Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not Newsies, not LOVE. NOTHING!
Title: Violence Recovery
Author: Buttons14
Genre: Drama
Rating: M (subject to change)
It is better to bind your children to you by a feeling of respect and by gentleness, than by fear—Terence
Chapter 14—Andra
Outside the snow is verging on three feet. Denton heard on the radio that the regular school board has called a 'snow day', so he called Mr. Seitz and gave us a 'snow day' too. This wasn't especially exciting as we had already woken up and didn't get to sleep in.
Sapphy, Race, Aurora and David go outside and have a loud, raucous snowball fight. Crutchy puts on his hat and scarf and watches from the porch.
The snow is the heavy, wet sort. The kind that works best for making snowmen. I can see Aurora trying to roll a large ball, but it is rolling awkwardly, into a cube.
When we were younger, I taught Lucas how to make a snowman. I remember, he was four and I was ten; I thought I was the best big brother in the world.
"Simon," he shouted, running towards me, slowly though the snow. He tripped over his boots, which were a few sizes too bug and fell face first into the ground. I rushed over and rolled him onto his back.
"Go like this Lucas," I said, lying beside him, waving my arms and splaying my legs. "It's a snow angel."
Lucas shrieked with laughter as the snowflakes fell on his nose and the cold air turned his cheeks pin. My mother emerged from the house, clutching a video camera that had accompanied boyfriend-of-the-week.
"Hello boys," she said with a smile, following our little faces though the lens.
"Hello Mommy," we both chorused back.
The camera watched as I taught Lucas how to roll a head for a snowman. Little bits of grass stuck to the snowball because the snow wasn't very deep.
"Help me Lucas!" I cried, trying to heave the head onto the body. Lucas and I together lifted it on top.
"Well done boys," applauded my mother, "Give me a smile Simon!" I grinned, full teeth, into the camera. Then we ran out of film.
Something about winter makes me especially sad. I think winter is tragically beautiful because everything is so lovely, but also so dead.
The wind from last night has died down, as has my migraine. I don't have much to do, so I snap pictures of the quintet below though my bedroom window. They don't see me.
0o0o0o0o0o0
I knock on the black room door. After a second Andra appears and flicks the switch on. "You can come in," she says, "I poured too much solution anyways."
I smile and follow her in.
"I'm always doing stuff like this," she admits, handing me a tray. "I am a klutz. Biggest one in my family, which is really something." She laughs lightly.
"How?" I ask. "Is it something, I mean."
"Oh, y'know, I had nine siblings," she lists them, ticking them off on her fingers as she says their names, "Tom, Lexie, Cindy, Jeremy, Ollie, Chris, Alisa, Andrew and me." She smiled weakly and turned back to her photos.
"Don't you miss them?"
She hung a strand of negatives above her head and sniffed. "Every day. Especially Andrew. He was my twin, you know. Cindy and Ollie were the babies. And Tom. He was my dad's favourite. He was only ten and he was going to go to the Majors in baseball. It was a dream."
"So…uh…what happened?" I studied a negative of Sapphy hitting Race in the side of the head with a handful of snow. The snow was black and Race's hair was clear.
"Oh, you know," Andra sighed, "they were in a car crash. Some dumbass on his way home from the pub or something. And they were gone. So quickly. It was just Dad, Ollie, Alisa, Lexie and me left. Dad found solace in the bottle. Then I left because I couldn't stand the fighting and because people were starting to ask questions about my bruises. And I didn't want them the take my Dad away. But I left Ollie there. What's he going to do?" She sighed again and rubbed her eyebrows, massaging out her tension. "I don't know Spot, I don't know."
She hung her pictures to dry.
"What are those of?" I asked her.
She stared at them for a second, as though unsure herself of what she had captured. "The yard before the snow," she told me. "Mourning doves."
0o0o0o0o0o0
Denton and I sat for a long time in his office talking. I showed him my pictures and asked about Andra's.
'Sometimes," he said slowly, as if choosing his words carefully, "the pictures mean nothing at all. Or, sometimes they mean everything."
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"Spot," said Denton, "you should know by now. Sometimes you can't."
End Chapter
I'm so sorry this was short. But I hope it was good enough to make up for it's lacking in length.
Shoutouts:
C.M. Higgins—Hey, this was Andra. That's you, right?
Kid Blink's Dreamer—Me? Make fun of you? I wouldn't dream of it dear!
Nanii—Now that I've been danmed, can I do bad things and get away with it? (thinks evilly) muahhaha!
Madmbutterfly713—Thanks! And thanks for reading the whole thing just now. You rock!
Margie Driscoll—ha ha, you didn't find me! I betmy spies threw you off at the border, right?
Utopia Today—You make me sound smarter than I really am. I like you!
Dreamer110—I like deep things too. But not all deep things. Like water. The ocean is scary!