Текст книги "Stain"

Автор книги: Francette Phal

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STAIN

Francette Phal

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher.

WARNING: This book contains graphic content which may not be suitable for sensitive readers.

Are you born with your demons? Sentient beings created from the very second of your inception. Or are they produced through experiences, molded and fed by time, dormant but vigorously flourishing inside the dark catacombs of your repressed memories until they become too much to ignore? Enlighten me, because my demons have become my neighbors. They’ve landed like pilgrims inside the New World of my being, settled there long before I knew their intention. They’ve consummated with my fear to create fictitious children that feel like relatives. They’re thriving in my bones, their lineage carved so deeply into the fibers of my being, nothing can uproot them now.   -Aylee Bennett

Chapter 1

Maddox

Before…

“Maddox…wake up.” I’m not sleeping. I don’t really sleep well anymore.

“Max…” I open my eyes and stare into darkness. My night-light burned out last week. I forgot to tell my mom to get me a new one. I wasn’t scared of the dark or anything, not like Noah is, but I’ve gotten used to having it on. We live with a monster.

I blink a few times to get my eyes to adjust before sitting up. It’s not pitch-black. The little bit of muted gray moonlight filtering through the curtains in my room lets me see Noah standing next to my bed. He looks scared, and I’m instantly on alert.

“Did he do something?” I brace myself for an answer I don’t want to hear but already know. If the monster preyed on my brother, it was only a matter of time before he came for me. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s always worked.

He shakes his head. “No, I haven’t seen him since…dinner.”

The pause shows he’s reliving what happened at dinner. Our mother took most of our father’s beatings. Tonight, it’d been bad. The worst in a long time. She’d needed to go to a hospital. Our father ended up calling the family doctor instead. Dr. Houston has treated all of us on various occasions. Our father pays him a lot of money to keep his mouth shut.

“What’s the matter then?”

“Didn’t you hear it?”

I stare blankly at him. “Hear what?”

POP!

POP!

POP!

The three rapid pops are muffled but clear enough that we hear it down the hall from our parents’ room. Sounds like fireworks, but we’re not stupid enough to actually believe that’s what they are. Sliding my blanket off, I swing my legs over the bed and hop off. It could be Mom. The thought causes my heart to lurch painfully against my chest. I hope it’s not her. She’s dealt with enough for the night. But hope is a luxury that has never benefited anyone in this family. I know, with dreaded certainty, that he’s done something to her. Sidestepping Noah, I rush to the other side of my bedroom. I kneel down in front of my dresser and pull open the last drawer. Removing the drawer completely, I place it next to me and reach inside the empty space. There’s a short, loose floorboard farther back, but still within my reach. My fingernails scrape the floor in an effort to get it to open. I’m a little anxious, so it takes me a few tries before I finally catch the opening. Setting the plank aside, my hand plunges inside the small opening. Cold metal greets my palm and fingertips as I pull it up to view.

“You have a gun? Where’d you get that?” Noah exclaims. He’s hovering over me, standing just to my left shoulder, close enough that I can feel his warmth on my back.

“A friend,” I say, my eyes locked on the weapon I’m holding. I got it from a kid at school two weeks ago. Five hundred dollars it cost me. I’d intended on saving that money to give to Mom so we could get the fuck out of this hellhole, but self-preservation pushed me to get the gun. I could protect Noah and Mom. That had been the only thought running through my mind when I’d bought it. It’s a .45. I don’t know what that means, but I’m both terrified and exhilarated having it in my hand. The weight is oddly comforting. I feel instantly powerful. Invincible.

“What are you going to do with it?” He’s dogging my footsteps as I make my way out of my room and step into the hallway. It’s brighter here than it is in my bedroom, but not by much. The light located directly over the staircase—straight down the hall—is on. It’s the only source of light. The green, worn-out carpet eats up the sound of my bare footsteps, but I’m not trying to be silent. I’m not trying to be careful. I might regret it later. He’ll probably beat me into the ground for being out of bed this late at night, for interfering into matters he would say weren’t my concern, but if he’s hitting her again, I have to do something. I won’t be a pussy like I was earlier tonight. I should’ve stood up to him when he’d started yelling. I should’ve done more than just sit in my chair and listen to him rage. Mom received his violence because she’d dared to put her foot down. For just a small second she’d grown a backbone and told him off. And in those small seconds I’d been so proud of her, and so in awe of her courage I’d wanted so badly to stand at her side and provide her the strength I know she needed. I wouldn’t have done much. I’m only twelve and barely weigh anything. But at least we would’ve stood in solidarity. I’d done it before. I don’t know why I hadn’t tonight. Even when his Hiroshima-sized rage detonated, obliterating my mother in the process, I knew I should’ve done something. I would fix that now. If he was hitting her…I’ll kill him.

