his eyes that caused it, a low-level current began somewhere deep in her belly and worked its way slowly, tauntingly to the surface of her skin. She propped herself against the arm of the couch, away from the vacancy next to her.
He folded his arms over his chest and looked toward the television as if he were noticing it for the first time. “What are you watching?”
“My So-Called Life,” she replied, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
He must have noticed because his smile melted and his posture stiffened, but he kept his tone level. “It’s been a while since we watched the tube together. Why don’t you choose something?”
She tried to think fast, anything to get her out of having to sit through thirty tense minutes with him. She was still thinking when he sat next to her, their thighs and shoulders pressed together.
“I was going to go outside and play.” Her voice sounded small in her head.
“You know your mother wouldn’t approve of that while she’s gone.” He reached behind them and pulled a crocheted afghan from the back of the couch.
“I should probably do my reading homework before it gets too late.”
He spread the blanket over their laps. “I’ll see you get it done.”
“I should probably get—” She caught her words before they got out. If she had finished her sentence he might have offered to shower with her, and the thought pushed bile to the top of her stomach.
His hands worked under the blanket. The sound of his belt buckle followed by the sound of his zipper. She tried to back away but was held firmly in place between him and the arm of the couch.
With snake-like precision, he reached out and snatched her hand. The harder she resisted, the firmer his hold became until finally her arm went limp.
“This is our quality time, Mooshie. This is when you get to show me you love me as much as I love you. Here…” she watched her hand disappear under the blanket.” He relaxed into the couch. “Just like this,” he said as he pried her fingers open and wrapped them around his penis.
He kept his hand folded firmly over hers as his penis came to life. “See what you do to me.” His voice had already taken on a different tone, smooth and distant.
His rhythm increased with his breathing. Although he usually kept his eyes closed for the several moments it took him to get happy, this time he kept them open and zeroed in on her. She felt him squirm under her hand. He then did something he had never done before. With his free hand, he lifted the blanket and tossed it over his knees exposing himself to her. She looked away only to look back. As nauseated as it made her feel, as abominable as she found the act, something kept drawing her eyes back to the fat nightcrawler. She repeated this four or five times before he wrapped a hand around her neck and positioned her head to face the rise and fall of their hands.
“See what you do to me?” His breathing was ragged, his words almost inaudible. His lips curled into a sick twist of pleasure. H
e began working her hand faster, so fast that had he not been holding hers in place she would not have been able to keep up. His pelvis began to rise and fall in time with their hands. His head went limp against the back of the couch.
“That’s it… that’s it… o-h-h-yeah…” his voice was a low growl as if the words had to climb through rusty pipes to get out. His hand tightened over her own pinching her fingers. Together, they became almost reckless in their movement. He stiffened next to her. The sounds he made were laced in what sounded like pain. “Ahh…ahh… ARGHH.”
Without warning, white fluid erupted from his penis. Blob after blob landed on his lap and their joined hands. She yanked her hand from his and bolted off the couch nearly tripping on the blanket piled around her feet. She wasn’t able to tell if her screams were aloud or trapped in her mouth; but they were deafening and followed her as closely as a shadow, even once the back door slammed shut behind her.
~
At the end of the soft, damp shoulder of the road, she slowed when her bare feet came down on the pavement of the main road that still held tightly to the heat of the earlier sun. She had no plan past getting as far away from Warren as possible. Fifteen miles to the east would take her to Aunt Katherine’s house where she knew she could stay until she figured things out, but it was a busy road and a dangerous walk in the dark. About a half a mile in the other direction was Daisy Seymour’s house. Daisy was a girl from school that she had once pushed out of the way of a runaway car. She could be there in about a half an hour, but showing up at this time of night would raise questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. And without those answers, the Seymours would surely call her parents. When they arrived to get her, there would be confusion hiding behind her mother’s smile, and anger in the twist of Warren’s lips. Once she had thought it through and realized that neither direction held the answers to her problems, she turned in defeat and headed home only this time walking the gritty center of the dirt road.
At the edge of the yard, she watched the silhouettes of her family behind the glowing windows. Warren rubbed the top of Cheryl’s head before pulling her in for a hug while Wanda used her hands to speak, as she often did when excited. The conference must have gone well, Gail thought.
She snaked around the lilac bushes at the edge of the yard until she hit the maple in the back corner. Climbing the weathered ladder, she pushed aside silky spiderwebs as she pulled herself through the door-less opening of the tree fort Warren had built when they first moved in.
She waited until her breathing steadied before lying back on the uneven planks. She turned her right hand over in front of her looking for whatever it was that had leaked onto it. Although she couldn’t see anything in the dim light, she knew it had to be there. She could feel it. Like a thin layer of Elmer’s glue that hadn’t completely set, it was tacky when she touched her thumb to her palm. She rubbed her hand vigorously on her thigh until it was no longer sticky, and then folded both hands underneath her head.
