Emerge

Chapter 1

I stood outside of the house, squirming on the crumbling concrete steps trying to still my
quivering
heart and my nerves in preparation for what was inside.
I was sweating like a pig even though it wasn’t summer yet in
California
. My poor Chucks were
losing
their soles as I twist
ed
on my toes
back and forth in haste. If it was Mrs. June Cleaver
waiting for me inside
, I could let out that anxiety and panic in one “whoosh” of breath and enjoy the day. If it was Medusa, there was nothing I could do but to cower and jump when she said j
ump
,
trying to keep my sanity intact.
I know;
I’m a
wuss
.  But I survive.
  I
continue
d
to stand there, co
cooned
in my own anxiety attack, picking at the strips of peeling white paint from the neglected side door.  Maybe I could just walk really fast inside and hide for a minute.  Maybe it was a good day. 

My Mom, Miranda Rouse was a complex creature, fickle to
the core.  She could be the Mom, or Mrs. Cleaver
who cooks and cleans and acts like she cares, but always with a touch of resentment.
She looks at me like she despises my very existence.
She resents that I was ever born and ruined her life.  She says she had so many dreams and hopes and they
were all crushed when I came into her life
.  She claims that the only reason she actually had me was because my Dad begged her to keep me.
She could also be Medusa. Medusa Mom can make you agree with her abhorrence of your existence and beg for an end to your life.

My Step-Dad, Wallace, was just ridiculously angry all the time. It was probably because he was always on pain killers or drinking beer or both.  And he always complained that we never had any money for anything. But I had never seen him work, not once, ever. 

They both hit. They hit each other
and when that has gotten old or when
they get a wild hair in their cracks, she hits me. It’s like the Three Stooges reality show.  It happens more often than I’d like to admit, but not often enough that I can’t deal with it until I can get out of here. 

             
I turned the stubborn and reluctant door knob and opened the door with my breath held and my stomach in knots.
I had to kick the door a little bit at the bottom
where the door meets the jamb to rustle it loose.
I passed the laundry room, wasn’t much of a room, filled floor
to ceiling with laundry silently pleading
to be handled. 
             
The kitchen was small, filled with broken
white cabinets and not much in the food department
.  It was towards the end of the month and we were out of food stamps so food was in high demand and short quantity.  I would have to go to the food bank if my paycheck didn’t last. 

             
The well worn floor c
reaked beneath me as I snuck
through the tiny kitchen and my toe caught on an upturned plastic tile. “Crap!” I whispered to myself.   Unwashed dishes were in the sink
from last night
…not a good sign.  I passed through the dining room, slowly craning my neck around the corner in search of the doom or joy which awaited me. 

             
Through the living room, to the right, the
cornflower
blue carpet was halfway cleaned and the lonely vacuum stood dead center, still plugged into the wall, waiting for its master to resume the job. 
Again…not a good sign.
  But the house was quiet as I crept towards the hallway which lead to two bedrooms and a bathroom. 
So far, so good.
 
I tip-toed like a cat burglar into my bedroom, which I shared with my four year old sister.
  We both had twin beds shoved in separate corners of the tiny room.  My window had been shut.  I tried to keep it open so that my sister and I didn’t have to constantly smell like the nasty, cheap cigarettes my step-father chain smoked.  It was those very cigarettes that were sometimes more important that electricity, more important than water, more important than his daughter eating. 

             
Still, I heard nothing.  I took the opportunity to use the bathroom
in peace
.  It was wall to wall pink tiles, not a nice pink but that mauve-y kind of pink.  It made me think of what flamingo puke might look like.   I went to wash my hands, but of course we were out of soap.
I managed to slide a slimy sliver from the shower and wash my hands the best I could.
We were always out of some necessity…always.
I stealthily snuck down the small hallway.
I gained some courage and slipped my head around the corner into their room. 
No one was there.  But the car was in the driveway. 

             
I went through their bedr
oom which connected to a sun porch type room
, the only way out to the backyard through the house.  I carefully managed three small steps down toward a huge backyard filled with flowers and brick pathways.  It was weird for people who didn’t have food most of the time to have this brilliant garden. 
I swore that they stole plants to put in there.
I heard sounds coming from the garage/office.
Why people who don’t work have an office was beyond me.
  The door flew open and it was at that moment that I knew who I was to keep company wi
th that day.  It was
Medusa.
I could practically see the invisible snakes rearing up and hissing at me, piled high on her head.
  I
was surprised that my toes
didn’t slowly begin to turn to stone at her angry stare. 

             
She almost flew out of the garage/office with my sister on her hip. 

             
She said
,
“
Jenna
, u
gh, finally.  She has been driving me nuts all day. We are going…um…to handle some business.  You’ll have to watch her tonight.
  And get some cleaning done for God’s sake.
”

             
Don’t say hello or anything
,
I thought to myself.

             
But,
I didn’t dare say a word.  If you said something to her in this state, your face might have a really quick and hard meeting with the
back of her hand.
But business…
really?
Neither one of them worked, so this must be some serious business…not.
Every day that I didn’t have to work, they had “business.”
So I took my sister and
turned towards
the house.  They went through the gate and st
arted the car and peeled out like there was a demon on their tails.
 

             
I turned to the sweet girl in my arms and she said
,
“Sissy, I’m hungry.” 

             
“
Have you eaten today?”
I asked her, knowing very well the answer.

             
She looked around to make sure they were gone…smart girl.  “No.” 

             
It was almost 3:30 pm and they hadn’t fed her.
They probably just woke up at 1 p.m.
  Not unusu
al, but shocking all the same.  The shock never seemed to wear off.

             
We moved to California near the end of my sophomore year for a “big financial opportunity”.   We intended to move in early June so that we could be settled in time for school to start.  We ended up not moving until early August because...they were lazy.  We stayed at grungy motel after nasty motel and were technically homeless for over
six
months.

             
We lived off of my Step-Dad’s father’s credit cards that he had ‘borrowed’ and was going to pay them off after he got a job in California.
When he handed them to my Step-Father with the agreement that they were going to be paid back I wanted to shake the elderly man and call him an idiot. They were never going to get paid back.  I knew it and so did they.

             
I didn’t get enrolled in school until January and had missed an entire semester. And the only reason they did was because my real Dad had called the police and reported my truancy to them and told them where to find me. That went over well. 

             
I made up for it the next summer in summer school but I was still angry over the whole thing. I mean, let’s face it, they weren’t the best kind of parents to begin with, but homelessness and truancy were all time lows for them.  We finally settled in a tiny blue rental house right next to the busiest freeway in Santa Monica, California.  They still had not gotten jobs but were a
lways searching.
They paid the first month and last month’s rent with a cash advance from the old man’s credit cards.
It had been 18
months since we moved here and they were still unemployed.  Not that they were ever employed before.  My hope had fizzled out a long time ago.

             
So little May
and I walked back through the house, hand in hand up the small steps into the lo
nely home next to the busy freeway
.  She was cute as a button and the very opposite of me.
She had curly tendrils of blonde and the bluest eyes known to man, well, to me.  I on the other hand had
not
wavy
, but not straight
brown hair with reddish highlights and these weird hazel eyes which changed
colors
depending on what I was wearing.
We first found the bar of soap I hid in my closet in case of “soap emergencies” and headed to wash her grimy hands and face. 
After drying her off with a semi-clean towel, we headed to see what I could muster her to eat.