“Protect us,” I finally answer.

I lengthen my strides, practically jogging now. I’m at their bedroom door before I can fully process my next thought. The door’s closed. A slight turn of the knob and small push opens it. There is something ominous in the air, and it’s so thick it makes it hard to breath. With the gun held firmly in my sweaty grip, I enter the room cautiously. The television they’ve put on their dresser is on; it’s on mute. It flickers whitish blue images from the screen onto the walls and furniture in the room, casting shadows. There’s no other source of light. I know Noah is right behind me, but it doesn’t lessen the dread swishing in my veins. My muscles are tight, my heart isn’t racing but the beats are inconsistent, throbbing to the rhythm of fear I know all too well. Stubbornness pulls me further into the room as my eyes dart around in search of my mom, or worse—my dad. There isn’t the usual chaos. No overturn furniture. No broken fixtures. No shattered bones. No crying. It’s quiet. Chillingly quiet. I raise the gun up when my eyes land on the mattress. It’s dad. My hand is shaking so badly I have to bring up my other hand to steady my aim. I approach the queen-sized bed he’s lying on.

“Is he sleeping?” Noah asks in a whisper, forever my shadow.

I don’t know. It looks like he is. He’s on his stomach, arms at his side, face buried in the mattress. There is a 50/50 percent chance he could be drunk or high, maybe even both. But when my eyes take in the dark pool on his pillow haloing his head I’m almost sure he’s neither of those things.

Fathers are supposed to protect you. They’re supposed to be supportive and loyal. They’re supposed to raise you, love you, and cherish you in spite of the mistakes you’re bound to make. They’re supposed to teach you lessons, steer you down the right path, discipline you when you do wrong, and allow you to learn from their examples. Our dad is none of those things. He is cruel and sadistic. There was no love to be found in a man like him. A man who is more demon than flesh and blood. He preys on us, feeds off of the fear he elicits like we are his own personal supply of food. His forms of affections are exhibited through fists like battering rams on fragile bones. My mother, my brother, and myself—no one is spared. No one is above his contempt. But in my opinion, the violence is far better than the perversions he forces us to commit. In the cellar, in a room that is as cold as a tomb, beneath scorching stage lights bright enough to blind there is a bed, a camera, and at times, my twin and I. He’s stripped us of so much more than our clothes. I shake my head to get rid of the disturbing images that pop up in my mind.

I look at him, stare unblinkingly at his body lying in a dark pool of his own blood. There’s no sorrow. No happiness. Not even a sliver of hate. I feel nothing for this man who’d emptied his dick inside my mom twelve years ago and contributed to mine and Noah’s conception. He means nothing to me. He’s never meant anything to me. The fact he’s dead is a huge favor on humanity. Good fucking riddance.

“Max…?”

I lower my gun. There’s no need for it now. “He’s dead.” There’s no sense of relief with that statement. But I frown as questions suddenly flood my mind. Is this a murder/suicide? Where is Mom? Is she…dead, too?

It’s the sound of water in the silence that has me racing for the bathroom connected to their bedroom. There’s a slice of yellow-orange light beneath the door that grows wider when I open it. The running water is coming from the bathtub, and it’s filled to the brim, overflowing on the tiled floor. She’s in there, lying in the tub, the water overtaking her pale, frail body. She’s naked so I can see the rainbow of purple, green, and pale yellow bruises mapped across her skin. Her arms are on each side of the tub, and in one hand she limply holds onto a gun. The gun she more than likely used to kill that predatory fuck.

“Mom,” Noah beats me in calling her name, the distress in his voice echoing my own silent one.

“Don’t come any closer,” she warns, her voice thin. She keeps her eyes closed and her head back against the tub. “Maddox?”

“Yes, Mom?”

She sighs, says nothing for a long time before finally speaking. “You’re the oldest. I pushed you out first. Three minutes before Noah came.” She sounds strange. It’s not just the weak whisper of her voice, but there’s something about it I can’t name. It makes her sound far away. Her body is physically here but her mind isn’t. I can’t blame her. She’s had to live with that fucker far longer than we did. Fifteen years of marriage to a monster was bound to take its toll.

