Spilled Milk: Based on a true story (3 page)

The only time I stopped talking the entire ride was to
ask her what she thought about the rule of checking out
only
three books
from the library at a time. I was pleased to find we shared the same opinion of
it being totally
unfair.

As we pulled into the parking lot of Toys R Us she
asked me what I wanted. “I’m not sure,” I said. I tapped my foot and waited for
Grandma to turn off the car. The store was full of beautiful dolls, board games
and costumes. I was headed right for the pink aisle.

Grandma held my hand as we crossed the parking lot and
gave it a little squeeze as the double door opened in front of us. “Whatever
you want,” she said. She meant it.

I sped past the clearance toys and stuffed animals. The
Barbie aisle was a short distance from the outdoor play section. Grandma
strolled close behind me. “Oh, look at
this
one,” I said. Princess
Barbie was off the shelf and cradled against my chest. Swim Team Barbie stared
at me. “Or
this
one, Grandma she has a bathing suit, she can swim with
me.”

Grandma laughed. “She can! Whatever one you want, take
your time.”

Each doll’s face and features had to be considered
along with the extras each doll came with; a stroller, an umbrella, binoculars.
There were so many. I lined up three choices next to each other and studied
them. School Teacher Barbie won, she came with a blackboard and real chalk.
“This one,” I said, and handed it to Grandma.

“Excellent choice.”

She took my hand and headed toward the registers. I
let her cruise me around passing people and aisles so I could study my Barbie’s
clothes inside the box. A toddler down one aisle threw himself on the ground in
protest over a matchbox car. The checkout lane was a few feet in front of us
when I saw something. I tugged on Grandma’s hand. “Wait. Grandma, can I look at
something?”

She checked her watch. “Sure sugar, quick though,
Grandpa should have started the grill by now.”

An end aisle with a clearance display caught my
attention, and I picked up a small book with Disney’s Aladdin and Jasmine on
the cover. I turned it over in my hand. A jingle from the side forced a smile.
A small, silver lock clasped the front and back of the book together. My eyes
widened. “Grandma, I want
this
instead.”

I handed it over, and Grandma turned it over in her
hand. She checked the price, a mere $3.99, and gave me a crooked smile. “This?”
she asked. “Do you know what it’s for?”

“It’s a journal,” I said. I saw them on TV and read
about them, but I never had one. A real journal, with a lock to keep all
thoughts and secrets forever bound to the person who wrote in it. “Please,
Grandma?” I asked. I tried to read her face.

She looked at the Barbie in one hand and journal in
the other. She thought for a minute, and then bent down until her blue eyes
were level with mine. “If you
really
want it and
only
if you
promise to write in it every day, until it’s completely full,” she bargained.

My heart skipped. “Every single day,” I promised.

“Okie Dokie.” She stood up and tucked the Barbie on a
nearby shelf, shaking her head. “Of all the things in this store, it doesn’t
surprise me.” She put the journal on the conveyor belt and paid with a crisp
five dollar bill.

We got back to the house just as Grandpa was pulling
burgers and hot dogs off the grill. I rushed inside, eager to show my mom and
Adam my present. “Look what Grandma got me!” I gave it to Mom and wiggled in next
to Adam on the patio bench to eat a cheeseburger.

“Oh?” Mom said. She flipped it over. “Mom, you took
her to Toys R Us and got her a book?”

“It’s what she wanted,” Grandma said. She shrugged
taking a seat next to Kat and Grandpa. “She’s the birthday girl.”

“It’s not a book
Mom
, it’s a
journal
,” I
corrected. Lemonade dribbled down my chin. “Grandpa, Grandma got me a journal
and I have to write in it every day. I will too, I’ll write on every page.”

“Mmm,” he said in agreement, putting ketchup on his
burger. “Good.”

Grandpa wouldn’t have been a very good journal keeper.
He doesn’t talk much. It’s usually what he doesn’t say that says a lot.

