A Breath Too Late

by Rocky Callen

  You threw a candy corn at me. “I am going to get you!” you said in an over-the-top troll voice, and you stood up, arms outstretched, and started chasing me. The floor was covered in flour and my sides hurt from all the giggling.

  We didn’t hear the car. Or the door opening. Father wasn’t supposed to be home for hours. We were supposed to be the only two people who ruled over our little home at the end of Sunset Street. I was laughing when I felt you freeze.

  That’s when I heard it. It sounded like a growl but came out of a man. It scared me and I looked to the doorway.

  “What’s this?”

  “Abel, I didn’t know you were coming home early tonight. I was going to have everything cleaned up before you got home.” Your eyes looked over the kitchen, wincing at the mess.

  “I see I have some very naughty girls.” Father wasn’t yelling. He was leaning against the doorframe. “What should I do with you now?”

  He didn’t look scary. But when I looked at him, I was afraid. I had never been afraid in my own house before he lived with us. I had liked the dark, I had played in the basement, I had stopped using a night-light. I was brave. That’s what you said, but I didn’t feel brave when I looked at Father. I felt small.

  “I’m sorry, Abel. I’ll start cleaning up now.” You stood up and whispered “Go to your room” under your breath to me. You held my arm and angled me to step behind you toward the door. I wouldn’t budge. I wanted to stay as close to you as I could. This was our fault. Our mess. I didn’t want you to be alone.

  You shot a frantic look at me before returning your gaze to Father. “Are you hungry?”

  He detached himself from the doorframe and took slow steps toward us until his face was an inch from yours. “This is not how I like my woman to behave, Regina.” He raised his hand to your cheek and stroked it. “You know that.”

  Father looked away from you for a second and his gaze settled on me. He looked like a giant. “Ellie, do you know what we do with girls who don’t listen?” Then he smiled at me.

  I was about to muster an answer when his arm cocked back and crunched against your face. I screamed as you fell to your knees, nose bleeding. I kneeled down and wrapped my arms around you.

  “Momma!” You tried to push me away, but I held on as tight as I could. A rough hand yanked me off you and I turned, swinging my arms trying to hit the giant back. “I hate you!” I screamed. “I hate you!” In one swift motion, he reached for his pants’ belt buckle and pulled it from his belt loops.

  “No. Abel, no!” I heard you scrambling to your feet behind me, but it was too late.

  The belt hit me. And then again. I screamed. My knees buckled.

  You lunged over me and held me under you, your back exposed to him.

  I shook within your arms. I cried with each slap. They kept coming, steady and certain, and with each blow, you squeezed me tighter.

  Then suddenly, the belt stopped.

  Father grunted. He put his belt back in place, knelt beside our shaking bodies, and whispered, “Now clean up this mess.” He walked out of the room, the flour sticking to the soles of his boots.

  You sat up, heaving in breaths. You rubbed my back gently and whispered, “Are you okay, my little bird?”

  I blinked at you. You’d never called me that before, but I nodded anyway. “I’m fine, Momma. But what about you—” I reached up to check your back, but you shrugged me away.

  You nodded quickly. “I’m fine, dove. Go upstairs to your room. I am just going to clean up.”

  I did. I fell asleep before you had come up, but I heard something in the middle of the night that woke me up. It was a soft and broken sound. I stood up and padded to the hallway and creaked open the bathroom door. The TV was still on downstairs. There you were. Shirt off and staring in the mirror. Your back was awful—bloody, bruised. You were crying there in the bathroom. I wanted to go in and ask you if you needed a hug, but somehow I knew … I wasn’t supposed to see.

  I left you there with your tears.

  14

  Magic,

  I believed in you, but sometimes your ink was dry when I needed you most.

  15

  Momma,

  I walk back home in the dark and hear the rumbling of a thunderstorm in the distance. I am not afraid of it. I stand at the bottom of the steps to our home. Our porch greets me, solid and tired. I put my hand on the railing. The memories are coming easier now. They know I will keep my eyes open. They know I won’t look away.

  * * *

  I remember another day on this porch. You were sitting watching the sky and I sat on the steps on the other side of the screen door watching you. You had a cigarette in one hand and your head rested on the other. I hated the smell of the smoke. You had always smelled of honeysuckles from our adventures when I was little, and burnt sugar from your delicious southern baking.

  But we didn’t have adventures anymore, or sweets in the oven. The smell of Father invaded everything, until finally you started to smell the same. The screen was tattered at one edge and the mosquitos flew in along with the thick, humid air. Father wasn’t home yet, but another storm was blowing in. One of rain and thunder and not rage and fists. And you sat there watching the sky get darker and pull closer. I leaned forward to get a better view of the black clouds and the step creaked.

  You didn’t turn your head. “Hey, my little dove.” You took another drag from your cigarette. “Come sit by your momma.”

  I stepped down the creaking steps and opened the creaking door and sat down on the steps beside you. I breathed in the electricity in the air and tried to exhale all the smoke and himness stuck to your skin. “Shouldn’t we go inside, Momma? The storm is coming.”