Turning her head towards us now, her deep blue eyes open to look at me and Noah. The right one is swollen shut but the left is open enough to focus on us. “You were the stronger one. You’ve always been the stronger one...” Her voice catches like she’s going to cry. Like she’s been crying.

Depression.

That’s what that nameless something in her voice is. It’s her depression making itself known. She’s been on a cocktail of meds since I can remember, maybe even when she was pregnant with us. Xanax, Prozac, Lexapro, Lithium, the list goes on and on. They line the medicine cabinet behind me. All on very high dosages. I’ve taken some. Not for me, but to sell. That five hundred dollars I used to buy the gun came from selling her meds to the kids at school. There was a high demand for it, so I supplied it. That included mine and Noah’s Ritalin.

“I need you to continue being the stronger one, Max. You need to protect your brother. Keep him safe…like you’ve kept him safe all this time from your…from that monster.” There’s anger beneath the tears choking her. “I’ve failed you both for so long. I let him do things to you. God, what sort of mother am I to let all those things happen to you? My sweet, sweet boys. I’m so sorry I’ve failed you...I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry…” Sobs shake her body as she brings the hand carrying the gun to her head. I frown and watch her repeatedly hit the side of her head with it.

Noah moves ahead of me, running towards her, “Mom…”

“No!”

Her yell stops him in his tracks.

“My baby...my gentle, little Noah. Don’t…don’t come near me. I don’t want to taint you any more than we already have. Sweet little lamb. I’m so sorry, my child…”

“Mom, please.” Noah’s crying. A part of me wants to tell him to grow the fuck up. But I don’t. I don’t say anything.

“…I know it’s not much...” she sniffs, her eyes and cheeks as wet as the flooded floor. “I know it will never erase the scars. But…but he won’t hurt you boys anymore. And neither will I...”

Time moves slowly and then stops. She brings the gun to her mouth, closes her lips around it, and pulls the trigger. The blast sounds like thunder. It’s so loud it shakes the air around us. I watch in horror as her head comes apart. What was inside splatters and explodes everywhere, coating and spraying everything with brain matter, shattered bones, and blood. So much blood. It paints the wall behind her. I feel some of it hit my skin. There’s a sound so clear it manages to cut through the stillness. It’s Noah. He’s in the tub with her, his head is on her naked chest. Her body is slumped over, her head too. There’s a hole in it; the bullet made a clean exit. He’s bawling. I should get him out. I should comfort him. But I do neither of those things. I leave him alone. I let him grieve and head back into the bedroom. Something in the back of my mind tells me I should be crying, too. Nothing comes, except the sudden need to pee. I walk toward the bed, hop onto it, and stand over his body.

My gun still in hand, I pull down my pajama bottoms with the other, until they gather around my knees. I grab my dick with my left hand and aim for his head, and breathe out, “Fucker,” as hot piss sprays up and down his body until I’m done. But it’s suddenly not enough. This is too good for him. She gave him too easy of an escape. Tugging my pants back on, I get a stronger grip on my gun. It’s loaded. I’ve been practicing. After school, in the forest behind the old nursing home on Felton I’ve unloaded several clips in soda cans. I slide the safety off, and grip the gun so tightly, my entire hand turns white from the strain. Arms steady, breath slow, I aim the barrel down, in the vicinity of his ass, and without much thought, I fire. And fire. And fire. And fire. The force of each shot shakes my body, but I keep my hold firm, following through with each release of the trigger. It’s not until I hear the screaming over the click-click-click that I finally stop. I’m out of bullets. The screaming…I’m screaming. There are no tears. Just a terrible scream that comes from deep inside me, shredding my throat in its escape. It takes Noah’s arms around my middle, his head resting on my back, to make me stop.

“It’s over…” he says. “He can’t hurt us anymore. It’s over, Max.”

It would be so easy to believe him. Buy into the lie he weaves so well. But that’s always been Noah’s problem. He can escape inside his fantasies. He can make his own lies sound like truths. It’s the way he’s been able to cope. Me? I’ve never been so lucky. My beliefs are firmly fixed in reality. A shitty, fucked-up reality that I’ve never been able to run from. He says it’s over. It’s just the fucking beginning. This shit is going to be with us for the rest of our lives. Our father’s evil, our mother’s suicide, it all contributes to a stain we’ll never be able to wash off.

