Chapter 2
Westchester, NY
“Father wants to send her to boarding school.”
I squeeze myself tighter in my hiding space in the kitchen cabinet. Hearing my older Jace say it my chest hurts.
Boarding school? I’ve heard a few of the girls say it at school. Most times, they ignore me, but I’ve eavesdropped a few times to pick up on a few things, and boarding school is one of the things that everyone talks about. Who is going where, and which ones do what?
“Get rid of her you mean?” Adam’s scoff is angry. I recognize it. Adam doesn’t get angry often, but I know when he’s mad. He gets angry at our father. A lot.
“You know how he is.” Jace sighs. The blender whirls. He’s making a protein shake. Two bananas, one raw egg, blueberries, and whey powder. He makes it every day. He must be getting ready to work out with his best friend Silas. He’s gotten even bigger and taller, it seems, since he left for college.
“But why her? He didn’t send us away. She’s too fucking young for that shit. Where?” I close my eyes and try to think about where my father might send me. He hates me, so maybe I’ll go to Antarctica. That would be far enough away for him.
“Dana Hall in Massachusetts.”
“Massachusetts? That’s hours away,” Adam grouses, sighing. “What is wrong with him?”
“Exactly. She’s not ready to go to school that far away. She has no one except Maria when we’re gone.”
Jace’s words remind me that it’s true. I don’t have any friends except Maria.
She’s my best friend. Adam sometimes talks to me, but he’s never home.
Jace takes me places when he has time, but since he graduated from high school, I don’t see him except for holidays or when he comes by occasionally on the weekends.
The other girls at the all girls private school don’t talk to me since I’m known as the ‘mother killer.’ It began last year when the new girl, Kennedy, joined our third-grade class.
She walked right up to me and said she heard that I killed my mother.
Someone she found out that my mom died a few days after giving birth to me.
I didn’t have any friends to begin with, but that sealed the deal and no one talked to me after that.
Everywhere I went there was a rumor that she took one look at me and died.
I know it’s stupid. I’ve read every book I can find on what happened to my mother, and she died from a brain aneurysm.
She came home from the hospital and went to rest while my nanny took care of me.
Jace found out what they were calling me and told me to ignore them because they’re jealous.
Of what, my eight-year-old self asked him?
What could they be jealous of? Jace said something about them being upset that we have more money than they do, but I only have sixty-seven dollars in my piggy bank from when I helped Maria in the kitchen.
I get a dollar each time I help her cook dinner.
I cook with her every night. I know how to make almost anything.
She teaches Jace and Adam sometimes too, but most of the time, they forget or are out with their friends or girls.
“You’re lying. How is it possible that our ten year old sister’s only friend is our 50 year old housekeeper?”
Adam’s question makes me lean forward, closer to their voices from my position under the cabinet.
“The fuck I am. And how could she have any friends? She has private tutors all damn day, and when she does go around kids her own age, they make fun of her.”
“Why the fuck do they do that?”
“I keep forgetting that you’re not here much. Typically mean girl shit, jealousy.”
“But doesn’t she go riding? Or have other classes?”
“No.”
“Christ.”
“It’s like he can’t stand her, and I can’t figure it out. Maybe you can talk to him?”
“Me? Why me?”
“’Cause I can’t stand him and you still give him some grace. I guess it’s that oldest child shit, huh?”
“Fuck you.” Adam laughs and Jace grunts. I can picture Adam hitting him.
“And if he did listen to me, which he won’t, she won’t have a choice, you know that. Once he gets an idea in his head, that’s it.”
“Fuck.” Adam sighs. “But maybe it will be good for her? Maybe if she’s out of his sight she won’t grow up to hate his fucking guts the way we do.”
“Maybe. It’s a long shot seeing the way he treats her now. Anyway, I’m off to meet Silas.”
The sound of their retreating footsteps makes me feel more relaxed.
I no longer have to hold my breath and try to keep as quiet as possible.
I know it’s wrong to sneak around and eavesdrop, but I enjoy spying on people.
