Burn Daughters Page 3

  The girl leans out the doorway and glances in the direction of the scuffle, then blurts out, “Gotta go. See ya tomorrow. Maybe.”

  Throwing back the sheets to see what the racket is about, I notice something is different. My bruises. They are completely gone. I am no longer in a hospital gown but in sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt. I raise my arms and flip my hands around in front of my face, checking for cuts. None. I touch my jaw. It’s not sore.

  What the...? I don’t remember being moved out of the trauma center.

  My vision blurs. The room tilts. Oh no. I clutch my stomach, suddenly nauseated.

  What’s happening?

  What’s today?

  Tuesday?

  No, Friday.

  No, no, Sunday?

  I reach a hand behind me, and feel up and down my spine.

  No bandages.

  No pain.

  No stiffness.

  Nothing.

  I sling open the heavy door leading to the hallway to call someone. To demand answers.

  A nurse carrying a tray is immediately up in my face. “You’re awake. Good.” She passes me a small cup full of colored pills.

  “What are these?” I ask, staring at the pills. My brow furrows. Pills. That explains why I feel so disconnected. I take the cup and tilt my head back, swallowing them all at once with help from the water the nurse also hands me in a little flowered Dixie cup. “How often do I take them?”

  The nurse cradles my arm and leads me back into my room. “The doctor is here and wants to see you. He’ll be in shortly,” she tells me. “Meanwhile let’s get you into bed. You have this nasty habit of passing out.”

  I blink rapidly. “Passing out? What’s going on? Where am I?”

  “Now don’t fret. Turn around, that’s right, easy, bend your knees, sit…good girl.”

  “Good girl,” I repeat. Chills crawl over my flesh. “Why does ‘good girl’ make my heart race?” I turn my head in the nurse’s direction, looking into her eyes for answers. Her eyes are blank, she’s been working this job too long. “Sid, is he still my—”

  “Uh huh. Dr. Beaker will be in shortly.”

  “Can you please tell him to hurry?” I ask her, working to get situated on top of the bed. The door opens. I have never been so happy to see someone in my life.

  “What’s going on?” he asks the nurse.

  “She got up and was wandering about, looking as if she might pass out.”

  Dr. Beaker turns to me then. “You okay?”

  “No. I’m not okay.” I show him my arms, and bend forward at a tilt to show him my back. “Yesterday I was hurt. Today that all seems to have magically disappeared. What the hell kind of pills do you have me on?” I pause mid-rant and gesture at the gift bag he is holding. “Who’s that for?”

  He smiles and holds the bag out for me to take. “It’s for you.”

  “Why?” I take the bag, but do not open it. “Why would you bring me a gift?”

  He laughs. “My wife and I were out and saw what’s in the bag.” He nods at it, still unopened on my lap. “I thought of you. They screamed ‘Millie!’”

  He has me curious, now. I open the bag just a little, and push aside the tissue. “Is it another bear holding a heart?”

  “No. Your fans sent you plenty of those. Go on,” he urges. “Open it.”

  Momma hasn’t sent me one gift. Hasn’t called. Maybe something in the bag will tell me why. I tear through the paper.

  Dr. Beaker tips his chin at the bag. “Figured you could use them.”

  I narrow my eyes as I reach inside and take out, “Fuzzy pink slippers?” They are the slide-right-into kind. Girlie. Warm. My thumb strokes the softness. It’s like cotton candy. “It’s the nicest...” my voice cracks. I try again. “The nicest gift. Thoughtful. Thank you, Dr. Beaker.” I can’t help it, I smile.

  He shrugs as if it’s not a big deal. “Thought you might like to walk around a bit.” His brown eyes skim the floor of the room. “I haven’t seen anything comfortable for your feet in this place.” I pop the plastic ring that holds the slippers together. “I hope they fit,” Dr. Beaker says, stroking his goatee. “My wife guessed at your size.”

  My smile widens because I know they will fit, because I’m not the only person I can think of who likes fuzzy slippers. Evie would like them too. Evie. My smile shrivels. Why was I smiling in the first place? Nothing’s right. Slippers don’t change anything. Nothing is worth smiling about with Evie gone. I drop the slippers.

