Chevy Stevens - Still Missing

“What kind of lessons did you want to take?”

“I was into art, painting and drawing, stuff like that, but Mom wasn’t.”

“So if she wasn’t, then you couldn’t be?” His eyebrows rose. “Doesn’t sound like she was very fair, or much fun.”

“When we were younger, before Daisy died, she could be fun. Like every Christmas we made huge gingerbread houses, and she’d play dress-up with us all the time. Sometimes she’d build forts in the middle of the living room with Daisy and me, then we’d stay up late watching scary movies.”

“Did you like the scary movies?”

“I liked being with Daisy and her…. They just had a different sense of humor. Mom’s really into pranks and stuff, like one Halloween she poured ketchup all over the floor by my bed so when I woke up and stepped in it I’d think it was blood. She and Daisy laughed about it for days.” I still hate ketchup.

“But you didn’t think it was so funny, did you?”

I shrugged. The Freak began to look bored and shifted his weight like he was going to get up. Shit. I had to start showing him some real feelings if I wanted him to connect with me.

“It made me cry. Mom still likes to tell everyone how she fooled me. She gets off on stuff like that, fooling people. She even used to trick-or-treat with us.”

“Interesting. And why do you think your mother likes to ‘fool people,’ as you say?”

“Who knows, but she’s damn good at it. It’s how she gets most of her makeup and clothes—she has every saleswoman in and out of town wrapped around her finger.”

It didn’t take many bottles of knockoff perfume before Mom went hunting for a sucker behind a department-store cosmetics counter. Saleswomen not only gave the pretty grieving widow make overs but plenty of free samples as well, especially when Mom was so good about talking up the products to any woman who happened by.

That’s not all she was good at. She may have small hands but Mom has sharp eyes, and those hands of hers are fast. The top of her dresser was littered with half-used cologne, potions, and lotions she’d gotten bored with after plucking them off a counter when a saleslady’s back was turned. Sometimes she actually bought stuff, but she generally returned it at the same store in a different town. I finally said something, but she told me that with all the sales she was helping the women make, she considered the occasional bottle her commission.

Once Mom realized how easy it was to steal perfume she moved on to clothes and lingerie. Good stuff too, from boutiques. When I got older I refused to go with her. I’m pretty sure she still does it, I don’t ask, but the woman is better dressed than most fashion models.

“Sometimes I think she liked me better as a kid,” I said. The Freak’s eyes burned into mine. I’d touched a nerve.

With our eyes locked, I said, “Maybe I was more fun for her when I was little, or maybe it’s because I started getting my own opinions and actually challenged her. Whatever the reason, I’m pretty sure she’s disappointed I grew up.”

The Freak cleared his throat, then paused and shook his head. He wanted to say something, he just needed a little nudge. In my gentlest voice I said, “Did you ever feel like that when you were a kid?”

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, his head still resting on my arm. “My mother didn’t want me to grow up.”

“Maybe all moms feel sad when their kids grow up.”

“No, it was…it wasn’t that.”

I thought of his total lack of body hair and his obsessive shaving. I forced myself to curl my arm around under his head and rest my hand on his forehead. He flinched in surprise, then glanced at me, but he didn’t pull away.

I said, “So her first child died…” His body tensed against my side. I lifted my palm to stroke his hair so he’d relax, but, unsure of his response, slowly dropped it back down on his curls and just pressed my leg against his so he’d feel its warmth. “Do you think it had something to do with that? Did you feel like you had to live up to him? You know, like you were a replacement?” His eyes darkened as he turned slightly away. I had to stop him from shutting down.

“You asked me about Daisy before, and I didn’t want to talk about it because it’s still pretty hard for me. She was great, I mean she was my big sister and I’m sure sometimes she got annoyed with me, but I thought she was perfect. Mom did too. After the accident I’d catch her staring at me, or she’d walk by and touch my hair, and just in the way she did it, I knew she was thinking about Daisy.”

He faced me again. “Did she ever say anything?”

“Not really. At least, nothing I could point to. But you don’t have to hear the words to know. She’d never admit it, but I’m pretty sure she wishes I was the one who went through the windshield. And I can’t even blame her for it—for a long time I wished it too. Daisy was the better one. When I was a kid I thought that was why God wanted her.”

I don’t know what the hell happened, it was probably just the stupid hormones, but I started to cry. That was the first time I’d admitted those feelings to anyone. He opened his mouth and took a breath like he was about to say something. But he didn’t, he just closed it, gave my leg a pat, and stared back up at the ceiling.

What was he afraid of? How was I going to get him to trust me and open up? So far, all I’d been able to do was put myself through emotional hell by dredging up this shit. I’d heard some kids feel loyalty to their abusers. Was that what was holding him back?

“I probably shouldn’t even be telling you this stuff,” I said. “My mom did so much for me over the years that I feel like if I say anything bad about her I’m betraying her.” His head cocked toward me. “But I guess parents are humans who make mistakes too.” My mind worked to call up every forgive-your-parent self-help platitude I’d ever read. “I keep telling myself it’s okay to talk about these things, I can still love my mom and not always like everything she does.”

“My mother was a wonderful woman.” He paused. I waited. “We had dress-up time too.”

Now things were getting interesting.

“I was only five, but I still remember the day she came to see me at my foster home. The idiot she was married to was there too but he barely looked at me. She was wearing this white sundress, and when she hugged me she smelled clean, not like the fat pig who was my foster mother. She told me to be a good boy and she was going to come back and get me, and she did. Her husband was away on another of his trips, so it was just us, and when we got home—I’d never seen such a clean house—she gave me a bath.”

I tried not to show any emotion in my voice when I spoke.

“That must have been nice….”

“I’d never had one like it, there were candles and it smelled good. When she washed my hair and back, her hands were so gentle. She let the dirty water drain away, then she added more and got in with me, to wash me better. When she kissed my bruises, her lips felt soft, like velvet. And she said she was taking the pain out through my skin and into her.” He glanced at me, and I don’t know how I pulled it off, but I nodded as though what he’d just told me was the most natural thing in the world.

“She told me I could sleep in her bed because she didn’t want me to be scared. I’d never felt another human being’s skin against mine—no one had ever even held me before—and I could feel her heart beating.” He patted his chest. “She liked to touch my hair, like how your mom touched yours, and she said it reminded her of her son’s.” My hand resting on his curls itched and I fought the urge to pull away.