BLUE

Writing practice. April 2018.

The water was shut off on Tuesday. Lynn thought it was an odd day to turn off the plumbing, being in the middle of the week and all, but rules are rules. Her little sister, Ingrid, was fast asleep, her small frame taking over a majority of the double bed they shared. Her young face, softened in her sleep, was squished against her pillow. Her brows were taught and her mouth was slack and snores shook from her small frame. 

Lynn quietly tiptoed around her sister, pulling her underwear from the creaky drawer with the same finesse of a bomb squad. Her armpits were white with deodorant and she was careful not to get marks on her dark shirt. She slathered another coat, hoping the metallicy scent of the processed Fresh Pine would mask the inevitable stench of body odor. Her hair was stringy, but a bun would have to do. 

She didn’t bother to close the front door quietly behind her and her father started at the sound. 

She came home to a dark house. Inside Ingrid sat reading by candlelight. Her father snored on. Lynn heaved a couple plastic bags onto the counter, still trying to be as quiet as she could.

“Holy shit,” Ingrid said, setting her book down without a bookmark to run over and examine the goods, “Lynn you shouldn’t have.”

“We need to eat and he,” she pointed to the dead looking mound asleep on the couch, “won’t do shit.”

“How much did it cost?”

“You know I won’t ever tell you.” 

Lynn only minded the costs late at night. Sometimes, she’ll lie there awake, staring at the chipping ceiling above her, listening to her sister’s snores. Sometimes, she’ll twist so much that her pants legs wrap all the way around to the back. Sometimes, she’ll sleep for a wink, only to wake in cold sweats and shivers. 

She’ll stay awake for hours, trying to recount her third birthday or her fourth. She’ll try and remember her grandmother’s singing and her bubbly laugh. She’ll try and find a face only to never be able to picture the right nose or chin. It was futile-- this she should know-- but she tried anyways. She hoped that maybe, just maybe, if she thought hard enough, she’d remember the memories she sold off. 

The lights were on and the water was warm the next Thursday. Lynn couldn’t meet her sister’s eye. The grate of Ingrid’s knife against the plate set Lynn on edge. She continued to eat her own breakfast. She was already on her second cup of coffee. 

“It’s wearing on you,” Ingrid said.

“What’s wearing on me?”

“Your memories.”

“Ingrid,” Lynn cautioned.

“I know you can’t fall asleep. I heard you when you wake up from nightmares. God, I can’t tell you how to live your life but please keep some good things for yourself.”

Ingrid paused, her knife and fork hovering above her plate. She sighed deeply, dropping the utensils onto the plate with a clang that was too loud for this moment. She held her sister’s stare. A moan of complaint from the other side of the room interrupted and ended the confrontation. 

Lynn cried on her way to work when she realized she couldn’t remember the color of her mother’s eyes. 

Lynn moved Ingrid and herself out of their father’s home almost two months later. Ingrid was tense and Lynn wasn’t much better. Her excuse was that he was a drifter and that wasn’t good for anyone. He gave up so many memories that he barely knew his daughter’s names, let alone his own. Lynn wanted to blame her mother, but couldn’t remember why she was the cause of his pain. 

“It’s a nice, new start,” Lynn said as she opened the front door.

“It is closer to school.”

“And you can have your own room now.”

“Yes.”

Ingrid stared out of the window, the heavy box sinking in her arms. While they didn’t have a lot to bring, they still managed to fill a couple of boxes. Some of them were filled with stupid things that Lynn couldn’t think of the importance of. She thought of asking Ingrid, but something told her that wasn’t a good idea.

“How much did it cost,” Ingrid finally asked when they had finished unpacking the kitchen area. 

“It was a pretty good deal, in my opinion,” Lynn said.

Lynn couldn’t figure out what the look on Ingrid’s face was, but judging by the abruptness that she left with, she assumed it wasn’t good. She finished up, collapsed the cardboard box and threw it onto the stack of the others. Ingrid had propped the pictures she wanted to hang against the wall and seeing the younger pictures of themselves made her smile. There were a couple people she couldn’t place in the various photos, but there was one person that seemed to be in every photo. Lynn couldn’t place her face at all, but she had seen those eyes before. It was like they were from a dream. 

Lynn was prying open the picture frame before she could even think. The back read “Mother’s Day 1996” in loopy cursive and scratched underneath seemed to be her own handwriting:

“They were blue.”