Lara

(sorry I haven't been keeping up the blog posts, been busy finishing one book, and starting another... this is the start of the new book, Mama.  Note that this Lara is different from the Larabee who's posted before -- Shelley)

I called my real mother Mama.  That much I remember.

The rest is a blur.  I don’t even know what she looks like.  In my memories, I see parts, such as her feet, padding down the stairs in Chinese slippers one time after I spilled my milk, so quiet, I wouldn’t have known she was coming except for the creak of the steps in our old house. 

I remember the quick pattering of my heart against my ribs – Mama always said I was nothing but bones -- but I don’t remember why I was so scared – was I going to get in trouble?  What kind of trouble, and how much?  Would she yell?  Punish me? 

I remember her crying a lot.  She was always crying.  Would my spilled milk make her cry?  Was it my fault she cried all the time?

If my memories are real at all, I know that in a flash of quick thinking, I put the cat on the table, and he lapped up all the milk before my mother got downstairs.  When Mama reached me, she patted my head, calling me a good girl for finishing all my milk.  All my fear slipped away in a rush of relief.

Lilly

(I keep toying with Lilly's story -- the girl abducted one night out in San Francisco.  One day it will coalesce into a novel.  For now, I play...)

Lilly:

He wants (me here forever).

He says (speak when spoken to).

He goes (to work or to play, all day, all day).

I wish (for windows, a door, a chance).

I claw (at the plaster under the bed, where he won’t see).

I suck (on my arm until it bleeds).

Prison is too tight

For a fifteen year old girl.

All I did, all I did,

All I did

Was go out,

Was have fun,

Get drunk,

Dance,

Sweat,

Live…

All I got, all I got,

All I got was this,

This room,

These walls,

            And him.

Corinne (Secrets I Don't Dare Tell, excerpt)

Meanwhile, I reach over to the coffee table with one hand to get my phone.  I start texting Marissa what happened, when suddenly my mother smacks my phone out of my hand!

“What the fuck!” I say -- big, big oops.

Right away, I amend that to, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I thought we were done.”

“We’re not done,” my mother says, leaning forward and getting all in my face.

“I was just telling Marissa—“

“I never should have gotten you that goddamned phone.  I thought you were special, Corinne, but you’re just like every other kid your age—“

“That’s right, I am!” I say, even though it really hurts to hear my mother say that to me.  “So I don’t even know why you’re punishing me for last night when everyone – everyone – is having sex by the time they’re like fourteen, and I’m sixteen, and all I was doing was—“

My mother pushes off her knees and stands up.  She starts walking away!

“Listen to me!” I yell.

“I did listen!  I always listen to you, Corinne!”

“You’re not listening right now!”

 “Ladies, please.  We’re getting off topic.  Ashley, sit down, please.”

“There’s more?” I say, too snotty, I know, I know.  I’m an idiot.

“I’m sorry.  I’ll be good, Daddy, I promise,” I say, leaning closer to him.

“Yes, you will,” my mother says.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I say.

“You’d better not talk to me with that tone.”

“I’m not.”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

“And just to make sure you are ‘good’, Tim will be staying here with you this weekend,” my mother says.

I sit upright, and the stone, which has grown to a baseball-sized rock, rolls around my stomach.  I feel like I’m going to be sick.

“Tim?”

Larabee

On days when my leg aches, my heart aches more. 

I woke up this morning same as every morning, reaching for my crutches, swinging my leg down.  It shivered with a jolt of pain that then settled in as a quiet, throbbing ache.  Unable to stomp my feet, I pound my crutches on the floor, as if I’m stomping them.  Then the heartache comes.

It starts as an uneasiness in my belly, uneasiness which rolls into an iron, spiked ball like the kind you see on maces in medieval pictures.  The ball is dragged by a chain, up my throat, and lodges in my chest.  With very breath, I feel the spikes stab deeper, pushing into my lungs so I can’t get air, pressing into my heart so that I double over.

The leg pain is real.  The stomach-throat-heart-and-lung pain is in my mind, and that makes it worse.

Oh, Anne.  Why you?

Btw, this is a huge leap from the why me’s I felt first after the accident.  Back then, my leg hurt so bad, it was like a hot, sharp sword was thrust through my knee and twisted.  Twisted and twisted, like my brain, twisting and twisting through the events that led up to the accident that led up to my ruined leg and …

And…. And….

Deep breath.  Lying back down in bed, I make myself face the truth.  The accident ruined my leg, but it killed Anne.

And it was my fault.

Lilly

Lara:  My captor, my keeper, my kidnapper… my father, he wants to be called my father… (gasp, squeeze back tears, force air in and out, must breathe, must breathe, Lara, don’t give up…)

My father wants me to tell him a story.  If I tell him the right story, I get to leave this room, go to the bathroom down the hall, where I hear the other people go, talking and walking and shitting and flushing as if I am not here.  They do not know I am here, or they do not care, I don’t know, but I want to take that walk, and piss in something other than the giant coffee can he leaves for me.

Please, father, I only want to be human.

I don’t dare tell him that.

I don’t dare tell him

Anything.

So I tell him about the time, when I was twelve, and we lived outside of Oakland, and me and my friend Amanda, we went to the train tracks with this boy who was thirteen,

no I can’t remember his name, yes, I’ll make one up, anything, I just want to use the bathroom, father.

Me and Amanda and Teddie, we went to the train tracks, and Amanda and Teddie danced back and forth over the tracks, and I wouldn’t because I was afraid of the third rail I’d heard about, and Teddie laughed at me, laid down across the tracks, said, “You think there’s really a train going to come on these tracks?  Where would it go?  Where would it come from?  Shit, how can you be so stupid?”

So I walked on the unused tracks with them, weeds poking through wooden slats, bugs swirling as we stepped, sharply biting my ankles.  And eventually we came to an abandoned station.  Teddie jimmied open the door, and he made Amanda wait outside for a minute while he led me in, and then he, then he…

I can’t say it, I don’t want to say it.  Yes, I do want to use the bathroom, okay, OKAY!

I’m sorry, father, I didn’t mean to yell.  Yes, I’ll finish the story.

… then he grabbed me close and started rubbing his body hard against mine, and I knew what he was doing, but I couldn’t stop it, or maybe I wouldn’t, and finally he yelled, and then he slacked, and then he slapped me and said, “Look what you made me do, you horny bitch,” and he pointed to the wet spot on the front of his jeans, laughed, took off his flannel over-shirt, and wrapped it around his waist to cover the spot, all the while laughing, and Amanda came in and said, what’s so funny, and I couldn’t even talk.

Thank you father.  Thank you. 

Father unlocks the door with the key he keeps in his front pocket.  He takes my arm and walks me to the bathroom, which has cigarette ashes in the sink and hairballs on the floor, and I don’t care if it’s gross, I’m just so happy to pop a squat with no one watching, and to flush.  I flush twice, because the sound is so beautiful, and I stand there and let my tears fall into the swirling water and wonder for the thousandth time, how did I get here.

Lilly

Lara:  He says if you love something let it free.

I said then let me free.

He said I have to love him.

I said I need something.

He said he’ll get it for me.

I said it’s a female thing.  I have, you know…

He said he’ll get it for me.

I said, why can’t I go with you?  I won’t run.

He said someone might see me.  He said I might scream.

I said I never would.  I wouldn’t do that.

I said I love him.

He has not set me free.