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madgirlwithalaptop-blog1 · 4 years

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Chapter 1: And Then There Were Ten

This is the 1st chapter of a short story I’m working on called We Are The Family

#1.

In the beginning, there is one. Her name is Emily.

#2.

Then there are two. He hits himself and hates himself. His name is Stephen, not Jeong Yeon, and he can never go home.

One of his suitcases is still packed. It sits in the closet, next to Family photo albums and the junk that Emily can’t bear to get rid of, because monsters belong in the closet. He’ll unpack it, someday. Not soon, though.

Sometimes, in the early days, he thinks the suitcase whispers to him. Like it understand what he’s done, what he is. Stephen, Stephen, Stephen, it whispers. It starts out quiet. It reaches a crescendo at night. STEPHEN, STEPHEN, STEPHEN.

It takes number four to make it stop whispering.

#3.

Three is just a number. She has a name. It’s Scarlet. She comes at midnight.

She’s twelve. She’s still covered in blood, because she wouldn’t let anybody touch her. Emily and Stephen expect her to be scared. She’s not. She’s angry.

She screams. She throws things. When they try to talk to her, she unleashes a string of curse words. When they make her meals, she doesn’t eat. On her first night, she strips her bed of blankets and throws her mattress across the room. The clothes they buy her land in a heap on a floor. They’ve learned to lock up matches and knives. Stephen can’t decide whose screaming is worse — the suitcase’s or Scarlet’s.

They’re not prepared for this. How could they be? Emily’s never had kids, and the only time Stephen has ever dealt with episodes like this from kids like Scarlet was when their case files crossed his desk.

Emily and Stephen buy parenting guides by the dozens, almost frantically. In an act of pure desperation, Stephen comes home one day with a Great Dane puppy. Scarlet names him Trundle. She’s still angry, but with Trundle by her side she’ll eat and sleep, at least.

Number four saves all of them.

#4.

His name is Oliver, and he comes at 1:58 p.m. on a Tuesday.

He’s six. He clutches a stuffed koala and a baby blanket.

Trundle says hello by bounding outside and proceeding to lick and sniff every inch of the boy. A harmless gesture, perhaps, but the intimidating Trundle stands a good foot over Oliver’s head. Oliver starts screaming. Emily scoops him up and holds him up high so Trundle can’t reach. The screaming stops immediately, replaced by giggling.

Oliver’s laughter is such a change from Scarlet’s screaming that Emily almost drops the boy. Stephen laughs because he can't remember the last time any child laughed in his presence. He doesn’t ever want to stop laughing, stop smiling. He has to sit down, he’s laughing so hard. He laughs until he cries, until he’s actually crying, sobbing with grief and rage on the front lawn.

Emily pats him on the shoulder and carries Oliver inside. Scarlet stops to stare at Stephen for a second, fascinated by the sight of a grown man weeping without abandon, then she and Trundle trot back inside. Stephen sits for hours. Long after he’s stopped crying, he sits there, cross-legged on the grass. People go by walking dogs and pushing strollers. They look at him strangely, then continue on their way. (Sonder [noun]: the realization that each passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.)

Sometime after sundown, Emily comes outside and sits down next to Stephen. “Kids are asleep,” she says.

He nods.

After a while, she says, “He seems to calm Scarlet. She hasn’t thrown anything all afternoon.”

He nods.

After a while, she asks, “Are you okay?”

He nods.

After a while, she stands up. “Come in when you’re ready.”

The screen door closes gently behind her.

Stephen is ready at 3:12 a.m. The suitcase never reaches a crescendo.

#5.

Lilly comes at 3:46 in the afternoon. It’s September.

She’s a blue-eyed creature with blond pigtails. She is nine.

She doesn’t cry. Just wanders around the house with wide eyes.

Their voices are sweet as honey when they talk to her. They make her pancakes and spaghetti and cookies. When they learn she likes to draw, they give her a huge box of crayons and an unlimited supply of paper.

After the second week, she starts to talk. At first, it’s just to Trundle. Then to Oliver, then to the now somewhat pacified Scarlet, and finally to Emily and Stephen.

By the third week, it’s hard to get her to stop talking. She talks to everyone about everything.

By the fourth week, Emily and Stephen are half-wondering whether she may have ADHD.

By the fifth week, she’s been tested. She doesn’t.

The suitcase has stopped talking to Stephen. Instead, Lilly does.

#6 & #7.

Leila and Marjan come at 4:23 during the second week of May. (Emily writes the date and time on a sticky note that she puts in a folder she’s reserved for possible scrapbook material.)

They’re twins. They’re eight.

They never separate. They’re always holding hands or touching each other. They clutch each other like all they have is each other, like each is the other’s whole world. The only person in the Family that doesn’t seem to scare them those first few weeks is Oliver, and Oliver does not mind the company. He’s thrilled that he gets to show off his toys to a new audience. And the twins, for their part, manage to look interested when he shows them his precious stuffed koala. (Her name is Jenny and she goes with him everywhere because she’s a good koala.)

#8.

Vikram comes at noon on a Thursday.

He’s thirteen. Of all of them, he seems to adjust the quickest. Within an hour he’s cracking jokes.

The horrid puns quickly become annoying, but nobody says anything. They let him laugh during the day, because they can all hear him crying at night.

#9.

Max comes at 7:32 on the fifth of November. (It’s a Sunday. Emily checked.)

He’s fifteen. He’s tall and quiet.

Oliver is convinced that Max is second only to God, and follows Max around everywhere. He imitates him and repeats words he says, even the bad ones. Emily and Stephen learn that there is nothing quite as shocking as a seven year old boy dropping the F-bomb at dinner and then asking to be passed the butter like nothing happened. They have a talk with both boys about language, and after a few weeks Oliver’s vocabulary returns to normal.

#10.

Victoria comes at 2:16 on Saturday, February 2nd.

She’s six weeks from sixteen, just a few days older than Max.

She wears a mask like it’s habit. She sits with her back straight and hands folded on her lap. A polite expression and smile are always plastered to her face.

The mask is Victoria. The girl beneath is called Rory.

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