Scarlet Dusk (22 page)

This was the only moment when she could
genuinely
let the tension of her life ooze from her body, and while she understood that wasn’t the healthiest of relaxation techniques, her mother had seemed rather disinterested and, even more upsetting, belittling of the sort of troubles a nine year old girl like her could have. However, between the hideous dresses that her parents insisted on sending her to school in—the sort of outfits that looked more appropriate on the porcelain dolls of the antiques shop her family often visited on Sundays after church—and the fact that all of her classmates used both the outfits
and
her forced lifestyle habits as a constant fuel to tease and berate her, she’d come to this method as her only potential solace. Even the fact that she preferred reading over playing Angry Birds or Tweeting or Tumbling or any of the other activities that her classmates insisted were “normal”; her one escape, books, becoming just another reason for her to be sent home crying day after day after day.

“Bookworm.”

“Dweeb.”

“Dyke.”

The last word she’d been unfamiliar with the first time it had been used against her, and, being cursed with an inquisitive nature, she’d made the mistake of asking her teacher what it meant. Not pleased with the question and misunderstanding the reason behind it, her teacher had called her a “stupid little bitch” and sent her to the corner for saying a bad word.

And while “dyke” had not come up in any of Mary’s books, the young girl had read enough over the years to see the event as a cruel irony.

The kids all said that she should kill herself and gone to great lengths in describing the different ways she could do it. During recess, many even cornered her with their cell phones opened to internet pictures of kids who had committed suicide, telling her that
their
chosen method would be the best for her.

Mary didn’t want to die, though. Not by any stretch of the imagination. It just had become too much for her to handle; all the pain and ridicule that her peers subjected her to had become too much to simply let accumulate in her mind. And so, during a trip to the library—after getting away from her mother long enough to use one of the facility’s computers in private—she’d looked up bullying on the internet, and soon thereafter discovered that others like her had turned to cutting as a means of venting the inner pain with outer pain. Intrigued by the notion, Mary had tucked it away as something to explore later and, still curious about what had gotten her into so much trouble, searched “dyke.”

The computer had blocked her access then, and the head librarian had pulled her away from the computer and back to her mother, explaining that she’d caught her daughter attempting to look up pornography on their system.

And so, though she was no closer to knowing what a “dyke” was—though she was certain it had some connotation to a crocodile in much the same way a “bitch” was a female dog—she began cutting. It had been an easy enough task retrieving one of her father’s razorblades; though she was not quite tall enough to reach them in the medicine cabinet, she’d been able to use the ceramic crucifix adorning the bathroom sink to pull it into her waiting grasp. Several months later, the stolen razor wasn’t quite as sharp as it had been—the more recent efforts stinging a great deal more than before and the wounds not healing as quickly or as cleanly—but, as she’d been clever enough to read the secrets of cutters, mostly how to hide the wounds by avoiding commonly seen parts of the body like the wrists and arms, she’d never had to worry about being caught.

She was in the process of her sixth cut that morning—three already on her right leg and into the third on her left—when her father’s typical wakeup call came upon her door. Startled, she’d yanked the blade a bit too quickly and, in doing so, cut a bit too deep and a bit longer than she’d intended. Working quickly to bandage the wound with more and more toilet paper, she worked to mask the sound of pain on her voice by assuring her father that she’d be down in “two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

“That’s my perfect little pumpkin,” her father had beamed from the other side of the door before moving back down the stairs.

Still working to stop the bleeding, little Mary had stifled her morbid literary mind’s eagerness to point out that people carved pumpkins, as well.

Not even five minutes later the entire Miller crew was seated at the table and happily sharing their morning breakfast.

“Mary,” Missus Miller chimed in after swallowing a mouthful of eggs, “Where’s that pretty yellow ribbon I got for your hair?”

Mary poked a strip of bacon with her fork before looking at her mother. “I wanted to wear my hair down today, Mother.”

“Oh nonsense!” Missus Miller waved her hand at the suggestion, “A pretty little girl should have a pretty ribbon in her hair. It’s how the world can see she’s so happy.”

“Now you mind your mother, Mary,” Mister Miller chimed, not looking away from his paper. “Your mother spent good, hard-earned money on that ribbon to make you happy, so you be a good little girl and wear it, you hear?”

Mary poked at the bacon again. “Happy. Right,” she nodded and smiled to her mother, “I’ll put it in after breakfast.”

“That’a girl,” Mister Miller turned the page of his paper. “J-man, how’s that Sunny-D working for you, m’boy? Helped you forget all about that nightmare, didn’t it?”

Jeremy shook his head, “Not really, Dad. It was a pretty—”

“Darn it, boy,” Mister Miller set down his paper and locked his steely gaze on his son, “I’m trying very hard to have a pleasant morning before I go off to work so that I can keep putting bacon on this table for you. I’d like to think that my work is appreciated, and I’d like to have the last thing I see every morning be a happy family that I can feel proud to come back to. Now I’ll thank you to stop complaining about your stupid nightmare and be pleasant. For cripe’s sake, boy, your grandmother’s here! Try to show her some happiness!”

Jeremy sighed and nodded, finally smiling and taking a bite of his bacon. “Right, Dad,” he said with half a strip of meat between his teeth.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, son. It’ll give you lockjaw. And, Tiffany, stop stirring your food and eat it. You’re never going to get a quarterback boyfriend if you’re all skin and bones.”

