Personal Experience

by Tayfilly

rated for some language. no profit being made here, recognizable characters and concepts not mine.

Alex is nine years old on the late spring night when she awakens in the darkness of the room she shares with her sister Molly, kicking her blankets off in a flash of heat and perspiration. Molly's breathing is still deep and regular and for a moment Alex is not sure what has awakened her. She tries to remember the dream that has just ended abruptly, but all she feels is hot and damp, not afraid.

And then she notices the yellow light underneath the door and hears the voices down the hall, muffled but still obviously urgent. Her mother trying to whisper, her father trying to sound like everything is fine, like it is normal for people in his house to be awake at three in the morning. And her aunt, her father's sister, trying loudly to remember the words to "Jingle Bells." It is not Christmastime, Alex thinks irritably as she rolls over and presses her hands to her ears.

Pretty soon, though, she realizes that she is going to have to get out of bed and use the bathroom, and that she will not be able to wait long enough for all of the grownups to finally go to bed before she ventures down the hall. She creeps to the door, silently opens it a crack, and peers out, blinking hard as her eyes adjust to the brightness.

Her aunt is slumped in the hallway across from the bathroom and both of her parents are hovering above her. Alex hasn't seen the woman for about two weeks this time and she looks dirty, her skin red and puffy, her shirt cut low in the front. She looks, sounds, and smells like the homeless people Alex has seen crouched on the streets when they go into the city. Her dad is trying to persuade his sister to stand up so that he might usher her downstairs to sleep in the basement bedroom, and her mom's arms are crossed across her chest beneath her pale, pinched face.

"Come on Suzy," her father is pleading. Alex recognizes it as pleading, even though his voice is free of the slightest hint of wheedling desperation. "Come downstairs to bed. Let us help you. You'll feel better tomorrow."

Alex watches her aunt's face twist with loathing in her father's direction. "Don't need your help," she slurs. "Not one fucking bit. Fine." Her eyes unfocus again and her head lolls on her shoulders like a bowling ball. The laborious Christmas carol efforts begin anew. Her brother sighs and her sister-in-law leans back against the wall, defeated.

Alex wants nothing more than to close the door, go back to bed, and pretend she never saw this little scene. Her aunt has floated in and out of the house since early last summer and although Alex has seen her come home drunk many, many times, this is the first time she has been jerked out of her sleep to watch her parents trying to cope. She's never been the only one watching before; usually there is quite an audience, what with Molly and her three brothers standing by too. Somehow it is worse to be the only witness, and a hidden one at that.

As much as she would like to retreat back into the darkness of her bedroom, Alex is becoming painfully aware of just how badly she needs to pee. She expels a long breath, opens the door a little more and slips out, her bare feet quiet on the hardwood floor. Her father turns at the movement. "Alex, honey," he says, and she stops in her tracks when she sees the worry lines deepen across his forehead.

Her mother turns too, at his words. "Oh, sweetheart," she sighs, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. "Can't you sleep?"

Alex is refusing to look down at the pathetic, reeking lump of her aunt down on the floor. "I just need to—"

Both of her parents look toward the bathroom. "Baby, go down to our bedroom and use the one in there," says her mother, keeping her voice low. "Aunt Suzy might need this one."

"Okay." She hurries down the hallway in her cotton pajamas. Her parents' bed is mussed. It is obvious that they had already gone to bed by the time her aunt showed up tonight. Sometimes, Alex knows, her father has waited up, or occasionally even gone out very late to look for her. But it's been a few weeks; when she'd descend on them again was anybody's guess.

When Alex is finished she comes out of the bathroom and finds her brother Andy stretched out on his back on top of the tangle of blankets on their parents' bed. Andy is twelve, a year younger than their brother Jack and almost two years older than Molly. Tommy is the youngest at only five. The four years between Alex and Tommy represent a time when their family had seemed complete in all respects.

"Hey," says Alex, and collapses on the bed next to Andy. He reaches out halfheartedly to poke her in the ribs; undeterred, she snuggles against his ribcage. "Did Jack and Tommy wake up too?"

Andy yawns. "Jack and I woke up and watched out the window while this car pulled up front and this creepy guy dragged her out and dumped her on the front porch. He went back to sleep, though. And Tommy—you know the shrimp sleeps like a rock."

She nods. Tommy doesn't do anything halfway. He is loud, messy, and determined not to be left out. Alex is his favorite person to follow around and irritate, Molly always having been a bit of a tattletale and Jack and Andy harder to pin down since they started middle school.

"I was hoping she was gone for good this time," says Alex. She does not feel guilty for speaking badly about her aunt, although this is not something she would say out loud in front of her dad. The year's drunken rages and lingering rank odors of vomit and whiskey in the basement have not obliterated her memory of what their house was like before her aunt moved back to New York from Philadelphia.

Andy shrugs. "Yeah. But Dad'll never kick her out," he replies. "They'll all go to bed soon anyway. She was already puking when I came in here a couple minutes ago."

Alex wriggles closer to Andy in disgust. "Good ol' boozy Aunt Suzy," she mutters.

TBC