* * * * *
Lucy paused before interrupting her sister Mary’s focus on the diary. Lucy had just begun learning her letters and considered Mary’s habit of scratching those shapes into long lines of thought mesmerizing. Lucy had once attempted to mimic Mary’s writing on the trailer’s walls, and had earned a spanking from Mr. Christensen. But the incident had not dimmed Lucy’s wonder for Mary’s word craft, and Lucy’s eyes twinkled as they followed the patterns the eraser end of Mary’s pencil twirled in the air.
Mary’s pencil paused. “I know you’re standing in the door, squirrel. You’re not so quiet as to sneak up on me. What do you need?”
Lucy skipped into the room and sat at Mary’s side. “What do you say when you draw the letters?”
Mary smiled. “I write how I feel.”
“Do you write happy words?”
Mary’s smile leveled into a flat sigh. “I write big girl thoughts, squirrel. When I feel sad, I empty the bad onto the paper. I’m happy now, squirrel. But I don’t think you came to my door just to watch me write in my diary.”
Lucy tugged at the long necklace of costume pearls around her neck, and the plastic bracelet jingled around her wrists. No matter Mr. Christensen’s curses, Queenie kept all of Mary’s siblings dressed in a steady supply of costume jewelry.
“Queenie sent me to say she wants to see you.”
Mary frowned. “So she’s using even you against me?”
Lucy’s face paled. She struggled to understand Mary’s meaning, and she rocked anxiously on her feet while trying to guess what she had said to make Mary frown.
Mary forced herself to smile. “I’ll make a deal with squirrel. You give me your necklace and your bracelets, and I will tell Queenie that you did a terrific job in coming to get me.”
Lucy hesitated.
Mary giggled to disarm her young sister. “Queenie will give you more jewelry. But I like what you have on now. Can you trade with your big sister?”
“Can I draw letters?”
“Of course, squirrel.”
Lucy quickly gave her jewelry to Mary. Mary did not wrap the plastic pearls about her neck. She did not slip the bracelets over her wrists. Belle loved such jewelry too much for Mary to keep the cheap trinkets. Mary dared not feel the plastic upon her skin lest she add to Belle’s temptation to return. Mary instead buried them into the pocket of her thick coat hanging on the door. Lucy appeared confused as to why her older sister would want to hide the glimmer of such ornaments, but Mary easily placated Lucy’s curiosity by putting a pencil in her hand and directing the sister’s attention onto the treat of a clean page.
“Practice your letter shapes, squirrel,” Mary pinched Lucy’s cheek. “I’ll go and see what Queenie needs, and you can show me your page when I get back.”
Mary was fuming when she reached the door to Queenie’s chamber. She did not smell the smoke of burning cigarette cloves. She did not hear the thumping speakers of Queenie’s small stereo churning mixed tapes of squealing rock guitars. The courtesy of such missing things surprised Mary. Queenie had intensified the enticements to Belle throughout the week – the glossy, magazine photos of race car drivers Queenie directed Mary’s sisters to tape to every blank telephone pole and burn barrel throughout the neighborhood, the open cans of Mr. Christensen’s beer Queenie told the sisters to place on the front step and in the trailer’s windowsills, the tubes of dark lipstick Queenie instructed the sisters to drop in the mailboxes closest to their own. It infuriated Mary to watch Queenie use the sisters against her. Queenie was cruel to employ such an army of Mary’s loved sisters in her efforts to summon Belle.
But no matter her anger, Mary wished her hand did not tremble when she twisted the doorknob and tried her best to boldly enter Queenie’s chamber.
“You’re heartless,” Mary’s voice wavered though she wished it would growl. “You stoop low to ask Lucy to bring me to you so I can hear your hurt. You’re an awful thing to use my sisters against me.”
Queenie wheezed as the oxygen tank next to the bed hissed.
Queenie coughed in the inrush of air before delivering her words. “Show me a little of the mercy the good Lord gave you and turn my head away from the wall so that I can look on you.”
