Beauty (26 page)

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(Smitten*Bitten*Hidden)

By

Patria L. Dunn (Patria Dunn-Rowe)

All rights reserved

(Part I: Zerrin )

By

Patria L. Dunn

All rights reserved

Why did they have to die during the winter? The days were depressing enough, pale gray, low lying clouds cushioning the dreary looking sky from sun up to sun down. I pulled my thin jacket around me as I walked quickly into the steady growing wind, my eyes following the rustling brown leaves as they danced across the sidewalk ahead of me. It almost made me smile to imagine that it was their way of welcoming me for a visit with them; but remembrance of where I was headed never ceased, and I instead bit my chapped lower lip until the warmth of my own blood seeped onto my tongue, eventually trickling down my painfully dry throat.

My eyes shifted briefly as a peal of laughter caught in the wind, the opposite side of the street vacant of any occupants. Just on the other side, one street away was a bustling town, store signs and streets lights illuminating the way into the town’s center. I’d grown up here, and I knew if I crossed the street and made a left, I would pass the old dance studio where I’d taken lessons since I was five years old. Beyond that, a few more turns and I would be headed in the direction of my old high school. I pictured myself, as I had been a few years before, anxious to meet my friends under the massive oak that marked the beginning of ‘Eagle’ territory. I’d been a cheerleader then, and on a night like this, I would have been warmly dressed in my junior varsity cheerleading jacket and warm-ups, preparing to go to the football game with my friends; the same friends that had apologized until they were blue in the face over my parents’ deaths. There was nothing any of them could do to console me, and I suppose they were almost relieved when I moved. My teeth chattered in protest as I inhaled sharply, the memory of that day shooting, what felt like, tiny shards of glass through my heart.

After the funeral, I’d taken to my room, and remained there for a full week, refusing to come out for anyone. I didn’t know the woman that took up residence in my parent’s guest room, and I certainly didn’t acknowledge her during her time there. She’d explained to me that I’d become a ward of the state, and that I would not be allowed to remain in my home. I hadn’t understood entirely what she was saying until another woman had shown up to take me away, most of my belongings left behind, as my new family –The Pernickle’s-didn’t have the room to store it all, or so they claimed. I’d been angry then, but I was even angrier now…

If my parents were still alive, I wouldn’t be shivering from the cold that pierced the worn fabric of the second hand clothing hanging around my thin frame. I resented the fact that I hadn’t been in the car with them that night. The debate over Jessica’s slumber party seemed so trivial an argument to win looking back on it now. The disappointment etched in my mother’s regretful expression when she’d given me permission to go had brought a sense of triumph to my thirteen-year-old mind, then. The party was all that had been talked about for the last few weeks at school, and only a select few –the elite as they were referred to-had been asked to attend, including me. It would have been social suicide had I not gone, and at the time it dramatically took precedence over family night at the movies. I’d just become an official teenager a month earlier, yet I’d cried, begged and pleaded until they’d finally given in. I wasn’t a child anymore, and my mother’s worries, that Jessica’s parents weren’t the proper definition of what they deemed responsible, had seemed ridiculous. They wanted to hold on to the little girl I no longer was, and at the time, I was itching for that teenage freedom I’d heard so much about from all the other girls at school. How I wished now that I hadn’t been so childish about the matter. My mother had been right, of course. I’d found myself locked in a basement closet on the first spin of the game, seven seconds in heaven, Jessica’s parents nowhere to be found. Some how the fact that it was a co-ed sleepover hadn’t been mentioned to me or my parents, and the humiliation of having my prepubescent chest squeezed, just as the door was flung open, was reputation shattering in that moment. But the phone call that came from the hospital several hours later was earth shattering.

It had now been five years to the day, and my mood still changed with the season, cold and uninviting. I suppose most people viewed my demeanor as always being this way, and I let them think it. No one really knew me here, and that’s the way I wanted it. This would never be my home, and with graduation and my eighteenth birthday fast approaching, I couldn’t wait to get out of the Pernickle’s house for good. I was sure to be in trouble for taking the city bus across the river from Waterville to Winslow, but I’d never missed visiting my parent’s graves on the anniversary of their death, and I wasn’t going to this year. I could already hear the cast iron gates of the town cemetery creaking in protest against the chilly wind that suddenly gusted overhead with an intensified fury. Winter had barely set in, and yet we’d already received two significant snowstorms in the last month. One look at the clouds told me that I should head back before the one they’d been calling for all week finally hit; but I trudged on, making the turn that led to the cemetery entrance. I didn’t bother to look around for a security guard as I pulled the chained gate far enough that it allowed a big enough crack, between the doors, for me to slip through.

Since the new cemetery had been added a few years back, this old one had been gradually neglected, and finally forgotten. I thought myself to be the only one that actually came to visit anyone laid to rest here, as I’d never seen another living soul anywhere near the place. The crinkled brown leaves that had danced about in the wind on the side walk were too thick to do much of anything but lay where they had fallen for years, piled almost as high as some of the tombstones. I tried lifting my knees as I waded through the remnants of fall, my eyes staid on the direction I was heading. I’d been here so many times that I no longer needed to search for the section my parents were in. Sadness settled as my legs slowed, my now damp tennis shoes feeling like lead weights as I approached the only clear patch of ground ahead of me.

