Tues December 8, 2074 12:04 pm: 35 Woodland Dr.-- Middlebourne, PleasantviewTRIGGER WARNING: DISCRETION ADVISED
The furnace rumbled to life in the bedroom closet, inspiring the pipes to shiver and still. This pitiful oscillation between trying and quitting was all that their furnace was capable of accomplishing. Dustin had installed it himself, armed only with a book that he bought from a newspaper insert and his father's old tools. Cherise hadn't trusted him to be able to read a diagram then but she let him work for three days straight, anticipating her own lead-faced, I told you so.
About a year back, they had been thinking of selling the house and moving Tolsbury to be near her folks. The house was on the market for three whole weeks before the inspector told them that their furnace was improperly installed and the whole thing would need to come out. Dustin said he wasn't bothered to incur the expense but Cherise knew the real reason he wouldn't have it fixed-- It was nothing but his own pathetic, dented pride. Of course, that's just what life was with Dustin; one great big fuck-up followed by one great big cop-out forever and ever, world without end.
Cherise stared down at the backs of her hands. Her fingers were cracked and shriveled from an early morning spent over the sink, up to her elbows in dishwater. Her skin whitened at the creases. It made her feel a bit reptilian, a bit less than human. She stared until her eyes lost focus.
This was the closest to peace that Cherise ever came to. When she was alone, she could sink so deeply into the stillness of her surroundings that the colors blended and her thoughts suspended into stasis. Hers was an emptiness that was neither comforting nor reassuring. It was a sort of coma. A sort of fugue.
Noise reeled Cherise back into the moment. Her sons were shuffling through the kitchen, probably fixing lunch. They could heat canned soup and toast but no more than that. Cherise propped herself up onto her elbows. They should not have been cooking. She'd made stew for their lunches the night before and they were meant to nuke it in the microwave. She'd told them that just before she'd gotten into bed. Cherise dangled her legs over the edge of the bed and arched her back to stretch her muscles. She had to make sure they were staying out of the pantry.
In the hallway, she could make out a distinct rhythm to the tin clang that was coming from the kitchen. They were playing her pots like drums. Cherise exhaled, holding back her annoyance. Was it too much to ask for them to just eat and get back to their arithmetic?
Before she hit the entry arch to the kitchen, the words were already forming at the tip of her tongue-- Enough of your foolishness. You're meant to be getting your lunch, not messing about. For Cherise, parenthood was a string of repetitive, knee-jerk reactions and unheeded mantras. Even so, when she stepped into the kitchen, her planned speech was promptly aborted.
The area rug was bunched up beneath the cabinet, seemingly to absorb the vast quantity of water from the flooded sink. The former contents of the refrigerator were spread across the counter, many opened and some spilled. The stew she'd prepared was sitting on a lit burner next to Joaquin's teddy bear.
But her walls! She and Dustin put that paper up together when they'd first bought the house, in happier times. They surveyed their work and imagined the family that would fill these rooms. They were so young then.
Cherise had an hour to herself during the day while Dustin was at work, the baby napped and the boys ate lunch. One hour. It was not a relaxing hour. It was not an entertaining hour. The hour was void but it had been hers, her one reprieve.
The marker would not come out of the wall. The rug, too might have been a loss. Cherise canvased the area, plotting her clean-up and growing increasingly furious at the extent of damage. The boys climbed to their feet in flurry of excuses and accusations but Cherise was not listening. The sound of their voices overlapping as they competed for dominance made her blood boil, regardless of what was being said.
"Which one of you drew on the wall?" As though it mattered.
Joaquin stumbled through an explanation but his voice was drowned out by the buzzing in her head. One hour where she could pretend her migraines away. One hour where she could lie in bed and be no one. Be nowhere.
Peter hooked his thumbs into his belt loops coolly. He was watching her with interest. The mess, for him, was a thing of the past. The new game was in seeing how Mommy would react. The remorselessness was the worst of his crimes, whatever else his specific crimes might have been. She grabbed him by the throat.
Maybe he would bruise. Maybe she would regret it later. Peter struggled, kicking out against nothing that he could reach and clawing at her arm as she tightened her grip. Joaquin was saying something to her but she was too far away to hear.
