Summer Day

I sat inside my mothers clothes hamper watching her get dressed.  I had thrown the clothes that had been in the hamper under my bed and ran back to her room, climbing in when she was taking a shower.  The only way I could fit into the basket is if I sat with my knees pressed against my chest and my arms folded at my sides.  I had to turn my head to the side, my cheek pressed against my knees so my head wouldn’t be seen.  From the hamper I could see the room clearly even though everything was tinted with brown.  It was like looking through a screen door:  I could see her but she couldn’t see me.  I breathed lightly so I wouldn’t move so much and not to take in the smell of mold and cheep perfume.  The wicker of the hamper began to dig into my shins and the side of my arms as my body pressed heavily into, my necking aching from my contorted position.

         I looked up to see her naked body bent over, breasts dangling form her chest like water balloons ready to burst, while she searched her drawers for cheap lingerie.  I watched and studied her movements as she searched the room for just the right thing to wear.  When she found something, she held it up to her body while looking at herself through a small mirror on the wall.  Her damp hair stopped at the middle of her neck revealing the several freckles that dwelled there, a red birthmark resembling a flower was in the middle of her back radiating from her skin like a dap of coco butter that yet hadn’t been rubbed in.  Her breasts sagged, her hips and stomach revealed stretch marks, and a triangle of dark curls rested on the crown of her thighs.  I watched as she picked up pair of red panties. She put the seat of her underwear up to her nose smelling them and set them aside.  When she did, my mother lifted the mattress and retrieved a flat pink square box, pulled a plastic round thing out of it, and watched in horror as she carefully folded it and pushed it up herself from where she peed from.  Drawing my breath in as I watched I almost forgot to exhale.  Finished with the procedure she put on the red panties, a matching tank top thing, and a red lace coat over it that draped from her body loosely.  Amazingly enough I was able to see through the thin clothes like water as she left the room.

         I smelled her before I noticed her back in the room, reeking of perfume, hair spray, and oils.  Her hair was pinned up and make-up coated her face.  She pulled out an old waitress uniform, carefully putting it on over her fancy undergarments, and hurriedly slipped on some worn tennis shoes.  She slung her large purse over her shoulder as if it carried buckets of water, dashing out of the room screaming Misty’s name as she went.  I waited until I heard the truck cough to life before I got out of the basket.  To get out I rocked my body back in forth until the hamper tipped over and slowly I crawled out, trying not to scratch myself more then I already had.  Stretching, I rubbed my legs and arms that were now red with small x’s embedded in my skin form the pattern of the wicker. 

         No one knows that my mom is a hooker but me.  My sister doesn’t know and my Dad doesn’t know.  One time I told Misty that Mom was a slut.  She stared at me blinking, laughed lightly and told me not to lie and say mean things about her mother again.  After that I decided to keep the secret to myself.  I hate my mother for being a slut.  I hate her so much I tried to kill her one time.  I put bleach in her coffee one morning.  She took a sip of it and after realizing it didn’t taste right, smelled it and then called my name.  I ran and hid under my bed.  When she found me, she dragged me from under it and slapped my face.  But I didn’t cry.  I just looked at her, but I wasn’t really looking at her because I was looking at the fog that seemed to surround her like a jacket.  I couldn’t take my eyes from it.  I thought if I did it would go away and I wouldn’t see it again.  After Mom started to cry I didn’t seem to find the fog so interesting anymore and left her where she stood.

         “Summer!” my sister Misty hollered from down stairs.

         “What?” I yelled back, angry that she had bothered me.

         “Come here!”

         Slowly I made my way down stairs.  I took my time knowing that she wanted something.  I carelessly kicked the toys, clothes, and other items scattered on the stairs and watched them tumble down each step and finally land and mingle with the other clutter that gathered on the floor.  Misty was in the living room standing next to the door wearing a pair of mom’s high heals and a mini skirt that she stole form the department store.  Make up coated her face.  Instead of enhancing her features it deformed them, sinking in her high cheekbones, blackening her eyes, and made her skin iridescent and powdery.  All the while her breast fought to stay inside my blouse that Daddy had bought me, which I had refused to wear.  She moved her kinky curls out of her face delicately with her hand as she asked me to watch Dawn while she “went out” which in translation meant: I’m going on a date, I’ll be back in the morning.  I turned and looked at my five-year-old sister sleeping in fetal position on the couch with a thumb in her mouth.  With my arms folded over my chest I glared back at Misty.  When I shook my head no she handed me a five-dollar bill.

         “Okay?” she asked pleading.

         “But I don’t want to.” I whined, stuffing the bill into my pocket.

