by Sierra Hill
Ainsley slips back into her seat and sighs groggily. I unbuckle my belt and reach over to pull her face to mine. Her eyes tell me everything. Weariness. Gratitude. Fear. Love. I kiss her once, mainly because I need to feel her lips on mine. But also to reassure her that everything will be fine.
“I’m going in. Do you want to stay out here or do you need to use the restroom, too?”
She nods her head and we both get out of the car. It takes us about five minutes, I use some extra time to splash some cold water on my face to try and wake myself up. I’d never advise anyone to drive all night long after practicing hard out on the court. The dark circles clinging underneath my eyes are good indicators that it’s not advisable.
We order up at the counter for take-out and are told it will be about fifteen minutes. We probably could’ve stopped at a fast food drive-thru, but there’s nothing better than the biscuits and gravy from Cracker Barrel. They’re my favorite.
The front shop is filled with pointless (in my opinion) knick-knacks and junk, but Ainsley seems enthralled with all the gifts. I find her standing in front of a display full of country home décor items, her fingers lightly touching a hanging windsock. She’s quiet and lost in thought until I move behind her and wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her into my chest. Her body releases the tension and she stifles a sniffle.
It's busy and noisy in the restaurant this time of morning, the waiting area packed with people, so I have to lean in to hear what she says.
“I promised her she’d never be homeless again. She would never be abandoned and alone. I failed her.” Ainsley drops her head in grief and despair.
“Shh.” I try to quiet her, mulling over in my head what she just said. A thousand questions pop in my head. “What do you mean homeless again?”
Although people mill about and there’s constant motion around us, we remain in our own little bubble. I dare not move, instinctively clutching her closer to me, for fear that there’s a real possibility that she’ll bolt. I can already tell from the tension rippling through her body that what she’s about to tell me will be an anvil dropping on my head. Heavy and painful.
Ainsley maneuvers herself in my arms so she’s facing me. Her normally sparkling sapphire eyes are now the color of a storm at sea. She raises her lashes, followed by her chin as she confronts me with the answer I’m dreading hearing.
“My mom is bipolar and an addict. Alcohol. Pills. You name it. She didn’t get a firm diagnosis until two years ago. That was the worst night of my life.”
I squeeze her shoulders and direct her outside to the front porch where they have all the big old rocking chairs. She sits down and I scoot in as close as I can.
My hand finds her knee which I knead lightly, reassuringly. I want her to know it’s okay. I’m there for her. But her eyes have a far off distant look, like she’s seeing something horrible happen in front of her but she can’t stop looking.
“I’m so sorry, baby. That’s awful.”
She shrugs. “Yeah. It is what it is. I had to take her to the emergency room when I found her passed out. I had no idea what she’d done to herself. Empty pill bottles were lying next to her on the floor. I didn’t want Anika to see it, but I couldn’t prevent it. She still has nightmares about it.
“I hated my mother in that moment. Whether she lived or died, I hated her for being so selfish that she’d put her daughters through something that excruciatingly painful. Can you imagine? Seeing your mother lying on the floor in a pool of her own vomit? Uncertain if she’s alive or dead?”
I’m not sure if that’s rhetorical. So I just shake my head.
“We learned of her condition after she detoxed. And then she decided to enter into a state-run rehab program. She was in there for six months. It was a good thing, though. It helped her a lot. But it sucked for me and Ani. I was eighteen, but still in high school. I could only work part-time. We had nowhere to live. Nowhere to go. No family. Nothing.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry.” I sound like a broken record.
“The only thing to our name was an old Mercury station wagon. We lived in that fucking piece of shit for two months. Every night I sang my crying sister to sleep and promised her…I goddamn promised her, Cade, that we’d never go back to that again. She’d never be alone. My mother would get better and never do that to her again. I am a fucking LIAR!”
The porch has filled up with people waiting for their tables and I notice out of the corner of my eye a woman and her husband look our way before they get up from their rockers and move to the other side. As they pass us the woman gives us a dirty look and a disgruntled harrumph. I want to tell her to go fuck herself, but what good would it do? It might only upset Ainsley more, which I’m trying to prevent.
“Ainsley.” I whisper, my thumb stroking the top of her hand. The hand that works so hard to support herself and her family. I’ll never know the depths of the love she has for her sister. Or how difficult it must be for her to endure that type of life. I’m overcome with guilt for the way I’ve allowed myself to get caught up in what I feel my father has ‘owed’ me after leaving our family. The material possessions I take for granted. The college tuition that was just handed over to me.
I am nothing next to this strong, capable and mature woman. Her life has meaning. She makes a difference in the lives around her. And she doesn’t even realize it.
“Baby, you did everything you could for your sister. I know it wasn’t your choice to live in a car, but you made sure she was taken care of. I’m sure the alternative could have been a whole lot worse. You were just a kid yourself. God, I can’t even imagine what I would’ve done at that age if I’d have been responsible for the twins. I couldn’t even do my own laundry.”
She eyeballs me through her long, tear-coated lashes and lets out a small laugh.
“You can’t even do your own laundry now.” She deadpans. That’s my girl.