Peter's face went a queer shade of maroon halfway down the hall. Cherise pried his hands off of her arm. Each time he reached for her again, she smacked him away and shook his dangling body. He was gagging wetly now. Cherise opened the door to the nursery with her free hand and tossed him inside. If he was going to act like a toddler, then he belonged in the company of one.
He crumpled when she let him go, gasping for air. His hands crossed one over the other as he crawled, disoriented against the nursery floor. Cherise watched him only long enough to see that he would live and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her. The baby wailed. Cherise slid her back down the door until she hit the carpet.
Peter was pounding on the door with the flats of his hands. There was no rhythm to the sharp series of thuds that seemed to land just above Cherise's head. His palms wiped down the door after each impact, generating a faint hissing sound. Cherise propped her elbows against the jamb and beat her head on the door. Each moment of contact was a prayer for the oblivion that never came. Over and over. World without end.
Weds, November 11, 2074 6:52 pm: 35 Woodland Dr.-- Middlebourne, Pleasantview
Beau didn't know how much longer he could take it. Once, sometimes twice a week, he sat down to dinner with his brother's family. His nephews would curse and shoot spitballs while Dustin roared on the subject of any idiotic conviction that hit his head. Hell would be raised and plates would occasionally be thrown. But having been graced with a certain amount of patience, Beau could tolerate his brother and nephews well enough. It was witnessing the slow deterioration of his sister-in-law that tore him apart.
When Beau first met Cherise, she had been the sort of woman that could stop traffic with a glance. The ground quaked beneath her feet by the sheer force of her confidence and nonchalance. She had been charismatic and witty. Beautiful, even. The Cherise that presently sat across from Beau was barely a pale shadow of her former self. She made every effort to be as invisible and unassuming as possible. She fashioned her days around what she was cooking for dinner. She never even combed her hair.
Cherise looked up at Beau and smiled weakly when she caught him staring. Her hazel eyes were dull and sunken. He would have given anything to see a look of real happiness on her face.
To Beau, Cherise was living proof that the caste system was not without its flaws. If nothing else, it placed the emphasis was on marrying immediately, marrying correctly and spending your youth popping out as many hideous, sniveling brats as possible. Cherise had not been born to live like this. Of that, Beau was certain. He smiled back at her as convincingly as he could manage.
"You got a girlfriend yet, Beau," Dustin shot at him from across the table. Cherise's mouth went slack.
"Uhh, no." Beau stabbed the salad at the center of the table, thinking to himself that Dustin was at his most annoying when his interjections were apropos to Beau's ponderings.
"Well don't you think that it's about time you got one," Dustin prodded. Beau shrugged. Dustin turned to Cherise for an affirmation. "Talk some sense into him, won't you," Dustin demanded.
"Actually dear, I don't think that there are any girls for Beau's age and caste." Cherise was speaking to Dustin but staring directly at Beau. Dustin snorted.
"That's true enough," he mumbled.
"When I grow-up," Joaquin interjected. "I'm not going to get married. Girls piss me off." Beau's eyes widened.
"You probably shouldn't say things like that in front of you mother, you know," Beau said.
"She knows I don't mean her," Joaquin replied. Beau furrowed his brow. Evidently, even the children had gotten into the habit of talking about Cherise as though she wasn't there.
"I know," Dustin said. "What about that girl down the street? The Mindelsohn girl? The one with the big knockers?" Beau wrinkled his nose.
"She's like twelve or something," Beau said, growing vaguely nauseated.
"Oh." Dustin began to stare off into space, no doubt lost in maze of stupidity. Then, seemingly without provocation, his face contorted into a look of rancor.
"It's a goddamn shame, isn't it? Our people are so deep in Townie-borns that a forth generation kid like you can't even find a girl his own age. Makes me sick. Townies are getting so uppity these days, they got no qualms with talking to our women. I wouldn't even be surprised if that Mindelsohn girl doesn't carry around a pocketknife or something to fight them off. We've been coddling these sons of bitches for too long and it's all because we got families like the Calientes running this town. Did you know that Siren Caliente's biological father was a Townie? And I don't mean a Townie-born. I mean a filthy, full-blooded Townie right down to the day he died."
