Love Tricks

Short story of a family lost in abuse and silence.

Love Tricks

 

Hers was a life of small whispers and slight existence. She offered up frequent prayers, watching as they fell unheeded to the ground, each plea to remain invisible as it departed her heart. Her hope in God was gone, yet calling out to him was a part of a simple routine to which she held fast. There was normalcy in prayer, answered or not. So many big people spoke of prayer’s immense power.

She was now alone in her bedroom. Past experience held that her father would not return; he never came to her more than once a night. Opening her eyes slightly, she stared vacantly at the doorknob, imagined it spinning around in violent circles, wobbling in anger. Smoke billowed from the hidden mechanism inside, spewing hatred, vitriol dripping heavy globules. Short breaths1 staggered unevenly from her chest, each one hurting and shaking her, chattering her bones one against another.

“Please, just let me sleep. Please. I’ll be good.”

 

                ***

 

So many things had changed with her parents; her entire world was in upheaval, flinging her as a boneless bag of flesh. She knew hers was a life of shame, unlike the world other children her age inhabited. Her classmates lived in a universe she did not understand, it was make believe. A home life that created such smiles and carefree laughter was beyond belief. They were all liars. Every single one of them.

Her mother had grown away from her, as if avoiding the scalding touch of an oven door. The woman spoke lately of her sleep habits, they being suddenly changed. “I slept like a rock last night!” This she said loudly, as if her daughter might not hear it, or perhaps thinking louder was closer to the truth. Such sound sleeping allowed for nightly things to go unheard; the creaking of the bedroom doors therefore did not exist, her husband climbing out of their marital bed did not happen. This sudden onset of night deafness was expected to go unquestioned by them all -  father, mother, daughter. Short of the house falling in upon them, the mother denied knowledge of nocturnal events. They all three held tight, silently to this story, it being a lone tree in life’s storm.

“You know honey that your father provides very well for us all.” This tumbled from her mother’s lips with practiced ease.

 

                ***

 

Outside, the darkness prevailed in its gloom and concealment. In her room, the pink cherubs bordering the ceiling seemed suddenly so mocking. And what did the stuffed animals know of her pain? They bore witness to her father’s visits and, later, her plaintive cries. She’d grown to hate their mere presence in her life, the mute witnesses to her suffering. Their friendship was of no value. There was no reciprocity to her many kindnesses toward them. They had thrown their allegiance to her father, knowing that any strength lie with him. For that, though, she couldn’t blame them so much. Would she not do the same if all was reversed? This was where she chose to leave the situation, imagining that she had friends surrounding her. Plush and silent, she could not fault them for their lack of loyalty in time of crisis. Less than perfect friends were better than none at all.

 

                ***

 

She’d once had a kitten. Black with tiny flecks of white across her forelegs and face, like snow had landed upon her and not yet melted. At night, Blackie would knead her front paws across the girl’s chest, purring in delight. The animal grew beyond the fringes of youth and became a cat. And so grew trouble. The litter box was faithfully cleaned twice a day; she kept Blackie mostly confined to her room. Yet frayed edges appeared one day on the living room sofa. One day she arrived home from school to find Blackie missing. She was told the cat had gotten out through the patio door and had not returned.  Crying out for her companion did nothing, much like prayer. She soon realized such pleas were to go unanswered.

 

                ***

 

At times her mother was overly solicitous, a hovering entity of annoyance. Just as extreme were the moments of total avoidance. Any middle ground was touched upon only briefly, as if the woman could not breathe except at one extreme or another.

One Monday morning the girl came to the breakfast table in tears. She’d appeared upon hearing her father leave for his office; her mother sat at the table, deeply into a magazine. On the kitchen counter stood a bowl, a box of Fruit Loops, and a half-gallon carton of 2% milk, all in a tidy row. Everywhere was the scent and sparkle of cleanliness, a sense of any previous substance having been scrubbed away. The girl sniffled her way to the breakfast cereal, seeing her mother momentarily glance her way. The magazine quickly rose to again block the woman’s entire face.

Munching in piercing silence, the last of the girl’s tears dried upon her cheeks. The focus on food momentarily dulled her memories of earlier that morning. The central air unit hummed outside her window, clicking on and off as it cooled the house with an evenness that she found hard to understand. She’d wondered then about the June bugs she often saw on the outside window ledge; how simple life was as a bug.

“You know I haven’t any job skills to speak of.” The words came floating from behind the magazine, a disembodied artifact. Then night deafness isn’t a job skill, the girl reasoned. Nor smiles fake with serenity or an overly scrubbed home.

Huddled earlier in the dark hours before dawn, the child had learned of love; its unspoken remains now presented itself at the breakfast table, sat down as a family member. Love she knew as savage and unfair, at once perched tall on whispered sweetness and then shackled heavy to an asterisk both secretive and frightening.

Love was still love.

 

                ***

 

Always fearful of raising her hand, of questioning life, she went about in silence, an apparition set in stark relief against the ways of other children Answering questions at school was done with a minimum of words, capped with an obligatory upturn of her thin lips. She saw no reason to trust a teacher; closeness caused problems.  

Living shrunken and scared during all hours of her life, her father whispered at all times that he loved her. And to be quiet. Very, very quiet. Or else. Shhh, that is what she remembered. And his finger held to his lips. Love came with admonitions; there were caveats. Such was the order of life for the family.

Love was still love.

 

                ***

 

She’d felt nothing about her looks, believing that one’s bone structure, their eye color and smooth skin, were the luck of the draw. They didn’t amount to any kind of accomplishment. Look what her blossoming pretty had gotten her  -   many male friends, not one girlfriend of any note. And still the attention of her father; more attention. Her mother had changed, filling with gin the vast and uninhabited gray area she’d previously avoided. 

The girl’s clothes were beginning to feel tight. The test told her why. It didn’t really matter. She was fifteen now, had been with many boys over the past couple of years. Her father still visited her. She thought a baby was foolish wanting to join the world. Finding a moment when her mother seemed lucid, she had the conversation, telling of her condition.

“Yes, I’m sure. I took the test. Twice.”

A mask of horror occupied her mother’s face. Mumblings of “what” became a soft utterance of “who?” Mother grabbed daughter, “We’ll get rid of it. Just don’t tell anyone.”

Shh. Our little secret.

 

                ***

 

Her mother was sober the day they drove the two hundred miles across the state line. The woman spoke in complete sentences, her hands weren’t shaking. The girl wanted desperately to have a drink of her own, but she didn’t want to hurt the baby. She was uncertain as to what a baby would feel, but it was her little blob in her belly.

The girl remembered what she’d been told. “He provides us our beautiful home. Our clothes, this car.” And the gin. And don’t forget his love.

They were home before dark. The girl fidgeted in her seat on the way home, testing her jeans. They still seemed tight. Silently she went over a list of things she would take with her. She hadn’t much money, maybe $700 dollars in all, but she would get a bus ticket to go somewhere down south. Some place warm, so she could sleep outside. She wasn’t scared. She’d faced down being scared. A sort of numb futility governed her now.

She would go alone upon small expectations, leaving love behind.