Oh, the steps I’ve taken to make you happy, always hoping you would be proud of me while I entertained your cronies, raised our children, and played with our grandchildren even as you disappeared weekend after weekend after weekend. I forgave every excuse you delivered with harsh words and rock-hard fists. Today, I’m saying goodbye and good luck. No regrets. May your golden years and your new wife serve you well.
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Posted: May 25, 2023 in Friday Fictioneers
My life wasn’t supposed to turn out all jumbly with different events stacked one atop another without sequence or meaning. Admittedly, wearing my own rendition of rose-colored glasses made time pass – beautifully. Every minute, every hour looked better after a sip of wine, a glass of whiskey, a line of cocaine or two. Meth. But one can live like that for only so long. Pressure builds, and BOOM, time disappears. Ask Angie Mike Tessa Larry. All their lights went out last month. Mine is starting to dim. And really? I don’t much care.
Mother tended this garden – difficult at best while rearing ten children and pandering to a husband more child than man. The fruits of her labor fed us: corn, beets, carrots, and rabbits trapped for stew.
Father wasn’t worth shite. Drank. Womanized. Bet money on hound races. After her mind failed, he bought her an easel, sans paper and paint. What was he thinking? (Rhetorical question.)
Yet, today, I found her with a watercolor painting.
Mother?
Oh, my sweet Conor, I’ve created a picture of the house I’d like to live in after we’re married. Can you make that happen? Please?
People called them The Sisters Three. Each had her own shape, tone, and a radically different idea of what they expected from life.
Andrea wore off-the-shoulder dresses, drank too much, blushed a come-hither look at men, then pushed them away when they got too close.
Bobette played guitar in a local rock-and-roll band. Her sisters never attended the concerts, claiming the music hurt their ears.
Claudia? A buttoned-down librarian. All day, she helped patrons, then zipped home to read with her cat, Freya, on her lap.
Yet they had so much fun at Sunday dinners. Sharing stories and telling lies.
(When my sisters and I were helping our mom through hospice, the nurses referred to us as the sisters three when they did a morning update at the hospice center before sending a nurse to come out to give Mom a bath, change the sheets on her bed, and make sure we were doing ok. They were pretty impressed by how well we got along for the three months we took care of our parents. Dad was blind and needed lots of care, too. None of us fit any of the descriptions of these sisters, but that’s part of the stories and lies -something my granddad used to say. Thanks for reading.)
Daredevil Thomas met every challenge from his third birthday until his eighteenth. Yeah, at three, he climbed kitchen cabinets—not life-threatening. Just a start.
Fourteen? Chugged rum while friends egged him on. One! Two! Three! Go! Tommy! Go!
At eighteen, he met his final challenge when he loaded a rusty metal rock-mining sleigh on his best friend’s logging truck, pulled it to the top of Lucky Hill, jumped inside, and with a loud YYYEEEEHHHAAA! rocked down the mountain straight into a tree.
Now the sleigh rests beside the school, covered with the names of tearful friends graffitied on the sides.
The man was downright creepy. His clothes rustled when he walked, probably because they were made from recycled, green plastic bags. Angelina couldn’t fathom what her sister saw in him. And, yeh, he smelled like humus, as if he’d just rolled around in the dirt. Still, she sat in one of his marshmallowy “pod” chairs and asked questions -trying to appear interested in him. Work? Not often. Age? Doesn’t matter. Previously married? Five times.
Drink? No thanks. Snack? Nope.
Where is my sister? She was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago.
Oh! I believe she’s out in the garden.
Daddy warned me to stay away from Luke Tabor’s party. Said Luke was one bad apple. While Daddy yapped, my mind saw Luke’s handsome face, bluer-than-blue eyes, and curly black hair any girl, every girl, longed to twist around her fingers.
Waltzing out the door in my tight black dress and red stilettos borrowed from Momma’s closet, I flipped him the bird.
Midnight. Drivin’ home, high on some random white pill. Drunk on scotch, whiskey, red wine. My dress is torn. Momma’s shoes? Don’t know where they are.
God willin’ and the river don’t rise, I’m prayin’ I ain’t pregnant.
I’m one of the whitest girls you’ll ever lay eyes on – not quite albino, but boys claim I glow in the dark. They’re stupid.
Mama says I’ll grow into my wild, curly hair that looks just like my bestie Lucinda’s afro. Only my hair is wilder and practically see-through. Can’t imagine ever growing into it.
Daddy says I’m gonna be real tall, like him. Imagine! I’ll probably look like a sapling with too many leaves on top.
Case you’re wondering, not one iota of this bothers me. When I look in the mirror, I see a girl just getting started.
Let’s say she’s sitting in a cafe. In Paris, raindrops blur the activity on the street. People coming. And going. No one matters but Thomas. Going. So many promises unkept.
No, she’s in Ireland watching the On-and-Off bus drive away while tears fill her eyes. Her father sits in the front row only moments after telling her he isn’t really her father. Evidently, he thought no explanation was needed.
She is everywhere and nowhere at once; both raindrops and tears blur her vision. But her mind is clear. Men are cruel and unnecessary.
She slowly formulates a plan.
At five, my friends and I swarmed over rocks while our parents sat at picnic tables, laughing, gabbing about births, new cars, boring jobs.
At thirteen, we snuck into the woods for experimental kissing while our parents laughed and gabbed about deaths, broken-down cars, retirement.
Twenty-one turned our minds toward marriage. Many had ceremonies on the park’s open lawn; a few already had children, broken-down cars, and boring jobs.
Years flew by. Everyone had children. Some had fulfilling jobs, some divorced, and many had illnesses we’d never heard of.
Now, the tables sit empty, but the sound of laughter remains.
Momma taught me weaving.
Weft. Warp. Take-up. Let-off.
Color. Texture.
Figuring men don’t much like the female world, we made us a place in the barn loft, where menfolk only went at Christmas to retrieve the plastic tree.
But Uncle Toby, Boxman and Coxum – upriver twins, and Father Axend kept sniffing around me and Momma, finding excuses to come upstairs to put their grimy hands on us.
Enough.
We wove a web.
Come for a jigger of whiskey. Sit here. Scooch left. Perfect.
Each time Momma opened the trap door and a man was let-off, she and I clinked jiggers.
Our desire? Escape from over here to over there. Here? A place filled with so many angry words pulling our shoulders down with their ugly weight, we almost – almost – fell into the trap of hatred. There? A place filled with light and laughter. Swirls of color. Music. Our family walked miles to find the promised land filled with people raising slender arms toward the sky, praising the powers that be. But, upon reaching the ribbon of stone, we realized we could only observe their joy. Outsiders weren’t welcome. They jeered at us, lowered their arms, and fled into the night.
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