Becky’s lungs burned. Before they’d seen the accident, she’d been running hard and fast down the sidewalk, desperate to escape her home, her mother, and especially June.
The two had ambushed her in the kitchen while she’d been making her breakfast—whole wheat English muffin with cream cheese and boysenberry jam. There was a seed from her first— and only—bite still stuck between two of her bottom teeth. Standing there on the corner, watching as the EMTs covered the bodies of the four boys who didn’t survive the crash, she attempted to free the seed with her tongue.
June stood a few feet away, and Becky could feel her eyes burning into her neck—a heat so intense she tilted her head and pressed her shoulder up against her ear. She wrapped her long, insect arms around her body—the first hug she’d received in years.
June called her “grasshopper.” She’d be ok with it if she believed the name was meant to describe her awkward teenage limbs and jumpy demeanor, but Becky knew it was because all June saw her as was a pesky insect she’d like to squash.
“You aren’t wearing shoes,” June now said, her voice thick with distaste.
Becky looked down at her bare feet. Both of her big toes were stubbed at the ends, the blood making tiny pools on the cold cement, and she could feel something sharp digging into her left heal.
“Looks that way,” she replied softly.
A police officer came jogging over. “Ladies, if you’ll just hold tight we’ll get someone over here to take a statement from you both.” When he noticed Becky’s bare feet, he added, “And an EMT to take care of those cuts.”
“She’s fine,” June told the officer. “She does it all the time, don’t you Becky?”
Becky knew June wasn’t referring to her bleeding toes, and she uncrossed her arms to pull the long sleeves of her nightshirt down tighter (she was still in her pajamas), clenching the wadded ends into her fists.
June and her mother had come into the kitchen to inform Becky they’d be taking her to a psychiatric facility for observation. Her stay would be indefinite, and she would need to eat, shower, and pack quickly because they had a baby shower to get to later that afternoon.
Lock Becky up in a padded room…check! Becky thought, imitating the way her mother crossed things off her to do list, never giving them a second thought.
June had hung back a little, hovering behind her mother just inside the kitchen’s archway. While Sharon’s face attempted to display concern, June’s wore a sneer and Becky thought for a minute she saw a twinkle in her eye.
Becky watched as one of the dead boys was being lifted onto a gurney and loaded into the back of an ambulance. She silently wished that she were the one in the body bag. If only she’d come to the corner a few seconds earlier, she might have been. She could tell June knew this too, and was just as disappointed that Becky hadn’t been fast enough.
“We’re definitely going to miss the shower now,” June sighed. “But don’t worry, there is still plenty of time to get you to the asylum.”
Becky didn’t have to look at June to know she was smiling. She blinked back the hot, salty tears that were beginning to form in her eyes. For a moment she wondered why she had been so focused on hurting herself rather than hurting June. If she’d run out of the house and down the street a minute, rather than seconds, earlier it could have been June’s soft, round body smeared across the asphalt.
Just like a squished jelly doughnut, Becky thought, and caught herself before laughing out loud.
It wouldn’t take much thought or effort on Becky’s part to retaliate when June made one of her nasty, awful comments. What stopped her was that part of her—a very small part—felt sorry for June.
June and Becky didn’t have the same father. June’s was much older than Becky’s 46-year-old dad, David was. He was also much larger, sweatier, and smelled like wet baloney. He didn’t come around much—and contributed nothing financially—but when he did, all Becky could do was stare and wonder how in the world her mother could ever find herself in bed with a man like that. Money would have explained it, but he’d never had any.
“He wasn’t like this when we were dating,” was all her mother would ever say on the subject.
June got her looks—and gland problems—from her dad, and therefore became the recipient of all their mother’s attention. It was like Sharon knew how hard June was going to have it with girls and boys alike, and so made her life at home as easy as possible. Becky, on the other hand, could always do better according to her mother.
But even with all of their mother’s love and attention, June still despised her little sister and wanted her gone.
“It’s not going to change things the way you think it will,” Becky whispered.
“What was that, grasshopper?”
Becky took a deep breath, straightened and squared her shoulders, then looked her fat sister square in the eye hoping June could feel the same heat she had moments ago been searing into Becky’s neck.
“I said it’s not going to change things the way you think—the way you hope—it will. You are still going to be fat and sweaty with a deadbeat dad and mom as your only friend!”
June’s eyes widened and her jaw went slack. But before she could say or do anything, the police officer returned.
“Ok ladies, we are ready to take your statements. Who wants to go first?”
No comments:
Post a Comment