Chapter 2

Aylee

 

Now…

Secrets are dangerous to keep. They rot you from the inside out. Every dark secret one harbors is a colony of millions of white little maggots crawling and burrowing inside the valleys and caverns of your being. Multiplying, procreating, and eating away at you until everything you thought you were disappears, leaving nothing but a shell behind. That’s what I am. A shell. A husk of the girl I could’ve been. Vibrant, ambitious, outgoing. I could’ve been a happy, well-adjusted teenager. But the secrets I’ve harbored for so long now have leeched life from my soul, turning me into this lifeless girl. Of course, I live; the heart beating steadily in my chest tells me so. The tiny little breaths I take, the blood pumping through my veins, the unbroken stream of thoughts are all reminders I live. And yet, they mean so little when you’re alive but not living. I’m as good as dead on the inside.

The water feels good pelting down on my bowed head, and it’s hot enough to bring a dark red flush to my skin. But I don’t mind it. It doesn’t hurt. It’s a crude form of what I really want to do, anyway. Not as effective, but it helps. For now…it helps. I’m not sure how long I’ve been standing in the shower. Probably long enough to make me look like a raisin, but I’m not ready to leave yet. It’s taken me a long time to earn back this little bit of privacy, so I intend to enjoy the little bit of time I have left. The bathroom is one of the only places in the house I have that’s mine, one of the only places I can be alone for a moment. But being alone sometimes isn’t such a good thing. Not for me. Being alone puts my thoughts into overdrive, and when they go into overdrive it leads me to doing things that aren’t particularly healthy. And just like that, the temperature of the water isn’t enough anymore. I want something else with a little more bite to it. The all too familiar itch I’ve battled with for so long creeps up my spine, like a worm wriggling over bruised fruit, searching for a soft spot to burrow itself into yielding flesh. It wants into my brain, into my thoughts, so that it can justify this secret need to hurt myself.

Cut.

Cut.

Repeat.

Cut.

Cut.

Repeat.

Filthy. Girl.

You’re. Not. Clean.

You’ll. Never. Be. Clean. Enough.

The mantra ping-pongs around in my head, bouncing off the walls of my mind with resonating clarity. My chest tightens, my heart quickens, and I gasp for breath as I squeeze my eyes shut and reach blindingly in front of me. One of several coping skills I’ve learned at the clinic immediately comes into play and I cling to it with all my might as I set my wet hands against the white tiled wall in front of me. With bowed head and open mouth, I keep my eyes closed and begin a steady count back from one hundred. Every number is accompanied by a long, even drag of hot wet air into my lungs. Gradually, the itch retreats back into the labyrinth of my mind and I’m safe to return to sanity. Well—my version of sanity. And though relatively calm now, the boom of my heart persists. It’s an insistent, familiar tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump that echoes too loudly between my ears.

It’s not until I hear, “Time’s up, Aylee!” that I realize the banging is coming from the bathroom door. I’m not ready to leave yet. I’m not ready to give up these treasured minutes of privacy, but knowing what will happen if I don’t, my hand flies to the silver dial of the faucet to turn it off. Any trouble I make guarantees his involvement and that’s the last thing I need. Dripping wet, I step out of the tub and reach for the large, white towel hanging from the towel rack. It’s oversized, meant for someone twice my size, but it’s fluffy and newly washed. The fresh, clean scent of fabric softener puts me slightly at ease as I dry myself. There’s no need to linger, no need to let the towel touch me in places I’d rather forget exist. When I’m done, I wrap the towel around my body, stoop down to grab my dirty clothes from where I’d discarded them on the floor, and just as I exit, I drop them inside the tall, beige wicker basket that serves as my hamper. It’s an automatic thing when I head to the bedroom door to make sure the silver lock has been turned vertically. Ensuring that it’s properly locked, I’m a little freer to walk around the room that’s been mine for the last nine years. It hasn’t changed much from since the Bennetts first brought me here to live with them.

The walls are still painted that light peach color Rachel, my foster mother, said she’d picked out just for me because she just knew peach would be my color. It’s not. It never has been. But that first day, that first week, those first few months, even years later, I still tell her it is because the very real fear of being returned to the group home lives and breathes inside me. Another demon to feed on my secrets.

