Afterward
Sis looked much more relaxed. Her face wasn’t all scrunched up anymore. Her eyebrows weren’t twisted. Her face was longer again, like normal. Her lips weren’t near as thin nor tightly clasped. It made her dark brown, wavy hair, noticeable as it blew in the breeze of the open driver’s side window. They arrived in the driveway at home. Sis parked near the garage, turned the Comet off, opened her door got out and called back, “Lock the door.”
Jillian got out, pushed the silver thingy down to lock the door, pushed the door shut and walked around the front of the car between the front bumper and the garage. Sis disappeared from sight. Jillian didn’t know where she went except, into the house. Jillian walked in through the kitchen door. No one was to be seen. No sound of anybody speaking or anything. Silence.
She looked around at the checker pattern floor, the white cabinets, and the sink with the red emblem in the center. She looked up toward the kitchen window. She could see the sun shining in, but could not see out. She was still too short to see over the café curtains that decorated the large window.
She decided to go outside and sit on the monkey bars. She climbed up to the middle rung and sat with her backside pinched into the center and her elbows on her knees, her chin in her right hand. She didn’t know how long she had sat there. She spent a lot of time outside during the fair weather. No one was around. No neighbors or friends, and she wondered about the boy with the halo.
Why did he have a halo?
Did she have a halo?
Why did his sister take him to register? Jillian recalled the boy and his sister walked out toward the back of the school. Did they walk? Did they park their car back there? She didn’t think they were supposed to park their car back there. Jillian remembered from last year, it was written in white paint directly on the blacktop, FIRE LANE ONLY. If they walked then he must live near the school, not like her. She had to take the long, ugly, yellow bus. The bus drove a long time before it ever got to the school, but it made a long looping path and picked up all the kids that lived on the wrong side of the business route. It wasn’t really wrong, it was just older, the old neighborhoods.
“Time for Dinner,” mother’s voice called out.
The sun was disappearing. The shade was coming over the house from the trees in the front yard.
Jillian climbed off the monkey bars and went into the kitchen. “Wash your hands.” Mother directed her.
So she meandered into the bathroom, and avoided looking into the mirror as she turned the cold water handle then the warm. She scrubbed up with plenty of soap which gave the water time to be the perfect temperature. When she returned to the kitchen, dad was at the far end of the table. He was still in his blue work shirt and coveralls. She looked for her spot at the table. It wasn’t always the same. She made her way to the backside of the table near the large picture window and scooted her chair in.
“What’s for dinner?” father asked.
“Steak and potatoes with green beans,” Mother replied as she set a plate in front of father.
It didn’t really matter what was for dinner, Jillian thought. She wasn’t hungry. She was almost never hungry.
Sis entered the kitchen and pulled her chair out, across the table from Jill. Sis’s jaw flopped open. “Green beans” she stared at them with disgust. “Green beans again? You know I don’t like them. Why did you make green beans again? I am not going to eat them.” This would probably be another night when green beans were found all around under the lip of her plate.
Father scowled, “Alright, that’s enough now.”
Sis shut up and took a seat in her chair. Mother sat down in her chair opposite father. She glanced around the table and folded her hands together above her plate.
She began, “Dear heavenly father we are thankful for this food. We ask that you bless this meal. We ask that you care for all our loved ones, heal those that are sick and guide us in our daily lives. Please guide our leaders to do the right things. In Jesus name amen.”
Then she took the pan of potato water and poured it into her delicate tea cup, added a dash of salt, then a little pepper, and set the pan down.
They all unfolded their hands and dad took a slice of bread from the plate. He dipped his knife into the butter dish and made a long sweep past her nose.
“Look here, it’s pasteurized (passed your eyes).” He raised his eyebrows to a high arch as he said it. The corners of his mouth turned up and his two front teeth showed just a little. Anyone could see that he was pleased with himself as he added levity to the mundane act of having dinner.
Moderately irritated, a smile peeked at the corner of Jillian’s mouth from clenched lips. Had she not worn the butter on her nose during previous episodes of this humor, she might have laughed or even smiled. After 9 years of this silly business, the novelty had worn thin. He buttered his bread and she watched to ensure that the butter wasn’t making a second pass. It wouldn’t have been the first time there had been a repeat performance. Jillian watched Sis get a faint smirk at the corner of her mouth after Sis saw the buttered knife was not in reach of her face.
Sis sat there sawing with her steak knife at the piece of meat while she secured it with her fork. She began to get that scowl on her face again.
“Mom, I don’t think steak is supposed to be this tough.”
Father reprimanded her quietly, “Sis, that’s enough!”
Jillian noted, theirs was a quiet household. No one ever yelled, unless a mouse scurried across the floor. Then, even the screams weren’t too loud.
Sis stopped talking and proceeded to put a bite in her mouth. She chewed, and chewed… and chewed.
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, I just meant that maybe if the meat were cooked a little less…” Her face was mostly hidden by her dark brown wavy curls, her soft bangs, and the fact that she was looking down at her plate.
Father shot her a look and his face began to redden. The universal sign to shut up, so Sis shut up. Only no one in their house ever actually said, “Shut up.”
Jillian contemplated the remarks. It crossed her mind that kids at school had generally been excited to announce when they’d had steak for dinner. For the life of her, she could not fathom why. It did cross her mind that for whatever mother lacked in preparing steak, she roasted a delicious turkey and turned out pot roast that melted in her mouth.
Jillian’s mind wandered to the fall and winter months when mother baked homemade bread. She recalled the aromas of dough rising atop the oven and the delicious bread baking inside the oven. Besides that mother made some cinnamon rolls so good they were - to drool for.
“You need to eat your dinner, little girl.” Father’s voice cut Jillian’s daydreaming short. No wonder it always took her so long to finish dinner. There was little question whether Jillian would be sitting at the table staring at her plate of food for the next three hours, until mother talked her into eating every last bite.
Waiting for School to Start
Days went by and Jillian was becoming more and more squeamish about the beginning of school. Every year was like this. The week before school started, she couldn’t sleep. She became more and more anxious. Her stomach grew queasy and she struggled to eat anything, which led to mother getting all stressed out. “Jim she doesn’t eat. She’s so skinny, I don’t know why she won’t eat.”
