Little Lady

Trigger warning: this story does deal with substance abuse and death.

Little Lady

Little Amber sat quietly on the porch swing on a Sunday morning.  The cool,. autumn breeze brushed against her hair in soft caress that was both comforting and painful.  She savored the small moment greedily, while looking at the horizon in the rising sunlight.

Amber's biggest wish was to run through the open fields freely and live amongst the other kids her age, playing games of kickball, climbing on jungle gyms, maybe a little softball.

But this place was too far away from civilization it would seem.

Her peaceful moment was broken by the sound of yelling from inside the house.

"Where is that lazy, good for nothin' girl? Doesn't she even know what time it is!? "

The floorboards seemed to rattle every time her aunt Barbara opened her mouth and if Amber touched the window, she could almost feel new cracks beginning to form. 

Stomp,. stomp,. stomp, clomp,.clomp creak

"Amber! What are doing out here on the porch, you lazy good for nothin'!  Get inside now and get dressed for church!  I can't go anywhere with you looking like some ragamuffin!”

“Why my sister had to get married to that fool of a father of yours, I don't know!  Somehow, I got stuck with you! “

Amber looked downward as she grabbed the yellow dress her aunt had picked out for her.  She dared not look at the eyes.  Her aunt's eyes seemed to be permanently stuck open and the lines around them stretched towards the temples and connected to her mouth which seemed to be dragged downwards as if it had some kind of anchor.  

It was not always this way.  Some years ago, her aunt would dote on her almost every day,. having little tea parties with stuffed animals, sitting on the bed with her, telling stories, braiding her hair.

Then slowly her aunt began to change.  She would come home from work, sit down in the kitchen with a bottle of some kind of liquid.  During those times, her aunt was distant too distant to be with Amber

Today, Amber went slowly upstairs trying not to dragg the dress all the way with her. 

Her aunt kept on huffing and puffing while Amber tried to get the little dress on her body.  After that, her aunt and grab her and start brushing Amber's light brown hair, and make little curls of her pigtails, complaining the whole time.  This was part of the Sunday ritual now.

Every week,  get the dress on, go downstairs and walk  with her aunt to the car, drive to the little brown church in the vale and smile at the people who greeted her as "little Amber who was always happy and sunny’

Of course, Amber knew what they were all thinking and this was because her aunt had the biggest mouth in the whole town and she had told everyone in the community about her "wicked sister and her good for nothin' husband and how it was a credit to how she raised Amber that Amber was so well behaved.

"Children, obey your parents" the Pastor seemed to say every week and then look at Amber and praise her aunt.  Sometimes,.he would have Amber and her aunt come to the front as if they were on display.

After every service,  her aunt would drive home and leave Amber there in the care of the house keeper who would be there about 2 days out of the week.  Amber liked those times because it was generally quiet.  The house meet would fix Amber a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

One Sunday afternoon, Amber was in her bedroom, when she heard the housekeeper talking in a low voice but she couldn't hear anyone else in the house but herself and the housekeeper.   Amber crept out of her room and  quietly went down to the middle of the steps and tried to understand the words. 

The housekeeper was kneeling down in front of a small picture of Jesus that was sitting on a coffee table and her head was bowed.   Amber distinctly heard "Little Amber" amongst the words and then "that poor child who is suffering"

Amber looked at the housekeeper in wonderment as she imagined the words of the prayer being folded up into a paper airplane that was sent floating into the sky towards the God in Heaven.

What good it would do, she didn't know.  From what she gathered in church,  God only cared about the pretty little Amber in the yellow dress that remained silent as doll in a china cabinet staring out into space wishing for a way out.

Amber climbed the stairs to her bedroom,.but happened to notice that her aunt's bedroom had been left open.  She almost tripped on the clothes that had been piled up near the door and there more bottles lying on the floor and it smelled really bad.

She turned to leave the room,. trying her best not to gag on the scent when a newspaper clipping on the desk,. caught her attention. 

The clipping had a picture of Amber's mother and father and the title stated that both had died in a traffic accident.  Amber’s cheeks started to feel warm as lump started forming in her throat and then she read a the part of the story that said they had died childless.  How could this be true?

Amber looked down and glanced at her reflection in a small hand mirror that was on the floor and saw a porcelain face, eyes that were wide and perpetually open.

“But, but, but….”, she tried to say but no words came out 

As the hours past, her aunt was due to come back home so the housekeeper put the finishing touches to her cleaning.  She found little.Amber in the bedroom and picked her up, wondering how she could've gotten there.   and put her in her usual spot in the china cabinet and made sure she could face the sunrise the next day.