The last few times, I almost caught Jace with a girl in his room, and I quickly left, too grossed out by the sounds she was making.
My father is the one I like to spy on the most. I secretly hide in his office and watch him work.
Studying him while he’s on the phone or writing on his computer, fascinated by the intense look on his face, the concentration.
I sit hidden in a trunk in the corner of our library, watching him through the keyhole, wondering if I could figure out why he doesn’t like me, but I can’t figure it out.
The closest I have come is the night I caught my father looking at a picture of my mother.
Just a flash of sadness on his face before he locked it away.
I carefully open the cabinet and crawl out, dusting my knees and standing. There is a rip in my tights, and my hair is probably filled with spider webs. Maria won’t clean under here because she is afraid of anything eight-legged, which means it is the perfect hiding place when she’s not around.
I head to my room. It’s my sanctuary. The one place in my father’s mansion that I spend most of my time.
Dinner will be ready soon, and I don’t want to be late.
I run upstairs and quickly shed my clothing, putting on my black dress.
I brush my long, black hair, making sure it’s perfectly smooth.
If I look neat then Father doesn’t frown as much.
I think it’s because when I have my hair loose, I look like my mother.
It always makes me feel good that I look like her. My favorite picture is the one where she wears her hair half up and half down, with a pink bow at the top.
But her art, her heart was what I loved the most. Her sketchbook was the best part, until he ripped it up.
Now I don’t have anything left. I’ve tried to re-create her pictures, but I can’t get it right.
And I don’t draw happy things like she did.
He wouldn’t like what I draw. I hide those in a secret part of my closet.
Sometimes I draw dead things, creepy things.
Last week, I checked out an art book at the public library that was about death, and I was fascinated by the pictures inside.
My father would disapprove, and it might scare our housekeeper.
Even Jace and Adam don’t know. My new favorite thing is my collection of insects and I draw their wings and body parts using a microscope.
I enjoy discovering items that I can use to recreate their bodies.
Bits of odds and ends. A scrap of silky cloth for their wings.
A bead for their bodies. Broken wires for antennas.
I wish I could re-make my mother as easily.
Bring her back to life. I know it’s stupid, but it’s my secret wish.
One I haven’t told anyone. People would make fun of me.
When I was six I asked my brother about how our mother died.
Jace has always been honest and told me that she lay in her bed for hours before our housekeeper found her, cold and lifeless.
Over the years, when Jace and Adam talk about that day, I desperately wish I could have seen her.
As morbid as it sounds, I wanted to know what she was like, even in death.
Sitting on my bed I pull my owl stuffy, Orion from his hiding place and hug him close, cuddling him to my chest. Keeping him a secret is just another thing I have to do, because once my father saw me bringing him to dinner, he told me that it was time I grew up and got rid of my baby toys.
The next day I came home and all my stuffies were gone. Thrown away by my father’s edit.
I cried and raged at what he had done, until Maria snuck into my room and handed me Orion, telling me to keep him hidden when I wasn’t in my room in case my father appeared and found him. Since then, I’ve hidden him behind my headboard. He gets flattened each time and each time I fluff him out.
I breathe in his familiar scent of the fabric softener Maria uses when she washes him. One of his eyes is coming loose and I try to push it back in. He’s ratty and old, but I hold him close, needing to feel his familiar shape in my arms.
My brother, Jace, got it for me on my 5th birthday.
He once told me that owls like to vomit, and as a five-year-old, I was fascinated.
He gave me an owl pellet and I spent hours picking out the bones, feathers, and insect poop.
I love it, and Jace has given me an owl pellet every birthday since then.
It’s one of my favorite things that I get on my birthday. I don’t care about dolls or clothes. Adam gives me books and Jace gives me art supplies and my pellets.
I’ve assembled skeletons of many different rodents and small animals. Putting those bones back together, recreating the form of those digested animals eased something in my soul about my mother’s death.
Tucking him away, I sigh and check my hair one more time. Maybe boarding school will be good. Maybe I will make friends.