Melanie Thon - Meteors in August

The instant I touched the steps of his house he was on me. He grabbed my wrist and jerked me onto the porch, then shoved me inside the house, giving my behind a sharp jab with his knee as I stumbled through the doorway.

“Where’ve you been, dressed like that?” he shouted. Mother ran out from the kitchen to see what the ruckus was.

“Calm yourself,” she said, trying to wedge between us. My father had already worked himself into a sweat. Mom knew the slapping would start if she didn’t do something fast. Daddy pushed her out of his way with one hand and said, “Did you see your daughter leave the house today?” She refused to answer. The beer on his breath smelled sweet and strong and made me remember.

“What have I told you about girls who put that crap all over their faces?” he said to me. “What did I say I’d do if I ever caught you ratting your hair and wearing your skirt halfway up your ass?”

Mom tugged at his arm. “It’s just a little makeup, Dean. It doesn’t mean anything.”

But my father and I knew different. Daddy’s eyes were clear and pale, glacial ice reflecting just a hint of blue from the sky. Those eyes saw everywhere. He knew all about me and Zack. He saw us falling. He saw that I almost liked it, that I was already imagining it might happen again.

Damp rings darkened Daddy’s T-shirt from his armpits halfway to his waist. I never understood how he knew things about me. Maybe we were too much alike. Maybe at the moment he left the mill a squawking crow flew high above him. As he raised his head to see why she was yammering, she swooped in the direction of the gully and the vision came to my father as clearly as if he had followed Zachary up the rickety ladder of the tree house.

“Go take a shower,” he said. “And find a decent dress before you sit down at my table.”

I climbed the stairs with all the dignity I could muster, knowing how Father judged me. I remembered the smear of orange lipstick across my swollen mouth and heard Zack say, You’re not too ugly . But I was.

At dinner, dad wasn’t talking to me and Mom wasn’t talking to him. It was a four-word meal. Father stopped picking at his beans and chop, stood up, threw his napkin on the table and said, “Damn kitchen’s too hot.” He was only looking for an excuse to go outside for a smoke.

I went straight to my room after Mom and I did the dishes. I opened my window wide and hoped to hear the first crickets of spring, but they were still months away, hundreds of miles south of Willis. I thought of Zack as he stood to leave the tree house. I had stayed on the floor, staring up at his long legs, at the damp spot in his crotch. He’d grinned in a way that made me think he might put his foot on my chest before he left, lightly, a threat, a joke from his point of view. But he hadn’t bothered. And I’d watched his thighs as he squatted, easing himself onto the unreliable ladder. I covered my head with my pillow, but the memory didn’t fade.

Later the screen door whined, and I knew Mother had gone out on the porch. I pictured her folding her arms, just waiting for Father to turn around and snarl, “What is it?”

Their two voices rumbled along at first, slow and soft, as if they tried their best to be polite and have a real discussion, giving each other time to think and time to speak. But before long their words jumped on top of one another. Daddy swung so hard in the porch seat that it groaned, and I thought it might fly clean off its hinges. The squabble didn’t last long. Father won the quarrel by marching down the road and calling back to Mother, “You drive me to drink, woman.”

She sat for less than a minute before she came inside. I heard her on the stairs. I figured she had come to her senses and realized what a troublemaker I was, giving her one more thing to fight about with Daddy. I suspected she was on her way to give me the scolding she wouldn’t let my father give me earlier.

She tapped at the door and said, “Lizzie, Lizzie honey, are you awake?”

I told her I was. Only the devil could sleep after doing what I’d done that afternoon. I was no better than Zachary Holler. I was impatient and much too hungry. I remembered how I felt as I shoved Gwen against the tree in the gully, strong and mean, thinking only of what I wanted. I felt my own brutal kiss and tasted blood where my teeth cut the inside of my lip.

“May I come in?” I got nervous when my mother was that polite. “Why are you sitting up here in the dark, baby? Come down and sit on the porch with me. Your father’s gone.”

I didn’t want Mother’s company, especially if she was going to be so sweet with me when all the time I knew Daddy was right. Zack Holler never would have given me a second look if my lips weren’t orange and my skirt wasn’t tight. I would have been invisible, the same Lizzie Macon he’d always known, and nothing would have happened in the tree house.

“I’ve got something to tell you, Liz.” The way she said it gave me no choice, so I followed her downstairs to the porch.

She didn’t start talking right away. She was thinking so hard that she didn’t see how I watched her as we rocked together in the swing. Most times I kept myself from looking at her this way. Tonight I noticed her fingers were stiff, and she rubbed her knuckles one by one. I thought of Grandmother’s hands, crippled by arthritis, her joints so swollen she couldn’t remove the ring of the man who had deserted her. I wondered how long it would take before my own mother’s hands grew twisted, too weak to hold a pot of soup. I saw her by the stove, saw the handle slip from her grasp.

I wanted to swear no boy would ever steal me away. I would be there to mop the soup off the floor, to chop the vegetables and start another pot. I wanted her to put her head on my lap so I could stroke her hair and face and tell her I’d never be a problem to her again. But I did nothing; it wasn’t our way, not since Nina left, not since Nina stuffed all her easy love in a canvas bag and vanished in the dust on the road.

Mom patted my knee with her thin hand. “Your father loves you, Lizzie. I hope you believe that. He’s rough with you, I know, but he’s afraid. He doesn’t want you to end up like Nina.

“He loved that girl too much. Sometimes I think he loved her more than he loves me. Men are strange that way. A wife has flaws and no one knows them better than her husband — but a daughter can be anything he wants to see. She looked like an angel, and that’s all your daddy saw. He couldn’t bear it when he found out. He couldn’t forgive her. He still can’t. That’s the evil that can come of love.”

I saw Nina twirling down the stairs in her pink dress with the crinoline slip that made it float around her legs. She was fourteen, like me. Nina didn’t have to tempt boys by painting herself like a bird. She was temptation itself. Everyone saw it, everyone but my father. “My baby,” he said, his voice a prayer, “my beautiful girl.”

“Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?” Mom said. “Your father wants you to stay his little girl. He says nasty things he doesn’t mean. Promise me you won’t be too hard on him.”

“I won’t,” I said. Just an hour before, she’d been railing at my father to go easy on me. Sometimes I thought she wanted me to love him in ways that she couldn’t. No wonder her soft cheeks were crossed with tiny lines. No wonder her long hair was streaked with gray.

We moved from the swing to the steps to look at the night sky. Once in a while Mom pointed and said, “Look at that!” Or, “There’s another one.” But I never saw a shooting star. Maybe she was only pretending, or wishing. Maybe the stars in the blur of tears that swelled slowly in the corners of her eyes seemed to leave a trail in the night.