MajorKerina

Like the previous section, this contains descriptions of threats and psychological abuse by family members

We went north along the road which passed by the college, after stopping briefly to fill the tank of Allison’s car. She brushed her feet along the floor in front of her. There was a quietness to her demeanor which bothered me. I put on the radio for a while and she hummed along to a jazzy song before leaning towards me. 

Her eyes dipped down and she told me, “Thank you for this. But you’re sure there’s no problem? Nothing with Lissa you want to talk about?” I reassured her sincerely that Lissa was fine and this was what she wanted and we would be sure to have fun with a special movie on Thursday. Learning this eased Allison’s mood a little. Still, she seemed to sniff out that there was something else. I hummed along to the next song and she soon joined in.

The road continued up till the massive shipping facilities adjacent to the major freeways. From there, we had to head west towards looming gray mountains in the distance and the ever-present power poles which crossed every empty intersection. Not a lot of people went out this way. There was just an old prison which was being converted into a veteran’s home by the county and some restaurants which somehow managed to scrape by.

Our turn came up eventually, followed by another long drive into the desert, marked by a variety of small shrubs and trees with names I could never remember which looked particularly parched by the chill-but-dry end to winter. This afternoon was nice though. The wind was still, which was rare out this far. The sun looked far away but I knew it was slowly edging closer each day. We brought jackets with us, just in case.

I could tell we were almost there when the road started to curve. It was a gradual curve. There were few other drivers on the road. Naturally, one of those few was right behind us. He could’ve easily passed but he seemed content to linger far enough away not to annoy me but still close enough that I could tell he was there. Soon, we passed a business park and had to make a little loop around to get onto the other street. The business park opened to great fanfare, as I recall, but there were empty plots and areas where foundations had been set and nothing followed. 

If we kept going we would eventually run into a National Guard Armory. Instead, we made our way towards a light industrial area with an active airfield. The airfield was a small building with a tower behind it, a café, and just a few cars parked around. Large, old planes sat out in the desert, some stripped to their crumbling skeletons and others looking like they could take off at a moment’s notice. I recognized some of them. After a flight school with a familiar name, we came to the park. 

It wasn’t as fancy as I remembered from before (but then it had never been that fancy). It seemed to be maintained though. We found a parking spot near the front and the car which had tagged along behind us continued further down the lot. There were only about a dozen other cars, so it wasn’t hard to find spaces. 

Allison hauled the picnic basket with a single finger and a smirk before slipping her fingers around the handle to carry it properly. The trash cans around were reconditioned, green oil drums. The crummy, old restrooms were still around but there was a gray building which looked like the temporary structures around a newly-built school I went to when I was younger. 

As I gazed around, Allison gave a little wave to my face and asked, “Nostalgia?”

I nodded quietly and told her, “Not much has changed.”

She shrugged and offered, “Yeah but it’s still nice. I like that place over by the bridge!”

The park had a large pond in the middle of it with a long path tracing the edge. Little islands dotted the center. Some were for the birds and waterfowl. One was larger and meant for visitors to cross a metal bridge over the water. A dense congregation of mallards, geese, birds with big pompadours, birds with bright-green heads, and birds that looked like me before I brushed my hair made noises over by the nearest shore. 

I warned Allison about the geese. They were not to be messed with. I mentioned when I was about five and I thought I could scare off a goose as many a child must’ve imagined too. I chased at it with my arms flailing. It stood its ground, spread its wings and bill, and made like it wanted to eat me. Movie dinosaurs had met their match for some time after that.

Allison giggled a little but still offered me a sympathetic, “Awwww.” We skipped the picnic area by the cluster of birds because there were several scouts trailing behind us for some stray crumbs. I knew they were absolutely bold enough to snatch anything off a table without a second thought.

We picked a place for the picnic past those ravenous birds and downwind in a nice little area where the paint wasn’t peeling too much and the Jackson Pollock splattering of petrified bird poop was confined to one end of the table. Allison laid a cloth across it just as the wind started to stir up a bit but not strong enough to ruffle the cloth. Still, she used a couple ties to keep it in place while avoiding the jagged edges. 

She eyed the little barbeque tray on a pole set to one side. It looked like the entire thing had been torched and the bottom of it was blackened ash. We sat down facing each other. The boards on my side shifted slightly but held. With a smile, Allison sifted through my culinary work. I stopped her and said, “Allow me, m’lady.”