Through the hole in the roof made by a fallen branch, she watched the stars creep across the spent-blue sky. In one corner of the makeshift shelter a lightning bug flashed its neon green. She began to count the flashes and wondered why the bug would want to remain with her while its friends danced over the hay field on the other side of the yard. The green glow moved closer. It seemed to be suspended over her head. She swiped through the air several times in an attempt to get it to fly away. Annoyed by the tiny creature’s taunting, she reached up with both hands and brought them together on top of the lighted bug.
When she pulled her hands apart, a faint glow on the palm of her left hand was the only sign of the life that had been. “Stupid bug,” she said and scrubbed her hands together. As she glanced across the yard, the light in the kitchen window went out. A breeze passed through the treehouse bringing cooler air with it. Had her mother noticed her missing? She must have, but did she care enough to ask Warren of her whereabouts or to look for her? Maybe they were fighting over it while she watched the lightning bugs dance.
The poor lightning bug. She looked at her hand, but the glow was gone. So many hot, sticky summer nights she and Cheryl had spent catching the tiny sparks of magic to put in a jar and watch swirl around only to set them free when it was time to go inside. She had wished on every one she’d ever caught. What had once been a symbol of her hopes and dreams had become a victim to the anger that replaced them. Hopelessness settled on her like dew. Only now did she realize that running away wasn’t her problem. Staying away was. How would she ever get away from Warren?
Just as the answer came to her, she heard the ladder creak below.
“I thought I’d find you here.” His face glowed like a hologram, brightening in the moonlight as it got closer.
She sat up and pushed herself across the rough boards until her back was snug against the far wall.
“Don’t worry, Mooshie. I told your mother I let you play out here as a treat for being so good while she was away. Come on, it’s getting late.” He extended a hand, and added, “You aren’t in any trouble.” When she didn’t take it, he pulled back. “If you’re not on my heels when I walk through the door, I can’t promise that won’t change.”
His head disappeared from the opening and the ladder let out another groan as he descended. Once he was a few yards from the tree she made her way down slowly, watching his silhouette cross the yard from the corner of her eye. He never looked back until they reached the porch. When she joined him on the top step, he turned and said, “That’s my girl,” as she obediently followed him into the house.
Chapter Eight
Warren - 2018
The wind whistling through the trees could have been mistaken for a train passing through Chadds Ford. For a brief moment, Warren lost himself in thoughts of hopping the next one to come through Mendenhall, and traveling to someplace new. Someplace with second chances and clean slates. A place where sparkling water would wash away the dirty. If he learned nothing else in prison, he learned how to survive on life’s bare minimum. Material items, edible food, and sane thoughts were luxuries in a place where shanks, gangs, and guards on the take were an inherent part of daily life. How much would he need to disappear? A sharp crack of thunder erased his contemplations.
He was soaked through, an uncomfortable but necessary element of the story he’d present. Each step up the driveway was slow, deliberate, as if someone could possibly hear his footfalls splash in the puddles over the pounding rain. When he reached the garage, he cupped his hands against the dirty windows. It wasn’t until the next round of lightning lit the sky that a late model Buick sitting in the left bay came into view. Of course, she’s home. Who in their right mind ventures out in this kind of weather without a damned good reason? He made his way onto the front porch and hesitated before he brought two knuckles down on the jalousie door with more force than he had intended.
Movement.
He squared his shoulders and pushed back the hair plastered to his forehead. He had meant to get it cut. As he waited for the door to open, he gave another look around. There was only one house with a clear view and there were no lights on inside. No glow of a television. No car in the driveway. At least nothing he could see through the heavy veil of rain. He calmed himself with a deep breath and turned toward the door as he heard the sharp click of the deadbolt.
With the door open only enough to see the right side of her face, the woman asked, “Hello. Can I help you?”
He would not have recognized her had they randomly crossed paths on the street. Each of the twenty years he’d been away had worked to erase the woman he remembered. He cleared his throat. “I got a flat tire down the road a bit and don’t have a spare. Clumsy me dropped my phone in a puddle while rummaging around in the trunk. Yours was the first house with a light on, and I was hoping I could impose on you just enough to call for a tow?” As an afterthought, he added, “I’d be mighty grateful.”
She studied him through a narrowed eye, but as
long as he didn’t see recognition flash through it he remained hopeful he’d get what he came for. All he had to do was get inside. He widened his smile and added a chilled shudder as he looked toward the blackened sky.
Sympathy softened the resistance in the eye he was able to see. She offered a short nod, and said, “Come in. I’ll get the phone.”
She slid the chain to unlock the door and edged away. She spoke so softly he would not have heard her had the door not been open wide enough for him to pass through. He offered a look of relief, clasped his hands in front of him, and bowed slightly. “Thank you. You’re an angel.”
Her lips thinned into a nervous smile before she turned and left him standing alone in her small but tidy kitchen. Her amble was slow and unsteady giving him an opportunity to scan everything within view from where he stood on the mat in front of the door.
The aroma of fresh baked goods hung in the air, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since morning. He spotted a cork board on the far wall and squinted to bring it into focus. He never thought he had trouble with his eyesight, but his inability to read anything on the board made him wonder if his vision was something else life was robbing from him. Aside from a newspaper and a magazine sitting neatly in a corner of the small chrome table, there was little of interest in the only room within view.