It was the fifteenth of March the day real trouble started. It was a gray, cold day in Fremont, Indiana. Rain spattered against the dirty snow piled at the curbs, melting it and washing it into the flooded storm drains. That’s the reason Mavis Zachary got off work just a little after two from her waitress job at Pink’s Restaurant. There were no customers. The restaurant and the motel attached were named after Mr. Harris, the man who owned it. He had been dubbed "Pink" when he was a kid. He had light red hair, so light red that it was almost pink. The restaurant and everything inside the restaurant was pink, even Mavis’s uniform. Rex, her husband, said she only worked to humiliate him.
“I’ll stop working when you make enough money to take care of us,” she said. Of course, it wasn't her fault that she had to work. She only took the job after he hurt his back so badly that he wasn’t able to work anymore.
She went to work at four o'clock in the afternoon and worked until midnight except for every other Saturday when she had to work day shift. Today was her Saturday to work. It had been a long week. Another bad day, another bad week. No customers, no tips. She sighed and wondered if things were ever going to get better. A quick look at the clock told her there were still two hours before she could go home. She glanced at Gina Kendall, her co-worker and her best friend. Gina, a plump, aging blond in her late forties, stood with one hand on her hip, a cleaning cloth dangling from the other. They could always find cleaning to do when it wasn’t busy. Pink demanded it, really. Recently, the whole place was shining.
“Would it be alright if I go home now?” Mavis asked with a sigh, hoping Gina would say it’s okay.
“Do you see anybody in here? It’s not likely we’re going to get mobbed this late in the day!” Gina rubbed at an invisible spot on the counter top. “Pink will come out and help if it gets too busy, which I seriously doubt.”
“Thank you. Well, I guess I’ll see you on Monday then.”
“You have a good weekend,” Gina said. She turned and busied herself with merging the half empty ketchup bottles.
Mavis walked around the long pink counter and down the pink hallway towards the pink locker room. Her feet hurt and she could feel tension building up between her shoulder blades. She changed from her work shoes into her loafers and wondered whether Rex, her husband, would be in a good mood. Their home life consisted of a montage of loud late-night violent spats and police calls that drained her energy and kept her from sleeping. But, please God, not tonight. She was just too tired and discouraged to fight tonight.
The rain changed from a pelting storm to a steady, miserable drizzle that clouded the windshield as she drove along the interstate. It was a forty-five minute drive even in good weather from Fremont to Aniston, Indiana where she lived. She stopped at the local Sack N Save Market to buy groceries before going home. Peanut butter and jelly, God, it seemed those kids ate a gallon of peanut butter and jelly and a bread truck full of bread each week.
The garage door was half open as she pulled up into the driveway. Her kids had ridden their tricycles right on that very driveway and sidewalk. They had watched the tree in the front yard grow from a tiny sapling to a towering oak. It wasn’t such a bad house, but it was small and for many years had needed work. Not much chance of Rex doing it now. She paid a neighborhood boy to shovel the snow in winter and mow the lawn in the summer. She got out and walked around her old weather beaten Chevy, opened the trunk and picked up the two bags of groceries and walked into the garage.
The tiny body of her five year old daughter lay in a widening pool of blood with her lifeless face pointed upward. Marianne, her eleven year old daughter, stood looking down at her sister, a bloodied claw hammer clenched in her hand. Campbell’s soup cans rolled in all directions, Swanson’s TV dinners clattered to the floor, and a box of tampons fell and bounced as she dropped both bags of groceries she had been carrying. “Oh, my God! Marianne, what have you done?”
Marianne turned to face her mother and the red handled, slippery hammer clattered onto the floor into the pool of blood. “Mommy! I didn’t do it!” Marianne ground her teeth together. A habit she had picked up from her stepfather.
Mavis leaned over her youngest daughter’s body. “Shelby! Shelby, my God,”
“I’ll wake her up,” Marianne said and started for the small body. Her cheek was smeared with blood. “No!” Mavis cried. She stood up and with a hand to her oldest daughter’s chest, pushed her violently away. “Get away from me,” she snarled. She leaned over her youngest daughter again and felt for a pulse. “Is she dead?” Marianne asked. Mavis moved quickly to the garage phone, dialed 911, then turned and leaned down to hold her youngest daughter’s hand.
A siren sounded in the distance and Mavis looked up. A man and a woman in dark blue jump suits ran in. They had gotten there in less than five minutes. They opened a square silver colored box and pulled out a small plastic ampule, which they waved back and forth under the child’s nose. “Can you hear me?” one of the attendants called to the child. “Probably a concussion, or a fractured skull,” the young woman said. They gently eased the small body onto a stretcher.