Allison grinned and put her hands behind her as I presented what I’d made. Salads first. She gave an approving smile. The dressing tasted bitter compared to how Allison made it but she ate without saying anything was off and finished the whole container. Next came a few little snacks that even I couldn’t mess up. Some pita chips and dip. I tossed one over a duck who was slowly creeping towards us to lead it in the other direction. It dashed for it but a group of ravens which had been patrolling the parking lot suddenly swarmed and fought for it. The quarrel rippled out until one flew off with its prize. 

I offered Allison a bit of pasta salad, which she seemed to enjoy. Between food, we talked. She began, “Did you visit this place much?”

I shook my head and furrowed my brow. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d come. I was sure it hadn’t been with Uncle Nolan, so it had to be before. I offered my best guess that it had been years since I’d last been. Allison turned a little in her seat. A family passed by and a little boy paused to look at Allison’s colorful figure like she was a new breed of bird. The boy’s mother soon scooped him up and gave him a whispered scolding. I sipped my lemonade. 

I definitely considered the wraps worthy but then I oftentimes made them for snacks on my own. I was not as confident about the little tarts and brownies I’d made for dessert. Allison popped a deviled egg in her mouth and said, after swallowing, “It’s been years for me too. When my mom still lived with my dad. I used to scamper around the whole edge of the place. It would take forever. I thought it was huge. It’s still pretty impressive.”

It was definitely big. Probably the biggest park in the area. I knew that over the summer they would have special fishing competitions. Considering the water was reclaimed and there was a layer of odd, green slime and floating bits of refuse, I wasn’t too keen on any fish that came out of that water. 

We ate slowly but I made sure Allison sampled a little bit of everything. There were some things she gave a thoughtful look and a kind nod but I could tell they weren’t as good as what she could put together. Halfway through, she got up to stretch and get rid of some paper. When she came back, she slipped over to my side of the table and scooted right next to me.

She noted, “Cozier?”

I smiled back. The wind became a calm but constant presence but nothing fluttered or risked getting lost. Families passed us in our sheltered little area. Curious waterfowl ambled past with sly cleverness. I tossed a bit of sandwich bread I had at the closest one before the others ganged up on him.

Allison talked up her day as the eating ebbed. She spoke of “accentuating herself” through her theater class. She noted how she felt as though her hips were different, even as a boy. She had to correct her balance at times but it wasn’t bad. I was about to worry when she urged me, “It’s no big deal. I like it.”

I felt just the faintest flash of jealousy when she told me about a 50s dance practice at the end of class where she took the female role with another male partner. She rested on my shoulder and said, “I wouldn’t mind a slow waltz with you…or a saucy tango.” I took her up on the offer. There was a large cement area east of here. She accepted but said, “Later, when the sunset provides the perfect backdrop before we leave and all the rowdy kids are gone.”

One such barreled by towards a tall goose. I could only imagine it ending badly but he stood up to it and the goose got annoyed and left. Then he stomped around the area like a T-rex till his father retrieved him.

Before long, the meal was pretty much done except for some things which were going to be leftovers. Allison took the basket back to the car and joined me further down the path to the west.

She seized my hand with our fingers looped together and we walked hand in hand. It felt relaxed and comforting, especially since the pace of her steps matched mine so well. We only separated so she could dash off to the ladies' room. She dashed out a moment later and shook her head as she said, “That is just…WRONG. Do they let the ducks use the toilets? Yikes.”

I told her she could just switch off the device and use the other one. She raised a cotton candy trail of eyebrow and said, “You’ve been in a men’s room, right?” Point. She added, “Besides, it would kill the mood.”

Fortunately, the next one wasn’t nearly as bad but I still saw Allison give a shiver when she came out and murmured, “Like a smelly glacier…”

I was fine, so we continued along the path. The trees (which looked like pines and cypresses) seemed to loom just as much as when I was younger. They bent, whether on a hill or mossy flatland, towards the lake without fail. I guessed it was the presence of the wind blasting them day after day in that direction.

Much of the old playground equipment I remembered was gone, which wasn’t bad. It had all been metal with sharp links and rough patches which often scratched me. But the new stuff didn’t have the same personality, the same sense of having been used and abused by countless children over the decades. And it was already starting to show signs of wear. At least the long swings hanging from a wide arch of metal were still there. I invited Allison to join me on them. 

The visual of a Kinrae sitting on a swing and pushing off looked as odd as expected but the way Allison held on to it kindled memories of so many old animes. She leaned back and watched me as I tried to match her arc. 

