Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [85]
Clarise wasn’t the only one planning an escape. Shern was too. Right now she was in the small bedroom at Mae’s, undoing the catch on the trunk to pull out extra leotards and sweaters because an unseasonal March snowstorm had been forecast. It was just past one in the morning, and she felt unclasped for a change, a range of motion in her muscles and her feelings that was unusual for her in this house. She had moved the small table lamp to the floor to cast just a smattering of light from down low to guide her fast-moving hands, and suddenly the light shooting upward rounded the hard, angular lines of that room and opened it up some. Victoria and Bliss were snoring lightly, and their rhythmic breaths were settling to her as she worked as quickly and quietly as she could. She was judicious about what she packed; they would need to move like lightning through the night air, and she didn’t want them to be too loaded down. Plus she and Bliss would need to take turns helping Victoria, she was still limping so.
“Just a little infection,” Mae had said that afternoon when she’d finally gotten in after that el ride from the clinic with Victoria hobbling behind her. “The doctor gave her penicillin pills and said she’s got to keep that leg elevated at night.” Mae had fixed her lazy eye on Shern as she gave the doctor’s report. “So I’m trusting you to do that, dumpling.” She had squeezed Shern’s chin when she said it. “You girls not gonna be able to sleep all huddled on that one little bed with your sister needing to keep that leg raised, okay, sugarplum?”
Victoria had protested when Shern tucked her into the other twin bed. Said that she wanted to sleep with Shern and Bliss. Shern had consoled her, though, persuaded her by reminding her how close the beds were in that tiny room. “All you have to do is stretch good and you’ll be able to touch me in the other bed.”
Now Shern was lining up their shoes in front of the velvet green couch; she laid a sock on each shoe. She almost started humming, the way she’d hum at home when she did some big-sisterly-type thing, like match three pair of ribbons for their hair, or spoon out the ice cream into the three bowls that she lined up neatly on the counter, or get their Sunday School money from their mother’s purse, three quarters that she’d place one each on top of their Sunday gloves. She stopped herself from humming here, too incongruent a thing to do in this house. She couldn’t stop the electricity in her bones, though. She was excited to be getting ready to steal away from here. They would take the bus that stopped at Sixtieth Street at 2:00 A.M. to three blocks from the aunts and uncles. She had planned it out so well too, without a mention to Bliss and Victoria. Just like how she hadn’t mentioned to them Addison’s violation earlier that afternoon, when he’d trapped her in that shed.
She put a sweater and pair of corduroy pants for each of them on the green couch right above the shoes and socks. She wanted the clothes they would put on shortly to be organized so that they could get dressed while they argued. She knew they would argue. Especially she and Bliss. She had actually considered letting them in on her plan earlier as they got ready for bed and even as they took turns crying the way they still cried some nights before they fell asleep. She didn’t. Thought it best to wake them quickly, tell them to be quiet and put the clothes on. Perhaps in their fogginess they might not even protest.
She started with Bliss.
“Go where?” Bliss said it so loudly Shern had to cup her hand over her mouth.
“To the aunts and uncles!” Shern put her mouth to Bliss’s ear and pushed the words in as hard as she could.
“We can’t just leave here,” Bliss said as she struggled with Shern to uncover her mouth. She grabbed a bit of the skin of Shern’s palm and held it between her teeth.
“Ouch, you didn’t have to bite me,” Shern snarled.
“Well, you didn’t have to try to smother me.”
“Keep your voice down then,