Illustrator/Writer
The Nannies
(an excerpt)
Lornwood, Home of the Pure Children. The words seemed to shout from their place, a large, red sign made of polished brick that gleamed in the light of the setting sun.
Perched just on the edge of town, the sign was the first thing Emma and her brother Tim had ever seen of Lornwood.
Emma wanted nothing more than to turn around, to flee in the other direction. But she had never been any good at telling the adults in her life what she wanted. She figured they knew best. Now, with the death of her parents, she wasn’t so sure.
Lornwood was where her mother’s parents resided, where their mother had grown up, but not where their mother had been buried. Josephine was her name. She was only 30 when she passed, leaving little time to plan for her untimely death. But she did have one thing solidified long before she died. Josephine was not going to be buried in Lornwood. She’d made sure of that.
Emma and Tim were on their way to their grandparents’ house, a place rarely talked about at their old home – their real home – that was now the property of the bank. Emma still wore the itchy black dress her Aunt Clara picked out for the funeral, and it reeked of pickled onions, a smell that followed her aunt wherever she went. Emma didn’t know why she smelled that way, and she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.
Tim was huddled against the window sleeping. With his cheek pushed against the cold glass, his breath created a small circle of fog with each breath. He wore the same slacks from the funeral, now wrinkled. Over it was a men’s extra-large sweatshirt, their Dad’s, sporting a raging bull. Emma could smell the cologne embedded in the fabric....
Grace's Victory
A Short Story
Momma drove me to the doctor’s Monday morning. I told her it was time for my yearly checkup.
“You tell Betsy I said hi now, you hear Gracie Anne?” Momma said to me. I nodded, my stomach doing flips as I got out of the car. She needed to stay put. I couldn’t have her coming in with me.
Thankfully, she stayed in the car with the AC on full blast, her worn copy of the bible leaning against the steering wheel as I walked away. My shoes stuck to the hot cement that smoldered under the oppressive heat of a summer in the Middle-Of-No-Where, Texas. The sun wasn’t why I was sweating though.
It glared off one of the windows of the doctor’s office and I blinked against it like that of a vampire in front of a crucifix. I was seeing black spots by the time I made it inside. An off aroma of tobacco and bleach hit me square in the face.
The receptionist, a pregnant, middle-aged woman named Betsy who had been the receptionist since I was born, sat at the front desk. Her hair was ten times bigger than her already enormous boobs and her baby bump seemed to augment them even more than any pushup bra ever could. She was married to the town’s Lieutenant, an asshole of a man whom no one wanted to be on the bad side of.
“Aww why hello there, Little Gracie Anne,” she said through a big smile, smacking on bubblegum. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“Yea well, just one of those things. Suppose it’s better we don’t see too much of each other.” I said. She frowned, the sound of smacking coming to a halt. “On account of me having been healthy and all, I wouldn’t need to stop by,” I added.
“Oh yes of course,” she said with a giggle. Smack. Smack.
“I was hoping the doctor would have an opening this morning,” I said.
“It’s a small town, Sug, there’s always an opening,” Betsy said. She stood up from her chair and swiveled her hips as she led me back to the doctor’s office. It had the same beige tile and peeling wallpaper that it had when I was here last year.
Betsy left and Dr. Leo came in a minute later. He flashed me a toothy grin that was hidden behind a massive grey beard. His eyes crinkled behind thick, half-moon-shaped glasses.
“Hello there, Little Grace Anne. What can I do for you today?” He asked, flipping through what was presumably my file in his withered hands.
“I would like an intrauterine device,” I said.
He looked up from the file, his mouth still open.
“I’m sorry, dear. What did you-’’
“An intrauterine device. Commonly known as an IUD. I’d like for you to insert one in me,” I said. “Right now.”
Dr. Leo closed my file, the papers slapping together like a hand against skin. His toothy grin was gone and in its place, was a narrow line.
“We don’t do those here, Grace. And I’m sure if your Momma knew what you were asking for-”
“And I’m sure if Lt. Peters knew you have been sleeping with his wife and that baby she’s carrying is the product of her boss and a man thirty years her senior, that would make for some very uncomfortable Sunday dinners.”
The line that was his lips grew even smaller.
“Grace Higgens, how dare you-’’
“Doc, what you do on your own time is of no importance to me. Same as what I do in my own time as well as the choices I make for my own body.” I looked that old man straight in the eyes as I said, “I would like you to insert an intrauterine device. As it is covered by my insurance and I know for a fact you have a box of them in the back.”
He turned and left the room so suddenly then I wasn’t sure if my plan had backfired. I waited on baited breath for his return. When he did, he carried a packaged cylinder and a tray of metallic instruments that I knew was meant for me. I let out a slow breath, relieved.
Granted, I would not advise anyone else in this situation to piss off the person that is about to push metal objects up into your vagina and through your cervix. But these are desperate times and the pain I felt from that was nothing compared to the victory I’d just won.