Mary wished she could be more callous. But as always, her heart remained soft. She leaned close to Queenie and gently turned the wrinkled face away from the wall and onto her.
Queenie smiled. “The world holds no place for angels the likes of you Mary.”
“I doubt you sent Lucy to fetch me to just tell me that,” Mary swallowed as much pity as she could before speaking. “I think there's plenty of room for me.”
Queenie drew another breath from the tank’s tubing. “What does your heart say, Mary? Look in your own heart and tell me if you think there’s a place here for your spirit?”
“Of course there’s a place,” Mary snapped.
Queenie shook her head slightly, as much as her old neck could muster. “You answer too quickly. I’ve turned off Belle’s foul music. I’ve turned off the television. I haven’t lit any of those clove cigarettes. Today, I have made this world still so that you can look into your spirit and see the way things are. Truly, Mary, does this place hold any space for you?”
Mary clinched her hands into fists. She swore she would give herself to the rage. For once, she would let the anger sweep her away. The old woman had no right in asking for what she desired. She had no place to deny her Mary a wish a simple as to watch her sisters grow, to deny her a thing as warm as a family home. Yet Queenie asked it all the same, and the daring of it felt like spit trickling down Mary’s face.
“There has to be a place for me,” Mary whispered.
But Mary heard the weakness in her voice. Her words trembled in the air. Mary could not give herself to the rage. She could not allow the anger to sweep her away. Hatred had no footholds in her soul. Fury would have to wrap itself around another. Mary’s heart could only remain soft. It was not her nature to harden. The other shade, the other soul, possessed the granite heart.
Queenie’s old eyes glistened with tears. “I wish I had never done it, Mary. I wish I had not crafted your name. I only wished to save Kay’s cherished daughter.”
Mary’s chin shook. Her knees trembled.
Queenie pulled breath from the tubes and the oxygen tank hissed. “You know what happened that night several years ago. You don’t want to remember is all. But Belle has to remember. Belle can’t hide from that night. You know whose hands clutched that throat until the life seeped out empty.”
Mary winced. Her hands possessed little strength.
“All the more reason to be kinder to me,” pleaded Mary. “Stop trying to bring Belle back. Stop calling for her before someone else gets hurt.”
“You would choose the alternative?” Queenie whispered. “Your heart may be timid, but you’re heart isn’t selfish. Think of your sisters. How long will the monster in this home remain satisfied to only line them all up and look at them? How will he quench his thirst as your sisters grow? How long until his hands begin to touch your sisters the way they begin to touch you?”
Tears streamed down Mary’s cheeks.
“I may be doomed to this bed,” Queenie continued, “but that don’t mean I don’t see. I know how Mr. Christensen craves. I know the brand of men Kay chooses.”
Mary could not share Queenie’s presence any longer. She could no longer look upon the woman wheezing on a deathbed. Mary stumbled out of the room and fell into a ball on the hall floor. The trailer’s walls were so thin, but Mary had nothing else behind which to hide her sobs as she cried.
Queenie’s voice seeped from her chamber. “You’ll hear no more music, Mary. You’ll smell no more smoke, and I will ask no more favors from your sisters to call Belle back. You know this isn't your place. You know that it's the other who belongs here.”
Mary kicked at the wal
l opposite to her and buried her face into her arms.
“I drew letter shapes for you, Mary.”
Mary looked up to see that silent Lucy had again crept upon her. Lucy’s eyes blinked back tears as the quiet squirrel handed the marked page to her oldest sister. Mary saw how Lucy’s efforts had turned successful, how she had strung letters together into the shapes of flowers, into a menagerie of circles, squares, and triangles, a handful hinting at the coming of words. Mary choked on her sobs as her vision blurred in the tears.
“Do you need to draw sad shapes?” Lucy dropped beside her sister and hugged Mary.
Mary nodded. “I do, Lucy. But I only have to write a few pages more. All of us can be happy after I draw only a few more sad shapes.”
No further sounds came from Queenie’s chamber. Mary embraced Lucy tightly, and soon the hall crowded with sisters seated next to Mary, confused as to why their older sister could not stop crying.