by Sasha Dawn
My fingers fumble nervously over the lock, but I manage to shove it clear of the latch.
I meet her gaze in the seconds before I push the window open.
She smiles at me.
My heart quickens.
“Hey.” She hands me a carry-out container through the window. “You seemed to really enjoy that cake, so . . .”
“I did.” I take it and put it aside. “Thank you.”
For a second, we just stare at each other.
“Well, I know you’re busy with your sisters, so I’m just going to”—she thumbs toward my backyard—“you know, get out of your hair.” And she actually starts to get to her feet.
The scar on her hip is eye-level to me now, peeking out at me above the waistline of the shorts that have become signature to Chatham Claiborne.
I reach for her, and land a hand on her cold hip and cover the marring with my palm, as if hiding it could possibly make it, and the memories it carries with it, go away. I tighten my fingers against her skin. “Stay.”
And before I know it, her backpack lands on the floor at my feet, and she’s sliding through my window, guided by my hands, and we’re standing there, practically belly-to-belly, in my room.
“Hi,” she says. Her hands are at the front of my shoulders. The base of her left palm is touching me in the location of my tattooed fourteen.
I chew on my lip and look down at her. She’s so fucking pretty.
And I’m so happy to see her that without thinking about whether I should, I brush my lips over hers, then second-guess my confidence.
Just as I’m about to pull away, her lips part in the tiniest of invitations, and we’re kissing.
I pull her closer. Trace her cheek with a fingertip. Sigh along with her when my hands find their way into her wavy hair.
“I want to tell you something,” I whisper between kisses.
“What?” she asks.
I feel the heat of her breath on my lips. “Everything.”
B o n e s
“That shouldn’t have happened to you.” That’s all Chatham says when I tell her about Damien, about the scar on my arm. She doesn’t try to explain it, or rationalize, or even let my mother off the hook. There’s no judgment implied at all beyond it’s wrong.
We’re in the den now. I’m on the couch, and she’s on the floor across the coffee table from me. She’s wearing my football sweatshirt and a pair of my sports socks because a girl from Georgia doesn’t understand the fickle whims of autumn in Chicago. She looks good in my clothes. Small. She’s rolled the sleeves up a few times.
“You can’t pick your parents.” She sips from the glass of water I brought her, and I see something in her expression—resignation, maybe, or a sense of survival—that bonds us through past experiences we haven’t yet verbalized. “I didn’t pick either set.”
Either set? I do a double take, try not to stare too expectantly, but it’s obvious I have to know what she’s talking about.
“It’s kind of a crazy story,” she says.
“Crazier than the one I just told you?”
“No comparison . . . it’s a different kind of crazy. Loretta and Wayne.” She takes another drink of water—I watch her, the bob of her swallow in a perfect peach neck—and follows it up with a sweep of her tongue over her lips.
Lips I’ve kissed, thank you very much.
Savannah’s adopted, I know that.
And Chatham’s told me that they weren’t biological sisters.
But I assumed that Loretta and Wayne were Chatham’s biological parents.
“They didn’t adopt me because I have parents. A mom, anyway. My father’s dead.” She says it so matter-of-factly.
And I can’t help but think maybe this is why I’m drawn to her. I have a mom. I have a father, but he isn’t even in the periphery of my life. He’s never even seen me.
“So technically, I’m a foster. My biological mother. She’s sort of . . . I don’t know . . . ever hear the term unfit?”
“Are you kidding? I live with unfit.”
She laughs a little, but then her voice goes quiet. “My mother left me in a hot car on a ninety-degree day when she ran an errand.” She uses air-quotes with the last word. “I mean, if you can call a drug run an errand . . .”
“God.”
“I was little. I don’t really remember it beyond the sensation of loss.” She blinks, meets my gaze, then redirects to the Scrabble board that I never put away. “I was the only one who survived.”
“The only one?”
“I had a baby brother.”
“He died?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine losing my sisters. How do you . . . how do you forgive something like that? Do you still, you know, see her?”
“I used to see her sometimes. Supervised visits. Every couple years, she’d request a visit. Not often. Last time, about five years ago, she basically told me I wasn’t her daughter anymore, so . . . yeah. That was the end of that.”
“I can’t even imagine.” Rosie may hate me from time to time, but she’s never actually disowned me. “That shouldn’t have happened to you.” I know it’s her line, but it’s still true.
“Do you ever think about the ripple effect?” she finally asks. “Something seemingly insignificant you do one day could affect you years down the road?”
“Like watching a girl’s backpack so she can take a swim?”
“Exactly.” A nervous kind of giggle escapes her. “It’s like whatever happened to make my mother leave us in that car that day, it led me to Savannah. It led me here.” She takes a breath like she’s about to explain to me why, or how, we so naturally seem to fit together. Why she decided to trust me the first second she saw me.
It’s because of this story about the hot car, maybe. The neglect, the feeling that you just don’t matter enough, which is an emotion I’m more than in touch with. Or maybe it’s the other hints she’s dropped in my lap about Wayne, about the things he’s done, versus the things Savannah has tried to pin on him. About the girl under the floorboards in the stables, about Loretta not saying anything out of turn.
