“Daughters of God” by Dinh Vong
--page 4
“Anne, you know what my friends tell me? They tell me you’re weird. They say 'Becka, your sister is weird,' and they laugh at you. You can’t just go around dressing like a little kid. That’s why you don’t have any friends.”
Then Anne wouldn’t speak to me. She likes giving me the silent treatment. But her face was reddening.
“We’re already not normal, Anne. We have to at least act like we are.”
I try to give Anne good advice since Mom isn’t around and I’m the only mother she’s got. The truth is hard, but that’s the only way she’s gonna survive in this world.
~
I have to admit, watching Anne twist paperclip glasses for her imaginary heads scared me. I thought, oh man, it’s coming; time for little sis’s brain to rot. But I refused to take her seriously. She hadn’t told anyone but me yet, only had the habit of covering her face with her hands like she was about to sneeze or yawn when anyone was around. Anne told Ms. Parks, with her hands cupped over her face, that the glasses were for her stuffed animals. Ms. Parks just said, “bless you, dear; how clever you are.” Anne could pick her nose in front of Ms. Parks and she’d say, “bless you dear; how clever you are.” Ms. Parks is about four hundred years old. She used to be a kindergartner teacher. Now she just keeps taking in foster kids because she doesn’t have any of her own. Not because she couldn’t, but because she never got married. Probably because she was too busy talking about Jesus all the time. I respect her and all; she’s just too old and religious sometimes.
I started keeping a closer eye on Anne, just in case she wasn’t playing about the heads, in case she actually believed it. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree and all. It isn’t hard to spy on people in this house; there’s always a crack to look through, and the walls are thin enough to hear just about anything. So when Anne thought she was alone, I was right there with her, crouched on the floor of our closet, peering beneath the door. What I saw was downright weird--her looking in the mirror, saying in the softest whisper, “hush baby, hush; it’s okay,” coddling her face with her hands and rocking her body from side to side. And then a little baby wail, that sounded real, except she was making the sound herself, her eyes closed, her lips barely parted and letting loose a high pitched whine. Then there were footsteps and Isabelle opened the door without knocking. Anne immediately threw her hands up over her face, and Isabelle said, “dinner’s ready!”
“I’m coming,” Anne said through her hands. But before she left, she took out this fabric and slipped it over her head. It looked like them things the Muslim women wear that cover everything except your eyeballs. She must have made it out of a pillowcase. That really got to me. When she was gone, I rolled out of the closet, trying not to gag from the floral sachets Ms. Parks puts in all our closets. I was determined that if Anne wanted to keep playing that game, then I’d play it with her.
That night, Anne gets in bed with me and I wait for her to fall asleep a bit. Not all the way completely, just enough to catch her off guard. I clutch a spoon in my hand that I had hidden under my pillow, and wait until her breathing becomes regular. Then I hold her down, pinning her arms and chest with my legs, and covering her mouth with one hand like they do in the movies. I told her to hold still, I’d solve her problem in a jiff. I made like I was digging those heads out with the spoon. Kind of pressing it hard against her face, not enough to leave a mark, but enough so that she could feel it. She stared at me with her big dumb eyes getting all watery. But the funny thing is she didn’t scream or try to move.
“There,” I say. “The heads are gone. You can stop wearing the friggin’ turban.”
When I let go of her, Anne didn’t say anything, only turned her head to one side and stared at the pillow hard, like she was looking at the heads I had dug out of her face. One slow, pitiful tear crept down her cheek and her nose got all red and blubbery. If you didn’t know any better, you’d thought I’d ate her puppy or something. It bothered me to see her that way, like I was in some kind of horror movie.
“Say something, Anne.”
“You’re a murderer!”
“Hush, girl. Even if Ms. Park’s is deafer than a door knob, you’ll wake even her up.”
“I hate you,” she whispered. “I hate you. I hate you.”
“Don’t say that. I’m the only family you’ve got.”
“I hate you. I hate you.”
“I told you to quit it now, Anne.”
“I hate you.” She kept on chugging those words out like a train. Whispering them into my ear until she fell asleep. It bothered me, like she was jabbing my ears with toothpicks when I had done her the biggest favor of her life. It even made me cry a little, and long for Mom and her shuddering body to hold me till I fell asleep.
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