After a bit of silliness, we let the swings drift as we dragged our feet. 

The wind was getting persistent enough to ruffle our hair. After a long span of quiet, Allison asked simply, “What’s bothering you? Please don’t say 'nothing'. I can tell something’s up but I wanted to be polite.”

I didn’t need to ask her to clarify. I made a slight track in the sand and told her, “My uncle told me some stuff about…family.” I could’ve stopped at that. I could’ve glossed over it by suggesting it was a private matter. But I also said, “He told me my mother confessed to some things I suspected from when I was younger.”

And it was out there. A thread. A strand but one I couldn’t leave hanging. In a way, I’d wanted to tell Allison and others about it for a long time. In other ways, I never wanted to speak a word of it. But there was no way of avoiding the rest of it. I hung my head and drifted backwards and forwards on the swing. As I did, I felt my thoughts shifting from the pain of the present to what I wanted to forget of the past.

Allison didn’t push me. She let me speak.

I began, “They tell me that my mother had a bad case of post-partum depression but it’s probably worse than that. She already had issues and it would take forever to get into all of them. When I was a baby, she would forget me in random places. She would leave me like someone’s unwanted trash. And, once, she tried to hold me underwater but…for some reason…stopped before I started drowning.”

Allison had stopped rocking. Her vast, bright eyes were locked on me. I took a breath.

“To anyone on the outside, she was a loving mother. But she could appear any way to anyone she wanted. Never even got a whisper from social services, even when she was feeding me poison as a little kid.”

I shut my eyes. She called it medicine but something about the taste always made me suspicious. I tried to find reasons not to take it. I learned how to cough it up.

“Everyone thought I was sickly, that I had so many diseases and problems. I had to be pulled out of school all the time, so my mother could take care of me. At this time, my dad was at his worst with alcohol and anger. But my mom was an easy match. She always had a long, serrated knife within reach. I have no idea why she never used it on me.”

And that was just the physical stuff. I felt confused growing up because there were things I received random encouragement about. Drawing something well, even if it was just a little lumpy house. Then my mother would burn all my drawings and say they were terrible. She liked to burn a lot of things of mine. I had only certain family photos left from when I was younger because I would hide them in books on my shelf. 

As I opened my eyes, I saw that Allison’s hand was trembling and cupped to her mouth. I felt bad to lay all this on her but it was better to keep going.

“My father could never keep jobs because of his issues. He almost spent time in prison for beating up Uncle Nolan. I pieced together that he spent a lot of time in bars and even brought one of the dancers from a club home with him. Aunt Mercedes. When my mom and dad lived apart for a time she was actually the rock in my life. She would give me books to read. But having my parents apart just made it harder for me because I was the opponent in both places.”

Allison brushed at her eyes. I felt lousy. I felt like I’d ruined the whole trip. I hung my head but Allison bent her swing closer and urged me, “No. Please tell me. Please please. I’m fine. If you can live it then I can do the small thing of listening.”

Her eyes were so warm and kind as the wind picked up and fluttered the sand beneath us. I sighed and filled in a few gaps.

“Most days, it was things they said. Calm words with razors at the end, burning my pictures inside my head. When they got back together, it was like they made up for lost time. I had to be the adult. Which meant I tried to scream the loudest but I was always wrong. No matter what I tried. No matter what I did. And I tried to be clever. I tried to be what I thought was confident. I tried everything. I fought battles in my trembling mind. But I always lost. No matter how strong I was, I could never win. I could never gain anything. I could never emerge from them with anything but fear and sorrow as a deepening pit. They hated me and no words could change that.”

Softly, Allison took a breath and so did I. It was so much. I’d cried so many times that just recounting it didn’t draw up any new tears. That well was tapped out.

The main solace I took was in the quiet, in the stealth. I could slip through a room without being noticed. I could open and close things without so much as a squeak. I was the quietest child in class, always got high marks. But, even if I didn’t disturb anything, they still got me. They still hurt me.

I rocked on the seat and looked up. It wouldn’t be long before the later afternoon gave way to dusk, when the park closed. I told Allison this but she urged me instead to continue, asking, “What about the poison?”

I told her that it only continued until I was old enough to get wise to it. Still, I had terrible stomach problems for years after that. The verbal and emotional abuse filled in for the attempts to poison me. If anything could be said about my dad, at least he didn’t try to kill me. He dislocated my shoulder once but that was all.