  “Oh, that little thing can’t chase us inside, dove.”

  I looked out over the horizon past the rowhomes and trees. A spike of lightning. A gray-and-black sky swallowing up the blue. It looked like just the storm to chase me off the porch, but I sat there anyway.

  I loved our porch, even if we only looked out over cracked asphalt and boarded-up windows. It was a little space that was ours. We’d sit out there for hours when Father worked late. It was just outside the door, but we could breathe. We didn’t feel trapped or suffocated; we drank in the air and tilted our heads back and drank up the sun too.

  “We had a porch like this in Louisiana,” you said, head tilted back, eyes closed.

  “Did you like it in Louisiana?” You never talked much about your past, but I wanted to know.

  You tucked your chin and slowly opened your eyes. “Our house was small, smaller than this one.” That was hard to believe, because even though we had ample space (something I knew not everyone had), it always felt like the walls were closing in. “But it had a porch just like this one. We’d board it up when hurricanes were brewing. We’d sit in the dark as the wind rattled the shudders and the rain pounded the tin roof.” And then you smiled and smooshed the edge of your cigarette into the side of the doorframe to snuff it out. It seemed strange to smile while recalling a natural disaster.

  “But … did you like it?”

  You turned your gaze to me. “I loved it.”

  You pulled up your knees under your chin. “On those days with hurricanes, when we were all huddled in the living room, we’d sing. We’d sing loud and then louder. We’d sing until the wind and rain no longer scared us, because when our voices seemed to win against the howling outside, we felt stronger than it.”

  I smiled at you, but as I did you blinked fast and looked away. The smile settled back into your usual set of lines, your usual far-off gaze that felt just out of my reach. I didn’t want to say anything just in case your smile came back, just in case it was a fragile scared thing and I could coax it to return if I was quiet.

  It was then that I tried to remember your singing and couldn’t. A sliver of a song caught in the wind from the car’s open window, a soft melodic hum as we held hands and walked down the street when I was little. But even those m
emories had been vague and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember what your voice sounded like.

  We sat on our porch silently until your summer-sweet voice shook. “I haven’t felt strong in a very long time.” You didn’t look at me. You just reached your hand over and squeezed mine. Then you stood up and walked silently back into the house.

  The house that never heard you sing.

  16

  House,

  I stare up at you. You are scruffy paint, creaking steps, and broken glass. You tucked our tears and fears into your nooks and crannies. Our whispered prayers stained your floorboards. You never heard songs, but you heard my last breath.

  Maybe you were never trying to trap us in.

  Maybe you were trying to hold us together.

  17

  Father,

  The house didn’t need to hold us together before you came with your sad-puppy eyes and fists. Before you came with such pretty words and gentle embraces. You were the burn and the balm at the same time. You were Tabasco sauce and warm apple cider. Because just when we would scurry off into our silent rooms, you’d coax us out with your rumbling voice and tuck us into your arms as if you forgot that you hurt us with those same hands.

  We lied to you too. With our smiles and apprehensive glances. But also with our little secrets. Momma begged you to let her have the job. I went with her to the Dixie and the manager said it would be $14.35 an hour. She asked to be paid in cash. When she got home she told you that the job paid eight dollars an hour. I almost corrected her, but the look she leveled on me—not in anger but a wordless plea—kept me quiet.

  You didn’t give her an answer. Then a few days later, an old minivan was parked outside in our driveway. It looked like our old one. It had the same mismatched doors. This was your answer. Your act of love and mercy. She could get the job.

  That month, Momma stopped smoking.

  18

  Momma,

  You are staring at the flowers in the middle of the dining table. Father left them there for you.

  Father would always bring you roses or daisies or whatever was in the $4.99 flower bin at the supermarket after a rough night or a fight or a drunken beating. I always loved their colors and how delicate the petals looked in the sunlight. You would always smile. Always say thank you. Always fuss over taking care of them right away: looking for the chipped glass vase in the cabinet, cutting the ends of the stems at an angle, putting a little sugar in the water.

  I think Father thought it was a cheap way to make you smile, but he never noticed how you looked at the flowers when he looked away. You’d skin chicken and your eyes would scan the flowers, cut end to bloom and you’d furrow your brow and look out the window with sad eyes. That’s how you look at them now.

  One day when Father worked late, we played in the fields behind the school. Patches of wildflowers sprang up in the tall grass and I remember reaching down to pluck some.

  “No!” you said, your voice was sharp and sudden and made my hand snatch back. You saw my expression and your face softened. “No, little dove. Don’t pull the flowers.”

  “Why not?”

  You were quiet for a moment and then motioned for me to sit beside you in the grass. “It—it is selfish to pluck something just because you want to keep it to yourself. The flowers die faster.”

  “But lots of people have flowers…”

  I looked at the flowers. They swayed in the breeze and danced in the grasses, innocent and unaware.

  “Just leave them there, dove. We can sit with them. We can love them even if we don’t take them home.”

  And so we stretched back and lay there. Breathing in the warm air and the smell of wildflowers, eyes up to blue skies and wispy white clouds, holding each other’s hands.

