She calls me Girl. I call her Mother. I’m talking to you girl. Girl are you listening. What goes on in that head of yours girl. I do not even smile when she says these things. She does not want to know what goes on my head. And I cannot tell her, you are my mother only on paper. Only in name. As Father is only my father on paper.
I am not their child. I am no one’s child. Jim is the only real family I have. We grew up together, and he knows all my thoughts and he sings them to me. We are fire and forest, serpent and tree. I can’t even recall a time before Jim.
Father-on-paper lives across town, with a slim-hipped blond whose name I forget. “Twenty-something” is what Mother calls her. Abandoned us, she says, for Twenty-something. In truth she is thirty. And Father left Mother for many reasons.
I am not warm, or out-going or friendly. I am not friends with the girls in my school. They seem silly to me. Soap bubbles that pop at the sight of a pin.
What goes on in that head of yours girl; what in the world are you thinking about. I do not speak his name, I do not tell Mother at all about Jim. How his hair falls in long brown curls, like snakes. How his eyes are the color of overcast skies. Jim is sacred to me. These are not things I will ever tell Mother.
Two old suits in a red hanging bag. Tool sets, cameras. Father said he would come for the rest of his things. Manuscripts of novels that would never be finished because Mother complained he was wasting his time, and the black case I’m sure he’s forgotten is there.
He is not coming back. Not for suits or tools or anything else. I’m sure he’s forgotten because if he remembered what's in the black case, it would never have been so easy to take. I am certain because he has never asked for it. It is part of a life he would like to forget, and when it is missed it will all be too late.
What’s a matter girl, cat got your tongue; What goes on in that head of yours girl? Mother says this and pokes at my side, and I do not smile. I do not answer. I hear Jim say, breathe. Breathe. Breathe underwater.
I cannot imagine my life without Jim. We are brother and sister, serpent and tree. I am him and he is me, and we sleep every night tangled up in each other.
Mother is holding a brochure in her hand. I’m worried about you girl; you need help, she says. I have no idea the plans she has made. It’s like day camp, she says. For troubled girls. By which she means me. I am the only girl who is troubled she knows.
I listen to lectures. Motivational speakers. I sit in a classroom with soap bubble types. I draw pictures of them, devoured by lions. At night I go home and Mother gives me pills. She watches to be sure I swallow them down, and they make my heart race and make my legs crawl. A terrible restless, tingling feeling that goes on without end and wherever I turn it is there like a wolf.
Each night Mother comes with a half empty glass and a pill that I take. And love dies a little a pill at a time. When I call Jim’s name I hear kettle drums roll. Or a black circle closes, like a silent film scene. The fire is gone and the forest is ashes, and I take the black case from the drawer of my dresser.
It is dark outside. Mother is still sleeping. I am only sixteen, a troubled girl. They will send me Somewhere. I will live for a time with troubled soap bubbles. I will leave Somewhere when I’m twenty-something.
I see she is stirring and the hall light is on. It is heavy and I switch from one hand to the other. But I like how the weight of it makes it feel real. I will tell Mother now what goes on in my head. The smell of the oil is musky and sweet and I’ve always imagined that’s how Jim would be.