Mavis told the attendants in blue jump suits that she had heard her daughter say she would kill her younger sister. She had to tell them what she heard. “They were always fighting and Marianne was always threatening to kill her.”
“I didn’t do it. She was like this when I found her,” Marianne insisted. She started crying and bent over, sobbing.
When Mavis was at work, Marianne’s job was to help her father take care of Shelby. Marianne was supposed to get dinner every night for Rex, Shelby and herself. When Rex was home they all ate TV dinners or canned soup and a sandwich. Their meals consisted mostly of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when it was just the two of them. Marianne spread the peanut butter thickly, gouging holes in the bread. Most of the time Rex went out and didn't come home until after Mavis was already home and in bed. When Rex came home real late Marianne could hear the awful sounds they made when they fought. She covered her head with a pillow to block out those terrible sounds. The next day Mavis would try and cover her bruises with pancake makeup but you could still see those black and blue marks. Those times her arms were covered with bruises, she would have to wear a sweater to work, even on hot days. “I have a chill,” she explained. “Maybe I’m comin’ down with the flu.” She carried a tissue around with her and wiped her nose a lot to validate it.
Each evening while waiting for their mother, Marianne felt alone, responsible. Their mother made one thing clear to Marianne; if anything happened to Shelby she would be blamed. The responsibility rested with her.
Marianne’s mother thought Shelby was a little angel. That’s what she called her; her little angel. When their mother did arrive, she didn’t always speak to Marianne but went to find Shelby, usually asleep on the couch. “Shelby’s a pretty girl, she’s not like you,” Mavis would often say. She tucked Shelby into bed and kissed her good night. Never once did Marianne remember her mother kissing her or tucking her into bed.
Marianne was big for her age. Her breasts were just starting to form and she was tall, already taller than her mother. Marianne’s hair was black like her mother’s, but Mavis hair was curly while Marianne’s hair hung straight down. Of course, Mavis went to the beauty parlor for a perm once a month. Marianne tried changing her looks by changing her hair style. She parted it on one side then the other, parted it in the middle, then combed it straight back. It didn’t help; she was stuck with very straight black hair. She thought if she could change her facial expressions it would help her appearance and make her mother love her more. She forced a smile and watched herself carefully---mouth closed, mouth open, teeth showing, teeth hidden. Nothing seemed to help.
Shelby was blond like Rex, only Shelby’s hair was silky and lay in little ringlets around her cherub face, while Rex’s was long and stringy. It was Marianne’s job to see that Shelby was washed and dressed. Marianne brushed her hair and could feel her skull through her hair. It felt thin and fragile like an egg. Sometimes when she was mad, she felt like cracking it open like an egg.
Mavis was older than Rex and had never been married to anyone before him. Someone else did it to their mother before she got married, the kids said. Marianne had a different name than the rest of the family. Her name was Singer, the same as her mother’s was before she married Rex. All the rest of them were Zachary’s. She couldn’t remember any other Daddy but Rex. Although Mavis didn’t really think Marianne looked like her, their physical similarities, apart from Marianne’s tallness, were undeniable. Her mother had never told her much about the man who had fathered her. Clever, was all she had usually said. Once though, when Marianne had been ill with chicken pox, and hot and itchy, she had relented.
"What was he like?"
"Skinniest man you ever saw."
"Where'd you meet him?"
"In a park. I was catchin’ a suntan and these bits of newspapers started blowin' in my face. I was a pissed off at them blowin' all over me and then this man comes runnin'. He grabbed and grabbed but couldn't catch them all. So he just stood still, a helpless look on his face. It was so funny, I started laughin'."
"And then?"
"I helped and we chased all over the place after them papers. When we sat down to get our breath back, he told me he was a student. He was ever so clever. Can't remember what the devil he was studyin'. Somethin' I'd never heard of then or since."
"Why didn't you marry him?"
"Marry him? Good Lord, Marianne, I wasn't ready to get married and he wasn't the type I'd have wanted to marry by a long shot."
"What else did he look like, Mom?"
"Lord, stop the questions, child."
Mavis saw the disappointment however, and said she would write it all down for her. Put it in an envelope to open when she was dead and gone. Marianne was happy with that.
Besides Marianne and Shelby there was Josh, Rex’s son. Josh baby sat them until he turned eighteen. Then he said he was no “fuckin’ baby sitter,” and refused to baby sit them. It was just as well. He had started attacking Marianne. Her half-brother, having witnessed the physical abuse by his father repeated the abuse on Marianne and Shelby when he was left in charge, hitting them when they wouldn’t do what he wanted.
Josh didn’t go to school, but hung out with his friends, smoked pot and God knows what else. Rex said if he didn’t get off his ass and pay his own way he was going to kick him out.
