Cody McFadyen - The Face of Death

mean

He stared at Sarah as she and Theresa sat down.

"You Sarah?" he asked. His voice rumbled. The question crackled like a threat.

"Y-yes."

He gazed at her for a long moment before turning his attention to Rebecca.

"Where's Jesse?"

Rebecca shrugged. "I don't know. He knows better, but he's been getting pretty defiant."

Sarah was still staring at Dennis, wide-eyed, so she saw the rage that passed over his face at this. It was a snarl of pure hate.

"Well," he said, "I'm going to have to do something about that."

His face closed up again. "Let's eat."

The meal was meat loaf. Sarah thought it was okay. Not as good as Mommy's, but that kind of felt right, anyway. Dinner passed in silence, punctuated by the clink of silverware and the sounds of chewing. Dennis had a can of beer, and he took large gulps of it between bites of his meat loaf, putting it down and staring around the table. Sarah noticed that he spent a lot of time looking at Theresa, while Theresa was careful never to look at him.

Dennis was on his third beer by the time dinner was over.

"You girls clear the table and do the dishes," Rebecca said. "Dennis and I are going to watch TV. When you're done, you can go to your room."

Theresa nodded and stood up and began gathering the dishes. Sarah helped. The silence continued. Rebecca smoked her cigarette and stared at Dennis with a mix of desperation and resignation, while Dennis simmered and stared at Theresa with an emotion Sarah couldn't define.

Everything about this was alien to her. Dinner at home had always been full of conversation and stories, laughter and dogs. Daddy teased her, Mommy would watch and smile. Buster and Doreen would sit at attention, hoping beyond hope for table scraps that (almost) never came.

There, Sarah was special, and things were light and fun. Here, things were heavy. Things were dangerous. She wasn't special, not a bit. She followed Theresa into the kitchen and over to the sink.

"I'll rinse the dishes off," Theresa said, "and you put them in the dishwasher. Do you know how to do that?"

Sarah nodded. "I used to help Mommy do it."

Theresa smiled at her. She started the process, and they fell into a comfortable rhythm. Things almost seemed normal.

"Who's Jesse?" Sarah asked.

"He's the other one of us living here. A boy, sixteen." Theresa shrugged. "He's nice enough, but he's started defying Dennis. I don't think he's going to be here much longer."

Sarah placed a handful of forks into the cutlery basket. "Why?"

she asked. "What's going to happen to him?"

"He's going to piss Dennis off, and Dennis is going to beat him up, and this time I think Jesse's going to fight back. Even that bitch Karen Watson won't be able to ignore that."

Sarah took a plate that Rebecca handed her. "Is Ms. Watson mean?"

Theresa looked at her, surprised. "Mean? Rebecca and Dennis are bad, but Karen Watson? She's pure evil."

Sarah considered this concept. Pure evil.

They finished rinsing the dishes. Theresa put dish detergent into the dishwasher and turned it on. Sarah listened to the muffled

"thunka-thunka" sounds coming from the dishwasher and was comforted by them. They sounded no different from the ones at home.

"Now we go to our room," Theresa said. "Straight there. Dennis will be really drunk by now."

Sarah sensed danger again. She was starting to understand that this was life here. You walked across a minefield of eggshells at night, while the enemy listened with bat ears for the sound of a single crack. The air in this home was heavy with tension and caution and (she sensed) real danger.

Sarah followed Theresa as they left the kitchen. She glanced toward the couch as they passed the living room. What she saw happening there made her blink in shock. Rebecca and Dennis were kissing--that was no big deal, she'd seen Mommy and Daddy kiss plenty of times--but Rebecca didn't have her shirt on, and her boobies were showing!

Something twisted in Sarah's belly at the sight. She knew, at some visceral level, that she wasn't supposed to be seeing this kind of thing. Kissing was fine, boobies were fine (she was a girl, after all) but boobies mixed with kissing . . . her face burned and she felt queasy. They entered the bedroom and Theresa closed the door, taking great care to make no noise.

(Eggshells and tension, eggshells and tension) Sarah sat on her bed. She felt faint.

"Sorry you had to see that, Sarah," Theresa muttered, angry.

"They're not supposed to do that where people can see them--

especially kids."

"I don't like it here," Sarah said in a small voice.

"Me neither, Sarah. Me neither." Theresa fell silent. "I'm going to tell you something else. You won't understand it now, but you will in the future. Don't trust men. They only want one thing--what you saw on the couch. Some of them don't care how old you are, either. Some of them like it better that way."

There was a bitterness to Theresa's voice as she spoke that made Sarah turn to her. The thirteen-year-old was crying, silent, angry tears that were meant to be felt but not heard.

Sarah jumped off her bed and went over to sit by Theresa. She put her small arms around the older girl and hugged her. She did this without thinking, as much a reflex as a plant turning toward the sun.

"Shhh . . . don't cry, Theresa. It'll be okay. Don't cry."

The older girl wept for a few more moments before wiping away her tears and forcing a shaky smile.

"Look at me, being a big old crybaby."

"It's okay," Sarah said. "We're sisters. Sisters can cry in front of each other, right?"

Theresa looked stricken, filled with a commingling of old wounds and old happiness. They ran together through her spirit, a muddy flood, few whites, many grays.

In later years, Sarah would remember this moment, convinced that it led Theresa to do the things she did.

"Yeah," Theresa replied, her voice shaky. "We're sisters." She grabbed Sarah and hugged her. Sarah closed her eyes and hugged back and inhaled. She thought Theresa smelled like flowers in summer.

For a moment--just a moment--Sarah felt safe.

"So," Theresa said, breaking the hug with a smile, "do you want to play a game? All we have is Go Fish."

"I like Go Fish."

They grinned at each other and sat on the bed and played, ignoring the grunts and moans from other parts of the house, safe on their island in a sea of eggshells.

27

THERESA AND SARAH HAD PLAYED FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF,and then had talked for another two. The room was a like a sanctuary from the truths that had brought them here. Theresa had talked about her mother, and had shown Sarah a single picture.

"She's beautiful," Sarah had said, awed.

It was true. The woman in the photograph was in her midtwenties, a mix of Latin and something else that came together to produce laughing eyes, exotic features, and a mane of chestnut hair. Theresa had glanced at the photo one more time before putting it back under her mattress with a smile.

"Yeah, she was. She was really funny too, you know? Always laughing about something." The smile had disappeared. Theresa's face had grown colder, her eyes more distant. "She got raped--sorry, she got killed by some stranger. A man that liked to hurt women."

"My mommy got killed by a bad man too."

"Really?"

The six-year-old had nodded, somber. "Yes. But no one believes me."

"Why?"

Sarah had related the story of The Stranger. Of what he'd made her parents do. When she'd finished, Theresa hadn't said anything for a moment or two.

"That's some story," she'd finally replied.

Sarah had looked up at her new sister, hopeful. "You believe me?"

"Of course I do."

The love that Sarah had felt for Theresa at that moment had been fierce.