Tell Her a Story

Justine wanted me to read her a story.

She sat on the floor, crosslegged, nibbling on an arrowroot cookie. She was 7, a little too old for baby cookies. For whatever reason, these were what she wanted, when I babysat. She looked up at me, her mother's eyes peering out from within them. The cookie disappeared, finally.

"D'you want another one?" I asked, dangling one above her head. She raised her pudgy little hands up – babyfat hadn't settled yet – nodding. She hadn't said a damn thing since Lara had died; losing her mother so early had really hit her hard. Justine had some sort of autism; still being determined as to which one, at the time. She had little silent temper-tantrums, throwing stuff around the house. That was always weird – silent anger. I never see that in kids. I liked to think it was rage over being an orphan. Being alone in the world. Her dipshit father had ran off to Cuba, to go be a revolutionary, or some nonsense. He always meant well, but he never was helpful in the right places.

Justine took the cookie. Putting it in her mouth, she let it soften. She stuck the goopy remains out on her tongue at me.

"If you're gunna do that, I ain't gunna read you Merlin."

Her eyes widened. Oh no--!

"C'mon; let's go sit on the bed, hm?"

I lifted my fat ass off the floor, Justine following suit. I shifted weight from one leg to another, until I made it to the bed. Justine hopped up on the bed ahead of me, I sat down beside her. She practically broke out in to tremors of excitement. Merlin was her favorite character just now. Lara had kept her collection of VHSes, so Justine found her way in to watching The Sword in the Stone until the tape wore out. Good thing about it being a Disney – it was coming out on DVD, ASAP. Not that Justine would care about format. She'd be careful enough with it, as careful as a klutzy 7-year old gets. The disc would get scratched. It would get resurfaced. Rinse, repeat.

She grunted at me – our communication was mostly gestures and grunts with her. "Yes, yes: Merlin."

I opened the well-thumbed book. The pictures greeted Justine, as they had every night for the last month.

At least she couldn't ask me about her mother; I was thankful for that much. What would I tell her? Lara had been a wild one, getting pregnant with Justine at an early age. Drugs took her away from us.

I can't imagine telling Justine someday that we found her mom in a puddle of her own puke.

Or that she was in the same room, asleep; she was extracted easily, seeing as she sleeps like the fuckin' dead.

At least she won't remember that part.