"I'm happy for you," I said dryly. "If you weren't so mean to me, I might get the kids to like you, too," she offered.
"Me? Mean to you?" I smiled. "Do you really believe that, or do you think I'm that stupid?"
"I think you're that stupid," she said, pulling her thick lower lip into her cheek.
"You know," I said, spinning around on her, "I came here feeling sorry for myself and even envying you. You have parents, a nice house, a very nice little brother. You seemed to have everything I ever wanted, and then I got to know you better and see what really goes on here, and now you know what?"
"What?"
"I feel sorrier for you than I do for myself," I said, and turned back to my ironing.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. You're nuts, just like Clarence. I don't know why I even bothered trying to be your friend," she snapped.
"Becoming your friend is like becoming friends with a black widow spider," I retorted.
She spun on her heels and charged out the front door, slamming it so hard the whole house shook and the windows rattled. I smiled to myself, turned on the radio, and started to enjoy my solitude. Uncle Reuben had already left to bowl with his team. There were so few times when I had a chance to be alone and not feel I was being watched or judged.
I had to face the fact that my mother would never come for me or be able to take me to live with her again. When she was caught, they would put her in a real jail this time, and even if she behaved and was released, she would probably be released to another drug rehabilitation clinic. After that, she still might not be allowed to have me live with her, and who knew if she would even want the responsibility?
Perhaps I should stop fighting reality, I thought. I was only hurting myself. I was like someone bound with piano wire, struggling and squirming to be free and only tearing myself to pieces. I had to learn to ignore, to look the other way, to pretend, to make up my own world. Maybe Aunt Clara wasn't all wrong behaving as she did. At least she found some peace in her life by deliberately blinding herself to the unpleasantness in her family. She was able to go on, to face every new morning with fresh hope.
I was really like someone caught in a strong current being carried downstream. I could struggle and struggle, desperately try to fight the water and only waste my strength, or I could turn in the direction the water was flowing and try to swim a little faster than the current. Maybe, if I stayed even a few inches ahead of my fate, I would feel some sense of purpose, some meaning and identity, and be able to think of myself as real, a person with a name, with some control over what would happen to her. The current couldn't go on forever and ever. It would take me someplace, drop me at some shore, and if I endured and stayed strong, I would be able to stand on my own two feet and then, then, make a new life for myself.
That was the only hope I had, the only choice left. Realizing it was like lifting a weight from my shoulders. I actually began to feel good and swayed my body to the music as I worked. I sang along with the singers. I went to the kitchen and poured myself a soda and returned to my room to finish the ironing. After that, I thought I would take a shower and just spend the rest of the day reading, catching up with my English assignments.
It was turning out to be one of the nicest days I had spent living with my uncle and aunt. I laughed to myself realizing that the reason it was so nice was that no one else was home. I washed my hair in the shower and then sat before the small mirror in my room and dried my hair, first with a towel and then with Aunt Clara's blow dryer. My hair was truly my crowning glory, long and thick. My mother always coveted my hair, moaning about her own thin, split strands and then running her fingers through my hair and bringing it to hers as if touching mine might transfer some of the richness to her own.
I sat there in the blue cotton robe Aunt Clara had given me and fantasized, dreaming myself into scenarios with a handsome young man who would come along and see me for myself, fall in love with me, and sweep me away from all this. Why couldn't I be a real Cinderella? Somewhere out there surely was a young man destined to be my lover, my husband, my prince, a young man who would see my strengths as well as my beauty and want me at his side forever and ever.
I was in such a reverie, actually hearing the music, the voices, feeling the wind in my hair as we drove along picturesque country roads, laughing, kissing, and promising our love to each other, that I never heard Uncle Reuben come into the house, nor did I hear him come into my room. It wasn't until he was actually standing behind me, swaying, his eyes glassy, that I realized he was there. I spun around on my chair and looked up at him.
"Getting yourself all dolled up for someone else, are you?" he asked with a cold, crooked smile on his face.
"No. I did all my chores and just wanted to clean up and do my homework," I said. I couldn't believe how timid I sounded. I was wrapped so tightly inside my heart could barely beat.
"Get clean? You?" He shook his head and snorted. "You're dirty through and through," he said. "All the soap and hot water in the world couldn't clean you up."
"That's not so. I'm not dirty!" I insisted.
"You're your mother's daughter. You've proven that in just the short time you've been here," he responded. "Seducing that retarded boy," he muttered.
"I didn't do that."
"Go on with you," he said, waving his hand. "You'll never change. It's just bad blood."
"If there's bad blood in this family," I said, making my eyes small, "it's more in you than in my mother and me."
He stepped back and blinked as if I had reached up and slapped his face.
"Z' at so?" he said. "You still have a big mouth, eh?" He wobbled as he stared down at me. I could smell beer on his breath. It churned my stomach. "I oughtta just throw you out or turn you over to the court and let them put you in one of them orphanages."
"I wish you would. Then I would tell everyone how awful you are--how you terrorize your family with threats and beatings," I blurted.
This time, his eyes widened, and he opened and shut his mouth without a sound. He wobbled, and then his face reddened.
"What are you talking about? What kind of filthy lies have you been spreading? Who did you tell such stories?"
"Nobody," I said. "Yet."