All Right

                                              All Right

The fairies fly through darkened skies, leaving trails of colored sparks behind them.  The prince fights a tall, dark dragon.  The princess sleeps, and while she sleeps, the prince falls in love with her beauty.  On the television, the tale of Sleeping Beauty unfolds like countless times before.  In the spilled light of the screen, the children are getting sleepy.

I urge Ashley, a sweet child of four, up the stairs into her bed.  Her dark brown hair tangles over the pillow as she drowsily murmurs, “G’night.”  Back down the stairs; back up the stairs holding Matthew.  He barely notices as I lay him on his bed.  He is two and smells of baby lotion and popcorn butter.  I turn out the light, and the house is dark.  I am their eleven-year-old cousin.  I am a babysitter.

The peace swallows the house.  Outside it is hot and muggy, but inside the air conditioner drones out the summer heat.  The air conditioner hums, and the television screen glows, and the house has the musty tranquility of a church basement.

Jane stumbles in and wearily falls into bed.  She has long, tawny brown hair that waves down her back, and her skin is an endless expanse of smooth tan.  Amid all this bronze on gold, her eyes are a striking, transparent blue.  She mumbles few words, “Thank you for watching the kids, little tired, think I’ll rest…”

Jane is asleep.  I cuddle into the couch, the white noise of the air conditioner and thick comforter enveloping me.  I cannot sleep and so I count the cracks on the ceiling.  One, two, three….

There is a knock on the door.

My eleven-year-old hands part the curtain and reveal Darren standing in sharp relief under the yellow glare of the porch light.  Darren is tall, over six feet.  Darren is strong with brawny biceps made to shape four by fours into houses.  Darren is my uncle but Jane is divorcing him.  I know something else:  Darren is scary.

I know this, because one day, I was visiting my grandma's and my grandpa's, where it is quite nice, and the trees outnumber the houses. Jane was there, but something was wrong.  Jane's quick smile shook at the corners and her ever-blue eyes were trimmed in red.  Jane and my other aunt, Rose, tried to sing, like they often do.
  I come to the garden alone
         While the dew is still on the roses
         And the voice I hear, falling on my ear
         The Son of God discloses

          And He walks with me, and He talks with me
         And He tells me I am his own.
         And the joy we share, as we tarry there
         None other has ever known

But when they got to the part where Rose's voice was supposed to soar up to rest with the angels and Jane's voice is supposed to gently bow in its mellowness, Jane's voice, instead, fell flat to the earth.  Her hands were pressed tightly to her face, and she was sobbing.  Her sister, Rose, put her arms around Jane.  "Sshhh... It's all right.  It'll be all right..." Rose said.

I stayed the weekend at my grandparents'. I had fun, trying on Jane's clothes. They were piled up high, in the spare bedroom, with her never-ending supply of make-up.  I swirled blue eye shadow next to my lashes, too, trying to make my eyes look as blue as Jane's.  Sometimes my family tells me I look like her, and this makes me still with hope.  Everyone knows that Jane is pretty, with her petite brown limbs and her long brown hair.  That is how she married Darren. That is why tall, gorgeous Darren built her a big, big house, with a pool table, and huge kitchen, and two front doors of etched glass. That is how she got one precious daughter, and one
beautiful son. 

But Jane is not married to Darren anymore.  My mom told me that they have "broken up" and that Jane had to move out of the big house in such a hurry, that she had no time to find her a new one.  That is why Jane, Ashley and Matthew live here now. 

There was something else wrong, too.  There were phone calls at all hours.  My grandpa would answer them and his voice would start out smooth.  "Hello... No, Jane is not here right now." Pause and then, "No, she's not here." Shakier now, he would say, "There is no reason to talk that way..."

The next time the phone rings my grandpa said, "Darren, she doesn't want to talk.  You stop calling out here, now. This is the sixteenth time today...You just stop."

There were headlights that glided past my grandparents’ house on its lonely country road at odd times.  When Jane came home from work late at night, these headlights have followed her.  I heard urgent whispers in the kitchen that night, but when I walked in, my grandparents looked up at me, and Jane looked only at the linoleum floor.  The room became quiet.  "It's another one of those things that eleven-year-olds aren't supposed to know about," I thought, so I just stumbled back to my bed.

The next morning, the tires on Jane's blue truck were slashed.  The deep, smooth tears grooved the black rubber. It is then that my grandpa used the stepstool to get something from the back of the closet.  It is a shotgun, with a long wooden stock.  He cleaned it with an old rag, then propped it up on the buffet, next to the back door.  It stayed there until Jane and her children moved out, two months after.   

Now, Darren is at the front door of Jane's new house. “Jodie,” he is saying, “where is Jane?”

“Jodie,” he is saying, “let me in.”

I hurry over soft carpet into Jane’s room.  It is late, past one in the morning and Jane has had a long night’s work at the factory.  Jane is sleeping and lines furrow her brow when I snap on the light.

