It looks like it’s time for a Threads & Ties snippet again. Today’s selection is from the second scene in the book. Next week will feature the third scene (I’ll be on vacation, but I’ll post it to come up, so you won’t miss anything.)

NOTICE: This material is copyrighted, first draft, certainly contains errors, and possibly not even going to be in the final draft of anything. Do not quote or repost anywhere or in any format. Thanks.

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1969

“Nikki?”

“Yes, Mom.” Nikki knew what was coming next.

“Will you watch the baby while I run next door for a few minutes?”

It was summer. Her mother had asked her this every morning for the last month. “Sure, Mom.” She heard the back screen door bounce shut. She returned to watching the television. When her mother got back, she’d run over to Jeff’s house and play with him and the rest of the gang for the rest of the day. Watching the baby consisted of listening for him to cry and calling her mother if he did. He hardly ever did.

Two shows later, she heard the screen door slam, and her mother asking, “Did he wake up?”

“Haven’t heard him,” she called back, getting up to turn off the television. “Can I go out to play now?” She looked up at her mother climbing the stairs and waited to hear she could leave.

“Just a minute. I might need you to bring me a diaper.”

Nikki shifted from foot to foot while she waited; why couldn’t her mother have taken a diaper with her? She heard a scream, followed by, “Nikki! He’s not breathing. Call an ambulance!”

Nikki ran to the phone. What was a good phone number for an ambulance? Frantic, she remembered the sticker on the phone with emergency numbers and tried to remember the numbers in the right order as she dialed the one for an ambulance. After giving them the address, she ran outside to wait by the curb. She kept looking back at the house. What had happened? Why wouldn’t he be breathing? The ambulance arrived after what seemed like an eternity. She pointed at the house and yelled, “Upstairs.”

She followed them up the stairs and stood in the corner just outside her parents’ room, peering in. She shrank back against the wall as another man came and said her brother was dead and they took him away. Her father had appeared and was holding her mother while she cried uncontrollably. She started to go to her father, but he didn’t know she was there. Scared, Nikki retreated to her room, curled up on her bed, clutched her teddy bear to her chest, and stared out the door. Strange people were in the house, but for all the confusion, it was strangely quiet–except for her mother’s crying. Her father tried to lead her mother downstairs; she stopped in Nikki’s doorway, pointed at her, and shrieked, “It’s your fault! Because of you, he’s dead.”

Tears welled up in Nikki’s eyes. What had she done? Unseeing, her father hurried her mother downstairs. Nikki lay there, still clutching the bear, scared and confused with tears dripping into the bear’s fur. She heard doors slamming outside and crept to the window to peer out. She saw her mother throw herself onto the hearse, screaming incoherently. She watched her father peel her mother off the vehicle, say something to the driver, and restrain her mother while the hearse drove off with her little brother inside. She leaned on the windowsill staring into the midday sunshine. It looked deceptively tranquil, but nothing would ever be the same. She looked back inside the room. Who had closed her door? Still clutching Teddy Bear, she crept around the edge of the room to open the door as quietly as she could and peered out. Her father, with his back to her, carried part of the crib out of their bedroom. After he was on the stairs, she quietly closed the door and crept back to her school desk in the corner of the room. She placed Teddy Bear in a chair in front of the desk. The two of them had played school like this dozens of times before now. She sat down, pulled out a sheet of paper and her crayons.

She looked sternly across the desk at Teddy, “So, tell me what happened today.”

She waited as if listening to Teddy. She nodded and divided her paper into six parts. She drew the story, repeating it aloud to Teddy Bear as she drew, watching him as if he were relating the story. When she reached the sixth frame on her page, she repeated, “And she was all alone forever and ever, Amen.”

Nikki put her crayons and the drawing into her desk. She left Teddy Bear in the chair. She went downstairs and found her father in the living room. “Dad, can I go over to Jeff’s?”

“Yes.”

Nikki slipped out of the house and ran toward Jeff’s house, two blocks away. She didn’t know why, but she felt if she ran fast enough, she could get away from what had happened. Before she reached Jeff’s house, she turned the other way and ran past the school, slowing to a walk. She checked to see if anyone was looking, then she ducked under Judge Rose’s porch. Nobody knew it was their secret hideout, and she needed to get away. She crawled to the pillar, sat with her back against it, and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and squeezing tight. She rocked herself side-to-side, numb.

She opened her eyes. She heard someone crawling toward her. It was almost dark. How long had she been there?

In the shadow behind the pillar, Jeff whispered, “Hey! You in here?”

“Yeah,” she rasped. She cleared her throat.

Jeff scrambled to sit beside her. “Your folks are looking for you. When I heard what happened, I figured you might be here.”

Nikki stared through the latticework. “What’d you hear?”

“That your baby brother died,” Jeff paused, “Did he?”

Nikki nodded, “Mom says it’s my fault.”

Jeff cocked his head, “How could it be your fault?”

Nikki leaned against the pillar, staring at the bottom of the porch floor above them, “I dunno. She says I killed him.”

Incredulous, Jeff asked, “What did you do?”

Nikki looked down at her bare feet and dug her fingernail underneath her toenail to clean out some dirt, “Nothing. I did nothing, and he died.”

“What were you supposed to do?”

Nikki shrugged, “Watch him. I watched him like I’d watched him every day all summer while my mom went next door for awhile. I watched TV and listened for him to cry. He never cried.”

Jeff shrugged, “So?”

Nikki heaved a heavy sigh, “So, when Mom came home he wasn’t breathing and was all blue-like. I called the ambulance, but there wasn’t nothing they could do. So he’s dead.”

Jeff paused, “Damn.”

“Damn,” Nikki confirmed.

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