EIGHT: GERTRUDE

The minute the Likens girls rush off for school, a gleam twists in the pit of my stomach, and the fine, bone-like cigarette is poised between my teeth, a second friend, whispering songs of comfort from deep within my fragile system. The smoke flutters from my mouth, stroking the air gently, rocking through the atmosphere like a cracking whip, and this is what starts baby Denny off again. The screams pierce the quiet, stirring an all-too-familiar resentment that roils within my stomach, and I claw at the fine, supple limb of nicotine, the friend that soothes and eases my worries, relives me from the hell that is the shadow on the wall, Depression.

Sighing, I brush Denny's thick curls away from his hair, quieting him, his gurgling and cooing softly, his dimpled hands clutching my bony, veined wrist, demanding to be held. I sigh and scoop him up from his cot, the cigarette still firm in my grip, the only salvation there was in the world.

My coughing, hacking, spluttering erupts again, spewing from my aching chest like and erupting mountain, the pain forcing me to settle Denny again, and I slump into the chair closest to me, my face slack with perspiration and exhaust.

There was an unexpected anger, I'd realised, sitting at the breakfast table and meeting Sylvia Likens for the first time. From the moment I saw her, a bleak, corroding feeling welled up inside me, a pitiful, fleeting excuse, but the only escape I'd had revolving around my logic. Poised, determined, I mull over that fact, that wheel spinning slowly, igniting the raw passion again, and my fingers, slack though they are, tighten over the bone-like beauty.

With a shaking hand I crook my finger in front of my lips, considering the situation, delicate though it is. What is it about this girl, this child, this stranger in my home? The quiet aura of Jenny Likens, that submissive, meek personality, was not present in her older sister. Far from it, actually.

Shock absorbs my brain, and I realise that the outwardly more confident sister, the prettier one, the most welcoming, warm, sensitive, thoughtful …

No, I snarl at myself, refusing to meet even the baby's whimsical glance. Don't think about her. She's a stranger! You don't even know her. She's nothing to you, nothing at all …

Sighing, the splitting force of a migraine slithers into my mind like a sneering asp. I raise my palms up to my temples, as if massaging the tender spot could do any good, the nicotine still piercing and thick, the taste rough and textured.

My mind wanders back to the new girls, the Likens children, and I realise with a great effort that the money would have come today. I settle Denny on his back, watching him gurgle peacefully at me, a child's innocent grip on the world, and I feel a sort of impulsive swell of peace surge within me. A glance toward the mailbox, and all I can notice is the overflow of bills and taxes, most unpaid, unaffordable. Child support isn't much, my work once steady and supportive, now withering like a crumbling, fragile sliver of hope.

Recklessly, as if pulled towards by a hidden thing, I scrabble for the freshest pile of letters, fumbling through them for an envelope from Mr and Mrs Likens. My fingers scratch and tear at the parchment, though, as I realise my worst nightmare. Hissing a wheeze, a growl of defeat, I slump in my chair, my breathing becoming more laboured and sluggish with the immense stress brewing in my chest. My eyes, bloodshot and watery, scan upstairs to the door of the girls' room. My brain, devilish and desiring compensation for the lost wages, works like a charm almost immediately, and I realise exactly what those two (those BITCHES!) would be in for as soon as they dared step foot back in my house, my home. You said "I'd treat them as my own," my brain reasoned, and I absentmindedly smirk at my previous conversation with Lester Likens. It wouldn't be fair if you didn't include ….. Punishment, would it?

No, I answer my thoughts back, silently, as if mesmerised about what needed to be done. No, it wouldn't.