I'm not normally one who's superstitious. Say what you will about sidewalk cracks, black cats, busted mirrors and all their implications. I was always cursed with logic. For me, it was always the things I could see that I’d blame my problems on. But there are some tragedies that occur, and no one's really to blame. Sometimes, unrelated things happen that are so coincidental you're left scratching your head, wondering if one really caused the other, and there is no one there to assure you that they’re unrelated.
And so, you spiral into a cycle of madness with no one to stop your descent—
That’s right. Saturday, the 8th. 5:12 in the afternoon.
That’s where it began.
The mail lady who delivered (tied up auburn hair and fist always around a can of Coke) usually hit our house last, since we lived far out of town, northeast of Redding. I had been probing the mailbox for weeks (like I was waiting for a golden ticket or something), and had gotten up from my writing desk yet again to check.
Gravel crunched under my mom's slides as I watched bushy cumulus clouds snail-crawl across the sky. Even though the sun was hardly up, I was sweating under my hoodie, and fanned myself. A hot breeze blew, sending my uncombed hair into my eyes. Annoyed, I pushed it back and, shooing a lizard out of the way, opened the mailbox’s rusty hatch, taking out a bundle of white envelopes. I hastily fingered through the bulk of them, searching the names printed on the front.
“Did you feed the chickens?” A voice called from the house.
I didn’t take my eyes off the mail. “Not yet,” I called back to my sister, who was just a shadow on the porch. She didn’t respond but returned inside.
My name being absent from the stack of letters and bills, I sighed, closing the hatch and making my way back towards the house. Our property wasn't incredibly huge, just a few acres, all fenced off with old, jagged pieces of timber. My sister's pony screamed from his pen, demanding hay, and I waved him off. Our house was stationed in the middle of the property. A flat house with tan paint and wine colored doors that squeaked every time you opened them. My mom had at least two or three potted plants stationed in every single window, either occupying a rickety side table that she scored at a garage-sale, or hanging in cream macrame. She babied those things. It had only gotten worse after my dad passed two years before. He was always sickly and she had taken care of him for as long as I could remember. I guess with that responsibility striped away she had to devote all her care to something else.
I stepped up onto the platform and pulled open the door. The house's AC made me shiver, and I remembered why I had put on a hoodie in the first place.
"You wearing my slides again?" My mom questioned from where she was spraying down a philodendron, or maybe it was a Peace Lilly—I never could keep the names straight. The only plant name I knew that she owned was a Venus Flytrap, and that was purely due to being scarred by the 1960s film Little Shop of Horrors as a kid.
I grinned as she gave me a dirty look. I tossed the stack of mail onto the kitchen counter, taking a mug off one of the hooks that was painted in Swedish folk style, and hanging on the wall. The mug was old and chipped, from my sister’s community college, but I paid no mind as I took the kettle of boiling water that was still hot from my mom's tea and filled it up.
I heard her stretch her back with a line of pops from where she was stooped, "Nothing from The Cali?"
"No, I’m beginning to think they’ve forgotten about me or something. I should’ve heard a response two weeks ago.” I dropped in a scoop of instant coffee, and stirred. "Do we have any more caramel creamer from Trader Joe's?"
She set down her glass watering can, "Crissie finished it off last night."
I groaned. "Pfft, sisters." I reluctantly grabbed the canister of sugar and scooped in two heaping spoonfuls.
"Are you making coffee or a mocha?" Paula slinked around the corner of the kitchen, her hair freshly blow-dried and bouncy. As quick as a radio wave she dipped two fingers into my mug and sucked the coffee off her fingers.
"Get your own." I shielded the mug from her, nose shriveled against the germs she just plagued my drink with.
She sniffed. "Stingy. Hurry up, I need to eat."
“You should’ve eaten while I was in the shower!” I objected, my hair still wet and now tangled from my walk to the mailbox.
She ignored my comment and pushed past me anyways, yanking open the pantry and officially dethroning me from my coveted place in the kitchen.
I tightened my jaw, but decided to keep the peace and return to my room. It was always like that. Everyone shouldering to get into the kitchen at once, and complaining even if you only were there for a pitstop. Paula was especially bad about that, always demanding and thinking the world revolved around her and her new nursing job.
I retreated to my room and flipped my radio back on, taking a seat and taking up my pen. I clicked it open to continue my article—
—when Garrett zoomed into my room with a blanket over his head.
“Garrett.”
“WeeeeEEEeeeeeeerreEEee”
Crissie bolted in, red faced and seething. “GARRETT, give it back!”
He laughed in his maniacal way as Crissie threw the blanket off his head, revealing the young boy only in his underwear, clutching a themed journal that my sister had won in a carnival claw machine; her diary.
“Prissie-Crissie’s got a booooooyfrienddddd.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
She glanced at me and, embarrassed, dove for it. “That’s not true! Give it back!”
“Hey,” I rounded them up and pushed them out. “Not in here.”
“Sheeshhh,” Garrett looked up at me with judging eyes, “You’re no fun anymore.”
“I never was. Out.”
He jetted down the hall as I shut the door behind them. But the walls were thin, and I could still hear them shouting and running. I sat back down and picked up my pen—
—and Paula yelled for me from the kitchen, like you’d call your dog at the park. Frustrated, I ignored the first call, hoping that she’d resort to actually walking to my room and talking to me, but of course she called out again, louder. I huffed and pushed back my chair, flinging my door open and giving her a look that didn’t leave my feelings up to the imagination. “What?”
She frowned. “Watch your attitude. We need to get going to the Jefferson’s BBQ.”
“I’m not going.”
“Why not?”
