I barely remember the day that my parents died.
You would think that I’d retain every detail of that fateful day; the pivotal
moment that turned my future from potentially happy to miserable. Because I was
happy then—the pictures prove it. Happy me, in my mother’s arms. Happily
blowing out four candles on a birthday cake surrounded by people that look at
me with adoring eyes.

And now I am miserable—no proof required.

The entire horrific accident
should
be
engraved in my mind. But no, I was only four on that day; I shouldn’t even
remember the little that I do. Yet I know I’ll never forget the vague details
that I
do
remember; because who could forget the explosion, the blazing
fire, the screams? The sirens, the grownups in uniform taking me away? Away
from my dead parents. Away from the man with fire eyes.

While I recall that there was a man that picked
me up and stood with me near the side of the road as the gas station burned
down, I cannot remember his face. I can hardly summon anyone’s face from when I
was little, but still. I should know his. I’ve always thought that he saved me,
since everyone else died: my parents and nine other people. My father’s body
was found inside the gas station store and my mother’s in the car where I
assume I was with her. So how did I escape? I don’t know. I remember being in
the man’s arms, and him talking to me, trying to calm me down. Oh, I remember
my wails. I was terrified of the fire, of the hot air, of the people screaming.

But the man held me and talked to me. And try
as I might, I can’t evoke my savior’s face. I do however remember his eyes. Not
their true color—that was lost behind the powerful reflection of the fire in
front of him; the fire behind me. To me, his eyes looked orange; they were
ablaze, angry flames burning inside them.

And finally, when the sirens were nearby, he
set me down. He kneeled in front of me and made me promise him that I would
stay put. And then he said something else, something I’ve never been able to
explain, so I’ve always chalked it up to remembering it wrong. Because I think
he said, “I’ll always keep an eye out for you. I’ll be back for you,” or
something along those lines.

Yeah, right.

I’m seventeen now, and I never saw him again.

1.

Everybody’s Dead

The barren landscape outside my window mirrors
my feelings, augmenting the emptiness that threatens to consume me. It seems
that I’ve had plenty of reasons throughout my life to feel this sense of
abandonment, but today it’s like I’m grieving it all at once. Of course. I’m
leaving behind everyone I’ve ever known.

I’m an orphan, Part Two.

The Social Services woman, a Ms. Leticia
Johnson, unknowingly chose the wrong route to start our journey to my new home.
We left the small town of Galena, Illinois, and are traveling all the way down
south to New Orleans, Louisiana. After an hour on the road we passed the town
where I grew up. The sign whipped by in a few seconds—ELDRIDGE—and I had to
turn my head toward the window so that my escort didn’t see my tears. We didn’t
stop. We didn’t go through town. We just passed it, one of many, many towns
we’ll drive by on this trip. My last memory of my old life would be that lone
green sign, pointing to a place that couldn’t even be seen from the highway. I
wonder if Ms. Johnson even realizes that we passed the last thirteen years of
my life, just like that.

Not that I can complain about her. Ms. Johnson
is a charming lady, probably in her late forties, and her Southern drawl makes
me feel right at home for some reason. She’s dark-skinned and fit; quite the
opposite of my most recent parental figure, my late father’s only sister: the
overweight, pasty white Aunt Marie, whose cold words ring fresh in my mind.
“I
don’t care what you do with her; she can’t stay here.”
I shake the memory
away. Ms. Johnson is warm and friendly. She has a family of her own, and she’s
not spending New Year’s Eve with them to take this orphan down to her new home.
It’s a long trip, around sixteen hours, so we’re scheduled to stop about
halfway in Memphis and stay the night.

I have plenty of time to wonder how the hell
did I end up here. After my parents’ death my whole life has been somewhat
unstable, but I still managed to make it through. That is, until a month ago.

