Connecting Dots by Sharon Jennings

Author:Sharon Jennings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Second Story Press
Published: 2015-02-19T22:29:01+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Silence.

People either looked at me, or the kitchen doorway.

Someone in the bathroom flushed. A woman giggled and a man hiccupped.

I found my voice. “What do you mean? What do you mean you saw my mother?”

Another woman said, “Rita’s your mom? No kidding!”

I thought I would go crazy. Lana came out of the kitchen. “Not now, Cassie. Okay? Later, I promise.”

“Promise what? To tell me why my mother is or isn’t dead?” I was shrieking. Dick grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall. He flicked the dial on the record player as he went by and music blared.

Dick pushed me onto their bed. “Quiet. Just be quiet. You heard her. She said she’d tell you, and she will. But not in front of everyone, you hear me? We’re not gonna ruin the party on top of everything else.” He went to the door. “You’re going to stay in here. Watch TV. I’ll bring you some food.” He was out with the door closed before I could answer.

My thoughts were all over the place. Was I mad because my mother wasn’t dead? Or was I mad she was alive? Or was I mad because I felt like an idiot?

Dick came back with a box of chips and two bottles of Orange Crush and a bowl of Bridge Mixture. “Here. Knock yourself out.”

I turned on the TV and adjusted the rabbit ears, but it was all stuff about JFK or Lawrence Welk. Yuck. So I snooped around the bedroom. I found a box of magazines called True Crime in Dick’s side of the closet. Lots of gory pictures of dead women in negligees or half-naked, and tough-guy cops making snarky comments. Pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be reading this.

Sue me.

I ate everything and felt sick and thought about throwing up on their bed. I guess I fell asleep, because in the morning I was on my cot in the hallway. The living room was a mess. I could hear Dick snoring but Lana was on the sofa, still in her dress, staring out the window. I sat in the swivel chair and swung it back and forth until she stuck out her foot and jerked me still.

“She isn’t dead. Aunt Shirley told us she died giving birth to you. Then Rita wrote us letters – Liz and me – and told us the truth. The three of them made us go along with it. Shirley, Hazel, and Mabel. They said it was for the best. For you.” She picked up a glass and sniffed, made a face, and drank. “Liz and I hated them. Hated having to pretend our cousin was dead.” She finally looked at me. “We loved Rita.”

I didn’t move. I was afraid of stopping this flow of information.

“If our mothers found the letters, they destroyed them. We tried something else – a post office box – but after a time…well, I guess Rita moved on. She sent a couple more letters from Detroit and New Orleans and then…nothing.

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