         “Don’t be scared.” She told me giving me a light kiss on the cheek.

         I stood at the door and watched her as she climbed into her boyfriend’s car and drove off.  Once the car disappeared into the darkness I closed the door and locked it.  Without thinking I grabbed a chair form the kitchen and put it under the doorknob and then proceeded to do the same to the back door.  I locked and close every window and made sure the curtains were closed, starting in the kitchen and ending in the bathroom upstairs.  Only after all the lights in the house were off and the phone next to me, did I finally lay down on the couch, curling myself around my little sister like a cocoon.  I tried desperately to concentrate on the sound of Dawn’s breathing so I wouldn’t have to hear the sounds that came from the surrounding fields of the farmhouse.

         Although my body was tired and ready to rest sleep took its time finding me.  I had got tired of counting Dawn’s short breaths.  In the darkness of the house I listened to the crickets singing and the grass dance.  I tried not to hear the house as it spoke to me, telling me stories of wear and tare and how desperately it was asking to be fixed, to uncreek its floors and oil its pipes.  The heater hummed in the background.  It wasn’t until the sandman had finally decided to sprinkle his magic dust on me that the darkness of the house started to turn into oranges, reds, and blues. The sounds outside that just moments ago scared me turned into a sweet song.  It was then that my mind slipped into a dreamful and welcoming unconscious state. 

As Misty sung sweetly in my dreams, the song turned into a hard and uneven breathing.  It wasn’t until a few moments later that my mind began to stir from its sleep that I realized it wasn’t a dream.  The fog of sleep evaporated from around me.  My heart began to pound furiously as it became clear that someone else was in the room.  I didn’t stir or move, hoping that whoever had crept into my home wouldn’t notice me.  I held my breath for long periods of time, playing dead as an animal would when caught by its prey.  I lay silently, praying to God that the person would go away and not harm me.  I chanted “Our Father’s” as distant breaths continued to breathe in and out, in and out.  Sweat seeped from my forehead and back while fear moved deeper into me.  I wanted desperately to lift my head and see if there was a figure in the living room.

         After fifteen minutes of soft low breathes fear became more familiar to me and my chanting halted as I attempted to pay more attention to the beating of my heart.  I began counting each pounding beat to take my ears away from the raspy breath that got quieter and quieter with every exhale it took.  I counted 126 breaths before I stopped and listened again to the sounds of the house.  Silence came and went when curiosity got the best of me.  I felt like I was in a scene in a horror movie when someone decides to do something stupid that eventually gets them killed.  When I finally lifted my head and looked into the darkness I half expected some large hairy Sasquatch like figure to lunge out and eat me alive.  Instead I saw a man’s figure standing in the doorway of the kitchen.  My heart beat into frenzy.  The more I looked, the more the figure became more familiar to me.  I realized it was my father who stood in the darkness.  Soon I felt his eyes on me.

         Light blazed my eyes, burning them after he turned on the light.  I automatically covered my face with my forearm as my eyes adjusted to the light that glared from the kitchen.  His clothes and face were dusted with a coat of chalky brown dust from loading and unloading boxes onto fright trains and 8-wheelers.  His dark face was oily from sweat and labor, his hair doing what was natural, curled and kinked up about his head spouting out like weeds and wild flowers.

         “Hey Summer Day.”  He told me with a smile from his post in the doorway.

         “Daddy don’t be scarin’ me like that again,”

         “Ow, I’m sorry Summer Day.  You must thought I was a monster or somthin’.”

         I sprang from the couch and forgot all about Dawn who still lay sleeping undisturbed as I nearly stepped on her as I hopped and skipped my way over to Daddy.  Though I was way too old to be doing such things, I leaped into his arms wrapping my spider legs around his waist and my arms gripped his neck.  My nose dug into the crook of his neck smelling sawdust, sweat, and grease from his hair.  When Daddy laughed I felt his stomach as it jittered in and out against my thin frame, while I dared not to let go. 

         “You know what kind of trouble I had getting in here?” he asked patting my back.  He carried me, walking over to the couch, while trying not to step or trip over the clutter of items that caked the floor.  He then sat down cautiously as not to sit on Dawn’s feet as she slept on like a bear. 

         “Summer Day why you get so scared at night? You think somebody comin' to get you?”

         I let my eyes sway to the side shrugging my shoulders not wanting to tell the truth. Instead of answering I curled up on his lap resting my head on his shoulder and listened to the pitter pat of his heart beating.  26 of his beats were heard as I thought about telling him of the men that Mom had brought by, the grunting and groaning that traveled through the house like wind.  I shuttered while Dad sighed deeply and realized that I wasn’t going to reveal my secret.  Instead he laughed lightly and ruffled my hair as it stood from my scalp like springs on a mattress.

