Winner for January 2010 contest
PEARLS OF SORROW by Renee Holland Davidson
Madelyn sits in the back seat of her mom’s Hyundai, forehead pressed against the window. She’s counting SUVs–black ones like her father used to drive–and trying to ignore her mother and sister arguing in the front.
Even if she hadn’t been able to hear their words, she could have quoted their conversation as if she had scripted it. Their dialog echoes through her head like endless reruns of some feuding daytime drama.
“Darn it, Rosie. You could at least pretend you’re part of the family,” her mother says. “Why must you always sit in the corner with your sourpuss face?”
Rosie spits back, “I told you I didn’t want to go. Cousin Sara’s Sweet Sixteen… please. She’s been whoring around since junior high.”
Madelyn’s ears perk up–this isn’t in the script. Their mother glares at Rosie with an almost imperceptible nod to the back seat, meaning: Your twelve-year-old sister can hear you. Stifle it.
Rosie turns to the side window, lips compressed in a straight line, the silver ring that pierces her eyebrow glinting defiant in the sun.
When I’m eighteen, Madelyn thinks, I’m getting a piercing, too. And maybe I’ll start smoking. She imagines sitting next to Rosie on her bedroom window seat, each with a cigarette dangling between their fingers, watching the smoke escape through the window screen grids, talking and laughing.
Madelyn frowns. When had she last heard Rosie laugh? She used to laugh all the time, used to call her Mad Maddie, grab her hands and twirl her in dizzying circles, tickle her unmercifully. The happy memories come easily, like a picture book in her head, a book written five years ago–before Dad died, before Mom spent so many nights crying behind her closed bedroom door, before Rosie started hanging around with “those hoodlums” as her mother calls them. Smoking, drinking, doing drugs, shoplifting just for kicks.
Rosie used to spend hours with her little sister–reading to her, playing Barbies, baking cookies. Now Rosie’s never home, and rarely at school. She’d even spent a few weeks in juvie after she was caught outside Best Buy with a purse full of stolen CDs and a baggie of pot.
And when Mom isn’t working or cleaning house, she’s either screaming at Rosie, or on the phone crying to her friends about her eldest daughter’s wild behavior, about missing Dad, about feeling so alone.
Madelyn knows all about feeling alone.
She’s stopped counting SUVs; they’ve exited the freeway, and now she’s counting the number of potholes the Hyundai hits before they reach the tiny house they moved to after Dad died.
When they turn onto their narrow street, her mother’s cell phone bleats out a tinny version of “Roxanne.” It’s Aunt Roxie, mother of the not-so-sweet Sara.
“Hey, Rox,” her mother chirps. She listens; her smile droops, then disappears, a frown tugs her eyebrows. “Okay. I know. Yes.” She pushes out the words in exasperated breaths. “I’ll call you back.” She snaps the phone shut, pulls over to the curb and slams on the brake.
She stares hard at Rosie, then turns, eyes focused on the bumper of the van parked in front of them, hands gripping the steering wheel as if she’s negotiating a twisting mountain road instead of sitting stock still in an idling car.
“That was Aunt Roxanne.”
Madelyn hears the tremor in her mother’s voice, realizes she’s struggling to sound calm.
“The pearl necklace Grandma gave to Sara is missing.”
Rosie laughs. Not the ringing, joyful laugh Madelyn remembers from the good days. It’s a bitter, disgusted snort that belongs to a movie screen psycho.
“Yeah, Mom, it’s gotta be me, huh? Sara’s demented thieving cousin. Like I’d even want her pearls!”
Her mom’s voice rises an octave, trembling like a novice actress. “I’m not accusing you. I’m simply making a statement.”
“Some statement.” Rosie sneers. “Here’s my statement.” She snatches her purse from the floor, opens it, and turns it upside down, furiously shaking it over her mother’s lap. A wallet, lipstick, cigarettes, keys, and myriad other items spill onto her mother’s skirt. Then Rosie jerks the door open, jumps out, and runs off in the opposite direction of home.
Madelyn doesn’t need to look to know there’s no necklace. She slumps further down in her seat, one hand stuffed into her pocket, caressing the sleek, polished pearls. She slides the beads between her fingers, as if saying a rosary.
Instead, she counts her sorrows.
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