Alana writes.

          When my silence offended him, he would turn on the television. He spent most of his time in the living room with the shades drawn and his feet propped up on the table like fallen tree trunks.  Sometimes he wouldn’t move for two days and I thought I could actually see the couch sink lower into the cat-sick colored carpet. I would occasionally hover just around the corner from the doorway at night, listening to his cracked and coughing laugh float up and sync with the laugh track over whatever sitcom was on that night. I read somewhere that most laugh tracks were made in the 1950’s and the people that you hear snickering along to dumb punch lines and adorable children are actually dead. My house is full of laughing ghosts.

            It was the summer after I lost the baby and moved out of my parent’s home in pursuit of the American dream. What actually happens to a dream deferred? It rots in a pale pink coffin that burns through your subconscious like wild fire. My dream had bloated and popped and I was left holding the string.

            That summer was the hottest I could ever remember, though I’m sure there have been worse. The sweat dripped off my nose and snaked its way between my breasts as I sat on the front step one summer’s evening waiting for a reason to get up and start walking. I heard the crunch of empty Dorito’s bags crushed under 300 pounds of disappointment so I knew I wouldn’t be needed for a while. I walked down the driveway and took a left at the pavement, winding toward more houses just like mine and empty lots strewn with bottles and stinking garbage. I held my breath when I passed the garbage cans and let it go just before I became too light-headed keep going.

            I took a right turn at Pear Street, then down 7^th Ave., and then onto Cherry. That’s where I found Gabby. She was sitting on the curb; her legs folded Indian-style underneath her pregnant belly, her tears dropping and sizzling into the sewer like acid rain. I came up quietly beside her and sat down.

            “Again?” I asked as I put an arm around her shoulder, cradling her gaunt torso in mine.

            She nodded yes and put her head into my shoulder. I could see her split lip at a better angle this way under the street lamp. She was three years younger than me, a child still. But so was I.

            “Talking too much, you know me.” She sniffled and sat up straight, staring into the empty windows of the house across the street.

            “Yeah, I know you. And you’ve got a wonderful singing voice too, don’t you?”

            She giggled and hiccupped, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

            “Stop it, you know I can’t sing. Let’s take a walk. Help me up?”

            I gripped Gabby’s shoulders and helped her to her feet. We linked arms and she limped next to me as we started our usual loop around the block. We passed each house and she told me what she’s heard about each family while she was at church. I walked in silence, letting her lean on me. Listening to her talk. She enjoyed my silence and went on rambling until we got back to her house.

            “Run away with me?” she asked.

            “Not this time.”

            She smiled sadly, kissed my hand, and turned back toward her house. And next week, we’d do it all over again.

           It became a ritual after Maisy was three-years-old and began to bite the cat when she was hungry. The haircuts had nothing to do with the cat, but that was what happened before the ritual began, so that was what Delia always connected with it. Cats and haircuts. Maisy biting things. Maisy causing change and no one liking it. All connected.

            It was around mid-morning and Annabelle was crying. She wept heavy tears into the sink, taking special care to direct her gulping and gasping toward to door so it would carry down the hall, into Delia and Daisy’s room. The sounds were familiar for this particular day. She would choke on her sobs, wiping her face with her fingers and running the tears through her hair hanging down around her shoulders like a layer of vanilla frosting on a rosy-cheeked and hiccupping cake. It was thick and long, and hung like limp mop on her pale skull. It was a gorgeous bright sunny color; the kind women skip the box and go straight to the salon for. She didn’t last very long on the day because she knew what was coming and she didn’t feel any reason to keep her objection unknown. They all would cry eventually, in their own way.

            Mama heard the crying and rolled over, tapping the cigarette butt into the wastebin beside the bed, pushing the bed skirt away as she did. She didn’t even remember it was the day, the girls did before she did and there was nothing good about that. You couldn’t let the girls get too far ahead of you on big days. Days like today. Always have a timeline, a plan, a method. Methods are teaching tools, that’s what the Nuns used to say. Methods and the crack of a ruler. And Jesus. The latter knew about teaching and pain. Pain. Love them too much to see them go down the wrong path. She took another drag and rolled back over.

