The three of them—she, her mother, and her brother Garry—had lived quite contentedly in their small house for as long as she could remember. Ever since, in fact, her father had resumed his habit of trading in wives in every seven years. They didn't see that much of him. Sometimes he remembered Christmases or birthdays, but it didn’t matter. He was preoccupied with the extra family some of his wives produced, and after all, as Gail always remembered, she still had her mother and brother.
Then, one wet night when her car broke down, her mother had accepted a lift from the widower who lived around the corner, and life had never been the same.
Six months later, her mother and the widower had married. The comfortable little house was rented out to strangers; and Gail, Garry, and their mother had moved with their dog and two cats into the spacious home of Allan Motterly and his son, Matt.
“Always out to humiliate me in front of my friends,” Gail accused her stepfather. “And sticking your nose into things that don’t concern you. I think you’re a...”
Gail slowed down her attack, trying to find the right word. Her stepfather was a pill, a creep, a monster, and a selfish pig, but there had to be something more accurate to describe him.
“Gail,” her mother warned in a no-nonsense voice.
“A pig!” Gail yelled at the top of her lungs and fled to the refuge of her bedroom, slamming the door after her.
Unfortunately, the door just sighed closed into its rubber-lined jamb. No doors in the house slammed. The efficient Allan Motterly, who disliked noise, had fixed them all.
Gail threw herself on the bed and wept noisily, adding to the score against her stepfather the dreadful trauma of living in a house where she couldn't slam doors.
For a while, it had seemed such a successful arrangement. She was the envy of her friends. Her new stepfather was good-looking and good-humored. The house also had a small pool and a large double garage, where her stepfather assured them they could have parties occasionally. Her mother now only worked part-time, and her face glowed with contentment.
It was only gradually that Gail realized things were changing. Her good-humored stepfather was firm about chores. The spacious garden had to be tidied once a week and the little swimming pool cleaned. She didn’t really mind that. After all, it was their friends who used the pool and the barbecue area and their dog that wrecked the garden. Matt always mowed the lawns, painted the front fence, and did all the other jobs.
Gail remembered the first confrontation. That afternoon she was absolutely exhausted. There had been school sports. On the way back, they had joined the boys in a game of unisex basketball. When she got home, she and Garry drank all the milk, so she rode her bike down to the small shop for more.
What with the puncture and pushing the bike all the way home, she was too pooped to do anything but collapse on the couch. Then her stepfather arrived and ordered her to set the table.
Gail explained that she was too exhausted to lift a finger. He was still courteous, but he became more and more unreasonable. He seemed to be under the impression that she spent all her time loafing on her mother, simply because she sometimes didn’t clean up her own room or help with the cooking, cleaning, and washing up.
“I am not being sexist,” he had finished tersely. “Matt and I aren’t scared of housework. I don’t like to see the way you and your brother lean on your mother all the time. She works too, and she gets tired. Life runs more smoothly if everyone pulls their weight.”
Gail blew her nose firmly and wiped her eyes. The most dreadful thing about her stepfather was that he never made empty threats. If she didn’t tell Kelvin they had to break up, he would do it for her.
This afternoon had been the same as all the others. She and Kelvin had waited for Garry, who had another detention, and came home together. They had sat in the kitchen, drinking chocolate milk and eating slices of fresh bread and strawberry jam.
When the big car turned into the driveway, they realized the afternoon was over. Kelvin said hello to her mother and her stepfather, kissed her lightly, punched Garry on the arm, and left.
This was when the afternoon stopped being ordinary. Her mother and Allan called her into the small den, saying they both wished to speak to her. Gail drifted in after them, expecting at the worst to be yelled at for leaving the kitchen in a mess, but it was her school report open on the desk.
She was able to shrug off the fuss about her low marks, but the order to break up with Kelvin was totally unexpected. Kelvin was the most important and stable person in her life. Of course she couldn’t break up with him. It would be like trying to cut her arm or leg off. Why didn’t her mother understand?
She thought of Kelvin and why he was so special. Gradually, the lump in her throat lessened, and the angry tightness in her chest eased. She had met Kelvin just after her father had gone away. In those days, Kelvin had been a small, freckled, redheaded boy with a cheeky grin. He had asked why she was crying, and she had thrown a stone at him. She had loved Kelvin with all her heart since.
He had grown into a tall, skinny boy—still freckled and redheaded, with ears that stuck out, and the unchanged cheeky grin. Garry was his best friend, and the three of them went everywhere together.
This year, they were a group. Garry usually had a girlfriend to make them into a foursome, because now there were school socials and other outings that needed to be attended as a group for full enjoyment.
Gail was proud they were such a tight-knit clique. They waited for each other after school and cheered at each other’s sports and worried about each other’s exam results. She couldn’t visualize life without Kelvin beside her, holding her hand as they walked home, or watching videos with his arm around her.
The trouble with adults was that they just didn’t understand. They thought kids had to be geriatric before they could have a deep and caring relationship. No one understood that what she and Kelvin had going was something lasting.
There was quiet knock, and Garry opened the door. “Dinner’s ready. Are you coming?”
Gail didn’t answer. She would choke if she had to sit opposite her stepfather tonight. She heard Garry’s steps pad down the passage and clatter across the tiled hall.
The smell of savory rice, stewing apples, and hot fruit mince drifted through the slowly closing door. Gail decided she was hungry. It was embarrassing to have lost her temper with her stepfather. All she had to do was to be dignified and refuse to discuss the matter with him again. The way she and Kelvin felt about each other was for always; and no one, certainly not her mother or her stepfather, was going to change anything.
She walked out to face her family more cheerfully. She probably had overreacted. They couldn’t really expect her to split a relationship that had been stable for the past seven years!
Astraea Press.
Pure. Fiction.
www.astraeapress.com
Cindy Jones Page 9