  “What happened to Evie?” I ask.

  Dr. Beaker lowers himself into one of the chairs. He is frowning. “We’ve gone through this, Millie. I’m trying to help you remember. Are you ready to try again?”

  The word “again” strikes me. How many times have we been at this? Countless? I search my brain for some truth hiding there. Some truth Dr. Beaker is searching for, to help me, help Evie. “She could’ve killed me,” I say.

  “But she didn’t.” Dr. Beaker pulls a pen from his pocket and opens my file. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Lucky to be alive?” It doesn’t feel that way. “Like I’m lucky to be home with Frank and wishing I were dead?”

  “It’s not your fault, Millie. None of this is,” Dr. Beaker tells me. “As far as Frank goes, it’s perfectly natural to have feelings—”

  “I never had any feelings for Frank!”

  “But if you did, Millie, it wouldn’t be your fault. You were young.” He pauses, choosing his words. “Young and confused. Frank was the adult who should’ve known better.”

  “You think I enjoyed his tongue down my throat?”

  “I said if…”

  “There are no ifs! I never felt anything for Frank but hatred and disgust.” I taste bitterness at the back of my throat. Think happy thoughts. Think happy, pleasant, sugar-plums dancing thoughts.

  I breathe deeply, close my eyes, exhale, and open them. Better. “I know a boy,” I tell Dr. Beaker, calmly, wondering if I have already told him this story. “He was in a play. His name is Clay. Clay Emerson.”

  “Yes, Clay.”

  “He told me I have pretty hair. He said it was “copper” not red or orange. I liked that he made my hair copper. That was the real beginning I think.”

  “You’re blushing. You like this boy.”

  “Enough to humiliate myself. Clay Emerson is that perfect guy. You know, the one in school that all the girls chase after. The hot guy. Dark hair. Gorgeous eyes...yada, yada...it doesn’t stop there. You get the picture.”

  “I get the feeling that’s how the other girls in school described this guy. I want to hear your description.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to hear what other girls think. I want to hear what Millicent Reid thinks.”

  Dr. Beaker has caught me off guard. I don’t really know how I’d describe Clay. “Well, he’s...smart. The Clark Kent type with something raging under the surface. Always prepared. Courageous. Yeah. That’s the word I would use to describe him, courageous.”

  “Better description.” Dr. Beaker asks, “You trust him?”

  “With my life.”

  “He’s how you ended up at the Keller’s with your friends?”

  “They were Clay’s friends, not mine.” I hesitate, not wanting Sid to think less of me. “I used to carry this lavender book bag with side pockets. It had netting, zippers. I never opened the pockets. Then I began to notice this horrible odor that seemed to follow me. For days it followed me. I couldn’t figure it out. I would shower every morning before school. Put on deodorant. Perfume. But every time I was in the hallways at school, people looked at me funny. They laughed and whispered. It was the odor, and I didn’t know where it was coming from, trailing me. I never thought about looking in the pockets, because I never kept anything in them. I had this one class with Brooke Taylor. She was the class president, Clay’s ex. She and a couple of her friends sat a few rows back from me. ‘Millipede,’ she’d say. ‘Why you smell
so bad, huh? You step in poo on your way to school?’ She’d laugh. They all laughed. At me.

  “She thought I was some innocent, naive girl. You know, like a little kid. She had no idea the thoughts inside my head. She had no idea what I’d witnessed; that I probably knew more about a man’s anatomy than she did. She had no idea what I’d seen, that I practically grew up on porn. I hated Brooke. I hated every mean thing about her. I hated her mostly because she was beautiful with her honey-colored hair and perfect skin. You know, I’d never seen her get one red bump. Not one. I hated her because Clay dated her. I felt sorry for him. He deserved better than Brooke. But I think mostly I hated her because she had a better life than I did.”

  Dr. Beaker scratches an eyebrow with the tip of his pen. The action leaves a black ink line above his brow. I stare absently at the wall, mostly to keep from pointing out he’d marked himself.

