Simple Things
Page 32
Except Rachel didn’t feel any safer with Gary. And Mr. Brown was sad because he was too little to protect Kitty or Terrance. Or Rachel.
***
Mommy had to work again. And no amount of pleading would convince her to stay home. That was bad enough. But then Gary said, “Maybe we’ll have Rachel take a bath while you’re gone. Getting about time for a bath. Dirty kid here.”
Gary would always make Rachel take a bath, after. On those days when he would come into her room and do those things that made her feel bad.
She felt her stomach turn heavy, solid. Like she was going to throw up. Like it was full of rocks. “I don’t need a bath!”
“Of course you do.”
She held onto Mommy until the very last minute. Until both grownups peeled the girl from her mother’s thigh. And then Mommy was gone.
Rachel padded down the hall to her room. Quiet. Quiet. Maybe Gary would forget about her. Maybe he would fall asleep or start watching the TV. Maybe he would drink so much beer that he couldn’t do that stuff today. She tiptoed through the door and eased it shut.
“Hide!” Bun Bun said to her from behind the pillow. “You have to hide!”
She felt the tears pile up in her eyes and then spill down her cheeks. “I can’t! There isn’t any hiding place!”
Mr. Brown said “What about the cave?! Hide in the cave!”
“I can’t.” Her breath came in panicked gasps now. She fought to keep from sobbing. Quiet. Quiet. Stay Quiet.
***
It was a long time before those familiar steps came down the hall. Long enough that Rachel had started to hope he might have forgotten about her. Long enough for her to wonder if things might really be okay tonight.
Then the irregular, soft step step step on the carpet. The approaching footfalls of a wounded man who has finished a six pack.
She whispered, “Oh no.” Then a wordless peep escaped her lips.
Mr. Brown growled. A faint, synthetic cotton growl of shame and anger.
The knob turned, clicked. Then the door opened. Gary.
“There she is,” his words were slurred. The way Mommy and Daddy sometimes talked funny in the mornings when Rachel woke them up. “My good, sweet, little girl.”
She hated when he said things like that. Those were the kind of things Daddy used to say. But then Gary took them and made them into something bad. Something terrible.
She could smell his breath. Even before he crossed the room. Beer and cigarettes and Fritos. Then he closed the room and walked toward her. And the smell of his breath was even stronger.
“Why don’t you come here and sit with your new daddy?” He picked her up by the waist and set her on his lap. With his thing already hard, poking at her through his pants, mocking. She didn’t see what happened. She usually kept her eyes closed. Shut out the world. Shut out the bad.
She felt Gary’s hand slide where it shouldn’t go. She smelled the man’s sewer breath. She heard his twisted words.
Then she heard something else. Mr. Brown. He said something about Kitty. Something about Terrance. He said “Sorry” to Daddy.
And then Rachel was on the floor. Her eyes focused in time to see a blur, something brown, big, exiting through a hole that was surrounded by broken plaster and wood. A hole bigger than the door that used to be there.
There was a scream that just ended in the middle. Like somebody was yelling on a TV show, but then the TV set got unplugged before they were done. And then no sound but a coarse snuffling and the plodding of giant paws.
Mr. Brown sauntered back into the bedroom. Just able to squeeze through the ragged space where the doorframe had been torn away. He sat up and licked gore from his claws and muzzle. “Ice cream?”
They walked down the dark, mossy tunnel to his cave. Past the mud room. Past the coat closet. To the den.
Mr. Brown said that was kind of silly. Because since he was a bear, the whole place was a den. So maybe this room was the den.
That made Rachel think of something. “Where’s Bun Bun?”
“Hmmnn.” Mr. Brown scratched his head. “Why don’t you sit on the couch? It’s more comfortable than those chairs… I think Bun Bun is probably hiding someplace outside. Rabbits do that.” He turned to leave, then stopped and said, “He’ll probably stop by for dinner though. He usually does. You know how rabbits are.” Then he went to the kitchen where there was a loud clanging of pots and pans.
He returned with two ice cream cones. Honey and berry and mango. Three scoops each.
The bear sat on the couch, next to Rachel, and she leaned against him. The ice cream was sweet and good. Rachel and Mr. Brown sat, and they felt safe and together. And for the right now, that was enough.
THANK YOU,
Please Come Again
Oh my. Would you look at the time?
I’m afraid it’s time to close shop for now. I do hope you have enjoyed your visit here and found something to take with you on a sleepless night.
If you did enjoy our shop, please tell your friends about us. I’m positive we have something just right for them, as well.
Do come back and visit again, as often as you’d like.
But for now, I’m afraid it’s Lights Out.
Franklin E. Wales, October 2016