I give her legs a slight push in the opposite direction, as they swing away from me and then back again. She leans down, placing her elbows on her knees and cradles her head in her hands. It hurts me to see her in so much unnecessary pain.
“I’m just so angry. And bitter. I know my mom has a disease, but goddamn her all to hell. She has the means of controlling it, but doesn’t. She chooses freedom over her daughter. And Ani is the one to suffer. I can’t imagine what she’s feeling right now. I hate my mother.” She seethes.
We sit in silence for a bit, contemplating the situation and the next steps, until the pager in my hand buzzes indicating our order is ready to go. As I drive out of the parking lot onto the access road toward the highway, Ainsley quietly but resolutely speaks.
“I swear. One way or another, even if it’s the last thing I do, I will make sure that Ani never has to live with my mother again. Mark my words. My mother will never get her back.”
If it’s one thing I’ve learned these last few months with Ainsley, it’s that whenever she sets her mind to something, she makes it happen. I have no doubt she will make this happen, regardless of the obstacles. And I’ll be by her side the entire way.
25
Ainsley
When Anika was younger, maybe five or six years old, she liked to play hide-n-seek, almost obsessively. I was a pre-teen at the time, and would become so mad at her when she’d interrupt me from my reading. I could always be found with a tattered copy of my Babysitter Club books in hand.
I remember one time, we were living in this run-down, old house-turned multi-family dwelling, that held lots of good hiding spots for a little kid to get into. The place was a converted old Victorian-style home, with fading shingles and creaking wood floors.
It had been a hot summer day and Anika was antsy for some interaction. I, on the other hand, just wanted to be left alone. My mother was off somewhere – God only knew where. I’d been left alone again to watch my little sister, who had been bugging me incessantly all afternoon to play with her. And I kept telling her to knock it off and to go find
something else to do.
It had grown late in the day, the stifling heat seeping into the small apartment, creating a hot sticky restlessness. It had grown quiet in our tiny apartment - too quiet for a room that should hold a small child.
My panic level rose as I called out her name, searching everywhere within the confines of our sweltering little apartment but coming up empty. Where the hell was she?
I began to call out her name – louder and louder, my voice ragged with fear.
“Ani!” I yelled, in both anger and fright. It was like she’d completed vanished. Disappeared.
By this point I had searched every square inch of our apartment – in every spot I knew she usually hid away. But I came up empty. She was nowhere inside. It was then I noticed the front door cracked open.
I burst out into the hallway, dim and dingy, the only light filtering in was from a small dormer window at the end of the long hallway. The doors to the other flats were shut, the occupants either at work or festering in the oppressive heat of their rooms.
“Anika! Where are you?”
There was an old staircase that went down to the main entryway where the main floor apartments and the mailboxes were. There wasn’t much down there, but I looked anyhow. No sign of her.
Running outside, I called her name, frantically inspecting every spot in the yard. Down the street there were kids playing in a neighbor’s yard. They were older boys and I saw no sign of a little dark-haired girl. I called out again, pausing to listen for her sweet voice. It was then that I heard the little giggle of my six-year-old baby sister.
I should have been overjoyed that I found her, uninjured and safe. Instead, the anger unleashed inside of me. How could she have done this? Didn’t she know how irresponsible it was to leave our house without an adult (or me) present?
“Anika Michelle Locker! Get your ass out here right this minute!” I fumed, spinning around in a circle still trying to locate her whereabouts.
It was then that I heard her tiny little laugh again. It was coming from up above. Tilting my head up toward the sky, I saw a glimpse of her red T-shirt. She was sitting up on the ledge of the second story window. She’d somehow managed to fit through the opening of the dormer window and out onto the ledge.
“Wook at me, Ainswy!” she chirped, her little lisp evident from excitement. “I’m wike a baby bird in my nest. Weddy to fwy!”
Until this very moment, as I step inside the emergency group home where Anika was placed last night by the local authorities, I had forgotten about how small and innocent she’d looked that day. Her big, round eyes looking down at me in wonder. With so much hope. Enthusiasm for life. Imagination.
But now, as Anika hesitantly walks toward me, a weary expression embedded in her sad face, I realize she’s lost all of that joy she once had that day on the roof. Her eyes now convey her knowledge of betrayal. All the innocence lost. All the hope gone.
I open my arms and she comes running into me, grasping me tight and burying her head in my chest. I can feel the wetness of her tears soaking through my shirt.
I rub the back of her head. “Shh…I’m here now, Ani. I won’t let you go. I’ve got you, baby.”
We stay like that for a few moments as Cade talks to the social worker in the office down the hall. I know that we’ll need to go through a mass of paperwork, along with a meeting with the social worker, before we can take her home with us, but all of that is just insignificant details. My sister is safe once again and I will never let her go. Whatever it takes, I will get custody so that my mother can never put her through this kind of hell again.
Two days later, Anika and I sit at our kitchen table, eating breakfast together. I’ve taken a few days off of work to get her situated back at home. Since I hadn’t yet rented out the third bedroom, she’s back in her old bedroom. In need of both privacy and normalcy.
