And now for something different. Lucinda is my first completed novella. I am going to share it chapter by chapter. Trigger warning: there is physical abuse in this story. Please do not read it if it that will bring you any harm.

Lucinda

Chapter One: The Question

The year was 1957. It was a scorching hot summer. I can remember every little detail; see it as clearly as if I were staring at my own reflection, pondering it, contemplating my inner soul. The heat of the sun seemed oppressive, the air thick with tension, desire and with something that I could not quite put my finger on. It was the summer I turned sixteen, the dream year of any young girl’s existence when all things good are supposed to happen as if your Fairy Godmother swooped down upon you and granted your every wish.

I remember sitting by the lake, watching my brothers, one older and one younger, casting their long fishing poles into the water, sending ripples splattering off into the distance. Looking over beyond the farm, I could see my father walking through the cornfields. He looked like something out of a movie in his overalls and big, wide farmer’s hat. I sat on the swing, my bare feet dangling below me. I was wearing a plain cotton dress, a faded print of blue flowers. My mother would have said the dress was “serviceable.” She meant that it was as good as anything to wear around the farm, good as anything to get your chores done in and then to bask in the setting sun of the day.

I laid back in the swing, reveling in the innocence of youth. It seemed to me that something was in the air, something that would change my life forever, but I didn’t know what it was. Jess, that was my older brother, ran past me, his fish dangling from the line behind him. The smell was noxious. He tweaked my red braid as he went past, “Hey sis!” he called, “Seems like someone was blessed by the Titty Fairy this summer!”

I sat up quickly, enraged by his remark, and with all of the air of an indignant young woman that I could muster, I yelled back, “Don’t you wish Cindy Lou had been!” Cindy Lou was his girlfriend and I didn’t like her one bit. She was fast, a bottle-blonde with huge doe eyes. All of the guys fell for her. She was the head cheerleader. Well, they belonged together I suppose. He was the captain of the football team. He had all the brawn and was lacking all the couth and brains that holding that position entailed.

Steve, my younger brother, whom I adored, hung back awhile gathering up his pole and his fish. “Sissy,” he said, reverting to the old nickname he had used for me since he started to talk on his first birthday five years ago, “What’s a Titty Fairy? Is she like the tooth fairy and will she visit me soon?”

“Lord, I hope not child! And don’t you let mamma and poppa catch you talking bout her you hear?” I told him in my best southern drawl and leapt off of the swing to help him gather up his treasures. “Let’s take these fish on up to momma, she’s gonna be so proud of you.” I told him as I ruffled his carrot orange hair. And the smile on his face, going from freckle to freckle told me that the praise I heaped at him had hit its mark, right to his little heart.

As we started up towards the house, I saw a truck rumbling in the distance. It was kicking dirt up in its wake as it traveled at an accelerated speed down the old dirt road. Self-conscious now of my dress, I gathered the material around my chest a little closer, hoping that whoever was coming would not notice the span of the buttons. When I saw that the truck was a cherry red in color, a 1955 Ford Pickup, I knew it could belong to only one person, Tom Graham, star quarterback on our school’s football team and Jess’ best friend. I smoothed my hair back in place, without even knowing that I was doing it. I licked my lips and pulled Steven along at a quicker pace hoping to get to the house before Jess jumped in the truck and left. Steve looked at me; his eyes were all-knowing. Some days it seemed that the soul of a ninety-year-old man lurked inside that little boy’s body.

“Awww, shoot sissy, what are you hurrying to see him for? He’s a thug just like Jess and you could catch someone a lot better then him.”

“Hush little man, don’t you go talking bout things you know nothing about,” I said to him and left him to deal with his fishing pole as I ducked in the back door of the house to peek in the mirror before I innocently wandered out on the front porch.

The reflection that looked back at me was okay I suppose. My hair was in place, mostly. The rays of the sun had kissed my cheeks. I deliberately undid the first three buttons on my dress, deciding that maybe the Titty Fairy coming to visit me this summer was not a bad thing after all. I meandered out to the front of the house, looking as preoccupied as I could, as if looking for something but not quite expecting it to be where I was.