Walking over to the all-white vanity dresser, I pull open the third left bottom drawer containing all my panties. Rachel hasn’t bought me underwear since I was twelve, but she might as well have considering how prominent her taste of style is in the choice of undergarments I’ve bought in recent years. It’s a trove of neutral-colored cotton lace panties. I grab a nude pair and slip them on beneath the towel. It’s not until I retrieve a beige-colored bra from the drawer above the one containing my panties that I finally drop the towel. I turn my back to the mirror as I put on the bra, and without a second glance back, I move to the whitewashed teak armoire set next to my study desk. Opening it, I look at the clothes hanging and neatly folded inside. There isn’t much of a selection. Even the closet adjacent to my bed wouldn’t offer much in a way of variety aside from the long sleeved cardigans, all in neutral colors, the two pairs of jeans, and the long skirts and dresses Rachel insists on buying. It’s not what I would choose for myself, but it’s what I’ve become accustomed to, so I wear them because it’s so much easier than continuing to make a nuisance of myself.

I grab a dove-gray pair of skinny jeans and a black camisole from the folded pile of clothing at the bottom of the armoire. It’s simple and modest; appropriate for church, and best of all, Rachel approved. When I reach inside the armoire for the white, long sleeved cardigan, I stop mid motion as my eyes involuntarily catch the reddish pink scar running jaggedly down my right arm. It stands out the most among a sea of previous little white cuts. And set against the stark background of my fair skin, it looks twice as bad. But it’s not. Forty-five stitches it took to close it back up but the cut isn’t really that deep. Everyone just overreacted to Rachel’s hysterics. She tends to take things to another level when she’s riled up. But then, she doesn’t know the truth. She just thinks it has something to do with my birthparents. An inherited history of mental illness from the people that abandoned me when I was six. It’s better to let her think that. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—handle it if I shattered her idyllic life. Besides, she wouldn’t believe me.

No one will believe you.

It’s your fault.

No one will believe you.

It’s your fault.

No one will believe you.

It’s a refrain that’s been drummed into me for the last nine years. It has bled into my subconscious, the demons taking hold of it, manipulating the tenor of its voice, twisting gin-soaked words that are not my own but my mind has been convinced belong to me.

A frown pulls my eyebrows together as memories I don’t want to remember fight their way to the forefront of my mind. Shaking my head to disperse them doesn’t work as snapshots of memories flash across my mind’s eye. It’s not in order, just a jumble of images. More secrets consummated and birthed in the shadowed darkness of this bedroom. I remember the body fluid, the warm river of blood streaming down my forearm, soaking the area rug of my bedroom. I remember pervasive hands, masculine fingers caressing my sweat-stained skin beneath the comforter. The cloying cologne of too much gin cutting off my breath as he leaned down to—

“Aylee, Mom said to tell you breakfast is getting cold!” The sound of the voice followed by the rapid knocks on the door is a blessed interruption in the flow of memories. Blinking several times to regain lucidity, I hear the retreating hooves of my demons as they drag my secrets back with them to the abyss. For now. It’s always a temporary reprieve, however. They always come back.

I grab the cardigan, slide into it, and without too much hesitation, head to the door to open it. The person on the other side is someone I’m always happy to see. Sarah crosses over the threshold and enters my room. She’s all gangly legs and arms, only eleven and yet she nearly towers over my 5’5 frame. The height is all her father but the thick strawberry blond hair, dark blue eyes, and oval face is all Rachel. Sarah is the child Rachel and Tim wanted but never had until a year after they took me in. Their biological child. My adoptive sister. But she feels like a real sister, because despite the fact that we aren’t related, we have a lot in common. Like the books she’s now perusing on the tall bookshelf by my bed. It’s taken me nearly eighteen years to cultivate my small library of literature, but I’m all too willing to share it with this avid little reader. And it makes me happy knowing that rather than children’s books, Sarah is able to appreciate the likes of Salinger, Steinbeck, and Orwell. I love the moments when I sit with her after she’s done with a book so we can discuss it. She’s a brilliant little girl. She appears happy…well-adjusted. But then an ugly thought creeps into my mind as I watch her. My eyes analytically trail down a coltish frame covered by an ankle-length dress her mother undoubtedly picked out for her, and despite myself I wonder if the happiness she exudes is just a fabricated one. A façade that rivals my own. Are there secrets germinating beneath her freckle-covered skin? Is she just as infested as I am?

It’s not the first time these thoughts have come to mind. I’ve often wondered if the darkness brought the devil to her doorway, too. I was, after all, only a year younger than her when he first visited me. But then I realize I’m not his flesh and blood. I’m just the little girl they adopted. His blooming little flower, even now at the age of eighteen.

