Mothered (52)

Grace stood on the designated spot, just behind a pothole, and watched as Davy sorted through the rubble at the edge of the concrete, looking for the perfect ammunition. She made the mistake of catching her sister’s eye. Hope glimmered with mischief, looking altogether too gleeful about the impending likelihood of little Davy blasting Grace with shrapnel.

He took his position on the spray-painted X—a convenient street marking that they used for multiple activities. Grace clutched her fists at her sides, straightened her spine, and focused on a distant nothing just over Davy’s head. On her first turn as Target that day, she’d flinched and turned aside—just once—but it had kept her from getting any points. She’d earned back a bit of the other kids’ respect by firing that shot at Lizzy’s mouth, but she had more to prove. In her peripheral vision they were smirking at her, transfixed by the prospect of seeing her fail or seeing her battered.

Fuck them. Grace wasn’t here to entertain them; she wanted points. She wanted to show them she could give it and take it, and she’d be mad if she finished any lower than second place.

Davy took his first swing.

Crack! A solid hit—and it met its mark.

The jagged rock connected with Grace’s thigh. She clenched her jaw tight and kept staring straight ahead, grateful that he’d struck her shorts and not her skin. It stung like mad, but she refused to even wince. On the sidelines, the kids were wide eyed with excitement, eager for Davy’s second swing.

Grace held her breath. Stick

struck

stone.

She heard the kids gasp a nanosecond before she felt the pain.

The rock punctured the bony skin of her eyebrow. Her head wanted to recoil from the blow, but Grace was afraid of moving too much; she made herself rigid. She was on the verge of tears; her forehead felt like it had been whipped with a tail of barbed wire. It was almost soothing when the warm blood started cascading over her eye, down her cheek.

As Davy readied for his third swing, Keisha stepped forward, her hand raised.

“Hold up.” Keisha, at twelve, was the oldest of the group. “I think that’s enough.”

“We get three swings!” Davy cried. “Everyone else got three!”

“You can have your three points, you got two solid hits.”

The kids huddled around Keisha—all but Grace, who wouldn’t risk sacrificing her score.

“Those aren’t the rules,” Joe said, getting in Keisha’s face. Soon Davy’s other brother, Dan, was yelling at her too.

“Come on, let’s just finish this!” Grace shouted. She tasted the ripe, rusty blood on her lips. The whole left side of her face was wet. She couldn’t do anything to stanch the blood until her turn was over, and their squabbling was just delaying it.

The kids accepted her verdict and moved back to the sidelines. Grace struggled to blink the blood out of her eye, unsure if it would be held against her if she closed even one. Secretly, she hoped Davy possessed a little mercy; he didn’t have to swing for a home run if he didn’t want to.

Apparently he wanted to.

All of a sudden there was nothing to see. Grace heard a squishy sort of smack as the rock connected with her face and an even louder gasp from the other kids. And then it was quiet.

She understood she’d been struck in her right eye. It hurt differently. More of a mellow burn than the sharp bite of torn skin. She could no longer see out of her left eye because of the cascade of blood, but she wasn’t sure why she couldn’t see anything out of her right eye, not even a blur.

“I get five!” she yelled, because she hadn’t flinched. And then, quietly, “I can’t see.”

Why were the others so silent? No one was talking. She heard Hope’s wheelchair, crunching over rubble. And then she felt someone’s fingers on her arm.

“Come on,” said Keisha, soft and scared, “I’ll take you home.”

The older girl led her away. Grace heard the others scuffling along behind them and the hum of Hope’s power chair.

“Who won?” Grace asked, turning her head toward the general direction of her sister.

Still, none of the kids spoke. Grace’s entire face felt wrong, inside out and upside down. But it was the silence that scared her most—even more than not being able to see. The savages were never quiet. They should be cheering or jeering, bickering or swearing. They never followed along obediently, even at school when a teacher yelled Hush! or Stay in Line!

Grace’s feet knew when they had turned onto the walkway leading to her house.

“Keisha?” Mommy sounded stern and confused. Grace was a little confused, too—why was Mommy home? Shouldn’t she be at work?

The other kids, probably fearing Mommy’s temper, scampered away.

“Sorry,” Keisha said. Grace couldn’t tell if the apology was directed at her or Mommy. But then Keisha let go of her arm and took off running.

Hope maneuvered around her and up the ramp to the porch.

“Are you all right?” Mommy asked. Away from her playmates, Grace finally let herself cry. She expected to feel hands on her shoulders, to be guided into the house, into the kitchen, where Mommy would clean off the blood and patch her up.

“I’m okay,” said Hope.

Grace stood there blind, shocked—realizing Mommy was fussing over her sister.