“We understand each other,” I say.
I wait for her to confirm it.
But instead, she says, “Wasn’t it seventy-two degrees just yesterday?”
What? I let a few beats pass. I don’t want to talk about the weather. Not now. But when she doesn’t say anything else, I agree. “Yeah.”
“It’s freezing tonight.”
“Well, you’re in shorts.”
“No, I mean, it happened so quickly. It was so nice, and pleasant, and I figured I had time to plan for the cold, but no. It came in like Hell’s Angels. For someone who’s used to a steady climate, these drastic shifts in temperature are jarring.”
“That happens here sometimes.”
“I don’t know how you get used to it.”
“You don’t.” I play off her D: dent. “Some years it’ll go from eighty to forty in a week. It always sucks.”
“That’s messed up.”
This isn’t where I wanted the conversation to go. I didn’t tell her about my mother, about Rosie’s fucked-up second husband—Richard “The Dick” Herron—whose kid used to repeatedly ram my head into the wall in the bedroom we shared only because Dick used to beat the crap out of him, or about our recent dramas with Damien, or the night two years ago when he knifed me, so that she’d spill her guts about whatever she’s been through.
But I want to keep talking about stuff that really matters. I want to know everything about her. I don’t want to talk about the weather.
“I guess I’ll have to get something other than shorts to wear.”
Is it weird that she’d arrive at the end of summer without something other than shorts and tank tops and the occasional hoodie in her suitcase? A nervous twinge, like a twisting in my gut, makes me feel dizzy for a second. They really didn’t plan on staying here, did they? After all, how long would it take them to
realize Savannah was or wasn’t in Sugar Creek? Please, I pray to whichever god will listen. Let me have her a little bit longer.
“I swear, I can’t find anything. I’m going to have to hit a mall soon. But the bus schedule to get there . . . take the north line to this hub, and the west line back . . .”
“Or . . . I could take you.”
“Really?” She’s smiling like it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever offered her. “God, that’d be great. I mean, so much easier.”
“Not a problem. Might have two little chaperones, so we can’t stay hours, but—”
“Thanks.”
It’s really not that big of a deal, but she reaches over the table and places her cool hand over mine. She’s freezing. Her fingers trace my knuckles.
I’m staring into her eyes, and for the first time, I understand how someone might get lost in a gaze. “Think you might want to buy a dress? There’s a dance in a couple weeks, and . . .” I shut up. Is asking her moving too fast?
“Homecoming?” she asks.
Of course she’s seen the banners and all the flyers in the hallways, and heard the hype about voting for court and king and queen. I don’t know why I didn’t just call it what it is.
“I don’t usually get that much into it, but I checked my mom’s schedule,” I say, even though that proves I’ve considered asking Chatham, and this isn’t just a snap decision. “She’s not supposed to work that night, and yeah, I’d like to take you.”
In a flash, she’s leaning over the table, kissing me. Her lips are cool from the water. And when her tongue brushes against mine, it’s like all that’s troubling melts away. Our bodies come together, and even if it can’t last forever, in this moment, it’s pure nirvana.
I lean closer, make my way around the table. My hands are planted at her hips. I graze my fingertips against the fringe of cut-off denim at her thighs; she doesn’t seem to mind. And before I know it, we’re on the floor in front of the fireplace. I stare down at her.
She wraps her arms a little tighter around me, and pulls me a touch closer. “See what I mean? You watched my bag on a beach, and here we are.”
“I almost want to tell you to run. Everything you’ve already been through, all the drama with Savannah . . . You don’t need to be caught up in my mess, too.”
She shakes her head. “Smile. I like your smile.”
I can’t help it. I smile.
“It doesn’t matter what happened before. All the shit you’ve been through . . . everything I’ve been through . . . it’s just the bones of life. We get to flesh it out. It’s structure, like the wire base of a papier maché sculpture. Looking at it, you won’t even know what it’s supposed to be until the paper goes on. We—our dreams, our actions, our decisions—are like the paper. We shape over the structure, see.” She licks her lips. “The bones, the wire bases . . . they’re important. But it’s not the final product, not what anyone sees when they look at you.”
“I think some people see it.”
“Really? When you look at me, do you see one-hundred-twenty degrees in an old Nissan?”
Maybe she’s right.
L e t I t B l e e d
It’s about six at night; I’ve been home from practice less than fifteen minutes, and I’m already at work trimming the hedges lining the east border of our yard. Anything to avoid being with my mother. Besides, this task—fall cleanup of our yard—has been on her list of chores I’m supposed to complete for about a week. It’s a big job, one that will take days to finish, and I want to get as much as possible done before next weekend, because next weekend, I’ve got a date for Homecoming.
I glance up at the living room windows, where Margaret and Caroline are knocking and waving every few minutes. Once I turn to acknowledge them, they hide. They crack me up with how easily they’re amused.
But this time, when they knock and I turn, I see something I don’t expect: my former stepfather is already halfway across the lawn and approaching the door. I don’t have time to reach for my phone to call the cops because I know he’s not going to ring the bell. Despite the fact that he’s never lived here, he somehow feels he owns the place, like he belongs here and has every right to walk in.