Tiff looked up and bit her lip, finally putting down her fork and clearing your throat. “Actually, Mom and Dad, I wanted to talk to you about that? I was really hoping you’d allow me to ask the captain of the sports team out on a da—”

Mister Miller perked up, letting his gaze pierce the rim of his lowered newspaper. “The captain of the football team? My my, Tiff, I’ve been waiting for some time to hear you say th—”

“Umm, no, Dad… the captain of the
basketball
team?” Tiff corrected him.

The room went deathly silent.

“Oh, baby… no.” Missus Miller cupped her hand over her mouth, fighting a wave of tears.

Grandma leaned towards little Mary—the closest to her—and whispered. “Did she say the ‘basketballs’ team?”

Mister Miller frowned and shook his head, setting down his paper calmly, “Now, Tiff, I thought we talked about this sort of thing. Football’s a good, clean
American
sport, like baseball
used
to be. But basketball…”

Tiff shook her head, cupping her hands on the side of her head, “No, Dad, don’t say it. Don’t give me a reason to—”

“Sports like basketball are sullied and unholy; dirtied up by all those
minorities
!”

“That’s it, Dad,” Tiff threw her napkin on the plate and stood up, “This… I don’t know what it is, this
act
has got to change! You and Mom pretend that we’re in some TV Land rerun while you tote Grandma around like some sort of
novelty
. Meanwhile, one of your teenaged kids can’t even own a cell phone like every other person in this country—I practically had to move Heaven and Earth to convince you I should have one!—and, to make matters worse, you refuse to let him date and tell me who I
should
date based on your dated racist bullshit!”

Missus Miller gasped, “Oh my… Tiffany Frank Miller!”

“Oh please, Mom, we both know that you’ve had dirtier things come out of
and
go into your mouth!” She planted her hands on the table and stared down her enraged father, “And while we’re on the subject on dating, I think it says something that the fact that Jeremy—without any outlet for his budding curiosities—has become a chronic masturbator who’s honestly libel to sell the living room TV if he could get his hands on a decent porno DVD.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened. “Shut up, Tiff.”

“It’s fine, Jeremy,” Tiff assured him, “It’s not like it’s not obvious—and, quite frankly, it’s perfectly normal; though you wouldn’t know it to ask our parents, even though Mom caught me when I was your age, as well.”

Missus Miller gasped, “Tiffany! A lady doesn’t talk about—”

“And a lady shouldn’t sell anal sex to truckers who could film it and leak it to the internet, Mom! But a few clicks on my friend’s laptop and—OOP!—there it is; the picture-perfect Missus Miller getting spit-roasted for fifty bucks. Now be quiet or I’ll tell Dad the URL to find out for himself what sort of woman he married.”

Mister Miller’s eyes widened as his wife of fifteen years promptly sat down at her daughter’s command, shivering like an autumn leaf.

“Tilly?” Mister Miller looked at his wife.

She didn’t respond.

“She’s coming to grips with her mistakes, Dad. Maybe you should take a hint from her. Maybe you should abandon the ongoing charade of
pretending
to be the perfect family—telling people you’re the perfect parents—and actually try
proving
it for once.” Tiff nodded to little Mary, “Let’s talk about Mary, for example. You’re both so blinded by the stories you’re hiding behind, that you’re actually
neglecting
a genius! Did you know that Mary can read at a college level, Dad; that she’s actually helped
me
with my book reports? Hell, she’s practically a child-prodigy—a self-made one, I should point out, ‘cause you’ve certainly nurtured
none
of it—and she could go on to do great things. Don’t remember any of this, do you? Or about how she’s come home with
multiple
notices from the school asking for your permission to move her into a higher grade. If you don’t remember
any
of those I can shed some light on the mystery: see, the
first
notice she brought home—singing and dancing the entire way, I might add—she had the pleasure of watching
you
rip up right in front of her. And why? Because you didn’t listen to your daughter
or
read anything on the page! You just shredded it and kept saying how you wouldn’t be signing a permission slip to have some ‘godless fool teaching your god-fearing kids about premarital sex.’ After that little show, she’d never bothered showing you the rest. I’ve seen her ripping them up and telling herself that Daddy doesn’t care enough to see her go places.” Tiffany shook her head. “You’re so eager to convince yourself and others that you’ve freed yourself from your dark pasts that you’re oblivious to the fact that your children are being forced into their own dark present just to let you feel comfortable in your charade. But I can’t sit by and let you fuck up our lives just so you don’t need to feel a moment of shame at how
truly
fucked up yours was!”

“Young lady,” Mister Miller was shaking mad, already in the process of rolling up his newspaper, “I ask for very little in return for all I do for you kids, but when my eldest starts spewing the devil’s poison at the breakfast table, I can’t help but—”

Somebody pounded on the front door.

Mister Miller stammered in mid-rant, glancing at the door for a moment. “Who in the blazes?” he grumbled, looking back at the grandfather clock at the end of the room and shaking his head. “Six-thirty in the morning? What sort of business does anybody have knocking on a man’s door at…” He retrieved his dress shirt from the back of his chair and slipped into it, sloppily working to button it up as he hurried to the door, “Give them a piece of mind, I will. Interrupt a family at breakfast!”