Fault Lines

She sat at the wooden table swirling the Fruit Loop’s in her pink plastic bowl remembering. She swung her feet in tight little circles as she swirled and swirled. Reaching under the table, she felt the tiny little “A” she had carved into the wood with the red ballpoint pen a year ago, burning through her fingertips and she felt a pull to something historic. She remembered how when the nights were hot, a kind of sticky heat, Mommy and Daddy had given each other bed hugs in the dark. Sometimes the sheer steam from their room would cause her to give Mr. McStuffins, the little caramel colored bear her Daddy had won from the fair at the Cajundome, little bed hugs of her own, his hard plastic nose pushing against her chest.

            She remembered the glass breaking as her father’s shouting came muffled through her door. The nightlight glowed against the cotton candy pink wall, illuminating and shrouding both. There was a light under her stickered door frame, yawning electric sleepiness into her room. Curiosity got the best of her and she swung her legs from under the Barbie covers, being careful not to disturb Mr. McStuffins in his glassy slumber. She tiptoed to her door, her feet shuffling in the furry pink slippers, and opened it a crack, putting her eye there.

            “I can’t believe you.” Daddy hissed.

            “I’ll apologize for the rest of my life, I swear.” Mommy unfolded her arms, her robe dangling pink fuzz. “I get so lonely at night now.”

            Whispering now, “You deserve to be.”

            He spun and ran his hand through his hair, walking through to their room and slamming the door behind him. As quietly as she could, little Annabelle shut the door closed, sliding tiny fingers through her dark matted hair, and crept back into bed.

She lifted her eyes to peer through lashes at her thin Mommy clutching the glass with that nasty brown stuff swishing around. She knew the bubbling cough. The TV was a low roar in the back ground, stuck in a cycle of CNN. Bobby Jindal flashed across the screen, the news anchor babbling about how a governor from Louisiana had finally become the president and Annabelle could almost hear Daddy’s voice. “That lil fucker. Wish I could get that bastard on an operating table, swear to gawd…”

            “Mommy, when is Daddy coming home?” It was a common question and the same answer was always given.

            Mommy stared at Bobby Baker’s bulldog puppy pee-peeing in the green leaves of her garden, standing in shadow made by the yellowing curtain. She swirled the glass around and brought it to her lips again, never drinking, just smelling the mud. Bobby Baker was that doo-doo head from school that always talked really fast and said these random “fun” facts that Annabelle thought were neither fun nor factual. He once told her that birds and bees do some sort of secret devil worshipping ritual, that that’s what his Daddy told him.

            “Mommy, how come that stuff doesn’t turn your tongue and lips brown like chocolate milk?”

            Mommy smiled a little and muttered under her breath, “If this were from a cow I’d be Wonder Woman.”

            Annabelle’s eyes grew wide with green wonder, her hair glowing golden in the sun’s kiss. Wonder Woman. That would make her a tiny superhero. Like an angel or something. Then she was off remembering again. Daddy would always put on the cape in his socks, twirling and spinning, his dark black hair slicked back. His eyes would blue into the sunlight streaming in. They were happy even if Mommy was still teary over the argument they had just had. It was bliss in a bubble. The image twisted and popped as she remembered Doo-Doo Head Bobby Baker’s Daddy coming over and the clinking glasses with the brown stuff in it. “She’s dead, Jenn. For chrisssakes, she won’t mind. Don’t you remember what we were like before you married the quarterback?” he hissed to her. “Don’t you remember that you’re a deacon now at my husband’s church?” He sucked his teeth and continued, “Don’t you remember the oak tree and how we sat there all night, sittin’ under Jesus’ eyes just breathin’? Don’t you? You, Jenn. Don’t you remember how heavy we were?” He put his hand on her thigh. “So heavy. Heavy, heavy. Does he do this to you? Does he show you what a woman in a red dress you are, dahlin?” Mommy shuddered as his hand disappeared beneath her skirt. Her voice came out breathy, steamy. “No.” She whispered something to him. “Does he even know?” he slurred and smacked. A quick pause, adjacent. “No.” She remembered how hard they had bed hugged that night; so hard the squeaking noise traveled desperately into Annabelle’s dreams like a train, the whistle piercing like earrings.