K. Randis - Spilled Milk

“Mom, we have to.”

I don’t know who started crying first, but all at once we were in a group hug. “My babies, oh Brooke I am so sorry. Is this what you want, this is what you really want?”

I nodded through my cloudy eyes. “Yea, Mommy. We need to go.”

She stared at the open window. “Oh, Brooke. I am so sorry. Please stay home, please stay. We can make things better here. If you ever want to run away to Grandma’s house just tell me, we’ll all go together. Your brothers too, we’ll all go.”

I didn’t need to explain? Maybe she knew. Maybe she realized when Dad wasn’t in bed and when he savagely tore after my brothers when they did something wrong. Maybe the pills didn’t make her as numb as I thought they did.

“Okay, Mommy,” Kat said on our behalf, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “We’ll stay. We can run away to Grandma’s later.”

Mom looked at me. “Okay Brooke? We’ll all run away together someday, we’ll all go together.”

I looked at my feet, at her face. I believed her. “Okay, Mom.” I forced a smile.

She helped us unpack. When Mom got to the bottom of my suitcase she pulled out a black and white marble notebook. “What’s this Brooke?” Mom turned it over. The front read:

“Can I read it?” Mom bit her lower lip. “I won’t tell anyone, promise” She smiled.

I hesitated. “Sure. I need it back tomorrow.”

I used composition notebooks as journals now since Mom and Dad wouldn’t buy them for me. They were the first things I packed, I couldn’t live without them.

The sound of a glass breaking in the kitchen woke me the next morning. Adam must be unloading the dishwasher . I wiggled under the covers stretching my arms and legs before I sat up and saw my journal sitting at the foot of my bed. I opened it up to the last entry.

Watermarks stained the page as I touched the spots and listened to it crinkle. Mom’s unique uppercase writing and run on sentences sprawled across the pages at the end of the last journal entry I wrote.

Dear Brooke- I love you with all my heart. I love all of you. But you have an extra special place in my heart you are so smart and aware of everything and I don’t know what I would have done without you (and your brothers and sister). They don’t understand yet, but I know they will someday and then they will say my God how did she do it and I am going to have to say with a huge help from your sister Brooke. I am so sorry for all the times I yelled at you. I had no idea the burden, stress and strain I am putting on you. You’re only a child and this should not be. My God, help me to make Brooke’s life a whole lot better. I promise I will try to help you Lord, please help her, she’s only 11 years old. With all my love. I’m sorry for getting your book wet but I was crying.

That week my brothers, Kat and I were sitting in the living room when Mom and Dad came in to tell us some big news.

“We’re moving!” Mom exclaimed. She clasped her hands together. “We’re going to Pennsylvania, it’s about three hours from here and there is so much room to play and run around. There are farms and woods to explore, you guys can build your own tree houses. Best of all, I found the most beautiful house, it’s perfect.” A sparkle in her eye told me she loved this house already, she loved Pennsylvania.

Dad looked at me.

“What about school?” I tried to hide the desperation in my voice. “School isn’t over yet, it’s almost Christmas. We can’t move.”

Dad leaned forward. “We’re moving the day after Christmas. You’ll be on break, so you won’t miss anything while we switch your schools.”

Adam and Thomas started talking about the bears they were going to hunt and Kat asked if she could have a pink tree house. I looked out the window.

Three hours away? We didn’t know anyone who lived in Pennsylvania. All of our family was here, in New York. We might as well move to Mars.

Mom smiled while she listened to the boys talk. Her eyes met mine and suddenly went soft. Her smile retracted, and I noticed wrinkles outlining the corners of her eyes.

My face pleaded with her to remember her promise, begged her to remember. Whether she knew it or not she had let me down. My shoulders slumped to my sides and I fought with the screaming voices in my head. I guess this meant we were never running away to Grandma’s house.

At first Mom didn’t believe me when I told her I was dying.

“You’re twelve. You’re not even close to dying.” Mom poured her tea and sat down at the kitchen table. “Didn’t you just invite Cristin to come over? If you’re not feeling good then maybe she shouldn’t come over.”

“It’s not that I don’t feel good, my stomach just hurts.” I pressed my hand into the lower right of my stomach. “Right here. It just started hurting. Can I use your heating pad?”

“Go ahead.” She turned on the TV and dropped a dollop of milk into her tea. “While you’re up there, bring me my pills?”

Dad sat at the kitchen table listening. “Why don’t you try and use the bathroom, Brooke?”

The new house in Pennsylvania boasted four bedrooms that quadrupled in size compared to what we had in New York. All Kat and I had in our room was our bed and a small vanity my cousin handed down when she got tired of it.

We struggled to fill all the space; we needed two couches, a real dining room set, and dressers since there was room for them. Most of the furniture was mismatched and thrown together. The best part about the new house were the three bathrooms. Three. One upstairs, one downstairs, one in my parent’s room. Kat and I could get ready for school in the upstairs bathroom while the boys got ready downstairs. It was heaven.

I clicked open Mom’s medicine cabinet and pulled four bottles off the top shelf. White, cream colored and pink pills slid into my hand as I counted out the different dosages. I squeezed my hand around them. The heating pad Mom used for her back was dangling over the edge of the bed and I picked it up as I headed to the door.

I made a friend on my bus, Cristin, and she got her period for the first time two weeks ago. While the unfamiliar pain crippled my stomach I tried to smile through it knowing I was finally going to get to hide tampons in my book bag too.

I stood at the top of the stairs and gripped the handrail. Geeze, this period stuff is no joke. My stomach felt tender to the touch and I shuffled one foot in front of the other. Cristin walked through the front door as I reached the bottom of the stairs. Her voice seemed muffled. My stomach flipped over and I caught my breath.

“Hey, what’s up?” She eyed me, “My dad just dropped me off. You okay?”

I shook my head and doubled over, clutching the pills in one hand, heating pad in the other. Cristin raised her eyebrows and took the heating pad. “I’ll go plug this in, living room okay?”

I couldn’t talk. I nodded my head, forced a smile. Sweat formed around my eyes and lips as I trudged into the kitchen. Mom’s eyes were glued to the TV. A stabbing blow dropped me to my knees and I cried out. “Ah, Mom, it hurts!”

“Brooke?” Mom rolled her eyes, “Oh come on, Brooke. Do you want some ibuprofen? Do you want…”

The kitchen spun into a white cloud. I could hear Mom screaming for Dad as my head hit the kitchen floor. Pills scattered across the linoleum. Mom’s breath engulfed me, she smelled like a smoky teabag. “Hang on, Brooke, Call 9-1-1! Oh my God. David call 9-1-1!”

I woke up confused in a white room surrounded by a curtain. Monitors hummed and needles pulsed under my skin on both hands.