By These Hands
Chapter 3
The boy was lost. He was lost in his own home and crying into a pillow that might not hold any more tears. His shoulders shook and trembled as he sobbed, his hands clenched and knees drawn up to his chest. The pressure of his legs felt soft through his black cotton shirt. Without knowing he was doing it, he touched the crucifix that hung around his neck. It was cool to his fingertips, despite being worn every day for as long as he could remember.
She was gone. Forever she was gone.
Eyes defeated and brutalized with the natural salt, he let go of it. His face suddenly became lax, his hand becoming soft again. He rolled over onto his back, long braid flipping with him. He stared up at the ceiling with blank eyes, still gleaming violet with tears to be shed. He didn't see with his eyes anymore. They were useless to him without her. Adrianna, long pretty chestnut hair, such pretty hair that she had loved to brush twice a day in front of her mirror. Sometimes, when he was smaller, before they came here, she let him brush it for her, just so long as he didn't pull too hard. He was always gentle with the brush though. Her face would smooth out into a smile, and she would talk to him slowly, about nothing usually. But she would talk in her cream soda voice, smooth and sweet. And she would look at him through the mirror with such blue eyes. Those eyes that were shaded an unnatural turquoise.
Their father's eyes.
Her eyes now…
He stared at his bedroom ceiling still. He saw that it needed painted, cracks or water stains starting to press through to the surface. Her face kept floating up in front of the ceiling, though, like a projector was fixed in cement holds to his brain, and it made him see visions of all those bright and happy times. That smiling face, hands holding onto his as they danced young and without foreseen rhythms to Christmas carols with jolly tunes. The toddlers in his memories didn't need to dance to the given beat. They had happiness. They had the snowflakes that melted on their rosy children cheeks. They had games of tag, and melting ice cream, and smiles. They had life.
"Merry Christmas, Duo!"
The childish voice echoed on the ears of his mind, amid anxious giggles. The old image of the hand-made present drifted up. Smokie, the grey teddy bear that she had stitched together with her own hands since Mother had taught her to sew a month before. The fuzzy bear, looking up at Duo with purple glass eyes, had been wrapped in blue paper that had been striped with gold. How he had torn at the paper shell to find the velvet softness beneath! How he had embraced the bear with love and life-taking force! It had been nearly a decade since she had sewn up this gift of love for him.
But her hands would no longer stitch for him.
No…
No…
No. Adrianna wasn't gone. She was here. She's in the room across the hall, sitting on her chair, brushing the tangles from her hair again today. He called out to her. There was nothing. He drew himself up from his bed. It squeaked as he moved. Duo stepped across his room and opened the door, coming out into the narrow hallway between the rooms. He approached her door. "Adrianna…" he choked out, cracking open the door. The room was dark. Maybe she was tired, and she went to bed early. But when Duo switched on the light and light enveloped the room, he didn't see her sleeping form, warm and resting quietly under the blue comforter. He turned to her mirror, but it was absent of her image. Her long black dress wasn't hanging across the door of her closet like it should have been. She's hiding from you again, Duo. He thought this to himself. Playing hide-n-seek like you used to do. Is it April 1st yet, Adrianna? Haha, nice joke. Come out now.
Come out now, Adrianna.
Adrianna.
Duo lay on his back on her bed, waiting patiently for her to answer from some hidden place in the room, smile spread on his lips. He waited for her to sneeze in the dust of the closet, sneeze and ease his mind. He waited for her to come bounding up the stairs, ready to share secrets of her years advantage over him. She would ask why his eyes were like they were. She would call him such a silly boy for worrying so much and believing the lies they had told her dear brother and their uncle.
But there was nothing but silence in this house.
The minute he waited became two, then three. Then ten.
Adrianna?
Nothing came. His chest tightened and he bit his lip to try to prevent it. He tried to ball it up into his heart, keep it there in a shallow grave. He held his breath and waited for the worst worry to pass. He didn't want to understand the horror here.
He cried out suddenly, knowing that no one could hear him. Even in this House of God, no one could hear him.
No! No! Nononononono!
The tears came out again, pouring like they had before. He howled out his anguish, pulling the blanket tight against his chest, then whimpered his pain. Surely, she would scold him for going into her room, even though he was too old for scolding. She would complain that she had made up the bed this morning, and that it shouldn't be a mess before she crawled into it that night with tired eyes. He wrapped it around his shoulders and lay on her bed, crying the silent tears that fell over the bridge of his nose and into his other eye. He kept them both on the door as he wept.
Adrianna, come out and play.
Adrianna, you're all I have left.
Mama and Papa are gone now, big sissy.
Adrianna…
ADRIANNA!!
Duo stared at the door with unblinking eyes. It seemed to mock him with its dark ribbons etched into the golden oak. Slowly, then quick, the tiny string of hope sewn to his heart, the one that wanted his sister to burst through that door to scold and then nag him and comfort him, became unraveled. Never before did he feel like a child, and so alone like a child would be.
It was as if someone had cut off his braid, stripped him of such a precious thing, and he would keep reaching up to swat it away or feel the ghost of it falling against the small of his back and past his hips. But, it wasn't like his hair. Hair always grew back. Adrianna was…
Slowly, he rose from her bed, sniffling and taking her blanket with him. It drug along the ground, catching every so often on knots in the wood. She deserves my snot and splinters all through her covers, he thought bitterly. He had surrendered here, in her room. He made a slow walk through the two doorways, through the empty hallway. Once he came to his own room again, he gazed at it, pulling the blanket tighter around him. It seemed so old, so white and quiet. He dropped his eyes, before it struck him like a whip. Then he went to the closet, faster in pace, shoving his hand past the hanging pant legs on the door and slowly turned the brass knob. The door stuck a little, but it opened. He was on his knees and pushed aside his clothing to look through to the bottom, forgetting the blanket for a moment now.
He shoved aside shoes and socks franticly. He had to find it! Had to! He threw out the contents of the small closet, piling them in a lump of hazard in the floor. His breath was fast now as he penetrated the darkness again and again with his anxious shaking hands. Then he dove to the very back, blanket falling down his back and onto his bent knees, and he felt the softness, the very thing he sought. He pulled it forth from the darkness and into the light.
He smiled down at the soft thing with a glimmer of happiness coming into his eyes. The purple eyes stared at each other that moment.
"Smokie, you never left me. Let's wait for Adri, 'K Smokie?" he said, his voicing sounding so small and child-like that it nearly made him jerk with fright. But he hugged the teddy nonetheless. He reached back to pull the cover back over his shoulders and then crawled on his knees towards the window.
The sun was going down in a daily blood-bathed death outside his window. The sky was on fire. Orange and red melted together over the trees, the big-leafed magnolias, and houses of the town. Somehow, Duo expected a chorus of cellos or violins to strike up a chord and follow the sun down. But nothing came but his own breathing. There was no symphony for the sun.
And there, as he watched the sun go down and the glow begin to fade, he felt the dark wings of sorrows unfold and wrap around his soul.
"Adrianna…" he whispered into the stretching shadows, fingering the dusty velvet ear of the bear between his index finger and thumb. The motion was repeated over and over. The fingers paced back and forth on the soft ear. He felt himself nodding, but he didn't want to sleep. He was waiting for his big sister to come home. If he waited long enough, she would come home to him and Uncle. The policemen wouldn't come back to break his heart again.
But soon he slumped over, head falling against the deep breathing chest, cheek falling against the crucifix.
His sister did not come.