         Daddy started to retell me stories about when I was younger, hiding inside of the cabinet for hours at a time until someone found me or when I wouldn’t talk to anybody but Misty for weeks at a time.  I remembered those times as it if were yesterday but I never let anybody know that.  I just wanted to pretend that I had forgotten all about it all and like everybody else I pretended that Anthony never happened. I acted as if I didn’t watch Mom give birth to him and hear his raspy breathing and watch him die in her arms.  It happened in this house, in her room.  I was six years old and the only person there to witness it.  The room stood still as I counted each weak raspy inhale that was taken while Mom lay watching him.  One, two, three… I saw blood flowing out of her, a pond of redness staining the green sheets.  Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, I followed the fleshy garden hose from where she bled to where Anthony laid in Mommy’s arms.  Twenty-six, then there was silence.  I stood at the foot of her bed and watched her as she frowned down at Anthony; his body now limp in her arms.  She didn’t cry or hug him tightly to her, she just held him as if he were a doll, not caring about his now lifeless body. She looked up at me and shrugged her shoulders.  Even though she didn’t cry, I did.  I mourned Anthony and that experience the way Mom should have.  Never did she say anything to me about why he was deformed and never did she speak of his death.  It was that day that I stopped talking.  When I did talk it was only to Misty.  It was only her I could trust.  She was my interpreter to the rest of the world.  I don’t remember when I started to talk again or why.  I guess it just happened one day.  When I started talking was when I started hiding in the cabinets, I did it because Misty told me that was where Mom kept a box of toys that were supposed to go to Anthony.  For some reason I thought that my little brother would come back to get his toys that he forgot to take to heaven.  If he came, I wanted to be in there waiting for him so he could take me back with him.  Everyday I would sit in the cabinet, shaking the box every couple minutes or so to entice him into coming, but after Dawn was born a couple years later I stopped.  When Dawn was born healthy and fine I felt it was my mission to make sure she was okay.  I had a fear that Mom wouldn’t take care of her.  If something were to happen to Dawn, I was sure that Mom would just sit back and watch like she did Anthony.  If I wasn’t in school I was watching Dawn.  If she was in her playpen I would sit down Indian style in front of it with my nose pressed up against the screen and watch her drool and play with her feet.  I cried if Mom didn’t let Dawn sleep in the bed with me. Only when Daddy was home did I take my attention away from her to go outside and play in the fields.

         Daddy’s head was tilted back, eyes closed, and fast asleep.  His mouth was wide open, so wide I could almost see down his throat.  I closed his mouth for him and took the other end of the blanket that wasn’t wrapped around Dawn, and curled into a small ball on my Daddy’s lap and went to sleep.

         It was still dark when I woke up.  Banging ringed my ears as I looked up to see Daddy pulling the chair away from the front door.  When he opened it Mom sulked into the room and tiredly fell into the nearest armchair.  Her head feel into her hand, her eyes closed, and sighed in and out as if she were doing some sort of breathing exercise.  Seeing it was only my mother who had came home, I laid back down on the couch attempting to go back to sleep. 

         “Hey Joseph.  Wasn’t expecting you to be here.” She said in a breathy voice.

         “Yeah, I got ‘bout a week till I gotta go back to Winton.  How work?”

         “You’d think it’s be light, but with all the truckers that come in, might as well work during the day. What about you?”

         “Nothing much, trying to get over time.  Either way it go we okay with you getting this waitressin' job.  I be worried about the kids sometimes thou’, specially on the weekend.  Misty ain’t here to take carea the kids. Where she at?”

         “Friend house, told me she was going before I left for work.”  I heard her shuffling through her bag then the flicker of a lighter.  I smelled cigarette smoke in the air.

         “But do you know what kinda trouble I had getting in here?  I tried the front door, back door, window.  You know how I got in here?” he asked, “I had to climb through the cellar window.  You know how small that window is, and how big I am?  I damn near broke myself in half.  An when I got down there, the door to get me into the kitchen was locked.  I mus’ve been pushing and banging for hours before it gave way.  I get in the house, Summer got chairs in front of the doors and all kinda crazy stuff.  Ask her about it, she got nothing to say.  Maybe you ought to work in the day when they at school so you could be with the kids.”

         “You know I can’t do that?”

         “How about working some place else then, maybe stayin' at home and raisin’ chickens, even plant a little potatoes and peas sale ‘em at the street market.”

         “I can’t do that an even if I did I would make more money at the rest stop.”

         “It just don’t make no sense why a 13 year old girl would be so scared a the dark.”

