Dysfunctional

Here's my story for the Three Word Wednesday prompt. I managed to not kill anybody in this one.

My whole childhood was a struggle. A struggle to find something interesting going on, some mischief to get into or some way to torture my parents who were too lenient and thought I could do no wrong. Little did they know, I hardly ever did any right. 

I acted up in school, but the teachers did nothing about it because my father was the principal. Of course, that gave me license to try to find the one thing they couldn’t ignore. Ours was an old school establishment in which all twelve grades were in the same building. I tried for twelve long years and never managed to be sent to the Principal’s Office once. I think the teachers were more scared of what my father would do to them than to me.

As for my father, he was too busy sleeping with the school secretary to care what I did during school hours. He only cared whether I told Mother about Mrs. Johnson, which I never did. I thought if my mother was too stupid to figure it out on her own, she didn’t deserve to know. 

My mother, now she was a piece of work and a half. She spent her days reading fashion magazines and going to the beauty parlor and her nights with cucumbers over her eyes and some stinky green goop smeared all over her face, trying to be beautiful for a man who was screwing a woman twice her size, but who baked killer chocolate chip cookies and called him sir. 

And my brother, well, he was a spoiled rotten brat from the time he could walk. I plotted his death numerous times while growing up, but my plans always were foiled at the last minute. I swear that boy lived under a lucky cloud, while I lived in a fog of misery.

I couldn’t wait to leave the town of Rockchester when I grew up. You see, we never went on vacation. We never went anywhere. My father wouldn’t leave Mrs. Johnson for any length of time, and my mother wouldn’t leave her sewing circle, aka gossip group. I begged them to go to the beach, which was only twenty miles away, every summer to no avail. 

I didn’t even make it to the beach as a teenager like most kids in town did because my parents refused to buy me a car and I had no friends to hitch a ride with. I had no friends period.

The suck ups who tried to be my friend because of my father I ridiculed until they cried, and the outcasts were scared to be my friend because of my father, so I was left alone, which suited me just fine. Most of the time.

Sometimes, I wished I had a friend, you know, because misery loves company. 

Despite it all, I managed to grow to adulthood. I never did leave town though. I went to Rockchester Community College after high school where I met my husband, James. We have been married for ten years. 

My mother and father are still together. Mrs. Johnson has lived with them for the last five years since my mother had a stroke and can’t kick her out. My brother spends more time in the county jail than at home with his wife and six kids. 

As for me, well, I’m the principal of the new Rockchester High School, and the assistant principal makes the best cookies in town.

Reached My Limit

Rachel placed the headphones over her ears and sunk into the tub. She cranked the volume up loud enough that she’d miss a tornado if one come through. 

She had had it at a normal level, but that didn’t work. Her husband had ignored her pleas for some alone time, instead he had knocked on the door five times since she entered the bathroom. After the last time, when he asked where the flour was, Rachel snapped. 

“It’s in the kitchen, with all the other food,” she yelled. She then got in his face and told him, “I’ve reached my limit, Mike. I need some time to myself; just a few damn minutes to relax. Is that too much to ask?”

She didn’t give him time to answer, but slammed the door in his face. 

The scared look on his face would have made her laugh on another day, but today she didn’t care how overwhelmed he felt dealing with the twins. Let him have a taste of what I go through every day, she thought and settled more comfortably into the tub.

Rachel soaked for an hour and a half. She felt revived when she emerged from the bathroom, until she walked into the kitchen and saw the mess her husband had made. Flour covered every counter, plates were stacked sky high in the sink, more plates than it took for three people to eat a five-course meal, and trash littered the floor. 

She was aching for a fight when she stormed into the livingroom, but stopped short. Mike lay sprawled on the couch, snoring for all he was worth, with both babies sleeping soundly on his chest. 

I guess some of us have higher limits than others, she thought and headed back to the kitchen to clean up.

Picture Perfect

Finally finished my story for this weeks Three Word Wednesday prompt. It is also my story for the letter P of the A to Z Challenge. Hope y'all enjoy it.

Clara stared at the photograph. The man and woman gazed happily into each other’s eyes. The children were laughing while trying to hold a small ball of fur still. Dogwoods lined the walkway that led to the cherry, red front door of a modest little house. 

No matter how hard she tried, Clara couldn’t recall the day in the picture. She kept closing her eyes and willing her mind to go back to that time, a time when happiness wasn’t just something other people talked about, but it was elusive. 

Maybe happiness had dependence on happiness, she mused. With it missing from her life now, she could no longer even recall what it felt like. 

She noticed the photograph was starting to rumple around the edges. Of course, how could it not since she held it every day. 

It was the last picture she had of all of them together. 

“Are you ready?” George asked from the doorway.

“Just a minute,” Clara replied, and then slipped the photograph back under her pillow.

George and Clare rode in silence. Clara wasn’t surprised by George’s lack of communication. It had been years since they actually talked to each other, more than just what was required. 

 “Did you get the book?”

“Yes,” Clara answered. “I picked it up yesterday.”

She knew Janie would enjoy the book. The pictures anyway. It had been a long time since Janie would read the words. 

Clara remembered when Janie stopped reading. Her sister, Rebecca, had run away from home three weeks before and they had no idea where she was. Janie had taken it badly. First, she stopped talking to anyone. Then, a week earlier, she stopped leaving her room, and two days before, she tore every book she owned up and tossed them out the window.

It wouldn’t have been a big deal for a ten-year-old to refuse to read, except Janie had been reading since she was three and, before Rebecca ran away, was never seen without a book in her hand. 

The middle of the next week, they committed Janie to the hospital after she quit eating. She’d been in one hospital or another for the last four years now. Rebecca was still missing, and Janie, while she would now look at books with pictures, still wasn’t reading.

Clara believed Janie would get well when Rebecca came home, but she had given up hope of that happening a long time ago.

She and George spent their nights in the same house, although in separate bedrooms, and their days living separate lives. He went to work at the law firm and her to the daycare. He couldn’t understand why she wanted to be around other children when they had lost both of their own. She couldn’t understand why he didn’t.

But that was not the only thing they disagreed on. Far from it. It would be easier to count the things they did agree on these days, than the things they didn’t. Clara was glad George still went to see Janie with her. For a while, she feared he would stop.

He had proved he could still surprise her one other time as well. She had found a receipt for a private detective in his desk drawer one evening a few years back. When she asked George about it, he told her he’d been paying the guy ever since Rebecca disappeared, and would continue to do so until she was found. As far as Clara knew, he still sent the weekly checks, even though there had been no sightings of Rebecca in three years. 

When they arrived at the nurses’ station, Nurse Andrews stopped them. “We received this for Janie yesterday, but thought we’d show it to the two of you first.”

Clara opened the letter, and with George looking over her shoulder, started to read. By the time she finished, tears were streaming down her and George’s faces and they were hugging each other. 

Clara ran her fingertips over the return address, which read: 

Rebecca James
452 Fountain Blue Lane
Rock Creek, MN 08766

It seemed that even though they hadn’t been able to track Rebecca down, she had found her sister. For the first time in a long time, Clara thought their family might be more than just picture perfect again.