The final act was a blur. It started years before. The car accident. My mom drove her car off the road into an area near a cliff. It spun and caught in the mud, otherwise we would’ve fallen off and died instantly. My mother screamed. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was hurt, angry we weren’t dead, or because she was angry at me. But I was quiet.

“I was so very quiet right then. I told myself if I was really quiet for my mom, if I didn’t say anything and I was calm then it would all be okay. I have no idea why I thought that but I did. Then, it got really quiet. I couldn’t even hear my mom yelling anymore. I just felt this deep and comforting serenity. And I had a picture in my head of a woman with a joyous smile next to me. It really felt like she was there. To me, thinking back, she looked like the Kinrae.”

Allison’s eyes widened and she scooted her swing as close as she could with the chains taut. She asked breathlessly, “What exactly did she look like?”

It was the obvious question. But I had no clear answer. It was years ago and I was a kid. I had a clear impression of her and I knew, when I first saw anime and then when I later first saw the Kinrae, how she generally looked. Anything else was a kaleidoscope of expectations and imagination with trying to pick over a memory that felt like it had shifted and changed so many times that, if not for a little journal I wrote to myself back then, I might doubt now that it happened at all.

My uncle pondered if I saw an angel. I still had no idea. I just knew that I lived and she was there. Days when I could think of her were the better days. In the final act, there was a second accident.

This time, it was obvious my mom was running us off the road and the police knew it as well. Things came out soon after that. My mom tried to grab an officer’s gun to either shove it down her mouth or point it at my head. My father’s attempted suicide soon followed which left him in the hospice where he remained to this day. In the rubble that followed, Uncle Nolan picked me up. I never knew before then the kind of deep and unconditional love he showed me could exist with family. I thought what I lived through was normal and I was stunned at how kind he was after so many years of my mother painting him as her demonic brother. 

Things immediately got better after that, I told Allison.

“My mother faced criminal charges but ultimately was ruled mentally unfit with a long string of medical terms explaining why she was the way she was. She’s down at the Black Willow County facility and I told my uncle that I would sooner prefer to choke her until she stops breathing than ever see her again.”

At that, I took a long breath. One might expect that saying all that gave me some measure of solace or release but it just stirred everything up. It just made me feel all the old pains again. They weren’t as sharp as before though. 

Allison absorbed everything with her head down. I leaned closer, afraid she was crying. But she turned and looked at me with those clear, gem-green eyes and said, “You’re even more awesome than I thought, Sean. And here I complain about my mom being a jerk. Wow…”

I frowned and told her, “Don’t make light of what you’ve been through. You’re amazing too…I’ve told you so many times.”

She giggled and rocked on the swing. “Thanks but really, you’re incredible. I would’ve turned into one of those emotionless, pale-haired girls from that one anime you showed me for life if I went through what you did. I totally want a time machine so I can go back and steal you away for a really weird kidnapping/adoption.”

We both chuckled and I rose from the swing. 

“Come on, there’s a lot of park to see.”

I led Allison to another restroom with a soda machine out front. Naturally, all the selections were sold out except for the most repulsive flavors. 

We hustled our way past an area with a persistent, implacable odor between what Allison called “rough duck sex and rotten eggs”. Allison balanced over a rocky outcropping and hopped along a little beach.

Stopping by a locked jetty out into the water, I put my hand around Allison’s shoulder and teased her salmon-colored hair as a fish flicked a bit of green-tinted water at us. She leaned against my shoulder and shut her eyes. A goose passed by in shadow like a mini-Loch Ness Monster.

We continued along the back of the park, around an area blocked off by yellow tape like it was the remnant of some crime scene. At least we had a narrow area where we could enter the backside of the island if we wanted to cut across and out. We walked the long way around past a massive geodesic jungle gym. I used to be able to slip through the triangles and get underneath it.

Aside from it, I recognized the tower play area, still made of dark, rough wood. Allison raced me around it with squeals as I tried to catch up to her. We both sailed on the big slide to plop on the sand in a heap of giggles. I took a breath, looked down at her pastel face, and gave her a calm, soft kiss while brushing her cheek.

When I released her, she gave me a return peck but didn’t go further. She smiled faintly and held my hand the rest of the way around. Almost back at the parking lot and with the cement dancing area in sight, I lamented that an old memorial to dead astronauts had been stripped down to black rocks and scattered trash. Allison gave me a kiss on the cheek for comfort.