         “Why you worried about that child, she’ll grow out of it.”

         “An she skinny, She ain’t starving herself is she? Them girls be doin' that now a days.”

         “She eat.”

         “I still thing something wrong.” He said solemnly

         After that they didn’t speak for a while.  I had finally begun to fdrift off to sleep when Mom said something.

         “She don’t like me.”

         “I know.”

         “How you figure that when your hardly here?”

         “I can tell, she barely even speak or look at you.”

         “Well I tried, guess she’ll always be your baby.  Never mine,” Pause. “I’m tired,” she said with a sigh. “Going to bed, you coming are you sleeping with the kids tonight?”

         “Yeah I’m right behind you.”

         The springs in the old armchair squeaked as Mom rose from the chair and headed up stairs with Daddy, the two of them whispering to each other about something that only adults could understand.  It was at that point that I began to understand that I didn’t hate my mother; I just didn’t like the person that she was.  I saw her then as a heartless, self-centered person.  She wasn’t a slut because it was the only way to get money we needed.  She did it because the wanted to.  She enjoyed having lots of men pounding themselves against her.  By hating her I thought she would see how much it bothered me and would stop.  Then I understood it wouldn’t help anything.  At that moment I felt it was a waste of energy to spend time hating someone so close to me.  My mother died then.  Like she did to Anthony, I did not mourn her death, I turned around and went to sleep

         I dreamt again that Anthony had come back to me.  I was about 8 or 9 years old and my nose was pressed against Dawn’s playpen.  Anthony was about 3 and came running toward me wearing one of those corny outfits that parents sometimes put on their kids.  He was wearing navy blue shorts and suspenders with a white collard shirt.  Matching navy blue knee socks covered his legs; his black curly hair was brushed and slicked back.  Though he didn’t speak to me, his eyes told me to come with him.  He held out his deformed hand pleading for me to take it. When I stood up and took his hand I noticed that the house was clean.  Nothing was scattered on the floor, we even had a TV and some of the furniture was different.  His fingers curled around mine as I went with him up the stairs and in to our parent's room.  This was different.  It was gray, the floor was carpeted with the dull and bland color.  Gray wallpaper coated the walls and even the bed was gray and fluffy like a rain cloud.  Instantly it reminded me of the fog I had seen surrounding Mom when I put the bleach in her coffee.  I barely noticed her as she lay in bed.  She seemed to blend in the with grayness of the room.  Her skin was gaunt and gray, even her eyes appeared to be gray and desolate.  As soon as I saw her I began to hear the same raspy breaths that had once came form Anthony escape from the lungs of my mother.  Her chest heaved and hoed trying to take in as much air as possible.  Again I counted silently to myself standing at the foot of her bed watching her die.  Anthony let go of my hand, running to the bed and began to jump on it laughing and giggling as my mom gasped for each and every breath she took.  His smile broadened while he jumped higher and laughed louder after the last 26th breath.

         When I woke up later that morning, Anthony’s giggling echoed throughout my consciousness.  I looked down to where Dawn had been sleeping, now an empty space on the couch.  Since it was late in the morning I figured she was out in the fields playing.  It wasn’t until I began to get up that I noticed I had wet the bed again.  Slowly I got off the couch and put the blanket over the wet spot I had made.  It took a while for me to get to the bathroom, walking with my legs far apart trying to keep my wet bottoms from sticking to my skin.  In the bathroom I turned on the sink water and with a towel and soap, I washed myself standing.  As I soaped and rinsed I couldn’t help but count the missing tiles on the wall so I wouldn’t have to see how small and underdeveloped my body was.  After counting 26 missing tiles I turned off the water and hurried to my room.

         The room that Misty, Dawn, and I shared would appear to be treacherous to anyone who looked inside.  To me, it was fine.  I wouldn’t even consider trying not to step on the clothes that stayed on the floor.  If I did, there wouldn’t be anywhere to go.  Not even an inch of floor peeked from below.  I went to the corner of the room near our empty closet where piles of whites were.  Rummaging through the pile I found a clean pair of panties and then searched for a shirt.  In another part of the room I found an old pair of cutoffs and slipped on my clothes.

         It was in the kitchen that I found Misty.  She was sitting on the counter humming to herself while she ate a peanut butter sandwich.

         “Hey.” I said searching for something eatable in the fridge.  By the time I looked up again Misty was standing next to me, energy bounced in her eyes.

         “What?” I asked. The energy and eagerness changed into fear and sadness.  I closed the door to the fridge and leaned against it waiting for her to speak.

         “Don’t be mad at me,” she said, gripping what was left of her peanut butter sandwich in both of her hands. 

