Stage Two: "Anger"
The door clicked shut behind the police officer, the noise loud in the silent house, and all of the occupants looked to each other with the same disbelief and horror mirrored in their eyes. It was Taylor who broke the unnatural silence, turning to her younger brother with accusing eyes that were filled with tears. "This is all your fault!"
Cliff turned to her, his own eyes filled with tears that he wouldn't shed right now; he had to stay strong for them, especially Hannah. "My fault?"
"You and your stupid protractor! If you hadn't bitched at mom and made her go get it, she'd still be alive!"
"Taylor!" Jeannie, trapped by Hannah's dead weight as the little girl watched the argument, tried to intervene before more was said that couldn't be taken back.
"No!" Taylor turned to Jeannie, a militant light in her eye, before looking back to Cliff with disgust. "If he hadn't made her feel so guilty about her forgetting it earlier, she wouldn't have rushed out right then to get it. It's his fault!"
"It's no one's fault, Taylor. It was an accident, a stupid, blameless accident," Jeannie reminded her.
"That's not what the police said," Taylor fired back. "They said the accident was mom's fault, that she ran a red light." She pointed one finger at her brother accusingly. "She was only there because of him; that makes it his fault," she charged.
"Taylor," Hannah began to speak up hesitantly, only wanting to end the fighting."
"How does is feel to know that your big brother killed your mom, Hannah?" Taylor asked without turning to the little girl, hearing the clearly audible gasp from Jeannie while she kept her eyes on her younger brother.
"Taylor May Woodall!"
Taylor turned derisive eyes to Jeannie as she continued talking to her sister. "Well, Hannah? A big brother's supposed to take care of you, look out for you. How do you think Cliff's doing so far?"
Cliff flinched at the verbal attack, moving slightly away from his older sister.
"Taylor! This isn't helping. Calm down, okay?"
"You're not my mother," she answered coldly, with hurt easily heard shimmering beneath the frost of her tone. "I don't have one anymore, remember?"
"Oh, honey.' Jeannie reached out to touch Taylor's arm and pull her down onto the sofa where she and Hannah were. The simple movement was aborted when Taylor pulled away from it, stepping back out of reach.
"Don't touch me!"
"Taylor…" Cliff began hesitantly, stopping when Taylor turned to him again.
"Don't talk to me," she said slowly, clearly enunciating every word as if she were speaking to a small child or someone who was mentally retarded.
"Taylor…" he tried again, knowing even as he did that it was a mistake. Unfortunately, it was one that he had to make.
"I said don't talk to me! You killed my mother, Cliff! As surely as if you held a loaded gun to her head and pulled the trigger!" Taylor felt her lips beginning to tremble and clamped them tight, not wanting to break down and cry because she knew that if she did, she wouldn't stop. On much the same note, she didn't want to say what she was, but that couldn't seem to stop her; some demon lay deep within her, urging her on.
"I didn't!" he yelled back, finally losing his temper.
They continued for a few minutes, trading insults that had once been good-natured quips between siblings but were not filled with bitter recriminations, completely ignoring Jeannie's attempts to stop the fighting without leaving Hannah on the sofa alone.
"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" Hannah's repetitive shrieks made both of them turn, guiltily aware that they had entirely forgotten their youngest sibling's existence. Tears were rolling down the young girl's cheeks, as much from the trauma of losing her mother as from listening to her brother and sister fight. "You shouldn't be fighting!"
Taylor spoke her name and made an abortive move to the young girl, stopping when she flailed an arm in gesture.
"No! Mommy always hates it when you fight," she reminded them, sniffling. "She always says that brothers and sisters should love each other. That you'll be glad you have a family."
"Oh, I'm real glad," the sixteen year-old muttered, just loud enough for Cliff to hear as she rolled her eyes. "Having a selfish little brother and bratty little sister is all I could ever ask for," she continued sarcastically.
"He's not selfish," Hannah heatedly defended her older brother, "and I'm not bratty!" She pushed herself away from Jeannie and stood up from the sofa. "You're a bitch!" Hannah ignored both Jeannie's gasp and Taylor's gaping at her use of a word that she'd heard during recess one day from a group of older kids and ran upstairs, just wanting to get away from the fighting.