  “I couldn’t see one quality in Brooke that I liked,” I admit. “Honestly, I wanted her to die. To choke on her own evil forked-tongue. That’s horrible, isn’t it? To wish someone ill will? What kind of person does that make me?”

  He shifts, placing his elbows on the arms of a leather recliner, getting himself more comfortable. “Human I would say. But, you have to be careful. If you allow someone to make you that angry,” he explains, “you give them the power to control your emotions.”

  “Brooke had the entire school calling me Millipede.”

  “Kids can be heartless. Good news is, years later they’ll regret it. You’ll probably get a phone call one day saying, ‘remember that time when…’ and they’ll apologize. You probably won’t even remember that time when….”

  My eyes collide with Dr. Beaker’s. “That can’t happen now and you know it.”

  His gaze breaks from mine and he drops to the folder. “The point I’m trying to make is you’ll be different. Older. What matters to you now won’t matter to you then.”

  “What matters to me has already changed.” I shake my head. “I’m not the same stupid girl that took off with some kids from school. I’m not the same girl that unknowingly walked up on the Keller’s property. The experience changed me.”

  “Changed you how?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Yes,” he insists, “you do.”

  “I don’t want them giving me medicine that makes me loopy anymore. Can you change that?”

  “Depends. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Someone stuck a potato in the pocket of my book bag,” I say.

  “You’ve changed the subject.”

  “The potato rotted. Do you know what potatoes do when they rot? They liquefy. Brown juice started leaking out through the netting onto the floor right in the middle of class. Brooke said it looked like I had diarrhea. You ever smelled a rotten potato, Dr. Beaker?”

  “You were about to tell me what happened on the Keller’s property.”

  “It’s vile.” I focus on a corner of the room, ashamed. “So yeah, I took Evie with me to the auditions. That play Clay was in. He was there at the auditions too. You’re probably expecting me to tell you I froze and forgot my lines. That would be predictable.”

  “Did you forget your lines?”

  I shake my head. “Worse. They forgot me. The director forgot me. After all my practicing and hoping, I waited through the auditions start to finish and my name was never called.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I shrug. “Brooke won the part. Afterward, when Clay caught up with me outside and invited me to go muddin', I jumped at the chance. He told me Brooke wasn’t going, but she was there, waiting with the others at his truck.”

  “By others you mean Emily Belk and...” Dr. Beaker checks his notes. “David Jacobs?”

  “Yes.” I wipe a tear from my cheek. I don’t want to cry in front of Dr. Beaker. “David, Clay, Brooke, Emily, and me.”

  “And Evie.” The doctor’s voice is like poison. He leans forward. “Deep breath, Mill. Keep going.”

  Mill. It's just a word. A shortening of my name. Was it on purpose? Did Dr. Beaker know? “Clay said Brooke invited herself,” I tell him. “Even if that was a lie, anything was better than going home to Frank. Evie whined about going, but I forced her.” I cast my eyes down to the fuzzy slippers on the floor. “I knew it was wrong. Evie should have never been out there with us. It was dangerous enough just riding to where we were going in the back of Clay’s old pickup truck, but I didn’t care.” My eyes lift to Dr. Beaker’s. “I didn’t care that we trespassed on private property, that someone could get seriously hurt, or that we made a mess, spinning tires and slinging mud. I didn’t care about anything at that moment except being with Clay. We didn’t mean any harm. It was the most fun I’d ever had...until the sun set.

  “So you see, when you say ‘I’m good,’ Dr. Beaker, you’re forgetting how selfish I really am.”

  “You protected your little sister from Frank. It was courageous and very loyal of you to worry about her well-being and not leave her home alone with him.”

  “I found his journal.”

  “Whose journal?”

  “Old man Keller’s. Her father. I didn’t tell the cops.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  Dr. Beaker taps the file in his lap with the tip of the pen. He makes me feel judged. Why didn’t I tell the cops?

  Maybe because the Keller’s had suffered enough. Or maybe because I had no right to ever read old man Keller’s journal in the first place.

  “We made the wrong choice,” I tell Dr. Beaker. “We should never have been there. I should have never been there.”