“What happened?” My eyes transfixed onto the peanut butter that oozed from between the two slices of bread, smearing on her hands and getting caught in her fingers. The more she talked the tighter she squeezed.

“I’m getting married next month, and then we’re moving to Oklahoma because there’s a lot of job openings there, and you can come and run away with us if you want, I know you don’t like it here Momma wouldn’t be around to upset you so much, and you could go out and play all you want to, wouldn’t even have to worry about Dawn so much ‘cause Daddy will take care of her if Momma won’t.”

While she awaited my reaction she rocked from side to side, squeezing the sandwich tighter and tighter until it began to squish its way into the webs of her fingers.

I couldn’t react to what she told me because I was too busy watching her, trying to find out how she wanted me to react.  I wanted to cry but I didn’t.  I tried hard to keep my chin from quivering and my eyes from swelling.  My emotions of hurt and fear drowned itself while I turned the corners of my lip upward and told lies to my sister about how happy I was and how much I would love to move to Oklahoma with her, when I had never even considered leaving the old farmhouse.

Telling her this I saw the energy return back to her eyes and a glow began to shine from her.

“Your having a baby.” I told her.  When I said it tears clouded her eyes.

“But I still love him Summer please believe me that if I wasn’t I would still marry him.”

I made my false smile widen while I gave her a hug and asked her when she was going to get married and where.  I told her how much I couldn’t wait and again we laughed and hugged.  It wasn’t until she was upstairs that I began to cry.  I let the tears roll silently down my face, understanding that my naïve sister wasn’t going to be around all the time to take care of me.

Realization came to mind of what I needed to do.  Upstairs in the middle of the hallway I pulled the cord and watched intently as the set of stairs slowly came down and climbed up them, pulling the stairs back up behind me once I reached the attic.  I stood hunched over because of the low ceiling with my hand covering my mouth so I wouldn’t inhale all of the dust and mothballs.  Slowly I walked over boxes and trunks, going around racks of old clothes covered in plastic and bags filled with old dishes and antiques.  I coughed hard as lint and dust went down my throat while I lifted three heavy boxes form on top of a trunk.  The thin rusted trunk sat taunting me as I kneeled in front of it, thinking twice about what I was going to do.

Darkness was empty and silent around me.  While I lay in fetal position, I turned my face into the baby clothes that lay under me smelling baby powder and milk that still lingered in them.  I started thinking about the dream that I had, remembering how Anthony had looked, how deep and empty his dark eyes had seemed.  As I imagined how it would have been like to have a little brother and how different my life would have been, I didn’t notice the clicking sound that locked the trunk.  My mind drifted even further into thought as I pondered my life in Oklahoma and how it would be compared to staying in Nebraska with a mother who didn’t care about me.  As the air became thinner with each breath images of my mother finding me dead entered my head.  I imagined her just looking at me and shrugging her shoulders.  At my funeral only Daddy, Misty, and Dawn would cry for me and they would probably be the only ones there.  Beautiful flowers would decorate my grave while everyone watered them with their tears.  As my breathing became heavier and the air warmer was when I got scared.  Sweat covered my back and neck while I started to hyperventilate.  Claustrophobia set in.  Blackness of the walls came closer and closer.  I wanted out.  The images that had portrayed in my mind just seconds before didn’t seem so fun anymore.  I quickly reconsidered.  My arms lifted up feeling the top of the trunk.  Five minutes ago I would have welcomed death, eager to play with Anthony in heaven, and not have to grieve the sins of my mother.  Until now I had never feared death.  Death pounded in my heart.  I hit as hard as I could at the top of the trunk.  It didn’t give way.  I moved my arms to the side trying to push to the left and right.  My feet in action as I attempted to stretch them.  I kicked at the walls around me.  Screams escaped my lips.  Tears poured from my eyes as I fought to stay alive.  I felt the ugliness of darkness begin to swallow me.  I chocked on what was left of stale air.  I gasped and gulped.  My eyes were open wide.  I searched the darkness hoping I would see something.  The muscles in my body became hard and rigid.  My fingers dug into the baby blankets and clothes that lay under me.  My head pounded a hurt and pain that got lighter and lighter with each beat.  My raspy breathe filled my ears.  My mouth flung open hoping to capture some source of oxygen.  In the back of my mind I heard Mom counting.  Onetwothreefourfivesixseven… counting faster and faster with each number.  Twenty-six echoed through my head in slow motion, bouncing off the curvatures of my skill.  That’s when I saw her.  Her face plastered on top of the trunk.  Her head was tilted back while I watched her throat rise and fall with laughter.