Some Quiet Place

black rivers, and there’s blood flowing from a cut in her lip.
    “Are you all right?” I ask, knowing she won’t answer. And she doesn’t. She clutches her knees and rocks back and forth. The back of her head keeps knocking against the wall, and I reach out to grasp her arm, stopping her. She cringes at my touch.
    “Here.” I hold out the washcloth; she won’t let me near enough to clean the cut myself. And of course she doesn’t take it. I’d guess that she’s thinking about Tim, about whatever it was that caused this. “It isn’t your fault,” I murmur.
    That gets a reaction. “Shut up!” my mother hisses, glaring at me through her tears. “You’re not my child! You’re unnatural, and I want you to get out of my life! ”
    I watch her for a moment. My presence is only upsetting her more, so I finally say, “I’ll go.” On my way to the door I pause by the window, noticing movement outside. I glance back at Mom. “Tim is coming back up the driveway. You probably should barricade yourself in the bedroom.”
    It’s as if I haven’t spoken. She just stares at me. “What are you?” Her voice is a broken whisper.
    Tim’s brakes squeal as he parks his pickup next to mine. I look back at Mom again. “Do you still want me to go?”
    We both hear the screen door downstairs slam open, accompanied by a belch and a colorful string of profanities immediately after. Tim is still drunk, then. And angry. Mom’s breathing quickens. Fear materializes, kneeling down beside her to clasp her in his freezing embrace. Mom shivers, eyes glazing over.
    “Help,” she whimpers to me. One word, seemingly so simple, but it’s so much more.
    For just an instant, I catch a glimmer of true, undeniable compassion in Fear’s fathomless pale eyes. He smiles at me bitterly. “Ah, mortality,” he says. “Your kind is consumed by habits, traditions. The fact that she’s married to him keeps her trapped here.”
    Mom is whispering something under her breath, over and over. I can’t make out the words. Tim is stumbling his way through the kitchen. He knocks a chair to the floor. I think quickly, flatly. If I save my mother now, she’ll feel as if she owes me, or that there’s a possibility I might be normal, and she’ll try to forget what’s happened here. The pretense of our lives can continue until I find a way to feel. Then, maybe, I can be the normal girl everyone expects me to be, and I will survive.
    Mom’s whispers grow more intense as her agitation increases. “Stay up here,” I tell her, and shut the bathroom door. I go back down the stairs. Stop in the kitchen doorway. Watch my father as he falls apart. He doesn’t notice me there for a few minutes. He’s mumbling to himself, opening every cupboard, hunting for something else to drink, probably. When I shift my feet, deliberately making my heel scrape the floor, he slams the fridge shut, twisting in my direction. His movements are sluggish.
    “You,” he slurs, red eyes latching onto me. “You’re the reason all of this started.”
    “What do you mean?” I ask, unmoving, even when he walks toward me. But there are faint memories; I know exactly what he means. My strangeness drove my parents apart. First there were arguments, in low furious tones, over quickly. Then those evolved into loud matches that lasted hours. Tim began to drink and Mom sank into herself. Until our lives became what they are. So it’s true; I did do this.
    Tim keeps muttering, but his words are so jumbled I can’t make any sense of them. He grabs my shoulder, slamming me against the wall. Pain slices up my spine. His breath is sour, his breathing labored.
    “You’re different,” he mumbles in my face. Over his shoulder I see the shimmer of an Emotion that must be here for him. Guilt? Sorrow? I can’t tell with Tim’s red face in the way. “You used to be like Charles. You used to be a kid. Now you’re not. You … ” Tim loses his train of thought. “I need a drink,” he mutters.
    As they usually do around this point, my instincts come to life again, rational and cold. Survive. Fight. Run , they hiss. I can’t release the mental image of my mother, though, so pathetic and alone up in that mint-green bathroom. So I ignore all the impulses and look up at Tim. My words are bullets, swift and calculated. “I think a drink is the last thing you need.”
    And as I expected, this infuriates him. “Don’t tell me what I need.” He shakes me until my teeth ache.