  March, 1932

  Oh woman, my wife no longer in the eyes of all that is holy. Your VOW was no good! I take no pity on your lost soul! How you ran off leaving me alone and confused with your blasted spawn of Satan! I can refuse her no longer! You cast this evil on my household! How I wish I had never laid eyes on you! Be gone with you to never return. My loins ache to know a woman intimately! You left me in dire circumstances! Her beauty surpasses yours! A curse, I tell you, a curse!

  Damnation! The loss of my flock! Alienation!

  You brought this house shame beyond measure!

  Reverend Rufus Alexander Keller

  “Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in.”

  —Shannon L. Alder

  Chapter Three

  Friday evening.

  It was unusually chilly for spring. I'd heard the phenomenon referred to as Blackbird Storm, an unexpected cold front in late spring. I imagined thousands of blackbirds darkening the sky, their cries a warning something evil was on the way. Our first mistake was going mudding. Our second was ever trespassing on the Keller’s property.

  We took Trap Hill Rd to Grissel Tail Road, followed the Roaring River and crossed the water bridge on Twin Locust Road.

  David shouted to Clay in the cab and pointed. “Man, take a left up there, looks like a good place to ride, lots of hills and mud.”

  “I think you just blew out my eardrum,” Emily said, pressing a hand to the side of her head.

  David dropped an arm around her shoulder. “Sorry, babe.”

  She rested her back against his chest, the smile returning to her face, all forgiven and forgotten.

  When we’d left the high school parking lot, Brooke had scooted in the cab next to Clay, even though he’d made it clear he didn’t want her sitting up front with him. He even told her, “the kid should ride up front,” but Brooke wasn’t having it, so Evie and I sat in the truck bed, our backs to the cab. The wind wasn’t so bad there.

  Occasionally, I caught myself staring at the loving couple kissing, David’s tongue in Emily’s mouth, his hand on the back of her neck. I couldn’t look away. I found it mesmerizing, and sexy.

  Not forced and awkward, like Frank’s kisses. There was nothing nasty or gross about it. David laughed over her lips, and smiled. He looked deeply into her eyes. It was
a look I wasn’t familiar with. Love, maybe? It was sweet. I wanted a kiss like that someday.

  There was a dip in the road where the pavement changed to dirt. It jarred my attention from the kissing couple. I held tight to the side of the truck; my backside already sore from the ride. Mostly I thought about how the night was going to go. Once in a while I checked on my sister to make sure she was okay. The bumpy road had her giggling and jostling about so that I couldn’t count even one of the freckles that dotted her button-nose. Counting Evie’s freckles was a distraction of mine, when I was somewhere I didn’t want to be, and having to wait.

  Clay drove deeper into the mountains. David said he knew the perfect property for us to explore. It was secluded.

  Private.

  So private, David had to remove a rusted chain that stretched across the road. Only I noticed the Beware of Dogs sign nailed to a tree. It gave me goosebumps. But the guys wanted to drive hard and spin tires; they needed somewhere private.

  After sunset, we were going to build a campfire. They’d brought a cooler of beer. I had never been drunk, and looked forward to it. I wouldn’t let Evie drink.

  Never.

  I’d seen Momma sloppy drunk too many times.

  Me, though, I needed it. I was nervous and wanted to calm myself. I was going to kiss a cute guy for once, a guy I actually had feelings for. I wanted to compare the kisses to Frank’s. Prove they could be better than nausea-inducing. The courage it would take to kiss Clay would have to come from the alcohol. I’d seen Momma lose her inhibitions and wits about her so many times. I knew the effects booze had on a person.

  The truck moved slowly past the privacy chain, heavy tires crushing gravel deeper into a road that was barely maintained—grass growing down the center in clumps. Limbs slapped the sides of the truck, scratching the old paint.

  One side of the road fell away down the mountain. We were climbing higher. The higher we climbed, the thicker the mist. The motor groaned, pushing hard. My ears popped.

  Clay rolled down his window, draped an arm over the side of the truck, and hung his head out, looking back at David. “How far?” he shouted.