“Are you finished with The Great Gatsby?” I ask as a distraction from the visual of my last brief thought continues to conjure in my mind. With my hair still damp, I wonder if it’s worth returning to the vanity to dry it with the blow-dryer that’s plugged in the only convenient outlet in the room. I’ll be forced to look at myself, at my reflection, and though it’s something I want to avoid at all costs, I know Rachel will say something if I go down with damp hair. I want to circumvent any sort of altercation if I can help it.

She turns to me with a dimpled smile, and says, “Almost. But I want to get started on that book you said I’d like.”

“Pride and Prejudice, bottom shelf,” I reply, and cross over to the other side of the room and take hold of the black blow-dryer from the vanity table. “It’s one of my favorites,” I say, mildly.

It seems almost inevitable my eyes should flick across the mirror, forcing me to catch a glimpse of myself. Mismatched eyes; one light blue, the other brownish-green, stare back at me from a dull, oval face, further proof of just how odd I am. I wonder briefly from which parent I inherited these eyes. It’s nothing new. I occasionally think about them, especially times like these when their likeness is reflected back at me through the mirror. The lightness of my skin originates from their combined Creole blood and I’m sure that’s the main reason why Rachel and Tim adopted me. I look like them. My fair skin tone is the closest to theirs. And so it makes things easier for them. Comfortable. More palatable. Never mind that my birth mother was of Cape Verde and Creole descent while my father was a light-skin black man from Louisiana. We don’t talk about these things. Just like we don’t speak of my birth parents’ abandonment, or if they’re dead or alive. My blackness is something they want to pretend doesn’t exist.

I’m not sure how my parents met, but they’d had me young and aside from that I knew nothing else about them. I only learned about their background and my own strictly by accident when I was fourteen. My case file had been hidden in a box in the back of Rachel and Tim’s closet. I’d been helping her clean it out when I found the box. I remember opening it without much thought only to find a small bit of my history and background on the yellowing sheets of papers inside.

Shaking away my thoughts, I find my reflection again. I hate looking at myself because I fear facing the girl staring back. This fragile, spineless ghost of a girl taught to be afraid of her own reflection. I see her now in those heterochromatic eyes. Bronzed brows set just above those eyes, framed by full, black lashes. A small, slightly upturned nose gives the illusion that I think myself better than the world, when in actuality I don’t think very much of myself at all. My mouth forms a grimace at the thought, my self-esteem at an all-time low.

“Got it. Can I take these two also?” Sarah rescues me again from the quagmire of my thoughts and I gratefully turn to her with what I hope is a warm smile. Along with Pride and Prejudice, she holds up another Jane Austen book, Sense and Sensibility.

“Yes, of course. We’ll talk about it when you’re done.”

She smiles brightly, and when she lingers, I realize she’s waiting for me to go downstairs. “You go down first. I’ll be right there, I just have to dry my hair and grab my scriptures.”

She nods. “Just don’t take too long, you know how Daddy gets.” Yes, I do. He’s anal-retentive about most things, and it doesn’t help that his very short fuse goes hand in hand with his neurosis. Being punctual is something he demands of every member of the family, and failing to comply has had adverse effects in the past. The bruises from those mistakes have healed now but they have left ugly scars beneath the surface of my skin. Scars that no one will ever see.

When she leaves she doesn’t close the door behind her, but I won’t be in my room for much longer. Putting the blow-dryer on low, I take hold of the black, wooden back, boar-bristled brush and make short work of drying my hair. It’s roughly twelve minutes later before I set the dryer and brush back down, confident that I’ve taken out every last bit of moisture from the blond strands. It’s not too often that I leave my hair unbound and today won’t be any different as I section it in two parts and go to work on plaiting one side and then the other into my customary French braids. Tying the end of each braid with a clear elastic band from the container closest to the mirror, they hang like two golden ropes down my back. Stepping away from the vanity with the knowledge I look as I’ve always looked, plain, modest, and inconspicuous, I head to my bookshelf to find my scriptures, notebook, and sketchpad. My beige canvas bag and book bag are flopped along the side of my study desk, exactly where I left them the night before. Grabbing my canvas bag, I set my bible, notebook, and sketchpad inside, along with my dark gray charcoal case holder. With any luck I can sneak away during church to get some sketching done.