My last surviving grandparent, Nana, died early
in December. She was only seventy-four years old—sure, she was old, but a lot
of people make it to eighty. None of my grandparents did. My father’s parents,
the Greens, raised me: my Nana Fran and Grandpa John Green. After my parents
died, I went to live with them in the small town of Eldridge, Iowa, near the
Quad Cities. Grandpa John died a year ago; his bad eating habits finally caught
up with him. And my Nana, bless her heart, as much as she loved me and would
have wanted to see me grow up, she couldn’t recover from Grandpa’s death. Her
health took a sharp decline, and she passed away last December on a Sunday
morning. It was just her and me then, so I was the one who found her lifeless
on her bed. I called the police. The police called her only living daughter, my
Aunt Marie. She agreed to take me in.

It wasn’t so bad at first.

Aunt Marie lives in the town of Galena, Illinois,
about one hour north of Eldridge where I grew up. She visited often. My late
father’s sister married young, but never had kids. Growing up I was situated
comfortably enough with Nana and Grandpa that I never even thought about living
with Aunt Marie, even though the many times she visited with Uncle Antoine they
were both nice to me. I never wondered why they didn’t take me in after my
parents died, since they didn’t have kids of their own.

But I found out last Christmas.

I had just moved to their house after finishing
the first semester of my junior year at North Scott, my old high school. When
Nana died, I only had three weeks left of school, so Aunt Marie moved in to my
grandparents’ house. That allowed me to finish school while she took care of my
house—
our
house, and my grandparents’ estate. For those three weeks
everything was normal. We were mourning Nana. After a tearful goodbye to my
friends, the house I grew up in, and the town I knew, my aunt and I left Eldridge
on Christmas Eve. Aunt Marie drove the hour-long trip from Eldridge to Galena hauling
a truck full of my stuff and other things she couldn’t part with. She was quiet
most of the way there.

Uncle Antoine greeted us warmly and welcomed me
into his home.

Then that very night, a week ago, he crept into
my room while I slept and asked me to move over so that he could sleep next to
me.

I was shocked and intimidated, but I wasn’t a
child he could molest and force to keep quiet. I am seventeen. So I scrambled
off the bed, reaching for my glasses automatically, and looked at him
defiantly. The gleam in his eyes as he looked at me in my PJs sickened me—the
asshole seemed like he was excited. I yelled at him, as quietly as I could; I told
him to get the hell out, or I would scream and wake up my aunt. He said there
was nothing wrong with what he had asked, that I was reading too much into it,
but he left anyway.

I locked the door and went back to bed while my
heartbeat slowed down to normal. I couldn’t fall asleep for hours, afraid he’d
be back, that he could unlock the door. I shoved an old rocking chair in front
of the door so that it would at least wake me up if he tried.

I debated telling my aunt—I felt it was the
right thing to do, because the man was clearly messed up in the head. But I
didn’t want to ruin her marriage, the very first day after I’d moved with her;
especially not if he had understood that I wasn’t going to let him, and he
wouldn’t to try anything again. Plus I didn’t know if she’d believe me. What if
she took his side? What to do, what to do? I tossed and turned for hours.

But in the morning the answer was presented to
me. I awoke on Christmas morning to screams from Aunt Marie. I shoved the
rocking chair out of the way and unlocked the door, ran out of my room
following her screams, and found her cradling Uncle Antoine’s body in the
living room. He was dead. The paramedics came and declared him so. He’d had a
heart attack.

I couldn’t believe it. I knew, I knew it had to
do with me. He must have gotten too excited over something—maybe he thought I
would tell on him and was afraid—and had
died
. Regardless, I was free.
It would be my aunt and I, the way it had been the last few weeks back in Iowa.

Nope.

I really didn’t see it coming when she kicked
me out.

She claimed she was perturbed and could not
deal with her husband’s death so close to her mother’s. That I had to find a
new home. She turned bat shit crazy in less than one day. Social Services were
called. My one remaining living uncle, my mother’s brother Roland Harris, was
contacted. The situation was explained. If he didn’t take me in I would end up
in foster homes. He said yes. He’d take me in.

Uncle Roland lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. I
don’t even remember what he looks like. I know he has two kids, a stepdaughter
my age and a boy about seven. It’s off to this house, so many miles away, that
I’m being escorted by Ms. Johnson of Social Services.

To a guy who never cared for me. To his wife
and her two kids.

My unknown cousins.

In the freaking South.

2.

