Alyssia the Rose

As I get wheeled out of the house, the smell of something fresh. Something I only dreamed of smelling, let alone seeing, was in perfect view outside of the house. Flowers. Dozens upon dozens of flowers. All different colors and smells hit me as soon as we get past the door frame. Green. Overwhelming shades of green. The color I had come to associate with the smell of crayons and the feel of markers is becoming real life. Tangible things I can taste, smell, and see. 

The wheels of the wheelchair get caught often, but the man wheeling me navigates around the big cracks in the pavement. I look up and I see the man who has held me for so many years, hurt me for so many years, being put into a police car. I reach up and run a hand through my long hair, annoyed when it, again, comes out in my hand. 

“Has that been happening a lot?” asks the lady who is walking next to the wheelchair I’m in. I nod, not daring to open my mouth, fearing that the tears that I have felt being built up in my eyes would be released. Josh hated me crying. I would always get hit or he would do bad stuff to me when I cried. I still have the scars on my back and butt from when my sister died. She got really sick with something he called “sifilis”. He says that’s what I have too. When he unlocked the door and came downstairs and saw that I hadn’t moved for the third day in a row, he decided it was time to call a doctor. 

The doctor, Dr. Cotts figured out something was wrong when I looked so awed to be upstairs in the house. She called someone and they came to say hi to Josh and when they asked where I was, he showed them and they called the police. It was the lady next to me and the policeman pushing my wheelchair that came first. The man put these things on Josh’s wrists and pushed him against a wall. The lady came down to me. When I told her that I couldn’t move, she called an “ambulance”.

Josh used to want me to call him Daddy, but I never did. He would hit me every time I said no, but eventually he stopped trying. After a while I started to forget who my real daddy was. I forgot his voice, then how he looked, then his name. But I never forgot mine. Alyssia. Josh always tried to call me Rose. I let him, but when I talked to my sisters, I always had them call me my real name. Only they were allowed to know, but I also remember my second name. Robertson. Josh hated the idea that he would get caught, so when he brought us outside, he covered our eyes with shirts and kept us in the back of the truck under an old desk that stayed under a blanket. 

Finally being outside, along with my sisters walking beside me, Flora holding my hand, makes me want to cry. Flora is the youngest. She came out of me. A few years ago, I got really really sick, and my belly got really really big, and she came out of me. Josh told me it was my sister, though I always remembered my mommy, my real mommy, telling me about me coming out of her tummy. So once Flora got older, I had her call me mommy when no one was listening. But when Josh was with us, like for dinner or for bad girl time, we called each other sisters. 

Finally we got to a big white and red van. There are doors on the back of it that are wide open. The two people that were waiting by the van come over and pick me out of the wheelchair by my arms and the man behind me grabs my legs, which I still can’t feel, and puts me on a big bed. Flora starts to cry.

“Mommy!” She calls. I look up at the man carrying my right arm and ask him a question.

“Can she come with us?” I ask. He looks at her, then back at me and nods. The lady reaches down and picks her up, like I do when she cries, and puts her on my lap. Flora lays down and I brush her hair out of her face and start to sing our song to her. 

So you can keep me

Inside the pocket of your ripped jeans

Holding you closer till our eyes meet. 

Something that my mommy always used to sing to me when I was scared. Flora sucks on her thumb and curls up next to me. I finish the song and start to doze off. The last thing I hear is...

“I love you, mommy.” a saying that I used to tell only my sisters and now only tell to Flora. As everything goes black, I’m suddenly in a Dairy Queen. I’m in my last memory with my real mommy and daddy that I ever had. Mommy is sitting across from me, and we are sipping out of a cup in the middle of the table. There is a big ice cream next to me with bananas in it. Daddy had just gone to the bathroom. I reach over and swipe a finger on the ice cream next to me and put the finger in my mouth.

“Don’t tell Daddy!” I say to my real mommy. She looks up at me from the cup on the table and smiles. 

“I won't, little duck.” She says. We sit there, sipping out of the cup and knocking our legs back and forth under the table until Daddy comes back. Once he sits down, I lay my head down on his shoulder, wrapping my arms around him, and I squeeze him really tight.

“I love you Daddy. I love you Mommy.” I say. They both smile at me. I turn my head. And look out the window. And see Flora, me, Mommy, and Daddy all together sitting at that table. Then everything goes black once more, forever.