Toast — part 6

Sunshine

Gemma Kennedy
Aug 9, 2017 · 5 min read

by gemma kennedy

Image — Pinterest

I spent most of the next day hiding in the shade. It was Miss B’s go-to-town day or I would have gone to her house. It wasn’t lunch time yet but I was sweltering in my sister’s yellow sweater. I grabbed it from a garbage sack in the bottom of our closet before sneaking out the side door. It was too big, but it covered up my bottom, which was good because I didn’t have any pants.

“You think I just got all damn day to wash your clothes and your pissy sheets just because you wanna act like a damn baby? No. Go naked for all I give a shit. But get your ass out of this damn house and don’t come back until your daddy gets home.”

The sweater was Annabelle’s favorite because it felt so sunny and happy to her. I thought it was only like the sun because it was so hot. The tag said “wool” but I don’t think it was because I’ve never seen a yellow sheep. Either way, she hadn’t worn it since there was snow, so I thought she wouldn’t care.

I circled the property to wherever the shadows went. When I got hungry, sissy’s tennis racket helped me swat down a pear in the orchard. It also scared a bird up top and it pooped on me. White goo dripped down my shoulder as I made a bigger mess trying to wipe it off with a rhubarb leaf.

I started getting sleepy around the time darkness crept out on the yard just outside the corral. The barn was tall and it made a just-right shade patch to lay in on the clover-filled grass on the safe side of the fence.

They called it the safe side. I figured that meant safe from stepping in cow poop but they meant safe from the bulls. They said they were mean.

What did they know?

I spread my little crazy quilt with the purple side down right next to the fence and started picking clover flowers, determined to develop the same taste for them that my sisters had. When I had a nice pile, I grabbed two handfuls of blackberries to round out my snack.

Sunshine came to see what I was up to. He was the meanest of them all, I guess, but not to me. He used to have a yellow earring that looked like daddy’s plastic keychain, the one for the keys that he never took out of the ignition. It got tore out and now his right ear looked like a soft, furry mitten. I wondered if the extra flap helped him swat at flies. Even with it gone, I remembered he was Number 42.

“Hello, Sunshine Number Forty Two,” I called out.

A hot burst of snot shot through the bottom of the fence and coated my scavenged lunch. I pulled a fist full of tall grass near the post and held it out for him. I stood and flicked my blanket, launching my bite-size berries and flowers out of the way. While he chewed and huffed, I gathered replacements.

I scratched and rubbed at the flat spot on his forehead until all the mud was gone and his fur was soft again. My eyelids got heavy at each of his long, slow blinks until we both fell asleep, my arm resting on the unsafe side of the fence next to his giant wet nose. I awoke when he did, and I decided it best to find another place to hide out before I got my hiney tanned for playing with him.

I shimmied between the broken boards that skirted the side porch. There was just enough light there to not be scared, and the busted up parts let the air under there circulate a bit. I curled up and wondered how long until either my sisters or my daddy would be home and I could go back in the house.

I felt something sharp under my bare legs. After a little digging, I’d unearthed a small rusty toy bulldozer and half of a lower jawbone. I figured the bones were either from a coyote or somebody’s lost dog, but decided coyote just so I wouldn’t be sad. I drove the bulldozer in a lazy figure-eight and then realized the blade moved.

I wondered if some little boy was looking for it. I figured so long as I left it where I found it when I was done, it wouldn’t be like stealing. I pushed the blade up and felt searing pain in my pinky as it got stuck in the hinge. I quickly pried it off, but not without an obvious blood blister forming. I bit my lip and tried not to cry, but hot tears were already streaking salty mud down my dirty face.

Daddy got home at the same time as my sisters and I followed them up the steps and into the trailer, box fans blowing at full-speed. Everyone stopped and stared at me. The sheer ruffled half-curtains over the kitchen sink were the only things moving.

I was a hot mess. I was covered head to toe in dirt (and bird poop). My fingers were stained from the blackberries. My pinky throbbed.

“What in the Sam Hell have you gotten into? And where’s your britches?”

My father’s stare seared into my chest. What could I say? He didn’t know she booted me out while he was at work. While my sisters were at school. He didn’t know how mean she was.

He couldn’t, could he?

No words would come out. I choked back more tears.

“Jesus H. Christ. Do you see the kind of shit I have to put up with when you’re gone? She gets into everything.”

There was only one thing to do: apologize.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got dirty and I’m sorry I scared the bird and it pooped on me. I’m sorry, momma.”

She swiveled to face me, The Baby on her left hip pawing at the drawstring on her blouse. All the air got sucked out of the room. Even the fans blowing on high didn’t make it any easier to breathe.

“WHAT did you just call me? Did you just call me…MOMMA? Let me tell you something, missy. I ain’t your momma. I ain’t NEVER gonna be your momma. Don’t you EVER call me momma again.”

She drew one big breath as she turned away from me again, this time spitting at my daddy in her rage.

“I can’t take this anymore. You have to decide. Them or me.”

I thought maybe he’d tell her to settle down a little bit. That maybe she was just tired or hungry or needed to poop, all the things he told me when I got overly emotional. But he didn’t. He didn’t even take the time to sit down and take his boots off. Nothing. He looked at me and my sisters and without further discussion, he issued his decision.

“Well girls, I guess you best pack up your stuff and go find you a place to live.”


Gemma Kennedy

Written by

Word Stringer. Dead Ringer. Middle Finger. Bonafide adult lady person most days. Southpaw always ISO proper left-handed coffee mugs.

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