I live in the A-frame house I grew up in. Mama’s been in a home over in Spring Hill for a couple of years now. They have nice flowerbeds, and I visit her often. We walk amongst the flowers and she reminds me of all the terrible things I did when I was a kid. No one thought I’d ever grow out of my awkward stage, but I did. I went off to college and everything. Carol Ann went to a neighboring school. I’d see her every once in a while, working as a waitress in one of the coffee shops on campus, or shopping in the bookstore. I learned that it was best to ignore her. If I ignored her enough, she’d get the hint and leave.
But here she was, in the flesh, rain streaming down her face. Her blond hair was shorter, wet through, darker than I remembered. She was a skinny thing, not the radiant beauty I remember from my childhood.
I was frozen at the door, unsure of what to do. She knew better than to come calling; that was strictly forbidden. We’d laid down those ground rules years before, and she’d always listened. I was saved by the phone ringing. I glared at her and motioned for her to stay right where she was. Carol Ann was not invited into my house. Not after what she did all those years ago. It had taken me forever to get over that.
The phone kept trilling, so I turned and went to the marble side table in the foyer, the one that held the old fashioned rotary dial. I picked it up, almost carelessly. It was Mama’s nurse at the Home. I listened. Felt the floor rushing up to meet me. Everything went dark after that.
When I woke, the sun was streaming in the kitchen window. Somehow I’d gotten myself to a chair. There was coffee brewing, the rich scent wafting to my nose. Carol Ann stood at the counter, a yellow cup in her hands. She took a deep drink, then smiled at me.
“Hey, stranger.” Her voice was soft, that semi-foreign lilt more pronounced, like she’d been living overseas lately.
“Hey, yourself,” I replied. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“You needed me.” She’d shrugged, a lock of lank blond falling across her forehead. “I’m sorry about your Mama. She was a good woman.”
I had a vision of Mama then, standing in the same spot, her hair in curlers, rushing to finish the preparations for a garden-club meeting, stopping to lean back and take a sip of hot, sweet tea and smiling to herself because it was perfect. She was perfect. Mama was always perfection personified. Not flawed and messy like me. My heart hurt.
I forced myself to do the right thing. To do what needed to be done. My heart broke a little, and my head swam when I said, “Carol Ann, you need to leave. I don’t need you. I never did.”
She looked down at the floor, then met my eyes. Tear glistened in the corners, making the cornflower blue look like a wax crayon. “C’mon, Lily. We’re blood sisters, you and I. We’re a physical part of each other. How can you say you don’t need a part of yourself? The
“No!” I screamed at her, all patience gone. “You are not a part of me. You aren’t…”
A fury I hadn’t felt in years bubbled through my chest. There was only one way to get through to her. I grabbed the porcelain mug from her hand, smashed it on the counter, and swiped a gleaming shard across her perfect white throat. She fell in a heap, blood everywhere.
As I stood over her, watching her hair turn strawberry, I felt a tug and looked down at my leg. Carol Ann was trying to grab a hold of my foot. I kicked her instead, hard, in the ribs. She stopped moving then.
The thought is fleeting. What have I done?
I’ve just killed Carol Ann. She was never sweet, never innocent. She was a leech, an albatross around my neck. I didn’t need her. Carol Ann needed me. That’s what Doctor Halloway always told me. That’s what they said in the hospital, too. The white place, so pristine, so calm. They told me I’d know when the time was right to get rid of Carol Ann once and for all. Mama would be so proud. She knew I didn’t need Carol Ann, knew I was strong enough to live on my own. She always believed in me. I miss her.
The blood drips… drips… drips… from my arm. I feel lighter already.
J.T. ELLISON (
Chloe by Marc Paoletti
Pull over,” Dad says, voice barely audible over the hum of the air conditioner. “I have to go.”
I shake my head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Pull over.
Dad knows I can’t refuse a direct order. I pull off the deserted highway into an all-night gas station, and continue past the pumps to a pair of filthy white doors around the backside of the food mart. The left door reads
Dad doesn’t get out of the car. Instead, he stays pressed into his seat, skeletal fingers clutching the dash. He twists painfully, and the LSU T shirt that once stretched tight across his torso shifts in a loose flurry of shadows. His head has only a few white strands left, and his sunken face looks tight, like it’s been slammed shut.
“We’re sitting ducks out here,” I say.
Dad doesn’t seem to care. “I need your help,” he says, and then unlatches the glove compartment with a shaky hand; the tiny door falls open with a
“What’s that for?” I ask.
Instead of answering, he pushes the pen at me with little stabs. “Cramps. Hurts.” His voice is dreamy with morphine.
The pen is clear plastic, the kind you can see the ink through, and I take it to humor him. Due to medication and chemo, Dad hasn’t been himself for months. A major liability if our rivals found out, which was why the family sent him to the middle of bumfuck nowhere to get better. Instead, he got so bad we had to take him back.
“Hurts,” he says again.
“I heard you the first time.” I pull the Colt.45 from underneath my seat and tuck it under my belt, then kick open the door and step into swampy night air that smells like motor oil and rotting green. Dad must be really out of it to take this kind of risk. Word could have already spread that he’s weak. We could both be dead before reaching the men’s room, but an order’s an order.
I’ve been taking orders from Dad my entire adult life. He ordered me to switch my course of study from architecture to law, which I hate like poison now. He ordered me to stay loyal to the family, no matter what, and ordered me to steer clear of Chloe-a woman I fell deeply in love with in law school-because she was an “unacceptable risk.” In other words, she wanted no part in the family business. Dad orders me like he fucking always does, and always has.
I scan the gas station. It’s clear-for now.
I circle fast to the passenger door and open it, forgetting that Dad isn’t belted in because the tight strap hurts his skin. He falls toward me, and I catch him against my chest before he tumbles out. His nose presses against my right temple; his breath feels warm against my ear.
“We have to be quick,” I tell him. “Think you can handle that?”
There’s no way to pull his arm across my shoulders. Instead, I slide my arms forward to the elbows under his armpits. When I stand, it’s like lifting a man made of cardboard tubes.
With him pressed nose-to-nose against me, I shuffle back blindly toward the restroom as smooth and quick as I can. I don’t want to jar his bowels loose before we get there, but I also don’t want to stay in the open longer than we have to. If the gas station attendant were watching, he might think we were two queers dancing.