“You and who else?” Josh screamed at him. Mavis ran between them, pushing one then the other. “Him and me, that’s who!”
Josh slammed out of the house. “Leave him alone,” Mavis said. Rex swore. Then he started laughing. Then he began hugging and kissing her. Mavis pushed him away and he twisted her nipple. “Ow, that hurt,” she said. She crossed her arms to protect her breasts. “Let me kiss it and make it better,” he said, and started unbuttoning her blouse. “Not in front of the kids, Rex. I’ve told you a million times.” Mavis pushed him away and went and sat on the couch, flipping the remote from one channel to the next, barely waiting to see what was playing, while Rex went to the kitchen for a fresh, tall can of beer. “Not in front of the kids,” he muttered, mocking her.
Mavis was never home. Maybe that was part of the reason what had happened between Rex and Marianne had gotten started when Marianne was eight. Every Saturday morning when Mavis left for work, Marianne raced to get into the warm place their mother left in their bed. This particular morning Mavis was running late. Dressed and smelling of perfume and toothpaste she came in to say good-by. Her jet black hair framed her perfectly oval face. The pink bow in her hair made her hair look even blacker. She always wore pink lipstick and matching fingernail polish. Even her eye shadow was pink. Rex grabbed her and pulled her down on top of him while she kept telling him to stop. “Don’t go to work today. Call in sick.” He tried hugging and kissing her but she kept pushing him away. He was messing up her hair, her lipstick, she said.
After his wife left, he rolled over real close to Marianne. He hugged her so tightly that his hairy forearms irritated her cheeks. She tried to get up but he hugged her tight. His hands ran up and down between her legs and over her chest. Afterward he said it was a secret. “Just between you and I,” he said. He went hunting and brought home some rabbits. He nailed their feet to the garage door and told Marianne she had to watch while he skinned them. He ran his hunting knife up their bellies, cut their heads off and gutted them. “That’s what I’m going to do to you if you ever tell anyone our secret,” he said.
Sometimes after that, he would get into bed with her while she was sound asleep. She would waken and he would be on top of her. "It was just a dream," he said, more often than she could count. She knew it wasn't a dream. She wouldn't dream anything as horrible as the stench of his liquor breath.
Then one of those Saturday mornings Marianne had wakened with Rex carrying her to his bedroom. He was in his pajama bottoms. Mavis was already gone. Marianne was half asleep and half awake. He lay back on the bed and pulled her over on top of him. "Let's play horsey," he said. He lifted her in his two hands like she was a rag doll and sat her on top of him. His penis stood straight up, erect, and hard. Very hard! Marianne giggled. “Be still,” he said sharply. "I won't hurt you," he said. He bounced her up and down, up and down. "We're just playing horsey," he said. Then Shelby was in the doorway, her eyes sharp and black as her teddy bear’s. “I’m tellin’ Mom,” she said. Rex pushed Marianne off and jumped out of bed pulling up his pajama bottoms. “How long you been there, Shelby?” he asked, and went pounding off to the bathroom, not waiting for Shelby to answer.
Marianne went to the kitchen and poured them each a bowl of corn flakes. Shelby wolfed hers down then ran off to watch cartoons. Rex came into the kitchen, scratching his beard. Bristly black hairs showed above the V-necked Tee shirt he was wearing. His face was blotchy and swollen. He poured himself a glass of wine. He once told her that wine he drank was rare vintage wine. The stores had placed different labels on the bottles that were imported to America, he said. Marianne looked at the prices on the bottles in the supermarket and found that they were the cheapest of wines. He was not only an alcoholic, but a pathological liar as well. He downed the large glass of red wine and turned to her. “What happened in there is a secret between you and I. Don’t ever tell anyone. You know what will happen if you do.”
It was ten minutes more before the attendants in their blue jump suits turned to Mavis to tell her that her daughter was dead. Marianne would never forget the scream her mother gave before she fell to the floor. The attendants carried Mavis into her bedroom on a stretcher, made a brief phone call then gave her a shot of something that made her sleep.
Moments later, Rex’s truck pulled up into the driveway. The motor hummed for a moment, then died. It seemed only seconds until Rex walked through the door. He had told Marianne he was going to see his buddy for an hour or so. Marianne had to stay home that day to watch Shelby. Rex couldn’t find her, he said. She was hiding, and he didn’t want to run all over looking for her. Shelby was always doing things like that. Marianne thought she did them just to make her mad.
The ambulance attendants took Shelby away in an ambulance without their sirens. Detectives and a lady came and put Marianne in a plain black car and drove away.
“It won’t be for long, Marianne. They don’t keep little girls for a long time.” Rex said while untangling her fingers from his clothing. “Remember, don’t say a word to anyone about our secret,” he whispered to her as they led her away.