The Harrises

As scheduled, Ms. Johnson stops in Memphis to
spend the night. We stay in a roadside hotel, thankfully not too shabby. I have
the lamest New Year’s celebration of my life, and I grew up with old people, so
that’s saying something. Still, I manage to show a little excitement when Ms.
Johnson hugs me good night, and wishes me a happy New Year.

But I’m really a mess of nerves inside.

I’m going to live with my obscure relatives on
my mother’s side. People I’ve never met. My mother was from the South; her
parents and brother still lived there when she had me. After she died, my
contact with her family was almost severed. My maternal grandparents both died
before I turned ten. Grandpa Sal Harris was a grumpy old man who smoked too
many cigars and always reeked of them. He died only a few years after my
parents, so I barely remember him. I just remember not wanting to be around
him. Grandma Rose died when I was nine, and she was very sick the last few
years of her life. So my guardians—Nana and Grandpa—never took me to see her.

Grandpa Sal and Grandma Rose had one other
child, my mother’s brother Roland. He never cared to get to know me. He didn’t
even invite me to his wedding, which was the year after Grandma Rose died. From
what Nana told me, his wife was a young widow who already had a girl my age.
The girl was a junior bridesmaid in their wedding. Not too long afterwards he
had a son with his new wife. This son is actually my only cousin, yet I’ve
never even seen a picture of the boy. I don’t even know his name. They are all
strangers to me.

I have no idea what to expect, and I dread
meeting my uncle and his family tomorrow. Because if this one doesn’t work out,
that’s it for me—no more family. When I finally sleep, I have dreams filled
with anxiety.

The next morning we resume our trip. By sunset
we’ll be in Nawlins, like Ms. Johnson calls my new city. Her stories cheer me
up immensely. The whole trip she talks about Nawlins’ great food, festivals,
heritage, charm, and makes my future seem so bright that I almost feel excited—almost—when
we finally make it to Lake Pontchartrain, because according to Ms. Johnson the
lake indicates that we are very close to the end of our journey. As a treat to
me, we cross the lake via the Causeway, which Ms. Johnson tells me is the
longest continuous bridge over water, and she says we didn’t have to go this
way but did anyway because she thought I may like it. And I do. I marvel at the
wonders that humans have created and feel better about life, as my excitement
grows. The bridge seems endless, the blue water stretches left and right of the
Causeway, making me feel alone but part of something bigger.

When we finally make it to my uncle’s house, my
eyes widen in disbelief as it comes into view. We cross a white wooden gate
that someone left open and drive up a long driveway, at the end of which is the
very pretty house. Ancient-looking oak trees line the driveway, their solemn
branches filling me with an eerie nostalgia. The gardens are full of exotic
plants and are well manicured even though it’s the winter and everything should
be bleak and gray.

“Fancy, isn’t it?” Asks Ms. Johnson. “You’re in
one of the nicest parts of the city. I hope you’ll love it here.”

Then all my previous enthusiasm vanishes and I
cry. I already feel like an outsider, and the only person I know in New Orleans
is the Social Services lady, and she has to take off and leave me. I feel
orphaned all over again.

“Now, now, child, don’t cry. The Harris are a
nice family. I interviewed them for this responsibility, you know. You’re going
to have the closest thing to a sister. A stepcousin your age! Isn’t that nice?
Aw, come here, baby,” Ms. Johnson says kindly. She leans over to the passenger
seat and puts her arms around me. “Everything’s going to work out. There’s
something strong about you, I can see that from a mile away. And me, I can
usually tell with these things.”

“Thank you, Ms. Johnson,” I say as I wipe my
eyes pathetically.

“You need any help, anything at all, and you
call Ms. Johnson, you hear me?”

“Yes, Ms. Johnson,” I say, and I already know I’ll
want to, but I probably won’t.

She helps me bring my bags up to the front
door. My uncle Roland—I’m assuming—opens the door sporting what looks like a
genuine smile.

“Tori,” Uncle Roland says my name in singsong,
and walks up to me and hugs me tightly, but briefly.

