The next time Girl walked into the hallway, she pushed up the cuffs of her jeans and turned on the light. She wanted to make sure they saw what she had done. Suzy did not break down in tears, run to hug her, or even apologize.
“What a freak show,” Jack said.
“I know. Crazy. I better get home before my mom does,” Suzy answered. They left the apartment fast, slamming the door behind them. Girl cried herself to sleep. Her father did not come home that night to see the lines on her ankles. Girl had given in to crazy and won nothing.
The next day Girl went to the school nurse’s office and showed the nurse her legs.
“What happened?” the nurse asked.
“Um, I was carving a piece of wood, and I dropped my knife,” she replied lamely.
“Fourteen times?” The nurse looked into her face hard, but Girl didn’t answer.
“Look, there’s a support group I run at lunch once a week. It’s for kids to talk to each other about their problems. If you want to go, I won’t report this to anyone.”
“Okay, I’ll go,” she said. Relief flooded her, but she was careful not to let it show. She needed someone to keep her from falling deeper into this pit. She wasn’t a bad kid. She smoked some pot and skipped some classes, but it wasn’t because she didn’t care about anything. Girl did it because she cared too much and life overwhelmed her and she couldn’t see how to get out from inside her skin. She was willing to try the self-help group. She didn’t stop getting high or skipping class, but now she felt guilty about it. She never cut herself again.
cardboard letter
Stepmother had not wanted Girl to move to Alaska, but there was nothing she could do about it. She could not argue. What if Girl’s father took them to court for full custody? They were lesbians. No judge would give them custody when there was a heterosexual man there asking to keep the children. She rummaged through her desk until she found her savings account booklet and checked the balance. She always kept enough money tucked away so that if anything happened to the children when they were in Alaska, she and Mother could get on a plane and rescue them. She saw that she still had enough in the bank and tried to breathe easier.
The boy was trouble, but Girl? She was so smart—she could do anything she wanted. She was always so good, she liked getting good grades and mostly did her chores. Stepmother loved her so much. She wanted Girl to be a teacher, or a psychologist—she was smart enough and her heart was so kind. Sometimes Stepmother worried that Girl would marry some pathetic creature in a wheelchair because she just wanted to take care of all the little hurt creatures in the world. Of course she loved Brother, too, but she just wished he would apply himself for once. He didn’t seem to care about anything except video games.
Girl had left for Alaska in October. She didn’t call very often, not on Thanksgiving, not once a week like she had promised. But sometimes Girl would call and yell at Mother for no reason at all. She would say all kinds of hateful things until her mother cried. Then Girl would hang up. Stepmother didn’t know what was wrong with the child. She thought about drugs for a moment, but that couldn’t be it. Girl was an A student. She was never in trouble. The only thing to do would be to get her little girl to come home so she could talk some sense into her, explain to her how much she was hurting her mother. She wrote a letter—she would fix this.
“You must come home. I don’t know what is going on up there but you must come home. You are hurting your mother. I don’t know what is going on with you. Your mother and I love you so much.” She signed her name as she always did, drawing little animal faces at the bottom of the page like Girl used to like before she became a teenager.
She needed to make sure that Girl got the letter. She knew Girl would come home once she remembered how much they loved her and how happy they had been. Girl used to have friends spend the night every weekend, and she’d had a boyfriend or two. The little girl was beautiful, even if she did like to wear way too much eye shadow. Stepmother had always begged her not to hide her beautiful face under all that goop, but Girl had just rolled her eyes. She must get her home. What if Girl’s father was molesting her? Father was a pervert, everyone knew that. He better not touch her daughter. She would kill him.
Stepmother taped her letter to a piece of cardboard so it wouldn’t get lost and sent it registered mail, even though it cost eight dollars. She knew if her daughter got the letter she’d come home right away.
Girl got the piece of cardboard, turning it over in her hands—so strange. A letter taped to a piece of cardboard, torn from a box, by the look of it. She noticed the postage and couldn’t believe that Stepmother would spend extra money to send a letter. She opened it and read her stepmother’s familiar round cursive. Like always, Stepmother had drawn little animals under her
