The good news is there's still time to send me something for this week(and if you want to get it to me quicker, send it here: marcy@tidewater.net with UB in the subject line). Otherwise I'll have to subject you to the rest of Chapter One...and we don't want that, now do we?
Chapter One – Peace
Everything was the same when
she got back. Not that she’d expected it to be different but still…it was
disappointing. She hadn’t even gotten three steps inside the door before her
dad disappeared into his study. The door closed with a click behind him.
Peace sighed and
went out back and down to the cellar where the washer and dryer were. She
emptied out all her dirty clothes from camp and set the washer. Then she went
upstairs to her room in the attic.
She was supposed
to have shared it with her twin sister. Forgiveness. That was going to be her
name. They were a matching pair: Peace and Forgiveness.
“You mean like a
set of chairs at a dining room table,” she’d asked her dad once.
He’d looked at her
for a while before answering. “No,” he said. “Not like that at all.” He
disappeared into his study before she could say anything else.
Sometimes she
hated him for that. His disappearing acts. His absence. His lack of anything
approaching parenting skills. And even though she didn’t mind as much being
overlooked now, it had hurt when she was little.
Peace took a
shower in the bathroom she would’ve shared with her sister. She had asked if
they were identical but her father said he didn’t know and supposedly her
mother had died along with her twin. He wouldn’t say much more and as there
were no other living relatives to ask, Peace made up her own answers to all the
questions she had.
She decided that
her sister did not look like her, but was in fact fair-haired and blue-eyed,
just the opposite of her. She imagined how pretty they would be together – day
and night – and all the secrets they would share. That’s what sisters did. They
talked about everything.
There was a period
where Peace pretended that Forgiveness hadn’t died. She would talk to her as if
she were alive, tell her how awful their father was, how cold. She even told
people she had a sister – something she had never done before – and the school
had contacted her father.
After that, she
didn’t mention Foregiveness anymore, but she still talked to her.
“How can he be so
nice to all the people at Church and then treat us as if we don’t exist.”
Of course, that
wasn’t strictly true. There was always food in the fridge, cash in the kitty,
and a few set times each day in which she could count on being able to see him,
speak with him if necessary. One was at breakfast and the other at supper. Not
that they ever ate together, but he always microwaved something around six
every morning and night. And of course she could always see him at Church on
Sunday – if she wanted to go listen to him. Not.
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