by Paul Pen
The fingers invaded Rick’s mouth. The taste of gasoline turned his stomach. After a fingernail scraped the roof of his mouth, the edge of the glass touched his lips. He felt the tablets roll on his tongue. He received the water with such eagerness, the dry tissues of his throat hurt as they crackled.
But forcing himself not to swallow hurt even more.
He let the liquid escape slowly from the corners of his mouth, as if it were a meaningless trickle, so that Elmer wouldn’t suspect that he wasn’t swallowing the medicine. The lack of air made Rick feel like his head was inflating. It burned. He couldn’t hold on much longer.
Elmer left the glass on the bedside table.
He walked to the door.
He locked it from the outside.
Rick spat out the water as he regained his breath. He choked. The coughing hurt his ribs and every muscle down to his ankles. Even so, he smiled when he spat the three pills onto the pillow. One rolled off the pillow and fell onto the floor. Rick sucked the wet sheet to quench his thirst.
Melissa sat in front of her cacti with Clark between her legs. The sand scraped her backside through her nightgown.
“I’m going to need a lot of help,” she said to them. “I have to make a decision.”
The warm breeze had dried her tears on the walk here. The sun was shining on her face, offering a pleasant warmth. She wanted to enjoy the sensation, but new tears emerged onto her cheeks. She swallowed salty saliva while she told Needles, Pins, and Thorns what had happened.
Pins was the first to ask her a question.
“Tied up,” Melissa replied. “He can’t move.”
Melissa listened to the opinions of each of them, turning her face toward whoever was speaking.
“Of course not,” she responded to Thorns. “I want us to stay together.”
Needles said something.
“Yeah, I know.”
She nodded while he explained himself. Pins added something.
“So what do I do?”
Needles vehemently defended his position, but Thorns took the opposite view. Pins, like Melissa, was unable to make up his mind.
“I could call Socorro.”
The idea reignited the debate. Thorns got angry.
“I don’t want that!” Melissa answered. “They’re my parents!”
Needles counterattacked.
“Iris? I don’t know,” Melissa said. “Edelweiss?”
She took note of Thorns’s opinion. Pins asked a question.
“To have never found out,” she responded.
Melissa kept listening to their arguments until the three cacti began to blur. The green of their bodies blended with the colors of their clothes. Melissa covered her face so they wouldn’t see her cry.
“I don’t know what I should do,” she sobbed. “I honestly don’t know.”
Pins made a joke about hugging her despite his spines, but Melissa wasn’t in the mood to smile.
Someone yelled her name in the distance. She turned her head, moving her hair aside with her little fingers. Iris was calling her from the porch. She was gesturing at her to come.
“I’ll be back later,” she said to the cacti.
She returned to the house with Clark, who hadn’t said a word during the conversation. In the kitchen, she found Iris at the stove.
“Morning,” Iris said, and broke an egg on the edge of the pan.
She intoned the greeting like a melody and accompanied it with a broad smile. A pinkish radiance colored her cheeks. All of her skin, her shoulders, her chest, seemed brighter, more full of life.
“I said good morning.” She looked at Melissa with her hair to one side, her neck stretched as long as Mom’s. Even her breasts seemed more voluminous—they wobbled when she stirred the eggs with a wooden spatula. “Why that countenance?”
“And why are you so cheerful?” Melissa retorted.
Iris raised her eyebrows. Her eyes were shining in a way similar to when she was reading her romantic novels. The curve of her lips was the one that having a secret gave them.
“Tell me why,” Melissa insisted.
Iris took a while to respond.
“Do I need a reason?” She breathed in as she shrugged. “It’s summer, the cactuses are flowering. I’m reading a fabulous book by my favorite author. I’m young. I’m pretty . . .”
Melissa stopped paying attention. She fled to the refrigerator. Iris came up behind her.
“. . . and I have a wonderful sister. How could I not be happy?”
Iris planted a wet kiss on her cheek. While Melissa was trying to wriggle out of an asphyxiating hug, the twins appeared in the kitchen wearing their red pajamas. Seeing the display of affection, they joined with their arms open.
“Sorry, I have three wonderful sisters,” Iris said.
The twins laughed. They buried their heads in the middle of the huddle, as if that demonstrated their love even more. All of a sudden, Daisy pulled hers out, her hair in a mess.
“You actually have four.”
“Four wonderful sisters!” Iris yelled, aiming her mouth at the back door. “Sorry, Edelweiss!”
Mom walked into the kitchen. “If only they were like this every morning.”
Melissa sensed that Mom intended to join them in the group hug. She broke away before her mother had a chance, separating from her sisters with her elbows.
“Darn, too late.” Rose knotted an apron to her waist.
“Is he any better?” Iris indicated the ceiling with her eyes, referring to Rick.
“Getting there.”
Glass bottles clinked in the refrigerator when Melissa slammed it shut.
“Somebody woke up in a bad mood,” Mom observed.
Melissa sat at the table without responding. She watched her family while she served herself some cereal.
Mom spoke to Iris. “You slept better, huh?” She removed a lock of hair from her daughter’s face. “You’re radiant.”