After dinner Adam and I swam in the pool while the
adults poured drinks into glasses shaped like tennis balls. Grandpa’s brow was
pressed together as he stood next to Mom’s chair. He was telling her something
important, I knew, because he shook his finger at her as he talked. Grandma
brought us ice pops a short time later and we sat next to the adults to eat
them.

Grandpa still had a perplexed look on his face and
tried to give Mom some money. “You need it, just take it Molly,” he demanded.

Grandpa didn’t like it when Mom turned down his ideas.
She gave a brief rebuttal before he stuffed the bills into her purse. He
mumbled for a few more minutes and finally excused himself from the table to
check his tomato plants.

When it was time to leave, I thanked Grandma again for
the journal and tucked it under my arm. “Remember your promise,” she said,
winking at me and giving me a final hug. I couldn’t wait to get home to write
in it.

We pulled up in front of our undersized ranch. Dad’s
car was absent from the driveway. “I’m putting Kat to bed,” Mom called over her
shoulder, “Adam clean up these toys before your father gets home, and Brooke,
load the dishwasher?” Kat slumped over Mom’s shoulder like a hefty rag doll,
puffing out breaths of air.

I lugged a kitchen chair over to the sink. Once I was
level with the countertop I picked off dried spaghetti and splashed water
inside the cups that had sour milk. The liquid soap bottle weighed my arm down
but I finally managed to pour some into the square tray of the dishwasher. The sink
was empty ten minutes later and I used my shirt as a towel.

The front door opened and I heard heavy boots in the
hallway. Dad was home.

I was nine when my best friend across the street let
me write in her journal. My Aladdin and Jasmine one had every page filled and
my mom refused to get me another one.

“I don’t have the money for that crap Brooke,” Mom
said, “Write on a piece of paper.”

Since Alyssa hated to write, and since we were best
friends for life, she let me use the one her mom got for her.

I was playing Barbie’s with Kat in the kitchen when
Alyssa’s mom called my mom. Mom rolled her eyes when Meredith’s number flashed
across the caller I.D and she steadied her voice before she picked up.

 “Oh hey Mer, what’s-?” Mom’s silence as she listened
forced me to look in her direction. She twisted the cord around her finger and
turned her back to us. “Mmm hmm? Yea, Brooke likes journals.”

My face tingled with heat when Mom paced two short
steps towards the living room. She spun and looked in my direction, the
receiver glued to her ear. My mom was always the one chatting away on phone
calls, but she was unable to utter a single syllable, darting her eyes at me
with an open mouth.

I prayed that Alyssa’s mom was asking if I could come
over for dinner, or to play. The banquet my Barbie was attending with my sister’s
teddy bear was no longer interesting and I half listened, half pretended to brush
Barbie’s hair.

“What do you, I mean, can I see it?” Mom’s voice rose.
The thud in my chest was nothing compared to the knots that started to form in
my stomach. What did I do?

Mom grabbed her tea and headed for the door after
slamming the phone down. “Brooke, watch your sister.”

My legs weren’t fast enough to chase her. “Mom,
what’s-”

“No!” She screamed when she saw me trying to follow.
“You get back at that table, and you watch her until I get back. GO.” She
disappeared through the front door and I paced the kitchen. Hours went by.
Maybe it was minutes. I wish I had known Alyssa’s number by heart, I would have
called her.

After Kat and I put our Barbie’s back in their bin,
the front door opened. My mom’s quick footsteps in the hall made the hairs on
the back of my neck stand up and I looked for a place to hide. With knuckles
clenched, I readied for the screaming to start.
Whatever she says you did,
just apologize. Apologize and offer to clean up the kitchen.

Crumbs that lingered on the kitchen table became my
focal point so I didn’t have to see her face when she entered the room and I
moved them around with my finger until I felt eyes on me. Mom’s eyes. I
couldn’t look at her. Silence.
Please say something.

