Diatomic

- 4

Twelve years previously

You remember those thunderstorms when you were little, the ones that tore and howled at the sky, a raging dancer staging its practiced ballad of woe? Those thunderstorms that insisted to be heard, drama queens, incessant in their initial attack but quick to dissipate? Harmless at their worst and wondrous at their best? Genevieve remembers those.
That storm was the storm of her mother, performing her dance as she had done three times that week. The shouting, the gestures left hanging in stagnant air, the crease between her mother's brows, the packing of the car, the slamming of the boot, the revving of the engine before her father would run out to stop her: arms spread wide, a deer in the headlights, the fox in the car, and her mother would come back inside - it was all there. The performance was in order, complete with an audience of neighbors twitching behind the curtains; this was normal.

But this time Mum didn't stop. This time lightning struck.

She kept her foot down, thus down a tear ran, past her cheek; a tear for Genevieve that everyone else missed. Mum left and Genevieve was left with a glimpse of one Judas' tear, a cry of pain from Dad as the car skidded over his foot, and a slip of paper crushed in the seven year old's hands.
She'd seen it all, as she stared from the cushion beneath the upstairs window - the cushion Mum had bought the month before. And the little girl could think but one thought.

She really wished she couldn't read.