Page 2 of As They Are
My back ached. NowIwas hurt.
And she didn’t care.At all.
“Fuck this shit,” I said under my breath, not caring if Mom heard me curse. She was too busy to do anything anyway.
I sprang up and glared at the piece of wood. One of the nails had failed, leaving it dangling. I grabbed it and yanked it out of its spot before looking at the other ones. They wereallhanging on by their last nails, all ready to break on someone.
This was supposed to be a nice neighborhood. Mom always wanted the fanciest of things. And her new, perfect husband could provide it. Obviously, it wasn’tthatperfect if the playground was falling apart.
If one broke, more would too. I grabbed another board with both hands, pulling it with all of my might. It came loose, and the feeling pushed away my anger for a second.
In fact, it feltgood.
I moved to another and did the same thing. It put up more of a fight, but I didn’t mind. Taking it apart distracted me.
When I was done, there was a stack of boards. Nails stuck out at odd angles and I had more splinters than I could count. My chest heaved, but I felt like I was finally doing exactly what I was supposed to be.
“Wren Harper Hackett!”Mom screeched. “What do you think you’re doing?”
My tenseness returned.
Suddenly, the pile of destruction was another one of my mistakes.
“I . . . It was broken!”
“Yes, becauseyoubroke it! Why would you ever?—”
“I fell!”
“That doesn’t mean you can ruin my neighborhood playground! What’swrongwith you?”
She’d asked that before too. More so than ever since I came to stay with her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it. I’m calling your father so he can deal with this.”
She never called Dad unless I’d done something wrong. He’d begged me to make this work with Mom. I told him I would.
“No, wait! I can fix it.”
“Oh, really? You can fix all of this?”
I looked back at it. Dad had let me watch him when he fixed our old porch. I’d been fascinated by how he was able to hit a nail and make it go clean through the wood in one go.
“Yeah, I can.”
“You have until the end of the day,” she said as she hoisted Ginnie on her hip. “Go see if one of the neighbors has a hammer and some nails.”
“I don’t know anyone here.”
She rolled her eyes. “Then knock on doors.”
“Don’t you have?—”
“I’m busy with Ginnie. I’m not fixingyourproblems too.” She turned and walked away, leaving me in the heat. I wondered if she would use her soft voice while dressing Ginnie’s wounds and give her the apple juice that she never gave me when I was her age.
It made me feel worse. I took a walk of shame on the hot sidewalk, knocking on two doors with no answer.
