She's Come Undone

Eric Arvin

Description

Julie is a woman on the edge. The strain of raising a handicapped child and the pressures a small town rumor mill creates have taken their toll.All her life she has been ridiculed or, even worse, ignored.But that stops today.A new novelette from the author of Man Falls Down.

Sujets

• Short story

Informations

• Publié par: Untreed Reads
• Date de parution: 20 mars 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611872859
• Langue: English

Extrait

She’s Come Undone
By Eric Arvin
Copyright 2012 by Eric Arvin
Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Also by Eric Arvin and Untreed Reads Publishing
Man Falls Down
http://www.untreedreads.com
She’s Come Undone
By Eric Arvin
Julie Morton had been wounded on the battlefield. Her reputation was gone. Shot out from beneath her. Most in the hill town of East Madison thought she was “absolute crazies.” She was certain that’s how the kids spoke these days. “Bonkers” and “crazies” and “nutzoid.”
That wasn’t always so, though. She wasn’t always fruit loop. She was once a teacher at the high school. Seventh and eighth grade English. (The junior high was connected to the high school by a large gymnasium that kind of bubbled up between them like a red brick tumor.) She had taught English for a good ten years before she was kicked to the curb. And before that, she had grown up here. She never thought to leave. Well, maybe once or twice, but that was hardly grounds for wanderlust.
It wasn’t until recently that she started to crack from the pressure of the rumors and the daily torments from the townsfolk. Her hair was turning white for it, and that did nothing to alleviate the jokes. And too, there was the difficulty of raising a handicapped—sorry…a differently abled daughter, all by herself. Well, kind of by herself. Principal Noyle was always there monetarily, he being Betty Morton’s dad.
Aimee Jean, Betty Morton’s only friend, went to the Mortons every day that summer. The summer the high school came down… She had kept in touch with Betty through Julie while she was away at college. Because of her paralysis, Betty didn’t say a thing, but she could make herself understood just fine. There was a mean streak in that girl that smelled like rubber on asphalt. Betty became bitter early on in life. In fact, that was her nickname in school: Bitter Betty. She had been a very pretty young girl. It’s amazing what one wrong move on a monkey bar can do to you.
“Well, hello Aimee!” Julie said as she opened the door. She always had the nicest smile on her face when she saw Aimee. But that smile…anyone could tell it was hanging on by a thread. It was the most fragile thing. Inauthentic and frightened. But Julie liked Aimee. Truly, she did. Point of fact, she admired her.
“Hey, Julie. How’s Betty?” Aimee asked, moving on into the house. Aimee walked like a boy. She dressed like one too, with baggy jeans, large t-shirts, and always a brightly colored wool cap covering her shoulder-length blonde hair. She spoke in unimpressed, lazy sentences.
There wasn’t much special about the Morton house. Typical Midwest ranch, just big enough to feel vacant, especially with Julie being a mere wisp of a woman.
“She’ll be glad to see you.” Julie’s thin hands went to wringing one another, her face to frowning. Her voice barely had the energy to be heard. “She’s been a handful today. I don’t know what’s in her head, but there’s nothing I can seem to do about it. She gets like this sometimes, you know.”
“Does she want to be alone? I can come back later.” Aimee stood with her hands in her pockets. Nonchalant and without want.
Julie looked about to jump Aimee if she left. “Oh, no. She needs to see a friendly face.” There was a sad pleading in her eyes. “She goes through weeks where she’s angrier than usual. That’s all. It’s always been so.”
Julie walked ahead of Aimee to Betty’s bedroom. Julie had a very thin, emaciated-looking body, though she ate whenever she was nervous, and that was all the time. Her incessant worrying needed a lot of calories. Julie’s legs were like toothpicks. You would think they would snap in two as she walked. In a way, it was her legs that had gotten her fired from the school. She wore dresses and skirts and had been cruelly labeled “Chicken Legs” by the kids. They tormented her with it, and she let the bullying get to her. Those jibes went right through the cracks in her fragile sanity until one day it was too much.
Betty was in her room, staring out the window at the backyard. The wheelchair was placed at an angle. She had very little use of her arms, hands, and fingers, so the chair was rigged to respond to her mouth. There was a little lever that she grabbed with her teeth and steered it where she wanted to go. This allowed her some freedom at least. Though, the house with its narrow hallways and doors still proved somewhat of a cage for her.
“Hey, Bets,” Aimee said.
Betty couldn’t move her head, but there was a slight movement of her brow when Aimee said her name. Acknowledgment. Aimee went to her side and sat on the edge of the bed. There was never much conversation, of course, but that didn’t seem to bother either of them. Words were pouncy things. They seem harmless, but they can jump up and get you like tigers or wolves.
Julie stood in the doorway for a moment, watching Betty with the only friend she had ever known. Betty would have had lots of friends if she hadn’t been paralyzed. She would have been the gosh-darned homecoming queen. She was certain that Betty was prettier than that popular Regina Maria girl. Or maybe it wasn’t certainty. Maybe it was just a mother’s defense mechanism. But it felt like certainty.
So name it! she told herself.
After a few minutes of familiar silence—similar to the silence that Betty kept around her, but with a bit less detachment—Julie picked up the phone receiver. She had a call to make. Aimee would be with Betty for a while. It was enough time to go down the street to the park and meet with Gerald. He was usually across the street at the doomed high school this time of day. He wandered the halls, wading through his past victories over students and teachers. Julie wondered if he didn’t enjoy the memory of his few defeats as well. It must be difficult on him, she thought, the town readying to tear down the high school and so cheerful about it, too. So sad. Why, it was almost as big an event as Founders Day! There were even promised fireworks.
“Gerald?” Julie said as he answered his cell phone. Julie was still in the stone age as far as technology went.