            Delia did not waste her time with tears when Mama could hear them. Hers were the private sort; soaked into teddy bears and pillow cases, taken away with the morning wind as she sits on the tire swing in the yard, dragging her bare feet through the grassless dirt well worn from happier summer days. Her pleads were sent up through a diary. A lock of blonde curl was clipped and pasted for remembrance and hope. She would pray to it. Please, lock of hair, don’t let your family be taken from you. Please, yellow curl, fight back. Her hair would answer back in her dreams, tickling her face as it whispered that it couldn’t and that it tried and that it was so very sorry. The hair would get caught in her mouth and little fingers would try to grab it out, pressing into the gums and tongue reaching for something that was not there and slowly it would shoot straight down Delia’s throat, choking and killing her. And then she would wake up and share private tears on unread pages.

            Daisy heard Annabelle’s wimpering and hissed back at her.

            “Will you shut up already? She’ll hear you. Is that what you want? Jeeesus.”

            She sat up and gathered her white blond hair into a pony tail. She might as well remove it from sight now; it would only hurt more later. Daisy cried in the corn field to Leelee, the family mouse. Maisy would tease her and say it was a different mouse every time and a stupid mouse couldn’t remember to come back to the same cornfield, but Daisy knew better. Leelee was her special mouse and knew all about the day. Leelee told the other mice and Daisy knew there was some mouse army out there getting ready to save her. They’d swarm in and run underneath her and each mouse would take a few strands of her and fan them out as they scurried into the cornfield. To anyone else, it would look like Daisy was being dragged by her hair into the corn by angry rodents and Daisy wanted them to think that. Let them all think that. So that’s what she cried and prayed to. To the mice and the corn,  for salvation and love. For someone to take her away, by the hair, while they still could.

            Mama’s cigarette was finished. She was still drowsy when the embers reminded her fingers that she was holding a lit cig in bed. She flicked it into the bin and sat up, the empty air in her stomach contracting and pressing into her like a knife that would come straight through. She wondered if the girls were hungry. She hoped they knew they would eat well tonight, after it happened. She always gave them a good meal. Meals were religious events in their household, something to pray for. She stepped in to slippers and walked to the door, listening for Annabelle’s cries. At least she was already in the bathroom. The only hard part now was to find where Maisy was hidden and the older ones would file in. Such good daughters. They learn from method.

            Mama stepped into the hall and the crying stopped. And then it started again. Wails upon wails were coming from the door down the hall, and a similar wail started up in the kitchen under the sink. Maisy didn’t try too hard this time. Good. She was learning. Mama went to the kitchen and scooped Maisy up, tucking her hair under her butt as she hiked her onto one hip and grabbed the scissors with the other.

            ‘Now girls, come along. You remember the day. We all know Annabelle remembers.”

            Delia and Daisy left their souls in the bedroom as they drifted out to hall and formed a line behind Annabelle. Maisy was already in the bathroom and when the door opened, she tore past, so quickly they couldn’t even see what Mama had done. They heard the cat hiss and hoped Mama wouldn’t find out Maisy was biting again. Who knows what other ritual could start.

            Annabelle was next and she raged against the cut as much as she could. Mama slapped her hard on the cheek and forced her onto the toilet seat. A minute later and she came tearing past, her frosting hair sticking up in the back, now more of an unloved cupcake than a wedding cake. Daisy looked at Delia and said goodbye, like a soldier receiving her marching orders. She emerged a minute later, eyes bursting and headed briskly for the cornfield., where Leelee, her failed rescue would be waiting.

            Delia was the only one left and entered the bathroom. Mama was standing in the tub to make room for the girls to say goodbye and sit down. Delia turned to the mirror. The fallen strands from her sisters lay in a plastic bag on the floor, mixed together and unappreciated. She took a last look at herself, pet back the soft dirty blonde hair that reached down to her waist and closed her eyes.