“Jane, wake up.”  Nothing.

“Jane, Darren is at the door.”  Jane’s pale blue eyes open.

“Just a minute,” she slurs and rolls over.  I wait beside her bed.  THUMP, THUMP.  I can hear my heart.

Years later, I would think depression, divorce and alcohol after work, but at eleven I cannot fathom and my head is shrieking, “He’s not going to stay out!  Get Up!  GET UP!”

In the kitchen, there is a shadow on the window.  In the kitchen there is a quiet pop! and then, “Jane!  He’s in the house!”  (Jesus, God)  “He’s in the house!”  Jane awakes.

Everyone, in times of swirling, shaking danger, has soothing words that repeat inside their head.  When panic tightens the back of the throat, and pushes hands into fists, there is a different phrase for each to mindlessly drone in the drama--a mantra.  Mine was half prayer and half curse and it never ceased.  "Jesus, God, Jesus, God. Please, Jesus, God..."

I stay in Jane’s bedroom. In the bedroom I can hear voices raised and sharp like shards of glass. I can hear accusations hurled, with “You bitch,” and “You slut,” mixed in.  I can also hear the punches and the slaps.  From the bedroom they sound like dull thuds and ringing blows.  Yet all this is strangely quiet.  I have made a comforter of the white noise and wrapped it tight around me.

Yet, even through this shield of mist-like sound, I can still hear Jane.  "Darren stop!" and "Darren quit!" in a low voice, husky in its outrage.  Then a shriller, "Darren, please, NO, please," and finally just, "Darrreeenn," in a sob.

“Jodie, call the police!  Please!  Help!”  This penetrates and I run. 

The telephone is in the living room and Darren reaches it long before I do.  He yanks the cord out of the wall, and the phone is tumbling in the air.  He has thrown the phone at me.  I hear it hit the wall behind my head.  "Rringg," it says.

I retreat and I pretend that I did not see Jane lying on the kitchen floor, propped up limply on the cabinets.  I did not see the red, red blood in a slow trickle down her face from her nose.  She had picked her body up stiffly off the floor, when I was in that horrible room, with its shadows cutting the walls into sharp geometric shapes.  She moved as if to help me.

"She's all right." I tell myself as I take hurried steps into Jane's room.  "She'll be okay, Jesus, God, she'll be okay..." I say this because I want to help her, but I can't think how.  There is one door outside and Darren is few feet from it. I say this because I don't know how to help and my throat is tight and my fists are clenched and it was never a part of any fairy tale I've ever seen that the prince turns into the dragon and starts devouring the princess and I don't know what to do.

So I retreat, until (Jesus, God) I hear footsteps on the stairs.  I hear crying of “Daddy!” and “What’s wrong?”  Ashley and Matthew (Jesus, God) are coming down the stairs.  I grab at them, pulling, pushing.  I put bruises on their arms and terror in their faces in an effort to get them to Jane’s room fast enough.  “Now go!” and “Not Daddy. Not Now!”  They are in and I lock the door. 

There is a window in the bedroom, and we could climb out.  The window leads to the yard and one fourth mile away from this yard is a neighbor. I could climb out, but if I go, will the children stay in the room?  Who will protect them while I am gone?  I could drop the children out, one by one, or would that break one of their soft, child bones?  And would they wait for me on the wet grass underneath the window, or would they run around to the front of the house where their daddy can get them? If he gets them he will surely hurt them because I was told, "Darren loves his wife," and he is hurting his wife, and I was told, "Darren loves his kids," and if he could reach them he will surely hurt their porcelain skin, and there will be more red, red blood like Jane's.

So I look, but the ground slopes sharply away from the window, and I look, but Ashley keeps trying to run to the door and out to her father.  I try to explain that’s not your father just now, that’s a dragon and that makes your mother a princess… but Ashley is four and does not listen.  She’s too busy hopping off the bed again to dash for the door.  I stop her and I wish for more than a moment that I could cry like she does when I place her gently back on the bed.

In the end, it does not matter, because (Jesus, God) Darren is pounding on the bedroom door. “I wanna see my kids,” he bellows.  The door shakes and I can feel the pounding he is giving the door in my knees.  Matthew’s bottom lip trembles and he takes stoic steps toward the door.  One, two, three…I turn toward the door, then away.  Crack!  The door and its frame are lying on the floor.  Darren is in the room and Ashley is running toward him.  “Daddy!” she cries, and Darren grabs her up.  I see visions of pain and scenes of things that snap in the dark, and I see Darren hurting this beautiful miniature princess, but no.  Darren has cooled, and somehow he is gentle.  I realize that he is cunning, like a dragon should be, and he knows when a soft hand is called for because a ferocious one would go too far. Matthew takes two more steps to join his sister and his Dad.

“I’m sorry,” Darren tells them.  ‘Your mommy doesn’t love me anymore,” he explains slyly. 

