Skin (...a recent, rough excerpt)

(....excerpt taken from a longer work in progress, called Skin...)

I waited in my room listening to Pink Floyd all afternoon.  It was     almost night when Alex’s dad called.   I knew it was him, I could feel it.  I snuck out of my room and sat at the top of the stairs and tried to listen. Mom was the one who stayed on the phone even though dad was home.  I could hear dad watching the History channel in the den.  I wished he’d turn it down.

I strained to hear the conversation and went down a couple of steps and sat on the floor.

“She is just fifteen and I don’t want….” I heard part of her sentence and pieced together several more fragments,

“I need to make sure….”

“….you will be there?”

Half sentences in between silence.

“If I send my daughter….I need to know…”

I walked all the way down the stairs holding my breath and stood quiet by the trophy case.

“Well, you have my number in case you need to call…..okay…….okay…….bye.”

I waited for a minute, walked back up the stairs and then stomped down so mom could hear me coming.

“Was that him?”

Mom’s eyebrows lifted and furrowed down.

“Well….”

“He was really hard to understand.”

“I told you he…”

“You told me he was Hungarian….he also stutters.”

“Oh…I forgot.”

Mom collapsed her head into her hands,

“I just don’t know if I am making the right decision,”

“You are,” I said.

Mom continued,

“I don’t ever know if I am making the right decision with you kids….”

“Mom!”  I raised my voice so she would stop.

She looked at me through parted fingers,

“Mom….everything is fine,” I said “everything is going to be fine.”

“I just don’t want….anything bad to happen.”

I felt my body slump into the ground at her comment.  I huffed and sat down hard bench in the entry way facing her.

“Nothing bad is going to happen to me,” I said in monotone.

“How do you know?” She raised her voice at me, “you are just a child.”

“……and, I am your mother….”’

I sat inbetween mom’s worry and dad’s History Channel sounds.  I felt like putting my hands over my ears. 

“What bad things could happen, mom?”

“You could get pregnant Allison!”

Her eyes shook back and forth at me.

“Mom!” I shouted at her.

“You have to know all women in our family get pregnant easily.”

I jumped up, turned around in a circle and threw my hands up.

“Did you talk to his dad about that?!”

She didn’t say anything,

“Mom!”

“I just don’t want you to make the mistake my family did.”

Mom turned her back to me and walked away.  She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned her face to look at me.

“Well you can go aren’t you happy?”

She walked up the staircase.  I got up and followed her,

“Mom, I am not going to get pregnant.”

She didn’t turn around.

Allison Distler