I had to look. My eyes darted up, briefly, to catch my
mom standing with her back to the counter and her one hand covering her eyes.
It was what she did when she was about to explode. She buried her face,
building up, maybe asking God for forgiveness for the terror that was about to
reign in this kitchen.

“Brooke.” Her voice was solid, calm.

“Yea?” I flicked a crumb. Should I start screaming
first? She would drown me out.

She moved her hand down her face, dragging her fingers
past her eyes and cheeks. When she pulled her hand away I thought for sure her
skin would come with it.

“Let’s go. Kat, you too,
now
.”

Alyssa was nowhere to be found as I sat on her couch
staring at the journal I had been writing in the past few weeks. I couldn’t
look up. How am I going to explain this?

 “Brooke, honey,” Alyssa’s mom started, “Do you know
what sex
is
?”

There isn’t a right answer to that question lady.

My toes curled in my shoes. There was a hole in the
big toe of my right sock. I wiggled it. My lips pressed hard against each other
in a hushed war with my head.
Say nothing, Brooke. Journals are secret, they
shouldn’t have looked.

“This picture.” Mom slammed a cold finger against the
page in my lap. “Where did you see this? How did you draw…” She trailed off.
“Where did you get ideas to draw pictures like that?”

Alyssa’s mom squinted at me. “Did she maybe see this
on TV Molly? I know those late shows can be full of garbage like this.”

“Is that it Brooke?” Mom’s voice heightened. “Did you
see this on TV?” She played the unknowing parent role. “Did you see this when
you weren’t supposed to?”

My head was too heavy to look up all the way, just
enough to look at their eyes. They were curious, frightened. They didn’t know
what to think, those eyes.

“Well, Brooke?” Mom’s voice reached furious status. “You
didn’t draw these pictures from nowhere. You didn’t learn the word sex and
penis from your books at home. Did you think we wouldn’t find this? What would
make you write and draw these things? This is Alyssa’s journal, not yours! Do I
need to look at the journal you have at home?”

“No!” Tears fell into my lap. “I saw it on TV,” I
lied. I couldn’t let her read my journals at home. “I watched a show I
shouldn’t have watched. I’m sorry. I’m sorry Mom, I didn’t mean to get Alyssa
in trouble.”

“Alyssa’s not in trouble.” Mom flipped the journal
shut. “YOU are!”

“Okay, all right, let’s just-” Alyssa’s mom motioned
for my mom to sit down.

“You listen to me.” Mom lowered her voice, her
cigarette smell flared in my nostrils as she shook her finger inches from my
face. “If I ever, ever see you draw or write things like this again, I swear to
God…”

Her threats were promising. She would call all the
family, all the neighbors about the bad thing I did. She would maybe even call
the school, tell them I was a horrible child who drew bad things in journals,
and that I shouldn’t be allowed to go there anymore.

I would have to spend all my time at home, with her
and Dad, not allowed to write in journals, always labeled the bad child. My
brothers and sister would be allowed outside to play and allowed to read books.
Not me, though. I would be banned from those things for being the bad child
that drew pictures of penises and sex in a journal that wasn’t mine.

Meredith stood to coax Mom into the kitchen for tea.
Mom’s tears overpowered my own and Meredith tried to console her by putting her
hand on her shoulder and shaking her head in a reassuring motion. “I can’t take
it anymore, these kids,” Mom ranted. “Why would she embarrass me like this? Why
do I even bother?”

“I won’t write those bad things anymore,” I said,
though no one heard me. They had already walked into the kitchen leaving me alone.
The journal was flung into the closest garbage can. My sleeve served as a
makeshift tissue as I whole heartedly vowed, “I won’t ever write about these
things again Mom. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Mom told me what she found in Alyssa’s journal
yesterday,” Dad said. He cleared his throat and craned his neck to see if mom
was standing in the kitchen. She wasn’t. “I don’t know why you would need to
draw the things you did.”

Yes, you do.

 
“But I know
you’re a smart girl, and something like that won’t ever happen again. Right?”