The pink of Iris’s cheeks deepened until a toasted smell emanated from the frying pan. Iris ran to take the eggs off the heat. Daisy and Dahlia pulled on Mom’s apron.
“We slept well, too.”
“We slept very well.”
Their mother knelt down and let the twins cuddle her.
“Are you hungry?”
“Really hungry!”
“Really, really hungry!”
The three of them touched noses in a gesture of animal affection, a mother sniffing her cubs’ muzzles.
“It seems to be Melissa who hasn’t got used to her new bed.” Mom sat opposite her. “You look like you’ve had a terrible night. And Dad told me you were already up at dawn, wandering around out there. I hope you were wearing proper shoes.”
Melissa pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth so that tears wouldn’t give her away. Mom leaned forward. Resting on her elbows, she brought her face closer. She looked from side to side to make sure Melissa’s sisters weren’t listening.
“Do you want us to put Iris down on the sofa tonight? And you sleep in her bed?”
Behind Mom, where Melissa could see her, Iris held her hands together in a plea, the spatula pointing to the ceiling.
“There’s no need, Mom.”
“Sure there is, you’ve spent two nights down here.”
Iris intensified the entreaty, interlocking her fingers.
“She’s taller. It’d be a tighter squeeze for her.”
“You sure?”
“Honestly, Mom, there’s no need.”
“Sure you’re sure?”
“I’m getting used to it now.”
Mom glanced behind Melissa, to where the twins must have been.
“Is Iris pleading with you behind my back?”
Melissa turned around. In Mom’s view, Daisy and Dahlia were copying Iris’s imploring gesture. Seeing them, she let out a guffaw. Even Iris burst into laughter. The twins joined in, bringing Mom with them.
“Well, as long as you two agree,” she sa
id to Iris and Melissa, “as far as I’m concerned, you can sleep where you want.”
“Where you want!”
“On the moon!”
“On a cactus!”
The twins’ silly comments rekindled the others’ laughter, but Melissa suddenly lost enthusiasm.
“Honey, don’t be so serious.” Mom rested a hand on hers. “It won’t be for long.”
To those words Melissa could now ascribe a terrible meaning.
Dad walked into the kitchen, doing up the zipper on his coveralls.
“How I love hearing you all laugh like that.”
Iris went up to him. “Sorry for getting the way I did yesterday.” On tiptoes, she kissed him on the cheek. “Mom explained everything.”
Her mother got up, placed a tender hand on Iris’s shoulder, and kissed Dad on his cheek.
“What have I done to deserve such a lovely wife and kids?” he asked.
Daisy and Dahlia joined the group.
“Now all I need to be the happiest man on earth is for my middle daughter to stop making that sad face,” Dad said. “I just need one smile from my middle daughter.”
Melissa observed the family tableau in front of her. A few days ago she would’ve felt inspired to immortalize the moment in her sketchbook, but now she wasn’t so sure what the image meant. She pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth again. This time she wasn’t going to be able to contain the tears. Then she saw the twins stretching their lips. They did it in such an exaggerated way that their eyes closed. Then they opened them, puckering their mouths. It was as if they were teaching her to smile and checking how effective their lesson was.
Melissa broke into a smile.
“Done.” Dad raised his arms. “I’m the happiest man in the world.”
After breakfast, the family went out to say goodbye to Dad. Melissa stayed in the kitchen. From the shelves where Iris kept some of her novels and Mom kept the jar of money, she picked up the science book she’d used for the last time three days ago, when Socorro took them outside to illustrate the lesson on plant reproduction.
She took the book to the living room and sat on the sheet that was still tangled up on the sofa.
She opened it to the first page.
Where Socorro had written down her telephone number.
Melissa looked at the teacher’s handwriting. She went over the numbers one by one, imagining how she’d dial them on the telephone at Dad’s gas station, to tell Socorro what she’d discovered.
From outside, the twins’ laughter reached her. The pickup’s engine started, and that was followed by the drag of tires on the dirt. The porch creaked.
“Let’s see if Dad can fix this screen door soon,” she heard Mom say.
Daisy sped through the front door, aboard an imaginary airplane. Dahlia pursued her with her arms stretched out on either side. They landed in the kitchen. Before Mom or Iris came into the living room, Melissa turned to another page in the book. A schematic diagram on lepidopteran metamorphosis appeared in front of her.
“You’re unbelievable,” Iris said when she saw her. “Studying on your vacation?”
Melissa didn’t bother to look up.
“Leave her be, will you?” Mom intervened. “Go see what the girls are doing. I don’t think they’re clearing up breakfast.”
Mom sat on the sofa next to her. “Honey, the vacation’s for relaxing.”
She tried to close the book, but Melissa kept it open.
“Socorro told me I could call her if I felt like talking to someone.”
Mom’s back tensed. “And you can’t talk to me? Isn’t your mother enough?”
“To someone from outside.” She looked away. “To talk about other stuff.”
“And bother a teacher in her free time? The classes have finished for her, too, remember.”
Iris spoke from the kitchen. She had Daisy on her back. “Calling the teacher in the summer,” she snorted. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“Never heard anything like it! Gee-up!”