“Howdy Cinderella,” said a deep voice with the finest southern twang you could ever imagine. Oh how I hated that nickname! You see, my name was Lucinda, after my grandma. I preferred to be called by that name alone and if you had to shorten it at all, Lucy was the name I liked. But my brother, the reprobate, called me Cindy or Cinder for as long as anyone cared to notice and that of course, led to Cinderella. I was no fairy-tale princess and so I detested the nickname, but somehow when Tom Graham said it, it just didn’t seem so bad. I looked up at him, a smile playing on my lips, my eyelashes fluttering.

“Howdy Tom,” I said back to him and flashed a smile at the boy that was with him. I didn’t know the other guy but he resembled Tom in some ways. He had the same ash-blonde hair and the same blue eyes. There was something different about his eyes though. They were somehow more piercing then Tom’s, as if they saw right through me and saw the game that I was playing.

I was new to the whole flirting game. My friends had been playing it for a few years, but I was a late bloomer. I had just recently noticed that there was something about the opposite sex that was intriguing. Something that made my heart skip a few beats when I was around them. Something that made me want to get to know them all a little better. There was nothing about the guys that were my age that caught my attention though. My brother’s friends seemed worldlier, more knowledgeable. Tom was no exception to the rule. Oh, I knew he was a jock like Jess, but he seemed so nice.

Jess bounded out of the house, resembling an overgrown puppy. He was all arms and legs and they never seemed to go in the same direction at once. He looked at me and laughed, “Might wanna button up that dress, Cinder, before you catch your death out here!” he teased as he gave a high-five to Tom and a nod to the other gentleman. Tom looked at me and laughed and the other boy just stared at me, his eyes twinkling in merriment but not laughing at me. I could feel the heat rise to my cheeks. I looked around for something, anything to throw at my dear brother, but by the time I raised the water ladle in my hand, the truck was pulling out of our drive and into some unforeseen adventure.

That summer continued much the same way as that. I looked out for my younger brother, making up for some of the attention my parents could not seem to give him; Jess picking on me day in and day out; and me, trying to overcome that shy awkward stage that accompanies any young girl’s departure from the innocence of childhood to the delightful blossoming seeds of womanhood. But still it was there, something that I could not identify. It was as if I knew that there was an imbalance in our happiness. I was constantly on edge. You know the feeling don’t you? The feeling that everything is perfect and something just has to mess it up, and if not, you’re bound to make yourself do something wrong, just so you can end that awful dread you’ve been having.

Then it was there, the anxiety at an end, the wonder all gone. I woke up one morning and my life was altered, changed forever in an instant. It was a warm Sunday in the end of July. I woke up to find Stevie sitting on my bed, his eyes red from crying. His cheek was blotched, swollen with the mark of a handprint. I pulled him to me, my concern and anger growing in equal gales as I held the sobbing, shivering body close to mine. “Who did this to you? Who hurt you honey?” I asked him quietly, my hands running over and over his hair, smoothing it out as if I could wipe away all of the pain with my small, comforting motions.

“D … D … Da … Dadddddddy …” he stammered. I looked at him incredulously. Daddy had never struck any of us, not ever. He just didn’t believe in it. Even at our worst, and Jess and I were hellions at times, he never raised his hands to us.

“Why? Why did daddy hit you? What happened?”

“Nothing happened sissy, honest, I didn’t do anything. I just asked him a question.”

“What did you ask him Steve?” I threw the question at him with an abruptness that startled both of us, because I could taste the bitter fear growing inside of me as I awaited his answer. I was afraid I already knew what Steven would say, but I had to hear him say it.

“All I asked him was … sniff … sniff … “Where’s Momma?”

“Where’s Momma?” The question echoed in my head over and over again. I knew that everything was too perfect … or was it? Looking back I guess you could say all of the signs were there. Momma was never really happy here, not really. Sure, she put on a false smile, but when we moved to the farm right before Steven was born, it was like she became an empty shell of her former self. There was a skeleton rambling around our house in Momma’s skin but there was no soul there, no enjoyment, and no love. It was all gone. I guess Jess and I both knew it, but we didn’t want to see it. And Stevie, well he was too young to know any other mom than that. I was more a mother to him those six years then Momma ever was. I don’t know why Daddy didn’t see it. Or maybe, like us, he just chose not to. I knew they didn’t seem to talk much after we moved out here and you would rarely see them kissing and hugging like they did once. So it should have been no surprise to any of us that she packed up all of her stuff and took off one night. It shouldn’t have been, but it was. It struck us like a wrecking ball hits an old dilapidated building, tearing us all apart in one humongous blow.