            The snip, snip of the scissors echoed off of the porcelain, and was in tune with Daisy’s footsteps running away and Annabelle’s sobs and Maisy’s attack on the cat. Mama chewed on her lip as she cut, reveling in the method, the control. Delia kept her eyes closed and let the little girl inside her head with the gorgeous blonde hair and tattered dress and dirty fingernails and ripped stockings cry private tears while Mama finished her ritual.

            It’s 12:17 in the morning and I am just now cracking open my laptop to begin writing for the day. Not today, but yesterday, when I should have been writing to make tomorrow’s- today’s- deadline. Did you follow all of that? I’m not sure I did. I just finished my second glass of Luna di Luna, the kind in the red bottle that was on sale as Circle Liquors, the one next to the movie theater, not the one next to the Stop-N-Shop- though that one isn’t bad when you catch a good sale. Mom brought it here when she was checking up on Charlie two weeks ago and it was pretty good so tonight I stopped on the way home from work to get a bottle for myself, clearly not at the point yet where I can pick out my own red wine, but Mom doesn’t need to know that.

            Work isn’t really work but just something I do so I can feed Charlie and buy him new clothes. Three days ago Mrs. Logan said Charlie was cold outside and suggested we take a trip to the Good Will that’s across the street from Circle Liquors to get him a heavier coat. Well, fuck you very much, Mrs. Logan, I think I can take care of my own son and make enough money to get him a coat. I’ve been double-coating him until the next paycheck comes in because maybe she’s right. If he was cold I would certifiably suck as a mother and that’s something Mom would have an “I told you so” for and I tried to never ever get to the point where she felt it was acceptable to say those words.

            The cursor was mocking me. I got up and made my way to the kitchen. The sea foam green linoleum was peeling in the corner in front of the dishwasher and it was driving me insane. I made a mental note to get it fixed or ask Mike to do it the next time he was here and we stopped fighting long enough for him to pick up a tool or something. I smoothed the flap down with my socked foot as I poured myself glass number three. The third glass of wine was always the best, truly it was the only way to get something of any real use down on the page because Lord knows sitting down at my desk and just typing wasn’t going to get me anywhere fast.

            Fast. Fast. Lord, I was hungry. Fasting. That’s good for the creative soul. Gandhi fasted didn’t he? I think he did and he was a pretty creative person. At least I think he was since I only tend to remember people from Mr. Jay’s ninth grade World History class if they were important and creative. If I want to be a really good writer, I should probably learn my history. It makes you more of a reliable narrator. I can’t just go and say President Eisenhower was a secret transvestite who loved pecan pie and think it’s true without knowing for sure that it’s true. Hell, it could actually be true but I wouldn’t know because I don’t know my history. And either does my reader. I think. If they did, I’m sure I’d get a lot more angry e-mails. Who really wants a reliable narrator anyway? That’s no fun at all.

            The screen was dark when I made it back to the desk. No use ruining a good thing. But I need to know the time so I tap the space bar, six or seven times until it flickers back to life. It’s 12:32. Time to check on Charlie. I leave the desk and take the glass up the stairs to his room. The stairs don’t creak like they would if they were in one of my stories. If this were my story the wind would be howling and the lights dimming, the baby crying and the smell of fear hanging gently in the air, only half-threatening to break into their little suburban bubble-wrapped lives. The woman, mid-twenties, black yoga pants and burgundy socks would be climbing the stairs slowly, a flashlight in hand, head on a swivel searching for the source of her uneasiness. She would make it to the top of the stairs and breathe a sigh of relief. Alas, her breath would be cut short as the killer jumped out of the shadows and pushed her down the stairs!

            What a complete shit ending. I got to the top of the stairs at the end of my fantasy, no killer in sight, and decidedly un-creaking stairs behind me. Real life is so much more boring. I pushed open the door to Charlie’s room and he was fine. He was totally perfect in all his smallness and blondness and nose-picking, knee-scraping, mommy-hugging little boy way. He was not plagued with nightmares, he didn’t know why he was cold on the playground, he never thought he didn’t get enough fries and he never demanded a different toy with his happy meal. My son was everything I had never asked for, never dreamed I would be lucky enough to get. I took a gulp and shut the door.

