Stain (Stain #1)(7)

“Well, all right,” she says, setting a plate piled with scrambled eggs, bacon, and home fries in front of me. “But you know how you get, Aylee. You can get so wrapped up in your school work you let it run your life. Your father and I want you to do well in school, but not at the expense of your health, sweetie. Isn’t that right, Tim?” Another plate accompanies the first, this one stacked with four fluffy pancakes, but the food is the last thing on my mind as my body stiffens reflexively, a cringe scraping down my back at having his attention called to me. The open, upraise newspaper that intermittently crinkles as the reader shuffles from one page to the other drops in one corner to reveal Tim’s expressionless face.

“Let her be,” he begins, the heated spotlight of his black eyes fully aimed on me. “She’s doing exactly what’s expected of her.” The meaning of those words sits like a layer of sediments beneath the ocean’s thickness of tension.

I keep my own eyes fixed on the heart attack plate Rachel set in front me. Better this view than the nightmare of his gaze.

Rachel sighs. “Yes, she always does exactly what we ask of her. I’m just worried, that’s all. I understand you’re a senior now, and you need to study hard, but I don’t want you overstressed, you’ll get wrinkles.” God forbid that. “Well, anyway. Eat up, we’re leaving in twenty minutes. Seconds, Sarah?”

I eat what I can of the large meal set in front of me, even though I’m not much of a breakfast person, but knowing food intake is being monitored, I take a few more bites to put Rachel at ease. The remainder of breakfast thankfully passes by uneventfully. We pile into the gray sandstone Acura MDX fifteen minutes later and pull out of the two-car garage. Tim is driving, and Rachel takes the passenger seat while Sarah and I hop in the back. She’s still too consumed with her book to say anything to me. But I don’t mind because I’m not in the mood for conversation. The drive to church is a relatively silent one except for the Christian contemporary music chirping softly from the subwoofers. We live on the border of the second largest city in Massachusetts, except there’s no quaint New England charm about the grittiness of Trenton. It’s known more for its crime rate than any of the other notable things that have happened in its long history. Our house however is located miles away from where crimes are most rampant. But then I’ve learned even the worst crimes can happen in the nicest towns and in the most beautiful homes. It is about how well those who commit these crimes hide them and how much influence and power they wield. Tim works for the Trenton police department, and his position as sergeant affords him a lot of authority. There aren’t too many people lining up to question his actions. We arrive at church with ten minutes to spare, and Tim takes a second to instruct us to go find our seats before resuming conversation with fellow church members, Rachel, the dutiful wife, firmly plastered at his side.

“There’s Emily and Sally,” Sarah says, at my side, her head craning above the wandering crowd to better see the two girls. “Do you think Daddy will mind if I sat with them?” She turns back to me to ask as we find a place to sit in the second semicircle row of red chairs facing a wide stage with a podium at the center. It isn’t hard for me to find the answer to her question because Tim has always been different with Sarah, more lenient, more tolerant. But then why wouldn’t he be? She was his flesh and blood. There was no comparison to be made between me and Sarah because I wasn’t a factor. Tim’s affinity for little girls didn’t seem to extend to his daughter. Thank God for that.

I’m hesitant in replying, “I think he might be okay...”

“Great, just let them know where I am.” She bounds away before I can stop her.

The moment I take a seat, Rachel and Tim come in from the opposite direction, gradually making their way down until they reach me. I’m spared from sitting next to Tim as Rachel takes the closest seat next to me. A cursory glance around prompts her to ask where Sarah disappeared to.

“She’s sitting with her friends,” I whisper, tilting my head a bit toward her to point at the trio of girls seated at the front right side of the service room. She gives a brief nod before turning to Tim to relay the information. There’s no more exchange between us after that as the band walks up the stage to start the customary fifteen minutes of worship. Soon after, the pastor glides onto the stage and I tune him out. The hour of service crawls by but soon we’re filing out of the service room and split up for hour two and three of Sunday classes. Everyone has a place to be, even the toddlers, who are shephered downstairs to the nursery. The rest of us are broken up by age and gender. The men remain in the service room for elder meetings, while the younger population, ages thirteen to seventeen, are led to one of the classrooms on the first floor for deacon preaching. With the women of the church outnumbering the men two to one, we’re given the entire second floor for classrooms for our meetings. The women’s devotional is Rachel’s group, the eighteen and older crowd, and while I’ll be there in a few months, I’m grateful I don’t have to join her today. My class is the young women’s devotional, and I head upstairs with the herd, though I purposely linger behind. Watching Rachel turn the corner and head inside the first room to the right of the staircase, I proceed down the carpeted hallway, but rather than follow the rest of the girls my age into the last room to the left, I continue forward, tension making my muscles tight as I silently hope that no one stops me.