  * * *

  You leave the flowers on the table.

  19

  Funeral Director,

  Momma never answers when you call, but I hear your voice beep in on the answering machine every day.

  You speak in a cadence and tone that sound too bright and breezy for a call about dead daughters. Momma is about to click delete on your message when your voice pitches up in a singsong melody. “A teacher from your daughter’s school has sent lilies for her service. They are lovely and we just need to…” You never say my name. You speak as if my momma isn’t replaying your message on the other end, shaking. You speak, unhearing, as Momma tears through the cabinets and finds the chipped glass vase and throws it against the wall. You speak as Momma falls to her knees and grasps the glass in her hands just to let them bleed.

  And when you say goodbye, Momma is crying.

  I wonder if she is thinking about blue skies and wildflowers.

  I lie down beside her and stare at the cracked ceiling as she weeps.

  20

  Momma,

  The memories slip and slide and I feel unsteady.

  You and Father are at the dining table.

  I sit where I usually do at the end of the table. Watching. Just watching.

  Your face is still painted like a clown with too much color. You sit at the table and I can tell something is missing, though I’m not sure what it is. I study the makeup, the heavy mascara and eyeliner, the plumpness of your red lips, the way that your hair is curled perfectly to frame your face. Not a strand out of place.

  So what is it? What is the “it” that is missing? You eat your food quietly, one hand on the spoon, one in your lap. You look smaller somehow. You were always taller than me, but now it looks like the chair could swallow you up. You aren’t slumped over or crying anymore. You are there like any other Thursday, eating your dinner and itching to leave.

  That is when I see it: a tear in the vinyl plastic tablecloth covered with baskets of oranges by the hundreds, the one from the downtown Dollar City faded to a deteriorating yellow. I hated that tablecloth. It’s old and ugly and I remember trying to count all the baskets at breakfast just so I didn’t have to look up. But that rip … I’ve never seen it before. I stare at it. It’s a small slit about an inch wide that cuts straight through a basket. It isn’t far from where I used to sit, where I sit now; it’s nearly at the halfway point between where you and I sat, so why didn’t I see it?

  I clench my eyes shut. Something used to be there; something covered it up. A plate? A glass. My eyes open wider, remembering.

  No. A hand.

  Your hand. It was always there, delicately placed on top of the cut, your fingers relaxed and slightly spread out, your arm extended just a little too much for comfort.

  A hand. For me.

  I was the one who was supposed to see it. The way your hand was like an offering, reaching. I’m here, your hand had said.

  I stare at the spot now. The spot without your hand to cover it. Hadn’t I seen the way you snuck glances at me? I thought they were silent pleas to behave, to not say a word. I thought they were a silent chastisement. But they weren’t, were they? Your eyes were pleading. Not for me to behave. Not for me to be quiet. But for me to see you reaching. Your eyes never lingered long. For fear that Father would catch you? Or because I never looked back?

  I remember holding your hand as a child. Your hands had been so big and warm and soft. I remember knowing, right down to my bones, that your hands would keep me safe. I hadn’t felt that way in a long time, but then again, I hadn’t held your hand in a long time.

  I remember that hand that had seemed so innocently placed; I remember catching glimpses and seeing how there were tiny spiderwebs of lines, wrinkles, and pink knuckles; pale skin, calluses, and a cut; ragged cuticles, bit fingernails, and chipping nail polishes. You didn’t care what your hands looked like. You didn’t cover them up because the bruises weren’t there. But I saw the ruined part of you that told tales in something as inconsequential as the skin on your bare hands. And those real, naked, ruined hands had been there reaching for me.

  And I never reached back.

  Now, you sit unreaching because you think there is
n’t anything to reach for. I stare at you and I see it. That “it” that is missing. Your eyes are counting the baskets, far-off and resigned. Nothing glimmers or shines in your eyes and I feel like it is a punch to my gut that I never saw it before. You had plans, didn’t you? I can see it … the way your eyes had always been here, but not really. Something was ticking and gears were turning, and I just didn’t see.

  Now you don’t have any plans. Nothing is clicking, turning, or cranking. Your eyes are dead.

  Just like mine.

  But you aren’t dead.

  Not yet.

  And I wish your hand was propped up over that broken basket …

  And I wish, and wish, and wish that your eyes still shone, because they were beautiful and secret.

  I miss your beautiful secret eyes.

  21

  Momma,

  Father is snoring in your bedroom. You had stayed quiet all evening, but once he fell asleep, you went into my room. You must’ve scoured through it while I was at August’s house. You found my stash of Ms. Hooper’s papers beneath a stack of my books and they are in a neat pile on the floor.

  You take in a deep breath and walk toward my bed. You kneel next to my mattress as if in prayer, which strikes me as strange because you haven’t prayed in a long time. I guess pain pushes us back to our knees sometimes. Pushes us until the only place we can set our sights is up; otherwise, we break.

  You put your fingers under my mattress and then lift it. I frown. It feels like an invasion. I want to slap your bandaged hand away. I run forward, but then I see the hole in the box spring. A neat square where a box is hiding.