Read Online Found by Stacey Wallace Benefiel - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stacey Wallace Benefiel
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believable, right? I mean, it makes as much sense as any of the other origin stories about our kind.” He starts whipping his hand across the tablet that controls the overhead holo-projector. The images fly by and stop on a black and white photo of an attractive young woman with teased blond hair. She’s dressed in a plaid jumper and posing with a thick spiral bound book, a look of academic superiority on her face.
I’ve seen that expression before. I’m just about to ask Elle if she recognizes the lady when she and Penny stand up, squinting at the screen, and say, “I know her.”
Chapter Eight
Penny
I don’t remember a lot from when I was three, but my last memory of my parents will be forever stamped on the insides of my eyelids. Their too-still bodies sprawled out sideways on the family room floor, dark red blood dripping down, leaving a trail across their foreheads. The fire in two places – the warmth and crackling sound behind me, and the flickering yellow-white light reflected in their glistening, dead eyes. I crawled over them, first Mommy and then Daddy, because when I stood up it made me cough. I paused long enough to stroke her soft blond hair and kiss his scratchy cheek. The floor went from the cushy white carpet in the family room to the hard wood floor of the kitchen. I sat underneath the table where we ate breakfast and watched the fire come closer, burning them up, until the people with tubes coming out of their faces broke through the back door and dragged me away from them.
But what my parents looked like usually? On a Tuesday or when singing or brushing their teeth or saying, “I love you?” These aren’t faces I can recall.
Now, other memories begin to unspool from deep within. I remember practicing what my full name was over and over again. Probably for some assignment in preschool. Learning my mom’s cell phone number: 573-474-68 something, something. I’d tried to figure out what the remaining two numbers were when I was nine, going as far as keeping a log of all of the digits I’d called. I wonder whatever happened to it. That was before I left the house of groping hands and sick words. Before I had no food and was always cold and escaped into the nothingness of morphine.
The street my parents and I lived on was called Crocus Lane. Our house was brick on the bottom and had beige wood siding on the top. I had a white bed and a Pinkalicious bed spread. The details appear, a pin prick that widens into a focused scene, blurry around the edges.
On the wall next to the stairs leading up to my bedroom was a photo of the woman I’m looking at, right now, in this classroom on a holo-screen. The two images, the one in my head and the one before me reconcile, click together into one crisp picture. My hazy past and my uncertain future melding into one embodied by Maud Lavoie, a woman who resembles Elle, resembles my mother. How did I not see it before? I didn’t know to look. I wasn’t searching for the connection.
It’s not enough that this is my first day of school in seven years? That I was afraid this morning of being too stupid to belong in a class of 7 th graders? Or too knowledgeable in a class for thieves? The Universe just had to decide that in addition to my seeing a ghost unassisted for the first time, and having her turn out to be the Grandma of a cute boy I shouldn’t think is cute, I also needed to have this confusing blast from the past punched through my chest and yanked out my ass?
I should not have stood up to get a closer look at Maud Lavoie. I should have kept the few memories of BEFORE locked away. Everyone is staring at me, I can feel it. Not really judging me, but…noticing. That I’m not comfortable in my bueno clothes, that I hold my head up not out of pride, but in challenge. That I’m a fucked-up piece of worthless who doesn’t deserve to belong. The shame of what they all must be thinking, knowing, about me rises up in my gut. I fist my right
I’ve seen that expression before. I’m just about to ask Elle if she recognizes the lady when she and Penny stand up, squinting at the screen, and say, “I know her.”
Chapter Eight
Penny
I don’t remember a lot from when I was three, but my last memory of my parents will be forever stamped on the insides of my eyelids. Their too-still bodies sprawled out sideways on the family room floor, dark red blood dripping down, leaving a trail across their foreheads. The fire in two places – the warmth and crackling sound behind me, and the flickering yellow-white light reflected in their glistening, dead eyes. I crawled over them, first Mommy and then Daddy, because when I stood up it made me cough. I paused long enough to stroke her soft blond hair and kiss his scratchy cheek. The floor went from the cushy white carpet in the family room to the hard wood floor of the kitchen. I sat underneath the table where we ate breakfast and watched the fire come closer, burning them up, until the people with tubes coming out of their faces broke through the back door and dragged me away from them.
But what my parents looked like usually? On a Tuesday or when singing or brushing their teeth or saying, “I love you?” These aren’t faces I can recall.
Now, other memories begin to unspool from deep within. I remember practicing what my full name was over and over again. Probably for some assignment in preschool. Learning my mom’s cell phone number: 573-474-68 something, something. I’d tried to figure out what the remaining two numbers were when I was nine, going as far as keeping a log of all of the digits I’d called. I wonder whatever happened to it. That was before I left the house of groping hands and sick words. Before I had no food and was always cold and escaped into the nothingness of morphine.
The street my parents and I lived on was called Crocus Lane. Our house was brick on the bottom and had beige wood siding on the top. I had a white bed and a Pinkalicious bed spread. The details appear, a pin prick that widens into a focused scene, blurry around the edges.
On the wall next to the stairs leading up to my bedroom was a photo of the woman I’m looking at, right now, in this classroom on a holo-screen. The two images, the one in my head and the one before me reconcile, click together into one crisp picture. My hazy past and my uncertain future melding into one embodied by Maud Lavoie, a woman who resembles Elle, resembles my mother. How did I not see it before? I didn’t know to look. I wasn’t searching for the connection.
It’s not enough that this is my first day of school in seven years? That I was afraid this morning of being too stupid to belong in a class of 7 th graders? Or too knowledgeable in a class for thieves? The Universe just had to decide that in addition to my seeing a ghost unassisted for the first time, and having her turn out to be the Grandma of a cute boy I shouldn’t think is cute, I also needed to have this confusing blast from the past punched through my chest and yanked out my ass?
I should not have stood up to get a closer look at Maud Lavoie. I should have kept the few memories of BEFORE locked away. Everyone is staring at me, I can feel it. Not really judging me, but…noticing. That I’m not comfortable in my bueno clothes, that I hold my head up not out of pride, but in challenge. That I’m a fucked-up piece of worthless who doesn’t deserve to belong. The shame of what they all must be thinking, knowing, about me rises up in my gut. I fist my right
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