K. Randis - Spilled Milk

“Oh hey Mer, what’s—?” Mom’s silence as she listened forced me to look in her direction. She twisted the cord around her finger and turned her back to us. “Mmm hmm? Yea, Brooke likes journals.”

My face tingled with heat when Mom paced two short steps towards the living room. She spun and looked in my direction, the receiver glued to her ear. My mom was always the one chatting away on phone calls, but she was unable to utter a single syllable, darting her eyes at me with an open mouth.

I prayed that Alyssa’s mom was asking if I could come over for dinner, or to play. The banquet my Barbie was attending with my sister’s teddy bear was no longer interesting and I half listened, half pretended to brush Barbie’s hair.

“What do you, I mean, can I see it?” Mom’s voice rose. The thud in my chest was nothing compared to the knots that started to form in my stomach. What did I do?

Mom grabbed her tea and headed for the door after slamming the phone down. “Brooke, watch your sister.”

My legs weren’t fast enough to chase her. “Mom, what’s-”

“No!” She screamed when she saw me trying to follow. “You get back at that table, and you watch her until I get back. GO.” She disappeared through the front door and I paced the kitchen. Hours went by. Maybe it was minutes. I wish I had known Alyssa’s number by heart, I would have called her.

After Kat and I put our Barbie’s back in their bin, the front door opened. My mom’s quick footsteps in the hall made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I looked for a place to hide. With knuckles clenched, I readied for the screaming to start. Whatever she says you did, just apologize. Apologize and offer to clean up the kitchen.

Crumbs that lingered on the kitchen table became my focal point so I didn’t have to see her face when she entered the room and I moved them around with my finger until I felt eyes on me. Mom’s eyes. I couldn’t look at her. Silence. Please say something.

I had to look. My eyes darted up, briefly, to catch my mom standing with her back to the counter and her one hand covering her eyes. It was what she did when she was about to explode. She buried her face, building up, maybe asking God for forgiveness for the terror that was about to reign in this kitchen.

“Brooke.” Her voice was solid, calm.

“Yea?” I flicked a crumb. Should I start screaming first? She would drown me out.

She moved her hand down her face, dragging her fingers past her eyes and cheeks. When she pulled her hand away I thought for sure her skin would come with it.

“Let’s go. Kat, you too, now .”

Alyssa was nowhere to be found as I sat on her couch staring at the journal I had been writing in the past few weeks. I couldn’t look up. How am I going to explain this?

“Brooke, honey,” Alyssa’s mom started, “Do you know what sex is ?”

There isn’t a right answer to that question lady.

My toes curled in my shoes. There was a hole in the big toe of my right sock. I wiggled it. My lips pressed hard against each other in a hushed war with my head. Say nothing, Brooke. Journals are secret, they shouldn’t have looked.

“This picture.” Mom slammed a cold finger against the page in my lap. “Where did you see this? How did you draw…” She trailed off. “Where did you get ideas to draw pictures like that?”

Alyssa’s mom squinted at me. “Did she maybe see this on TV Molly? I know those late shows can be full of garbage like this.”

“Is that it Brooke?” Mom’s voice heightened. “Did you see this on TV?” She played the unknowing parent role. “Did you see this when you weren’t supposed to?”

My head was too heavy to look up all the way, just enough to look at their eyes. They were curious, frightened. They didn’t know what to think, those eyes.

“Well, Brooke?” Mom’s voice reached furious status. “You didn’t draw these pictures from nowhere. You didn’t learn the word sex and penis from your books at home. Did you think we wouldn’t find this? What would make you write and draw these things? This is Alyssa’s journal, not yours! Do I need to look at the journal you have at home?”

“No!” Tears fell into my lap. “I saw it on TV,” I lied. I couldn’t let her read my journals at home. “I watched a show I shouldn’t have watched. I’m sorry. I’m sorry Mom, I didn’t mean to get Alyssa in trouble.”

“Alyssa’s not in trouble.” Mom flipped the journal shut. “YOU are!”

“Okay, all right, let’s just-” Alyssa’s mom motioned for my mom to sit down.

“You listen to me.” Mom lowered her voice, her cigarette smell flared in my nostrils as she shook her finger inches from my face. “If I ever, ever see you draw or write things like this again, I swear to God…”

Her threats were promising. She would call all the family, all the neighbors about the bad thing I did. She would maybe even call the school, tell them I was a horrible child who drew bad things in journals, and that I shouldn’t be allowed to go there anymore.

I would have to spend all my time at home, with her and Dad, not allowed to write in journals, always labeled the bad child. My brothers and sister would be allowed outside to play and allowed to read books. Not me, though. I would be banned from those things for being the bad child that drew pictures of penises and sex in a journal that wasn’t mine.

Meredith stood to coax Mom into the kitchen for tea. Mom’s tears overpowered my own and Meredith tried to console her by putting her hand on her shoulder and shaking her head in a reassuring motion. “I can’t take it anymore, these kids,” Mom ranted. “Why would she embarrass me like this? Why do I even bother?”

“I won’t write those bad things anymore,” I said, though no one heard me. They had already walked into the kitchen leaving me alone. The journal was flung into the closest garbage can. My sleeve served as a makeshift tissue as I whole heartedly vowed, “I won’t ever write about these things again Mom. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Mom told me what she found in Alyssa’s journal yesterday,” Dad said. He cleared his throat and craned his neck to see if mom was standing in the kitchen. She wasn’t. “I don’t know why you would need to draw the things you did.”

Yes, you do.

“But I know you’re a smart girl, and something like that won’t ever happen again. Right?”

We sat there in silence. I wished Thomas would burst through his bedroom door and ask for cereal. Or that the dog would come to the back door wanting to be let back in. His voice hissed the last part, Right?

How can he sit across the table from me drinking his coffee like that? My fingers pinched the skin between my eyes as I strained to figure out if I was awake or still asleep. Is he really saying this to me right now?

“Good,” he said, accepting my silence as confirmation. “In that case, I think we need to talk about your bedtime being changed.”

“Dad, I said I was sorry.” I spoke carefully, pleading.

He held up his hand. “I think a girl your age deserves to go to bed at… I don’t know, nine o’clock every night. No more eight thirty. What do you think?”

I hated the smile that spread across my face. A half an hour increase in bed time meant a less amount of time I had to spend in my bedroom at night.

“Aunt Jean and Uncle Bruce are here,” Adam screamed, running from around the corner and almost into the kitchen table.

“Shut up, I don’t need you running around here like a god damn wild animal.” Dad pushed his newspaper away and stood up to adjust his bathrobe. “Sure, just stop on in anytime,” he mumbled. “Molly, get in here!”