Taylor turned to Cliff and glared at him again. "Now look at what you've done!"
Cliff sat up straighter from where he had slumped down on a chair while Hannah was talking. "Me? Me!?"
"Yes, you!"
"I don't see how Hannah being upset is my fault," he said coldly, glaring at her. "I'm not the one who mouthed off instead of doing what you're supposed to do." Cliff's tone and continued glare left no one in doubt of whom he blamed for Hannah's leaving the room.
"What I'm supposed to do?" Taylor blinked in surprise and repeated the question, incredulity and anger clear. "Tell me, dear brother," she continued, sarcasm dripping, "just what am I supposed to do? You being such an expert on family and doing the right thing; guide me, Oh Great One. Show me the error of my ways. She waiting barely a heartbeat for a response and then continued in the same biting tone. "Should I go out and kill our father, complete the job you started of turning us into orphans? Oh, wait – no need to: he already abandoned us; decided we weren't worthy of his attention or love. I wonder why," she stated more than questioned, her gaze on her younger brother's pale face. "Well," she shrugged, "it sure makes your job a helluva lot easier, doesn't it?"
"My job as what?" He yelled the question, responding to anger with anger, his voice as loud as Taylor's. "As a son, an older brother? That's your job," he charged. "To be an older sister to your younger siblings. You're supposed to protect them, comfort them. Not take what little stability Hannah has left right now and shatter it to pieces," he finished quietly. "Hannah was right; you are a bitch. She just forgot to add spoiled and selfish."
Taylor paled under her brother's direct stare, the full weight of just what she had said to not only Hannah but Cliff falling on her shoulders and causing her to turn a stricken gaze to Jeannie briefly before looking back to Cliff. "Cliff," she said quietly, all of the anger, sarcasm, and disgust drained from her body, gone from her voice. She reached out in an effort to connect and a nonverbal apology, taking a step in his direction. She stopped when he put a single hand in the air and shook his head.
"Don't touch me," he repeated her earlier words quietly, with none of the anger that had been present when she'd spoken them. "Don't even come near me," he continued in a voice heavy with grief and weariness.
"Cliff," she said again, pausing when he shook his head. She plunged on, desperate to continue. "I'm sorry! Cliff, I'm sorry!"
"I'm not interested in any apologies you want to make, Taylor." As her stricken look worsened, Cliff sighed and went with his instincts and nature: he was the man of the house and it was his job to protect and comfort his sisters as much as he was able. "You're my sister, Taylor, and I love you. I just don't like you very much right now.'
"Cliff," she tried again, only to be cut off.
"Don't! Just don't talk to me right now!"
Taylor turned and followed Hannah's example, running up the stairs as she had earlier even as Cliff left the house. Taylor was aware of the door slamming behind her brother's exit and moved faster, closing her own door with a violence that made the mirror hanging on the back of it to fall to the floor, thankfully not breaking. She spared no thought to the reflective glass, moving to her stereo and turning the music up loudly in an effort to block her thoughts. She threw herself on the bed, curling around a picture of her family as it had been, and finally began to cry. She attempted to ruthlessly push the thoughts swirling in her head down, not wanting to think about the anger she felt towards her mother, her brother, herself; the hatred she felt towards herself. She didn't succeed, the whirlpool continuing its' frantic motion.
Why had Sue abandoned them? After so many years of anger towards her absentee father, Taylor now had another face to add to the line-up of people who'd abandoned her.
Why had she lashed out at Cliff, at Hannah, at Jeannie, innocent bystanders who wanted nothing more than to comfort her, to be there for her?
Why hadn't she been able to control the demon inside her that bubbled up, making her resentful and angry, disgusted with herself and everyone else?
She really was a bitch, though the charge from her brother and sister hurt. Was she really spoiled and selfish?
Was she really so weak that without her mother standing behind her, she couldn't stand on her own?
Was it possible that the broken bonds of what was left of her family could be repaired?
What were they going to do now?
TBC in Flashback # 3