            I dragged the laptop back to life with more clacking. I changed the font, the font size, made it so there wouldn’t be an extra space between paragraphs, and changed it to double spaced. There.  I took another sip and reached for the remote that was on the floor, peaking out slightly from underneath the couch. I clicked the TV on. There appeared a middle-aged man, well dressed, hair flecked with gray and heavier at the temples, holding a Bible. Of course. This man was probably a good Christian with a bit of money and one hell of a following to get himself on TV. Is that how those things worked? There was a prayer circle every time the ratings came out and a baptism in celebration of every Bible sold.

            That’s something I could write about. Purchasing Bibles from handsome religious men while swilling red wine in a streaky glass. The woman, mid-twenties, black yoga pants and burgundy socks finding religion on a Tuesday night- no, early Wednesday morning. She would receive the book two days later- she sprung for the extra shipping- and would delicately read and read until her heart was brimming with the goodness and light of Jesus Christ and she would rush upstairs to share His Holy light with her cherubic son and her prayers would be cut short as the killer jumped out of the shadows and pushed her down the stairs!

            Again with the bad ending. There’s never a good way to end a story. 

Ellie arrived yesterday and was already making Jack uncomfortable in his own apartment. She was trying to give him help with his coping issues. “Coping” was a problem Jack had from when he was child. Back when his rabbit Whiskers was torn to bits on the back porch by a rabid dog and Jack cried for two weeks straight. Jack used to think there was nothing wrong with showing that you are just upset some times. This was how he coped, and Ellie could just back off.

            She didn’t back off. She took a break with her somewhat boyfriend that she kind of had a thing with but didn’t really think it was going anywhere with and why stay with him if he wasn’t going to give her a kid in order to haul her stuff and her know-it-all attitude over to Boston. Ellie told Jack all of that two minutes after arriving, her suitcases making puddles in the kitchen as she banged pots in the cabinets looking for the tea kettle. Tea and suppression was how the Tormen family dealt with unsettling situations, which is why Jack moved. 

            “Why aren’t you crying?”

            Jack looked up from his morning paper, a coffee stain on the page he’d been staring at for the last twenty minutes.

            “Because I’m not,” Jack responded.

            “Well I came all the way over here to help you deal with this because I thought you’d be a wreck and need me. You’re supposed to be upset, you’re always upset, and I’m here for you, you know? If you don’t need me I could just leave but I thought we should stick together in this difficult time, you know?”

            “I know.”

            “Because it’s me and you now, you know? Just us, you know?”

            “I know.”

            Jack pointed down at the newspaper.

            “Did you see? They forgot to mention we had to ship her to Florida.”

            Ellie looked over at the newspaper, scanning the bottom right column.

            “Ah, well, that’s water under the bridge. Under a few bridges actually, all the way to Key West, you know.”

            “I know.”

            Jack folded his paper and went up to fry another egg. Ellie propped herself on the table.

            “So dead is dead, right? Wow. Jesus. So insane. And she didn’t even want the family plot. Jesus. Hey, you know, we should see each other more. Not just when people die. Be a proper family, you know? One day our kids could play together and have cousins and they won’t be mean like ours were. Proper cousins. You want that for your kids, right? I know I do.”

            Scott continued frying his egg.

            “Not having kids.”

            “Why would you say something like that? Because you can’t or because you won’t? Why? Jesus, that’s such a serious thing to say.”

            “I wouldn’t be good for them. Not after what they did to us. No kids for me.”

            “You’re the only one to carry on the name. It’s just me and you, you know? I could give my kids our last name but that’s not my job, it’s yours, you know? You can’t just do that to the family.”

            Jack tipped the egg into his plate, not listening.

            “Mom would hate you for this. It’s a good thing she’s dead.”

            “I know.”