I start toward him, my clippers slipping out of my hand on the way. “Can I help you?”
He doesn’t even glance over his shoulder.
His hand is already on the doorknob.
He’s taller than me by a couple inches, and he’s all brawn, but I launch myself toward him and manage to get into the foyer alongside him.
“Look.” He closes the door. “I’m sorry about the other night.”
I want to look at my sisters to reassure them, but I don’t want to call attention to the fact that they’re up half a flight of stairs. I raise my chin toward the door. “Get out of here.”
“I’m sorry. I had too much to drink, and—”
“Story of your life, isn’t it?”
“I’m sober now. I’m working a program. I’m working on this disease—”
“Disease?”
His gaze drifts upward, and everything’s put on pause for a second. He smiles. “Hey, pretty.”
My mother must be at the top of the stairs now. I glance to confirm it. Caroline is at her hip, and Margaret is hiding behind her. “Josh.”
I ignore her. “This isn’t a disease. Cancer is a disease. Lymphoma. This is addiction. A decision he makes five, six times a week.”
“That’s all over now,” Damien says. “Last week, after your mother’s shift, we had a breakthrough. I’m working a program.”
“I’ll bet.”
“You’re too young to understand this, the love between a man and a woman. I love your mother, and she loves me. We have children together. I want to know my girls. I want a hand in raising them.”
“Your hand in raising them is supposed to arrive by mail on the tenth of each month,” I remind him.
He ignores my dig. “We’re going to give this another try, all right? Now, I’d like to do it with your blessing.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Rosie says.
I don’t have to look at her to know she’s rolling her eyes, but I don’t know which of us she’s accusing of drama.
“Damien,” she says. “Another time, all right?”
Another time. I gauge her for a second. She’s not telling him to get lost. She’s telling him to come back later.
“I’m not staying.” Damien pulls a small box out of the pocket of his jacket, and again addresses me. “I just wanted to give this to your mother. Now, I’m asking you, man to man. Give me a chance to show you—to show your mother and my daughters—how I can change.”
He makes a move to walk around me, but I shove him by the shoulders.
He puts a hand up and appears to take a step back, but half a second later, he’s inching closer again, trying to get around me.
I step to the side, blocking his access. “We have an order of protection.”
“It expires in a few months.”
“You’re in violation right now. I could’ve blown your fucking head off the second you stepped inside this house, and no jury would convict me. Just turn around, Damien, and walk away. Leave us alone.”
“Josh,” my mother says again.
“Go!” I shove him again, knowing full well I’m provoking him, knowing the consequence could be a massive beating. But it’s nothing I haven’t survived before, and maybe my mother needs to see it. Maybe she needs to remember what kind of monster Damien can be.
He’s looking down at me now. His nostrils flare, and his cheeks are a shade or two redder than they were a minute ago. I can tell he’s about to lose it. He gives me a subtle nudge, but it’s not enough. Nothing blatant enough for Rosie to see.
I give him a forearm to the chest.
He grumbles a little, breathless, through his teeth. He’s about to snap.
So I give it to him again, and next I know, my ba
ck is flat against the wall, and he’s got my right wrist in his hand.
“I know you need this arm.” His spit sprays out at me when he hisses these words. “Big football star, huh? We’ll see about that.”
I harden my gaze and silently dare him. Go ahead. Do it. That’s all I need, motherfucker. Break my wrist. I’ll drive myself to the emergency room. It isn’t up to Rosie this time.
Margaret whimpers. “Joshy.”
“It’s okay, Maggie Lee.” But I don’t take my eyes off Damien. I smile because I know it’ll crawl under his skin. “He’s not going to do a damn thing. He’s sober now.”
Damien lets out a yell, pulls back, and punches the wall, inches from my head.
“Joshy!”
“You missed!” I’m off the wall, in his face.
Rosie’s on us now, trying to get between us. “Josh. Stop.”
“I’ll teach your ass,” he says.
“Teach me.” I blow him a kiss.
Rosie: “Damien.”
“Contain this animal.” He whips the small box at her, but it flies up the stairs, and as he’s on his way out, he spits at me—deliberately this time.
But I dodge it. Nothing he does matters to me anyway.
He points at me. “Someday you’ll learn. A man can change. I’m trying to put my life back together.”
“Do it somewhere else,” I say.
He’s opening the door. “This isn’t over.”
“Oh, yes it is.”
Rosie gives me a scolding glance, then follows him out the door. “Damien, wait.”
Christ.
I’ve seen this sort of thing dozens of times—my mother begging her perpetrators to stay—and I’ve read enough to understand that it’s a survival skill I shouldn’t fault Rosie for, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch.
“You’re right,” she says. “He’s out of control. I’m sorry. I’ll work with him, okay?”
I’ve already dialed the police by the time my mother reaches him in the yard.
She’s too far away now. I can’t hear what she’s saying, or how he’s responding, but I see him touch her under the chin, kiss her forehead. Quite a show. If I didn’t know him better, I might think a tiger just rearranged its stripes.