I stood there for a moment, looking for a reason. The Jefferson’s were old family friends, our relationship spanning back to when my mom was pregnant with Paula—so about 21 years. They were nice people I guess, but growing up there was a lot of pressure on me and their daughter Jenna to be friends, because we were the same age. Jenna and I didn’t hate each other and tried our best, but some people just don’t click. She was obsessed with Lipsmackers and Lisa Frank memorabilia, and had an insufferable voice that railed on at 300 words per minute. I was always quiet, slightly awkward and generally dull to be around, and I remember her complaining to her mom once because our parents had set up a playdate and she really did not want to hang out with me.
Jenna was a sophomore in college now, going to some rock climbing school up in Canada, but still there was her mom to contend with. While Jenna was tolerable, her mother was another creature entirely. She was one of those women with so much confidence it overflows into being less of a desirable trait and more of one which you’d see in a stupid teenage coming-of-age flick. While not quite “bitch” territory (if you pardon the expression), she was one of those people who thought her opinion was law, her words were gospel, and to dispute anything she says would mean that she’d talk to you like a child. Of course, she always talked down to me, no matter what I said, but I seemed to be the only person whom it bothered. She spoke fervently about politics and the state of the country, always negative and offering little solution. I disliked how she treated her husband, who usually sat muted and small by her side, unless he was fortunate enough to find other engagement. I didn’t like her abrasive voice, nor her long nails, nor her beautiful head of almond hair that always laid in curls; I especially didn’t like how she seasoned her short ribs.
I didn’t like her, and I did not want to go because of her, but as Paula stood expectantly at the end of the hall, waiting for a reason, I realized I couldn’t give her one.
“Get your shoes on.” She said, putting her hand on her hip.
“I’m nineteen,” I grumbled in protest.
Then my mom, sunny as a sunflower, looked around the corner at me, and smiled. “You’re an adult. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
I smiled in triumph.
Paula turned up her nose at me. “They’re expecting us all, mom.”
“It’s fine, this is just the first one of the year. If she doesn’t want to go, then she doesn’t have to.”
Garrett came barreling around the corner, finally in clothes, with Crissie following behind him. They began piling through the front door, tugging on shoes, their banter seeping outside. My mom brought up the rear, feeling her pockets for her keys. She found them and looked back at me. “Don’t forget to feed the chickens and put the roast in the fridge when it’s thawed, we’re going to have it for dinner tomorrow.”
“Yep.”
With that, the door closed. I could hear the car sputter to life and the crunch of the gravel as it began to leave. Through the front window I could see the Toyota turn at the end of the driveway and out of sight. The house was as silent as a grave, and I hardly breathed, for fear I’d break that newfound peace.
I went back to my desk and pulled out my magazine entry. That’s what I had been doing ever since I graduated high school, writing and submitting articles to magazines, newspapers, even anthologies. I’d had my work rejected so many times from so many publishers, but I remained determined. No one said freelancing would be easy. I knew that getting your foot in the door was the hardest part, but once you have one or two published, publishers will want to work with you more. Still, no one grows used to rejection letters.
The one I had sent into The Cali was near to my heart. I had written about a summer I had spent in San Francisco with my grandparents as a kid, when my dad had his first major stroke. Me and Crissie were too young to understand (Garrett was only a baby at the time), and so the summer with Nana and Pops was less like being sent away and more like an extended vacation for us. We had gotten to ride on buses and go to the ocean every day, and it helped that Pop's spoiled us with seafoam and Cracker Jacks (my personal favorite). I had recounted the best parts of that summer, and the piece turned out full of heart and homey, just what the publishers would want.
I was afraid to hope that it would be accepted, but there was a warm glow in my chest and that positive feeling that this might have actually been the one. Aside from writing, my other post high school activities included watching reruns of Full House, and occasional runs to the local grocery store for late night, single tubs of ice cream, which I hid from my siblings; other than those things my time was taken up by my full time job as a waitress at the local IHOP.
That was how it went, ever since I graduated. I worked full time and babysat for the neighbors. Growing up I wasn't particularly good at anything. I never was into sports, did average in all my classes, lacked the social confidence to join school clubs, and didn't have the slightest ability to act in drama. I went to school, paid attention, ate lunch with people I knew on the surface level (but were never truly friends with), and went home again. My one hobby I enjoyed was writing, though it was hardly ever good, and lacked substance.
I heard a car in the driveway, and noticed that in my daydreaming the light had faded a bit. The clock read seven.
There was a knock, and I jumped in my skin, remembering that I hadn’t put the roast in the fridge. I ran to the kitchen to do so, feeling with relief that it wasn’t too warm. There was a black car stationed in front of the house, just barely visible through the living room window. It was unmarked, but had a cop’s plate. My relief wilted and there was an unrest in my stomach as I unlocked the door.
There stood a square man, with a freshly shaven face and half-circle eyes, and he looked down at me with great solemnity. I knew he was the chaplain for the county police. I often saw him, when dropping off and picking up Paula from the hospital, crouching in front of ruddy children in chairs, or talking with a distraught family. As kids, though he gave us thin lollipops and stickers with German Shepherds printed on them, I always associated him with the Grim Reaper. To me, they held the same power. I thought I had grown out of that fear, but as he stood on Mom’s doorstep, towering over me with my sister’s battered cell phone in one hand, the sunset silhouetting him against a multicolored sky, I trembled.
I'm not superstitious; when something bad happens, it happens because of a mistake. But as we stood there, wordless and staring, I wondered in the pitfall of my stomach if two things, seemingly unrelated, could really affect each other;
For as that June sun sank and the crickets sprung to life I—June Taylor—was the only light of the Taylor household left.
—and I well didn’t deserve it.