Ghost Bird Fanfiction: Sang's Lyric, The Story of Sang Sorenson's Mother

Lyric's House

I could hear my mother in the bedroom, giggling and moaning. It wasn't anything new, but that didn't mean that I could get used to it.

I went to the refrigerator and put away the meager groceries I could afford from my afterschool job babysitting. At fifteen, I was still too young to do anything else, and in this small Maine town, where everybody knew everybody, jobs went to family and friends, and I had neither.

I grabbed an apple from the bag of Macintoshes I'd just bought. In the fall, they were plentiful and cheap; otherwise, fresh fruit and vegetables weren't something I could afford. Canned veggies and ramen, sure.

The moaning was getting louder, so I grabbed my apple and went outside to sit on the steps of the trailer. The wind was chilly, so I lifted my shoulders up to my ears, trying to block the cold. Indian summer had come and gone, and now, on the cusp of November, everything was grey and dreary.

I pulled my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms around them, leaning my head down. With the holes in my jeans, I could feel my skin against my cheek, and rubbed it back and forth before picking up my apple and biting in. This would be dinner, so I chewed slowly.

I heard movement behind me and the door to the trailer opened. "Lyric," my mother said, "I thought I told you to pick up a six-pack."

"I'm fifteen," I answered quietly, looking back over my shoulder at her. "Who's going to sell me beer?"

"You get someone to buy it for you, dummy," a voice boomed behind my mother. I saw my mother's boyfriend, Tim, standing behind her. He leered down at me, his face sweaty as he stood in jeans and no shirt.

I looked away quickly and stood up, moving down the stairs under the pretense of making better eye contact with mom.

I didn't say anything but looked at her. "Jesus, Tim," my mother chided. "She's a fucking virgin, she doesn't know how to give head for beer."

"She's not fucking if she's a virgin," Tim answered, laughing at himself and I saw my mother wince.

My cheeks flamed and a pit formed in my stomach as I processed what Mom had said.

"I'd buy beer for a go with her," Tim said thoughtfully, and then laughed, as if it was a joke.

Mom turned around and swatted him playfully. "Shut up," she joked.

Tim laughed as well, but he eyed me with an intention that I'd seen in my mom's boyfriend's eyes before and which meant that I needed to pick up more babysitting hours and spend some extra time at the library.

Mom pulled her blonde hair back from her face, and wrapped it in an elastic. "Come on baby," she said to Tim, standing on tiptoes and kissing his chin. "Let me make you something to eat." She took his hand and led him back into the kitchen.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and walked toward the shed that was in my driveway. The trailer my mom rented was way out of town. I biked to school almost everyday, except in the winter, when I had to take the bus, and the parents of the kids I babysat would bring me home. It was nice not to be in a loud apartment building or in a trailer park, but because of my mom's choice of boyfriends, it was scary to be so far away from other houses.

I opened the rusty shed door as quietly as I could and moved to the back, where I'd hidden my backpack. I used to keep my things in my room in the trailer, but then my mother started taking money for cigarettes and booze, and I had to hide it. I moved it every few days: under the trailer, behind a tree, wrapped in a garbage bag. If I wanted to eat, I had to be smart. I kept a few dollars in my drawer to put Mom off the scent, and those dollars were inevitably gone if I was away for any amount of time. I grabbed my backpack and my bike, and started down the driveway.

"Hey!" I heard Tim's voice as I peddled away. "HEY!"

I pretended I couldn't hear and peddled faster. Soon I was on the main road into town, and I could slow down, but I pumped my legs harder, as anxiety raced through my body, making it hard for me to breathe. Sometimes, if I exercised enough, I would start to pant, making it feel like I could breathe. Ever since I was a little girl, that was how I dealt with my fears. Run until I collapsed, bike as fast as I could. If my heart was pounding and my body was sucking in oxygen, I was alive, and my fear couldn't suffocate me.

I didn't like Tim, and the older I got, the more I understood the looks he was giving me. He gave the same looks to my mom, who looked like me, except fifteen years older. Given the life Mom lived, the gap between us was getting to be more than just chronological. My mom lived a hard life, drinking constantly and chain smoking. She rarely worked, and when she did it was usually a menial labor job, cleaning hotel rooms or packing boxes at a factory.

I allowed myself to slow my pace as I came into town. I biked past a cafe and a church until I got to the small white public library. I locked my bike to the bike rack and went inside.

The librarian, a young woman named Ruby, lifted her hand and waved at me. I waved back and went into the reading room. I pulled out my English book and started reading. My humanities class was reading Doctor Zhivago and my teacher had just passed out the books today. Soon I was caught up in pre-revolution Russia and trying to pronounce the Russian names in my head, Yuri Zhivago, Nikolai Nikolaevich.

"Pasternak is a good fit for this grey afternoon," a voice said near me.

I looked up quickly, and saw a tall thin man in his early thirties smiling down at me.

I cleared my throat nervously. "It's a school assignment," I replied, and looked back down at my book, hoping the man would understand my unspoken go away. 

I heard a chair scrape against the wood floor and then the heat of a body neared me. I tilted my entire body to the side and brought the book up closer to my face.

"Are you a freshman? Do you go to U Maine?" the man said.

I looked over and away quickly. "No," I answered.

"No?" he replied. "This is kind of far away, but Bowdoin? Bates?"

I shook her head, still staring down. "I'm in high school."

"No way!" the man said in such a way that I looked at him. "You look like a college girl. Must be a senior then."

Each statement he uttered made me more and more nervous. I knew he was lying. I looked nothing like a college girl. I was short and thin, and because I hadn't had food a lot growing up, I wasn't as curvy or developed as most girls my age. Biking everywhere made my body strong, but it was hard to tell from looking at me. With my blonde hair, green eyes, and pale skin, it was easy for me to look sickly. I wasn't sleeping much when Tim was in our house, and now that it was deeper into fall, I wasn't getting much sun. This man's motives were suspicious to me and I didn't like him.

"Daddy!" a little girl called.

I looked up to see a girl, about three years old, run up to the man and show him a book. "Can I get this one?" she asked, holding it up and showing him the cover.

"Sure," he answered off-handedly and picked it up.

"Good luck," he said standing, and the little girl pulled him toward Ruby's desk.

I nodded and looked back down at my book, breathing a sigh of relief. He was a dad. If he was a dad then I don't have to worry; dads were usually safe. I glanced hesitantly over at them every once in a while. I saw him talking to Ruby and then looking back at me, so I quickly lowered my head.

"See you, Lyric," the man said as he walked out, making me swallow hard as my anxiety made a reappearance. I looked at Ruby, confused.

"He's looking for a babysitter," Ruby called over. "I thought you'd like the reference."

I nodded, but my stomach clenched. I wanted nothing to do with that man.