I’m still not one hundred percent sure this man
is my uncle, so I simply reply, “Hi.” I detect a little bit of a twang in that
single syllable. I must’ve picked it up from Ms. Johnson in the last thirty
hours we’ve spent together.

He extends his hand to Ms. Johnson and says, “Thank
you for delivering her. It’s good to see you again.”

“Not a problem at all, Mr. Harris,” says Ms.
Johnson, tacking on his last name quite possibly for my benefit. “Your niece
here is a darling young lady.”

No one else comes out to greet me, and I assure
Ms. Johnson that I’ll be fine, so she doesn’t take up Uncle Roland’s invitation
to stay for dinner. I know she is eager to get home, and she has another half
an hour of driving to do, back to her family. After all, she didn’t see them
for New Year’s Eve. So I take a deep breath as I hug her, trying to clear my
head and suppress the foolish desire I have to cry again.

Then she leaves, and I’m left on the doorstep
with two huge canvas bags, which contain my entire wardrobe, plus a handbag, my
backpack, and my purse. Some boxes with the few personal items I possess should
have been delivered here already.

“Wow, little Tori, you’re all grown up,” my
uncle says to me. “You remind me so much of Lisa.” Lisa is my dead mother. “It’s
been a while since the last time Ms. Frances sent any pictures of you.”

“Well, she was a little distracted after my
grandpa passed away. And before that she was busy taking care of him,” I reply.
I don’t know why I feel the need to defend my Nana, when the correct answer
should be
if you wanted to see me, you could’ve gone visit me
. Asshole.

“Of course, of course,” he says, waving his
hand dismissively, as if he never cared about the pictures in the first place
and was only making small conversation. “Well, let’s get you in, shall we?”

He grabs both of my large bags and I grab the
small ones. I follow him into the house. It’s huge, and I immediately feel
threatened. I was raised by retired people, living off their small pensions. I
always had enough, but at school all the kids had nicer clothes than I ever
had. I never asked my grandparents for the pricier brands because they always
complained things were so expensive “these days.” I felt just a little ashamed
of not having brand names when my classmates did. Entering this house feels
like that, but a hundred times worse. Like I’m not enough, and I possibly smell.

“Hello, Tori,” a chirpy voice says to my right.
I turn and see a striking woman. She’s wearing makeup, something shimmery that
makes her look other-worldly, and intense blue eye shadow. I wonder why she’s
wearing makeup in her own house. She’s got beautiful olive skin, dark hair, light
green eyes, and thick eyelashes. This must be my new aunt of sorts. She’s prettier
and younger than I expected her to be.

“Hi,” I smile at her, timidly but hoping to
look like I want to get along.

“I’m June, your uncle’s wife,” she says and
hugs me briefly, like Uncle Roland did. I notice that she doesn’t refer to
herself as my
aunt
June. “I’m so excited you’re here, and on New Year’s,
of all days! Brand new year, brand new niece.”

Well, at least she referred to me as somebody’s
niece. But if she’s so excited, how come she didn’t bother to greet me outside?

After some small chitchat about my trip here
and the weather—always the weather—I’m taken to the first door on the second
story of the house.

“This is
youu
,” June says, extending the
last word as she opens the door, revealing a small but homey-looking room. It
has a twin-sized bed, a desk and a small office chair by the window. I see my
boxes placed against the wall by the window next to the desk. The room is painted
white, and I have faith that during the day it might look bigger. My room. The
bed has a light blue cover on it, which is probably what makes me feel at home,
since blue is my favorite color. There’s a faint smell of old room; nothing
that a good aerating won’t fix. Or what’s more likely, I’ll just get used to it.

All in all, it’s not bad; however, the fact
that the bed is so small throws me off; it seems so tiny. But it’s the proper
size, I guess, for the small room. Back at Nana’s house, I used to sleep in a
huge four-poster bed. In fact
all
of the bedrooms had four-poster beds. I
think it’s an old person thing. And this last week I spent at Aunt Marie’s, I
slept in her guest bedroom which had a full-sized bed.

I realize I haven’t said anything to
acknowledge their kindness. “Thanks. It’s really pretty.”

