The Secrets of the Jones Virgins // Jake and Sam Kiszka

Chapter Three

Summer 1984

The stones always hit the glass after midnight. In the hours where the world seemed to be at it's most quiet. And I would lie awake counting down the minutes, the ticking of the clock on the wall mocking me as it appeared to tick backwards. My hair braided in anticipation, a pair of linen shorts and a blouse under the covers where my pyjamas should have been.

I was a creature of the night, now. Nocturnal. Simmering during the day under a canvas of wanting, letting the sun paint my skin darker and my hair lighter. Staring at him from the front yard as he watered the plants which lined his driveway. I could have had everything taken from me. But not those stolen glances. Those were mine to keep and cherish and I'd have had my eyes gouged out before I ever stopped looking at him.

Ours was a quiet love. With a temperament much more muted than that which unfolded between my sister and Jake's brother. Theirs was unapologetic and a threat to every shred of my Father's control. It didn't wait until the midnight hours, it fornicated in the afternoon when they thought nobody was looking.

Catching kisses at the side of Sam's house as soon as Dad's car pulled out of the drive. My Mother fretting on the porch steps, wringing her hands in her pinafore as Jolene skipped across the gravel towards the Kiszka house. Every word of warning left unheeded.

The way that we loved them was like two sides of the same coin. Hers a tempest and mine a breeze, and yet I knew that somehow we were both locked in something we couldn't escape. And the way that they loved us in return was just as belligerent. Just as forthright and never sorry.

"You better hurry." I insisted, keeping the blanket tightly wrapped around me until Dad had done his nightly checks. "Or you'll be climbing out the window in your night gown."

Jolene was sitting up in bed. Her lamp glowing as she turned the page of a book I knew she wasn't really reading.

"I'm not coming with you tonight." She said soberly, without lifting her gaze.

Her usual impatience at winding down the hours until she could be with Sam again was usually a bubbling cauldron. I shot her a look of confusion from across the room, waiting for her to notice. And when she finally gave credence to it, she rolled her eyes.

"It's different for you and Jake." She sighed. "It's still a secret. Sam and I have to move differently."

"You do well to be more like Jake and I." I pointed out, falling to silence as our bedroom door clicked open.

He walked in as if our space had never been sacred. As if this room wasn't the graveyard of a young girl's hopes and dreams. Desecrating it just by stepping inside with his hands in his pockets and his collar neatly folded over his signature blue sweater.

"It's late, Jolene." He scolded. "Lights out."

"Yes, Dad." She replied without argument, placing her book page down on the nightstand before switching off her lamp.

I pretended to be asleep. Letting my chest rise and fall the way it did in slumber. Keeping my eyes clamped shut, hoping he would bypass me and just close the door behind him.

"I am the all seeing eye, remember that." He said prophetically, with an air of dominance that left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I was relieved when he plunged the room into darkness. Leaving only his tyrannical echo for me to let fester in my thoughts. I didn't know much about hate. But I knew that I hated him, in every way a person could hate. I knew that I wouldn't care if anything terrible happened to him. Nor would I stand and weep at his grave.

"The all seeing eye." I mocked, pushing off my blanket. "Can't see what's right under his nose."

She watched me construct my blanket and comforter into a make-shift image of myself asleep underneath. Careful not to turn her lamp back on too quickly, even though I could hear Dad's footsteps descend the stairs.