We haven’t talked too much about the Grand Junction incident, but I’ve certainly tried to coax it out of her. She’s been unusually quiet and reserved since returning home. My hopes and prayers are that it is simply the shock of being abandoned and nothing that happened while she was living with my mother and Brad.
“He’s a really nice guy, Ains.” She says through a bite of her Cheerios.
My head flies up from the table where I’m reading one of my assignments. “Who is?”
I get an eye roll. Which is a universal sign from a teenager letting you know you’re an idiot.
“Cade, dummy. It’s kind of obvious he’s totally in love with you.”
She goes back to her Cheerios and I turn my head away so she can’t see my expression. Since we’ve gotten back, I’ve been avoiding Cade. Both on purpose and due to the circumstances. He knows I’m busy with Ani, and he’s been focused on basketball.
He’d held me all night long the night we returned from the road trip, as I cried and wept in his arms. Cade gave me a safety and security I’d never had before. It scared the living daylights out of me. With everything that had happened in my life, and the sheer magnitude of raising a teenager on my own, I didn’t know what that would do to our relationship.
He had so many great things ahead of him his last year of college. Events, parties, travel for away games, championship games. And all I had ahead of me was a future full of financial and legal responsible for my younger sister. That is a lot of baggage for a hot, young star-athlete to want to take on in a relationship. I don’t want to drag him down or become a burden. Sooner-or-later, he will come to resent me. It is that simple.
He has to realize that I will never be one of those Friday-night fun, Barbie cheerleader girlfriends who’d be able to drop everything to watch him play ball, wearing his jersey and cheering from the sidelines. And when he and his teammates hold their after-parties, I can’t be the girl partaking in the drunken festivities alongside him.
No. I’d be the one who was home every night making sure my fifteen-year-old sister finished her homework and was ready for her school the next day. Accountable for making sure she had food on the table, clothes on her back, and the emotional support she needed. A now motherless and fatherless girl.
Yes, Cade is an amazing guy. I honestly question how lucky I am to be involved with such a good guy. He’s been my rock through this entire ordeal. Yet I’m not too naïve to realize that my new fulltime responsibilities will create a wedge between us. It’s inevitable. Something has to be done about it now, before things get any more complicated between us. Before I can no longer live without him.
I smile at Anika, and try my best nonchalant response. “Yeah. Cade is pretty great. But we’re not serious.”
She drops the spoon in her bowl with a clatter, her eyebrows furrowed with a frown.
“You’re kidding me, right? That guy is in deep, Ains. Puhleez…He drove like eighteen hours with you the other day, across two state lines. If that’s not serious, I don’t know what is.”
I scoff. “What do you know about serious? You’re fifteen.” I try to give it a teasing edge, but there’s some truth there.
“I know enough.” She says quietly under her breath.
Shit, yeah. I know she’s witnessed the wrong type of love and the abusive kind that my mother has been on the receiving end of. She’s seen plenty of the ugly kind of love.
Reaching over the table, I grab her hand in mine.
“I know you do, Ani. But I want you to know something else. Guys are going to come and go in your life. And I hope they will all be good, honest, trustworthy men who will prove to you that they are worthy of your love. But in the end, you need to realize there are only two people you can ever truly rely on in this world. I’m one of them, and I will never leave you. I will always be here for you.”
I glide my hand down the backside of her head, her silky strands billowing under my touch.
“The other person is yourself. You are strong and able. And you don’t need a man in your life to do the things you can do yourself. You got that?”
She nod
s her head. “I got it.”
I resume my reading as we sit quietly for a few more minutes until she breaks the silence with her question.
“Do you love him, Ains?”
I close my eyes before I speak. Because I can’t lie about that. I do love him. So much that it breaks my heart knowing I need to end things with him. So much that I’d rather do the selfish thing and allow it to continue, rather than do the right thing and let him go.
“Yeah. I do.”
26
Cade
The last week has been a tornado of activity. I’d expected things to get crazy once the season started, but I had no idea how insane it would really be. Between school and daily practices, I come home exhausted, barely able to keep my eyes open long enough to eat, shower, change and study.
And it has only caused the distance I’ve felt between me and Ainsley to grow wider. Ever since we returned from Colorado, things have been different. Her normally chipper and enthusiastic demeanor has turned flat and solemn. We haven’t talked on the phone at all this week. I hadn’t seen her in our usual meet-up spots on campus. In fact, I haven’t seen her show up for her classes at all.
It worries me that she is retreating. Again. I know she is dealing with a lot right now and how upset she is over what happened in Grand Junction. I want to give her space, but the bigger part of me wants to take her in my arms and never let her go. Just like the night we got back, when I held her in my arms as her body was racked with sobs. It broke my fucking heart that she was placed in this horrible predicament.
When I learned about her mom’s issues and the time she and Anika were homeless? Holy hell, I wanted to beat someone. It never occurred to me that kids had to live on their own without family support. It’s ignorant on my part, because I don’t live in some bubble or ignore the homeless on the streets, but I’ve never known anyone who’d been homeless. My naiveté was obvious in my assumptions that homelessness is always by choice.