Fallout (4 page)

Autumn Rose Shepherd
SOMETIMES I SEE FACES

Somehow familiar,

but I don’t know why.

I cannot label them,

no matter how intently

I try. They are nameless.

And yet not strangers.

Like Alamo ghosts, they

emerge from deep

of night, materialize

from darkness, deny

my sleep. I would call them

dreams. But that’s too easy.

I SUSPECT

One of those faces belongs

to my mother. It is young, not

much older than mine, but weary,

with cheeks like stark coastal

cliffs and hollow blue eyes, framed

with drifts of mink-colored hair.

I don’t look very much like her.

My hair curls, auburn, around

a full, heart-shaped face, and

my eyes are brown. Or, to be

more creative, burnt umber. Nothing

like hers, so maybe I’m mistaken

about her identity. Is she my mother?

Is she the one who christened me

Autumn Rose Shepherd? Pretty

name. Wish I could live up to it.

AUNT CORA INSISTS

I am pretty. But Aunt Cora

is a one-woman cheering section.

Thank goodness the grandstands

aren’t completely empty.

I’m kind of a lone wolf, except

for Cherie, and she’s what you

might call a part-time friend.

We hang out sometimes, but

only if she’s got nothing better

going on. Meaning no ballet recitals

or play rehearsals or guy-of-the-day

to distract her from those.

But Aunt Cora is always there,

someone I can count on,
through

chowder or broth
, as Grandfather says.

Old Texas talk for “thick or thin.”

GENERALLY

Things feel

about the consistency

of milky oatmeal.

With honey.

Raisins.

Nuts.

Most days,

I wake up relatively

happy. Eat breakfast.

Go to school.

Come home.

Dinner.

Homework.

Bed.

Blah, blah, blah.

But sometimes,

for no reason beyond

a loud noise or leather

cleaner smell, I am afraid.

It’s like yanking myself

from a nightmare only,

even wide awake,

I can’t unstick myself

from the fear of the dream.

I don’t want to

leave my room.

CAN’T BEAR THE THOUGHT

Of people staring, I’m sure

they will. Sure they’ll know.

Sure they’ll think I’m crazy.

The only person I can talk to

is Aunt Cora. I can go to her

all freaked out. Can scream,

“What’s the matter with me?”

And she’ll open her arms, let me

cry and rant, and never once

has she called me crazy. One

time she said,
Things happened

when you were little. Things you

don’t remember now, and don’t want

to. But they need to escape
,

need to worm their way out

of that dark place in your brain

where you keep them stashed.

THAT FELT RIGHT

And now, when that

unexplained dread

boxes me in, I take

deep breaths, try to

free those bad things,

whatever they are. It

doesn’t always work.

But sometimes it does.

And always, always,

I thank Aunt Cora for

giving me some smidgen

of understanding about

who I am and what

surprises life might

have in store for me.

I swear, without her

I probably would

have jumped off

a bridge the first

time I got my period.

Yeah, we’d had the basic

You’re a Woman Now

video and discussion

in sixth grade. But

textbook “birds

and bees” cannot

even prepare you for

what that really means.

I HATE WHEN I BLEED

Can’t tell my period when to start,

how many hours to make me

miserable. Can’t tell it not to come

at all. I have zero control over

any of that, and that really,

really bothers me. See, I’ve got

a little thing called OCD.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

is something people make fun of.

But when it’s something

you’ve got, there’s nothing

funny about it. First off,

you know you have it, know

some little piece of your brain

is totally out of whack. Nothing

you can do about that, either.

Not without therapy, and that

means telling someone you know

you’re just a tiny bit crazy.

How do you admit that without

giving up every bit of power

you have finally managed to grasp?

Some people have it worse than I do,

I guess. I mean I don’t wash my hands

seventeen times a day or count

every step I take, then take a couple

more until the exact number from

here to there is divisible by three.

My compulsion is simply order.

Everything in its place, and spaced

exactly so—one inch, no more, no less,

between hairbrush and comb. Two

inches, no more, no less, between pairs

of shoes on my closet floor. Black socks,

upper left corner of my top right dresser

drawer; white socks in the lower right.

I doubt Grandfather has even noticed

how every can in the cupboards is

organized alphabetically, labels out,

or that cleaning supplies beneath

the sink are arranged by color.

But Aunt Cora definitely has.

SHE DOESN’T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY

She thinks it’s funny, and funnier

still to mess with my mind by moving

my shoes                      farther apart

or puttingmycombinsidemybrush

or arranging a can of

yams

in front

of the

applesauce.

She says I should lighten up, quit

beating myself up mentally. I know

she only wants what’s best for me,

but sometimes she makes me mad.

If it were easy to throw

    my

clothes

into

a heap

on the floor,

of course I’d rather do that than

spend hours

folding them

precisely

right. Right?