It had been a month since I’d last come here, and I was pleased to see that their graves were almost as tidy as I’d left it the last time. There were only a few leaves covering the dead grass, and I knelt slowly, brushing them aside, until my hand touched one of the two marble plaques that seemed to be embedded in the hard ground. There had been no family around to help pay for the small funeral that was held for my parents; so the state of Maine had issued out the standard, plain markers that were reserved for graves such as the one’s belonging to my parents.

“November 5
th
, George and Caroline Cassidy,” I read out loud, my soft voice lost in the howling wind as I crossed my legs, sitting Indian style on the frozen ground, facing the markers.

“Hi mom. Hi dad,” I whispered, my fingers tracing the etchings in the cool marble as the first tears fell.

“Alana, you shouldn’t be out here in the cold sweat pea,” I imagined my dad saying back to me, his lips curling into a cunning smile as he reached to pinch one of my cheeks.

“I miss you… I miss you both so, so much…” I sniffled now, my nose partly running from the cold, and partly from the tears that continued to stream down my face, warming my frozen cheeks. “I know it’s been a while since I came to see you, but the Pernickles… they just don’t understand… I can’t talk to them like I would talk to you. All they care about is themselves. The last time I came…” I let my voice trail off, the words continuing in my head.

The last time I’d come to visit my parents’ graves, getting home almost after dinner, I’d been whipped with a leather belt across my back for what seemed like an eternity. But, I didn’t know if I wanted to tell my parents that. They probably already felt guilty enough for leaving me here all by myself.

“It wasn’t good…” I whispered instead, licking away the salty tear that had settled in the dip of my upper lip.

“Oh honey…” I could almost hear my mother saying, her fingers brushing my face, like they always did when she was concerned about me.

“I don’t know if I can do this much longer mom,” I cried now, my voice catching and breaking long before the words ceased. “I’m so lonely. I’m miserable there. School is…” I paused, thinking back on the constant snickers and stares I got behind my back, everyone either pointing or whispering about my ragged clothes, or destitute appearance in general. Foster care had brought me nothing but anguish. The Pernickles, the family I’d been placed with after my parent’s died, cared nothing for the five children they had in their care. The money we received each month for clothing and other needs was pocketed along with the money they received for allowing us to stay in their home. I’d resorted to stealing feminine items from other girls’ bags and lockers during gym at school, just to insure that an unsightly blotch didn’t further embarrass me during my time of the month.

“I have no friends,” I finally sighed, my eyes closing as I lowered my head almost to my lap, my palms now pressed on each plaque. “I want to get out of here, but where will I go? College is out… I could get a job, but where will I live until I have enough money to pay rent? My old friends are all over on the east side here in Winslow, and even if they were willing to help, they won’t be around either after graduation. Waterville is so…so…” I stopped short as I bit back the derogatory words that had formed in my head, ashamed to speak them out loud in my parents’ presence.

Waterville, Maine was nothing but the backwoods of a place I used to love. On the east side where I’d grown up, I’d had money to shop whenever I wanted. I kept up with the latest fashions and trends. I ate lunch at school whenever I wanted, and there was no begging for dinner because my stomach had been empty for days on end. Most importantly, on the east side, I’d had parents who loved me; friends that cared to call me, or visit me. Here on the west side of the river, there was no one. There were no ballet classes to go to, or summer camp to look forward to. I now considered myself lucky to have my own cot; my own room would have been too much to wish for. Here I was not Alana Cassidy… Here, I was just empty.

“Tell me what to do,” I pleaded, my words almost silent as I finally opened my eyes, my palms uncovering the names of my parents just as a single green leaf landed on my frozen fingers.

“Is this supposed to be a sign,” I sniffled hopefully, my eyes lifting to the naked trees, their branches bare of anything but dead stems that had refused to fall.

“Tell me!” I screamed, crushing the pretty green leaf in my palm as I jumped to a stand. “Tell me what I did to deserve this! Tell me why you took my parents away from me!” My voice came ragged and harsh as I shook my fist at the only one I thought for sure could possibly hear me. “Why did you do this to me!?” I cried now, sobbing as I sank back to the cold ground, my form bent, so that my forehead touched the brittle grass.

If I died here, no one would be any wiser. Sure, the Pernickle’s would miss the monthly check they received for me from the state, but I highly doubted that they would even report me missing. That’s how little they cared. I wanted it all to be over with. The fading scars on each of my wrists proved that, but I didn’t have the guts to try and go that way again. I would have been happy to have stayed in the psych ward, locked away from the world; but apparently my acting hadn’t been good enough to keep me longer than the six weeks of recovery I was allowed. I wondered now, how long it would take a person to freeze to death…? The temperature had sat at well below freezing for the last few days, so I was sure that if I laid here long enough…