"Now, I don't have no problems with Townies so long as they know their place. But when they come around here and start threatening my job and my family and my way of life, that's when we run into some problems. I've said it before and I'll say it again- We have got to get organized. It's about time someone put the fear of God back into the sort of trash that's been filtering up into our community." Dustin Broke, the sage of Pleasantview's lower west side, was in rare form that night. Silence glazed the dinner table like a thick sheet of ice. Cherise shattered it with a cough.
"Granddad says that all they're after is our women. Our sisters and our daughters and our wives," Peter recited to the table. Cherise gave him a pained look.
"Your grandfather is not to talk to you about such things. You may tell him that from me." Cherise's voice was low and trembling. Peter stared quizzically at this woman who had spoken without being directly addressed.
"Don't worry Mom. Nobody better dare try to hurt you while I'm around." Joaquin shouted as though Cherise were deaf. Dustin patted his son on the head. Cherise tossed the napkin from her lap onto the table.
"If you'll excuse me," she said under her breath. Dustin cleared his throat.
"Alright. Let's do something nice for your Momma and get this table cleaned off," Dustin said to the boys. They groaned in unison. Baby Isolde tossed her bowl to the floor and squealed with laughter at her trick.
"That's a no-no, Zizi," Dustin yelled at the baby who screamed just to hear her own voice.
"I'm going to head home after we get the leftovers put away," Beau called out over the din.
"Yeah sure. Same time next week?" Dustin's invitation filled Beau with an insurmountable dread but he attempted a smile nonetheless.
"I'll be here with bells on."
Outside, autumn was seeping into the air and stripping the trees. Beau caught sight of Cherise, adrift upon an ocean of dead leaves. Time was limply suspended in the ether like a tangled marionette. Beau took his place beside her. It seemed an eternity before she spoke.
"Isabella Fiorello famously wrote that even in a forest, a tree remains a universe whole unto its self and thinks not of its brothers when it strangles a sapling for want of soil."
"That is rather bleak."
"It was her treatise on the human condition. Even in a crowd, we are left alone to strangle or suffocate."
"You are not alone, Cherise." She opened her mouth to respond but no sound came forth. Beau tried to read her face but found the task difficult in the dark. He resolved to step blindly through the void of her speechlessness, unsure of what she was thinking or how she would react. "And I want you to know that I care about you more than I care about anybody."
"You don't even come to visit me anymore during the day." Beau hung his head.
"I know. I'm sorry." All of his feeble excuses dried up before they even hit his tongue.
"I hate him," Cherise spat. "I hate him and sometimes... Sometimes I hate the kids too. And I hate myself for hating them." Beau watched her hands as they balled into fists at her sides and reacting almost instinctually, he placed his hand on top of hers. Cherise inhaled sharply and yanked her hand away as though his touch had scorched her. Beau had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a time, Cherise staring out into the yard and Beau studying the subtle curve of her neck. The wind soaked through Beau's shirt, piercing his skin. But he refused to leave things as they were.
"Run away with me." He didn't know what had compelled him to say it. And though the suggestion immediately horrified him, it also seemed strangely right.
"What did you say?" Beau gathered his courage. He slipped his arm around her shoulders. He had meant it the first time.
"Run away with me." Cherise giggled airily. It was the first laugh that he had heard from her in- He didn't like to think of how long. "Don't even bother to pack. Let's just go."
"And leave my kids?" Beau smiled at the fact that she was willing to treat this as a real suggestion.
"Absolutely leave the kids." Cherise smiled but her eyes were tragic. She was no doubt thinking of what a relief it would be.
"Where would we go," she whispered.
"I don't know. Riverblossom?"
"Uh uh. There's no way I'm starting over in that po-dunk town."
"Ok. How about Veronaville?"
"We could never afford Veronaville."
"Bluewater then? Strangetown? Alpinloch? Stop me when I'm getting close here." Cherise shook her head and squealed with laughter when he pinched her side. She was just like a girl.
"Oh I know," he said. "We'll just live downtown with the Townies. That would make Dustin happy." Cherise drew closer to him, her laughter subsiding. She laid her head on his shoulder and placed her hand on his thigh. He told himself that she was only trying to keep warm. "I'd do it, you know," Beau said softly. "Whatever I have, I would leave it behind. All you'd have to do is ask."
