Dark Houses

The lights are on inside the house.  The young woman sits in the car, in the driveway, hands on the wheel, and her little sister sits beside her.  The young woman is looking at her hands, at her cuticles in the light from the house. Her little sister is looking at the house next door.

“Do you ever think about dark houses?” her little sister asks.

“What?” the young woman says, and then with exasperation sighs, “No, I don’t.”

“Like that one,” her little sister points, “I wonder if anyone’s inside.”

“I don’t think they’re at home.”

“Oh.”  Her little sister plays with the frayed hem of her shorts, and the young woman watches.  Looks at her little sister’s skinny, teenage legs, at an angle with knees spread and one foot up on the dashboard in a cheap plastic flip-flop.  There are bruises on her thin knees, on her pale elbows.

“Are you alright now?” the young woman asks her little sister.  “Do you want to go back inside?”

“Whatever,” her little sister says, with a shrug.

“Come on. Let’s go.” The young woman unclips her seatbelt. Her little sister never put one on, and does not move. The young woman slumps back against the seat. “Mom was freaking out.  I mean, really freaking out. I think she had to take something to calm down.”

“Mom,” her little sister echoes, dull.

“You can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing this.”

“Really.  I’m not playing around.  You can’t keep throwing fits.”

“Throwing fits,” her little sister says, and kicks the dash with her propped-up foot.  “Fits!”

“You need to calm down!” the young woman hisses. Her knuckles, her cuticles, pale further as she grips the wheel. The blood pounds in her head. 

Her little sister huffs, slides down low in the passenger seat, and says nothing.

“You’re not a child anymore,” the young woman continues, “you need to act your age.”  The young woman can remember when her little sister was even younger, not even ten, and they had sat together in the cramped, locked bathroom, giggling and filling their palms with velvet-foamed shaving cream.  She can’t remember anything else about that day, but she remembers those golden minutes without a care in the world and her little sister next to her.

They sit together in the car.  The young woman can see a form silhouetted in an upstairs window, broad of shoulder, familiar but somehow strange.  She takes her hands off of the wheel, dries the sweat on her palms against her flannel pajama pants, and places her hands back on the wheel.

“All you need to do is go apologize,” the young woman says.

“I’m not apologizing,” her little sister replies.  The young woman feels like she should be crying, but she can’t make the tears come.  Her little sister has both feet up on the dash now, is tugging on one plastic flip-flop strap.  Now the young woman can smell beneath the sweat a sort of swampiness, an unwashed smell, but natural.  She can recall a year in middle school where her little sister despised showers, had avoided them, let her hair matt in rolls.  The smell had sunk into her clothes, it had felt like, a dark shadow over a darker year. And now it’s back.

“Dad could get in serious trouble,” the young woman says.  “Not just with the cops, but if you tell other people. You can’t just go around making these kinds of accusations. You know that, right?”

Her little sister scoffs.  “Right.”

“This isn’t a game.  You’re not a child anymore.”

Her little sister sticks the tips of her fingers between her lips.  Not biting, or sucking, just touching.  

“Let’s go inside,” the young woman says.  “We can talk more. I don’t like sitting out here.”  She places one hand on the door handle but does not pull.

“I don’t want to go inside.”

“You have to go inside.”

“I’ll sleep in the car.”

“You aren’t sleeping in the car, don’t be stupid.”

“Then I’ll leave.  I’ll leave again.”

The young woman sighs.  “You’re fifteen. You can’t leave.  Mom wanted to call the police. You could get in serious trouble.”

“For leaving?”

“For lying.”

“For lying.”

“I thought we got past this, the last time.”

“The last time.”

The young woman frowns.  “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Just… echoing me.” That dark year, the dark words, mumbled under her breath over and over again. A speech therapist had helped and then been discarded. The young woman swallows past the lump in her throat. “Please.”

“You’re not listening to anything I say, maybe you’ll listen to yourself.”

The young woman glances up; the shape is gone from the upstairs window.  “You’re not taking this seriously.”

Her little sister is looking at the house next door.  “Someone’s always at home.”

“What?”

“At our house.  Someone’s always home.”

“You mean Dad?” The form in the window.

“Dad,” her little sister says.  Her little sister still won’t look at her.  “I like looking at dark houses. Houses with no one in them.”

“Please,” the young woman says, “please, talk to me.  I want to help you.”

“Help me,” her little sister says.

“We’ve been through so much together.”

“Have we?” her little sister’s tone is languid.  She lifts one hand and traces it on the window, tracing the dark shape of a window on the house next door.  

“I’m your sister, and I love you.  I want to help you.”

“Help me,” her little sister says again.  She drops her finger. “Let me leave.”

“I can’t do that.  Where will you go?”

“Somewhere.”

“You can’t live on the streets, it’s not safe.”

“Not safe,” her little sister replies.  “When do you go back to school?”

The young woman pauses.  “Next Monday.”

Her little sister says nothing.

“Let’s go inside.  It’s okay. Mom and Dad aren’t mad, you know, you just got them by surprise.  And you know how serious something like that is, you shouldn’t be joking about it, especially since last time.”

Her little sister says nothing.

The young woman shifts her weight in the seat, moves closer.  “Can you make me a promise? Can you promise that when I go back to school, you won’t run off?  Please? I worry about you.”

“Oh, do you?”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I came after you, didn’t I?”

“You brought me back, didn’t you?”

“Listen,” the young woman says, harsher, “we’ve had a good life, okay? And here you are, being ungrateful, throwing fits like a five year old. You could have been hit by a car, or abducted, or killed tonight—” her voice is a shriek. She lowers it. The dark shadow is back at the window, the illuminated window. “I love you, but God, you test my patience.”

“God,” her little sister says.  

“Please,” the young woman says, “please, promise me you won’t run off.  Promise me, and let’s go inside, okay? I’ll help you out, with Mom and Dad.  I’m on your side, here, for God’s sake, but you can’t live like this. You know how many girls your age go missing, get killed, when they just run off?” Her little sister, her little sister. Laughs and shaving cream. Her pale cheek like moonlight against the velvety darkness of the house next door, framed in the car window.

Her little sister still won’t look at her.  “Why are you getting angry?”

“I’m not getting angry,” the young woman says.

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m frustrated.”

“You’re angry.  Because of the things I’ve said.  Why?”

The young woman says to her little sister, “It just feels like I don’t understand you anymore.”

She replies, “Anymore,” and gets out of the car.