Blithe

Chapter 2 // Shitty Surrogate

Grace was awoken by night terrors, most of them loosely involving her mother and father getting into ridiculous fights and her either being killed, drowning, being tortured, being eaten, or killing even herself directly in their presence while they fought. It was this deeply rooted neglect that woke Grace in a pool of sweat and tears at least three times per night. This night consisted of four occurrences in which she woke up, until she gave up on sleep when she awoke at six from a nightmare in which she stabbed herself at the kitchen table as her parents bickered in front of her. This time, she let out a scream loud enough to waken the neighbors.

Lyss came dashing down the hallway and into the spare room in her flowing nightgown and holding her phone for light. She knew instantly that it was another nightmare. Instead of telling Grace to tell her about the nightmare, she sat down beside her and comforted her with a thin arm wrapped protectively around her granddaughter's shoulder. She placed a soft kiss on Grace's forehead and whispered, "Do you think you can fall asleep again for another couple hours?"

Grace pondered for a moment, then nodded slowly.

"Do you want me to lie down with you until you fall asleep?" Lyss asked, gaining a quick nod from the girl. Slowly, Lyss shifted under the quilt and closed her eyes, waiting for the steady breathing indicating sleep to come from Grace. After she was in a deep slumber and the dried tears on her face were mere streaks, she snuck back to her room.

Grace didn't suffer from a fifth nightmare that night.

-

Grace and Lyss were enjoying steaming bowls of soup around noon for lunch when their laughter over the old television show they were watching was interrupted by a knock at the door. Lyss stood up, giving Grace the sign to stay put on the couch.

Lyss went to the door, feeling her nerves jumbling up and anxiety riddling her body in nervous shakes. She opened the door to the exact woman she was expecting since last night. In front of her stood her daughter, barely a daughter, Lyss thought to herself. She saw the touch of pain in her child's eyes when their eyes met, the deep blue eyes they both shared. Her daughter was wrapped in a nightgown and had little make up on, and what make up she bore was running down her hollow cheeks. However, there was still a hint of anger and spite in her closely drawn eyebrows. She glared, past her misty eyes, and said, "Where's Grace?"

From the living room, Grace walked in with her soup only half finished. It seemed her appetite had disappeared as soon as the doorbell rang. She knew that she had to return to the place that was supposed to be called home, but would forever be known as "the house".

"Oh, Grace, there you are, honey," said her mother in a struggled voice. "Honey" came out more like a strangled grunt, as if saying the word made her nauseous. Grace didn't expect kind words of love to come from the mouth of her shitty surrogate.

"Come on, we're leaving," Anne said with an out reached hand towards Grace. The girl shied away and grabbed her backpack before giving her grandmother a tight hug.

"I love you, Grammy," she said into her neck.

"I love you too," Lyss whispered back as she placed a small kiss on her forehead. She could see Anne wincing out of the corner of her eye, so she quickly ended their embrace.

Anne opened the door for her daughter, and Lyss stood still, watching them both leave.

-

"And once we get home, I need you too do the dishes, the laundry, clean the bathroom, and the rest of the day is yours. I have some instant soup in the pantry, but you can order out if you want," Anne rambled on the car ride. Grace sat shotgun, half I'm the conversation, glancing out the window.

"Look at me when I'm giving you directions, Grace," she snapped.

Grace turned her gaze to her mother, avoiding eye contact. "I heard you," she said quietly.

The car came to a stop in their driveway. Grace hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders and stopped at the front door. The shabby house had leaning in walls with a basic beige outside. Shingles hung loosely from the roof, and some were even missing. The fact that the rain gutters were filled with various flora indicated that the house was badly attended too to any outsider. Inside, they would know that the house was far more neglected on the inside. The smell of liquor and cigarette smoke had practically seeped into every material inside of the house. Even the wallpaper crinkled and wilted with the wretched scents. Grace's father was sat at the couch, a beer in one hand and the remote in the other, watching some police chase, hollering "get 'em!" every few seconds. Grace slipped past with nothing more than a glare from her father before dashing to her room. Anne remained downstairs, grabbing a bottle of vodka and sitting in the lounger adjacent to the couch.

Grace's room was perhaps the only room of the house untainted by her parent's wrath. The walls were a cool lavender with white trim and a white ceiling littered with glow in the dark spots of paint. A bunk bed with only the top bunk in use sat on the opposite end of the room with a computer desk beneath it, littered with various books and homework. Grace liked this set up because it made her feel closer to the sky, without sparing a single speck of space. She kept her shades down during the day just so she could see the glowing splatters more often.

Just when she reached a point of relaxation, she heard angry footsteps storming up the staircase. In stormed a winded looking man, seemingly in his mid thirties, with a 5 o'clock shadow tinting his cheeks and chin. "What're you looking at?" her father growled through his yellowing teeth.

"Why are you in here?" she asked, avoiding the question.

"Don't fucking talk back at me, young lady," he snapped, causing Grace to flinch at the sharpness in his voice. "Did I leave my belt in here?" he asked. Grace winced. It was still hung up in her closet. She could feel the stinging where he left his mark last time. She never told anyone about that. She instead nodded to the closet and he quickly retrieved it and left. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, and quickly retreated to her bed. She heard the front door slam shut, rattling the windows of the shabby home, and the sound of the diesel truck flying out of the gravel driveway indicated that she was indeed home alone yet again.

At this time, it was six, so she decided to cook herself an instant soup and spend the rest of the night watching her favorite movie, Peter Pan. Only with a long noodle half way out of her mouth did the sobbing begin. She felt at an early age a lack of a sense of belonging, and this movie only picked at the points in her brain for a need of an escape. When she was little, she would leave her window open, only hoping for the day that Peter would come in and whisk her away to a place where she would never grow up, if she hadn't grown up already. However, the morbidity of the book revealed that Peter Pan killed the lost boys when they got too old. Given that fact, Grace kept her windows closed.

Finally, fatigue had won over the girl. She stumbled sleepily to her room and tucked herself in, as she had been doing every night for the past seven years.