sleep
Girl woke up in the dark with a sharp inhale, the fear clawing at her ribs, burning in her chest. Terror was acid and Girl felt it in her lungs. The fear was all around her and inside her and she had to make it go away, she had to make it stop before its heaviness smothered her.
“Mommy?” Girl said her name softly and it made her blink fast—when she said the name aloud it made the fear more real, made her voice box get heavy and sore.
Girl tiptoed down the hall to Mother and Stepmother’s room in her Strawberry Shortcake nightgown. She stopped in front of the heavy white door, held her breath, and turned the doorknob as quietly as she could. Stepmother slept closest to the door, and she was a light sleeper. If Girl woke her up, Stepmother would stand at the doorway in her underpants yelling for Girl to go to sleep and leave her mother alone. Then there would be no Mommy, no making the fear go away. If Girl eased the door open really quietly, tiptoed past Stepmother’s side of the bed, and got to her mother first, Mother would hug Girl and tuck her in again and make the scared feeling disappear until morning. “It’s all right, Stepmother,” Mother would say as she padded on bare feet around their bed in the dark bedroom—she never wore slippers. If it was a really bad night, Mother would put on her yellow bathrobe and take Girl downstairs and make them both hot spiced milk in a pan on the stove. Girl didn’t know why Mommy slept on the side of the bed farthest from the door.
Girl held her breath, leaned back, pulled the door toward herself, and turned the knob up and to the left so it wouldn’t creak, but the door was locked. The eye-hook rattle woke up Stepmother, who unlatched the door and pulled it open before Girl could run back to bed. Girl couldn’t believe how quickly Stepmother went from dead asleep to standing straight up in the middle of the night—like a jack-in-the-box.
“What? What do you want?” Stepmother demanded, her hair sticking up in all directions. “Mother needs her sleep. She has to work tomorrow. Go back to bed!” Stepmother loomed above Girl, angry in her men’s cotton undershirt and white underpants that sagged in the back and had a rip along the waistband, so a strip of her stomach was visible. (She never wore a nightgown like Mommy, and never wore the satiny underpants Mommy liked. Stepmother despised all things pretty. She often told Girl that she was pretty.)
Girl raced back to bed before Stepmother turned meaner. She pulled the covers up and promised herself, when I have kids I will never forget what it is like to be scared in the dark. Stepmother slammed their bedroom door shut and dropped the lock back into place.
Alone in her bedroom, the open closet door made a dark mouth against the wall. All of Girl’s bad dreams lived in the closet, and if she couldn’t get it closed, she knew they would come out as soon as she fell asleep—they always did, just like if she fell asleep with the light on she knew that she’d wake with a headache. Girl threw her weight against the closet door, but it was stuck on a stuffed animal or a Barbie dress, or maybe a paperback book. It wouldn’t close, and she couldn’t bear to be uncovered and vulnerable so close to the closet for very long. She dived back into bed and hugged Scooby-Doo, who was two feet tall and filled with tiny Styrofoam balls so he was hard, not soft, but he was still her favorite and Girl slept every night with her head on his muzzle, which was forever smooshed into a very undog-like shape. Girl had her parents’ old bed and their old, light-blue-and-white comforter, not that Girl could see it in the dark. But Mother used to sleep under it, so it kept some comfort trapped deep in the cotton batting. Girl grabbed her stuffed weasel that had been loved from white to gray, its hard plastic nose tucked up by her face so Girl could find that extra-soft fur behind the ear and rub it on her cheek. She clenched the tail between her knees. Mother bought her plenty of stuffed animals but it was always the ones from Father that became Girl’s favorites. She closed her eyes tight-tight-tight until she saw stars behind her scrunched-up lids. In the dark of her bedroom Girl created an even darker dark inside her tightly closed eyes, lit with retina bursts that looked like jellyfish. Girl filled the void with scrolling lyrics, like the prologue in Star Wars. Words from “America the Beautiful,” or “My Country Tis of Thee”—her fear-crazed brain could only think of the stupid songs they learned in school. Girl never sang in her head any of the songs her mother sang, only empty repetitive ones that held no meaning. An empty structure to hold the fear at bay. “Oh beautiful, for spacious skies …” The tune was easy to remember. The lyrics dismissed Mother as easily as she had abandoned Girl to the night. Girl’s hands finger-spelled the first letter of each word with both hands at the same time, concentrating as hard as she could. Gradually her fingers relaxed, then her shoulders, and finally she slept.