Jane has been pleading while Darren pounding and pushed and cuddled and the blood trickled down Jane's chin.  She has been requesting, "Leave them alone.”  Finally she begs, “Let’s go into the kitchen, we can talk there.  Let’s go into the kitchen…”  Darren sets his children down and steps around the door.  His hulking figure is gone, and Jane forlornly follows it. Soon Darren’s voice rises again and cuts wide swaths into the bedroom.  I pick up Ashley and pick up Matthew.  We make a pile of bodies on the bed amid the blankets, but our door is gone and safety is always but an illusion.

Later, Jane makes it outside and yells for a neighbor. The dragon slinks back into the night to become Darren.  The house fills with neighbors, a cousin, and a lone policeman, who is slouching beside the door.

The room looks dark, the house looks shadowy, and so I make myself useful, and flip on light after light.  No one notices me, so I just try to stop the quivering in my hands myself. 

One man is saying to Jane, “He didn’t mean nothin’.  He’s just in a bad spot missin’ you and his kids…” He is holding an orange baseball cap in his hands, and bending the bill into a perfect crescent moon. When I hear the man with his stupid baseball cap, I move to fold up the comforter, still lying crumpled on the couch, and I try to control the shake that starts in my knees.

Jane questions this man, who has a mustache and is wearing a Panama Jack T-shirt and a belt buckle that is too large for his thin waist. Jane asks him, “Who will fix my wall?” 

I want Jane to kick and scream, and demand a group to go slay the dragon, but she is not doing this.  She is not even telling the cousin, who is a strong girl of nineteen, how evil Darren is and how capable he is of producing the red, red blood that has been wiped clean of Jane's face, but still leaves deep impressions somewhere inside me. Instead, Jane looks blankly at the room in general, "Who will fix my wall?" is all she utters.

I move to pick up drinking glasses.  Clink, clink, the glasses say.  I concentrate at not breaking the glass even though my hands are jittering with a life of their own.

The policeman starts explaining that he cannot arrest Darren.  There is no proof he did anything wrong, he says.  "Maybe with a restraining order..." he goes on.  When I hear this, my whole body starts to tremble, and it seems all I can do not to crumble into pieces on the too soft carpet, right there among all the grown-ups.  Their faces seem too shiny and their voices too calm to be real.  I stop and stare dumbly at the hole in the wall, the missing window screen. I stare at the red, blue bruises on Jane’s face.  I see also, in my mind, the bruises that must be on her beneath her clothes and, I see the way they must swell and have grazes of red scratches in them.  THUMP, THUMP my heart starts again.  My fists clench and I wrap my arms around my chest and drop glasses to the carpet where they will surely be safer than next to violently shaking body.  I concentrate very hard at stilling my tremors.

“Babysitter!”  From the stairs, I hear, “Psst!  Babysitter!”  I look, and a little woman with brown curls leans over the landing.  She has Ashley and Matthew by their hands and she must be a friend of Jane’s.  “Babysitter come here!  We want to show you something.”  The stage whisper floats through air.

I follow up the stairs with my knocking knees.  One, two, three steps, Ashley and Matthew are giggling.  It is pitch, black, dark on the landing and lady holds something up amid the shadows.  “Just watch the doll,” she says. She pushes Ashley, Matthew, and Babysitter into a huddle, and she holds up a Glow Worm.  It has a velvety green body. It has a  little face that splashes warm yellow light into the darkness and onto me.  The children are telling me, “Watch the doll,” and  I watch the doll. Then, they are all hugging me. 

In the dark my body seems relax at least a little, but I stiffen, even with the glow worm's face illuminated above me and warm fragile bodies pressed up to me. I stiffen because I am the one that can see the terrible wrong that is here.  There are people all over this small town and all over this small earth, who are sleeping, tucked up into their beds underneath a big moist moon.  These people are sleeping deeply because they do no have a dad or a husband or an uncle or a dragon trying to hurt them, and I do not understand how a person's body is not supposed to shake with the very outrage of this dark terrible thing that is still in this house.  Darren left, but he is still hurting me. 

The lady is squeezing the doll and holding it up like a beacon.  The doll’s face is hovering and Ashley’s face is pushed against my hip.  Small warm arms are wrapped around me tight.  The lady is behind me, close to my ear.  She is whispering, “It will be all right. It will be all right. It will BE ALL RIGHT.”

In the dark,  I realize this is comforting.  The bad thing inside me lets go.  It flits up, darkening the face of the glowworm for just an instant.  Then it is gone. 

“It will be all right.” The lady promises, and I know this much is true:  When you are eleven there are some things you can control, like whether to look at the shadows or at the light, and whether or not to believe in fairy tales.

Everything else has to be all right. 



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Thanks so much for reading my story.  Now, tell me what you think!  Ratings are very much appreciated, and reviews are godsend! 

---Niki