Mom shushed them, waving her hand so that they’d leave her and Melissa in peace. They broke into another trot in front of the refrigerator.
“But if I wanted to call her,” Melissa went on, “what would I need to do?”
“I don’t think a teacher—”
“She’s more than a teacher to me, Mom. She’s my friend.”
“You’d have to go to the gas station with Dad”—Mom’s lips hardened—“and that’s a headache for everyone. Nobody’s going to bring you back, so you’d have to spend the whole day there.”
Melissa bit the inside of her lip. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to call Socorro. She thought of Rick’s eyes pleading for help from the bed. She looked at the window, at the land outside. She remembered the conversation with Needles, Pins, and Thorns.
“Can we ask Dad later?”
Mom took a while to respond.
“All right.” Her face relaxed. “If it means that much to you, we’ll ask him later. But you can forget that book. You’re on vacation.”
She snatched it from Melissa’s hands without giving her the chance to argue and went off to the kitchen. The book made a clapping sound as she dropped it onto the dining table.
“Melissa wants to talk to the teeeacher,” the twins taunted her from there. “Melissa wants to talk to the teeeacher . . .”
Melissa didn’t respond to the provocation. She gathered up the sheets, folded them, and shook the cushions.
Rick heard Elmer’s truck starting up. Through the window he saw the plume of dust moving away along the dirt track.
For the first time, he was awake after Elmer had left.
He began to squirm under the sheet. The pills that he’d spat onto the pillow rolled onto the mattress.
He screamed through clenched teeth after every twist.
After an agonizing minute, he no longer knew why he was moving around, or whether the suffering was worth it. He knew that letting himself be sedated again would have gotten him nowhere. As would remaining immobile. But struggling under the sheet with no chance of freeing his wrists or escaping seemed like an act of masochism.
Suicide.
Repeated lifting of his shoulders finished the work that Melissa had begun at dawn, when she tried to free the sheet from under the mattress before her father came in. Feeling the tightness of the material ease, Rick smiled. The skin of his cracked lips smarted as it split. He rocked himself from side to side, biting his tongue to distract himself from the pain in his legs. By swaying side to side, he managed to tip the sheet off, leaving himself uncovered.
“And now what?” he asked out loud.
A deep sigh deflated him when he looked at his naked body. Not just because of his injuries, but because of how obvious it was that any attempt to escape would be futile. His dislocated legs couldn’t hold him up—he could barely even move them. His hands were no use, tied up as they were.
Seeing the pencil on the bedside table reminded him of Melissa.
His only chance of salvation rested with that girl.
He tried to blow it off. A pencil on the floor would be less suspicious than one placed on the bedside table. With a little luck, it would roll under the bed and disappear from sight. Propelled by Rick’s puff, the pencil swiveled, pivoting on a single point on the tabletop.
Rick blew again. His lungs burned.
The pencil turned like a propeller, without moving from its place. The tip brushed against a crumpled medicine leaflet.
“Come on.”
When Rick blew again it provoked a coughing fit that made his ribs ache. He jerked his body against the bed in an attempt to knock the pencil off. The headboard battered the wall and the vibration was transmitted to the bedside table. The pencil moved toward the edge. He jerked again. It rolled closer. He gave another jerk. And another.
The pencil rolled off.
There was also a creaking sound above the headboard.
Rick saw
the pronounced bend in the shelf located directly above him. It was the one where he’d seen Elmer put the folder containing his documents. He tried banging the headboard against the wall once more. A loose nut danced on the bolt that must be holding up the shelf. Another blow almost forced the bolt from the wall. Releasing the fixture would make the entire unit come down.
Through the window, Rick heard footsteps outside.
“Iris!” Rose yelled from the porch. “Come here and help me fold this!”
“Is it yesterday’s laundry?” the twins asked.
“Yup, but get out of the way. We need space, they’re big sheets.”
“They smell like jasmine!”
“They smell like jasmine!”
Rick couldn’t understand what they said next.
“What, Mom?” Iris asked.
He considered shouting, calling for help. But then Rose would know that he wasn’t asleep and would come up to sedate him again. And any information that he screamed to the girls would sound like the rantings of a sick man.
“Take those corners,” said Rose.
“Are they his sheets?”
Rose didn’t answer, or did so in a low voice, because Rick heard no response. The twins were chanting something about Melissa and their teacher.
“Do you want me to help you change the bed for him?” Iris asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He heard Rose shake the material. “Come on, give me that. All right, done. I’m going up. You take the twins somewhere to play.”
Rick tensed on the bed.
“You can go see Melissa, she’s with her cactuses. She can quit talking to them and pay a little more attention to her sisters.”
“We’re her sisters!”
“We’re her sisters!”
Rick heard lots of sand peppering the wood of the porch. The twins must have gone running.
“Come on, go with them.”
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” Iris persisted. “It’ll be much quicker if we change the sheets together . . .”
Rose said something that was unclear from the bedroom, but the wooden porch stairs creaked under the weight of angry footsteps that must’ve been Iris’s. Then Rose went into the house.