Category : Stories

Sub Category : Fiction

There were never any clouds anymore. Blue sky woke me in the morning and stars kept me up at night. Birds chirped at the sun but not as often as before. Even the squirrels weren’t collecting nuts anymore, like they were scared of something. I thought maybe they didn’t like the woman either, but they were probably more frightened of Beau the Pitbull. He was six months old and liked to jump and lick and chase. He loved tug of war, but he was strong and always pulled me across the patio so sometimes I was scared to play with him. 
	We had to be careful on the patio anyway. There were piles of rusted metal thrown everywhere and I didn’t want either of us to have to get one of those shots from the doctor. I didn’t like doctors and Beau didn’t like Vets. 
	Every morning I had to go to school and leave Beau alone whining on the patio. No one ever played with him like I did, not with all the other dogs in the house. The woman fostered a bunch of dogs all the time, like the yappy little Shih Tzu that always waited in the kitchen for someone to feed her, and the giant brown bear they called a dog who lazed around all day. He liked to sleep in the middle of the kitchen and yawn when we tripped over him, like he got some giggles out of it or something. I only liked him because I could stick my arm up to my elbow into his fur. I named him “Bear”. 
	My parents and I lived in a room downstairs in the woman’s house where there was no air conditioning and daddy long-legs overthrew the shower. I swiped them away every morning and they always crawled back at night, mocking me. Soon I just took to cowering underneath their webs praying they stayed in their corners while I took my shower. 
	The woman always cackled like a witch. I liked to think she placed the spiders in our shower on purpose. I always heard her through the room door talking to her daughters. They were the twins who never smiled. I think that’s why the woman smiled so often, even when she shouldn’t have. 
	She smiled at me the morning of the day she left. She stood humming over a pan of eggs. I dragged my backpack across the kitchen floor and she smiled large and fake. 
	“Ready for school?”
	I nodded because I didn’t like to talk, especially not to someone who hid so much in her eyes. There was no use in being authentic with someone inauthentic. Outside, my parents waited in the long blue Ranchero and I squeezed in between them. The woman’s hums echoed behind my own thoughts on the way across town; there was something dark hidden behind her whitened teeth, something vicious that kept her lips sealed to the Jack Daniels bottles. 
Her daughters saw it too, but they didn’t care. They stayed upstairs with their friends and played loud music and drank illegal beers until they all fell asleep. More often they screamed and stomped their feet when it was their turn to clean the dishes or wash Beau. The twin with the rainbow colors in her hair didn’t like authority and she liked breaking dishes to show her frustration. She always screamed: 
	“Why don’t you do it lazy ass? You don’t do anything around here!” 	
	“Neither do you!” Her mother stomped her foot too. “You can’t even take the damn dog for a walk!” 
	“Oh? And who cleans up after it? After all of them? Me! I can’t do everything around here!” 
	“I’m at work all day, Sasha!” 
	“You drink all day, Mom, that’s not work!” 
	There was silence, then some more dishes thrown in the sink. The woman never gave an answer; I think that’s why the twins never smiled. 
	She was three quarters of the way finished with a bottle when I got home from school the day she left. After dinner we heard wails from her room, shouts, and holes being kicked into the walls. The twins couldn’t enter her room without getting glass thrown in their face or threats and insults hurled in their direction. My dad pushed past the girls to knock on the sobbing woman’s door. He had a way with blubbering drunks because he was one often too. 
	Everything was quiet until the sirens came. The woman wobbled in the center of the kitchen, surrounded by her daughters who gripped her left wrist tightly, unable to stop the red from oozing between their fingers. Viscous goblets slid down the girl’s wrists and dropped from their elbows to the floor. The stains spread as footprints smooshed them into the tile. The woman’s cheeks must have gotten tired of keeping up the act because they weren’t smiling anymore. 
	Randy the EMT knew I had a test in life science tomorrow. He asked if I was ready for it. I smiled and nodded; he smiled, wished me luck, and patted my head. He knew about my test because I told him two weeks ago, the day the woman swallowed all of her Xanax and a bottle of Jack. 
	Him and my father laughter about something over my head. They were good friends by now. They parted ways with a smile. 
	The twins went to bed. The woman would be gone another three days, at least, and they would need to be up early to ditch school and throw another party. 
	I knew the woman would sit through the hospital and smile. The doctors would smile and she would come home with the same gauze on her wrist and smile some more until her cheeks got tired again. I smiled that night because I was scared of what could happen if I didn’t.