“Why don’t we leave your stuff
heeere
…?”
she says as she puts down the small purse she was carrying on the bed, and
makes room for my uncle to put down the two large duffel bags. “Okay,” she
continues enthusiastically as though I was a child in Disneyland. “Let’s give
you a quick tour of the house.”

“This is the
guestrooom
…” June says,
pointing at the door across from mine, but she doesn’t open it. “I like to keep
the door closed so that it stays clean,” she adds, reverting to grownup voice;
but doesn’t explain why she won’t open the door for a second to show it to me.

Down the hall adjacent to my bedroom is another
closed door, and I finally learn my new stepcousin’s name. “And
this
is
Fiona’s room, but of course she’s not here since it’s New Year’s, and she spent
the night at a friend’s party.”

“She should be joining us for dinner, though,”
my uncle chimes in quickly, as if to ease any disappointment I may have at not
having met Fiona the second I walked into the house.

“Great,” I say, because that’s what it sounds
he wants me to say.

“And here’s Jack’s room,” June says, and knocks
softly on a door across from Fiona’s. “Jack? Please come out and meet your
cousin.”

After about thirty awkward seconds during which
I don’t know if anyone inside even heard June, the door finally opens. I see a
room twice the size of mine in the background. I pretend not to notice and
shift my eyes to the little kid in front of me. If I recall correctly he should
be six years old, and turning seven this year.

“Hi,” I say.

He just looks at me.

“This is Tori, your cousin who’s going to be
living with us from now on,
okay
?” His mother says, but makes it sound
like if it’s
not
okay with him I may have to find another place to live.

Jack looks up at me and there’s no smile, no
encouragement; just slight curiosity, and possibly a desire to go back to
whatever he was doing inside his room. He finally says, “Okay.”

Phew! I get to stay.

I hate the little dipshit already.

“Great,” his mother praises him for his
civility. “We’ll see you at dinner, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, possibly the only word he
knows, and closes the door in our faces.

After the rest of the tour, which has left me
fascinated with the house, and very disenchanted with June and my uncle, I
return to my small room. The blast of dusty old air hits my nose, this time
without the homey feeling I associated with it before. Compared to the rest of
the house, it now seems too small and uninviting. I wonder how small the empty
guestroom is.

I lie down on the bed. At least it’s sturdy
wood and not squeaky. After a few minutes I detect a faint smell of pee. I
sniff around and discover it’s the old blue comforter, which smells a little
like urine. Gross!

FML to the max.

***

Fiona shows up when Uncle Roland, June, Jack
and I have already taken our places at dinner. Uncle Roland excuses himself
from the table and meets her at the foyer. He lowers his voice a little but we
can all hear him chastising Fiona because she was supposed to have come back
earlier, and we had to start dinner without her.

And then I hear her say, not even pretending to
be hushed, “So what? We never have dinner together. Why are y’all pretending
for? Don’t fool the poor thing into believing she has a warm loving family
here.”

“Fiona!” her stepfather exclaims, shocked. “You
get back here this instant.” His voice further drops towards the end, resigned
that she’s already bouncing up the stairs.

She delivers a classic “What-
ever
” as
she reaches the top of the stairs.

I can’t figure out if she hates me for taking my
place at the table before she got here, or for coming here in the first place; or
if she’s on my side, actually defending me from my foster parents who tried to
make me believe that they normally have dinner at the table, when supposedly
they do not.

I decide that yelling when she has to know everyone
can hear, and not even introducing herself to me, is rude as fuck, and she’s
added to my shit list. At this pace I’m gonna need more paper.

After dinner, Jack makes a dash for his room
and shuts himself in again. If he was older I’d make masturbating allusions,
but c’mon, he’s six. Why does he spend every possible minute locked up in
there? Fiona is nowhere to be seen. June and Uncle Roland stick around doing
the dishes. I offer to help.

Uncle Roland immediately declines. “No, thank
you, Tori. But you go rest. You’ve had a long day.”

June also declines with a big smile. “Yeah,
Tori. Don’t you worry about this mess. Your uncle and I got it covered. Plus,
you wouldn’t know where to put the dishes, and I’d have to spend the same
amount of time showing you.”

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