She hustled along to the last restroom on the path and flashed me a thumbs up to show that it wasn’t a horrifying mess. I chuckled and settled down on a bench.

“Hello again”, said a faintly familiar voice. Looking to my right, to the path we’d followed, I saw Tessa, dressed the same as before. I frowned. What was she doing here?

I asked her as much and she swiveled on her feet and said, “I have a fondness for plants. Shame they don’t have any flowers out here yet. I’m looking forward to when the poppies finally wake up from their winter nap, especially the blue ones. I love blue flowers. Mind if I sit?”

I scooted over and sighed. She laid her hands in her lap and glanced over at me. Odd of her to mention flowers. I persisted, “I get the feeling you’re following me. I just happen to run into you out here? Doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”

She raised her pastel hands as though in surrender and declared, “Guilty as charged!” This time I watched her palms as she fanned them. She had a watermark. I felt bewildered. Why would she have a watermark?

With an arched eyebrow, she glanced at her hands and pointed to one palm with a finger. 

“Oh? Were you concerned about this? No biggie. Magic trick time!” She rippled her fingers, clutched her hands together, and then blew into them with a theatrical flourish. When she showed her palms a second time, they were completely free of watermarks. I could feel my mouth hanging open.

Tessa giggled to herself and noted, “Hardly my best trick but it has you impressed.”

I gawked and slowly shook my head. Possibilities swarmed in my thoughts. Someone who hacked a Kinrae device. Sleight of hand with some makeup (unlikely). And then…well. People sometimes wondered why the Kinrae had the devices in the first place.  

I asked her the question suddenly foremost on my mind, my eyes locked on her smiling face, “Who or what are you?” I wanted to add, “And why do you have a name like my mother’s?”

She stood a little straighter and said, “Tessa Shortridge. Your professor may have told you I’m an advisor for the devices you’ve been using. But you probably guessed that anyway during our most recent meeting.”

As I finally felt myself swallowing how she’d made a watermark disappear, I had to chew on the strange way she’d phrased that. “Wait…so far as I know…I’ve only met you once before now.”

She dipped her head towards me and rose up from the bench, saying, “So far as you know…” She gave a little wink. 

All words, all thoughts drifted away from me as she sighed and glanced towards the lake. 

I had to ask her again, “Who are you?” This time, I felt like I was pleading and I managed to add the words, “And your name…”

Tessa glanced over her shoulder at me. “My name? There’s not that much to it. First name taken from my mom, Theresa, and shortened to avoid confusion. Now my last name, that’s something. Given by my partner, the one I love most dearly in all the worlds, Allison Shortridge. You may be able to guess the name I had before.”

She took a measured step towards the parking lot. I staggered from the bench with my arms out to grab her before she vanished away into the ether along with a thousand ripples of confusion and chaos sailing through my mind like the ever-shifting waves of the lake before us. 

I managed to get in her way but she kept me at arm's length with a smirk, noting, “Careful. I wouldn’t want you to run into me again in that unpleasant sort of way you did outside the florist.”

My mouth dragged. I stepped backward, as though struck by her words. I wanted to ask her again who she was but an impossible picture was quickly forming before me. 

An arm touched me on the shoulder. I turned around to Allison with a worried look on her face. She grimaced, clutched my arm, and asked me, “What’s wrong? Who’s that?”

I could only pant and stare. ‘Tessa’ bowed her head to us and said, “I’ll say it again, joyously….you two look lovely together. But I must bid you good day, for I’ve said just enough.”

I reached out and blurted, “WAIT!” but it was too late. She vanished before our eyes with barely a ripple made in the constant brush of wind at our backs.

My heart was finally settling. I had no idea where to begin. Allison blinked at me with pure confusion and asked again, “Who was that?”

Really, I had no words to offer her. Mine dried up like a sudden monsoon which would hit the desert and vanish into the soil as soon as it appeared. All I could offer her was, “Tessa Shortridge.” I glanced towards Allison.

Her expression made me hold my breath. She clutched her lips but I urged her, “What is it?”

She wiped away the expression and tried a faint smile, saying, “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing is ever nothing. Please tell me.”

I dropped down on the bench and Allison held onto me. She sighed and said, “Well…. everyone always joked it was the long and short wedding when my parents got married. Of course, our family name from my dad is Longbloom. But my mom’s maiden name…was Shortridge.”